I have absolutely no desire for meat — ThinkOfOne

This holds true for me as well and however I could deny the fact that roasted pork smells good to me I wont but which also doesnt mean I have to satisfy whatever association of taste I'm experiencing with whatever smell at such moment. I unvoluntarily undergo it as the stark reminder of the conditioning, of what it left behind, and though I rather not be reminded or stirred it holds value in that way.

At what point does a human being rationalise it’s consumption ? — Deus

Why do humans have to "rationalize" their consumption and not other animals? What is the point intellectualizing an animal eating another animal? It's simple, humans are HANGRY and HONGRY.

In your same post you claim fish have enough emotionality to not be "food", but also make some kind of implication that fish should still not be eaten, but you do not extent this type of equal protection to humans. Humans have to modify basic human needs and desires; but a fish with enough emotionality to be considered a 'protected species to be as HANGRY as it wants and eat everything in sight' is perfectly okay. Uh, why?

The sharks are so emotionally intelligent humans should just die by their jaws because the shark is simply hangry?

What about invasive protein plump pests eating up all the vegetation? Do you think humans should move them to someone else's lawn, peacefully let them thrive because oh no the pain or start 'rationally' consuming them for protein?

If I'm permitted to kill a chimpanzee, feast on its meat and a chimpanzee is only 0.01% different from us genetically, can a species 0.01% above us, DNA-wise, do the same to us? Perhaps there's some kind of threshold of intelligence beyond which predation is impermissible and we've defintely reached that point, perhaps progressed beyond it, oui mes amies?

As an aside, genetic similarity measured in percent is not a great measure of anything really meaningful. Because of the nature of comparing DNA, there will be 25% similarity between two random DNA sequences, and yet we aren't 25% similar to a dandelion in nature. Even measuring intelligence is relatively complicated and a relatively arbitrary measure, I would argue, so I don't think intelligence should factor into whether it is permissible or not. If a shark kills another animal, obviously you can't do much about it, but that doesn't mean that it should be permissible.

And to the other comments asking for a reason why not to eat meat: obviously it hurts animals. The benefit, which seems to be just sensory pleasure, doesn't justify that to me.

Even if you have different values, it's hard to value human well-being and draw the line at animals. You certainly can draw that line, but it seems arbitrary.

Even if you have different values, it's hard to value human well-being and draw the line at animals. You certainly can draw that line, but it seems arbitrary. — xorn

It is arbitrary. Even when we encode it in law, it's still arbitrary: the line keeps moving in response to public sentiment.

Some people are devoid of empathy; others assert that all farm animals are raised for that purpose, so it's all right, while a few still maintain that without meat, we would suffer malnutrition and die.
Some claim an ancestral right to whatever they want; some put themselves in a 'higher' value category in one kind of situation and on par with other species in another; some refuse to consider the issue at all; some rationalize their preference on religious or cultural grounds. The committed carnivores are not swayed by ecological, economic or any other proof that industrial food-animal farming is bad for the world and bad for the people who engage in it. A common counter-argument is modern farming and slaughtering methods are 'humane', while denying that modern technology can yield a healthier product without the mess and suffering.

There is no point in debating this: people decide according to their own inclination and every decision is defensible in some manner.

There is no point in debating this: people decide according to their own inclination and every decision is defensible in some manner. — Vera Mont

But I think people's inclinations can be affected by arguments if they are a reasonable person, which I think most people are (or believe themselves to be). If people with differing beliefs share their ideas in a way designed to be relatively unbiased, weaker arguments will have larger holes poked in them, making it just a bit more untenable to hold them. This may tip one's inclination to another viewpoint.

There are obviously many limitations and ways that this process could fail: allowing one side to talk more, one side acting more confident / assertive. But on average, more truthful arguments receive some advantage from their truthfulness.

The cynic in me says that some topics, perhaps the one about vegetarianism, could be tipped in one direction by so many other factors (ie maybe one side has a bullhorn) to a degree where not even the truth will be enough to ensure it is more convincing. This is something I wonder: how much of what somebody believes is because it is true, and not because of environmental factors that led to a persuasive effect?

But I think people's inclinations can be affected by arguments if they are a reasonable person, which I think most people are (or believe themselves to be). — xorn

There is a world of difference between active reasoning and wishing to consider oneself reasonable. That difference manifests most obviously in their choice of information sources. If their inclination is to make reasoned decisions, they pay attention to all available evidence without prejudice, weigh the options and yes, their opinion and habits may change. In fact, many have https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/11/vegetarianism-rise-fall-world-chart/

If they're looking for a reason to keep doing what they're used to, or follow their cravings, they can find authoritative sources to reinforce their own vested belief. Where the diet was plant-based due to religion, tradition or economics, many people are tending toward what they consider a more western, upwardly-mobile consumption. Their reason tells them: the old ways made us backward and weak; the imperialist's ways will make us successful and powerful.

But on average, more truthful arguments receive some advantage from their truthfulness. — xorn

This, I have yet to see in the public arena.
There is always a bullhorn. One of the biggest and loudest is money: a huge amount of capital is tied up in and an obscene amount of profit is made from the processing and distribution of meat products. That industry has a formidable presence in the media. And it already has an enormous constituency - red-blooded red-meat eaters, eager to be convinced that their diet is the only healthy, wholesome, natural one.
Add to this the secondary economic reality: switching to a healthy vegetarian diet requires a great deal of thought and calculation to work into an average family food budget. The processed plant-based meat substitutes are very expensive and getting inflated faster than other foodstuffs (perhaps because they are regarded as luxury items). To prepare vegetarian fare - even the compromised ovo-lacto versions - you have to learn new recipes, appropriate combinations, and some way to make it palatable to family members who don't like giving up what they're used to.

Not many food-providers (most commonly women) have the time and emotional resources to invest. Mothers who do make all that effort may be rewarded with children who don't grow up obese or develop Type 2 diabetes.

This thread seems like a scattered mess. Are we asking whether people eating meat is ethical, whether ethics is something that humans can apply to the animals we often eat, whether ethics is something humans should apply to eating other animals?

What about vines that choke the life out of trees in order to blossom and spread - is there an ethics we should look for there? I saw a deer kill and eat a mouse. Is the that an unethical deer because the deer is supposed to be vegan?

I’ll skip to the end. Eating meat isn’t an ethical issue. Animals and plants consume other objects - it’s how it all works so that bacteria can grow, so that eagles can fly and so that we can ask these questions.

Killing an animal inhumanly is an ethical issue, not for the sake of the animal, but for the sake of the inhumane killer (the person, and those who would eat an animal killed inhumanly). The eating of meat isn’t an ethical issue. The killing inhumanly or not, for humans, is an ethical issue.

I don’t want to insult the lion who primarily tortures and kills animals to eat them alive, by judging the morality of an otherwise perfect act, innocent of all ethical judgment. But then, the lion wouldn’t sense the insult as they wouldn’t sense the ethics.

We are animals too. Animals kill plants and other animals to eat, just like the other animals and plants do. People create ethics and can apply it to everything they do, such as how they kill animals to eat. People should kill to eat humanely. But meat is plants is water is air - all for consumption - as are human bodies that the worms can’t wait to be planted in the ground.

What about vines that choke the life out of trees in order to blossom and spread - is there an ethics we should look for there? — Fire Ologist

I'm pretty sure vines aren't smart enough to conceive of an ethical framework for their action. Or have a choice of actions, for that matter.

We are animals too. — Fire Ologist

Yes. So we can use that as an excuse for acting like other animals. And when we choose to act as if we owned all the other animals, we claim superiority.

People create ethics and can apply it to everything they do, such as how they kill animals to eat. — Fire Ologist

Yes. They can. Lions can't. People can also determine to what degree their ethical judgment affects their actions, each according to their inclination.

We are animals too.
— Fire Ologist

Yes. So we can use that as an excuse for acting like other animals. And when we choose to act as if we owned all the other animals, we claim superiority. — Vera Mont

I feel like I'm being corrected here, sarcastically scolded, like you might claim my position inferior to your superior one.

You say "excuse for acting like other animals" implying that we are not animals, but creatures that can act like animals. Are we animals or not?

You say people must "claim" superiority, implying that we are not really any different than the animals. But many animals torture, kill and eat their meals. So a lack of superiority puts us on par and as justified as the lion when we get hungry, kill and eat.

Are you saying it can be perfectly justifiable for a person to eat meat?

You say "excuse for acting like other animals" implying that we are not animals, but creatures that can act like animals. Are we animals or not? — Fire Ologist

It doesn't imply that we are not animals but that we are not like other animals.
We are omnivorous animals with very large, sophisticated brains and opposable thumbs, that have overcome the limitations nature imposed on animals. Therefore, we not only have a greater range of choice in our actions, social organizations and diets, but also the ability to destroy both other species and their environments.
Among ourselves, we set standards of behaviour and accountability. We invent philosophies, ideologies, moral, legal and ethical systems, and hold one another responsible for upholding those standards.

You say people must "claim" — Fire Ologist

I didn't say they must; I said they do. With justification in terms of capability and power, but not on moral grounds.

But many animals torture, kill and eat their meals. — Fire Ologist

The only difference is, they have no choice and don't know any better.

Are you saying it can be perfectly justifiable for a person to eat meat? — Fire Ologist

Justifiable under some circumstance. Perfectly? I wouldn't go that far - but then, I am a hypocrite, like all of my species. We rationalize and compromise and go along to get along, because we're not very good at surviving on our own or at resisting social pressure.

Buying meat contributes to suffering and death.

Are you arguing that, like other animals, we are too stupid to make moral decisions?

Anything we people do can involve a moral decision. Even writing a post might intentionally, with malice of forethought, just waste precious time.

Going outside and sitting on the porch, when you just said you wouldn’t leave the house until the dishes were done, can be immoral.

If sitting outside can be immoral, killing anything can very easily be immoral!! Maybe always! And as a person, killing an animal with our reasons and intention behind it, maybe sacrificing it for nothing! It’s EVIL now!

But all of that aside, meaning, all of US aside and our morality, before we judge the morality, we can simply see that animals kill and eat other animals.

That simply is, the very subject that already exists for our moral question. We spawn in the same pond of animals as all of our ancestors spawned to be food for the next…

That is the starting point. At least those are the moving parts to start hurling “should” and “right” and “stupid” at one another.

Are you arguing that, like other animals, we are too stupid to make moral decisions? — Down The Rabbit Hole

You say: we, like “other animals …are too stupid”

It doesn’t sound like you like animals. Or people.

I don’t think you need to insult the animals as if the important likeness between them and us was intelligence, and saying “like other animals, we are too stupid...”

Unnecessarily negative posturing.

But I get it. It may be directed at me. I can be stupid.

But you said “we are too stupid…” so I’m thinking you don’t really think you are too stupid, so we’re in the clear on that aspect of the convo.

But killing to eat. Truly a big and real question, we all must grapple with.

And killing to eat as an entry into the murkier question of what’s right and wrong, morality.

So the question is, “Are you arguing that…we are too stupid to make moral decisions?”

It’s a good question. My answer, No.

I think it is perfectly good for people to farm, hunt, kill and eat animals. As a natural kind, if you will.

The moral decision at times can be to kill the animal, and eat it.

Easy to put yourself in a situation, not even a purely survival situation, but what is best involves hunting and killing.

At other times, killing an animal can be an immoral decision. When not for food. When supporting terrible conditions for gross profits.

Perhaps in some places in some times, killing any animal is immoral. Maybe that time is soon.

But I would never judge anyone for just eating meat. Much more would I need to know before I would say they were doing something immoral, like sitting on the porch.

The OP asked for arguments for and against Vegetarianism. This thread spiraled quickly into killing for food. I’m in favor of all kinds of eating. The ethics is not embedded in the act of killing animals for food as far as I can see. Eating a vegetable can be immoral.

But all of that aside, meaning, all of US aside and our morality, before we judge the morality, we can simply see that animals kill and eat other animals.

That simply is, the very subject that already exists for our moral question. We spawn in the same pond of animals as all of our ancestors spawned to be food for the next… — Fire Ologist

We are moral agents. Animals are not. We make laws regulating our behaviors on the assumption we can rise above our primal instincts. Eating meat is probably immoral and I shouldn't do it, but I just don't get that upset about it, and I don't want to give it up. I think future generations are going to judge us harshly for how we've treated animals over the years, and if aliens came down and started eating us, we could hardly complain.

…[an animal’s] inability for it to question its existence or purpose does not alleviate guilt on my part then I should be grateful for the food put on my table.… At what point does a human being rationalize its consumption? — Deus

But I think people's inclinations can be affected by arguments… on average, more truthful arguments receive some advantage from their truthfulness. — xorn

I have responded to a similar thread here with the short version being that a moral claim about eating an animal is the same (in the same structural category) as, e.g., looking at a human as labor. It is a matter of our position in relation to them, the way in which we value them (or not)—see them in an aspect as Wittgenstein puts it—and so not a matter of an intellectual argument (or emotional empathy), but just that my actions to another make a claim on me to account for those acts, that they reflect who I am.

And so @Deus is responding to the claim on him of an animal seen as sacrifice, to be responsible for being worthy of it. This not to justify it rationally, as if any knowledge or reasoning would convince you (as @xorn hopes for, as it might in other problems), but a stance for which he puts himself in a position to answer for. The work is to understand what we have inherited and what we take on as representative of us; to make conscious our commitments and the implications of our lives as they are.

The idea that all other animals are able to prey upon their weaker fellow animals and that Humans are especially to side-step this, is infantile nonsense to my mind.
Our higher level of understanding does nothing to this.
I have never heard even a reasonable argument for anything other than following one's internal comfort-metre when it comes to animal consumption.

The way in which animal products are sourced?? Well. That's a can of seytan I wont open.

The way in which animal products are sourced?? Well. That's a can of seytan I wont open. — AmadeusD

Apparently, only one of many.

:snicker: :snicker:

Nice.

We are moral agents. Animals are not. We make laws regulating our behaviors on the assumption we can rise above our primal instincts. Eating meat is probably immoral and I shouldn't do it, but I just don't get that upset about it, and I don't want to give it up. I think future generations are going to judge us harshly for how we've treated animals over the years, and if aliens came down and started eating us, we could hardly complain. — RogueAI

You may enjoy this film for a bit of fun. I disagree with you, and hte film, however.

Personally when it comes to my dog that I’ve bonded with if I was forced into this choice of eating the animal to survive I doubt I would do it. I’d rather die than cling on to life at such primitive existence. — Deus

This is the exact same conclusion I came to (although I do admit, it is not until placed in such a situation that one can really be certain what they would do. But then again, I don't believe in 100 percent certainty of anything) However, contemplating it now, if i was in such a dire situation that I was considering eating my dog, I think i would be pretty much done for anyway. I also would not want to deal with the trauma afterwards, if I did survive, of knowing what I did. That would be like mental torture. And I may not survive anyway. If this were the case, I would have just eaten arguably the best comfort in my dying hours that I could wish for. Dying cuddling my dog seems a million times more preferable than dying alone with the knowledge that I just ate her!

While this is a philosophy forum, the scientific method is the undisputed source of what we call truth in this world. You probably wouldn't be here if not for its ability to link ideas and ways of thinking to a correspondence in reality. These ideas allowed chemistry to create fertilizer to allow you to exist [w][ytb], but also factory farming.

Looking as psychology then (a field also grounded in the scientific method), It is extremely hard to deny the importance of cognitive dissonance when talking about how people think about eating meat. I'd argue that a lot of the arguments here against vegetarianism boil down to some level of cognitive dissonance. Why?

You believe:

• You have choices
• You should make good choices
• You should be reasonable
• Hurting people is wrong in and of itself

***Why does everybody believe these things? I don't know. Perhaps because cultures with these values were better at cooperating and sticking together over time, out-competing selfish (for example) ones in their evolution. (natural selection / game theory). At the least, those who disagree with one of these are probably a small minority.***

From wiki, most people use one of the following as justification:

• Appeals to human evolution or to carnivory in nature ("natural")
  
  → human ancestors were nearly all vegetarian
  → forced sex and eating children are "natural" in other animals
• Appeals to societal or historical norms ("normal")
  
  → alcohol is the most harmful drug in the world, and yet it's "normal"
  → cigarettes, too. I mean really, our whole lives are historically extremely strange so this argument makes no sense
• Appeals to nutritive or environmental necessity ("necessary")
  
  → I haven't seen that argument here, yet, probably because nothing supports it
• Appeals to the tastiness of meat ("nice")
  
  → This one seems the most honest, but this sensory pleasure must outweigh some pretty grim harms

One can see pain in animals, and the science certainly finds that animals can feel pain. We evolved from monkeys, so we are really not that different physiologically in terms of pain to a mammal like a pig or cow.

In terms of number of deaths, its billions per year. Are they humanely killed? Not really.

At this point, nobody acting in good faith and trying to be reasonable is going to rest their argument on some silly little idea like 'animals aren't people so their pain doesn't matter'. They just don't want to admit they are acting in opposition to their moral values: ie. cognitive dissonance. The real reasons lie in that psychology article on wikipedia.

Appeals to the tastiness of meat ("nice")

→ This one seems the most honest, — xorn

But not well informed: there is real meat coming down the technology pipeline that's cleaner, leaner and healthier. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-cultivated-meat

There's also the ecological impact:

More than two-thirds of all agricultural land is devoted to growing feed for livestock, while only 8 percent is used to grow food for direct human consumption.... LEAD researchers also found that the global livestock industry uses dwindling supplies of freshwater, destroys forests and grasslands, and causes soil erosion, while pollution and the runoff of fertilizer and animal waste create dead zones in coastal areas and smother coral reefs. There also is concern over increased antibiotic resistance, since livestock accounts for 50 percent of antibiotic use globally, according to LEAD.https://woods.stanford.edu/news/meats-environmental-impact

Even if you don't give a damn about causing misery, pain and terror, you might think about whether your grandchildren have a world to live in. Or maybe not...