Do you agree with Richard Dawkins?

[mediamogul]

I'd never do such a thing, you vegetarian types are my best customers..lol.

(Again, you're defining "meaningful" as something which is synonymous with "like us" in the biological sense. There's no problem with this -to me-, but it would fall under the remit of speciesism. I'm not judging you for it amigo, it's kind of expected. The trouble is that any justification you draw from this can be criticized by demonstrating parallels between those species you have included in the group of "has rights" and those you have excluded. It's not as difficult as you might imagine. We aren't as "aware" of ourselves as we like to think, and plants aren't as "oblivious" of themselves as is so often supposed. We leverage different biological mechanisms to achieve the same ends, and they often have similar outward effects.)

Interesting argument.

Wiki defines suffering as such:

Suffering, or pain in a broad sense,[1] is an experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of affective phenomena.

Suffering may be qualified as physical[2] or mental.[3] It may come in all degrees of intensity, from mild to intolerable. Factors of duration and frequency of occurrence usually compound that of intensity. Attitudes toward suffering may vary widely, in the sufferer or other people, according to how much it is regarded as avoidable or unavoidable, useful or useless, deserved or undeserved.

Suffering occurs in the lives of sentient beings in numerous manners, and often dramatically. As a result, many fields of human activity are concerned, from their own points of view, with some aspects of suffering. These aspects may include the nature of suffering, its processes, its origin and causes, its meaning and significance, its related personal, social, and cultural behaviors, its remedies, management, and uses.


Are plants able to experience a state of pain or discomfort? It seems to me that if there is not consciousness there is nothing or noone to actually feel the pain or discomfort. In other words there is "nothing in there" or "noone home". This is why sentience has with it the necessary requirement of consciousness. This is meangful suffering. It means little to say that for instance a computer program to respond as if it is in pain is in any real way experiencing pain.

How would a plant suffer in a meaningful way? It's not simply discrimination for those things with nervous systems. It is a necessary precondition of the ability to suffer. If one lacks a nervous system, one lacks the ability to suffer.

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"Killing life" is not the issue at hand. It is causing unnecessary suffering. A plant is not conscious, does not feel pain. It's not about what I think. It's about what the facts demonstrate. Do you think that a carrot suffers? How would it suffer?

Again you are trying to turn what I say into something about magically plant suffering.. And last time I checked, loss of habitats and our competition with other animals for resources = animals suffering all the time due to human activity. You are not going to magically eliminate animal suffering just because you can eat veggies... The question I asked was not answered..

Well if it is not a point about magic plant suffering what are you saying? Killing a living thing is not wrong in itself. Violating the rights of and causing unnecessary suffering to another sentient creature is.

The second question is a bit more of a valid question. The goal is not to eliminate suffering. There is no way that could ever be a reasonable objective in the world. The goal is to act ethically and to not cause unnecessary suffering that we are ethically responsible for. I'm not convinced that vegetarianism would bring down the world's food system. This is somewhat alarmist. Raising animals in the sheer numbers required for meat production places an immense strain on the farming and agricultural system too. The problem is with the overwhelming number of humans (and animals) that need to be fed.