Is eating meat morally wrong

[James R]

The Principle of Equal Consideration: Basic rights and equal inherent value

A right is the recognition of an interest. To say that an interest is protected by a right is to say that the interest cannot legitimately be abrogated merely to benefit somebody else.

The fundamental consequence of any recognition of rights is that we recognise a basic right not to be treated exclusively as the means to the end of another person. This is a basic right, and a prerequisite to any legal system of rights. If we don't have this right, then all other supposed rights become completely meaningless.

Another way of stating the right not to be treated as means to an end is to say that there is a right not to be considered solely as a resource for somebody else to use as they see fit. Without this right, no human being can be a legal or moral person within society. Without the right, the human being is not a person, but a thing.

If the value of a human being is only as a resource for others, then by definition the Principle of Equal Consideration (treat like things alike) is not applied. Thus, any logically defensible moral system must incorporate the Principle of Equal Consideration as part of its set of basic principles.

This concept of basic rights is well established in philosophy. For example, Immanuel Kant maintained that there is one innate, pre-legal right - the right of innate equality or "a human being's quality of being his own master". Kant said that this right "grounds our right to have other rights". Innate equality in turn demands that we apply the Principle of Equal Consideration.

The difference between a basic right and other rights is that non-basic rights may be sacrificed in order to secure basic rights, but not vice-versa. Sacrificing a basic right to secure other rights would be a self-defeating process, since no other rights can be truly enjoyed in the absence of the basic right. Those other rights would in fact be illusory.

To give another example, one commonly-cited example of a basic right is the right to physical security - the right not to be subject to murder, torture, rape or assault. It would make no sense to suggest that we sacrifice this right for a non-basic right, such as the right to vote. What use is being able to vote if you can't guarantee you won't be murdered?

The basic right not to be treated solely as a resource for others guarantees that humans cannot be bought and sold, used for biological experiments without their consent, killed and used to make clothing, hunted for sport, or killed and eaten.

An equivalent formulation of the idea that humans cannot be treated solely as the resources of others is to say that we recognise that all human beings, regardless of their personal characteristics, have inherent value beyond their value as a resource for other people. This is sometimes called the inherent or intrinsic value concept. Recognition of intrinsic value means we have a right not to be treated as a thing, but as a person. Things, as opposed to persons, only have extrinsic value - they are only valuable in so far as somebody else regards them as a valuable resource. Persons have intrinsic value.

Consider slavery. Slave owners were often advised to treat their slaves "humanely". Why? Not because of any rights of the slaves, but only due to the charity of the slave owners. Slaves are accorded no intrinsic value; their only value is as a resource for exploitation by their owners. An owner might treat his slaves humanely to protect his economic investment, but this is not a recognition of intrinsic value or rights of the slaves.

For example, in one slavery case in the US, a court ruled that it had no jurisdiction to try a slave owner who beat his slaves with "rods, whips and sticks", even if the beatings were administered "wilfully and maliciously, violently, cruelly, immoderately and excessively". The slaves had no rights; they were the resources of the owner, to do with as he pleased. The only exception to this was if the beatings were administered in public rather than in private "not because it was a slave who was beaten, nor because the act was unprovoked or cruel; but because ipso facto it disturbed the harmony of society; was offensive to public decency, and directly tended to breach the peace. The same would be the law, if a horse had been so beaten." In other words, the court would consider the sensibilities of people who had rights not to be offended by witnessing a beating, but would not accord any rights to the subjects of the beatings themselves.

Now, consider animal rights. The Principle of Equal Consideration says that if we are going to take animal interests seriously and give any real content to prohibitions on inflicting unnecessary suffering, then we must extend the same protections to animal interests in not suffering as we extend to human interests, unless there is a good reason not to do so. Note that there is no middle ground. Either animal interests are morally significant, or animals are merely things which have no moral status. It might be economically "better" to not to treat animals cruelly, just as it might have been economically "better" to beat slaves only twice a week instead of five times a week, but this notion of "better" did not remove slaves from the category of "things".

Much of the argument in this thread has been concerned with potential excuses for not recognising the equal inherent value of animals in not suffering, and therefore denying that the basic right of equal consideration applies to animals. Examples: "Animals aren't as smart as humans", "Animals haven't claimed their rights in the way humans have". These are given as reasons to deny equal consideration to animals. In the following posts I may discuss these objections in more detail. There is a lot of territory to cover here, so I am approaching this bit by bit.

 

[TW Scott]

Have you ever been President of the United States? Does that disqualify you from commenting on the President's decisions?

It disqualifies me form say I can do better as there is no proof. It disqualifies my comments from being anything more than assumptions. However I have made decisions and ones as the president are undoubtable tougher. You have yet to die so you can know nothing about dying.

Have you ever had an abortion? Does that prevent you from commenting on the issue of abortion?

No and No it doesn't but since i have not had an abortion my comments should be considered as n0thing more than a breeze on the wind.

 

[James R]

Plants vs. animals

The Principle of Equal Consideration tells us that we ought to accord equal intrinsic value to all sentient creatures. Sentience in this context means having the ability to consciously experience pain and suffering.

Do animals consciously experience pain? Perhaps there are some of them that don't, but it is difficult to draw the line.

Does a dog feel pain the same way that a human feels pain? Again, it is difficult to know. But then again, we have the same problem with human beings. Do you feel pain the same way I feel pain? There's no way to tell for sure. And yet, we say all humans are sentient.

We know for our common meat animals that they have all the apparatus necessary to feel pain - a brain, a central nervous system etc. And they certainly act in ways that suggest they feel pain in the same way humans feel pain. So, if I am going to recognise that your pain, as another human being, is similar to mine, then I can't see any reason for imagining that a dog's pain is different in kind.

To be sentient is not the same as being alive. Sentience requires that you are the sort of being who has the capacity to be conscious of pain and pleasure. Consciousness, in turn, requires an "I" to have the subjective experience of pain.

Plants are alive but not sentient. They do not behave in ways that indicate they feel pain. They lack the neurological and physiological apparatus that is associated with pain in humans and animals. Moreover, they lack the need for pain as a survival mechanism.

The Principle of Equal Consideration would demand that we accord equal intrinsic value to plants and to humans in the matter of pain, unless there are compelling reasons not to do so. And there are. There is simply no evidence that a plant experiences pain at all. In fact, there's no evidence that plants have ANY conscious experience. There is no evidence that plants are an "I" which is conscious of itself as an ongoing entity.

 

[Sgal]

I think eating meat isnot morally wrong because it is part of nature. That is how most animals survive, however if you eat too much that is not good for you and is a waste because the animal was killed for nothing.

 

[James R]

"Claiming our rights"

It has been argued in this thread that animals have no rights or intrinsic value because they have not "claimed their rights". This is one suggested reason for not applying the principle of equal consideration to animals, and therefore giving humans the right to treat animals as things, or as the sole means to ends of human beings.

This fails as a viable reason for denying equal consideration to animals because it sets up a double standard. Many human beings have never "claimed their rights". We recognise the rights of human children, disabled human beings and so on, not to be treated as things, but as beings who have intrinsic value. Yet a baby cannot fight to assert its rights. On the other hand, animals fight as best they can to assert their right not to be killed, for example. So, why regard animals as commodities yet regard babies as beings of intrinsic worth?

It has been asserted that membership of the human species is enough to give human babies basic rights. Human babies, even though they do not possess the special characteristic that is supposed to give rights (i.e. that they have "claimed their rights"), supposedly should still be treated as though they possess the required characteristic.

But this is simply begging the question. The issue here is to name a characteristic that ALL humans possess but which animals do not, which justifies us giving rights to all humans but to no animals. Pretending that all humans have a particular characteristic when some in fact do not, and when some animals may in fact possess the characteristic, doesn't overcome the inconsistencies of this argument.

The fact is, there is no special quality that all humans possess and that no animals possess, such as to justify the treatment of all animals as things, while all humans have intrinsic worth.

Some people argue that humans can talk, or do calculus, or write books, and that that makes the difference. Yet there are many humans who cannot talk, cannot do calculus, cannot write books. Should we therefore exclude those human beings who cannot talk or do calculus from the moral community? Clearly, we do not do that.

 

[James R]

I think eating meat is not morally wrong because it is part of nature.

"t is the order or nature and of God, that the being of superior faculties and knowledge, and therefore of superior power, should control and dispose of those who are inferior. It is as much in the order of nature, that men should enslave each other, as that other animals should prey upon each other."

Do you agree with this defence of human slavery?

 

[James R]

tiassa:

With the above ground-work done, I can now address your most recent posts.

How we normally define suffering is an interesting proposition, don’t you think? Or has human knowledge achieved the end-all of such definitions?

The question of whether plants suffer is one that I have addressed in detail. However, it is ultimately irrelevant to the issues in this thread. We can say unequivocally that the animals we kill for meat suffer, feel pain etc. Therefore, we ought to treat them as beings of intrinsic worth, regardless of how we decide to treat plants.

On this matter, though, I still find it hard to believe that you would truly regard my eating your tomato as raising the same set of moral concerns as my eating your cat, say.

The issue of how animals are treated in industrial-scale farming and ranching is economic in the more specific sense of humans and monetary-based resource allocation. Your previous address of the questions of demand seem to come down to assertions of selfish pleasure and greed.

I hope that in light of my posts above, you understand the issues a little better now. The point here is that treating animals solely as an economic resource is a denial of the most fundamental of rights, and has no ethical justification.

“Walrus love” as an explanation for behavior is in itself an oversimplification. Did that ever occur to you? Have you ever noticed that, whether or not we intend or even care about an evolutionary result, our actions often tread into that arena? Has it ever occurred to you that human beings are part of nature, and not separate from nature? It seems you are aware of such considerations, since you discuss genetics, personal history, and environmental considerations at least. But did it ever occur to you that “love” in humans, and walruses if you must, is an evolutionary tool on behalf of species? That some woman somewhere “wants to have a baby” for whatever reasons … do the reasons for her desire change the fact that the arrival of the baby is, quantitatively at least, a perpetuation of the human species? If a barren woman saves a child’s life, is it mere heroism? Perhaps a Christian conscience? Does any of that change the fact that a potentially-viable human’s life has been extended, so that it might contribute to the species’ perpetuation?

I am very well aware that humans are part of nature. I am aware of the facts of evolution to the extent that I realise, as Darwin did, that no characteristic of a human being is fundamentally different in kind or quality compared to the characteristics of animals, but that only differences in quantity of particular traits exist. No quality of human beings suggested as a justification for treating all animals as mere things while humans are persons stands up to any kind of close scrutiny.

Which brings me back to my basic point: I think “morals” are a terrible reason to tailor the evolutionary outcome because so few morals have objective foundations.

You keep coming back to this meta-ethical question. Let's be clear: this is off-topic for this thread. If you want to discuss objective vs. subjective morality or the basis for morality as a grounded philosophical discipline, I think it would be better to do so in a thread dedicated to that purpose. In the current thread, we ought to assume that ethical systems and moral reasoning exist as valid enterprises, and see where that leads us.

You seem, for instance, unsatisfied with the possibility that human economics will eventually force species-wide vegetarianism.

I admit that is a possibility. Already, there are signs of movement in the attitudes of the general public to consumption of meats such as veal, and the laws of supply and demand may well respond to that. But economics do not operate in a moral vacuum.

If we seek to solve the suffering of cows and chickens while ignoring the suffering of humans, are we not giving the animals preferential consideration? I find the fact of our humanity a very compelling reason to consider the human impacts of our actions before stopping to wring our hands over what the cows think.

The obvious answer to your question here is: yes, we would be giving preferential treatment to the animals if we ignored the suffering of humans. But it is a given that we currently do not ignore the suffering of humans. Humans are clearly inside our moral circle of consideration, while animals are excluded from that circle for no logical reason.

This really is horsepucky, as I said before. We’ll go with the anecdotal, since I can’t seem to dig up the link: there was a BBC News report sometime in the last couple years about a guy in India who claimed to have not eaten anything in ten years; doctors were looking into the claim, and I’ve never heard the outcome. Nonetheless, should we be more like those mystics who seek to minimize our impact on nature?

This is a much wider question than the one I wish to address in this thread.

Rights are, indeed, endowed by convention. However, inasmuch as human recognition of interests are concerned, are there no logical reasons for rights?

Yes. Rights are based in interests, and interests exist due to objective factors. But this is meta-ethics again, and I don't want to discuss that here.

We come back to the questions of “What is pain?” and “What is suffering?” The dividing line you draw is one I see as aesthetically-founded.

It is a fact that plants do not have nervous systems. It is a fact that plants do not have brains. It is a fact that plants are not conscious. Since consciousness is a prerequisite for experiencing anything, pain included, it follows as a fact that plants do not experience pain.

Life is suffering. What I’m saying is that the line you draw is a false construct designed entirely to make those who accept it feel better about themselves, which is a petty reason for any moral assertion, and a terrible, even dangerous foundation for morality. The effects of this particular moral assertion include the eventual evolutionary limitation of the human diet. This is a difficult proposition in general, much less for assertions of morality. That your argument seems to ignore such issues does much to cast your own argument as being purely selfish, and for nothing more than pleasure and greed.

Given my explanatory posts prior to this one, you will need to elaborate on your own claims before I dignify this with a further response.

I know you’re not an idiot, James. Really. Sincerely. Were you not so emotionally tied up in the morality of vegetarianism, I’m quite sure you would give better consideration to reality.

Back at you, tiassa. I think you're emotionally tied to meat eating, and more importantly you are emotionally tied up in your own importance and the importance of your "species" above that of any other being, which is why you can't draw the obvious conclusions about widening the human moral circle based on the recognition of intrinsic value.

Is it a species bias (killing humans) or a personal bias (killing you) that serves as the compelling reason to exclude bacteria from equal consideration?

Bacteria do not experience pain. They are not conscious. etc. etc.

Actually, I should point out that just because I do not regard plants or bacteria as moral persons, it does not follow that I feel free to run around and kill plants and bacteria willy-nilly. So, don't get the wrong idea.

The fact is that we are humans, and not cows or chickens or apple trees or plague bacteria. Does the fact that you are human mean nothing to you? Your argument seems to undervalue the fact of our humanity.

The default historical position, which you are defending, is based on religious considerations and natural human hubris. It greatly overvalues the fact of our humanity, at the expense of everything non-human, and for no justifiable reason.

Since the “right to life” is simply a human construct, what of the “obligation to exploit collective resources in order to prolong one’s own suffering”?

What is the moral basis of your suggested "obligation to exploit collective resources"?

What gave you the impression that I consider children insignificant?

Oh, comparisons of eating meat to the rape and murder of children? The rejection of species considerations (including reproduction) as abstractions? Comparing the consumption of a live prawn or head of lettuce to a human baby? Just maybe?

Note that drawing parallels between things does not mean you consider them equivalent in all respects. In fact, I have been very careful to make myself clear where I have drawn comparisons. The above paragraph is constructed so as to give people a completely false impression of my previous points. I don't feel the need to go over them again. You know and I know what I actually wrote on these matters. If you have any actual questions, feel free to ask.

Because your morals are simply that important to you. Greed? Selfish pleasure? The reason to protect the environment is because in doing so we protect our habitat. The reason for participating in society (e.g. paying for food) is that society is a better condition for the species than wandering the plains in search of our next meal. You know, what you call a species bias.

You're consistent in your number one assumption that humans are the most important thing in the universe. Did it occur to you that protecting our environment protects not only the human habitat, but that of countless other species as well? Does that matter to you? Probably not, because animals are at best things for humans to exploit. Protecting the environment might give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside, but mainly because it will benefit you, either directly or indirectly, and not for any other reason.

Given a choice between species bias and megalomaniacal greed, I’ll choose the species bias.

Can you not see that species bias for one's own species is a form of megalomaniacal greed?

Is there any residual confusion that your rape comparisons are stupid?

Scream straw-man all you want while you appeal to emotion and aesthetics. I think it is your emotional demand in this topic, the quest to feel better about yourself, that pushes your argument into such dishonesty.

Why is rape wrong? Answer: because it involves treating another human being solely as a means to an end of another person. The end may be the selfish pleasure of the rapist, or the feeling of power and domination the rapist gets, or a combination of these and other factors.

Why is eating meat wrong? Answer: because it involves treating animals solely as the means to an end of a human being. That end may be the selfish pleasure of the human being, satisfying the "urge" of the human for the taste of the meat, or whatever. But the fact remains that the act denies any intrinsic value to the animal, just as rape denies any intrinsic value to the victim.

This is not a "stupid" comparison, but a pertinent and telling one. Your dismissal of it as stupidity is what is stupid.

And yes, your position is arbitrary until you provide a rational, objective foundation for it. As it is, you might as well be telling me that your argument derives from God’s will.

This is the meta-ethical point again. I would like to move this issue to a more appropriate thread.

What a ridiculous statement. First, good and evil are human inventions; secondly, it is only that my conscience about animals does not satisfy your demand for psychological warm fuzzies that you would even say “regardless of the evils”. Additionally, species may be an abstraction to you, but all that demonstrates is that you ought to spend some time asking a few questions about why life, the Universe, and everything are the way they are. Walrus love … wait’ll they get to snap bracelets.

Good and evil may well be human inventions, but most people recognise their existence. Do you? (Actually, I'd prefer we use the terms "right" and "wrong" here, to drop the religious overtones.)

Your point about life, the universe and everything is unclear at this stage.

Work on your condescension, James. That was pretty stupid.

There's irony here, is there not?

Stop overstating animal suffering in order to bolster your argument.

There's no need to overstate it. The fact of suffering ought to be sufficient.

And "discrimination"? No. We'd be ending the discrimination.

By making the problems of animals more important than the problems of humans, we’d be ending discrimination?

Who suggested making the problems of animals more important than the problems of humans? Another "straw man" stamp for you.

You’re the one who offered “walrus love” as a response to the fact that species tends toward its perpetuation or else goes extinct.

Damned greedy walruses, right?

This is either another misrepresentation or misunderstanding of an issue - I'm not sure which.

Pet ownership can be very much like slavery. To the other, though, I recognize that my cat also chooses me, inasmuch as she has had plenty of opportunity to strike out for other environs. Depends on how you feel about animals.
...
The cow sent to the butcher was specifically intended to be sent to the butcher. My current cat was conceived against the intentions of her mother’s guardian, and for the most part my family’s cats have been strays that chose to hang around. Can’t say many cows have come a-knockin’ on our door.

So, it appears there can be differences between caring for a pet and owning an animal you intend to sell for meat. Could this have something to do with intrinsic value and a double-standard, do you think?

Cows don’t desire much. You anthropomorphize bovines far too much.

Back at you. I think you don't appreciate what cows are actually like. I doubt you've spent much, if any, time with cows. You probably think they are like grass-munching automatons.

 

[QuarkMoon]

"t is the order or nature and of God, that the being of superior faculties and knowledge, and therefore of superior power, should control and dispose of those who are inferior. It is as much in the order of nature, that men should enslave each other, as that other animals should prey upon each other."

Do you agree with this defence of human slavery?

Non sequitur, that passage's correlation between slavery and carnivorous animals is a fallacious argument. Animals do not prey on other animals solely because of superiority.

 

[TW Scott]

I think you don't appreciate what cows are actually like. I doubt you've spent much, if any, time with cows. You probably think they are like grass-munching automatons.

Well, you don't think much of anything actually, but I am not here about your pessimism. You assume much and betray your own ignorance. Of course we do not see cows as grass munching automatons. We also do not see them as being anything approaching equal. When have you had a meaning conversation with a cow? Have you ever seen one read a book? Sell milkshakes and McDonald? Petition for 'Equal Consideration'?

 

[QuarkMoon]

It is a fact that plants are not conscious. Since consciousness is a prerequisite for experiencing anything, pain included, it follows as a fact that plants do not experience pain.

How do you know? What are the prerequisites for consciousness, if any?

 

[TW Scott]

"Claiming our rights"

It has been argued in this thread that animals have no rights or intrinsic value because they have not "claimed their rights". This is one suggested reason for not applying the principle of equal consideration to animals, and therefore giving humans the right to treat animals as things, or as the sole means to ends of human beings.

It's not so much a claim as a seizure. Claiming means it is already your you just have to step up. Seizure means you must either earn them or fight for them. Only a few animals have done either. Fo the record Animals ore not things and are not treated that way no matter what you imply. The are living beings with needs, however mankinds needs override theirs/

This fails as a viable reason for denying equal consideration to animals because it sets up a double standard. Many human beings have never "claimed their rights". We recognise the rights of human children, disabled human beings and so on, not to be treated as things, but as beings who have intrinsic value. Yet a baby cannot fight to assert its rights. On the other hand, animals fight as best they can to assert their right not to be killed, for example. So, why regard animals as commodities yet regard babies as beings of intrinsic worth?

You are stretching here. The rights were seized by the species. When the rights are seized all beings of that species are automatically covered to a varying degree. I say varying as human children are ostensibly under the control of their parents until the age of majority is reached. Now human babies are included as procreation is vital to the survival of the species.

It has been asserted that membership of the human species is enough to give human babies basic rights. Human babies, even though they do not possess the special characteristic that is supposed to give rights (i.e. that they have "claimed their rights"), supposedly should still be treated as though they possess the required characteristic.

As explianed the Species claims the right and the progeny of course reap the benefits. Once the species claims all future mebers of that species are protected. How is this hard to understand?

But this is simply begging the question. The issue here is to name a characteristic that ALL humans possess but which animals do not, which justifies us giving rights to all humans but to no animals. Pretending that all humans have a particular characteristic when some in fact do not, and when some animals may in fact possess the characteristic, doesn't overcome the inconsistencies of this argument.

46 chromosomes, classification as Homo Sapiens, ability to breed with other humans. Of course it only takes one of these to qualify.

The fact is, there is no special quality that all humans possess and that no animals possess, such as to justify the treatment of all animals as things, while all humans have intrinsic worth.

Says you, but you are also the person who claims I am not an independant thinker based off the fact i do not agree with you. I have already explained it above, but I could not help but point out you flawed opinion.

Some people argue that humans can talk, or do calculus, or write books, and that that makes the difference. Yet there are many humans who cannot talk, cannot do calculus, cannot write books. Should we therefore exclude those human beings who cannot talk or do calculus from the moral community? Clearly, we do not do that.

And this has a point how. You are talking learned skills and equating them to special features of our race. It is a bit of digging, but you managed to make yourself sound more irrational.

 

[James R]

QuarkMoon:

Non sequitur, that passage's correlation between slavery and carnivorous animals is a fallacious argument. Animals do not prey on other animals solely because of superiority.

Hopefully, you realise why I posted that passage, and got the main point. In case you didn't, it was to point out that the naturalistic fallacy (what is natural is right and good) has been used in the past in an attempt to justify slavery, sexism, various forms of racism and so on. This just underlines the futility of trying to relying on it to justify speciesism.

What are the prerequisites for consciousness, if any?

I don't know. But I do know that cattle and sheep and chickens are conscious. Do you deny that?

 

[James R]

TW Scott:

You have just spent a lot of time repeating an argument I have just refuted in detail.

I find it particularly amusing in that your response to my argument is one step behind with every one of your quotes, and when it comes to the crux you have no valid response at all.

Your additional ad hominem attacks are just par for the course.

I doubt you even understood what you were attempting to reply to.

 

[QuarkMoon]

Hopefully, you realise why I posted that passage, and got the main point.

Sure, I also realized you were responding to someone else so I didn't want to butt in. I just felt compelled to call out that passage's logical fallacy.

I don't know. But I do know that cattle and sheep and chickens are conscious. Do you deny that?

You obviously must know, since you are able to confidently claim that plants are not conscious and animals are. I don't know if animals are conscious, because I don't know the prerequisites to consciousness. What makes animals conscious but not plants?

 

[James R]

Quarkmoon:

You can't tell whether animals are conscious or not? Seriously?

Can you tell if other people are conscious?

 

[TW Scott]

James R

What I find amusing is your totla faith in that you are doing well in this debate. Your lack of any point whatsoever, let alone a valid one makes your posts tedious and ultimately futile. A little effort from you to put forth an idea and succinctly would be appreciated.

What I find annoying is your constat use of avery noviable debate tactic and then *gasp* when someone returns fire in anyway you immediately try to call them on it. Which is more annoying as you cannot even do that correctly.

FInally there is the disgusting which is your deep and abiding hatred of facts. You twist and didtort everything you understand. Which thankfully is not much. It is like arguing with a severe delusional.

 

[QuarkMoon]

Quarkmoon:

You can't tell whether animals are conscious or not? Seriously?

Can you tell if other people are conscious?

If there are no apparent requisites for consciousness, then it just becomes an arbitrary term, no? Isn't consciousness your main argument for Equal Consideration?

Just so you know, I do have a point to my posts, I'm just trying to arrive at that point without giving you a chance to destort it beyond recognition.

 

[James R]

TW Scott:

Go be a baby somewhere else.

 

[QuarkMoon]

James R

What I find amusing is your totla faith in that you are doing well in this debate. Your lack of any point whatsoever, let alone a valid one makes your posts tedious and ultimately futile. A little effort from you to put forth an idea and succinctly would be appreciated.

What I find annoying is your constat use of avery noviable debate tactic and then *gasp* when someone returns fire in anyway you immediately try to call them on it. Which is more annoying as you cannot even do that correctly.

FInally there is the disgusting which is your deep and abiding hatred of facts. You twist and didtort everything you understand. Which thankfully is not much. It is like arguing with a severe delusional.

Why partake in this pointless bickering if it annoys you so much?

 

[James R]

Quarkmoon:

The only consciousness we need to consider for the purposes of this thread is the consciousness (or not) of the animals we kill and eat.

Now it is patently obvious to me that animals are conscious. If human beings are conscious, then so are cattle and sheep.

If you have a point, I suggest you make it.