I have never understood this logic. If a lion eats a zebra, there’s nothing wrong with it, but when a human eats a cow, they’re a horrible person. (also I know that not all vegans think like this)
I personally believe there’s nothing inherently wrong with eating meat, and instead the problem is how we treat the animals we eat and that we eat way too much meat, taking it for granted.
We are intelligent and capable of considering the idea that an animal may not want to die, and we have it within our means to survive without meat, or with much less meat than we currently consume.
Animals who are being lead to slaughter have been observed to panic and try to flee. They do not want to die. What right do we have to take the life of an animal that wants to live as much as any other person? We are capable of considering this question. Animals are not. That’s the difference.
Even as a carnivore you would not eat a freshly born baby straight out of the mother’s womb, whereas any other predator would see it as an easy meal. There IS a moral implication in taking life.
We can only afford to question this because we are in a utopia of sorts compared to just a few hundred years ago. We are capable of understanding that there are philosophical, moral, and ethical dilemmas to eating meat in 2023. However, if the world went to shit and say an electrical storm wiped out all electronics on Earth, we would not even hesitate to eat meat in as little as a few months in.
Agreed. Once lab-grown/synthetic meat becomes widely available and reasonably-priced, the necessity/demand to keep large farms full of livestock for meat production will take a downturn.
People have been able to “afford to question this” since antiquity - it’s not some modern affectation. You see plenty of instances of people arguing for or outright mandating vegetarian or vegan diets dating back thousands of years. I am not sure if PETA’s specific reasoning (“you shouldn’t eat a fish because the fish would prefer you not do that”) is represented, but you definitely see scholars and rulers in the ancient world arguing for a variety of reasons that people should not kill or eat animals.
Socrates was already criticising it in 450 BCE. Also all Indian religions were championing non-violence as early as mid-1st millennium BCE. This is nothing new nor revolutionary and people were already questioning their actions when “the world was shit” as you put it.
People can strive to become better in any situation.
I agree with your second paragraph, but the appeal to nature is not a good argument and routinely gets exposed as such in debates on the ethics of meat consumption. There are very clear differences between a lion and a human.
Arguing that something’s okay because it’s a natural behaviour is the naturalistic fallacy. The difference is that other species don’t have any choice over how they live or even the mental capacity to think about the morality of their actions. Humans that are well-off and don’t have medical conditions that clash with veganism do.
I used to agree with the second paragraph, but watching videos of pigs/cows/chickens being slaughtered changed my mind. Imo their prior treatment doesn’t really negate what happens there- and even if it did, I couldn’t use ideal farm conditions as a defense when the vast majority of meat I’ve been eating is raised under less ideal conditions.
(This isn’t calling anyone who eats a burger satan, to be clear. Just trying to say my views in good faith.)
I used to agree with the second paragraph, but watching videos of pigs/cows/chickens being slaughtered changed my mind. Imo their prior treatment doesn’t really negate what happens there- and even if it did, I couldn’t use ideal farm conditions as a defense when the vast majority of meat I’ve been eating is raised under less ideal conditions.
Methods of slaughtering them are terrible and absolutely criminal.
One good thing PETA has done is raise awareness about how the meat industry treats its animals - I’ll give them that, definitely.
PETA itself is an organization I place in the same category as a cult, though. Their own practices make the sincerity of their intentions almost blatantly questionable.
Agreed. Not the biggest fan of PETA; am very much a fan of animal welfare and rights being advocated for. CO2 ‘stunning’ of pigs especially gets to me.
the issue is that we’re doing it on a massive scale semi-automatically.
keeping small amount of animals in decent-ish conditions (like on a small farm) and killing some for food/meat is fine.
keeping thouthands of animals in tiny cages where they basically can’t move at all is not.
What would you like, to have been able to be born and live up to around 30 years of age into a large family in an environment catering towards your every need until you are sacrificed to be eaten, or to not have been born at all? The PETA answer is basically “no need to worry about animal abuse if their we don’t allow their niches in human society to keep existing”. I really haven’t PETA seen ever focus that much on environmental protection.
I have never understood this logic. If a lion eats a zebra, there’s nothing wrong with it, but when a human eats a cow, they’re a horrible person. (also I know that not all vegans think like this)
I personally believe there’s nothing inherently wrong with eating meat, and instead the problem is how we treat the animals we eat and that we eat way too much meat, taking it for granted.
We are intelligent and capable of considering the idea that an animal may not want to die, and we have it within our means to survive without meat, or with much less meat than we currently consume.
Animals who are being lead to slaughter have been observed to panic and try to flee. They do not want to die. What right do we have to take the life of an animal that wants to live as much as any other person? We are capable of considering this question. Animals are not. That’s the difference.
Even as a carnivore you would not eat a freshly born baby straight out of the mother’s womb, whereas any other predator would see it as an easy meal. There IS a moral implication in taking life.
We can only afford to question this because we are in a utopia of sorts compared to just a few hundred years ago. We are capable of understanding that there are philosophical, moral, and ethical dilemmas to eating meat in 2023. However, if the world went to shit and say an electrical storm wiped out all electronics on Earth, we would not even hesitate to eat meat in as little as a few months in.
Necessity is obviously a factor.
Agreed. Once lab-grown/synthetic meat becomes widely available and reasonably-priced, the necessity/demand to keep large farms full of livestock for meat production will take a downturn.
People have been able to “afford to question this” since antiquity - it’s not some modern affectation. You see plenty of instances of people arguing for or outright mandating vegetarian or vegan diets dating back thousands of years. I am not sure if PETA’s specific reasoning (“you shouldn’t eat a fish because the fish would prefer you not do that”) is represented, but you definitely see scholars and rulers in the ancient world arguing for a variety of reasons that people should not kill or eat animals.
Socrates was already criticising it in 450 BCE. Also all Indian religions were championing non-violence as early as mid-1st millennium BCE. This is nothing new nor revolutionary and people were already questioning their actions when “the world was shit” as you put it.
People can strive to become better in any situation.
I agree with your second paragraph, but the appeal to nature is not a good argument and routinely gets exposed as such in debates on the ethics of meat consumption. There are very clear differences between a lion and a human.
Arguing that something’s okay because it’s a natural behaviour is the naturalistic fallacy. The difference is that other species don’t have any choice over how they live or even the mental capacity to think about the morality of their actions. Humans that are well-off and don’t have medical conditions that clash with veganism do.
I used to agree with the second paragraph, but watching videos of pigs/cows/chickens being slaughtered changed my mind. Imo their prior treatment doesn’t really negate what happens there- and even if it did, I couldn’t use ideal farm conditions as a defense when the vast majority of meat I’ve been eating is raised under less ideal conditions.
(This isn’t calling anyone who eats a burger satan, to be clear. Just trying to say my views in good faith.)
Methods of slaughtering them are terrible and absolutely criminal.
One good thing PETA has done is raise awareness about how the meat industry treats its animals - I’ll give them that, definitely.
PETA itself is an organization I place in the same category as a cult, though. Their own practices make the sincerity of their intentions almost blatantly questionable.
Agreed. Not the biggest fan of PETA; am very much a fan of animal welfare and rights being advocated for. CO2 ‘stunning’ of pigs especially gets to me.
the issue is that we’re doing it on a massive scale semi-automatically.
keeping small amount of animals in decent-ish conditions (like on a small farm) and killing some for food/meat is fine.
keeping thouthands of animals in tiny cages where they basically can’t move at all is not.
What would you like, to have been able to be born and live up to around 30 years of age into a large family in an environment catering towards your every need until you are sacrificed to be eaten, or to not have been born at all? The PETA answer is basically “no need to worry about animal abuse if their we don’t allow their niches in human society to keep existing”. I really haven’t PETA seen ever focus that much on environmental protection.