Is eating meat morally wrong
- Thread starter Theoryofrelativity
- Start date
heliocentric
Registered Senior Member
The problem with justifying meat-eating is that its (99 times out of a 100) it not a rational descion or a life style choice youve arrived at. Its a way of life that probably doent even register on your radar most of the time, its just another type of food with a certain texture and flavour to it.
So when someone attacks that life-style i think the common instinct is to argue back, its like someone attacking the principles of your country or someone attacking your mother and father for raising you the wrong way.
I think it deeply offends alot of people to have such a fundamental aspect of their lifes disected and questioned.
Are the arguments in favour of meat-eating really a *reason* to eat meat? or are they a post justification for something that never had much rhyme or reason or reason to it in the first place?
Dont reply to this, because noone ever changed their mind or admited they could be wrong on a forum, just assimilate it and see if your attitudes to eating meat are still the same in a couple of years.
*edit - I just realised that kind of sounds like im trying to brainwash people into becomming vegetarian haha.
All im really getting at is that its important to question the things that are assumed to be self evidentially 'right'.
So when someone attacks that life-style i think the common instinct is to argue back, its like someone attacking the principles of your country or someone attacking your mother and father for raising you the wrong way.
I think it deeply offends alot of people to have such a fundamental aspect of their lifes disected and questioned.
Are the arguments in favour of meat-eating really a *reason* to eat meat? or are they a post justification for something that never had much rhyme or reason or reason to it in the first place?
Dont reply to this, because noone ever changed their mind or admited they could be wrong on a forum, just assimilate it and see if your attitudes to eating meat are still the same in a couple of years.
*edit - I just realised that kind of sounds like im trying to brainwash people into becomming vegetarian haha.
All im really getting at is that its important to question the things that are assumed to be self evidentially 'right'.
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heliocentric
Registered Senior Member
And lolz! at tiassa's book length non-argument btw. Ive honestly never seen someone argue that much without actually having an arugment, its like you dodged every moral appeal by rendering any concept or idea thrown at you obsolete before you could even have chance think about it.
'morals?? but what ARE morals really??'
'Equality? yeah but what IS equality really when you think about it'
Ive learnt much in the art of bullshitting today, smashing stuff.
'morals?? but what ARE morals really??'
'Equality? yeah but what IS equality really when you think about it'
Ive learnt much in the art of bullshitting today, smashing stuff.
draqon said:
You're way out there on this thread my friend! So it's only homosexuals that spread STD's? Idiotic statement.
Not creating new babies, are you 9 years old? The human race is rapidly increasing it's numbers, homosexuals haven't dented the human population in the least. Any other moronic arguments up your sleeve?
In my opinion, eating meat is ethical, as long as nature's balance exists, each species will live to the next generation. By nature's balance, I mean the natural population balance between the predator and prey. In nature, the prey almost always vastly overpopulates the animal which hunts it. Farming is the only thing that keeps this balance alive in the case of human beings. However, I don't believe that it is ethical to kill an animal(including a human) without intentions to eat it. Observe the lion: Whena a new male takes over, he will kill the other male's cubs and eat them. Since the new male is the stronger male, this ensures the survival of the fittest.
heliocentric
Registered Senior Member
I think we have to look at evolution and decide if we want something better, we are actually in a unique position to define our own evolution now morally, socially, and genetically.
Theres no point paying lip service to nature's balance, weve got the luxory of personal choice more than ever, we dont need to play the game on her terms anymore.
These are interesting and exciting times for sure. I fully embrace this new phase of artificially evolving counter to the natural order.
Theres no point paying lip service to nature's balance, weve got the luxory of personal choice more than ever, we dont need to play the game on her terms anymore.
These are interesting and exciting times for sure. I fully embrace this new phase of artificially evolving counter to the natural order.
Heliocentric said:
And you've put it to good use. I mean, talk about a non-argument: "We need not know what the words mean in order to make use of them." True 'nuff, I guess, but that sort of crap is exactly why so many people think the majority of humanity is stupid.
heliocentric
Registered Senior Member
Hmm i was being rather cheeky when i wrote that, sorry to call you a bullshitter.tiassa said:
I just meant that dismantling semantics to render everything meaningless or without value is a good way of avoiding not having to really deal with an argument thats being put forward.
Used liberally its all good fun, but when it becomes a means of avoiding the question i think it just becomes abit pointless for all concerned.
I believe eating is “morally wrong”.Theoryofrelativity said:
I would suggest that consuming anything involves its destruction.
Therefore I would advise all you moralists and ‘good souls’ to stop eating and dedicate your short lives to living up to your own high moral standards.
Here’s a Cioranean notion:
If taking life is, for whatever reason, wrong, is then creating it, for whatever reason, right?
All you moralists, you weep over the suffering of animals and worship yourselves through other living entities should wonder if condemning another entity to slow decay and the suffering of life is a moral right or if it is your way of worshiping yourselves, again, and an expression of your vanity.
If only your gods would have such qualms.
heliocentric
Registered Senior Member
Thats a pretty weak argument 'dont be moral atall if youre not going to take it to the nth nth nth degree'.Satyr said:
Its like saying 'ohh ok bob geldof think youre sooo charitable raising money for teh africans, why dont you sell the clothes off your back as well and stop being such a fraud!'
Doesnt your assumption that compassion must be based in vanity reflect more about how you operate than we do?
Funnily enough concluding that anyone who lives by a different set of morals to you could only be doing it out of vanity sounds ironically like the vainest thing ive ever heard.
Ouch!!!!heliocentric said:Thats a pretty weak argument 'dont be moral atall if youre not going to take it to the nth nth nth degree'.
Its like saying 'ohh ok bob geldof think youre sooo charitable raising money for teh africans, why dont you sell the clothes off your back as well and stop being such a fraud!'
You got me.
So, you ascribe to morality to the …nth degree and not the nht, nth degree?
A very convenient moral stance, you’ve got there.
I wonder if you recognize that your charity is only directed towards that which reminds you of yourself.
You don’t, for example, show any moral outrage for plants being consumed - they are living organism as well, you know – but limit yourself to that which you deem worthy of your ‘compassion’ because it is closest to you and you label it ‘holy’.
Last time I checked life was self-consuming. There is no moral imperative there but only survival of the fittest.
You cry foul when you can relate to the suffering of another in whose place you put yourself, and imagine what that must be like or how “wrong” it is.
Well then if death or dying is wrong then so is living, as the state of continuous dying.
If you are going to make some arbitrary distinction between this or that living organism, based on your biased opinions of what constitutes ‘higher’ life forms and driven by a hypocritical desire to save yourself from the inevitability of suffering and life’s brutality, then try to be less obvious about it.
About me and you, as well.
You are just too obtuse and dishonest to admit it to yourself.
Now, return to your drivel that’s it’s, somehow, wrong to slaughter baby lambs and feed on them.
You have yet to taste reality and you suffer from that naïve, adolescence which looks into the world, is terrified and then shelters itself behind feigned idealism.
If you fear being harmed or consumed by another organism or becoming fodder in the endless game of life, then stop believing that eating grass will save you from it.
It …..will….not.
Isn't it logical that if he really cared he would give the shirt off of his back? Obviously, if he hasn't sold his clothes for a loin cloth yet, he must not care. At least, when I make a commitment to something I care about, I try to be 110% commited, and not half-assed.
heliocentric
Registered Senior Member
Satyr said:
No no you dont get it, im not saying im perfect thats your hangup about vegetarians. Me raising issues of morality in relation to eating animals doesnt = 'hey i think im perfect come and join me!'
You can always trump someones apparent morality by asking why they dont go that bit further.
And you know theres nothing inherently wrong with that, unless youre using it as a cheap way of avoiding the moral topic thats being raised altogether.
Which in this instance i believe you are.
The 'why dont you stop eating plants as well' is argument against vegetarianism no.5. And funnily enough people will always ask that question before asking themselves why they wouldnt eat their own species or certain selected mammals but are perfectly fine with eating animal xyandz.
Youre right, i have a big axe to grind with the parasitic state of nature and i think its actually that which gets peoples goat most of all. How dare i question natures inherent 'values' (or non-values prehaps).
Maybe one day we can exist in a world/universe where all exchanges of energy are mutual and not simply taken, id hope so even though im sure i wont be around to see it.
And btw there is more to life than simply obeying some kind of survival of the fittest ideology, the society we live in is based apon values that far exceed some kind of vaugely darwinian dog eat dog mentality. We have courts, laws, fair trade legislation.. ad infinitum for a reason you know
And you dont? now whos playing the hypocrite? unless you can relate to and love everything equally or on the flip side have no regard for anything at all, be it plant, animal or mineral then youre creating arguments that you cant even support on a personal level.
No theres nothing wrong with death in itself, just people think that they have some kind of inherent right to take it whenever they please.
Theres nothing arbitrary about it, i base what i eat on my best guess of what can and cant experience pain, the last i checked plants dont have nerve endings which send messages to a part of the plant which are subjectively experiencd as pain.
And im also assuming that your eating habits have some kind of logic applied to them since eating on the basis of arbitrary divisions is obviously something you cant stomach (bad pun).
I think you just cant fathom doing something without it comming round full circle and actually being about yourself sometimes, selfish gene style rhetoric has rotted your brain.
Maybe i can be all grown up one day like you and produce utterally presumptuous and false statements out of thin air.
Its not about me!!! soon as you work that one out what im saying might make abit more sense. The more you conclude that every act done in goodwill *has* to come round full circle and be entirely selfishly motivated the more you reflect your own inadequacies.
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heliocentric
Registered Senior Member
Oniw17 said:
You really think compassion is that black and white? you dont think its possible to have varying degrees of it just like every other human emotion?
Of all the things we’ve been taught to feel guilty about and to feel ashamed for, eating animals is the least of them all.
I used to wonder about how many bugs and ants I’ve killed just by walking across a park. Simply taking up space is an aggressive act. It denies this space to another.
When I eat, or I consume anything, I am denying it to another.
When I take a job I prevent another from having it.
When I breathe I deny the breath to another.
The universe is built on appropriation of energies and maintenance of unities.
The idea that the universe, and nature, is a terrible place that we must correct, that we must feel guilty for simply living and that we must spend our lifetime making amends for it, is an old one.
The Bible is full of reasons to feel ashamed for being born.
Shame is a method of coercion. A social authoritarian tool. A form of communal retribution.
Every religion, from Christianity to Buddhism preach some kind of testing and divine judgment which will pay rewards in the long run.
We are to be judged by how we treat others in a universe where all life is sacred and where all deserve love and dignity.
Life has ...rights...a very human concept.
Here’s a little clue: The universe doesn’t give a shit about you and your hopes and your feelings of injustice and shame and your efforts to correct them.
The only thing that gives a shit about you is…..you, and everyone else who does so, or claims to do so, has an investment in you; he/she gains something in return for his/her caring.
Your interest in not causing pain is one I can sympathize with.
I too felt this need to save the world from its suffering, to shield other beings from nature’s brutality.
I was once asked to slaughter a rabbit for a meal and it took me a good 40 minutes to get the nerve and then I felt guilty about it afterwards.
Even today I would rather not do it.
But I know that this sense of compassion is my own insecurity concerning my own tenuous existence.
I see myself in the suffering of others and I seek to escape it by entering into an agreement with the unknown or with the hypothetical Other. An agreement where I protect so as to be protected and I shielded so as to be shielded.
These feelings are caused by multiple cultural reasons some of which are:
1- Moral systems which preach the evils of suffering. Suffering being a tautology with life makes any such dogmas an attack of life itself.
2- Civilization which shields us from killing and the dirty business required to eat. Then killing becomes exalted and practiced artificially.
3- A sense of entitlement and thanklessness towards beings that give their lives for our own sustenance and towards which we show no reverence – not even a silent prayer before a meal.
4- Abundance which creates waste and thoughtlessness. We take things for granted and fail to see the price of existence; the blood, sweat and tears.
Sheltering does not save us from reality it just makes us more vulnerable to it when it suddenly appears to us, bare and brutal. We are taken aback by the spectacle and we want to sanitize our environment so that we are not reminded about death or nature’s indifference.
I used to wonder about how many bugs and ants I’ve killed just by walking across a park. Simply taking up space is an aggressive act. It denies this space to another.
When I eat, or I consume anything, I am denying it to another.
When I take a job I prevent another from having it.
When I breathe I deny the breath to another.
The universe is built on appropriation of energies and maintenance of unities.
The idea that the universe, and nature, is a terrible place that we must correct, that we must feel guilty for simply living and that we must spend our lifetime making amends for it, is an old one.
The Bible is full of reasons to feel ashamed for being born.
Shame is a method of coercion. A social authoritarian tool. A form of communal retribution.
Every religion, from Christianity to Buddhism preach some kind of testing and divine judgment which will pay rewards in the long run.
We are to be judged by how we treat others in a universe where all life is sacred and where all deserve love and dignity.
Life has ...rights...a very human concept.
Here’s a little clue: The universe doesn’t give a shit about you and your hopes and your feelings of injustice and shame and your efforts to correct them.
The only thing that gives a shit about you is…..you, and everyone else who does so, or claims to do so, has an investment in you; he/she gains something in return for his/her caring.
Your interest in not causing pain is one I can sympathize with.
I too felt this need to save the world from its suffering, to shield other beings from nature’s brutality.
I was once asked to slaughter a rabbit for a meal and it took me a good 40 minutes to get the nerve and then I felt guilty about it afterwards.
Even today I would rather not do it.
But I know that this sense of compassion is my own insecurity concerning my own tenuous existence.
I see myself in the suffering of others and I seek to escape it by entering into an agreement with the unknown or with the hypothetical Other. An agreement where I protect so as to be protected and I shielded so as to be shielded.
These feelings are caused by multiple cultural reasons some of which are:
1- Moral systems which preach the evils of suffering. Suffering being a tautology with life makes any such dogmas an attack of life itself.
2- Civilization which shields us from killing and the dirty business required to eat. Then killing becomes exalted and practiced artificially.
3- A sense of entitlement and thanklessness towards beings that give their lives for our own sustenance and towards which we show no reverence – not even a silent prayer before a meal.
4- Abundance which creates waste and thoughtlessness. We take things for granted and fail to see the price of existence; the blood, sweat and tears.
Sheltering does not save us from reality it just makes us more vulnerable to it when it suddenly appears to us, bare and brutal. We are taken aback by the spectacle and we want to sanitize our environment so that we are not reminded about death or nature’s indifference.
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heliocentric
Registered Senior Member
Satyr said:
But youre almost attaching a feeling of shame to 'feeling' shame, like youre embarrassed to have these values you feel you shouldnt.
I think shame is a greatly undervalued tool in todays society, i think there should be more of it, shame doesnt have to be this negative force preventing you from expressing themselves to your fullest.
I think repressing shame or ignoring it is just buying into this idea of no responsiblity to anything other than ourselves, personally i blame opera and dr.phil
True but the problem is the appropriation of energies can quickly turn into a monopoly.
Youve kind of lost me on that one, ive never felt shame for being alive, shame for having more than others maybe but not existance itself.
Although i see how you could follow a thread of thought that would lead to you an idea like that.
Shame itself isnt an artifically created tool though (if that is what youre suggesting) although yeah society tells us what we should and shouldnt attach shame to - something that im in continual disagreement with.
Maybe we will, or maybe we're our own final judges on how we live our lives.
You can think im a fool if you like (and im sure you do)
But im living as i see fit, im not allowing nature itself to hold the rule book and dictate how i should live.
Do i get brownie points? :m:
So what if it doesnt? again youre bringing it full circle around to how it affects me, i dont need a cookie from the universe every time i give a shit about someone or something when it doesnt really benefit me.
Its like me saying ''stop giving a shit about your friends, stop giving a shit about your family, stop giving a shit about the israel/palestine situation...theres no reward even if you DO give a shit.'' Well er...no shit.
Hey i almost agree with you on this point, apart from my family (who are kind of duty bound to care about me regardless) noone really cares about me but myself, its a bitter pill to swallow sometimes but i think i can deal with it for now.
But that doesnt mean i have to be sulky teenager and proclaim ''right fine then! im not going to genuinely care about anything or anyone if noone really cares about me''
All im doing by adopting that life style choice is perpetuating a way of life thats im thoroughly grumpy about, doesnt make much sense really does it?
And thats cool, but dont you think its arrogant to assume that the source of your apparent compassion applies to every single other human being?
My hang ups arnt your hang ups, and your hang ups arnt mine.
Sounds like you gave up on thinking years ago, and now youre playing natures game on her own terms because you got angry that there wasnt anything in it for *you* when you tried to strive for something better.
Im not sheltering, i think sheltering would be more akin to ignoring my moral voice and trying to think it all away on the basis that 'morals are just illusions anyway so i dont have to listen.'
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Heliocentric said:
Fair 'nuff. Truth is, I was packing to leave on vacation when I wrote that. But you do raise an interesting issue, which I alluded ... okay, which I pretty much chomped on.
It is a frustration, for instance, to watch the talking heads on the news; I vote for Democrats, but mainstream liberals these days drive me nuts. Part of the problem liberalism faces as a coherent movement is, strangely, its diversity. Diversity is supposed to be strength, but it also complicates things to a certain degree. Conservatives hold to the cause, march in lock-step, win on the bases of organization and cohesion. Liberals, however, often come together from disparate causes, each asserting the primacy or urgency of said causes. One of the things, relevant at least to this discussion, that never gets discussed, is the notion of rights. I mean, liberalism holds for a specific interpretation of rights that seems broad and applicable, but what, really, are rights? In the U.S., there are certain rights that are inherently ours as individuals as defined by the Constitution; corporations among the states, though, assert similar rights and claim greater importance than individuals. Abroad, some nations in Europe theorize broader rights for the people than Americans, and in Singapore, rights are merely convenient slogans. As with the Battlestar example, however, it seems that rights are conditional upon circumstance: I would never force a woman to have or abort a baby, but what if the species was suddenly facing extinction? In the U.S., the rights of children are circumscribed circumstantially, and the rights of those perceived as lacking mental or psychiatric competency are constantly in debate, and never fully exercised or respected. As we humans have invented the concept of rights, it seems to me that what we lack is a common understanding of the bases of rights. Given that psychiatric competency is an excuse for proscribing the breadth of rights--except where religion is concerned, at least in the U.S.--it seems a difficult proposition to extend to the cows what we will not grant our children, e.g. equal rights.
So what are rights? That, of course, becomes a whole topic in itself, and I should give some thought to building that one. But it seems very difficult for you or I or JamesR, or anyone, really, to assert what we cannot define. And yet we do.
And when I look out at how much people seem to hate each other in my society, part of the problem seems to be that we're all fighting over prizes that we cannot define: rights, prosperity, happiness, &c. Within this fight, of course, arises the slogan that "people are stupid". Tragic, is it not, that our rush to convenience is also a great cause of inconvenience? So says me, at least.
Nonetheless, I should at least disclaim that my purpose is not to lecture you self-righteously in order to extend my appearance of oversensitivity or a bad mood on the subject, but, rather, to exploit a wonderful opportunity you've provided by which I might clarify what I wholly admit has been a convoluted discussion of the rights of cheeseburgers, drumsticks, ham hocks, &c., and the animals from which they come. Thank you, indeed.
On the equity of animals and people:
I had an interesting moment last night, reading through Sarah Vowell's tome on presidential assassinations, that made me think immediately of this topic. (If that's not a sign that something's wrong with me, I don't know what is.)
What? It made me smile.
______________________
Notes:
I had an interesting moment last night, reading through Sarah Vowell's tome on presidential assassinations, that made me think immediately of this topic. (If that's not a sign that something's wrong with me, I don't know what is.)
We were playing knights, fighting each other with plastic swords. Owen was winning. I was doubled over onto my parents' living room floor and he was pretending to slice off my head with his sword. Trying to be an educational aunt, or as educational as a person can be when a three year-old is trying to chop her head off, I told him that the act of chopping off a person's head is called "decapitation", and a head that's been chopped off is called "decapitated".
Owen, slicing my neck like a salami, insisted, "No, it's not. It's called meat." (Vowell, 42)
Owen, slicing my neck like a salami, insisted, "No, it's not. It's called meat." (Vowell, 42)
What? It made me smile.
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Notes:
Vowell, Sarah. Assassination Vacation. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005; p. 42.
Well, there's that. But even I have trouble explaining how I go from the morbidity of Assassination Vacation to this particular discussion. At some point, I perceive indicators suggesting that even now, when I don't post every day, my life still leads back to Sciforums in some way. If I knew how to celebrate the fact, I would, but I can't even afford to offer the site financial support right now. It's just one of those things that would make me feel pathetic if I devoted any substantial thought to it.