Should you feel guilty for eating meat?

[O maestre]

there are so many wrongs in this world, but meat eating is not one of them, yes an ethical treatment of our food might be preferable, but it is so far down my moral priorities that i am not even sure it is there. with all the suffering that humans go through, from starvation, violence and violations the pain of something destined to be consumed barely registers.

i still dont understand how there still exists starvation on this planet given the over abundance of food

I think it's just a tad ironic that you mentioned human starvation as a more important issue. The meat industry is an enormous waste of water, grain and other resources that could be used to feed the entire human population many times over. Instead, these resources are wasted on the luxury of meat for us living in the western world.

Secondly, I don't really understand you're "let's deprioritize animal welfare because there are still many humans suffering"-argument. I mean, it's not like we can't do both! It's not like we have to shift time and money from helping human beings in some third world country to get clean water just because we choose to regulate the meat industry.

I hear this argument quite a lot; that we should take care of our human fellow human beings before we start worrying about animals. I usually reply with "well, which human rights organization do you donate to", which is normally met with silence.

More often than not, I find that the people interested in animal welfare are often the same people interested in other forms of charity.

you seem to think we disagree, but you kind of prove my point, we cannot even focus on taking care of each other, whether it is because of apathy or lack of possibility. we are not going to get anywhere near ensuring animal welfare as long as human suffering isn't alleviated.

luxury is not an issue, the amount of resources used for meat production pales in comparison to military expenditure, or entertainment.

however it seems that you are completely against eating meat regardless of treatment, or am i wrong?

and in answer to your question caritas internationalis, not so much human rights, more in line with the world food program.
and unicef a long long time ago.... although my ex kind of forced me into it

 

[Dimitriov]

No. Morals are a human invention, and dictate interactions between humans. Their purpose in any society is to allow people to live together, and cooperate as harmoniously as possible. They are effectively the spoken and unspoken consensus of the group developed over time.

Therefore I can see no way for it to be inherently immoral to eat meat. Eating humans could be immoral, eating other people's animals could be immoral, and certain practices of raising and treating animals could even be immoral.

But animals are not humans and do not have morals: therefore, it cannot be immoral to eat meat.


That's my philosophy anyway, and I have yet to hear anyone convincingly refute it.

So you believe that anything can be done to animals without any moral recourse? Including torturing for amusement? And this also applies to all animals as well, including the ones coming closer to human intelligence like chimps and dolphins? If you answer no to any of those, than your definition of morality is flawed.

Not really, I just need to, apparently, add the part I'd left unspoken before. Which is that eating animals could be immoral if a society in general deemed it to be outside the acceptable mode of behaviour.

As I previously stated morality is involved with how humans behave, and how that affects other humans. Therefore, it could be immoral to eat cows in India (indeed in Hindu communities I am certain it is). However, where I live (Canada) and where the OP is (Europe) it most certainly isn't. Nor is it if you look at the global human population. Or, especially, humanity over the course of our whole history.

Whereas most societies do indeed find "unnecessary cruelty" to animals to be abhorrent (myself included). What is considered "unnecessary cruelty" does, however, vary a great deal.

 

[Anget Colslaw]

Spoiler

Spoiler

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Spoiler

Every higher order organism on this planet lives off of the death of other organisms.

Everything this guy said. If you want to be vegetarian then fine by me just leave me alone when I'm eating. I simply find it impossible imagine myself being a vegetarian. Anything else on my mind has been said by someone else and probably worded better.

 

[Tactical Pause]

Of course I don't feel guilty for eating meat. Bacon is humanity's reward for conquering the Earth (we'll get those damn insects eventually, just you wait).

 

[The_Echo]

Humans are omnivores. Meaning we're biologically designed to eat both meat and plants.

So no. You shouldn't feel guilty about eating meat. Why would you? Animals eating other animals is how nature keeps the population in check. Do you know how many cows there would be if we didn't eat them? Answer: a lot. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FavUpD_IjVY]

 

[Death God]

My basic thought is that if some wild animal is willing eat me to live, then I am willing as well. If I died and my family had to eat me to survive, then so be it. Do what you can to live another day... within reason of course.

Those damn chickens and their vicious hunting parties! Believe you me, if we weren't eating them they'd be all over us.

Exactly! Someone else sees the vicious side to chickens! Glad I'm not the only person who knows of their secret hunting parties they have.

 

[Arakasi]

In the terms of philosophy, a person is described as:
A self-conscious or rational being.
As such, this is the line I draw for equal rights. If you aren't rational or self-consious, then you have not the same rights as those who are.
If a pig started talking to me, I would most certainly not eat it, but until something can ask me for equal rights with knowledge of what that means, I will not give it.

That being said, I will not treat living creatures in a cruel manner just because they don't fall under the category of rational and self-consious. Pain is a clever survival adaption in more than one way aparently.

 

[PrinceFortinbras]

Of course you have to take advatages and disadvantages in to account, but I was constructing a simple moral maxim to try and show that ability for suffering grants moral relevance by comparing other (that includes animals) to the self.

However it do seem to me as if you link this effect a little to much with personal, egoistic gains. And I don't think that is what morality is about.

now lets apply my thought process when it comes to eating a pig
- (1) If I get eaten I am dead and any chance of my future achievements or my descendent achievements due to our advanced brains
- (2) It has a less advanced brain and different biology
- (3) It would die and any chance of a cognitively advanced species that may develop under the right conditions over billions of years
- (4) advantages of effect: People are motivated to work and earn money to buy nicer tasting cuts of meat, this work can support the society that lets people who can create/invent stuff that lets people life nice lives or even the scientist who ends up figuring out a realistic way of growing slabs of meat in a lab.
- (5) disadvantages of effect: a minimal chance of a species that can do science may not develop
- (conclusion) eat meat if it tastes nice

See here is where I think you are wrong. Again I don't see how achievent, advancement of the brain or intelligence grants you any sort of moral consideration. With those attributes you might do good for society, yes, but why is that a prerequisite for begin of moral relevance? Where do you draw the line? By this logic millions of people would be ethically worthless. Why does a species potential ability to do science matter at all? So if human kind was a little more stupid (say we never got smarter then the average six year old)it would be no problem for us to kill each other left right and centre?

And people are not motivated to work by the fact that they then can buy meat. If that was the case how can you explain that the richest minority in India are all vegans. Even if that was true it does not mean it would be morally justified, I would just mean that as a society we would be motivated by the wrong things.

 

[1337mokro]

Why is the "animals eat animals it's nature" argument a thing at all?!
It only makes sense if you don't think about it at all.

Last time I checked, we're the only species that "produces" meat in an industrial fashion so comparing us to a pack of lions is ridiculous.
Lions are not farmers that breed their gnus and gazelles and have a complex set of infrastructure to send the meat to hundreds of other lions that don't need to hunt at all.

In other terms: You rolling your lazy ass to burger king to order a double whopper does not equal a pack of lions eating their prey in the savanna.

As far as I am concerned, as soon as it involves the term "nature", it's a non-argument and you should try to come up with something more substantial (see also "arguments" against gay marriage).

Actually. Ants farm other species.

They build farms for fungus and house those leaf lice insects, the actual name escapes me, but anyway there are Herder Ants who basically cultivate these insects for the sweet dew they excrete. Once a lice gets to old or doesn't produce enough dew any more they are killed and eaten. They store the dew in their bodies and feed the Soldier ants with it whose mandibles are to big for them to eat anything else.

So no Humans are not the only ones who farm other creatures. There might be more but the ants always came to mind first cause in a way Humans and Ants are strangely similar.

Also I only eat meat that I cooked myself, I am literally revolted by the "meat" they serve in fast food places, it's more rubber than actual meat. It is also possible to get "free range" meat which means the animals were not kept in small cramped cages. On top of that avoiding any veal or pork already cuts out the worst of the Biofarm industry.

I don't feel guilty about cultivating an animal to feed me. It's a skill humans have attained through figuring out that hunting after the herds was a pain in the ass. That is also why we started farming. So we have food near us and don't need to hunt after it.

Don't you feel it's kinda weird saying no other animal keeps animals when no other animal cultivates fast stretches of land for food either?

Think about how many innocent animals were driven out of their homes all so you could have your Soy Bread.

See it's a stupid argument saying because Humans do something and animals don't it must be wrong.

 

[Arakasi]

In the terms of philosophy, a person is described as:
A self-conscious or rational being.
As such, this is the line I draw for equal rights. If you aren't rational or self-consious, then you have not the same rights as those who are.
If a pig started talking to me, I would most certainly not eat it, but until something can ask me for equal rights with knowledge of what that means, I will not give it.

That being said, I will not treat living creatures in a cruel manner just because they don't fall under the category of rational and self-consious. Pain is a clever survival adaption in more than one way aparently.

What about a severely mentally handicapped person? Would they not deserve rights? Would you eat them?

I bring up the point b/c I think there is more to the equation than just intelligence. Because when you look animal's brains there are way more similarities than differences. Evolutionary pressure led to humans with large brains. So what I am saying is that we are all just "talking pigs".

I forgot to mention it in my post.
A mentally handicapped person would most likely have relatives and such that would suffer should anything happen to them. And if they didn't well, then yes, but only morally.
From a legal standpoint it is better to stick all under the status of 'person' because it would be difficult to measure where someone becomes rational and self-consious.

And yes, I know we are animals, but, and someone has mentioned this before, the point of morality is to figure out how we can all live together with some sembalance of harmony. Killing/farming people would almost certainly upset that harmony. Animals on the other hand? No.

Oh, and we'd really have no use for human flesh, no one would eat it.

Captcha: braaains!
Seriously? Just when we're talking about eating people, that comes up. Sometimes I swear the captcha is contextual.

 

[PrinceFortinbras]

Yes. Example:

moral: of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes.

Hinduism holds cows to be sacred animals, therefore it is wrong to even harm them, let alone eat them. Christians do not hold cows as sacred and instead believe that ?Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything: Genesis 9-3?, therefore it is not wrong to eat them.

In your example, yes, one human murdering another is bad and that is a fairly universal human moral. However, since you almost brought Godwin into this, I'll also leave him out and reply simply that if a serial killer believed it wrong to kill someone, they would not do it. If that pro-life advocate had believed it was wrong to kill, that doctor would still be alive. If that woman who shot and killed her attacker believed it was wrong to kill, she might be dead herself. In each case the morals are still subjective and unique to the individual. Just because you and I may share the same morals, does not mean that the moral is automatically universal.

You seem to confusing morality with what people think is right and wrong. The fact that people disagree about ethical questions does not mean anything if we accept that sometinhg actually IS right or wrong, inderpendent of the people thinking it. It only means that someones moral position is wrong. And if you think that murder is universally wrong then you don't believe that morality is subjective.

EDIT: Quoted the wrong person.

 

[TomWiley]

there are so many wrongs in this world, but meat eating is not one of them, yes an ethical treatment of our food might be preferable, but it is so far down my moral priorities that i am not even sure it is there. with all the suffering that humans go through, from starvation, violence and violations the pain of something destined to be consumed barely registers.

i still dont understand how there still exists starvation on this planet given the over abundance of food

I think it's just a tad ironic that you mentioned human starvation as a more important issue. The meat industry is an enormous waste of water, grain and other resources that could be used to feed the entire human population many times over. Instead, these resources are wasted on the luxury of meat for us living in the western world.

Secondly, I don't really understand you're "let's deprioritize animal welfare because there are still many humans suffering"-argument. I mean, it's not like we can't do both! It's not like we have to shift time and money from helping human beings in some third world country to get clean water just because we choose to regulate the meat industry.

I hear this argument quite a lot; that we should take care of our human fellow human beings before we start worrying about animals. I usually reply with "well, which human rights organization do you donate to", which is normally met with silence.

More often than not, I find that the people interested in animal welfare are often the same people interested in other forms of charity.

you seem to think we disagree, but you kind of prove my point, we cannot even focus on taking care of each other, whether it is because of apathy or lack of possibility. we are not going to get anywhere near ensuring animal welfare as long as human suffering isn't alleviated.

luxury is not an issue, the amount of resources used for meat production pales in comparison to military expenditure, or entertainment.

however it seems that you are completely against eating meat regardless of treatment, or am i wrong?

and in answer to your question caritas internationalis, not so much human rights, more in line with the world food program.
and unicef a long long time ago.... although my ex kind of forced me into it

I'm not against eating meat per se. But I am against the meat industry, which I guess makes me a bit of a hypocrite seeing as I'm not a vegetarian myself so by consuming meat, I support that very industry.(even though I try to be a bit selective when it comes to where i buy the meat from)

I don't think we need to end all human suffering before we can get people to care about animal welfare. The fact that there are animal rights group and we are making progress with animal welfare issues proves that. But I do think that we'll need some sort of great ethical renaissance where the general public sentient shifts to be more aware on the impact our lifestyle has on other lives, whether human or animal.

I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon, but I think i'd be really interesting if it did.

 

[nuba km]

Of course you have to take advatages and disadvantages in to account, but I was constructing a simple moral maxim to try and show that ability for suffering grants moral relevance by comparing other (that includes animals) to the self.

However it do seem to me as if you link this effect a little to much with personal, egoistic gains. And I don't think that is what morality is about.

1. but like my previous example of going to the dentist the route that caused more suffering was the right route to take. So if you just went through the thought steps of how to people suffer less you would have gone to the dentist.

2. Also I link the advantages and disadvantages with both society and one self as both are taken into consideration with morals, its like the age old question 'is it right to steal a loaf of bread to feed your family' the self comes into the advantages of this with the survival of your self and the family, and the society falls into the disadvantages of this would blur the lines of what's right and wrong when it comes to stealing, which mean more people could end up stealing due to their lack of understanding of why that previous perosn stealing had a moral grey area.

now lets apply my thought process when it comes to eating a pig
- (1) If I get eaten I am dead and any chance of my future achievements or my descendent achievements due to our advanced brains
- (2) It has a less advanced brain and different biology
- (3) It would die and any chance of a cognitively advanced species that may develop under the right conditions over billions of years
- (4) advantages of effect: People are motivated to work and earn money to buy nicer tasting cuts of meat, this work can support the society that lets people who can create/invent stuff that lets people life nice lives or even the scientist who ends up figuring out a realistic way of growing slabs of meat in a lab.
- (5) disadvantages of effect: a minimal chance of a species that can do science may not develop
- (conclusion) eat meat if it tastes nice

See here is where I think you are wrong. Again I don't see how achievent, advancement of the brain or intelligence grants you any sort of moral consideration. With those attributes you might do good for society, yes, but why is that a prerequisite for begin of moral relevance? Where do you draw the line? By this logic millions of people would be ethically worthless. Why does a species potential ability to do science matter at all? So if human kind was a little more stupid (say we never got smarter then the average six year old)it would be no problem for us to kill each other left right and centre?

And people are not motivated to work by the fact that they then can buy meat. If that was the case how can you explain that the richest minority in India are all vegans. Even if that was true it does not mean it would be morally justified, I would just mean that as a society we would be motivated by the wrong things.

3. I presume with the millions of people you are talking about or are talking about those unable to do work for varies reasons may it be for physical or mental reasons, well a. even the most physically handicapped can still be of value to society (e.g. any physically handicapped person with a job). b. There are certain levels of mental handicapped which to bring someone to a level of which they will never be of use to society and if you think of it logically there would be very little down side to them just dying except for people who didn't think logically about it would most likely have similar but scaled up reactions too you randomly hitting paul. When it comes to the elderly, well we promised society if they work hard they can spend the last few years of their live just doing what they want, this is and excellent motivator to do work.

4. the ability to do science matters at it is a clear advantage or disadvantage when it comes to these decisions, though doing other things also matter, I mean note that horse meat and meat that comes from pets is meat much less consumed as they are able to give us some advantages to not killing and eating the, its the same kind of think a crocodile does with the bird that cleans its teeth, and if humans had the minds of a 6 year old killing each other still wouldn't make sense for the survival of the species.

5. better cuts of meat is one of the motivators not the only one, any luxury is a motivator to work harder.

6. You still have failed to show me what's wrong with killing and eating an animal, as something that wrong has to have a socialite or a self disadvantage

 

[Rumpsteak]

Nope. Maybe you should depending on how you have your values aligned but I have no problem with eating meat. I have some issues with how meat it "farmed" but that's a different issue.

 

[TomWiley]

Let me just jump in here.

Actually. Ants farm other species.

They build farms for fungus and house those leaf lice insects, the actual name escapes me, but anyway there are Herder Ants who basically cultivate these insects for the sweet dew they excrete. Once a lice gets to old or doesn't produce enough dew any more they are killed and eaten. They store the dew in their bodies and feed the Soldier ants with it whose mandibles are to big for them to eat anything else.

I think you rather missed the point he was trying to make.

Also I only eat meat that I cooked myself, I am literally revolted by the "meat" they serve in fast food places, it's more rubber than actual meat. It is also possible to get "free range" meat which means the animals were not kept in small cramped cages. On top of that avoiding any veal or pork already cuts out the worst of the Biofarm industry.

Okay, so know you're trying to miss the point.

I don't feel guilty about cultivating an animal to feed me. It's a skill humans have attained through figuring out that hunting after the herds was a pain in the ass. That is also why we started farming. So we have food near us and don't need to hunt after it.

So because it takes skill to "cultivate" animals for us to feed on, the way we do it is automatically justified as well? That's a strange argument to make. It took a great deal of skill for the Stalin administration to secretly kill off 20 billion human beings but that certainly doesn't make it right.

Don't you feel it's kinda weird saying no other animal keeps animals when no other animal cultivates fast stretches of land for food either? Think about how many innocent animals were driven out of their homes all so you could have your Soy Bread.

That's a psuedo-argument. It's an Ad hominem in which you try to prove that he is being inconsistent in his reasoning, but he isn't. See even if it's true that animals are being affected negatively by farming practices, that negative impact is not even comparable to that of the meat industry which slaughters approximately 9 billion animals for food each year.

See it's a stupid argument saying because Humans do something and animals don't it must be wrong.

Well from what I understand, that's not what he is trying to say. He said that it's stupid to justify our meat industry by saying that i'ts natural for animals to eat each other. It relies on the faulty premise that our slaughterhouses are even comparable to, for a example, a lion killing a gazelle for food.

 

[Slayer_2]

I don't think people understand the term "omnivore". One thing is for sure, it doesn't mean you should only eat either meat OR plants.

In short, hell no. I have a lot more to feel guilty about than some dumb animal dying.

So because it takes skill to "cultivate" animals for us to feed on, the way we do it is automatically justified as well? That's a strange argument to make. It took a great deal of skill for the Stalin administration to secretly kill off 20 billion human beings but that certainly doesn't make it right.

I'm sure Stalin killed 3 times the world's current population, that's a really realistic number. I hope it was a typo. Also, the fact that you can even place the value of an animal's life anywhere near a human life is despicable and disturbing.

 

[PrinceFortinbras]

1. but like my previous example of going to the dentist the route that caused more suffering was the right route to take. So if you just went through the thought steps of how to people suffer less you would have gone to the dentist.
2. Also I link the advantages and disadvantages with both society and one self as both are taken into consideration with morals, its like the age old question 'is it right to steal a loaf of bread to feed your family' the self comes into the advantages of this with the survival of your self and the family, and the society falls into the disadvantages of this would blur the lines of what's right and wrong when it comes to stealing, which mean more people could end up stealing due to their lack of understanding of why that previous perosn stealing had a moral grey area.

1. Going to the dentist causes less suffering in the long run so it is the right thing to do. Also this is a matter of personal preference: if you think it is better to suffer a tooth ache then to suffer at a dentist to get rid of it that is your own decision. I see no problem here.

2. I generally agree with that.

3. I presume with the millions of people you are talking about or are talking about those unable to do work for varies reasons may it be for physical or mental reasons, well a. even the most physically handicapped can still be of value to society (e.g. any physically handicapped person with a job). b. There are certain levels of mental handicapped which to bring someone to a level of which they will never be of use to society and if you think of it logically there would be very little down side to them just dying except for people who didn't think logically about it would most likely have similar but scaled up reactions too you randomly hitting paul. When it comes to the elderly, well we promised society if they work hard they can spend the last few years of their live just doing what they want, this is and excellent motivator to do work.
4. the ability to do science matters at it is a clear advantage or disadvantage when it comes to these decisions, though doing other things also matter, I mean note that horse meat and meat that comes from pets is meat much less consumed as they are able to give us some advantages to not killing and eating the, its the same kind of think a crocodile does with the bird that cleans its teeth, and if humans had the minds of a 6 year old killing each other still wouldn't make sense for the survival of the species.
5. better cuts of meat is one of the motivators not the only one, any luxury is a motivator to work harder.
6. You still have failed to show me what's wrong with killing and eating an animal, as something that wrong has to have a socialite or a self disadvantage

3: But you still haven't answered my fundamental question. What is it that makes an individual valuable in the moral sense? Is it just that persons service to society? If you think that then it would presumably be permissible to kill an innocent hermit. And what if we had no society? This is not a problem in my view where I value the ability to suffer on an individual level. Is it morally right to serve any society, even if that society is the producer of much wrong doing?

4: I understand that the ability to do science is important for a society, of course, and I can see how a scientist with the ability to cure cancer has more value than a serial killer on a sinking ship. But I have more trouble understanding how this ability to do science is relevant on a species level. Being a scientist is an individual characteristic. I think this is symptomatic of the way you tie moral worth so closely up with society and usefulness to it. The questions asked in number three apply here as well.

5: Yes, a small one. And my point still stands: I shouldn?t be.

6: By the self I hope you mean the self of the victim in a given situation as well as the perpetrator. For in that case I think I have shown that eating meat is a big disadvantage to the self of the animal. The animals obviously have a preference for being alive and living the best life possible.

 

[MPerce]

Yes, you should feel very guilty, you cow-murdering bastard. And you should feel especially guilty if you get some Chick-Fil-A, because then you're both a murderer and a HOMOPHOBE!!!

In all seriousness, I feel no guilt for eating meat. We are omnivores, we like to eat meat. Now, in today's world we definitely don't HAVE to. There's nothing vital that meat provides that a variety of other foods don't. Hell, red meat is fucking horrible for you in some ways. So if you don't wanna eat it, then don't eat it. If you do, go for it. Who cares?

....well, the animals might, but that's how the food chain works.