KimyReizeger

Haha, 'interesting'? I didn't say at any point there was all that much aimed at Christianity, other than from the guy who I was replying to at the time. It just annoys me when people throw in cheap, gleeful sideswipes at religion at any opportunity.

Ok, then we can drop that part of the debate.

You're not bothered as the reasons to why we eat meat? Really? I guess I'm not bothered about the reasons we shouldn't eat meat! Previous behaviour isn't necessarily a good model, but in this case I think it is.

Sorry, bad typing on my part. I meant I'm not bothered as to the circumstances (or reasons) by which we came to be a meat-eating society. Of course I'm interested in the reasons why we do it, that's why I'm participating. Because, if I genuinely wasn't concerned about the other side's argument, I wouldn't be taking part...

Ah, you see, I don't think an animal should suffer unnecessary pain. . . I certainly seek to avoid causing pain to a cow. I think we all agree on that. The difference is I just don't have a problem with it being killed and eaten.

Being food on a plate is an example of unnecessary pain because meat-eating isn't a necessity in our society. If you don't think a cow should suffer unnecessary pain why are you eating them? What you mean is that you're not sufficiently bothered by the pain inflicted on a cow to stop eating meat.

Haha. I don't have a problem with some of my views being conservative. Neither do I think it explains my reaction to this debate. I think it describes it, albeit rather generally. Have you ever considered you're taking a very liberal and unconventional standpoint? I bet you have. I bet you love it

Nothing I'm writing really reflects my own beliefs or personal practices. I had a steak tonight for example. I've just stated, albeitly with little eloquence, some of the arguments against eating-meat, for which I genuinely think there has been no satisfactory answer.

I know how this normally works, I read your bit, you read mine and we take immediate issue with what one another is saying without trying to understand each other's points. but, I honestly don't get what you mean here.

Yes, that's fair enough. I sometimes lose clarity along the way and I'm a rookie at this philosophical stuff anyway.

Probably a bit of both of those definitions I reckon. That is not to say it's unnatural to not eat meat.

Both definitions are flawed as justifications for present actions.

Don't get ur point about shit and heretics though, sorry. Our ancestors didn't eat shit and it's certainly not commonplace. Also, some cultures past and perhaps even present (in remote places with strong religious beliefs) may (have) argue(d) killing heretics is 'natural'. In the same way a Hindu might argue eating meat is wholly 'unnatural'.

You've sort of answered your own enquiry. A Hindu making the 'unnatural' argument against meat-eating would be wrong because that is to suggest that everything 'unnatural' (computers, CAT scans and radar for instance) is inherently bad, which it isn't. A meat-eater making the argument for meat-eating on the 'natural' basis would be wrong because that is to suggest that everything natural is inherently good, which it isn't (death, disease, parasites etc). I know there's a nice ring to arguing on the basis of 'naturality'; people are always pitting the thrusting, polluted, digital new world against the natural idyll we have come from. However, the actions of animals and ancient ancestors should really not be determining us too much. This point is really important to this debate and would suggest taking five minutes to understand it properly. I'm sorry if I haven't explained it so well:

You mention that some cultures have argued that killing heretics is natural, presumably on the basis that their ancestors did it. This is perhaps true. We did it here. However, they'd all be wrong, and simply be continuing the immorality of their fathers.

So finally, do you think I'd be able to justify eating my new partner's children? Lions do, therefore it's natural.

Lastly, I don't think anyone has pushed the idea that eating meat is inherently good. A few have pointed out nutritional properties etc but this thread has been more a defense against the argument that eating meat is inherently bad.

I'd agree. It's also been a poor defence, where the main attacks have not been answered at all. I am personally a meat-eater so think I have a reasonable of objectivity in these matters.

How do we differentiate between ideas that are 'valuable' and those that aren't?

I guess through trial, error and discussions like these.

Exaggeration Of The Year Award! I think you're confused. I am plainly asking why he picks and chooses over what he praises and what he condemns from religion, when his knowledge of it is so sketchy that he resorts to laying the blame for the nasty eating of meat squarely at the door of nasty Christianity?

I don't so much is levelled towards christianity throughout this thread. That's not my impression and its interesting you're the only one to pick it up. I'm not bothered as the reasons to why we eat meat. I don't think they impact much on the current debate because, as we've seen, what our forebears did is not necessarily a model of what we should hope to become.

Why do we have desires relating to moral behaviour? If not from religion, where did they come from? They have to stem from somewhere.

Secular philisophical thought has existed longer than religion. I can't tell you why we have such desires. That's asking a bit much really!

Presumably we'd think it moral to be moral because somewhere along the line we are protecting ourselves from the immorality of others. So why apply this to animals who have no comprehension of morality?

Do you agree that an inability to understand complex philosophical issues should not impact on a being's right to be free of unnecessary pain and suffering?

I don't mean natural as in 'it happens in nature'. Obviously. That's why I put it between this ' and this '. I mean that as mere animals, surely we have as much right to eat other animals as any other animal does? Why should we feel compelled not to kill and eat them simply because we have the ability to overthink the process? It's because we consider it a moral question.

I think the bit I've highlighted here really sums up most of the pro-carnivore argument on here. Human progression in all spheres is really the result of such 'overthinking'. Have you considered that you're taking very a conventional, conservative standpoint? Does that mean anything to you or explain at all your reaction to this debate, do you think?

Well, what do people really mean when they say something is 'natural'?

1. That our ancestors did it.

2. That it's normal, usual, commonplace.

You don't eat shit and then justify it by saying 'it's natural' do you? You don't burn heretics then justify it by saying 'it's natural' do you?

Basically, to say something is 'natural' as a justification for its inherent good properties doesn't cut it because there are plenty of undesireable things existing in nature.

So why are you so happy to take some ideas from religion without much argument, but totally reject others as ancient, irrelevant ramblings?

Because some may be valuable whilst others aren't?

If you accept 'morality' as a desireable trait, why do you so readily reject the idea that humans are inherently superior to animals?

This is one of the most confused sentences I've ever some across. I understand that: those who think morality is a good thing, also think humans are superior to animals and should therefore eat them?

Surely morality is just as 'foundation-less' as any other idea originating from religion?

Morality doesn't originate in religion. Religion is just a medium which details loosely various ideals and desires we have relating to moral behaviour. We didn't necessarily require religion specifically to give us these.

why are you arguing against our equally 'natural' consumption of meat?

Whenwill people stop comparing us with stone age man and saying, 'oh, it's natural to eat meat!'. This is a terrible argument which has been thoroughly 'downed' throughout this discussion. Can you genuinely not see this? In no realm of life would you justify yourself by saying, 'oh but lions do it'. So why now?

I mean that there is no way a cow is aware it is being reared to be eventually killed and eaten. It cannot grasp this and it never will be able to.

Please tell me why animals should have 'equal claim in our moral thought'. Again, if pigs were the dominant species, they'd have no problem with killing and eating me.

Just because we are capable of reason doesn't mean we should treat all other animals as equals. They aren't.

This sums up an argument against your thought which has been running throughout the thread without answer. Speciesism:

Speciesism involves assigning different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership. The term was coined by British psychologist Richard D. Ryder in 1973 to denote a prejudice based on physical differences.[1] "I use the word 'speciesism'", he explained two years later, "to describe the widespread discrimination that is practised by man against other species [...]. Speciesism and racism both overlook or underestimate the similarities between the discriminator and those discriminated against."[2]

Philosophers Tom Regan and Peter Singer have both argued against the human tendency to exhibit speciesism. Regan believes that all animals have inherent rights and that we cannot assign them a lesser value because of a perceived lack of rationality, while assigning a higher value to infants and the mentally impaired solely on the grounds of their being members of the supposedly superior human species.[5]

Speciesism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arguing that we shouldn't kill animals in order to eat them because they are beings on a level with humans and have the same frames of reference (i.e. the same notions of suffering, an idea of morality, etc) as we do is wrong in my opinion. I can understand that not everyone feels that way but I always will.

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By that logic should the same happen with mentally-disabled people? Why should the mental attributes of a cow impact on its ability to suffer? This point has been dragged on somewhat because I don't think anyone can answer it.

It's not desire it's natural instinct.

Can you tell me why a being acting out of 'instinct' holds less rights to be free of pain than one which acts out of 'desire'?

So can you tell me why a cow's desire to want pain to cease is not relevant?

Dunno, probably. I'll have to see. Thinking I'll go to the lemon tree on monday, should be a banger I reckon.

Who's suggesting that pain doesn't exist in animals? You've bounded off in a world of your own there mate.

HeinzHines Pg32

We cannot communicate with cows, for all we know, they love being in pain. Stating what you think a cow may or may not feel is irrelevant because no one can truly know either way what they think.

'I desire pain to stop and in doing so I satisfy my instinct.'

I mean, is there any other way to write that?

Right so you're saying desire cannot go against instinct? Well since you're so happy to put cows and humans on the same level what about the example of self harming? Humans self harm through a desire for a "release" but this would obviously go against instinct which is to stop causing pain to yourself... Cows and Humans are different, Humans have desires and don't rely on instinct as much nowadays

Cows want pain to end. Whether or not this is instinct or desire is irrelevant. You're just toying with words.

I was actually challenging the notion that humans and animals are comparable.

It sounded as though you had invoked the 'indifference' found in hunter to prey in nature as a justification for humans breeding and slaughtering cows.

We are biologically evolved from omnivorous primates. This is not a play to nature, this is a fact. You may be convinced that a vegan diet is optimal for human health but I myself am not.

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I'm not a vegan and have never lived without meat. I'd have to think hard before becoming vegetarian. I think what you said earlier is really accurate, that bit about not feeling sufficiently bothered by the prospect of pain at slaughter to stop eating meat. I'm the same: the pain felt by animals at slaughter does not currently weigh sufficiently upon my conscience for me to quit meat.

That said, I'm not going to be fool enough to suggest pain doesn't exist in animals, or that it's not relevant because they're less intelligent than us, that cows don't feel pain and don't want it to end, or that the fact that meat tastes nice is a moral argument for eating it!

Yes, it does matter. One is a measured thought out process (desire) and the other is a natural response (instinct). You can bend interpretations round your argument all you like but they aren't correct interpretations.

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'Desire' from Homepage | Dictionary.com

longing or craving, as for something that brings satisfaction or enjoyment

The desire for food when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired, respite from pain when you're in pain.

Desire can categorically go against natural instinct

To be honest I think this argument is totally diffused because I've never once heard an expression such as this, nor have I heard these two concepts pitted against one another. . The definition of desire above is pretty conclusive in presenting how a cow may want something, but if you guys want to continue suggesting that a cow's need to halt pain is not valid enough to not subject a cow to pain in the first place then go ahead.

which is easier to keep in times of severe weather, droughts, flooding? Animals which can be mobilised or crops which cannot?

Again, bears scant relation to the morality of meat-eating. Life's easier when you keep slaves, murder your opponents etc etc etc

Eating meat is not currently a necessity.

Dressing up your arguments around lofty philosophical theories isn't going to change this.

...and dressing your arguments in the garb of a particularly dim, primary school age child does little to change much either!

GodzillaBlues. This:

Seriously. Vegetables on their own are generally less appetising than with a nice piece of meat.

is not an argument which bears any relation to the morality of eating meat.

Is it actually desire, and not just instinct? Desire would hint at logical thought, whereas instinct tells the animal to avoid pain if it can help it.

Instinct / desire? Does it matter? A cow wants pain to end regardless of its inability to consider in depth why it wants it to end. Much in the same way a mentally-impaired person of the same intelligence of a cow wishes it to end. Quite why that doesn't constitute 'logical thought' I'm unsure: seems pretty logical to move away from fires when they burn you.

When my dog barks at cows most of them run off, presumably sensing danger and the prospect of pain, yet there will always be some who stay, perhaps reflective of their experience, age, and, for want of a better word, personality.

How about just accepting that some people accept that there are risks associated with eating TOO MUCH red meat and they do so because it tastes so damn good?

Seriously. Vegetables on their own are generally less appetising than with a nice piece of meat.

Go back. Read the thread. Then please post objections which haven't been covered extensively already.

If we accept that animals do live conscious lives then why should we view ourselves as any different from them? If they're carnivores or omnivores they prey on other animals with indifference to the pain and death it causes.

Humans recognise the brutal nature of the animal kingdom, the indifferent attitude of the lion to the zebra, and attempt to rise above it. In what other realm of life would you compare and justify yourself by reference to an animal? Animals have relatively low mental activity, lick their balls and eat their own shit:

Appeal to nature is a fallacy of relevance consisting of a claim that something is good or right because it is natural, or that something is bad or wrong because it is unnatural. In this type of fallacy nature is often implied as an ideal or desired state of being, a state of how things were, should be, or are: in this sense an appeal to nature may resemble an appeal to tradition.

Appeal to nature - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Surely arguments in support of vegan lifestyles, claiming people can rise above the instinctive feeding habits of our animal past, contradict the assertion that animals are people,

A lot of people seem to be stumbling on the idea that we consider ourselves as both superior to animals, yet also as equals (such as when they've been referred to as 'people'). Well, you probably consider yourself as superior mentally to a mentally disabled person. However, certainly mentally-disabled people shouldn't have their right to not be interfered with, abused and subjected to suffering reduced on the basis of their disability.

That a cow or disabled person is not aware of these complex philosophical arguments does not give you the right to subject said being to pain.

. A cow does not have "desires".

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A cow desires to not feel pain. Is this not a valid desire?

So for those of you who would like to see an end of farming cattle then you would be also be inadvertently denying their right to survive as a species. Is that moral?

The theory of natural selection goes a long way in explaining how a species' existence is generally determined on this earth. The notion of vegetarians denying a species its natural 'right to existence' is silly. Do you think slaughtered cows view themselves as necessary sacrifices to the continuity of the cow species? And that by breeding them as food we're doing them a favour by respecting their right - as a species - to existence which would otherwise be broken if we let nature take its course? Bloody nature, always trampling on everyone's right to survive as a species! Individual cows aren't concerned with the legacy of their species, rather, with eating, sleeping drinking, and not feeling pain.

Thanks Colin. It's pretty scrappy and I'll be popping better stuff up when it's written Not really done much electronic-wise for a while and yes, have already blended styles countless times!

ps, you going to average white band on monday?

I've studied the Peak Oil stuff and we are definitely going to see a sharp drop in availability of hydro-carbon fossil fuels in our medium term future. The implications of this for our arable crop yields and food imports are extremely serious. The throwaway statistic is that it takes ten calories of hydrocarbon fuel to produce one calorie of food.

Add to that the current shift of economic power from West to East, and the accompanying loss of purchasing power, and we may well be forced back to more localised food consumption and traditional farming methods in the future as developing nations have no choice in right now. However, I too hope that we use this time top develop enough innovation in alternative energies and farming techniques to maintain some level of our current standards of living, in future..

Potential economic considerations in the future do little to halt the debate we can have about the subject right now. I accept vastly fluctuating economic tides (and I mean vastly, not simply us getting a bit poorer) could turn this debate on its head.

But what if, shock horror, people are comfortable, physically, mentally and morally with eating meat, and couldn't give 2 hoots about changing their diet. Like 90-odd% of people are? Shouldn't they be left in peace, without being made to feel bullied for being immoral by vegans/veggies

Quite why you should be left in peace I don't understand. We are a society who live together, move together, represent and influence one another. Besides, asking to be 'left alone' when you yourself 'don't leave animals alone', to put it simply, is a bit rich really. Whenever your actions are impinging upon another's you deserve to justify them and be held to account for them; have a quick look at JS Mill's theory of liberty and the harm principle:

The harm principle holds that each individual has the right to act as he wants, so long as these actions do not harm others. If the action is self-regarding, that is, if it only directly affects the person undertaking the action, then society has no right to intervene, even if it feels the actor is harming himself

Which is why Alkaline's weird smoking comment is for all realistic purposes irrelevant because smokers these days only damage themselves.

It's all very well recommending supplements but in the developing world (most of humanity, no?) it's not an option, Most people in the world don't have the luxury of deciding what they can and cannot eat. "?

Who said anything about going around enforcing vegan diets on the world's poor? We in Scotland currently live in wealth, something which affords the opportunity us to explore moral grey areas such as this. Le Stu, should we really be anticipating some kind of total societal breakdown in the future where the human species regresses several thousand years, leaving us cold on the ground, fighting one another for scraps of meat? I don't think so. We should be living and acting on the basis of what is happening right now and taking advantage of our relative wealth and freedom to explore new things.