Do you agree with Richard Dawkins?

[The Grand Nudger]

On the basis that many more animals will suffer and die to produce your vegetarian diet (and this diet should also exclude organics, because we'd have to, unless we were willing to keep the factory farms running as is for manure, simply opting out of slaughtering the animals therein, and what kind of empty ethics would that be). It bears note that these animals are also not given any consideration of ethics (as the animals in the slaughterhouse are, even if you don't think it's satisfactory)

Might it be possible that if we were to propose that some ethical principle ought to compel people to act, or pass this into law, that the above animals will suffer even more harshly than they currently do? What should we do with all of our livestock, I promise, these things would suffer "in the wild". Lastly, one animal which hasn't seen a lick of compassion in any of these arguments would starve, that would be human beings. I suppose a few of us starving would be "necessary suffering" but a cow being slaughtered is "unneccessary suffering". At least the list I asked for is starting to take shape, even if it is doing so indirectly. If grass fed cattle, free range chicken, and all livestock not factory farmed get a pass, then you aren't actually arguing for some sort of "ethical vegetarianism" are you. You're arguing for "ethical omnivorism" which I would also argue for. You would also have to be willing to accept an even heavier reliance on "inorganic" nutrients and all that this entails. You're simply moving the "unethical" bits out of sight, and out of mind. Shuffling the suffering around to some other group of creatures that you don't seem to be so heavily invested in. Surely you can see why I would criticize such a thing?

Remember, I'm not claiming a moral or ethical principle here, it isn't up to me to demonstrate that your claims are naive, self defeating, etc. I only do this out of interest in the subject. You should explore your own decisions to their fullest. If you're going to make this argument I shouldn't have to explain to you how destructive/dependent all of our agricultural systems are on animals (livestock or otherwise). I shouldn't have to point out that people will starve. This should have already been considered before you rendered your verdict on the issue in such a confident manner, don't you think?