Is It Moral to Eat Meat?

[Cannae]

So I am assuming Perfection that when you would smash a hammer against a cat's tail that it won't respond? Because that's what it sounds like your saying.

 

[Narz]

That is a gross oversimplification. If I were purchasing thousands of pounds of meat all at once, then yes, you might have a point. However, I am not, and you still have yet to explain a scenario in which my not purchasing a chicken breast will save the life of a single animal.

The only scenario one can predict this with certainty is if you're ordering direct from the slaughterhouse. Nevertheless, it seems statistically unlikely that over a lifetime of not eating meat you will fail to create social/economic change. It's not like voting (or purchasing a gaming console) where you only do it once every 2 or 4 years. You vote with your mouth & wallet daily and you never know when, because of you the restaurant won't have to order new burger patties setting in motion a chain reaction.

When I lived in New York I used to go to a Subway near by house almost daily (to get a footlong meatball sub with extra cheese). The fact that I am no longer there (or if I was, would no longer be ordering the meat) has some effect (they need about 5 less pounds of meat a week). If I was in a small town and was a huge eater, I might make the difference between 4 shipments of meat a week and 5.

So, no, you won't save the life of the chicken already butchered and wrapped in plastic who's thigh you may or may not buy but over a lifetime your purchasing decisions will make a difference.

 

[Fifty]

My view in the narz/gogf dialogue is just that the debate rests on a false assumption, namely that the direct consequences of an action are all that matters. So I don't think Narz has to explain how one person makes a direct difference, because I don't think the morality of the action rests on those sorts of considerations alone.

 

[Perfection]

So I am assuming Perfection that when you would smash a hammer against a cat's tail that it won't respond? Because that's what it sounds like your saying.

Of course it responds! It just doesn't have the capability to understand.

 

[Narz]

Of course it responds! It just doesn't have the capability to understand.

It can understand the pain. And it can even understand the betrayal (on some level) of someone it trusted. Just because it doesn't have enough emotional understanding to become emo doesn't mean abusing it is ok.

 

[Perfection]

Well, you're talking about inflicting abuse, which is not necessarily the same as raising meat. That's a whole other rats nest.

 

[Narz]

That's true. That's my main concern honestly. I don't care that people eat meat. I have been eating meat (about once a week) for the last six months.

 

[Rashiminos]

I'd say environmental conditions would have a lot to do with it. Some people making moral/rational choices that are opposed to eating meat seem to forgetting there are places and times where a strictly vegetarian diet would not be as able to sustain a population nearly as well as an omnivorous diet. Take humans living in tundra areas during the ice age as an example. Many modern cultures today enjoy consistently arable land for large scale agriculture. In the absence of that quality of land, those modern societies that insisted on vegetarian diets would cease to exist.

 

[Narz]

Perhaps the question should be, "in today's world, is meat eating moral?".

 

[Rashiminos]

Perhaps the question should be, "in today's world, is meat eating moral?".

To which my response would be, "Where in today's world?"

mourndraken was, if I understood him correctly, saying that if meat-eaters are capable of making so many arguments in favour of their preferred diet, then they should have no trouble going over to the local slaughterhouse and killing a few animals. They should have no problem perceiving this act as moral, and therefore no problem in executing it. It should, in fact, be an occasion for community gathering, as harvest time is, and a joyful one at that. People should volunteer for it

Some time ago, nearly all men and most women were morally comfortable with slaughtering animals.

Actually, it seems I may have been wrong, with this whole rhesus monkey thing aneeshm mentioned. But the point is, whereas we are genetically predisposed to kill our rival, take our mates by force, and take anything else we want as well, deception is something that must be learnt, whether by actually being taught how to lie, or simply seeing others do it. As I said, it appears I may have been wrong, but last I knew they had found small children incapable of deception, until they are shown how to deceive.

Care to provide support for those assertations, such as gene sequences?

If you are vegan, your farts do not smell (well, it takes some weeks). This is because of an almost total lack of sulfer in one's diet... the primary cause of smell. Hydrogen sulfides, derrived in low oxygen environments, stink. The other source of smell.. methane.. disapates instantaneously and does not carry any significant smell.

In fact, friends cannot detect a smell even for a big fart in a car with closed windows.

When this first happened to me, I was like "what the hell is the deal". So, I researched it and found it's because of sulfur. No sulfur in diet... no smell.

I don't just act like my crap don't stink. I'll flat out tell you - it doesn't.

There's some irony here. Sulfur is required to make hemoglobin. So having less sulfur in your diet could potentially be bad for your blood cells. (Or more to the general point, sulfur is required in several amino acids...) Many plants contain a significant amount of sulfur.

 

[Narz]

To which my response would be, "Where in today's world?"

How about the developed world (where pretty much 100% of the posters on this forum hail from). Not too many Bantu tribesmen posting on CivFanatics.

 

[holy king]

Perhaps the question should be, "in today's world, is meat eating moral?".

so is it moral as long as you have to do it to survive and becomes immoral as soon as this is not the case anymore?

 

[Cannae]

Of course it responds! It just doesn't have the capability to understand.

So it can't understand what the pain is coming from.

It can understand the pain. And it can even understand the betrayal (on some level) of someone it trusted. Just because it doesn't have enough emotional understanding to become emo doesn't mean abusing it is ok.

Yes I honestly think we truly underestimate the intellegence of some animals.

 

[moscaverde]

"To eat meat, first something has to die, and usually death is not natural. Therefore if you think about it something which causes the death of animals is not moral." - taillesskangaru

There is no imorality in death, in suffering there is.

 

[kuukkeli]

If eating meat is good and moral, we should see people volunteer down at the slaughterhouse to help their fellow carnivores. Sort of like a community garden.

How very clever of you. To be able to work at the slaughterhouse one must be tested for salmonella and must be qualified for that job. Such volunteers would risk the hygiene of the meat (by lacking required tests, by lacking skills to properly cut the bodies and by lacking the knowledge of general hygiene regulations), would cause risk to both themselves and others working at the slaughterhouse (those knives are really sharp and they can slip if used wrong), risk unnecessary suffering for the animals due to lack of knowledge about butchering and just produce bad quality meat due to un-professional cutting.

Yeah, I know a little about the matter as my brother used to work at a slaughterhouse once.

 

[mourndraken]

hey kuukkeli. you are not your brother. so what.

folks this isn't personal. It's no HOLY WAR. Get a grip on reality.

 

[Sharwood]

Just saw a quote today, oddly enough in a food court, from Bertotti Brecht; "Food first, then morality." I immediately thought of this thread. Anyone want to declare a jihad over this statement on whatever country Brech is from?

 

[kuukkeli]

hey kuukkeli. you are not your brother. so what.

No he isn't but we <gasp> talk.

folks this isn't personal. It's no HOLY WAR. Get a grip on reality.

So replying to ******** suggestion is personal attack and equals to holy war but using such as an argument is perfectly fine and balanced discussion I wonder who's grip on reality is slipping.

 

[mourndraken]

It's pretty easy to throw around insults ******. I have meat if you want to eat it. I'm done. I will no longer reply to this hostile thread.

 

[Sharwood]

Kuukkeli is right, mourndraken, you made it personal, not him. He was simply making a point, which is that it's not that easy to just pop on down to the slaughterhouse to work.