are vegetarians more ethical by not eating meat?

[The Grand Nudger]

Would you put a negative moral value on eating another human without distress?

I place a negative value on eating humans regardless, just not a moral one. It's just not my bag, it wouldn't matter to me how ethically raised or farmed they were. If somebody said hey "Jimmy's for dinner" I;d say, "thank's, I'll pass." It's not really an issue of ethics or morality, it never raises to that level.

I suppose that we could concoct some soylent green scenario of the future to test the conjecture - but beyond that sort of example I don't know how it is supposed to apply?

If yes, then you have to look at the reason for this: If you (like me) would not eat another human being regardless of whether they are mentally retarded or not,

I doubt they're palatable - do you imagine that the person being mentally retarded would alleviate that? Like, say, the way that veal alleviates the toughness that some dislike in beef? Veal, another one of those things I pass on at the dinner table.

then placing this negative moral value on the act has obviously nothing to do with intelligence. Now all that remains is an arbitrary and for me superstitious distinction that we draw between our own species and other species.

Nothing superstitious or moral about my preferring beef to long-pig. It's a matter of taste. Perhaps this particular line of thought would have been best foisted upon a cannibal - or someone who thinks that cannibalism in any form for any reason would be an absolute no-no? You see, I;m of the opinion that people have to handle the whole eating bit - before they have time to moralize..anything.

We used to draw this line between human races, whites and blacks, between men and women, all with terrible consequences and practices condemned today. The logical next step is to extend this line to where there is actually an objective grounding in reality for it: Whether you can feel pain or not. How can I ask for a relatively pain-free life, and all of us do, and not award this to others who have the same interest?

Okay, well, if drawing any of those lines might make people taste better, please inform me - because until then, we're talking non-overlapping magisteria.