Is It Moral to Eat Meat?

[boarder]

Im an animal lover and yet I have no problem eating meat.

Caught 2 nice trout last weekend and damn they tasted goooood.

 

[LightFang]

Uncle Anton, the OP believes in absolute morality (I think).

Most of us don't, and as a result, the question makes a lot less sense to us..

How can there be anything other than absolute morality? There is universal truth, is there not? Some things are just simply right, and that's the end of it!

But you can't steal from something that isn't aware of the concept of ownership, as such a creature can't even own anything in the first place.

Who says animals don't know what's theirs? Do animals not fight over mates?

The weird part is that you really can't be 100.0000% sure that plants cannot enjoy life. In fact, since plants reproduce themselves shows somekind of primal "will" to live, and thus killing plants is just as immoral as killing animals. Better start eating already dead plant parts (and keep your hands away from the fruits - it's like eating embryo's !!! ).

We don't know anything really for sure. We can't even expect the sun to rise tomorrow - although we do anyway.

Most of you guys, I think, are missing the point. Fifty's excellent post contains my refutation in it: might doesn't make right!

 

[warpus]

How can there be anything other than absolute morality? There is universal truth, is there not? Some things are just simply right, and that's the end of it!

Well.. how can there be absolute morality? Morality is a human created construct, and is thus relative and up for debate..

which is what we're doing here

 

[LightFang]

Is morality really a human created construct? Some things are just plain wrong. I don't think you're really thinking through your position that all moral truth is relative. Surely you will concede that slavery as practiced in the United States was wrong period, and not merely wrong as viewed from our current moral perspective but right for the slave owners.

 

[Narz]

This thread is sooo going to break down into typical ill-reasoned moral anti-realism.

This thread is terribly reasoned. For some reason these types of percieved veg vs. meat discussions don't usually bring out the brightest crowd.

It's called a 'food chain'. Humans are currently at the top.

Again, this has nothing to do with morality. You could eat your elderly mother, digest and assimilate her, if you wanted to, but that doesn't make it right.

And, fyi, the food chain isn't linear (think "chain"). I could kill you and compost you in my garden (since my spinach plants are such as much higher than you on the food chain than you are the creature who eats them).

 

[plarq]

Eating meat is counter-productive. We have higher calories available if we all eat vegetable and grain, abolish much of the current poultry and animal farms.

You know, we only intake 20% of the calories if we feed animals with edible materials for human.

 

[MilesGregarius]

Eating meat is counter-productive. We have higher calories available if we all eat vegetable and grain, abolish much of the current poultry and animal farms.

Blanket statements like that are inane. Under some conditions, eating meat is counter-productive.

For modern post-industrial societies, where most food is factory farmed, meat production may indeed be counter-productive. There are good reasons for city dwellers to reduce, if not eliminate, meat from their diets, but such arguments don't hold across the whole of human society.

Pastoralists and hunter-gatherers, who by definition cause less environmental disruption and consume fewer resources than even a vegan, bicycle-riding, solar-powered urbanite, depend on meat to maintain themselves and their ways of life. Would it be more productive to truck/ship/air-drop tofu and sprouts to self-sufficient Mongol sheep-herders, pig-raising New Guinea highlanders, or seal-hunting Inuit traditionalists?

 

[BasketCase]

Are there justifications for eating meat?

Sure: population control.

Take meat-eaters out of the natural system, and populations of prey animals expand until the food supply is decimated.

Which is more cruel? To get your neck ripped open by a pack of lions, or to starve to death over the course of three to six weeks?

 

[Narz]

Blanket statements like that are inane. Under some conditions, eating meat is counter-productive.

For modern post-industrial societies, where most food is factory farmed, meat production may indeed be counter-productive. There are good reasons for city dwellers to reduce, if not eliminate, meat from their diets, but such arguments don't hold across the whole of human society.

Pastoralists and hunter-gatherers, who by definition cause less environmental disruption and consume fewer resources than even a vegan, bicycle-riding, solar-powered urbanite, depend on meat to maintain themselves and their ways of life. Would it be more productive to truck/ship/air-drop tofu and sprouts to self-sufficient Mongol sheep-herders, pig-raising New Guinea highlanders, or seal-hunting Inuit traditionalists?

Your points are valid but you may be forgetting that the main thing that made meat-eating natives so sustainable if their incredibly low numbers.

Sure: population control.

Take meat-eaters out of the natural system, and populations of prey animals expand until the food supply is decimated.

There are plenty of non-human meat-eaters. Many of whom are endangered. I'm sure they'd be happy to take over for us.

 

[Fifty]

For someone so loving for logic and philosophy, you sure would make a terrible lawyer. Rapists raping human children isn't analogous to humans eating inferior species (not inferior beings)

Okay, so please explain how something being a different species constitutes a consideration that makes the question of whether or not to eat the thing completely non-moral.

 

[Sharwood]

Is morality really a human created construct? Some things are just plain wrong. I don't think you're really thinking through your position that all moral truth is relative. Surely you will concede that slavery as practiced in the United States was wrong period, and not merely wrong as viewed from our current moral perspective but right for the slave owners.

Yes, morality is a human-created construct. Just like politics, religion, etc.. Everything except our basic biology is human-created. Even if you believe in religion, I don't recall of a single god writing a book himself, it's always transmitted to prophets and what-not, then interpreted by the humans who read it. So again, human-created.

And no, I will not concede that slavery in the US was wrong, period. I believe it was wrong, but that's only from my point of view. People with other point's of view might see it differently. There are even societies for whom paedophilia is seen as moral. I doubt you'd find many people on these boards that would agree with that, but it's apparently what their gods told them is moral - or at least, how they've interpreted their god's words.

 

[Oerdin]

Because it tastes good. Next question.

 

[RalofTyr]

Is it better for a lesser creature to give up its life so that a higher creature may live?

 

[BasketCase]

How about you ask yourself that at dinnertime.

Beef, chicken, fish, asparagus, alfalfa.....doesn't matter what's on your plate. Said plate will be full of lesser creatures, you'll pick up your fork and eat those lesser creatures without hesitation, and your answer to your own question will be a quite unequivocal "yes".

Scuse me while I head off to dinner to oppress a Subway sandwich full of innocent tomatoes, onions, helpless green peppers, minority olives, mustard seeds that might have grown into full plants but which were instead crushed and ground into a thin paste, and also some slices out of some innocent animal's midsection.

 

[RalofTyr]

BasketCase, if we were on an isolated deserted island, well, I might just eat you.

Since we are higher organisms, we can actually survive on a non-meat diet. So, if one chooses not to eat meat, he or she can without costing his or her's health. However, the purpose of today's cattle, is food. That's what they have evolved into. They cannot survive without human guidence. Should not cows be eaten?

Morality is subjective. And personal. If one feels that eating meat of another creature is wrong, then so be it, from their point of view. So, if one feels that eating meat is wrong, then one shouldn't eat meat.

 

[LightFang]

And no, I will not concede that slavery in the US was wrong, period. I believe it was wrong, but that's only from my point of view. People with other point's of view might see it differently. There are even societies for whom paedophilia is seen as moral. I doubt you'd find many people on these boards that would agree with that, but it's apparently what their gods told them is moral - or at least, how they've interpreted their god's words.

Really? So the same would go for genocide? I guess the Holocuast was wrong for us but right for the Nazis?

Morality is subjective. And personal. If one feels that eating meat of another creature is wrong, then so be it, from their point of view. So, if one feels that eating meat is wrong, then one shouldn't eat meat.

The same for you. I don't think you think that the Holocaust was right for the Nazis. I think you think that it's wrong period. Even you, Sharwood, Mr. Relativist.

The problem with relativism is that it's often used to encourage people to be more tolerant of and sensitive towards other cultures. Relativists often present themselves as the defenders of openmindedness, equality, and freedom, and those who oppose relativism are often portrayed as arrogant. That's what I think you guys are doing. You guys are trying very hard to appear sensitive and tolerant.

But only someone who rejects relativism can consider tolerance and sensitivity universally applicable virtues. To the group of religious zealots who believe that tolerance is bad and must execute all those with whom they disagree, you would say: tolerance is bad for them and they are right to execute dissenters!

Surely such a leap of logic you guys cannot stomach.

 

[Narz]

How about you Fang? Do you think eating meat is morally justified in today's world?

 

[LesCanadiens]

The problem with relativism is that it's often used to encourage people to be more tolerant of and sensitive towards other cultures.

This is a problem?

 

[Sharwood]

Really? So the same would go for genocide? I guess the Holocuast was wrong for us but right for the Nazis?

The same for you. I don't think you think that the Holocaust was right for the Nazis. I think you think that it's wrong period. Even you, Sharwood, Mr. Relativist.

You bet your sweet bippy the Holocaust was right for the Nazis. As far as they were concerned, the Jews were a blight, and getting rid of them would make the world a better place. From their perspective, it would be immoral NOT to destroy the Jews.

The problem with relativism is that it's often used to encourage people to be more tolerant of and sensitive towards other cultures. Relativists often present themselves as the defenders of openmindedness, equality, and freedom, and those who oppose relativism are often portrayed as arrogant. That's what I think you guys are doing. You guys are trying very hard to appear sensitive and tolerant.

I am open-minded. I don't want other people to be, except for a small minority of people I can debate subjects with in my spare time. I want most people to simply nod their heads and do exactly what I tell them. Makes things easier. And I don't believe those who aren't relativistic are arrogant, just closed-minded. And I'm not trying to appear anything. I believe every damn word I say, unless I'm joking, which I'm not.

But only someone who rejects relativism can consider tolerance and sensitivity universally applicable virtues. To the group of religious zealots who believe that tolerance is bad and must execute all those with whom they disagree, you would say: tolerance is bad for them and they are right to execute dissenters!

Surely such a leap of logic you guys cannot stomach.

I can stomach it just fine. Stop trying to tell me what I can and can't do. It's annoying, and it is arrogant to believe you know what I'm thinking better than I do.

And LesCanadiens, apparently so, if you're a closed-minded religious type.

 

[aneeshm]

Short answer: no.

Medium-sized, pithy-sounding answer:

You may be the sort of person who can, knowing full well the suffering entailed, raise an animal in a cage roughly two or three times its body volume, make it live a miserable life, and kill it and eat it.

I can't.

The long answer will take a book, so I'm omitting it here.