Is Meat Really Murder?

lucifer_sam · 04-07-2010, 04:54 AM

Exactly.

Pathos-based arguments really don't serve to persuade me much either, rather I find they diminish the credibility of the speaker. Which is why I think a lot of vegetarians/vegans get a bad rap from time to time.

Whenever my health serves to be benefited greater by the abstention of meat from my diet than with it, then I would surely consider pursuing it. Right now I'm far too content with my active lifestyle to see much (if any) benefit from cutting meat from my diet.

FETCHER. · 04-07-2010, 08:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tore

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.

I really am struggling not to agree more. I feel EXACTLY this way.

VEGANGELICA · 04-07-2010, 10:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Age

The bottom line is that animals can't say "no." The bottom line is that eating meat is worth more to me than stopping the sufferering and death of a million animals. Why? Because that's the reality of the world. If a Lion found me in the wild, it would eat me, my suffering be damned.

We are animals, and we eat other animals for sustenance. Could we avoid that reality? Yes, but I have no compelling reason to.

Age, I'm glad you acknowledge that people could avoid eating other animals for sustenance, because I think many people who eat animals can't get themselves to acknowledge this.

It sounds like your philosophy is "might makes right." Yet just because an animal does something in the wild, does that mean you follow its behavior? A lion will occasionally kill a human. This probably doesn't mean you would kill a human, too...so why base *any* of your behavior choices on what other animals do?

Yes, nature is horribly brutal in many ways, and people can behave that way, also. My view is this: given how much suffering exists in the world as one animal eats another, I don't want people to add to it and make the world even worse.

Even if an animal can't learn to say or express "no," a squawk or squeal of terror works for me. Some non-human animals actually can say "no," such as parrots and their close relatives. Apes can learn sign language to say "no." This doesn't prevent some people from eating them, though The Bushmeat Trade and Parrot Pie Recipe - YumYum.com). Would you eat a parrot or a gorilla?

Quote:

Originally Posted by AwwSugar

we're the one species that understands exactly how most other animals suffer.
So yeah, a lion won't listen to me if I ask it not to eat me.
But I'll sure as hell understand what's going on when an animal screams out in pain as the skin is being ripped from it's still warm and very alive body.

Yep, AwwSugar (<3 <3 =@ =@), this knowledge is also what makes me want to avoid inflicting such an experience on anyone else...just like I hope someone else will stop herself from inflicting such torture on me.

Freebase, Tore, Lucifer_Sam, and kayleigh, thanks for sharing your rationales for eating animals. It sounds like you aren't very swayed by a desire to prevent other sentient beings from avoiding early deaths at the hands of humans, although Tore, you wrote that you would rather animals didn't suffer, and the closer you identify emotionally with an animal the less likely you would be to eat it. So, there is an emotional component to your decision-making process for eating animals.

Freebase, the rest of my comments are about your answer. I went though it carefully to figure out where we agree or disagree. Golly, that was a long answer you gave! I might even call it a "Vegangelica-esque Reply" if I were to be charitable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freebase Dali

I value the lives of animals as a natural, balanced system of life that supplements other life and vice-versa, as it is naturally intended. I also value plant life in the same regard. I find Broccoli to be the tastiest vegetable on earth. Does it feel pain? I don't know. And I'm sure if 10 years from now scientists figure out that they do, I'd still eat it, as would you. Because it is most certainly not a matter of values when it comes to survival.

Here's one difference in our views: I don't see nature as "intending" anything. I just see nature as being or existing without intentions or goals. This is one reason claims that "I am an omnivore; therefore, I eat meat" have no impact on me, because just because I am biologically an omnivore doesn't mean I have to *choose* to eat other animals.

I also like broccoli, but I wouldn't eat broccoli if scientists learned it has a previously undiscovered neural system that gives it sentience (an experience and awareness of feelings, pain, pleasure, etc.).

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I think that it is a matter of balance when it comes to how we treat the equilibrium of our natural world and that we must maintain that balance, but pain and suffering was not, and never will be, a factor when it comes to the natural balance of life and its detrimental continuity. Pain is a defense motivator first and foremost that all animals share, including us. But it is NOT a value card, otherwise our values would be a universal aspect of nature and all animals would be herbivores.

Evolution and natural selection resulted in species that acquire energy by eating animals; this occurred without rules and so I don't expect nature or people to inherently value preventing pain in others.

People have the capacity to have empathy and sympathy for other beings (as do many other animals, I'd argue) and people have a strong ability to love...but this ability isn't consistently applied to other beings.

As an example: some captured German Nazi soldiers listening to classical music would cry with deep emotion because of the beauty of it, but had no twinge of emotion at all when hunting down and shooting Jewish people.

So, I agree with you that our values (such as avoiding killing others) aren't a universal aspect of nature. Our values are flexible and can be changed to some degree (probably the age of the person has an impact on this).

I don't feel humans "must maintain balance" in the natural world (and how do you define "balance?"), though I don't want humans and their doings to crowd out most other species. One argument against expansive meat-eating is that it does *not* maintain "balance" in ecosystems. One-third of the land mass is used for livestock grazing, reducing the population sizes of many other species. Humans are fishing tuna and other sea species to close to population collapse.

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Our values are a result of our intelligence and our culture, and while a lot of our values are important to us as a civilized society, the ability for us to "understand" pain we are inflicting on animals when we kill them to consume them doesn't make our natural inclination and makeup for their consumption "wrong" in absolutely any natural sense.
As long as we maintain the balance of nature, then we are doing as nature intended. And if nature intended us, then our natural inclinations are intended.

I commented above that I don't see nature as "intending" anything. I agree that consuming animals even when people understand this hurts them isn't "wrong" in a natural sense. I actually don't view the universe as having any behaviors that are intrinsically "wrong" or "right"...whereas someone who is a strong Christian probably has the view that a god feels certain behaviors are "wrong (evil)" or "right." For me as an atheist, our judgements about what are right or wrong are created solely by our human mind, and are open to debate...as you and I are doing. Just like you say, our values are a result of our intelligence and our culture.

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It's kind of absurd to postulate how you would react if an animal was as intelligent as you in a decision to eat it, since it's not nor will it ever be in context with humans. Not to mention that it has absolutely no bearing on the layout of the nature of survival.

Pigs are probably much smarter than human babies and aged or other people with diminished mental capacity, so I'd say there are situations in which non-human animals are smarter than humans. As I mentioned before, though, animals' awareness, rather than intelligence, is what determines my decision not to eat animals.

The situation in which we (in the developed world) exist is that eating animals is not necessary for survival, so I feel arguments based on the belief that "we eat animals for survival" are spurious.

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I wouldn't eat my cat, because I like him and enjoy his company.
I wouldn't eat my neighbors' cat because he likes it and enjoys its company.
But pain and suffering has nothing to do with it. It's a personal decision based on preference and, in most cases, laws.

I see eating animals as not being a "personal" decision, because it affects the lives of other sentient beings. I also wouldn't eat people's cats, not because the cats have meaning to the human owners, but because the cats' lives have meaning and importance to the cats themselves.

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You say you care about animals because they have feelings and suffer, but I don't see you campaigning to protest wild animals behaving in their natural habitat. I don't understand why you have a problem with us doing it when it's going to happen regardless. Maybe you'd feel better because you wouldn't have anything to blame on yourself, but it wouldn't change a thing as far as pain and suffering goes.

If I were a god I would change the nature of this existence immediately and make everyone a herbivore and get rid of all pain and suffering.

I understand that non-human animals have less of an ability than humans to avoid eating other animals, and I don't want carnivores like lions to die out, so I wouldn't stop them from hunting in the wild, even though I see that when a lion kills a gazelle this is good for the lion but horrible for the gazelle. I don't like how nature works but I accept it.

However, I know humans *do* have a choice about what or whom they eat, and *can* be vegetarian, and *can* stop themselves from raising and killing billions of animals each year, and so that is why I dislike it that people raise animals to kill them. Yes, animals experience awful pain and misery in the jaws and paws of other animals, but humans have added to that pain by increasing the number of animals subjected to short and brutal lives lacking basic freedoms.

pourmeanother · 04-07-2010, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tore

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).

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.

Basically "we'd have to be talkin' about one charming motherfuckin' pig".

VEGANGELICA · 04-07-2010, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pourmeanother

Basically "we'd have to be talkin' about one charming motherfuckin' pig".

pourmeanother · 04-07-2010, 11:46 AM

They're so cute I could just eat them up. Err- wait....

FETCHER. · 04-07-2010, 11:59 AM

Baby pigs melt my heart, but once they're older, they aren't so cutesy and aesthetically pleasing. I'm not saying this to cause offence, it's the same with sheep and cows. They lose the cuteness

Alfred · 04-07-2010, 02:56 PM

I eat a lot of meat, but aside from meat I eat at resturants or snacks, it's all local. That's one of the good things about living in hick country.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kayleigh.

Baby pigs melt my heart, but once they're older, they aren't so cutesy and aesthetically pleasing. I'm not saying this to cause offence, it's the same with sheep and cows. They lose the cuteness

So do babies, but we don't eat children once they grow to be 6 or 7 now do we?

FETCHER. · 04-07-2010, 04:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alfred

So do babies, but we don't eat children once they grow to be 6 or 7 now do we?

Aww people are cutesy all their life's

.

Urban Hat€monger ? · 04-07-2010, 05:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

Sorry but this was the first thing that came into my mind....

04-07-2010, 04:54 AM	#311 (permalink)
lucifer_sam Unrepentant Ass-Mod Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3,921	Exactly. Pathos-based arguments really don't serve to persuade me much either, rather I find they diminish the credibility of the speaker. Which is why I think a lot of vegetarians/vegans get a bad rap from time to time. Whenever my health serves to be benefited greater by the abstention of meat from my diet than with it, then I would surely consider pursuing it. Right now I'm far too content with my active lifestyle to see much (if any) benefit from cutting meat from my diet. __________________ first.am

04-07-2010, 11:46 AM	#316 (permalink)
pourmeanother Saaaad Panda Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 852	They're so cute I could just eat them up. Err- wait.... __________________ Life is just blah, blah, blah You hope for blah And sometimes you find it, but mostly it's blah And waiting for blah And hoping you were right about the blahs you made And then, just when you think you've got the whole blah'd damn thing figured out And you're surrounded by the ones you blah Death shows up... anddd blah, blah, blah.