Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Vegangelica
If a livestock animal were able to say to you, "NO!" would this stop you from eating her?
|
I think if a pig could ask me not to eat it, I would be able to identify more with the pig and it would be easier for it to appeal to my emotions that way. I'm reasonably sure I wouldn't eat it if it could talk to me. A decision not to eat the pig because it talks would be a decision based on emotion. If eating the pig is good for me, then you could say the pig would be able to exploit a weakness, appealing to my emotions rather than my logic, to stay alive. The smartest thing to do (best strategy for survival) for me may still be to eat the pig, even if it could talk. I don't believe it would be objectively wrong for me to do so - I think a wish to keep the pig alive when I could benefit from eating it is a byproduct of my compassion for people, which is why it's important to be able to identify with the pig for that compassion to work.
No pig I've met so far has the power to appeal to my emotions that way (I've met a few) and I don't think emotions aside from basal ones like hunger and craving play a large part in deciding what goes on my dinner plate. I try to use logic instead, like these french fries are bad for me even though I want to eat them, so I don't. If the day comes when I or pigs change so that they can appeal to my emotions that way, I may change my habits. Right now, I think I'd need arguments based on logic rather than emotion to turn from a meat eater into a vegetarian or a vegan (I know there are plenty of good, logical arguments as to why we should all be vegetarians).
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Vegangelica
What qualities would an animal (fish, bird, sheep or pig or cow, etc.) need to have to cause you to *not* want to eat these animals?
|
For me, I can think of a very few things :
- Should not be threatened by extinction
- Should not be toxic
And last but not least, it may be important whether or not I view it as food - if it's been culturally used for food where I come from. Jellyfish may appeal to some asians, but not to me .. Although who am I kidding? Of course I'd try a bite if I ever met someone who could prepare it well.
edit :
I'll admit that the less the animal suffers before I eat it, the more preferable it is to me, but I'm not so strict about that that I feel I could make some sort of simple black or white rule out of it. It becomes a very hard criteria for me to base my diet on. When an animal is dead, it's dead - I'd eat it - but preferably, I don't want to support something that causes unnecessary suffering if there's a more painless way to get that animal on my plate. My feelings regarding that are not equal to all animals. I'm colder towards the suffering of fish than I am towards pigs.