Vegetarianism Based On Animal Rights

No, I'm not; my morality is different to yours

Well you're a liberal; rules and regulations, right?

Why don't I? I have one too. It's simply not the same as yours.

I have read it and challenged it.

However we don't have to respect their "personhood", we owe nothing to them, they are not sacred, and our interests must come first.

Quite simple.

It's up to the individual

No, it's Humanity.

The meat wouldn't be appetizing

For me, yes, because the meat isn't appealing.

Nope. Because human beings have more value to human beings than chickens do to human beings. Just like bears have more value to bears than fish have to bears, which is why bears eat fish.

Bears also eat greens; I suppose bears are evil egotists too.

The argument is that eating meat is not immoral. It happens all the time.

Yes they do. They have to take supplements.

It's theft, isn't it; we're still using them as machines.

Life sometimes uses other life for its own benefit. Simple.

Some? All. From your point of view; because it's all unnecessary killing.


People want meat; people eat meat; bears eat meat; lions eat meat. There are predators and there are prey; life has no value.

 

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So your position is that it's okay to do these things, simply because they are instinctual?

Animals can be milked without harming them. Obviously if you milk them in an inhumane way that causes them to suffer, that's wrong - but there's nothing harmful about milking a cow per se. Are you REALLY so dense that you didn't realize that, or are you just trolling?

 

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That's not my position, it's the position practically every person and tribe in recorded history has ascribed to. Even most people we regard as historic heroes today were by our standards racist scumbuckets, and every cool general or warrior we remember today was famous in his time for whooping the ass of other tribes whether they deserved it or not. The same concept applies for famous pioneers of justice, even Hammurabi was like "and here are the first set of written laws to guide man, abide to live by them and all will know justice before the law" and a babylonian in the crowd was like "your majesty, what about those slaves in that cage over there? do these laws apply to them" "wtf, are you on crack, you ugly commoner? those laws don't apply to them because their skin is darker than ours, wtf, who is this guy?" *brownnosing laughter from crowd*

In the old days when women in frilly blue button-up dresses with puffy white collars and rolled up sleeves milked cows with their bare hands into a dull grey bucket, sure, maybe cows didn't feel much pain. But nowadays it's ridiculous, they just lay chained to the ground all day squeezing their anus against dirty black flies, their only activity being lead to a machine which causes them miserable pain - so miserable they'd rather be killed for their meat. Cows lead to the slaughter house are considered "elites" amongst the greater population of cows in the farm, the cow being lead to die usually walks out of the barn with a grin on his face and says "see ya later, suckerrs!" and then proceeds to scream horrifically behind closed barn doors.

 

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Oooooookay...Barbie is either a troll, or some sort of sociopath who thinks it's okay to murder and steal from people because it's "part our instincts". Either way, I'm glad he's on the meat eaters side.

 

A lesser evil may still be evil, but saying that since evil will always exist we must (or be illogical) consume animals and cause cruelty to animals is ridiculous.

On the other hand, I am a nihilist. Guess what I think.

I used to be a vegetarian. If I had to say something about the question, I'd say that it is very logical to be vegetarian to cause less cruelty to animals. A creature is dying, in often VERY inhumane (never realized the irony in that word) circumstances.

Eating meat=less supply for meat=supply will be given=more dead animals. Simple, really.

 

I forgot to mention, when I look at an argument like Norsefire's, eating animals is similar to eating a mentally handicapped person, or a small child. In actuality, there is a difference in the latter, but the first, when using Norsefire's justification for eating chickens, is very much the same.

 

My point is meat is tasty and the preferred source for its nutrition. Forcing people to take such an unnatural approach to life just to appease you seems rediculous.

Actually it is necessary to kill them. All of our prey animals evolved sybiotically with predators who have now been reduced to just us for hte most part. Without population control from predation things get nasty real fast. Disease, famine, destruction of the ecosystem, its not pretty.

As long as we are killing them anyway, we might as well eat them.

I'm an ex french commando. Were I to decide you needed killing, it wouldn't be a problem. "Ex" because I decided the government couldn't be trusted to pick out the non innocent people reliably. But I have nothing against necessary killing in cases of self defense or defense of another.

Yes we know all the lame irrelevant killing red herrings. Hmm, I think I'll have a smoked kipper...

So you'll just wipe them out all together. Nice guy. People don't keep cows around just for the fun of it.

Good, we agree and until then, its steak on the barbie.

And if being a vegitarian is such fun, why are so many of them fake-meat-atarians? That stuff is just nasty.

 

Sentient beings in nature exist to be eaten by other sentient beings. All of nature is eating off itself in order to regenerate itself. Do you morally judge a dolphin for eating other fish? Lions are as sentient as sheep and cows yet sheep and cows are food for lions. Insects are sentient but not in the same way as the chimps that eat them, the same can be said of the sentience of human beings compared to that of a sheep. Man is an animal in nature just like lions and sheep.

To choose vegetarianism for religious reasons is all good and well but it doesn't make you more moral, only an adherent.

The luxury of choice comes from abundance but it does not make you moral. If you told me you did not eat meat because a cow must eat an overabundance of grain which could more fittingly feed the worlds hungry then I could see the pragmatism of your claim as just and admiral but to claim to not eat meat because of some concern for the animal is to forget what role nature plays in all of our lives. Your idea of right and wrong conduct involving animals is spurious when you consider the majority of the worlds population does in fact eat meat from animals as well as fish, grain, vegetable and fruit, as if to say that you few are the most moral and the rest of the world is living immorally. Notice in the land of abundance vegetarians are in the minority, man has always eaten meat just not in the quantities and as often as we see today. It is a particularly pretentious claim to say that the one who eats no meat is somehow more moral than the person who does. Even the Dalai Lama who is impressed with ethical vegetarianism is not a full vegetarian, he practiced it for a year and a half but due to illness he still eats meat every other day yet he is considered a man of compassion and a moral one at that. Indeed most Tibetans monks traditionally eat meat, much of it having to do with the environment in Tibet but even those living in India still continue to have meat in their diet. But I guess you would go the course of Paul McCartney who took it upon himself to write the Dalai Lama criticizing him for eating meat. Leave it to a westerner to engage in such hubris, a case of judgmental priggishness...like what I find in your post on this subject as you would have to say that the Dalai lama is as immoral as Norse due to his dietary habits.

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No. They exist to survive and to continue the species. They'll do anything in their power to prevent being eaten.

You cannot criticize animals for eating other animals because they do not have morality (at least not like we have). They are incapable of realizing the suffering their prey goes through. And, besides, nature is so interwoven that if they would stop catching prey the balance would be thrown of. Both prey and predator evolved together and have a beneficial effect, in accordance with the above, on the surrounding habit including it's life forms.

The paragraph above does not apply to humans anymore.

 

That may be but eaten they are. Morality among humans is subjective not a firm fixture, you can not say that a man is immoral because he eats meat again unless you also want to put the Dalai Lama on the list 'immoral' people; better company I would imagine than the rest of the vegetarians and probably a lot less judgemental. What we eat or do not eat has much to do with environment and culture, what we consider moral also has to do with environment and culture. Man is also a part of nature, also a part of the predator and prey dynamic.

 

Well, I agree with you that you can't really criticize people for eating meat, unless it's in huge quantities.
But you have to admit that there is a real problem.
How about we just kill the meat industry ? Then there won't be any questions about morality anymore

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But working hard to 'break free'.

 

You can change the industry but meat will still be slaughtered for food. The fact that the meat industry treats animals as factory fodder has nothing to do with the morality of meat eaters. There are people in the west who eat 'free range' chicken for example and the majority of meat eaters in developing countries are not getting their meat from large meat industries.

 

Hey come on, that was just a joke

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Who said I was trying to force anyone to do any thing? Also, as has already been pointed out repeatedly, whether or not something is "natural" has little bearing on whether or not it is moral. It is arguably "natural" for people to rape, murder, and steal, but most people agree that it's still immoral.

The vast, overwhelming majority of meat that people eat is raised domestically, so this argument is not relevant. If you really have a situation where a wild population of animals is breeding dangerously out of control due to lack of predation, then I suppose you don't have anything to feel bad about if you shoot some of them and eat them. But that scenario has zero relevance to the vast majority of meat that is eaten.

You keep saying shit that has no perceivable relevance. Who said anything about killing in self defense? What does self defense have to do with you eating a steak?

So should I assume that in your view any creature that can't vote is fair game to be killed and eaten?

When did I dispute that eating meat is fun? Of course it's fun. That's pretty much the only reason anyone in the developed world eats it. The question is whether or not it's moral to harm an animal so that you can have fun.

 

Er... at what point did I say, or even imply, that everyone should eat meat? I think you've extrapolated far beyond what I actually stated. I was actually defending the logic of opting out of what one feels is an unethical practice.

Personally I've been giving serious consideration to going vegetarian for the year of 2010 -- and if I decide by the end of that year that I don't mind it, staying that way indefinitely. Mind you, this is for the health aspects rather than any moral or ethical reasons.

A bit too simple, I'm afraid. The fallacy here is in assuming that by not eating meat, those same animals won't die.

Unfortunately, veg*ns comprise such a small minority as to have a negligible effect on the overall demand for meat. As much as 70% of grocery food is ultimately thrown out, and in a society where 98% of adults self-identify as meat eaters*, you can bet that a huge portion of that wasted food is meat and other animal products. Clearly there is a considerable disconnect between how much is produced and how much is actually consumed, so to believe that a small minority of veg*ns will have a noticeable effect on animal harvesting is little more than wishful thinking. The animals are going to be slaughtered and made available for consumption regardless -- the main economic effect of veg*nism is to cause more of the meat to be thrown out.

I want to reiterate that there are several other very good reasons for embracing a veg*n lifestyle. My only point is that preventing animal cruelty is not one of them.

* Note that while about 4% of respondents checked the vegetarian box, about 57% of those respondents identified themselves as "semi-vegetarians" -- which, of course, is not vegetarian at all.

 

Make laws against it.

Why do we have to respect the supposed "person-hood" of chickens? I don't see chickens painting beautiful art, erecting statues, philosophizing, or building empires.

I see Humans doing this; in fact, "individualism" is really a Human thing

Bears are obviously not giving equal consideration to those salmon; those egotistical, evil bears

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It's not my job to judge what others do

What is a person without a mind? Not a person at all; so it's just meat. So why would I have a moral problem with it?

There are predators and there are prey; our species is the best adapted to survival, in general (in my opinion, due to our ability to think and use technology); therefore, we ought to make use of all that we can.

Some animals can only eat greens; some can only eat meat; we can eat both. So let's eat both. We might as well enjoy and take advantage of all we can. Predator and prey happen all the time in nature; there's nothing wrong with eating meat.

No

Killing happens all the time; "murder" assumes a lack of justification; at any rate, killing animals to eat them is entirely justified. We want to eat.

What is right?

I'm simply expanding on your argument; if killing unnecessarily is wrong, then:

1. All animal experimentation is wrong
2. Killing pests is wrong
3. Eating plants is wrong
4. Self defense is wrong
5. Capital punishment is wrong


You see the absurdity of what you are saying? Killing happens.

Also, why is it ok to trap livestock to get their eggs and milk, but then not to kill them?

No objective value.

 

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don't you say?