O! Human woe!
JamesR said:
I am not aware of any people who have to eat meat to live a healthy life. But perhaps I am wrong and in fact such people do exist.
Even I didn't buy into the Atkins fad. Seemed a bit extreme. I'm sure you've heard of it, though. And yes, they're a tiny majority, and you can ignore them if you want. I do.
The important question is not where the desire comes from to act immorally, but how you respond to such impulses as a moral being. You may get a sudden urge to rape, or kill, or steal. But must you succumb to that?
First off, the response to such impulses invokes considerations of simple chemistry. What you're overlooking in your rush to fanatic judgment is the point of the story I tell. The body demands what it works with best. Period. That's why my body turned on to uncooked spinach. That's why my body will tolerate--and that's the best it will do--carrots. The moral act, therefore--or at least what I understand of your argument--is that I should force my body to endure foods it barely tolerates, including the response of trouncing my sociofunctional rhythms as well as the very nature of the thoughts that occur inside my brain, for unfounded moral discretion?
TW Scott has been saying the same thing. I am still waiting for somebody to explain to me how it is that I am delusional.
Let's start with your disavowal:
The Curious:
- Humans and other animals have the same value in terms of the human endeavor.
I don't know what you mean by that. I have never argued that humans and animals have the same value. Explain.
Yes, you do. When you compare eating meat to the rape and murder of humans, you're presuming moral parity. Which leads to the next point. That it works out so conveniently is not a pure accident of the Universe. It's an accident, but rather limited. In other words, here we go again.
JamesR said:
You give yourself away in the first sentence, where you talk about value only "in terms of human endeavor". How is that anything other than species bias?
Species bias is a foundational aspect of evolution. Let's start with an easy exaggeration or two: Do you try to destroy a disease in your body? Yes. Among health care solutions are the eradication of various living species. Do we separate the microbe from the bovine in assigning moral values? How about plant? Is it wise to attempt to eradicate marijuana, opium, and coca entirely? To make those species extinct? Does "Nature" have any rights? Only what she asserts.
Consider, please: So we build a bunch of houses in some previously-wooded foothills. You and I make cash hand over fist not only from the stunning property values, but also the premiums on the wood we cut down. Six months after the first home sells, or perhaps precisely as we toast the four-hundreth home sale, a mother of two is attacked by a coyote while jogging early Thursday morning. The animal is located, cornered, and shot to death by the local authority. Considering that we humans chose to build in the coyote's habitat, is it really moral to kill a bitch for defending her litter?
And what would we, the developers, say of the coyotes? "F@ck 'em."
I find it rather distasteful, but there is a fair argument on behalf of species. There's also a fair argument on behalf of natural selection to explain the lost jogger.
What about game hunting? At least the cow I ate last night was born for that specific purpose. Can't say that for the last venison I turned down. Don't yet know what it means about fish, but something about the "sport" of hunting makes it seem, to me at least, morbid. Yes I wish it was all free-range, but that it's not is the result of economic priorities that have other, more pertinent ramifications in the evolutionary scheme. There is much more to work on in these dimensions than altering the fundamental nature of humanity specifically for moral dictate. What you're pushing comes down to eugenics, and that without the guarantee of success.
For what species would you permit the extinction of humanity? (Bees, Dolphins, bacillus plague, those nasty freaks from
Independence Day?)
Or would a species bias get in the way on that count?
Now work back from there.
Should we attempt to eugenically alter humanity on a purely moral basis?
Yes, it's a species bias. A dead cow has more value to me than a dead human. In purely economic terms, that is. Everything else is an appeal to my own emotions. Just as your argument is an appeal to a sense of aesthetic. Life
is. Suffering
is. Yes, I care. Like I said, I wish it was all free-range. I think veal is
nuts. But I think hormone use in altering the herd is more of a concern in terms of the
human health impact. Is the comsumption of meat akin to the rape and murder of humans? The comparison has never occurred to me. Yeah, f@cking a horse is akin to rape. Yes. Okay? But come on. For me, the difficult question is whether or not I actually
could eat a dog. See, cattle are useful to me as
food. Dogs are useful to, if not me, other human beings of certain cultural acquaintance, other roles. I don't doubt that a bull could be a fine friend, but the dog is more suited by evolution to the job. Myself, I'm a cat person. That my cat still chooses to live with me is something I appreciate. Cats are free creatures. Not by any moral principle of mine, but as dictated by my relationship with felinity over the years. They have little value to me in terms of food. In fact, they could bring the rats and mice and birds, if it really came down to that. Show me a bull that can bring me dinner and I will show you a hamburger, or fettuccine alfredo, with milkshakes. Maybe if I ever get around to owning a pot-bellied pig I'll understand a thing or two about why not to eat bacon. In the meantime, the best arguments against bacon have to do with
my health, not the pig's. And that's how it goes.
And yes, she knows that "oink-oink" is bacon. She adores the movie of
Charlotte's Web. I even called it "Wilbur" once. She eats chicken, too. Despite her response to "chicken" as "chick":
Peep-peep!
Strangest damn thing, though. The chicken. I'm told she eats turkey, but I don't think I've ever seen it. Then again, I haven't gone out of my way to try, either. She's grabbed my hand, examined my burger, and decided against many a time. I would be limiting her humanity excessively to chase her away from it.
I think it's a matter of natural demand. Our bodies are
equipped for meat. If, later in life, she chooses a restricted diet for moral reasons, that will be her business. In the meantime, what her brain decides it wants, she can have. That does not, however, go for my Guinness.
Imagine one of those awful scenarios. Plane crash in the mountains. Look, I have nothing to say to those unfortunate folks in the Andes, but apparently you do. Not necessarily as things are, but as things would be were we all moral. Imagine if they died because it had been so many generations since humanity ate meat, it was no longer a viable food source.
Melodramatic, yes, but underlying that a very fundamental change in human nature, and for pure morality's sake.
The only times I've mentioned the word in this thread have been in the context of logical methods of argument. If you think my objections on those grounds have not been valid, please deal with the specifics.
To reiterate your complaint:
Consuming meat is the current standard; it is not as if anyone here advocating the continued consumption of meat is asking humanity to do something it has never done before. The vegetarian advocates, however, are treading into territory that is at once pioneering and ultimately arrogant.
This also fails as a logical argument. This time, the fallacy is in the appeal to numbers. "If everybody does it, it must be good!". Sorry, but that just doesn't work. The "current standard" is not automatically right.
You're crying "fallacy" out of order. The argument I'm putting before you is the profound consideration of deliberately customizing humanity as a moral directive. It's not just an appeal to numbers, but an appeal to specific logic. What you argue could result in the elimination of our evolutionary equipment for consuming animals. I don't know, milk? Eggs? Cheese, butter? How about myzithra, a goat cheese I happen to like? So maybe we won't. If it is the right thing for humanity, it will be through economic demand that the evolutionary standard will be altered. At least, that's where our society is headed. But the same economic forces that make so much of the egg and dairy industry immoral are the same ones that make the mathematics of raising animals to slaughter remotely relevant in the first place.
Yes, I have a species bias. I do not like the notion of tampering with our genes for vanity's sake. Whenever we throw dice in the gene pool for stupid reasons, I get a shiver. Customize your baby's eye color? Hair texture?
Muscle type, maybe? (For that Dad who wants a young superstar.) Look, I'm happy we're mapping our genes and all, but some of the potential for that is frightening. And in this longer-term tinkering with our evolutionary needs as a moral quest? No. Ridiculous. Economics will demand it before morals. And if you have the time to be happy about it while humanity suffers under whatever general economic nightmare presses them at that point in societal evolution, good for you. I don't feel like wasting my parental resources f@cking so directly with the gene pool. And yes, I know at least a little about what my own values imply for the future of humanity. What notions I'm contributing to. I've actually stopped to think about it. It's why I have an affectation for that silly
Parker Stevenson TV movie a while back.
Throwing unfounded morals into the mix only makes things harder. And silly.
JamesR said:
Not at all. I think that creating a better world, in which people are more sensitive to the suffering of others, and more in tune with the environment that sustains them, is a worthy goal to pursue. The religious idea that human beings are separate from the rest of the animal kingdom, and able to live apart from the planet Earth, is supremely dangerous, in my opinion. We do not live in a bubble, much as some people might want to think we do. All our actions have effects, some of which go well beyond ourselves. We ought to examine the impacts of our actions, and seek to do good rather than evil. Thus, the moral imperative.
Once again,
Tiassa said:
Morality is an inevitability of the human condition. The morality of having morals, aside from being a paradoxical question, can be determined by the objective foundation, the functional result, and the fundamental simplicity of the morals asserted.
Is having morals moral?
So ... who determines the moral imperative? My moral beefs with beef, for instance, have to do with the economic demands. Not only is free-range kinder to the animals, but it makes a better product. I've been through this before, I think. Somewhere, I think, I mentioned the bit about tweaking the herd and what it's doing to human herds. Our daughters .... Her morals are her business. The only reasons I shouldn't have given her the bacon have to do with her, and not the pig.
But, yeah. Economics and growth hormones. Big problem.
JamesR said:
Do cows consent to being killed and eaten? Why is that not relevant, while the absence of consent of your coma patient is important?
Because I do not purport that bovines and humans have equal rights.
Yes, there you go. Is there harm in eating meat? Discuss.
I do not purport that the animals I eat have equal rights to humans. Moral conflict is not an issue in the question of eating meat.
Why is the "human endeavor" the most important thing, for you?
Because it's what we're part of. You, me, everybody. Every human, that is. The bees got their own thing goin' on. Dolphins, too. And so on.
What could possibly be more important than the human endeavor? The self, perhaps? The pleasure of moral vindication, real or imagined?
Do you not think that shaping non-human animals specifically for our consumption is not eugenic? Aren't you applying a double standard here?
Of course. And I've got even harsher standards for other forms of life.
It appears I've forgotten an important one. Oh, and I'm ignoring that one about abandoning all decision making. Surely, you jest.
It seems you missed my point before. By taking a moral stance, I am not affecting evolution in the slightest. Evolution occurs regardless of what I do or what you do. Sure, I might ultimately be affecting certain environmental factors, which might change the direction evolution takes in the very long term, but there's no reason to suppose that would be negative rather than positive. I'm not diverting evolution from some kind of pre-ordained "proper course". Evolution is not directed.
I'm not sure how well you understand evolution, so I fear I still may not have made myself clear. If not, please let me know and I'll try again in greater detail.
I consider the potential reduction of the human food spectrum a difficult proposition. You are diverting evolution from its pre-ordained proper course. Its proper course is wherever the necessities of life take it. Morals are not a proper wind, just a sack of hot air compared to the magnitude of necessity.
The results of your moral stance, if universally adopted, would indeed determine evolutionary outcomes over the course of generations.
Like I noted, economy will be the persuasive factor.
That's how humanity works these days:
By the grace of God Almighty,
And pressures of marketplace,
The human race has civilized itself.
It's a miracle.
Roger Waters, "It's a Miracle"
What is the anchor of morality? God? Aesthetics? Reality? What are any of those things but perspectives?
What moral priority asserts such parity of rights for non-human animals?
We
could try screwing with the animals' brains so they don't feel pain and can't develop a memory sequence. That way they wouldn't know they were suffering. Would that be any better? I think it would be a bit ridiculous.
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