Mattersmasher said:
I don't buy the whole 'vegetarian but I eat fish' thing. Why do people count fish as a vegetable?
In my old 15 years being a vegetarian, that phrase caused me and my family both the most amusement and the most irritation.
That one's just basic stupidity, of course. "Vegetarian", by definition means you don't eat meat. It's not, not eating RED meat, it's meat in general. If there were a name for this diet, like "fishatarian" or something similar, that would probably help these people forget this stupid notion.
Oh God, I just googled it. So many idiots saying the very same phrase...
Samurai Goomba said:
Hey, I'm well aware you're not in favor of the diet, I'm just disproving the idea that even THAT diet can avoid killing animals. Point is, it can't. In a way, all diets cause the death of animals. After that, it's a matter of degree or method. Is it better to kill a cow and feed many people, or kill many mice to harvest different vegetables to kill a few people? And what constitutes "relatively intelligent?" Where's the line? If it's any animal, then shouldn't we focus on saving the most animals, rather than the largest ones? In that case, kill the cow and leave the mice alone.
Okay, cool.
I wouldn't say "any animal", but rather prioritise in order of estimated intelligence. If we are to consider humans above animals for our intellect, then we must do the same on a staircase going down the levels of intelligence.
Or maybe there's some substance in an ecological approach. In such an approach, if you're going to have to kill something for meat, you'd kill a thing which, in dying, will remove some kind of other harm from the environment. In this sense, in your example, the cow would be a better choice than the mice, because of the harmful causes of released biogases, i.e. global warming and its potential ramifications. Because killing the cow might save other species in the long run, presuming that energy would not be used otherwise. However, if that cow's going to be replaced by industrial breeding, then that changes the equation.
It's very difficult to find a solution to all of this. But that's all the more reason why it becomes a personal solution for most people.
In any case, no matter how relatively ethical killing different animals is, I would view killing plants as more ethical. There's no known perception of pain, and no real emotion or consciousness (that we really know about, anyway) in plantlife. Finally, if we are pragmatically inclined here, a plant can reproduce in much greater number on average than any animal. That means less direct harm.
Killing plants may endanger other lifeforms, but that depends on the plantation. Some are cut off from the outside world, thus preventing greater harm, and some are not. These practices are ecological issues, and should not be defining factors in choosing a diet or measuring how ethical it is. Besides, while killing plants or putting poison on them in agricultural practice may harm wild animal life, neither of these are typically supported gardening methods for the demographic that vegetarians often fall into, so the relevance to this topic is close to nil.
I don't like it when animals are raised in their own feces for their entire lifespan or made to eat foods they weren't intended to (like cows eating meat/corn), but they don't have to be raised that way. There are alternatives. One doesn't have to become a vegetarian or preach to others about eating soy or whatever in order to reduce the suffering of animals. In a way, the best method to ease the suffering of animals is to hunt them yourself with a gun. Bullets kill faster and with less pain than arrows, and the animal gets to live its entire life up to that point in the wild, running free.
A bullet is as easy a thing to screw up on aim with, though. And if you hit the wrong spot at the wrong time, you'll cause massive pain to the animal AND lose your target, depending on where you're doing this.
Eating free range is a great start for anyone concerned for animal rights, but I don't think that necessarily needs to be a replacement for the vegetarian approach. This is still a lifestyle choice here, and most natural deficiencies resulting from the diet can be supplemented or completely removed in some form or another. Plus, there's the chance to do both, and probably save more intelligent lives.
I also don't think we can reasonably compare the killing of animals with the killing of people.
Of course not.
Especially not the traditional "food" animals.
This is where we differ. As far as I'm concerned, tradition shouldn't matter squat in defining what is ethical. Maybe in what's practical, but that is another ballgame.
Besides, some animals would kill and eat me. There's a point at which arguing morality takes a backseat to survival. Dump somebody in the wilderness with almost nothing and see how long they stay vegetarian.
That logic doesn't make sense to me. Humanity is at a point of power in its survival at the moment - there are 6 billion of us, and the changes in light and sound we have made can be seen from outside our world - a perspective which we ourselves can see through the power of our luxurious and exuberant technologies. In a context like that, I would say that we, in the rich nations at least, can afford to make choices based on morality. What an animal would do in your shoes is irrelevant. You have the higher intellect. Shouldn't you use that to take a higher choice?
Meat is an easy source of protein and fatty acids which our bodies need. Lots of people eat more meat than they need to, or eat poor-quality meat mass-produced in industrial slaughterhouses, but that doesn't mean meat is without nutritional merit.
An easy source, but not the only source. Besides which, the possible replacements are mostly more nutritious. In the obesity crisis as the media keeps calling it, I think we could use a lot more of that kind of comparatively fatless nutrition.
