What is true of the animals that we kill and eat that if true of humans would make it morally permissible to kill and eat humans?

I might not be understanding the question. It's already morally permissable for animals to kill and eat humans, if they can get away with it. A poloar bear hasn't done anything morally wrong if it eats a human, but it may have made a deadly mistake.

(March 13, 2026 at 1:10 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: I might not be understanding the question. It's already morally permissable for animals to kill and eat humans, if they can get away with it. A poloar bear hasn't done anything morally wrong if it eats a human, but it may have made a deadly mistake.

Maybe I phrased it badly.

I'm asking what is true of animals that makes it morally permissible for humans to eat animals that if true of humans would make it morally permissible for humans to eat humans?

You're assuming that it is some property of humans besides being human that forms the moral basis. What if it isn't?

(March 13, 2026 at 1:04 pm)Disagreeable Wrote: What is true of the animals that we kill and eat that if true of humans would make it morally permissible to kill and eat humans?

We (as a society, not individuals) view non-human animals as lesser. I don't personally agree with that assessment, but I also eat a mostly plant-based diet.

(March 13, 2026 at 1:04 pm)Disagreeable Wrote: What is true of the animals that we kill and eat that if true of humans would make it morally permissible to kill and eat humans?

Nothing.

Boru

(March 13, 2026 at 1:42 pm)Jackalope Wrote:

(March 13, 2026 at 1:04 pm)Disagreeable Wrote: What is true of the animals that we kill and eat that if true of humans would make it morally permissible to kill and eat humans?

We (as a society, not individuals) view non-human animals as lesser.  I don't personally agree with that assessment, but I also eat a mostly plant-based diet.

As omnivores, we don't need to eat meat, but there seems to be nothing immoral about being what we are by nature. It is necessary that some animals eat other animals by their nature. Placing humans outside this hierarchy fucks up everything, yet how many humans will voluntarily waive the privilege?

(March 13, 2026 at 1:50 pm)Angrboda Wrote:

(March 13, 2026 at 1:42 pm)Jackalope Wrote: We (as a society, not individuals) view non-human animals as lesser.  I don't personally agree with that assessment, but I also eat a mostly plant-based diet.

As omnivores, we don't need to eat meat, but there seems to be nothing immoral about being what we are by nature.  It is necessary that some animals eat other animals by their nature.  Placing humans outside this hierarchy fucks up everything, yet how many humans will voluntarily waive the privilege?

Well, human cannibalism does have a long and storied history.

Boru

(March 13, 2026 at 1:40 pm)Angrboda Wrote: You're assuming that it is some property of humans besides being human that forms the moral basis.  What if it isn't?

No, I'm not assuming that. Because being human could indeed be the property that makes it okay to eat animals but not okay to eat humans.

Then we get problems like what counts as being human? If it is having human DNA, for instance, then what if there was a creature very like a human but with different DNA, would it be okay to eat them? Etc. What if you found out that your mother didn't have human DNA, would it then be okay for somebody to eat her? Etc.

Gotcha. But isn't cannibalistic murder a separate issue? This one is hard to tease out. Asking what would make it ethically permissable for civilized aliens to eat us doesn't help much, because their alien nature might make eating us a non-issue, ethically. Their word for 'human' might mean 'food that objects irritatingly to being devoured'.

I don't think it's ethical to kill and eat great apes because of their intelligence and close relation to us. I'm back and forth on pork.

I don't have an ethical issue with eating cultred human meat though my mind revolts at the idea of eating it myself. And I have objections to making exceptions for humans who aren't mentally 'more there' than some animals we do eat. Seems like a slippery slope.

Maybe turn it around? What would make it morally permissable for us to eat a civilized alien species? I don't think anything would, unless they have some kind of biological or social imperative to be killed and eaten before they can succumb to old age or sickness.

Ultimately, ethics never entered into deciding to eat meat in the first place. There was no decision. We're omnivores who, in the wild at least, need some meat in our diets because it's very difficult to meet our metabolic needs on the savannah without some. We had to develop a certain level of agriculture to make vegetarianism, let alone veganism, practical. I can't think of any society that, as a whole, has switched to vegetarianism without religion has a motivator. We're still waiting on a society to switch to full veganism.