Last night at Thanksgiving dinner, my cousin's husband refused to eat the turkey. He did so partly on moral grounds, citing the inhumane raising and slaughtering of turkeys. He claimed turkeys are mass produced in biological "factories", endure horrible living spaces, and suffer tremendously upon death. As a result, he felt an ethical obligation to avoid personally furthering this morally reprehensible industry.
I rarely outright reject any argument that has been thoughtfully considered, unless this includes tarot cards and a magic eight ball. From my admittedly brief ruminations on the subject, I concluded his argument rests on the premise that non-human animals have some inherent moral value and that they endure pain in a semi-conscious manner. The first statement leads to a sequence of moral suppositions and the importance or triviality of cultural moral norms. For example, if one doesn't consider a turkey a moral creature, then on what basis does one imbue a dog with moral value? Cruelty involving dogs engenders a visceral response amongst almost all Americans, but is this reaction due to an objective delineation between dogs and turkeys, or merely a result of our cultural affection for that particular creature? Where is a line drawn with regards to animals or is natural law a viable metric for our treatment of less evolved creatures? Perhaps, there is a valid line, so does that mean a turkey has absolutely no value whatsoever? If so, then it's rather odd a good number of us would react negatively to the gruesome inner workings of a slaughterhouse. C.S. Lewis often pointed to universal human experience as evidence of an innate moral compass and while I disagree with his ultimate conclusion, the common experience of actually viewing animal death in front of our faces mustn't be dismissed too quickly.
The second problem is the nature of pain and if non-conscious animals experience pain in the same manner we do. PETA nutcases, schooled in the doctrine of moral relativism, can't distinguish between just about anything, culture, morality, and possibly not even humanity. (Ironic that they all believe in moral relativism and subjective morality, but it's an undeniable evil to hurt animals.) In the human experience, it's well documented and often an aspect of one's personal history, that pain only manifests if the victim is acutely aware of its existence. Take the desperate mother pulling open a car window to save her trapped child. Such a feat would normally cause great physical anguish, but her detached focus doesn't permit her to experience any pain. Likewise for animals, who lack any consciousness, it's possible they don't know they're in pain in the same manner we do. Their reaction stems from an evolutionary adapted urge to escape pain which is connected to situations endangering an animal's life. When they cry, do they actually feel the pain? Do they know they're enduring such insufferable conditions?
This is a tough one actually, even as a twice-daily meat-eater. Maybe the cruelty arguments have validity, but doesn't the utility of meat as human sustenance far outweigh the pain inflicted upon these animals? Isn't the economic efficiency of cheap meat a valid "excuse" for doing this? And isn't the law of the wild in which we still reside, where a pack of cheetahs rips apart their live prey, enough justification for acting in this manner? It doesn't matter though. I'm not giving up my lean grilled chicken and weekly bacon cheeseburger.
(A famous athlete who found the PETA arguments valid is Prince Fielder. Of course, after adopting a vegetarian diet, he promptly lost a ton of weight and strength.)
30 comments:
"doesn't the utility of meat as human sustenance far outweigh the pain inflicted upon these animals?"
Eating meat has a utility towards happiness (it tastes good), but it does not help to sustain humans.
Think about this from a thermodynamics perspective. If you just eat plants, then you get all of the calories that they contain. If you eat meat instead, you get the calories from the plants that they ate minus all of the energy that they spent living their lives. If we were all vegetarians than we would have far more food available.
"Isn't the economic efficiency of cheap meat a valid "excuse" for doing this?"
Cheap? I don't see how that could be possible. When you eat an animal, you pay for the animal and the plants that the animal ate to survive. You'd get more food at a lower cost if you just ate the plants directly.
"And isn't the law of the wild in which we still reside, where a pack of cheetahs rips apart their live prey, enough justification for acting in this manner? It doesn't matter though. I'm not giving up my lean grilled chicken and weekly bacon cheeseburger."
This depends on whether we are using a utilitarian or deontological (duty based) ethical system. In Singer's preference utilitarianism, animals should not be eaten because their suffering in farms outweighs human pleasure at the dinner table. In Kant's General Theory of Justice, animals exist in a state of nature and thus do not have protection from the state. But then again Kant thought that illegitimate children had no right to life, so I'm not sure that his theory is all that useful here.
Eating meat isn't economically efficient. Like Al said!
This is a question I ponder from time to time, since I object to many of the conditions under which agricultural animals are raised, but on the other hand, I eat meat pretty much every day of my life.
I agree that the degree of sentience is relevant. I doubt that shrimp or other shellfish dedicate much thought to their predicament. I don't think that in any sense in which we use the word, they "understand" what is happening to them. I believe that, at least to some degree, a cow in a feedlot recognizes its agitation and confusion, though I doubt that it knows where all this is leading.
It seems to me that one solution would be to grow slabs of meat apart from any brain, which, I believe is or will soon be possible. Another possiblity is to recognize that life feeds on life, and only eat animals that are less sentient, and which were apparently raised under less onerous conditions (grazing up to the time of slaughter rather than confined in a feedlot, for example). A final alternative would be to eat only the meat that you hunt and kill, thus assuring that the animals "lived free" right up their deaths. Then again, most domestic animals that we eat couldn't survive under those circumstances, and life in the wild is A LOT harder on animals than many PETA people suspect.
As for chickens, it's really hard for me to believe they have any idea of what the hell is going on, though I still think they should be killed quickly. Same for turkeys. Beyond that, everything is cool in the Darwinian Jungle.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Likewise for animals, who lack any consciousness, it's possible they don't know they're in pain in the same manner we do. Their reaction stems from an evolutionary adapted urge to escape pain which is connected to situations endangering an animal's life. When they cry, do they actually feel the pain? Do they know they're enduring such insufferable conditions?
That passage I found breathtakingly mistaken. Of course animals are conscious, and the degree of consciousness varies with the complexity of the animal. There may an emergent phenomenon, such that an animal like an earthworm could never be considered conscious, but a dog or a turkey undoubtedly is. Just because a turkey cannot know that it is about to be slaughtered doesn't mean that it doesn't sense danger, want to preserve its own life, in short, is conscious. You are confusing consciousness with intelligence, I think.
As for pain, since it's a biological mechanism that evolved to prevent damage to the organism, it would be ridiculous to think that animals don't feel pain, whether or not the same as we do.
Last night at Thanksgiving dinner, my cousin's husband refused to eat the turkey.
I hope you called him a fucking pussy. I would have. I can't stand ostentatiously self-righteous SWPLs.
The energy density of animals is far higher than the energy density of plants. Thus they are a thermodynamically efficient source of food. (Calories gained from eating meat - calories expended hunting) > (calories gained from eating plants - calories expended gathering plants).
And that's aside from the fact that being a vegetarian is dickless.
In the book of Luke, there is an episode where Jesus kills a herd of 1000 pigs in order to save one human. Jesus also says in another place that "[humans] are worth much more than sparrows" (but that God loves even sparrows, showing that theyre not worthless). This used to be enough to answer the question for me when I was younger, but now I think the question is truly unanswerable.
If you've ever witnessed what goes on in a factory farm, it is indeed appalling. After watching chickens and turkeys being slaughtered and dismembered by the thousands with mechanical efficiency, it's hard to stomach eating meat for a few days after. It's only through our disconnect as to where our meat comes from, that most people in the modern world are able to cope with and justify their consumption of meat.
I used to live next to a butcher's shop and would be awakened some mornings by the cries of cows and pigs being killed. My bedroom window was on the third floor and I had full view of the area where the animals were slaughtered. I once saw three pigs trucked into the back bay, snorting and grunting happily, oblivious to their fate. That was until the first pig was taken out of the pen and its throat slit. The butcher hung the pig up to dismember it in full view of the two other pigs. Their cries of fear and their futile scurrying for their lives affected me deeply. While the first pig wasn't aware that it was to be killed, the other two knew; I had no doubt about this. They struggled for freedom when their time came. They clearly did not want to die. And the screams they let out when the butcher killed them still is imprinted on my memory. I stopped eating pork and beef soon after this.
Maybe the cruelty arguments have validity, but doesn't the utility of meat as human sustenance far outweigh the pain inflicted upon these animals? Isn't the economic efficiency of cheap meat a valid "excuse" for doing this?
I'm all for killing animals for meat, but I wouldn't mind if we found more humane ways of killing farm animals such as by knocking them out with a gas before killing them, or something along those lines.
I stopped eating most carbohydrates and started pretty much eating only meat. I dropped 60 pounds (no portion control, just eating as much meat, cheese, and eggs as I want every day). I'm still substantially overweight (that's changing slowly), but I seem to have gained a huge quantity of muscle. I can do pull-ups despite being 75 pounds overweight.
So, I'd argue that in my case there are substantial health and happiness benefits to eating mostly meat. And probably in everybody's case: read Gary Taubes.
So where does that leave us? Be Vegans, ruin our health, and allow animals to live out their natural lives (i.e. live until some other animal eats them). Or do we set up veterinarians in the jungle and somehow stop the predators from eating the other animals? Or maybe we just nuke the planet from orbit to end everything's suffering (it's the only way to be sure).
For me, I'm going to keep eating meat. I'm not going to torture animals, and I'll expend reasonable effort to stop it if I can make a difference. On the other hand, thank god I don't have the personality that would make me lose sleep over it. That's what's really wrong with the PETA fellows, I think, and I pity them for it. It's not logic or reason, it's how they're wired. Like psychopathic killers, they've got defective empathy units in their brains. Except for them, they feel too much empathy. Your average Vegan probably feels sorrow when he bites into a gingerbread man.
This is probably pretty simple. Nothing wrong with killing animals to survive and feed your family. Cruelty is sick and wrong regardless of the target. These ideas have been part of many cultures from Hinduism/Jainism to Judaism. Regardless of your opinions of those religions, for millennia intelligent thoughtful people have written on the immorality of cruelty to humans and other animals.
As for the SWPL thing. I agree some SWPL stuff is crap. However, just hating something because it is SWPL is stupid. I bet SWPL's brush their teeth. I am not going to stop brushing mine because it is SWPL.
Just because you find Peta annoying doesn't mean that cruelty is okay. Visit a meat packing plant and then form an informed opinion. Meat packing is consistently rated as the job with the lowest employee satisfaction and highest turnover.
However, fishing, hunting, and family farming are not, even though they involve killing animals and preparing the meat. Seems there is sufficient evidence that intensive meat processing is nasty, even if those who oppose it are sometimes SWPL girly men (note most SWPL's are meat eaters). If you are moved by empirical evidence, then the position "I like it because SWPL's don't" is goofy.
Killing animals is fine. Cruelty isn't. I don't think normal people relish cruelty.
"And that's aside from the fact that being a vegetarian is dickless."
I guess that makes it fine for girls since they are dickless anyway.
I couldn't resist.
Al said:
Think about this from a thermodynamics perspective. If you just eat plants, then you get all of the calories that they contain. If you eat meat instead, you get the calories from the plants that they ate minus all of the energy that they spent living their lives. If we were all vegetarians than we would have far more food available.
All, has anyone told you yet that you are an ignorant moron?
The human gut cannot deal with a great deal of the stuff in plants, especially the cellulose, but some of our food animals have evolved ways to deal with the stuff in plants that we cannot.
In any event, even eating plants is not really that efficient. We might as well start with the basic components, the raw chemicals and turn them into amino acids and consume those.
However, we are not equipped to do that, so, as it turns out, doing things our current way is the most efficient available to us today.
Mangan says:
Of course animals are conscious, and the degree of consciousness varies with the complexity of the animal.
This is absolutely true. Of course domesticated dogs have been selected to be very similar to humans in many ways and thus it is easier to feel strongly about mistreatment of dogs.
In the end, of course, our food animals (and plants) have entered into an unspoken bargain with us. We ensure their genetic survival as long as we survive, and they provide us with food. That is, they won't go extinct as long as we don't.
I think it's worth noting that if we must eat meat, pigs and cows have much better lives than chickens, and there are a lot fewer of them. (PeTA says 8 billion chickens die every year; versus "only" a few million cows and pigs.) So I would say chicken is the cruelest meat of all, and pork and beef are at least somewhat less sinful.
I'm actually quite surprised that some commenters see meat eating as a moral question. I figured most would respond quite negatively to even suggesting this represents a moral issue.
Though amongst the SWPL vegan crowd, I doubt many even consider these arguments, instead simply detesting meat eating as a trait of the conservative idiots.
Anyone who thinks slaying animals for their meat is immoral should watch a few episodes of "Killing For A Living" on Animal Planet.
Pitying the poor cows who never would have been born if it weren't for husbandry is some kind of inter-species Marxism that I can't even begin to wrap my head around. The bear that ate Tim Treadwell is laughing his ass off at you.
Black Sea is right. Soon enough, we'll be able to get our meat raised apart from the brain.
So what does that mean? It means Bossy becomes nothing but a giant rat and pest and of no value whether on the feedlot or family homestead.
I have been raising my own beef (and poultry) for years. I genuinely like my animals and it is a sad day when they go to slaughter, but go they do.
When the vat raised beef happens or all of us join peta, we may be willing the extinction of a species.
Is that people treating animals ethically?
I think it's reaonable to eat meat however I believe animals ought to raised and killed humanely.
However what causing cruelty for the fun of it? Animal fighting? Hunting for sport? I am against these things. After all, the argument "animals don't experience pain the way we do" is fallacious. It's obvious that they do experience pain to quite a similar level as humans do.
Likewise what of the rights of the severely disabled humans who don't seem to be sentient or at least particularly sentient any more than animals? Should they have human rights? It is said that plenty of people love to torment such disabled people knowing it's highly unlikely they'll face punishment because the victim isn't capable of properly complaining.
"Likewise what of the rights of the severely disabled humans who don't seem to be sentient or at least particularly sentient any more than animals? Should they have human rights?"
I think in the case of the severely disabled, we grant them 100% human rights because it would be too hard to draw a line as to how disabled one has to be to start losing rights. We all instinctively know that we are just a car accident away from being those folks. Nothing will turn us into cows or chickens, so that is a clear line we know we will never be on the wrong side of.
The idea that animals lack consciousness is absurd. On what would one base such an extraordinary claim?
Also, the idea that a vegetarian diet is bad for one's health is a myth. I was a vegetarian for six years and was more fit and energetic during that time than I ever was.
If most people were forced to witness firsthand where their food comes from, many would give up or reduce their meat intake, or at least be less inclined to snark at non-meateaters.
There is a great deal of shallow and misguided thinking around this issue. Not that has an easy answer. I will continue to eat meat because I enjoy it and regard it as natural in some way, yet I am also aware that there is pain and death behind it which I mostly try not to think about.
"All, has anyone told you yet that you are an ignorant moron?
The human gut cannot deal with a great deal of the stuff in plants, especially the cellulose, but some of our food animals have evolved ways to deal with the stuff in plants that we cannot.
In any event, even eating plants is not really that efficient. We might as well start with the basic components, the raw chemicals and turn them into amino acids and consume those.
However, we are not equipped to do that, so, as it turns out, doing things our current way is the most efficient available to us today."
A person can live on a vegan diet and be more healthy than a person who eats meat. The fact is that we can eat a wide variety of plants (as we did naturally) and then supplement our diet with small amounts of fish to provide nutrients that we would not receive otherwise.
I suppose that this is a partial concession. I should have said that a meat-intensive diet is inefficient, because barring chemical fortifications, there are some unique nutrients that animals produce themselves.
Vegans can thrive without eating any animal products - I'd imagine that they either use chemical fortifications or simply eat a great variety of plants that meet all of their nutritional needs.
But in any case, eating the amount of meat that we eat today is quite inefficient, if one measures utility simply by the number of mouthes we can feed. Like I said before, eating tasty meat makes people happier.
"Vegans can thrive without eating any animal products - I'd imagine that they either use chemical fortifications or simply eat a great variety of plants that meet all of their nutritional needs."
Tony Gonazalez went vegan and in just 3 weeks lost 10 lbs of muscle and a considerable amount of strength.
The vegan/vegetarian diet is fine if you supplement it with protein shakes, fish oil, and other replacements. But a strictly v/v diet is a bad idea for men otherwise.
Another food men should avoid at all costs is soy. It's basically like taking estrogen.
I have been raising my own beef (and poultry) for years. I genuinely like my animals and it is a sad day when they go to slaughter, but go they do.
Exactly right. All you whiners like Sagat who still wake up and hear the little piggies screaming need to realize that for centuries, men were very connected to where their meat came from - they raised it, slaughtered it, and prepared it themselves - and yet somehow were happily able to cope with and justify their consumption of meat.
"nd yet somehow were happily able to cope with and justify their consumption of meat."
I brought up this argument on Thanksgiving. Here was the reply:
"Well those chickens weren't raised and slaughtered in the way that "factory" chickens are. Factory chickens live in disgusting environments suffering tremendously until they're slaughtered in a cruel manner and endure much pain in the process of being killed."
"Well those chickens weren't raised and slaughtered in the way that "factory" chickens are. Factory chickens live in disgusting environments suffering tremendously until they're slaughtered in a cruel manner and endure much pain in the process of being killed."
I think that you'll lose the argument if you let them frame in terms of maximizing utility. Instead, you should try to frame it in terms of rights.
Humans enter into a civil society by accepting obligations and thus gaining rights. Animals cannot enter into a civil society, they are always in a state of nature.
Eat long pork. If we truly believe in HBD, atheism, and relative levels of consciousness in humans and animals then cannibalism is the logical answer. We have determined in prior discussions that animals (mammals anyway) think and feel to some extent. We have also determined that human mental abilities vary a great deal. In the absence of any God or other supreme moral authority logic reigns supreme. Our world is overpopulated with humans so some have to go. Neandertals and most other hominids were known to practice cannibalism. Perhaps the time is right to bring this practice back and save the animals. We can start with prisoners, the mentally ill, etc.
If not--why not?
Subjective speciesism, that is, siding with humans because they are your fellow humans, not because humans are inherently superior, is often overlooked as a reasonable position.
@ Columnist:
What does your chosen name refer to?
Are you a mainstream journalist or writer?
Humans wonder, anybody home?
Brain structure and circuitry offer clues to consciousness in nonmammals
Humans wonder, anybody home?
Brain structure and circuitry offer clues to consciousness in nonmammals
Post a Comment