are vegetarians more ethical by not eating meat?

[NoraBrimstone]

Interestingly, I don't have canines. I mean, the teeth are there, but they're not pointy at all. I wonder if being vegetarian from a young age caused that?

[Angrboda]

@littleendian:

You have said that if a human had to eat meat to survive, it would be okay; that if the choice were between eating meat and dying, the death of that animal to survive would be justified. In saying this, you are making an implicit value judgement. If both the cow and yourself were put on the scales of justice, and you could only choose one to live, apparently you value the continuation of the human life more valuable. I'm not sure the cow would agree with you on that point. Regardless, you've already made the value judgement that human life is more valuable than animal life. The only question is how much more valuable, and whether there is any absolute value to the animal's life and happiness in and of itself. In setting the values, you've drawn your lines rather arbitrarily. My enjoyment of a juicy steak is less valuable than the suffering and death of the cow? According to what? If you suggest it's because I would value my avoiding similar suffering more than I would value the experience of the steak, then you're attempting to argue that the experiences of the cow are of equal value to the same experiences in me, yet you've already clearly declared that they aren't when you said that, ceteris paribus, if the choice is between the cow suffering and dying, and you suffering and dying, the cow's suffering is less important. You can't have it both ways. Either they are fully morally equivalent, and we all become Jaina, or they are not equivalent, and setting the nature of that relationship is at issue.

In another thread, you suggest that morality is just a fancy word for what "feels right." You seem to believe that experience, particularly the experiences of pleasure and pain, are primary, that our ethics should be motivated by our compassion and, though you haven't explicitly said so, that our ethics should be determined upon the basis of our empathy with others. You also state that we should apply reason to determine our ethics. However, it seems that in doing this, you are simply using reason to adjust things so that they comport with your feelings (in this case about the values of avoiding suffering and such). However, your "feelings" in and of themselves are not rational, nor is your empathy a rational response; apportioning how best to match your actions to your values and your feelings may be a rational way of maximizing those things you value, but it doesn't make your valuing them in the first place rational. No matter how much you tune the match between your values and feelings and that of the consequence of your actions, you will never actually make that tuning rational in the sense that it has a rational, objective basis, or at least, not that I can see. At bottom, you still have non-rational values, feelings, and empathy driving the whole thing, and no amount of the application of how best to satisfy non-rational goals will make the process rational in the sense that you've taken something subjective and relative and made it objective. You've just made it more efficient, not more rational. And since you've already acknowledged that the experiences of the cow do not have the same value as my experiences, it seems rather arbitrary to say that avoiding a certain amount of suffering in the cow is more valuable than my avoiding the suffering I will face if I have to go without that steak. What basis do you have for setting the relation between the value of the cow's experiences and the values of my experiences in this way?

[bennyboy]

Um, go to a mirror and smile. See those pointy teeth on your upper and lower jaws. Those are not for hunting broccoli. In fact, one of the surest signs of human evolution is the reduction in tooth size over several million years.

Maybe, but do human ancestors have bigger, pointier canines or vice versa? I don't know the answer to that, but I'm guessing our ancestors were more geared toward meat-tearing than we are. There's nothing wrong with having vestigial traits that aren't really required, but having a tailbone doesn't mean we should all be climbing trees.

The anger and lust responses, which for the most part do nothing at all for members of a civilized society, are also evolved. We not only demonize but also strongly legislate against acts based on perfectly natural drives. Why? Because with our minds, we've decided that they are unpleasant acts, and we're not willing to tolerate them anymore, without regard to whether they are natural (read: evolved) or not.


I'd say morality is really just a willingness to act on some vision of a better world. WHAT world vision that is depends on the arbitrary whims of individuals-- but I think a world in which we don't deliberately cause suffering in other animals is certainly a viable one.

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Doesn't it really come down to one thing? That being whether or not we consider it moral (or right, or just, or whichever word fits) to kill an animal for food. Or perhaps the question is whether we place non-human animals on the same "moral plane" as humans. I've followed the discussion with interest, but I think every other point flows from that one. Am I incorrect to simplify it to this degree?

I think you could also add purely pragmatic considerations of calories/acre, distributing food to hungry humans in poor countries, etc. Specifically, it takes a lot of vegetation to make a relatively small amount of meat.

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?

[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.

[Angrboda]

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.

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Plus it is necessary for the animals to eat these plants to survive, anything that one does if the alternative is death can never be unethical.

Very true, but there is a strong ethical difference between self-defense or the necessity for suvival and killing simply because one enjoys eating meat, which is exactly what is happening.

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Anyone can and may do anything to keep him/herself alive, this is neither ethical nor unethical, its outside the scope of ethics or morality. Ethics start where we have a free choice that doesn't involve our own death or physical integrity.

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I'm wondering why, rationally, ethics starts there, and not before? There may be other problems with this, but it seems that you are saying it is okay to be immoral if my being immoral preserves something which I value (at some arbitrary level). (Or, perhaps more charitably, ethics is irrelevant with respect to certain value choices. They seem fundamentally equivalent, and fundamentally wrong. What value or reason was appealed to in order to determine which choices are neither moral or immoral? More significantly, why does a certain choice or act have no moral significance if my life is at stake, but the same choice have moral significance if it is not? To me, you seem to have simply anchored a sign in the middle of an ethical sea and said, "Here there be dragons.")

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.

Please be clear that what is at issue is not whether there is any difference between the suffering of a cow and that of a human, but whether the moral value of the suffering of a cow is different from the moral value of the suffering of a human. The fact that they are similar on non-moral dimensions is not relevant until you have established that their similarity on that non-moral dimension implies moral parity. You have given no rational reason for doing so, and you seem perilously close to things like Hume's is/ought fallacy and Moore's naturalistic fallacy. I will ask a related question which may help clarify matters: why does pain have any moral significance at all, rationally? (And, I'm hoping I don't have to point out the obvious, such as that there are significant differences between cows and humans on non-moral dimensions; whether those differences on non-moral dimensions matter or not cannot be known until you provide a rational basis for why the similarities between cows and humans have moral relevance. Only then can we determine whether the differences between them do not also have moral relevance.)

(ETA: We also seem to be circling back to Rhythm's earlier point that if the suffering of cows is what is the relevant property, then you are against us causing them unneeded suffering, not against us killing them; the two are easily separable things.)

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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?

Regardless of what my views are and whether or not I hold them rationally, neither has any bearing on the validity and rationality of your ethics. Please keep your red herrings and implied ad hominems to a minimum.

[littleendian]

I'm wondering why, rationally, ethics starts there, and not before?

Because we know that any one of us will do whatever is necessary to ensure his/her life, because that's just what life is at the minimum level, self-preservation and procreation. If any one of us in that particular situation would act no differently, then I think it is quite useless to talk about moral/immoral because it won't matter for our actions anyway. Morals exist to guide our actions, if the particular situation is such that nobody will ever be guided by morals anyways, then that I would argue is outside the moral realm.

There may be other problems with this, but it seems that you are saying it is okay to be immoral if my being immoral preserves something which I value (at some arbitrary level).

No, not at some arbitrary level, at the most fundamental level of life, namely self-preservation. There is a significant moral difference between killing a lion that runs at you or killing a rabbit when almost starving and accepting the death of a harmless cow so a well-fed person can have a steak.

why does a certain choice or act have no moral significance if my life is at stake, but the same choice have moral significance if it is not?

Because our higher faculties of reason and morals can only guide our actions when the lower levels of biology (survival etc.) are not overriding them, because at the core we are still the product of evolution, and at that level we are basically machines that first self-preserve and then pro-create. At some point the brain-stem just takes over and the cortex sits back and just watches with awe at how low the latency between appraisal and action can be in specialized hardware.

why does pain have any moral significance at all, rationally?

Because I don't want to feel pain, and that is rational, because pain is the body's signal to consciousness that there is something going on that is not in my personal interest, namely my physical integrity is in danger. We can argue about whether my will to live, which is expressed through pain, has any ground in reason, and my gut-feeling would say "no", but no matter what the answer turns out to be, it will apply equally to all animals, human or not. We all have as much or as little a reason to want to be here as any other. If I desire not to feel pain, how can I have any morals if I not first allow others the same privilege?

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?

Regardless of what my views are and whether or not I hold them rationally, neither has any bearing on the validity and rationality of your ethics. Please keep your red herrings and implied ad hominems to a minimum.

Believe me, I've endured my share of ad hominems in this thread, and they were quite a bit more insulting than this rather innocent question I've directed towards you. I'm certainly not engaged in this discussion because I'm collecting Kudos. But what red herring?

It won't convince you, and that's good, but I'll still appeal to expert authority from my favourite philosopher:

All beings fear suffering, all tremble before death.

[justin]

woah shit got serious since last i checked....
Apophenia argument> littleendian argument by the way

and Apohenia correct me if i'm wrong but isn't pain a factor to determine morality because it provides negative or positive reponses to determine what actions are preferred? not that pain is any bases for moral rationality but a tool that we use to bring us a desired trait (such as people knowing that fire is painful so they know to keep from bringing damage to them or to others by staying at a certain distance away from the flame. however if such individiuals act destructive relative to the destruction to the community that fire would bring about, like harming someone or destorying things, that the positive response would be to eliminate that individual, cast out that individual, or whatever action would bring upon desired ends)
My head now hurts, i'm gonna go eat some cow

[littleendian]

(ETA: We also seem to be circling back to Rhythm's earlier point that if the suffering of cows is what is the relevant property, then you are against us causing them unneeded suffering, not against us killing them; the two are easily separable things.)

Nobody exists in isolation, if you kill someone there's always "collateral" suffering, no matter how painless for the victim. We even intuitively acknowledge this when we are shocked about the death of people, no matter how painless and quick the death. And if you've deprived the cow of any kind of contact to other cows so that there would be no "collateral damage", then I think you can no longer talk about a "happy life" for the cow to start with, so there's suffering again. Cattle are quite social creatures, they live in herds and it would be lunacy to deny that they do this because they enjoy the company of their fellow cows, for all we know they have friends. Talking about "anthropomorphizing" animals here is only an illustration of our humano-centric world view caused by millenia of Christian dogma. Just because cattle don't show their emotions like humans do doesn't mean they don't have them. Take a calf away from her mother and the mom will cry for days. Emotions serve a very real biological purpose for any social animal and I deny the idea that these creatures have significantly less of an inner life than us humans. Granted, humans have better rational access to the things around them, but that can as easily have a dulling emotional effect as it can amplify emotions, that doesn't mean we're qualitatively more emotionally involved in the world.

[fr0d0]

I don't think the argument has ever been that killing for food is always wrong. What we have is a viable choice not to do it. It becomes ethically wrong to cause suffering when there is no need. If I'm starving, would I eat you to keep alive. Maybe.

Our ethics here come from our empathy. We know animals suffer like we do. Therefore we can't justify causing them suffering without good reason. Modern food production has removed us from that choice pretty much. We don't see it, so it didn't happen.

[bennyboy]

Our ethics here come from our empathy. We know animals suffer like we do. Therefore we can't justify causing them suffering without good reason.

I'm curious about those who say if we can kill animals without their suffering, then it's okay. I'm sure people could be killed as easily and humanely as animals, but we don't see that as an acceptable justification for eating them. In the case of people, we see a life cut short as being robbed of time for it to follow its course "naturally." But don't cows have cow-y lives that meet these same criteria?