Is eating meat morally wrong

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Theoryofrelativity, Mar 14, 2006.

  1. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    No, not everyone can be a vegetarian. And exactly as many livestock would be kept and killed if I were a vegetarian. My main problem lies with killing wild animals.
     
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  3. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

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    so killing a conscious being is ok...as long as its not wild.
    gottcha!
     
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  5. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    I never said it was ok.. the lesser of two evils.
     
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  7. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    I also already admitted to be sort of a hypocrite about this since I eat meat.
     
  8. USS Exeter unamerican american Registered Senior Member

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    I don't eat meat often, I just eat a lot of fish and cheeeeeeeese for animal byproducts.
     
  9. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    I don't eat a lot of meat.. about 50 grams a day. And some days I don't eat any meat at all.
     
  10. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Fish is meat in my book, I don't understand the distinction.. :shrug:
     
  11. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    I've never paid that much attention to it. I always thought it was a Catholic thing, to be honest.
     
  12. Thrylix Registered Member

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    If you look at it from the perspective of "if you don't need it then its wrong to kill and eat it" you're going to find most animal treatment evil
     
  13. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Well, to me it's fairly simple:

    meat
    –noun
    1. the flesh of animals as used for food.

    fish
    –noun
    1. any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
    2. (loosely) any of various other aquatic animals.

    ver·te·brate
    –noun
    3. a vertebrate animal.

    :shrug:
     
  14. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    True, although I wouldn't use the word evil...
     
  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Hector the Ham

    Source: Slog
    Link: http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/how_to_kill_a_pig
    Title: "How to Kill a Pig", by Bethany Jean Clement
    Date: January 23, 2008


    Food critic Bethany Jean Clement recently attended what might seem a bizarre event, the slaughter of a pig:

    Perhaps it sounds like a morbid spectacle, a gimmick to increase revenue in troubling days for American farms, but Clement describes a grave, largely respectful, and slightly surreal gathering.

    And, strangely, Clement noted, most of the people who attended the $55 dinner where they served Hector the pig as the main course were not present at the slaughter. Likewise, most of those at the slaughter did not attend the dinner.

    Perhaps it seems like an odd choice of family events, but the kids apparently seemed more fascinated than anything else. At least one was openly enthusiastic. ("Right about now, the saw-wielding man asked Claycamp, 'You want me to saw through the head?' Before Claycamp could answer, a kid yelled, 'YEEEEAAAAH!')

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    Memories for a lifetime: Left to right, from fascination to trepidation.
    (Photo: Reena Kawal)

    As the aforementioned New York Times article notes, though, being a witness to the slaughter is a rising trend in this current age of food awareness. Julia Moskin reported:

    And while fashion currently dictates that conscience—or a convincing facsimile thereof—is good for business, it's also good for our health. In the case of animals slaughtered for food, there are a number of benefits for witnessing the slaughter. The educated consumer is less likely to suffer the warping effect of emotionally-driven vegi-moralists who seek gratification by abusing meat consumers. And animals raised to slaughter in appropriate conditions, while purportedly more comfortable and more humanely slaughtered, are also less likely to be afflicted with any number of diseases that at once endanger the consumer and make a moot point of killing, say, a cow for food. Bovine spongiform encephalitis—a.k.a. "mad cow disease"—for instance, is widely blamed on cannibalism, which, in the case of cattle, arose for the convenience of the beef industry:

    The moral question is, of course, more complex, in part because moralists insist it should be:

    The celebrity chefs are even better positioned than the locals to make certain points. While watching the slaughter might shake some people emotionally, animal rights extremists might find themselves losing traction in the face of more moderate arguments about the future of human food consumption:

    Some would propose a species-wide alteration of the human species according to moral aesthetics; we call them moral vegetarian advocates. They would propose that we have a moral obligation to stop consuming animals. It is not clear to what degree there is a delineation or factionalization between ovo-vegetarians, lacto-vegetarians, lacto-ovo-vegetarians, and vegans. Perhaps, soon, anti-abortion advocates will stand by, scratching their heads in puzzlement as militant vegans attack their ovo-vegetarian neighbors as murderers.

    While many would, as the British response to the Chicken Out campaign suggests, agree that food animals ought to be treated better, it seems a strange proposition—counter-evolutionary, even—that these species should be elevated to a more prominent position than our own. While moral vegetarian advocates would accuse species bias of their meat-eating neighbors, the hue and cry seems at least slightly absurd. The proposition that our species should use its intelligence to weaken itself before nature defies the evolutionary struggle for perpetuation. And, yes, a weakening of the species would be the result if the moral vegetarian advocates were to triumph. Their bigoted condemnations comparing meat consumption to rape and denunciations of omnivory as an issue of mere gratification extend the issue beyond one of their own personal choice. They are demanding other people meet their moral standard. And if that standard ever comes about, the simplest, most observable result will be that the human species eventually will be unable to consume certain foods that it once could. The range of our compatibility with nature would be reduced, and our adaptability likewise diminished. And all for what? A moral assertion?

    An associate points out that at some point, meat will be produced in a laboratory so that the slaughter of animals would become obsolete. And while this sci-fi alternative presents a host of ethical considerations of its own—e.g., as they're trying to make it so that you can't get plain old corn or wheat anymore, who will pretend that lab-grown, cloned steaks will be simply that, and not "enhanced" with foreign genetic code in order to chemically alter consumers—the proposition will remain merely theoretical if we choose the so-called "moral" alternative and injure our species for aesthetic gratification.

    For the rest of us, though, awareness seems the more rational route. Perhaps a few, upon watching their favorite cut of meat slaughtered and butchered, will undertake an aesthetic reformulation of their diet, but as Ms. Clement noted:

    ____________________

    See Also:

    Moskin, Julia. "Chefs' New Goal: Looking Dinner in the Eye". NYTimes.com. January 16, 2008. See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/dining/16anim.html

    Australian Academy of Sciences. "Prions – morphing agents of disease". Nova: Science in the News. June, 2006. See http://www.science.org.au/nova/003/003key.htm
     
  16. LedZepRocks4ever Registered Member

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    2
    I don't get why it's perfectly normal to kill an animal, but the worst thing you could ever possibly do is kill a person. Human are animals too! I think we should be treated the same (or worse) as other animals. Human just destroy the Earth and kill animals "for food" but there are so many other things for us to eat than meat!
     
  17. swarm Registered Senior Member

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    4,207
    Because eating them before you kill doesn't work so great, particularly if you want to cook them.

    Yes because humans have to be killed in pairs.

    That can be arranged.

    Yes, they are called side dishes and taste great with meat.
     
  18. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    [thread=94590]Link to more recent thread on the same topic[/thread]
     
  19. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Way to go LedZep, you have just underlined the problem with atheists and morality without long drawn out debate.

    jan.
     
  20. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    What has any of that got to do with atheism, Jan?
     
  21. Anti-Flag Pun intended Registered Senior Member

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    What has that got to do with atheism? That's the most retarded statement I've read all day.
     
  22. swarm Registered Senior Member

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    Eat My Meat!

    Sorry, it just needed to come out.

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  23. Markthevoiceoftruth Registered Member

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    Yes eating meat is immoral ... so delicously immoral
     

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