MoonlitSunshine

Vegangelica, at the risk of falling into cultural stereotypes, there are certain areas of the world and indeed certain personalities all over the world who have an over-extended sense of self-entitlement and righteousness. I know very, very few people who don't show compassion to animals, and I would trust that none of my friends or family would ever do anything so thoughtless. It's like religion - I have no problem with someone being religious (meat-eating, in this analogy), and I would have absolutely no problem whatsoever if they wanted to say grace before they ate (provided they did not expect me to pray to their god) (had meat in their own food), but I would object if someone tried to perform a full blown mass that included a sermon that spoke out against my way of life in my living room (brought a dead animal home, slammed it on the table in front of you, and proceeded to skin and eat it). It's a question of respecting other people's choices and beliefs in ways which allow both of you to live the way you want.

My own personal views on the subject of veganism/vegetarianism are well documented earlier in this thread, I don't really feel the need to readdress them, but on the subject of moral obligation, I believe there are things I haven't said, or rather didn't really think about the first time.

To invoke the moral righteousness of a choice, one really needs to define morality. The problem is, there is no one set of choices that is unilaterally considered "moral". What are morals? That in itself is a subjective question. Personally I have a rather cynical view of morals - I think their are an entirely societal construct that formed as an extra set of rules, existing to guarantee security within societal groups. Why is it immoral to kill your neigbour? Because if you will happily kill your neighbour and take his things, there is nothing stopping him from doing the same to you. People band together for protection, for security, for prosperity. As societies got bigger, as people wanted to avoid more and more "immoral" things in order to ensure their way of life, more and more things were added to the list of morals.

There is a certain amount of circumstantial proof for my theory - babies can be fairly easily proven to have no morals they haven't been taught through their interactions with others. We have to teach children not to be selfish, we have to teach them to be patient. Teach a child early enough that it is moral to kill in order to get something they want, they won't have any hesitations (at least, until someone or something plants the seeds of doubt). Obviously there is more to morality than what we are taught (people can discard teachings, can decide that something is wrong, based on their own experiences, but I can extend this theory to cover those, it just takes a lot more time :P The basis of my belief of the source of morals is there. If that makes sense to you, well and good. If it doesn't, well, we have differing views, and I'll respect that provided you have your own reasoning!

Cliff notes for the above: Morals are subjective. (I believe) They depend on your society, what you were initially taught, and how your experiences have affected you and effected your personality. So there will always be people who feel meat-eating is morally wrong, and those who have no problem with it. Neither one of them is being immoral, by their own definition of immoral, and I personally feel that I have no right to criticise their immorality, provided their set of morals don't impinge on the morals of another. There will inevitably be clashes, but that is what compromises are for, that is what democracy is for. Let the person who stands to be affected the most have the greatest say, but let everyone have a say. Balance this with the quantity of people who feel either way, and you have a system of judging "right" and "wrong" which is probably as close to fair as you're ever going to get.

The Moral (joke) of this post: I don't think it's immoral, personally, to eat animals. I think the example of nature and everything an ecological cycle entails shows that things will eat other things. It doesn't go against nature to do what we do, and... well, I love eating meat. There are some biological cases which state that there are certain blood types and certain people who have more of a need to eat meat (I have a friend who almost died from going vegetarian, due to an auto-immune disease she has - she would like to be vegetarian for her own reasons, but she would prefer to be alive). That said, I will always buy free-range animal products and meat whenever I can afford to, and I am wholly against the undue suffering of animals. It's all, again, a question of compromise. I love eating meat, and I wish it were cheaper, but I balance that wish with an unwillingness to support battery farming, because I feel that that is immoral.

__________________
"I found it eventually, at the bottom of a locker in a disused laboratory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard". Ever thought of going into Advertising?"

- Arthur Dent