How do you, as a meat-eater, justify the violence inherent in your food?

[Wycoff]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How do you, as a meat-eater, justify the violence inherent in your food?

Originally posted by lord of the mark But none that base it purely on self awareness can ban baby eating.

Potentiality of self awareness does the job, IMO. There's no chance that any chicken anywhere will develop anything approaching human cognitive ability. The vast majority of human babies do.

But then, what about brain dead babies and people? Why don't we eat them?

A variety of reasons: social concerns (we know that the disabled person's family cares about her and doesn't want us to eat her), health concerns, religious concerns, human egotism (we should respect humanity because of what it stands for as a whole, even if that means giving respect to certain people who are biologically human but who fall short of the cognitive ability that is the earmark of humanity), etc. Basically, the same issues that arise in a euthanasia debate would arise in a debate as to why we shouldn't eat those people.

[Arrian]

dog (which I would be more than comfortable eating).

BOO!

This is one of the best examples to discuss, actually. Dogs are, in our culture, pets - not food. Other cultures eat them w/o a second thought.

My dog, as much as I love him, is most likely not demonstrably smarter than a pig. He's a lab, after all.

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian


Kinda like it's easy for you to not eat deer, goat and whatever the third animal was. I note you didn't give up beef and chicken.

Absolutely. I dont deny for a second that ive taken the easy steps, and deferred the hard ones. But I also dont deny that the hard steps, which i havent yet taken, are the right ones to take.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


I wouldnt even begin to analyze the basis for your choices based on internet posts.

Bull****. You've been accusing people of post-hoc rationalisation for the last page and a half.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I dont see why. Ethics is a standard of all conduct, and can apply to any obligations, not just to those to other rational beings. Kant is great, but its not the only conceivable basis for ethics.

Look at your own explanation to Wycoff at the previous page: "What do we aspire to be?" "As respectful as possible of other animate life? Less bloodthirsty? More humane?" Can one be "humane" to an animal? "Merciful" I would accept, but "humane"?

Would you consider it ethical to torture animals? If not, why not?

And when did you stop to beat your wife? Joke aside - as you know I don't believe ethical standards can be applied to non-rational beings. So I can't answer yes or no. This is my definition of ethicality, which may well be wrong, as I'm not a philosopher.

I still do believe that it is not right to torture animals because it inflicts unnecessary pain. To kill them is necessary from my point of view, to torture them is not.

[lord of the mark]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How do you, as a meat-eater, justify the violence inherent in your food?

Originally posted by Wycoff
A variety of reasons: social concerns (we know that the disabled person's family cares about her and doesn't want us to eat her), health concerns, religious concerns, human egotism (we should respect humanity because of what it stands for as a whole, even if that means giving respect to certain people who are biologically human but who fall short of the cognitive ability that is the earmark of humanity), etc. Basically, the same issues that arise in a euthanasia debate would arise in a debate as to why we shouldn't eat those people.

Theres probably more health danger from eating beef several times a week, than from eating human once a year say. Religious concerns seem to be ruled out by most posters here. One could always select folks whove been abandoned by their family, or dont have families.

That leads to human egotism, which seems to be the crux of it. Why human egotism, why not mammal egotism? Or higher mammal egotism, at least?

[Arrian]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Absolutely. I dont deny for a second that ive taken the easy steps, and deferred the hard ones. But I also dont deny that the hard steps, which i havent yet taken, are the right ones to take.

This is where we disagree. I don't really see why we shouldn't eat pigs, cows or chicken.

Push came to shove, I don't see why we couldn't eat dolphins or monkeys, but it's something I'd just rather not do.

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Bull****. You've been accusing people of post-hoc rationalisation for the last page and a half.

Thats because I dont see a rational basis for the connection between animal IQ and non-consumability. Its a logical problem with that justification.

[Dinner]

My dad just left for a month long business trip to Utah and he gave me all of the food in his fridge since it would go bad before he got back. Among the things he gave me was a Costco pack of 8 dozen eggs. I have no idea why a 59 year old widower bought 8 dozen eggs (I assume he bought it because it was cheap and Costco only sells things in bulk) but now I have to figure out what to do with them.

[Nubclear]

Why am I on his ignore list?

My dad just left for a month long business trip to Utah

Really?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Arrian
It wouldn't be terribly difficult for me to avoid pig, actually. I hardly ever eat real bacon anymore, and we have pork cutlets only occasionally.

-Arrian

Same here. Pig is hardly even in my diet. Beef and chicken together make up ~90% of my non-seafood meat intake. Lamb and pork make up most of the rest, and I'd much rather give up pork than lamb.

[Arrian]

Mega omelette

Bonus points if you get them to do it on their own

-Arrian

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Thats because I dont see a rational basis for the connection between animal IQ and non-consumability. Its a logical problem with that justification.

Please explicitly define this problem.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

Same here. Pig is hardly even in my diet. Beef and chicken together make up ~90% of my non-seafood meat intake. Lamb and pork make up most of the rest, and I'd much rather give up lamb than pork.

I *love* eating lamb, though I eat it only rarely (holidays, basically). Far more than pork. But there is the matter of whether the way lamb is raised & killed is "humane" (SR's "merciful" is probably better). Meh.

-Arrian

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Thats because I dont see a rational basis for the connection between animal IQ and non-consumability. Its a logical problem with that justification.

???

You don't see how it's less okay to eat an animal that might have the first glimmerings of self-consciousness than an animal which almost certainly doesn't?