Do you agree with Richard Dawkins?

[The Grand Nudger]

I think the disconnect here is what you term "unneccessary suffering", honestly. Many people take a naive or polemicized view of what suffering is entailed in the process of livestock production (or why this or that practice is used).

We've all seen the documentaries where cameras are taken into shitty slaughterhouses. The viewer might be left with the notion that this is how it is done, or the only way that it can be done. This is entirely untrue. This is a problem of standards and enforcement, not morality or ethics. It may seem strange to stun an animal then bleed it out, but this is "necessary" to prevent spoilage of the meat.

Meat is a very important food source for us. It may seem "unnecessary" to you but this is likely due to your country of origin. Agricultural crops are not as reliable as livestock (except in capital intensive systems largely relegated to first world countries, and even then often on the backs of livestock operations in third world countries), common protein substitute crops are not suitable for production in all areas. This is letting aside the big hungry gap in any given climate beyond the subtropics (the tropics actually have a hungry gap in the warmest months, some parts of the subtropics do as well).

[mediamogul]

"Sentience" is not determined by species? News to me. Are there sentient carrots and non sentient carrots then? Sentient cattle and non-sentient cattle? "Sentience" is a description of an effect that seems to be the product of a specific type of biological machinery which is doled out in certain species. Hell, only one species was involved in forming the definition of the word to begin with......Perhaps that's the trouble right there, we started with a shitty definition?

Under the "either you have it or you don't" argument, couldn't I just anesthetize any animal before slaughter? Or perhaps I could stun them so that they were not aware of what was about to happen, thereby eliminating any suffering? Like, IDK, a captive bolt or penetrating stunner to the head?

Sentience is, again, determined by consciousness and the ability to suffer. Not inclusion in a particular species. It might be that sentience is passed as a phenotype amongst specific species and is inherent to those species but that is not the consideration in itself.

Second point is again a good point. The link is depriving them of life when they have a right to live due to their sentience. This is the argument of the desires of one thing impinging upon the rights of another. A carrot does not care one way or another whether or not it lives but a cow does. You are not depriving a carrot of life, liberty and the reasonable pursuit of it's own needs. A carrot could never experience any of those things due to, once again, lack of a nervous system. This is a factual statement and not drawn on the lines of species. If some carrots were found to be sentient then they would be worthy of consideration. To my knowledge there are no plants that appear to exhibit consciousness or the ability to experience pain. It would be interesting to find one that did, though.

It's been a while since I've had someone stick with the argument long enough to get to this point. Usually people say "but it tastes so good" and are out.

[The Grand Nudger]

So it isn't about life, liberty, or a reasonable pursuit of it's own needs (carrots get passing marks on all three metrics), it's an issue of whether or not they know they have it. That sentience is determined by consciousness or the ability to suffer does not alter the scenario one bit. Those things are determined by species. We do not see sentient memebers of species which are otherwise not sentient (no sentient carrots). That quality is a product of biology. Speciesism isn't all that bad is it?

Also, it does taste so good. That is honestly all that I require. Its a neutral issue for me in the same way that it is a neutral issue for a wolf, a snake, a spider, or an omnivorous primate....
(I've stuck with this only for interesting ancillary points about farming, what it means to be sentient, etc. I don't think that your invocation of ethics or morality as a justification for vegetarianism is as solid as you seem to think it is. If someone were to ask me why I eat meat, or how I justify it, it's simple. I am an omnivore. You invoke sentience, friendly or hostile definitions, speciesism, innate rights, unnecessary suffering. That's a long way to go don't you think? It would be simpler and easier to justify such a stance if you could claim to be herbivorous, but that wouldn't be entirely true, would it? More of an omnivore playing herbivore, and only in a specific area, still fully availing yourself of the bounty of dead animals in other ways.)

[mediamogul]

I think the disconnect here is what you term "unneccessary suffering", honestly. Many people take a naive or polemicized view of what suffering is entailed in the process of livestock production (or why this or that practice is used).

We've all seen the documentaries where cameras are taken into shitty slaughterhouses. The viewer might be left with the notion that this is how it is done, or the only way that it can be done. This is entirely untrue. This is a problem of standards and enforcement, not morality or ethics. It may seem strange to stun an animal then bleed it out, but this is "necessary" to prevent spoilage of the meat.

Meat is a very important food source for us. It may seem "unnecessary" to you but this is likely due to your country of origin. Agricultural crops are not as reliable as livestock (except in capital intensive systems largely relegated to first world countries, and even then often on the backs of livestock operations in third world countries), common protein substitute crops are not suitable for production in all areas. This is letting aside the big hungry gap in any given climate beyond the subtropics (the tropics actually have a hungry gap in the warmest months, some parts of the subtropics do as well).

This is number three in the Trinity of arguments against the one I have presented for vegetarianism. This one is significant but less so than the objections you raised to the idea of sentience. It's simple: I have one lasting prejudice for humans. If it was shown that it was utterly necessary for animals to be killed, potentially even in a painful way, for humans to survive then I would say it is fine for the animals to be killed. Humans and animals are not on an absolutely even footing for me. If it was the apocalypse and I had to kill a dog to survive then I would. Not only would I, but I don't think I would feel bad about it. I would not kill another human to eat him and survive.

This is one of the main reasons why I am not an activist (also because they come across as a bunch of morons sometimes too). I recognize the fallibility of my own logic and human logic in general. I have my doubts. I choose to be vegetarian but do not make that same demand of others. It needs to be a freely chosen practice by those who decide to undertake it. The lifestyle has worked out great for me and I am in the best shape of my life. I will certain discuss and present my arguments if it comes up but otherwise you won't see me out there with a picket sign in front of a meat packing plant.

[The Grand Nudger]

It only seems less significant to you because you are obviously well fed. Starving folks the world over would disagree. They don't give a flying fuck about what it means to be sentient. They do, however, give a flying fuck about whether or not they have food. This is where I get frustrated in conversations like these. Your idealistic view (that is apparently cultivated to be in accordance with your notions of ethics or morality) of what food production is or could be is at odds with the reality of what it is and could be. In this area I actually am an activist. CFA all the way baby! I'm all about integrated agriculture and "green" practices. Sadly these do not always align with green politics and most of the best systems are still prohibitively expensive (shameless aside).

Your testimonials of good health and general well-being do not constitute a justification for your claim to moral or ethical vegetarianism. Voodoo "works" for people as well.

[mediamogul]

So it isn't about life, liberty, or a reasonable pursuit of it's own needs (carrots get passing marks on all three metrics), it's an issue of whether or not they know they have it. That sentience is determined by consciousness or the ability to suffer does not alter the scenario one bit. Those things are determined by species. We do not see sentient memebers of species which are otherwise not sentient (no sentient carrots). That quality is a product of biology. Speciesism isn't all that bad is it?

Also, it does taste so good. That is honestly all that I require. Its a neutral issue for me in the same way that it is a neutral issue for a wolf, a snake, a spider, or an omnivorous primate....
(I've stuck with this only for interesting ancillary points about farming, what it means to be sentient, etc. I don't think that your invocation of ethics or morality as a justification for vegetarianism is as solid as you seem to think it is. If someone were to ask me why I eat meat, or how I justify it, it's simple. I am an omnivore. You invoke sentience, friendly or hostile definitions, speciesism, innate rights, unnecessary suffering. That's a long way to go don't you think? It would be simpler and easier to justify such a stance if you could claim to be herbivorous, but that wouldn't be entirely true, would it? More of an omnivore playing herbivore, and only in a specific area, still fully availing yourself of the bounty of dead animals in other ways.)

That last piece is an is-ought gap fallacy. Simply because something is the way it is doesn't mean that it ought to be that way. A carnivore is not a vegetarian. A herbivore is not a meat eater. An omnivore can eat both meat and plants. Descriptive, not ethically binding. It's not as though humans are meant to eat meat. They just happened to evolve with that capacity due their environment. This is the argument based on the "natural order" and I don't find it particularly convincing.

It's also not specifically that I'm overwhelmingly convinced of the truth of my own arguments it's a combination of arguments for meat eating making no sense to me and the role that ethical consideration of animals plays in my larger ethical theory. It's not simply dietary preference and that is why it is inherently more complex than your tastes would seem to prefer.

[toro]

I think the disconnect here is what you term "unneccessary suffering", honestly. Many people take a naive or polemicized view of what suffering is entailed in the process of livestock production (or why this or that practice is used).

We've all seen the documentaries where cameras are taken into shitty slaughterhouses. The viewer might be left with the notion that this is how it is done, or the only way that it can be done. This is entirely untrue. This is a problem of standards and enforcement, not morality or ethics. It may seem strange to stun an animal then bleed it out, but this is "necessary" to prevent spoilage of the meat.

Meat is a very important food source for us. It may seem "unnecessary" to you but this is likely due to your country of origin. Agricultural crops are not as reliable as livestock (except in capital intensive systems largely relegated to first world countries, and even then often on the backs of livestock operations in third world countries), common protein substitute crops are not suitable for production in all areas. This is letting aside the big hungry gap in any given climate beyond the subtropics (the tropics actually have a hungry gap in the warmest months, some parts of the subtropics do as well).

How are agricultural crops less reliable than livestock? Livestock are dependent on agricultural sources as well. Did you mean less labor intensive? Both definitions seem to neglect the amount of secondary resources/labor required to bring the animal from birth to dinner plate.

That doesn't really address the morality of the issue though...

Under the "either you have it or you don't" argument, couldn't I just anesthetize any animal before slaughter? Or perhaps I could stun them so that they were not aware of what was about to happen, thereby eliminating any suffering? Like, IDK, a captive bolt or penetrating stunner to the head.

That same argument could be used for a human that was unconscious and not dreaming. As long as they were unaware when you did it, it would be OK. Now it's just a matter of dosing communion wafers....

The argument used against causing pain, is largely used for purposes of definition. Pain indicates, as one part of many, a way of distinguishing whether or not a given organism has sentience: an internal recognition of what effect their environment has on them. Whether it experiences this pain at the time of death is not relevant to the question. The relevance is whether we should act in a manner not considering sentient organisms as having moral interests that require consideration, whether they should be treated as property while within our society (i.e. not "the wild"), and what obligations we have after introducing them into society (as with children). The difficulty comes in where one should place the line of definition of whose interests, if anyone's, to consider. Given that this is generally the definition we apply to people for medical purposes, it seems a reasonable definition to apply to animals as well.

I tend to draw the line instead at whether or not I think the organism has the capacity to recognize my actions internally as a species. This requires, autonomy, adaptive behavior and neural signals. Which would draw the line somewhere in the insect community and within certain sea species. I also think these "lines" should be drawn in a step-wise fashion, granting basic consideration to all within the definition and greater autonomy to more autonomous species as we do with human cognitive capacity. Then again I view rights from the point of view of contractual agreements...

[mediamogul]

It only seems less significant to you because you are obviously well fed. Starving folks the world over would disagree. They don't give a flying fuck about what it means to be sentient. They do, however, give a flying fuck about whether or not they have food. This is where I get frustrated in conversations like these. Your idealistic view (that is apparently cultivated to be in accordance with your notions of ethics or morality) of what food production is or could be is at odds with the reality of what it is and could be. In this area I actually am an activist. CFA all the way baby! I'm all about integrated agriculture and "green" practices. Sadly these do not always align with green politics and most of the best systems are still prohibitively expensive (shameless aside).

Your testimonials of good health and general well-being do not constitute a justification for your claim to moral or ethical vegetarianism. Voodoo "works" for people as well.

How does that contradict ANYTHING I said? I said if a human were starving and the only thing available to feed him was a cow it is fine to kill the cow.

Also, i don't think a starving human being is necessarily the best one to ask about ethical arguments based on reason. You are right. They could care less. At that point survival impulses supersede everything. We all know what a human is capable of when no longer bound by reason.

It's not a justification and I never said it is. I was arguing for the fact that I have made a choice to be vegetarian and I am in good health. As in I don't need to kill that cow to survive. I think you may have just misread the intention behind my statements.

[genkaus]

That last piece is an is-ought gap fallacy.

Nitpick: It's not a fallacy, it's just a gap.

[The Grand Nudger]

Most livestock are not dependent on "agricultural sources". This is a forced situation. Cattle, just as one example, are ill equipped to eat corn. They eat grass. We cannot eat grass. Unfortunately grass fed cattle take up space that 1st world countries cannot spare (because we can afford nutrients, irrigation, and equipment). Pasture land and farm land are not the same thing, not even close. Which is why so much beef gets imported (and also why imported beef is cheaper, many times they're grazers or mixed grazing feedlot).

Livestock are more reliable because they a orders of magnitude less susceptible to loss by disease or drought or pests. They can survive and provide food for the entire year, and often subsist on marginal soils or from food sources that are not fit for our consumption that can themselves be grown on those marginal soils. The range of byproducts from livestock is also immense (and this includes the nutrients for agriculture). You have the order of dependence in reverse. We've discovered an interesting way of turning oil into food recently, but that isn't going to be feasible forever, and in many places it never has been. American? You're probably thinking of the corn industry. Great example of an industry that has taken a marginal crop that can thrive on marginal soils with minimal labor on large tracts of land owned by a very small number of individuals. Concentrate the wealth. Livestock are in a similar position, except that they aren't a "marginal crop" even though you can rear them anywhere grass grows.

As far as meat goes I'm a big fan of integrated aquaculture. Best use of space, still get the meat and the nutrients for field crops and veggies. I don't think we should give up on pigs and chickens and cattle, but we should probably focus more on fish. I'm not trying to blow smoke up anyone's ass here, food production (not just livestock) has huge issues. Having production issues does not provide justification for claims of moral or ethical vegetarianism.

(The trouble btw Mogul, is that I'm not telling you what you "ought" to be, you're the only one making such a case. Was I unclear? It is a neutral issue for me.)