Is eating meat morally wrong

[finewine]

Morality is meaningless if it can be modified at the whim of the individual. It becomes indistinguishable from pure selfishness.

Bingo! I agree. This remember is a thread about morality not about eating meat or about vegetarianism.

Mankind modifies morality all the time for our own selfish needs.

I am not taking a position either way. You make the wrong assumption on that. I am discussing all aspects of the morality.

I started out if you recall saying that the morality has to do with the spilling of blood and that the blood is the life of the animal.
Are you saying that an elderly citizen does not have the same right to life that an adult or adolescent does? Why?

As far as the fetus is concerned at 12 weeks it feels pain and tries very hard not to be chopped up into bits and pieces but just as the cow, it cannot escape its confinement that has been place on it by a 'superior' animal that choses to kill it. And what the pro choice advocates play down is the mental emotional anquish that the mother goes through and lives with after an abortion. Noone likes to talk about that and noone likes to talk about the aborted babies that do survive and live their sentient life. When does that sentient life start?

Everyone is controlled by their system of values. It is inescapable.
What system is correct? We all think our system of morality is correct.
Those that say and believe they are freed from any limitations and are free thinkers and open minded are not.
They are controlled by the values they set for themselves in their freed state and any new ideas will be accepted or rejected through that filter of values they've established for themselves.

I am not confused at all. I am not advocating and presenting a case for eating meat.
I am discussing morality and asking questions about what is it in regards to KILLING animals as the original post queried.

I make no judgements on it either way. Each must come to his own conclusions and live his own convictions. I am not trying to persuade anyone to change.

I did not think that this forum was about trying to persuade anyone to change.
I thought it was about presenting ideas and discussing them.
Vegetarians don't eat animal meat or fetus.
Meat eaters eat meat of animals.
Man chooses to eat meat because he likes the taste of it not because he needs to or has to eat meat.
Sapient beings are aborted as less valuable than sentient full grown cows.
Mankind in its selfishness modifies morality to justify his own set of values that frees him to believe and do whatever he wants so he doesn't have to be held accountable to a higher standard of morality. But then of course we don't have a higher standard of morality. We are all just conscious sentient animals but for some reason mankind has the power to say what is right or wrong whereas the cow does not.

 

[James R]

finewine:

Bingo! I agree. This remember is a thread about morality not about eating meat or about vegetarianism.

Well, it is titled "Is eating meat morally wrong". To me, that suggests that it is about the morality of eating meat.

Mankind modifies morality all the time to for our own selfish needs.

I think you're mixing up "individuals" with "mankind". Mankind's morals are reasonably constant, with some small shifts. Individuals can sometimes change their minds.

I am not taking a position either way.

It sure sounds to me like you're pro-life rather than pro-choice, which is a position. On the vegetarian issue, maybe now would be a good time to decide what you believe.

I started out if you recall saying that the morality has to do with the spilling of blood and that the blood is the life of the animal.

Sounds similar to my argument about suffering...

As far as the fetus is concerned at 12 weeks it feels pain and tries very hard not to be chopped up into bits and pieces but just as the cow, it cannot escape its confinement that has been place on it by a 'superior' animal that choses to kill it.

Perhaps.

And what the pro choice advocates play down is the mental emotional anquish that the mother goes through and lives with after an abortion.

Not in my experience. The pro-choice advocates I know emphasize that deciding whether to have an abortion is almost always a very difficult decision for a woman to make, and there can be a lot of mental anguish at the time. It is not a life experience which is easy to forget for most women, either. However, research indicates that abortion does not leave women as emotional wrecks, wracked for life by guilt, as some pro-lifers would have you believe. Most women never regret their decision, either way.

Noone likes to talk about that and noone likes to talk about the aborted babies that do survive and live their sentient life.

How can an aborted baby survive?

When does that sentient life start?

Life starts long before conception. Sperm and ova are alive. Sentience only starts with the development of a central nervous system.

Everyone is controlled by their system of values. It is unescapable.
What system is correct? We all think our system of morality is correct.
Those that say they are freed from any limitations are not.
They are controlled by the values they set for themselves in their freed state.

Yes, I agree. But some systems of morality, as I said before, are objectively more defensible than others.

 

[TW Scott]

The argument is very simple:

1. Animals can suffer.
2. It is wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering.
3. Meat production causes unnecessary suffering, and the premature end of an animal's life.
4. Therefore, meat eating is wrong.

1: Yes the animal can suffer. So what. Does that have anything to do with me and my relations with my peers, which food-animals are not.?

2: No it is not always wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering. To even think that is ridiculous. Otherwise we could not ever imprison someone.

3: I have to categorically deny this. These animals do not on a whole suffer, nor is this necessarily a premature death. Without our industies those animlas would not exist or be protected in the first place. Which is besides the point. When it is your time to go it is your time to go and nothing is going to stop it.

4: Eating meat is as morally wrong as breathing, drinking water, eating an apple, or posting on a forum. It is one of those things neither right nor wrong, but just there.

 

[finewine]

finewine:
Well, it is titled "Is eating meat morally wrong". To me, that suggests that it is about the morality of eating meat.

quote=theoryofrelativity
"What is it about our relationships with animals and how we view ourselves in relation to animals that dictates we should (if we should) take a 'moral' view?
I got the quote from that thread, Its not personal opinion re pro or not pro eating meat I am after its your views on 'when does something become a moral issue, what makes it moral, what makes this subject a moral issue or even if it is a moral issue?"

I think you're mixing up "individuals" with "mankind". Mankind's morals are reasonably constant, with some small shifts. Individuals can sometimes change their minds.

Mankinds morals have been reasonably constant in shifting towards a humanistic relativism that promotes the ambiguity of "You can condone the abortion of babies and I'll eat animals. Either way we are killing life but it is agreed to disagree and do what we want to do."

It sure sounds to me like you're pro-life rather than pro-choice, which is a position. On the vegetarian issue, maybe now would be a good time to decide what you believe.

I already did. See above.

What matters is the discussion of the thread's question.
To require a person to take a position is to automatically set up assumptions about that person and what that person will try to say to convince you your position is wrong. You automatically put up walls to listening and only try to persuade the person to your stance.

Sounds similar to my argument about suffering...

Yes, it does. We are agreed.

Not in my experience. The pro-choice advocates I know emphasize that deciding whether to have an abortion is almost always a very difficult decision for a woman to make, and there can be a lot of mental anguish at the time. It is not a life experience which is easy to forget for most women, either. However, research indicates that abortion does not leave women as emotional wrecks, wracked for life by guilt, as some pro-lifers would have you believe. Most women never regret their decision, either way.

Research by whom? Pro-choice advocates? You can say the same thing to me. Research by whom? Pro-life advocates? I will tell you, yes, they are now. They are mothers who aborted their children and still regret it.
Have you talked with women who have aborted their children 5, 10 years afterwards?
Those that never regret their decision are those whose selfishness controls their morality to justify the killing of life. I am not condemning them nor judging them morally. This is the psychological fact at work in their lives.
This pro-choice advocacy of telling the mothers it is a difficult decision originated as a result of pro-life's pressure to get them to do so. It was not so at the beginning after Roe vs Wade. Do you know that Roe is now pro-life? Indeed, she is. Her morality changed towards the killing of life.

How can an aborted baby survive?

http://www.prolife.com/SARAH2.html

Life starts long before conception. Sperm and ova are alive. Sentience only starts with the development of a central nervous system.

The beginning of which is put into motion at conception when the DNA of sperm and ova are combined and a baby begins development.

Yes, I agree. But some systems of morality, as I said before, are objectively more defensible than others.

Why? What makes that statement true?
Why can't I kill you by bludgeoning you to death with a baseball bat or by chopping you into tiny little pieces while you were sentient because I do not like the color of your shirt or I want a midnight snack of human flesh?

 

[Theoryofrelativity]

The following has just occurred to me, historically, we in UK DIDN'T HAVE or know of the existance of vegetables, they were imported and then grown here few centuries ago.

We were hunter gatherers, meat and berries, had we been meant not to eat meat, we'd have died out long ago!

Massi warriers, eat only meat, again no such thing as vegetables where they live. A diet without meat for them WOULD not sustain them.

Vegetarianism is therefore something that can ONLY exist in the current modern and civilised world where we have been able to import and grow the variety of vegetables etc required to be vegetarian healthily.

Does this therefore mean that the moral issue only arises and applies to those in modern civilised world who have the choice?

 

[finewine]

I think it is only in the current modern and civilise world that there would arise any question about the morality of it because up until the current civilised world, morality was a more defined absolute in the general population than it is now. Being exposed to different cultures has now caused us to pause and think on what is right and wrong which is the bottom line of morality.

But then the dilemma becomes who decides what is right and wrong? That would be an interesting topic of discussion as well.

I am sure there is a thread on it somewhere on this forum.
Another query that comes from your post
Are we really more civilised or is our barbarianism more refined and sophisticated to be acceptable to the morality that is written on the heart?

 

[Theoryofrelativity]

But then the dilemma becomes who decides what is right and wrong?
QUOTE]

James R of course

 

[TW Scott]

That is a scary thought. He's a little too black and white for me. There is no gray or off-white around him.

 

[c7ityi_]

it's better to not eat meat because it causes suffering. but not for all people.... for some people it might be ok. like for animals, it's not wrong for a lion to kill, it might be the same way for some people too. and some people need to eat meat in order to survive, like eskimos.

But then the dilemma becomes who decides what is right and wrong?

i think god.

 

[finewine]

But then the dilemma becomes who decides what is right and wrong?
QUOTE]

James R of course

You think so??

 

[finewine]

it's better to not eat meat because it causes suffering. but not for all people.... for some people it might be ok. like for animals, it's not wrong for a lion to kill, it might be the same way for some people too. and some people need to eat meat in order to survive, like eskimos.



i think god.

What does god say about the rightness of eating meat?

 

[Hapsburg]

foetus

:bugeye:

 

[Theoryofrelativity]

What does god say about the rightness of eating meat?

James R has already given his views on this matter why you asking again

 

[c7ityi_]

What does god say about the rightness of eating meat?

probably the same as i said.

 

[James R]

TW Scott:

1: Yes the animal can suffer. So what. Does that have anything to do with me and my relations with my peers, which food-animals are not.?

No. It has to do with your morality, or lack of it. If you have no regard for the suffering of other creatures, you are morally stunted.

2: No it is not always wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering. To even think that is ridiculous. Otherwise we could not ever imprison someone.

The key word, which you must have missed, is "unnecessary". It is quite easy to argue that imprisonment inflicts necessary suffering. If you would like to discuss whether imprisonment is right or wrong, start a new thread.

My statement stands. It is wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering on others.

3: I have to categorically deny this. These animals do not on a whole suffer, nor is this necessarily a premature death.

How long would a veal calf live, if it was not killed? How is its death not premature? Because you want to eat it now, I suppose.

Clearly, you have little care or knowledge about animal suffering. The information is out there, and I'm not going to waste my time presenting it to you in bite-sized chunks (pardon the pun). Go look.

Without our industies those animlas would not exist or be protected in the first place. Which is besides the point. When it is your time to go it is your time to go and nothing is going to stop it.

Do you expect to live a natural lifespan, TW, barring any unfortunate accidents? Do you think that right should be protected by law? If your right to live is to be protected, why not the rights of animals? Or are they only there for your selfish whims?

4: Eating meat is as morally wrong as breathing, drinking water, eating an apple, or posting on a forum. It is one of those things neither right nor wrong, but just there.

Well, you're half way there. You've gone from proclaiming that eating meat is morally good and righteous to saying that it is neutral - neither good nor bad. Baby steps towards the final awakening.

That is a scary thought. He's a little too black and white for me. There is no gray or off-white around him.

Where are the shades of gray in your position on this issue, may I ask?

I mean, the relevant issues are quite straight forward here. You don't have to be smart to sort through them. You just have to appreciate that animals are not automaton robots built for your pleasure.


finewine:

Research by whom? Pro-choice advocates? You can say the same thing to me. Research by whom? Pro-life advocates?

Obviously, these special interest groups both have vested interests in conducting this type of research. However, I am sure that not all researchers are biased.

I will tell you, yes, they are now. They are mothers who aborted their children and still regret it.
Have you talked with women who have aborted their children 5, 10 years afterwards?

Yes. Have you?

Those that never regret their decision are those whose selfishness controls their morality to justify the killing of life.

This is lumping a whole heap of people into one basket. It is unjustified, presumptuous and, I assert, incorrect.

This pro-choice advocacy of telling the mothers it is a difficult decision originated as a result of pro-life's pressure to get them to do so.

It is a difficult decision regardless of what pro-choice or others tell them. I was talking about the feelings of the mothers, not the platitudes of special interest groups.

It was not so at the beginning after Roe vs Wade. Do you know that Roe is now pro-life? Indeed, she is. Her morality changed towards the killing of life.

This is one individual among millions. Just because Roe changed her mind doesn't say anything about the millions of other women who have had abortions.

The beginning of which is put into motion at conception when the DNA of sperm and ova are combined and a baby begins development.

A potential baby is not a baby. There is no reason to say that a potential baby ought to have the full rights of an actual baby. If we start down that track, all sperm, for example, should have a right to life, and masterbation ought to be a crime.

Why can't I kill you by bludgeoning you to death with a baseball bat or by chopping you into tiny little pieces while you were sentient because I do not like the color of your shirt or I want a midnight snack of human flesh?

Because you and I are on an equal footing as human beings entitled to a right to life. Your actions would infringe my interests without valid justification, and so I am entitled to protection of the law against such acts.

Do I really need to explain this to you?


Theoryofrelativity

We were hunter gatherers, meat and berries, had we been meant not to eat meat, we'd have died out long ago!
...
Vegetarianism is therefore something that can ONLY exist in the current modern and civilised world where we have been able to import and grow the variety of vegetables etc required to be vegetarian healthily.

Does this therefore mean that the moral issue only arises and applies to those in modern civilised world who have the choice?

The moral issue is there, regardless. But as in all cases, this is a matter of balancing one set of interests against another. Whereas eating meat might have been justifiable when alternative food sources were not available, in our modern society no such argument can be made.

Hapsburg

foetus

fetus

Haven't we been through that already?

Grab your dictionary, and look up "dipthong".

 

[Arkantos]

morality does not exist

 

[Arkantos]

And are giant centipedes, snakles, lions, tigers, sharks, and other meat eaters immoral to you?

 

[TW Scott]

No. It has to do with your morality, or lack of it. If you have no regard for the suffering of other creatures, you are morally stunted.

So a person who can differentiate between something that has no effect on his own wellbeing and what does is stunted? Think not. Yeah I feel sorry for animals that suffer. This is why I hunt, becuase starving to death is suffering and I would not do that to a deer. It is also why I have no qualms with eating meat. Why should a cow suffer the indignity of old age. If I could live until my body start to truly give out and then be taken out relatively painlessly I would probably choose that route myself. Although you will probably claim I am callous and crass and morally bankrupt. Personally I know better, my moral code is as strong as your, it's just not hypocritical.

The key word, which you must have missed, is "unnecessary". It is quite easy to argue that imprisonment inflicts necessary suffering. If you would like to discuss whether imprisonment is right or wrong, start a new thread.

My statement stands. It is wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering on others.

Where is imprisonment necessary to the organism. Maybe if it has broken a limb a confinement of that limb is needed. But where does imprisonment become nuetral or beneficial to the oranism besides that.

How long would a veal calf live, if it was not killed? How is its death not premature? Because you want to eat it now, I suppose.

Hey, it could die in two seconds from freak thunderbolt. Who knows. Who's to say when a beings time is up. Certainly not I and clearly not you. You're using a strawman fallacy

Clearly, you have little care or knowledge about animal suffering. The information is out there, and I'm not going to waste my time presenting it to you in bite-sized chunks (pardon the pun). Go look.

I have great care for animal suffering. I have even doctored sick animals back to health, including a porcupine that wandered in a neighbors fox trap. Have you done such? I think not. Sure I care about animals, but they're not human. There is a line that has to be drawn.

Do you expect to live a natural lifespan, TW, barring any unfortunate accidents? Do you think that right should be protected by law? If your right to live is to be protected, why not the rights of animals? Or are they only there for your selfish whims?

I do want laws to protect me from fellow humans and I support the same laws for animals. I want no cows murdering cows. No sharks eating sharks. And no dogs selling dogmeat. Does that answer your question well enough.

Well, you're half way there. You've gone from proclaiming that eating meat is morally good and righteous to saying that it is neutral - neither good nor bad. Baby steps towards the final awakening.

Actually I do think it is right, but recognize your right to believe it is wrong. I would not force my view on you. Too bad you do not feel the same.

Where are the shades of gray in your position on this issue, may I ask?

Actually the shades of gray are the almost black shadows surrounding your actions of trying to force your opinion down the throats of other people.

I mean, the relevant issues are quite straight forward here. You don't have to be smart to sort through them. You just have to appreciate that animals are not automaton robots built for your pleasure.

I don't HAVE to accept anything. That is the beauty of not belonging to the Ministry of James R. I am my own person, just as you are. The difference is I want a world of free thinking people and you want people to share your opinions no matter what they are.

 

[James R]

morality does not exist

Yes it does.

And are giant centipedes, snakles, lions, tigers, sharks, and other meat eaters immoral to you?

They have to eat meat. You don't.

 

[Hapsburg]

Haven't we been through that already?

No-one spells it "foetus" except you and other arrogant assholes who cannot learn to spell "fetus".
The only country that spells it like that is Britian; UK is also the only country that spells "Aluminum" as "aluminium".