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.
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.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
