Music Banter - Is Meat Really Murder?

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I had a Jimmy John's vegetarian sub today. it was ****ing delicious.

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Originally Posted by The Butcher (Post 866458)

You gotta do what you gotta do to survive,and eat good food.

So you're on both sides of the subject?

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Originally Posted by AwwSugar (Post 866461)

So you're on both sides of the subject?

I love meat. Veggies are disgusting.

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Originally Posted by The Butcher (Post 866462)

I love meat. Veggies are disgusting.

But you said you need to do what you need to do to survive.
I'm just playing Devil's Advocate.

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Originally Posted by NumberNineDream (Post 866076)

veggie lasagna

Veggie lasagna is awesome. I never liked lasagna with meat in.

I always eat vegetarian food when it's an alternative and I very much prefer it to the times I have to eat meat. (Technically I guess I never have to eat meat, but I don't see the point in being a bother.)

One thing I hate about this whole debate (I havn't read this entire thread, but I mean veg. vs. meat debates in general) is the black-or-white views portrayed. The problem is not that we eat meat, it's that we eat way too much of it. When it comes to my meat-eating friends they eat meat or fish for pretty much every meal (except breakfast) and tone down the vegetables. My family does at home as well. That's good from neither a health, environmental or a humanitarian view.

That specific experience is entirely personal and does not necessarily portray the rest of our community, city, country or anything else for that matter. Fact still remains, we eat too much meat in relation to vegetables and fruit.

I think a lot of people are put off vegetarianism since it means they can't eat meat at all. That's quite a stupid notion. No one's gonna tell you "You can't eat that occasionally if you want to! You're not a real vegetarian!" You don't have to go all the way if you don't want to.

We're not some stupid elitists on our high horses looking down at regular people with contempt, doing it just to feel better about ourselves. (Yes, some people I've chatted with actually believe that.)

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Originally Posted by The Butcher (Post 866462)

I love meat. Veggies are disgusting.

lol enjoy your clogged colon

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One thing I hate about this whole debate (I havn't read this entire thread, but I mean veg. vs. meat debates in general) is the black-or-white views portrayed. The problem is not that we eat meat, it's that we eat way too much of it. When it comes to my meat-eating friends they eat meat or fish for pretty much every meal (except breakfast) and tone down the vegetables. My family does at home as well. That's good from neither a health, environmental or a humanitarian view.

Most people do eat too much meat, but not all meat is equally bad for the individual or the environment. Wild rabbit (Jack and Cottontail varieties, to be specific), for instance, is a wonderfully healthy food; and if you harvest it from the wild in a responsible manner (generally, this means legal), it helps keep the environment healthy as well.

The problem, however, is that most people who eat rabbit refuse to hunt it themselves; not because doing so is too difficult, time consuming, or expensive.... but because they get all blubbery when it comes time to kill the rabbit.

So, perhaps we should invent a rule: if you are unwilling to kill an animal yourself, don't eat the meat.

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I am more understanding of how people would make the choice to kill animals to survive when people don't have access to other foods (though I still don't think it makes killing the animals a *good* thing). But when the killing is not necessary for a person's survival, then killing animals for food seems like pure hedonism to me. I don't mind hedonism at all (I'm certainly hedonistic in many ways)...but I am troubled when it causes others to experience unnecessarily pain and suffering or an end to their lives.

What I find most troubling here is that you're attributing human characteristics to animals; in particular a class of animals which are not self aware. So, really, why should one care whether that animal meets it's end by being hit by a truck, getting devoured by something higher on the food chain, or peacefully in a field... when it makes no difference to the animal in question?

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Originally Posted by Paloma (Post 866596)

lol enjoy your clogged colon

I will :yeah:.

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Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA (Post 866198)

I agree I am simplifying the situation, Tore, since people who kill for food *and* pleasure do get food (in addition to the psychological pleasure of eating it). Yet to me killing an animal for "the thrill of the hunt" is not morally *very* different from killing an animal out of "sadistic pleasure for pain and suffering."

I feel that people who kill animals to provide for themselves or to enjoy the hunt as sport (by which I mean pure fun, whether or not they eat some of the animal...and most hunters do eat part of their "harvest") are ignoring or minimizing the significance of the fact that they *are* intentionally causing (unnecessary) pain and suffering for that animal they are killing.

When someone hurts and kills an animal intentionally (though she could have stopped herself from killing it if she had wanted to), apologizing or feeling some regret may make the person feel better, but it doesn't help that animal being killed one iota. So, this is one reason people's motives (rationalizations) for killing an animal (whether for sport or unnecessary food) don't seem so important to me.

I am more understanding of how people would make the choice to kill animals to survive when people don't have access to other foods (though I still don't think it makes killing the animals a *good* thing). But when the killing is not necessary for a person's survival, then killing animals for food seems like pure hedonism to me. I don't mind hedonism at all (I'm certainly hedonistic in many ways)...but I am troubled when it causes others to experience unnecessarily pain and suffering or an end to their lives.

I understand it's the consequence, specifically the consequences for the animal by which you rate how an action scales morally. By now, I guess it's clear that I don't agree .. If I applied your views very strictly, that would mean a lot of the people I know and like a lot rate about as high morally as sadists who revel in torturing animals. Yet they don't! It seems quite unfair to me.

Generally speaking, consequence to me is usually just part of what makes an action morally good or bad. I wouldn't want someone who kills someone by accident (bumped'em down the stairs) to get punished as harshly as someone who murdered with intention, even if the consequences - death - are the same.

edit :

I should add that while I read what you write, I have trouble believing your view wouldn't conflict with your emotions.

As an example, let's say you're in the english countryside and witness two scenarios. In the first, you see a man with a rifle shoot a hare, killing it instantly. In the second, you see a man slowly torturing a hare to death while clearly getting enjoyment from it's suffering.

I believe you would find both acts morally wrong, but I believe the second one would disgust you more. I think you'd think much less of the sadist. Now, of course it's possible that you do your best to follow morale by rationale and logic rather than emotions and that's allowed of course, but if that as well as my assumptions about how you'd react are true, then I think you should at least admit that what your intellect thinks of morale and what your feelings feel about morale might come in conflict.

Those two scenarios have different consequences. One has death. The other has death and torture.

Offtopic, about morale:
I believe that what is moral is based solely on consequences. That doesn't mean I believe that people who kill by accident should get as hard a punishment as people who kill purposely. You see, punishment for punishment's sake is entirely pointless. If you act immoral, that doesn't mean you have to be punished. Punishments need to be moral themselves, have a point. Punishing the murderer out of revenge for the murdered is pointless. The punishment needs to have positive effects, otherwise it would be immoral. And what are the positive effects of punishment? Preventing further crime.

Basing morale on consequences only makes sense if you always use that approach. The notion that immoral acts should be punished is not based on consequences but rather on feelings.