Do you agree with Richard Dawkins?

[Scabby Joe]

A very important factor here is also the fact that a lot of people really like bacon, me being close to the least of them.


[b]Couldn't agree more. Self interest does overcome ethics in a great many people. I am always surprised that those atheists who espouse free thinking really don't care to extend that beyond releasing themselves from the moral bind of religion.


In fact I would say most people really like bacon. When it comes down to it until we develop better methods of growing artificial meat, natural meat is still a very important factor in anyone's diet. One may not need it to survive, but to live as healthy a life as you can one needs an intake of protein. I know I do, and you may not think you do, but it still makes a healthier diet.

Of course I recognise the need for protein in my diet. A vegetarian diet is at least as healthy as one containing meat, I could give multiple sources. You will also be aware of the health risks of consumption of red meat.



I have always agreed that we need to decrease the amount of suffering as much as possible in any species which has any self awareness and my ideas have not changed in this.

You mean as much as possible but not so much that it means we can't eat them.

This is difficult to do though, since the demand for meat is high, apparently we need industrial factories which do not seem to care about the suffering as they do about the output of product. Yes, it is terrible.

I agree it is terrible and unnecessary.


In the end all I am trying to say here are there are different levels of intelligence and social interaction, some of them being very clear.

You have not explained how intelligence and social interaction are relevant to the question of causing unnecessary suffering. To me they seem arbitrary just like skin colour and perhaps chosen by a member of a species that is trying to justify treatment of another species. Again, some animals are more intelligent and more social than some humans (the senile, severely mentally handicapped, new born)

Even though a species is self aware another defining aspect of sentience for me is when the animal actually shows self awareness of another creatures suffering and the other creatures awareness. This is described as empathy and I think this is a very important factor in deciding the sentience of another species. Both dolphins and species of apes show this through group dynamics and caring about the welfare of the rest of the group.

Again, you are being arbitrary. It seems you are trying to pick out what you perceive to be human atributes and only offering sanctuary to other animals exhibiting the behaviours you have chosen.

Having said all this, I think you have overlooked the attributes of some of the animals you dine upon. "Pigs have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly three-year-olds.."
Professor Donald Broom of Cambridge University Veterinary School.
You should take a look at this, particularly as it talks about mirrors in which you have expressed an interest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/10angier.html


Many species show self awareness of their own suffering, but even fewer show empathy. This also plays a part in which animals are morally okay to kill to eat only.

Arbitrary again. Why do you chose empathy? What if it could be shown that other animals had empathy? What about humans with no empathy?


It is a very simple fact that as of now we still need to take life in order to eat whether it is the life of a plant or an animal. As of now we still need to draw this line and I do not think just because an animal can suffer it is morally wrong to kill it in order to eat it. There are more factors involved than only self awareness. It is again for me Sentience.

You seem to be contradicting yourself - you have accepted that lots of animals are sentient including cows, pigs, chickens.



And to give a slight answer to your other question, even if an old man no longer possesses the faculties they once did, they may once have had those faculties, and even if they did not are still a part of the species and deserve the same rights.

OK. So now your argument is switching to just looking after your own species regardless of all the other attributes you raised like empathy, social interaction, intelligence. It seems you will switch between whatever argument you want just to preserve your ability to eat meat no matter what even though you concede it is indeed terrible.

The current scientific consensus is that all vertebrate animals, at least, are capable of feeling pain and experiencing distress. Why would you think otherwise.

I do not think otherwise, but it is still up for debate which animals are intelligent enough to have an understanding of their own ego. Most animals for example are not intelligent enough when they look at themselves in the mirror to know that what they are seeing is themselves.

Again, this seems arbitrary. Surely in a debate about inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering the focus must be on which animals are capable of feeling pain and can suffer and whether it is necessary. What has ego got to do with it.

When they experience "pain" they may not feel the pain happening to themselves(ego), but the sensation will just be and cause certain effects.

A cow or a pig feels pain like we do, perhaps more, perhaps less. But they have central nervous systems very much like ours, they react to pain like we do - screams, withdrawal, fear, and like us it was useful to their evolutionary past. You seem to have accepted this earlier when you said it was 'terrible.'

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I can tell you right now that vegetable production without livestock production is unsustainable in the long run. It's an issue of fertility. [quote]


Could we get some sources for this statement please?

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Richard Dawkins understanding of philosophy, especially ethics is much left to be desired.

Richard Carrier (an Atheist who understands ethics quite well) makes an excellent case that eating meat is ethical.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/87

The Carrier piece is full of unsupported opinion particualry around the level of suffering that is implicit in factory farming.