are vegetarians more ethical by not eating meat?

[littleendian]

@apophenia: no, i say ones own life is always more valuable to oneself, if you are human or cow, same difference. What one does to prolong it in the face of Death is outside the moral realm.

To me there is no reason to suppose a significant difference in suffering when comparing larger mammals and even with other animals I say their death is too high a price to pay for my dinner. And when I say price I really believe that I as the perpetrator pay myself, not just the animal.

Of course I am not just rational here, this issue is very close to my heart indeed. But ask yourself if it is not just your wish to keep the comfortable status quo that makes you and everyone else here so eager to see a difference in humans, is that rational?

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I haven't read all 25 pages of this thread, but has anyone mentioned the collateral loss of life of rodents, birds, etc. in the modern farming practices? I mean, you take a giant mower across a hundred acres of field, and you are likely to kill quite a lot of critters. I wonder if eating a cow would have a NET loss of life, or possibly save a lot of living things from getting mulched?

I don't defend large scale crop production practices at all, which by the way have a lot to do with animal agriculture.