Meat, meat, a wonderful thing?

[Radical_Dreamer]

In the general case, I don't view predation as being within the scope of morality. Is it moral for a fox to eat a hen? The question is meaningless. So humans eating meat isn't moral or immoral; it's amoral. That said, one can take issue with the treatment of farm animals. Idealy, they should not be made to suffer unneccisarrily. That's the real moral issue on eating meat: Are you torturing or predating?

I don't like to dignify concepts like "morality" with my earnest discussion most of the time, but for the sake of making a point, let me play along with your phrasing. Many of these so-called moral judgments that people make only exist because we have sufficiently advanced minds to conceive of the desire for a judgment in the first place. You're right that a fox would be committing an amoral act by eating a hen. Indeed, if we had to pass judgment, I think a good one would be that the fox is doing what is natural for it.

Morality is a word for considering how the actions of concious entities affect other concious entities. That is a part of the topic at hand. If you don't like that word, you may suggest another.

But people aren't foxes. We have brains powerful enough to step above our instincts and behave rationally, if desired. And now that society provides us with more than enough food to satisfy our basic needs, all of a sudden this question of what to eat becomes more complicated. Is it really harmless for us to pick our oceans clean of fish? It may be harmless from the uncaring perspective of the universe, but it is something that we humans find upsetting because of the loss of these diverse creatures, the loss of a good food source, and the risk of unintended consequences in the biodiversity of the oceans. And it is certainly harmful for the fish.

I'm all for sustainable growing in all food production industries, animal or vegitable. I think all activities should be sustainable, because it's the most rational course of action. Really, unsustainable practices are stupid and shortsighted. That said, my desire for fish to not be tortured is completely seperate. That has to do with my distaste for the needless suffering of other concious creatures.

Likewise with mammal meat: Every day it seems like the scientific community produces another study suggesting that higher animals are more capable of mind than we realized. Due to the spectacular rarity of cognitive sophistication in the course of biological evolution, these creatures are worth a lot more than we may be able to quantify economically. We certainly should think twice before consuming these animals to their extinction, and, moreover, we should even rethink the fate of those individual animals who are alive today: What life experiences are we depriving them of, by raising them as food stock? Even if their deaths are as painless as possible, what about their lives? If slaughtering live humans--after raising them in captivity for their entire lives--sounds even the least bit repugnant to you, then, at the very least, you have to consider the question again for animals.

I have never once advocated consumption to the point of extinction, or even near extinction. I'm all for sustainability. That's not the interesting bit, I don't think any rational person is for such a practice. The real meat as it were, is in regards to the treatment of the individual animals. Take a look at how the cows that become Kobe beef live. They get to run and play in pasteurs all day, recieve regular massages, and have comfortable barns to keep them dry and warm at night. As cows go, either ranched or free, those cows have it pretty good. Also, I have seen no evidence that cows (or other common feed stock) can imagine a better life than the one they have, nor are they likely to receive a better one than in my example. If we give them an above natural standard of life, and a mercieless death, we are doing them a greater kindness than uncaring nature. I'm not saying that all, or even most farm animals are raised in that fashion, but if they were, I think that it would be fair enough treatment that human predation of animals would disapear as a moral issue.

And remember this as well: Someday, humans will seldom if ever eat meat. Which side of history do you want to be on?

They currently have meat synthesizers. Not all the kinks are worked out, and they aren't large enough for commercial scale, or cheap enough for home use, but they're working on it. They still need cow blood, which is expensive, and doesn't end the dependence on animal product for meat. But we will live to see the day of home meat synthesizers, where you can combine the taste and texture profile with the nutrition profile of your favorite animals in the comfort of your own home. The day I bring one of those machines home, I'll be willing to stop eating animal derrived meat. Not out of some moral compulsion to protect the animals, but out of health, both mine and that of Life* itself. It's not the humans will stop eating meat, it's that they'll stop eating animal derrived meat. I pick the side of scientific progress.

*Capital L intentional, I'm refering to the system of life on Earth

[Legend of the Past]

You... totally missed my point, Josh. My point is that awareness doesn't matter. If I see an adorable little chick a moment after her mother was well on the way to be next week's dinner, I would obviously feel an overwhelming amount of pity towards it. But that doesn't make the devouring of an apple or tomato more or less justified. YOU'RE the one who says to not allow emotions to take advantage of your better judgement, and I'm doing just that. Just because I can personally identify with a cow more than I can identify with a carrot doesn't mean it's death is less justified-death is death, and there isn't lesser degrees of death or higher degrees of death-if you got shot in the head or took one too many pills, it doesn't matter-you're still the same dead body, who's likely to be buried in the same grave, visited by the same people. I'm not saying we should put up tombstones in honor of the noble potatoes or make a national holiday for our friends the trees (Amusingly enough, us Juden actually have an holiday for trees, just goes to show how even the bible supports what I believe-at least to some level), but I'm just saying we shouldn't treat meat and vegetable differently-one's death isn't less important, because like I just said-it's so ignored people already don't know the difference, and if you really don't want to kill to eat-I'm sorry, you'll be dead in a couple of months, if you'll hold out that long-and if you will, you'll likely be maddened before you die.

Plainly you've never seen Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

No, but one of my best quotes, according to my friends, is 'Have you ever cut a tomato and heard screaming?'.

Though I must admit, the song does come to shed light on the matter, it's not like we don't do that with just about BLOODY EVERYTHING ELSE, ourselves included. 

[Radical_Dreamer]

Your awareness isn't the issue, Legend. The issue is the awareness of the creature being eaten. A tomato has no concious experience. It doesn't know it exists, it percieves nothing; it can not feel pain, or fear, or loss. It's death changes nothing from the perspective of the tomato. A cow, on the other hand, is capable of feeling those things; it is concious, it is aware. That is why the death of a cow is not analagous to the death of a tomato in this case.

[Legend of the Past]

Your awareness isn't the issue, Legend. The issue is the awareness of the creature being eaten. A tomato has no concious experience. It doesn't know it exists, it percieves nothing; it can not feel pain, or fear, or loss. It's death changes nothing from the perspective of the tomato. A cow, on the other hand, is capable of feeling those things; it is concious, it is aware. That is why the death of a cow is not analagous to the death of a tomato in this case.

You, too, missed my point, RD. When I said awareness isn't the issue, I talked about the creatures being eaten. If they're aware or not hints that creatures who can't feel pain or sorrow deserve to be eaten alive, and as Dan's song claimed, steamed, sliced, slashed, frozen and fried, while creatures who can't feel pain-don't. That's something I can't really approve of, I'm sorry-All life is equal, and if it's alright to eat veggies, you should meat without hesitation, as well. The opposite also applies, of course. This really has nothing to do with me being a vegetable worshiper or something (which I am not), this has to do with the fact that you can't separate two things on the basis of whether pain or not. The feeling of pain doesn't ultimately matter in the long run, because let's face it, we've all lived long enough with the knowledge that this cow we're eating probably suffered quite a bit prior to it's death, and I doubt you burst in tears and called your mom an insensitive monster who helps the evil food companies slaughter animals by paying them to do so. I'm not saying you should, and this isn't exactly my point. The point is that in this case, you shouldn't look at this particular case. It's like saying gunning down a comatose man and gunning down a living man isn't the same. So the comatose man didn't scream in pain, burst in tears and died in a dramatic manner-so what? A man still died. On the same note, just because we don't have little carrots crying for their mommies or tomatoes who actually do scream when cut with a knife doesn't mean it's any less a death or any less a murder. 

[Radical_Dreamer]

That all life may be equal from a biological stand point doesn't make it equal from a moral standpoint. By your logic, I am equally justified in cannibalizing a random passer-by as to pulling an orange from a tree, which will continue to live for another hundred years without ever knowing that I had taken the orange or that it had existed at all. Is that what you are willing to assert?

[Lord J Esq]

It has nothing to do with morality. He's saying that all lives are equivalent when it comes to justifying whether to eat some of them. But he's wrong; there's nothing sacred or inviolable about the biological condition of life itself. A tomato loses nothing when it dies, because it has no means to possess. Only a conscious experience can possess the experience of life. Legend doesn't get that, which is why there is no point arguing: We've got different starting premises. No consensus will be reached.

[Legend of the Past]

It has nothing to do with morality. He's saying that all lives are equivalent when it comes to justifying whether to eat some of them. But he's wrong; there's nothing sacred or inviolable about the biological condition of life itself. A tomato loses nothing when it dies, because it has no means to possess. Only a conscious experience can possess the experience of life. Legend doesn't get that, which is why there is no point arguing: We've got different starting premises. No consensus will be reached.

Partially biological. I just take 'The Sacredness of life' as literal. I don't view things in terms of possession or lack thereof. Also, RD, I'm sorry to inform you, but cannibalism is forbidden as a norm, as taboo. If I claim you can eat just about whatever you want, then humans fall into that section as well-but even if I say what I believe, it's not to say I eat everything I see. And, despite I recognize it's taboo, norms aren't that easy to escape from, because I can't just ignore the way I way I was raised. At the same time I'm not trying to define anyone's diet-they can eat what they want, and live with the results. All I'm saying is to me, the whole argument seems null-do you kill an orange when you eat it? Certainly. It's death, and if you're that much against death, why do you ignore the death of other living things? Why are the only things we see is Tiger pups and tranquil bears hibernating? If you go against the death of other living things, you gotta be a little more general in that approach-otherwise you're either ignorant or an hypocrite who does nothing but say half-truths. 

[Daniel Krispin]

Okay, I think you're starting to become a bit of a sophist, Legend, in arguing it like this. The thing is, a tomato (as an example) is not the same as an animal. Why? Because the tomato is not the tomato plant. The tomato is the seed-carrier. Its purpose is to fall to the ground and die. Same goes for a lot of fruits and vegitables. Okay, sure, cutting down a tree might be considered 'bad' in your books, but what you are also saying then is picking off a pinecone is bad. But that's not the same thing.

Anyway, part of the problem is genetic association. We are more loath to eat animals just because we are more loath to eat a person. A person is genetically almost identical, for all purposes, so to eat one is what we call cannibalism. It is something that could not be done with any sort of order, and would destroy our own species, thus there is a natual revulsion against it. Animals have the same thing with them. They are not nearly as related as a person, but they are still far, far nearer than any plant. Call them the distant relatives genetically. Though we're not quite like them, they're close enough in relation for there to be a bit of a feeling there. Plants... if you're an evolitionist, which I think you are, tell me, when did their development split off from animals. 2 billion years ago? That's two families two billion years removed. Likewise, we don't feel nearly the same sort of sympathy for lizards or insects as we do for mammals. But are these all the same? No. What we are looking at in judging if it's right or not is not some scale of a 'higher order of life' but how near they are to our own species. That's what's dictating this, I think. Thus plants, so very far removed, are a totally different sort of organism, so foreign that, well... they're as foreign as bacteria.

[Legend of the Past]

You know you could ask that question for the fish, lizards and insects. I know you do. You're asking me why the primordial soup spit out life-forms that would develop into many different catagories. I don't pretend to know this, I never have. I also never talked about a biological stand point, it's something RD and Josh seemed to realize from my posts, which is only half true. My definition of alive is the biological one.
That same tomato which falls to the ground a seed carrier is, on the same line, deprived of it's purpose. Instead of allowing it to fulfill it's purpose of moving the genes of the plant to the next generation, it insteads gets picked off, cut up, steamed and put in a fish, which was also murdered, cut up, frozen and transported-only to be fried, emptied of it's bones and organs, and be stuffed with steamed tomatoes.
Again, I'm not trying to tell someone what to eat. I'm just saying-you hate seeing living creatures die in the cost of our nurturing? Fine, then eating plants is bad too. Don't eat those, either.

Thus plants, so very far removed, are a totally different sort of organism, so foreign that, well... they're as foreign as bacteria.

Bullshit. We have that much common with plants on some levels it's amazing. Plants actually make their own food for the most part, and are hence the most innocent in this entire argument.

[Daniel Krispin]

You ARE arguing this like a sophist, you know. All that means is you can use tricks of logic to make a weak case stronger - it doesn't make you right. It's like arguing that sons should be allowed to beat up their fathers. It can be argued to be the case (see Aristophanes), but that doesn't make the argument right. The thing is, your whole argument is based on a single concept that is a matter of your own opinion: that all life is equal, plant or animal. Without that, your entire argument becomes meaningless. And yet, I don't think you can justify that first, crucial, stance, more than by saying 'I believe', thus making your who argument rather opinion-based rather than reason. A tomato is not equal to an animal nor to human. Saying it does doesn't make it so. If I call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Four. Calling it a leg doesn't make it one. In the same way, saying that a tomato is an equal life to an animal does not make it so.

The thing is, I'm not heartlessly cruel to animals or anything. I detest spiders, but I won't kill them if I find them. Usually I'll just have them moved, or ignore them. But on the same note... okay, here, I've got the clincher for you Legend. A hypothetical example.

A man with a gun is standing forward, and in front of him are a man, a dog, and a pear. He says he will shoot one of them. The choice is yours which one. In that situation, would you seriously say 'it doesn't matter, they're all equal'? Or will you say 'the pear'. If it is just the man and a dog, would you say it doesn't matter, or would you go for the human life over the animal? And don't just start making things up now in order to keep with your argument. Tell me how you'd actually act - don't deceive yourself or me. And I would be willing to bet that you would say the man on all accounts. And as soon as you've done that, you've stratified the value of life, and placed it human-animal-plant. And, in doing so, you have annulled your argument. You might be arguing for equality but, as I said, you are arguing as a mere sophist - playing the devil's advocate. You don't really believe that, or if you think you do you've fooled yourself as well. The case you are making is really weak.

[ZeaLitY]

The issue is sentience. Humans are but animals with this self-emergent quality of consciousness, an amazing light which is greater than the sum of its neural parts. It is difficult to argue that the rest of the animal kingdom, having brains, does not enjoy the same quality -- though at a minuscule degree. A tomato lacks this, but when we kill an animal, somewhere in this universe there is a feeling of pain. The animal may not understand it; the pain may be but a vague whisper in a pitch black vacuum, but it exists.

Which makes the issue one of the ends justifying the means and one of human morality. How much pain do we justify to carry humanity to become masters of the universe? Do we hold back at all? Can consciousness be qualitatively analyzed?

But what makes this problem hard is that is that there is no objection from the victims. And once we learn how to synthesize food more pleasing to our palates than the real thing could ever be, the moral issue will permanently wither. So as a responsible human being, I would base my objections to extreme measures of abuse -- such as the stuffing of birds for foie gras or the treatment of sows who are stuck in cages without enough room to even roll over. The drawing of responsible lines and limits will require the participation and education of many, but at present the world has more pressing, societal issues to solve. And as long as overpopulation continues, the animal kingdom will be squeezed harder.

[Lord J Esq]

I can't believe we're having this discussion...




*screams into communicator*

ZEPPELIN !!

[Burning Zeppelin]

You called?

[Lord J Esq]

It's your fault for making this topic!

[Burning Zeppelin]

It's your fault for typing in huge bold italics!