I don't understand. Why is that problematic? If we couldn't manage without meat, then it could not be a issue, one can only make a moral issue of what is possible — unenlightened

It is possible to turn anything into a moral issue.

In the Bible God commanded people to stone a man to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath and as a child my mother made a traumatic scene on the one occasion I shopped on a Sunday.

But I think that to make something a moral issue has to be more careful than just trying to invoke negative feelings in someone about something. Also in my childhood radio and TV were forbidden and while range of other things and I know what it is like to have lots of enforced guilt.

I am only now just racking my brain to think what might make something a moral issue or not. I think (fundamental) lack of necessity might be one attribute.

But to artificially make something unnecessary seems problematic, so for example making a child walk to collect water from a well is not necessarily wrong even if you have taps because it sill has attributes of daily survival.

I would say moral harm would probably involve a desire to harm, or inadequate consideration of harms, or harm for excess personal gain.

The reality of carnivores, predation and death in nature as an essential part of the life cycle means that humans consuming meat cannot be considered an aberration — Andrew4Handel

That isn't the claim. Vegans, or at least I (as a vegetarian), don't say that it's aberrative. It clearly isn't. We rather affirm that meat eating is unnecessary, irrational, immoral, or some combination thereof. Just because something is common does not make that thing right. Slavery used to be common in the Southern US. Does that make it right? No.

and I don't know anyone that eats meat just to see animals suffer. — Andrew4Handel

Right, neither do I. Here we're talking about ignorance. I don't condemn people for eating meat when they don't intend to see animals suffer. But again, that doesn't positively justify eating meat.

I am never convinced that vegans have a realistic picture of nature where animals starve en masse, ,drown en masse, get eaten alive and don't retire to Old Persons homes. — Andrew4Handel

Maybe others don't. I do. I used to be an antinatalist myself and am still heavily sympathetic to the view. The horrors of existence have always been clear to me and never whitewashed.

Personally I am a moral nihilist — Andrew4Handel

Ah, now we come to the origin of your confusion! If it's true that you're a moral nihilist, then your problem isn't with vegan moral arguments against eating meat but with moral arguments per se.

I think all we can have is a bit of hope that life is somehow on an upward trajectory and meaningful — Andrew4Handel

A funny thing for a moral nihilist to say. Methinks you don't know what that term refers to.

Yes, Thorongil, this is elementary stuff.

Eating meat is a legal, long-standing, socially approved, culturally familiar, doctor recommended, popular dietary behavior. There is no reason why enjoyment is not a full and sufficient justification for doing it. If some people think there is a moral problem with eating meat, that is their problem, not mine. I am under no obligation to agree with their minority view that eating meat is immoral.

Western society has long deemed it moral, reasonable, and appropriate to eat various meats if it was available, along with all sorts of other things.

Maybe vegans just don't like meat and feel they need to disguise their deviant preferences as moral superiority. Maybe their wretched quinoa burger tastes better with with a hot judgmental sauce. Perhaps their ideas about eating meat are skewed by sentimentality about furry or feathered animals.

Omnivores have default moral justification.

Eating meat is a legal, long-standing, socially approved, culturally familiar, doctor recommended, popular dietary behavior. — Bitter Crank

Slavery was a legal, long standing, socially approved, culturally familiar, doctor recommended, popular institution. So I guess that makes slavery okay, right? Let it be known: Bitter Crank finds nothing wrong with slavery.

There is no reason why enjoyment is not a full and sufficient justification for doing it. — Bitter Crank

Yes there is. I have shown why with two very simple counter examples.

I have shown why with two very simple counter examples. — Thorongil

I don't care. I disagree with you about the morality of eating meat.

True enough, slavery has been considered a moral institution -- by a good deal more cultures than the various southern states of the US. Slavery was ubiquitous in ancient societies that we revere (Greece, Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the children of Abraham. Eventually these empires and practices crumbled under various circumstances and slavery faded (more than disappeared) from the world). Cultures changed their positions about slavery. Eventually slavery became viewed as a moral evil.

That some vegans think that meat eating is immoral isn't normative for everyone, it's only normative for vegans, at this point. Perhaps at some point in the future vegetarianism or veganism will become morally normative, and then eating meat will be seen as immoral.

I prefer to view dietary habits as healthy, unhealthy; affordable, unaffordable; convenient, inconvenient; sustainable, unsustainable. There are consequences to eating meat that may be consequentially unacceptable at some point in the future, and then we can all stop eating meat.

I'm not ceding the role of moral leadership to vegans. If they find it morally appropriate and uplifting, whatever, bully for them.

Because "ought implies can" (Kant). You cannot be morally obligated to do something that you cannot do. — NKBJ

I think it is hard to defend the claim that anyone ought to do anything whether or not they can do it.

I could take swimming lessons in case I needed to save a drowning person or I could train to be a medic to save lives. I think there are things we can and can't do easily and things we can learn to do or not do.

I think if you have to artificially adapt your behaviour then you are going beyond an immediate "can" to an obligation to transcend nature. Some people do want to alter nature to be less a harmful but that kind of ideology seems highly unrealistic (people have advocated genetically modifying carnivores) So you can end up with a real but somewhat absurd utilitarian stance that we should wipe out life to end out harm because we can.

The whole moral quagmire is what we can be obliged to do.

Just because something is common does not make that thing right. — Thorongil

I am not saying it is common but rather an innate part of the life-cycle where everything gets eaten at some stage and recycled.

Ah, now we come to the origin of your confusion! If it's true that you're a moral nihilist, then your problem isn't with vegan moral arguments against eating meat but with moral arguments per se. — Thorongil

I do have a problem with any moral claim but I think moral claims become more implausible the more at odds with nature they are.

I don't really believe mass adherence to veganism would improve the world think there are other moral debates that could take precedence. We may just have to be stoical about suffering or take an extinctionist position like antinatalism.

I don't really believe mass adherence to veganism would improve the world think there are other moral debates that could take precedence. — Andrew4Handel

Most climate scientists would disagree. My understanding is that one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas accumulation is animal agriculture. Even if one had a Cartesian position that animals are automata that do not suffer at all, one would need to acknowledge the benefits of reduced meat consumption in terms of reduced human suffering from climate change.

But in the industrialized world at present, people eat meat merely out of habit or because it tastes good, which of course are very poor and shallow reasons to justify what even educated omnivores acknowledge is a pretty abusive and corrupt system of animal husbandry. — Thorongil

Is smoking just a habit? It actually can be accurately described in such lesser terms as more of a habit or an inclination for me, but I think that I'm atypical in that regard - only smoking on occasion at the odd social gathering. It would be much harder for me to give up eating meat, and even harder than that to give up consuming animal products altogether, than it would be for me to give up smoking. But if I were addicted to smoking, then I think that they'd be comparable.

I like to eat meat. I like the way it tastes, smells, and feels. — T Clark

Yeah, me too. I like it a lot.

I've killed quite a few groundhogs in my yard because they damaged my wife's garden. I would catch them in a non-lethal trap then drown them in my children's kiddie pool. I'd always stand and watch for the minute it took for them to drown. It seemed fair I should at least watch. After a while, I stopped killing them. It was hard to watch. It wasn't a moral qualm, it was a personal, emotional one. — T Clark

Ah, poor things. Glad you stopped. I'd much rather have groundhogs coming and going in my garden than a pristine garden.

I don't understand. Why is that problematic? If we couldn't manage without meat, then it could not be a[n] issue, one can only make a moral issue of what is possible. Personally, I have a rule not to eat anyone I haven't been introduced to; it's a matter of politeness. — unenlightened

Anyway, on to the main topic, which I'll address by way of the quote above. I agree with the gist of that - in short, that it's not problematic - but with the caveat that, even if it were otherwise, i.e. if we needed to eat meat in order to survive, then, strictly speaking, it would still be possible, with enough determination, to refrain from eating meat. It would just lead to a horrible death, which is a path that most people, myself included, would understandably opt against pursuing.

It's not problematic, in a sense, because it's part of a reasonable argument. We don't need to eat meat, yada yada yada, therefore we ought not to.

It doesn't compromise it. It just makes it contextual. I would consider it a moral error for me to steal a loaf of bread in most circumstances. But if it was the only way I could feed a person that was starving, I would not consider it a moral error. — andrewk

That's a good example of why issues like this are not just about morality, but significance, which is relative, in a sense. Moral error or not, I would find it utterly insignificant if I were to steal a loaf of bread from a supermarket.

Similarly, although I can see the significance, upon contemplation, of the ethics against eating meat and consuming animal products, it hasn't so far been compelling enough for me to drastically change my lifestyle, and that's not the end of the world. You only live once.

Similarly, although I can see the significance, upon contemplation, of the ethics against eating meat and consuming animal products, it hasn't so far been compelling enough for me to drastically change my lifestyle, and that's not the end of the world. You only live once. — Sapientia

Would you eat ugly black cats for breakfast on toast with vegemite? I mean, you only live once.

You only live once. — Sapientia

#YOLO! :rofl:

What a joker :joke:

Would you eat ugly black cats for breakfast on toast with vegemite? I mean, you only live once. — TimeLine

Probably not, knowingly. But that's only because I think about ugly black cats differently, and because, in any case, I don't think that I'd like the taste. Maybe in a parallel universe where ugly black cats were like chickens, and chickens were like ugly black cats, I'd have an ugly black chicken as a pet, and I'd eat cat burgers with some regularity.

I think it is hard to defend the claim that anyone ought to do anything whether or not they can do it. — Andrew4Handel

Note that I did not say you are obligated to do all things that you in theory can do. I only said you are not obligated to do the things you cannot do. However, for the things you can do, you have to come up with other reasons why they aren't moral obligations, if that is the position you are defending. If you could learn CPR, but choose not to, what is the defense? Are there scenarios in which you could be obligated to learn it? Same thing with veganism--since almost anyone CAN abstain from eating non-human animals (especially in the industrialized parts of the world), they have to give other reasons for not doing so.

I think the logical thing for meat eaters to do is eat less meat — Bitter Crank

You haven't given any good arguments so far for that claim.

But you ha

I was simply indicating that I knew, on a first hand basis, what it meant to kill a food animal. — Bitter Crank

I think that is a mistake you are making throughout this discussion--talking about your personal life and experiences (I'm not trying to say your life and experiences are uninteresting). Your experiences with killing and your dietary habits don't add much to the question at hand. Talking about them just makes it harder to address the issue objectively.

But it probably won't be based on the rights of animals, or their needs. — Bitter Crank

You could be wrong about that also. I haven't seen you directly address their moral status so far, but you do seem to insist they don't matter--on what basis other than you personally didn't feel qualms about killing them?

The example above is not meant to suggest an equivalency with eating meat, by the way. It's merely meant to expose the rather large hole in your rationale for eating meat. — Thorongil

Drawing attention to what has been left implicit is not the same thing as exposing a large hole.

You haven't given any good arguments so far for that claim. — NKBJ

Early in this discussion thread I stated that...

Raising animals for food is environmentally unsustainable. — Bitter Crank

That is the basis for my statement that carnivores should eat less meat. It may at some point be necessary for carnivores to become vegetarians, again because of sustainability.

Your experiences with killing and your dietary habits don't add much to the question at hand. Talking about them just makes it harder to address the issue objectively. — NKBJ

The food we enjoy is going to be a subjective issue no matter how you slice it. The only reason I mentioned that I had killed and slaughtered some chickens was to address the issue someone had raised about separating meat eating from the details of killing animals for food.

I haven't seen you directly address their moral status so far, but you do seem to insist they don't matter--on what basis other than you personally didn't feel qualms about killing them? — NKBJ

I haven't decided what the moral status of animals is. I'm favorably disposed toward animals, wild or domestic, but that isn't the same as determining their moral status.

First, "animal" covers a lot of territory -- 986-celled nematodes on up to whales and elephants. Environmentally, all animals are important and do not require moral justification for their existence. A healthy environment requires the full panoply of plants and animals. The health of the forest, for example, has been shown to be dependent on salmon, bears and wolves. Trees, the understory plants, bears, salmon, wolves, elk, moose, and deer have complex relationships. Remove the bears and the forest deteriorates.

Deer, in the upper midwest at least, have reached large populations and have become foraging pests with refined tastes -- leaving aside corn for garden flowers, vegetables, and plants in hanging pots. They'll stand up on their hind legs and clear cut a $50 planter hanging from the eves--and this is in small cities, not out in the country. Food is so abundant for them that they have become gourmets - preferring potted impatiens to dandelions.

City rabbits breed like rabbits, and are clearly over-populated, with large die-offs in the fall. Ditto for squirrels.

I happen to like all these animals--raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, elephants, ants, whales, grasshoppers, bees, baboons, bonobos, birds, bats, and bison. With adequate natural predation (hawks, owls, eagles, snakes, bats, wolves, fox, etc.) the small gnawing biting stinging little animals are kept in balance. The megafauna like elephants, rhinoceros, hippos, wildebeests, zebras, lions, tigers, etc. are central to African ecology. Whales are critical for ocean ecology, as are all the other creatures in the oceans.

I value elephants; I may be willing to grant them moral status and the protection due intelligent beings. The problem I find is working out moral status for the rest of the animal kingdom. The moral value I see in my loving, faithful, intelligent dog I can't automatically extend to voles, moles, or rats, and gnats.

What is YOUR solution?

These two quotes from a article I have started reading reflect an opinion I am sympathetic with.

"Does "Ought" imply "Can"? And Did Kant Think It Does? (R.Stern)

"In a recent book and associated articles, Griffin has argued for what might be called a greater degree of realism in ethics, in the sense that we should begin by understanding ourselves and our capacities, as
a necessary first step to thinking about moral issues. He claims that moral theories have too often neglected facts about human nature and society, and as a result have become distorted and inadequate to our real needs: We have theorized in a vacuum, and so have failed to do so successfully."

http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/298/1/sternr1.pdf

"A particular example here, Griffin thinks, is utilitarianism.Utilitarianism has a commitment to impartiality, in the sense that it tells us that the right thing to do is whatever maximizes general utility. But, Griffin says, the reality of human life is that we usually cannot either calculate or act on what this maximization demands, because of our natural partiality to family, our interests and other commitments. Griffin therefore claims that human limitations mean that utilitarianism cannot play a genuine role in our lives, and as a result the moral norms it proposes should be rejected as spurious"

There is a stereotype that vegans are judgy and preachy. Perhaps that used to be the case. I don't know. But in recent years, as there has been an increased uptake of veganism, it does not seem to be the case. There are several people I know that I discovered to be vegan more or less by accident. They never mention it except when it comes to - almost apologetically - indicating their dietary restrictions for an upcoming meal. I find both the increase in veganism and the humility that often accompanies it encouraging.

As I said earlier, I think it is good that some vegans advocate their values to others, seeking to persuade more people to become vegan, or just to eat less meat. It is crucial though, to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If it is argued that somebody is morally heinous if they occasionally eat meat or fish, regardless of what care they took to ensure it was humanely raised and slaughtered, then that just drives people who might otherwise be persuaded to eat less meat, to give it up and write off vegans as extremists, and ethical eating as too unattainable to bother about.

Everyone must make their own ethical decisions. It is not for any individual to judge any other, unless they are employed by the state to do that. If public discourse about the ethics of what we eat leads to an overall reduction in the number of animals that are factory-farmed or otherwise inhumanely treated and killed, that is a good thing. At least we will have somewhat less suffering in the world and less greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.

Let she who is morally perfect cast the first stone.

Were animals able to more clearly preach against their brains being electrocuted, throats being slit, and so on and so forth, perhaps more people would listen. Perhaps not, though, as we humans can't even treat our own kind with much dignity.

Deer, in the upper midwest at least, have reached large populations and have become foraging pests with refined tastes -- leaving aside corn for garden flowers, vegetables, and plants in hanging pots. They'll stand up on their hind legs and clear cut a $50 planter hanging from the eves--and this is in small cities, not out in the country. Food is so abundant for them that they have become gourmets - preferring potted impatiens to dandelions.

City rabbits breed like rabbits, and are clearly over-populated, with large die-offs in the fall. Ditto for squirrels.

I happen to like all these animals--raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, elephants, ants, whales, grasshoppers, bees, baboons, bonobos, birds, bats, and bison. With adequate natural predation (hawks, owls, eagles, snakes, bats, wolves, fox, etc.) the small gnawing biting stinging little animals are kept in balance. The megafauna like elephants, rhinoceros, hippos, wildebeests, zebras, lions, tigers, etc. are central to African ecology. Whales are critical for ocean ecology, as are all the other creatures in the oceans. — Bitter Crank

This is just-in-time capitalism at it's worst. "Why, killing animals is even good for the animal!". Try to find a single entity with a large carbon footprint than humans. Hell, even 1/1000th of our footprint. You won't. If killing animals is even good for the animal, then killing humans is the Supreme Good for human beings.

…every rational being, exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will…Beings whose existence depends not on our will but on nature have, nevertheless, if they are not rational beings, only a relative value as means and are therefore called things. On the other hand, rational beings are called persons inasmuch as their nature already marks them out as ends in themselves.

Groundwork

Kant seems to make a pretty clear cut distinction between persons and animals, with animals having only relative value.

The state of the animal industry: pig, chicken, cow and other large industrial complexes is disgusting but it is part of our culture, and as such it can be changed towards more humane treatment of our food. I realize that this is demeaning inhumane treatment of our fellow creature and as such it diminishes me, yet I do enjoy a nice steak once in awhile.

I limit the amount of meat I eat, I eat a lot of fish.

I contemplate whether vegan ethics, or any actions in general, go beyond being labeled as moral because we like it/value it.

Can I have a clear conscience eating meat? The concept of eating meat does not bother me. It is the way it is done that I do not like. The way the animals are raised and suffer is troubling. The animals are also depersonalized to me. Obviously I value my pets much more than stranger animals. If I had to actually watch the animals get raised and see the suffering, let alone be the one to kill, then my opinions might be completely different. However there's also the possibility that I become desensitized to it, especially if I was doing it from a young age.

When I go to the store and eat meat, this is not something that crosses my mind. It is normalized in society. When I take the time to think about it though, I know what is going on. However, I rationalize it because I know that if I don't eat the meat, it'll either go bad and be thrown out, or someone else is gonna eat it anyways. Realistically, if I stop eating meat the food industry isn't gonna produce less.

I primarily eat seafood, only other meats sometimes when I'm out and there's not as many options available (America is big on meat). I like to think that the different conditions for seafood means the animals probably don't suffer the way cows, pigs, etc. do because of their conditions. Although I acknowledge I don't really know the details about this.

So that if we were carnivores then there could be no moral issue which seems to be quite an arbitrary point at which to invoke ethics. — Andrew4Handel

It would still be a moral issue, although the conclusion would be different.

It seems this is more a discussion on the way our calories are produced than actual vegan morality. I kill animals on a regular basis and in fact i've killed people. It's an unfortunate part of life but hay I'm breathing and typing and they're not.

The fact that you are actually able to debate what kind of protein you want to consume says that me and my trigger pulling ancestors did something right; your'e welcome.

Now onto the real question is eating flesh okay; yes it is. The method of production I feel is certainly worth debate as raising a living being in a squashed in cage and using your credit card to pay some bloke to play executioner seems a little less than ethical. I'd prefer you killed your own food and owned it, recognized it for what it is and were okay with it.

your'e welcome. — Sid

You're free to believe whatever action is morally right but don't assume everyone agrees with you, or is grateful of your actions.

The fact that you are actually able to debate what kind of protein you want to consume says that me and my trigger pulling ancestors did something right — Sid

I don't see the connection:

if we needed to eat meat in order to survive, then, strictly speaking, it would still be possible, with enough determination, to refrain from eating meat. It would just lead to a horrible death — Sapientia

It would still be a moral issue, although the conclusion would be different. — BlueBanana

In what way?

I am beginning to think that making something a moral issue is always arbitrary because hypothetically we could try and make everything a moral issue.

The public appear to have some crude notions of morality. For instance a lot of people would except the claim "Killing is wrong".

But then when you investigate deeper it turns out killing in self defence is okay, killing to eat is okay, killing in war is okay, abortions okay, the death penalties okay and so on.

In the the end the actual "Thou shalt not kill" becomes far more specific, lengthy, subjective and contextual.
Something like "Thou shalt not kill except on these 20 occasions (consult list and essay for further details)"

In the end you might want to just say it is preferable to try not to kill when you can reasonably avoid it. But I consider this kind of statement not a command and less morally motivating.

I just see no place for a moral ideal although I suppose in the past religion claimed to have moral exemplars or moral law givers. But even the conduct of religious or mythical figures is subject to moral condemnation.

In what way?

I am beginning to think that making something a moral issue is always arbitrary because hypothetically we could try and make everything a moral issue. — Andrew4Handel

How would it not be? The question would be about evaluating one's own life against another sentient being's. Is deciding who lives and who dies not a moral dilemma?