Can you ethically justify eating meat? — Kaz1983
Causing pain, therefore killing, is immoral. In a very simplistic sense how would you feel if your throat was cut, dying slowly from blood loss, feeling pain up until the end, then cut up into tiny morsels, cooked, served over dinner on a table where the people who're eating you don't even give a second thought about what you were, all the while conversing, cracking jokes, yes jokes, discussing how great you tasted or even that you weren't prepared to someone's liking? — TheMadFool
We don't know what a good/balanced diet is, nor do we know which foods can provide it and so we suggest a shotgun strategy instead of specific recommendations. However, if my biology is correct, we're designed to eat meat in addition to plants. — TheMadFool
What is true of animals but not true of humans that allows us to kill and eat one but not the other? — fdrake
If it's really lacking intelligence, that is the reason why we can kill and eat animals (this is the most popular trait used). We have to justified both "killing and eating animals who lack intelligence" and "killing humans because they lack intelligence" .. if you can't justify both, there is - as Alex points out: "a philosophical inconsistency"
His reasoning is, just because something is less intelligent, does that mean that we want with it? — Kaz1983
Is it possible animals feel pain, more than we do? — Kaz1983
3. "a pig is not equal to a human"
A black person was not seen as equal to a white person? Was slavery legal before? And does it really matter whether a pig is not equal to a human? — Kaz1983
4. "the circle of life"
Human beings are no longer a part of "the circle of life", maybe before when we lived off the land and were one with nature but that is no longer the case. — Kaz1983
In a very simplistic sense how would you feel if your throat was cut, dying slowly from blood loss, feeling pain up until the end, — TheMadFool
then cut up into tiny morsels, cooked, served over dinner on a table where the people who're eating you don't even give a second thought about what you were, all the while conversing, cracking jokes, yes jokes, discussing how great you tasted or even that you weren't prepared to someone's liking? — TheMadFool
Sometimes I get scared of my closest friends and family at how they can eat meat and still say ''I love you''. The cognitive dissonance is disturbing to say the least. — TheMadFool
All of this logic applies to all life, including plants and single celled organisms. I am not saying the whole idea is wrong, but this single point does not say much. — ZhouBoTong
It seems that killing a plant can be viewed as equally bad to killing an animal (logically anyway), but we need to know more about how pain is experienced to make comparisons of suffering across species. — ZhouBoTong
The cognitive dissonance lies in expressing love which I take to be a caring attitude towards life, at the same time killing and consuming animals which is obviously the contradiction of love. — TheMadFool
I’d prefer to kill the animals I eat personally. I do find it perverse that many want to distance themselves from the thought of eating animals that have been killed. If your moral disposition toward killing animals to eat repulses you, yet you’re perfectly willing to eat meat sold in the market I’d say you’re a bit of a hypocrite — I like sushi
Eating meat is no worse than eating vegetables. One is eating living, growing things and, sadly, that is a requirement for survival. Only by prejudice do we value animal life over plant life. There's absolutely no merit to the idea that vegetarianism or veganism is in any way "better". — Tzeentch
Eating meat is no worse than eating vegetables. One is eating living, growing things and, sadly, that is a requirement for survival. Only by prejudice do we value animal life over plant life. There's absolutely no merit to the idea that vegetarianism or veganism is in any way "better". — Tzeentch
I believe most people's gripe is with the meat industry, rather than the act of eating meat. — Tzeentch
I get what you mean but I suppose it's just a case of trying to justify ones behaviour by the behaviour of animals.. why don't we sniff each other's bums like dogs do when we meet each other or eat our own babies like hippopotamuses do.. there are lots of examples of this, it's called the nature fallacy and is used regularly to justify things, well in this case eating meat. — Kaz1983
I think you misinterpreted the question. It's actually designed to be in favour of animal rights arguments. The idea behind it is to burden a meat eater with a task to find something true of animals that's not true for humans that makes the distinction between killable/non-killable make sense.
It rules out things like pain, suffering, rudimentary self awareness, tool use etc. when applied to all animals. So the meat eater has to go on a case by case basis, which already plays into the animal rights activist's hands. — fdrake
If it were fundamentally wrong then we would not be able to do it — 420mindfulness
The act of killing an another for sustenance is natural throughout the natural kingdom, including in the plant kingdom, and therefore does not fall into the realm of ethics. — 420mindfulness
Can you ethically justify eating meat? — Kaz1983
Can you ethically justify eating meat? — Kaz1983
Can you ethically justify eating meat? — Kaz1983
Until then, however, my industrial meat products diet will remain unjustified because veganism, etc I find undernourishing and makes me miserable. — 180 Proof
Bring it on – guilt-free carnivorous delights. :yum:Eventually, vat-grown meat (not just 'plant-based meat' substitutes) will moot the question because its process (A) will not torture and kill any animals and (b) will not degrade the environment remotely on the scale of animal (over)farming. — 180 Proof
FromCan you ethically justify eating meat? — Kaz1983
When you and I, for instance, realize how many innocent beasts have had to suffer in cattle-cars and slaughter-pens and lay down their lives that we might grow up, all fattened and clad, to sit together here in comfort and carry on this discourse, it does, indeed, put our relation to the universe in a more solemn light. "Does not," as a young Amherst philosopher (Xenos Clark, now dead) once wrote, "the acceptance of a happy life upon such terms involve a point of honor?" Are we not bound to take some suffering upon ourselves, to do some self-denying service with our lives, in return for all those lives upon which ours are built? To hear this question is to answer it in but one possible way, if one have a normally constituted heart.
Meat eating can be justified ethically, provided that one lives honorably and does something worthwhile with one's life. — baker
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