If you've been reading the site awhile, you'll know that I only eat humanely raised meat and eggs. This is a good way to be unpopular with everyone. People who eat meat dislike you because of the uncomfortable implication that they, too, should care about the suffering of the animals they eat. And vegetarians are apalled by what they regard as half-measures. Don't I realize that an innocent, adorable little animal died to provide my dinner?
I do. I take that seriously. But for animals (not for humans), I'm essentially an aggregate utilitarian: I think that as long as their lives are worth living, it is a positive good to eat them.
It is hard, to be sure, to determine what a chicken considers "the good life". However, I'm pretty sure that industrial farming conditions do not constitute a life worth living; if those chickens had the cognitive and mechanical capacity to commit suicide, they would. Likewise veal calves, pigs, and any other animal that lives its entire life confined in a darkened space too small to move, marinating in its own feces, and more than occasionally, those of the animals around them.
But if a bird or mammal has a decent amount of space in which to move, the company of its own kind, and the ingredients of such recreation (mostly hunting for food) as they are capable of enjoying, I consider that it is better for them to be born, live, and be killed for food, then never to have lived at all. Eating certified humane meat is not a compromise; it's a positive good.
I've had more than one vegan friend tell me that it's better for a cow never to be born, then to live its life as a slave. This strikes me as the comment of someone who has never spent any time near a cow. Cows Bovine Americans do not have the same kinds of aspirations to liberty and self-actualization as the other residents of our great nation. They mostly want to chew. This routine is broken by short bouts of walking, the very occasional trot, and some lying down to enjoy the grass externally as well as internally. If they have access to the opposite sex, occasionally they will mate, a process that is nasty, brutish, and short. But even if you leave them the large print version of On Liberty and broadcast the Teaching Company's philosophy lectures into the pasture every afternoon, their political consciousness tends to remain very low.
By a similar logic I used to be a lacto-ova vegetarian. But milk cows and laying hens are treated worse than the members of their species who are raised for meat. And they're eventually slaughtered anyway; they just suffer longer before they die. Plus, you know what farmers have to produce a lot of, in order to keep their cows in milk? Veal calves.
I thought it was interesting to see Anthony Bourdain's defense of foie gras in his otherwise uneven Holiday Special. Being repeated on Travel Channel.
I'm essentially an aggregate utilitarian: I think that as long as their lives are worth living, it is a positive good to eat them.
That's interesting. I've never seen utilitarianism extended to include animals. I'm pretty sure Bentham and Mill had only human beings in mind.
But I never thought utiltarian arguments were very persuasive anyway. The utilitarians were never able to answer the most fundamental ethical question, the one posed by Thrasymachus and Callicles: "Why should I be moral?"
Unless one can answer that, one's moral system isn't worth anything.
I find it odd that you won't eat industrial farmed meat because you feel those animals would commit suicide if they had the mental capacity to do so, yet you dismiss the concerns of vegans because cows don't have aspirations of liberty. It seems that if you are going to anthropomorphize animals in one case, there's no argument against doing so in both cases, although perhaps I simply haven't thought of it.
My junior & senior years in college, I started hanging out with more environmental activists, who were mostly vegetarian. It seems most, maybe even all, eventually gave it up -- either you have to cook all your own meals (which a lot of us did in college), or you are limited to where you can eat. Also, speaking from personal experience, I got sick of all the slack my non-vegetarian friends gave me for not eating meat. "We can't eat anywhere with you" -- i.e. "We hate the restaurants that you want to eat at."
I became a vegetarian for different reasons that most. I attended a speech about the environmental impacts of eating animals. I can't speak for the veracity of "E Magazine", but it was arguments like this that swayed me:
I now sometimes eat seafood, but not much else in terms of meat; after 4 years as a vegan, I lost most of my taste for it. However, it's just one of the ways I impact the environment. Instead of dividing into pro/anti-vegetarian camps, I think it's more useful to think about all the choices we make and minimize our environmental impact where we can. The planet's not getting any bigger.
Authors Paul and Anne Ehrlich note that a pound of wheat can be grown with 60 pounds of water, whereas a pound of meat requires 2,500 to 6,000 pounds.-Ned Ludd
Ned, I would beware of anything Paul Ehrlich says (or anyone who cites him as an authority). His predictions haven't turned out very well, like this one:
Anyway, the poverty in the devloping world comes from corruption, political instability, war, poor legal systems, excessive government interference and, in some cases, geography and bad luck. Read any development economics text: meat eating is not the problem.
A better argument than 99% of the non-vegans I talk to so good on your for that. What was missing intellectually for me was - why not humans? Can't I then judge a human's life to have been well lived, then dispose of them as I wish for my own pleasure? Or at least why not some humans, the ones most like animals - perhaps the mentally disabled or very young? For the record, I'm a vegan for 95% ethical reasons, 5% environmental, and not at all health or religion.
Chickens are pretty low on expressive capabilities, and it is fairly hard to tell what they think of their quality of life.
A plant once lived on my desk that apparently just couldn't stand the drivel that substituted for conversation in that office. It left no note, and nobody actually heard it say "Goodbye, cruel world!", but there is no doubt that, summoning all of its cognitive and mechanical capacities, the plant leaped from its pot to the floor in an attempt to end it all.
Horses will stand around all day, perfectly happy to stare at the side of a barn from a distance of about a foot, meanwhile ignoring acre after acre of beautiful country side in which to revel, contemplate life, whatever. A mare will from time to time tempt a stallion to purposeful activity, but after that, it's back to close inspection of the barn.
Pigs love to play in mud and mire -- If you don't provide it, they will create it. Pigs, however, do value their freedom, as evidence by the frequency and industriousness of their attempted escapes from captivity.
Another alternative is to eat wild deer that you've shot yourself. Megan lives in an area with very high deer populations and relatively low hunting pressure. That Four Meals book ranked the shot-it-yourself meal as having the least environmental impact. With reasonable care on the hunter's part, total suffering is also low.
For the truly committed, there is a way to eat meat with almost no direct or indirect involvement in killing. Fresh roadkilled deer are an underutilized resource. In some areas, a person can be contacted by the authorities when one is available.
I'm a vegetarian because I hate vegetables.
In his book The Food Revolution, author John Robbins estimates that "you’d save more water by not eating a pound of California beef than you would by not showering for an entire year."
What I take away from that is that the showerhead restrictions we have now are mind-numbingly stupid.
I recently red an article about upcoming water shortages that revealed that municipalities are *just now* getting around to the idea of charging people the actual cost of providing them with water.
*banging head on desk*
After all the failed enforcement against rich people who water their lawns too much, it NEVER occurred to anyone to charge market prices? Geez, another case of socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.
Charge EVERYONE the true cost of purifying their water and pumping it to them. Let me see the real cost of high-flow showering AND eating meat. And then stop criticizing my "wastefulness" if I decide one is worth the price.
Megan,
An excellent post, thank you. I'd never heard it put quite like that, and will likely make more effort towards certified humane in the future.
I consider that it is better for them to be born, live, and be killed for food, then never to have lived at all.
This moral equation doesn't compute for me. I rank it with trying to figure out whether 0/2 is smaller than 0. Once you start figuring in the potential utility experienced by beings that don't exist or the lack of utility existing beings would "experience" (?) if they had never existed, your moral calculus goes haywire pretty quickly. Are we morally obliged to raise as many cows (and every other species) as we possibly can, even if there's no one to eat them? Is it evil to spay cats? You're heading Catholic on birth control very rapidly there.
I'm a vegetarian because I hate vegetables.
Your anti-libertarian prejudice is abhorrent!
Haha. I love your assumption that those of us meat eaters dislike you because of the "uncomfortable implication that they, too, should care about the suffering of the animals they eat". Haha. Sorry had to laugh again. Do you really think I care that you don't eat meat or the reasons behind it? Do you think that somehow, mid bite of a nice tender milanese, that your expounding on the cruelty of raising veal calves is going to cause me to drop my fork and scream out "Sacre bleu, now on earth could I have been so foolish". Come on.
I'm all in favor of vegetarians, the fewer people eating meat, the less demand, and the cheaper my steak. I can hear the rebuttal now, but supply will adjust for reduced demand. Not with the world's current agriculture policies they won't.
So since as you state it's hard to know what a chicken considers the good life, you personify them with human traits and read into their actions significantly more than just: eat, sleep, procreate, peck the hell outta anything that moves.
Fair enough, you can act on that assumption, but don't judge others who don't rely on the same potentially faulty based of assumptions.
Most people in the entire history of the world don't gauge meat eating with your measuring stick.
Sadly ironic that we have people who cast these personified traits on animals (the belief that an animal ponders "the good life") while at the same time considering it ok to abort children in the womb, who are only fetuses after all.
Good living conditions for pigs, but it's the scissors and vacuum in the name of choice for lifeforms we know with certaintly have the chance to grow up and have these kind of thoughts about "the good life".
When it comes to eating meat, I'm pro choice.
"When it comes to eating meat, I'm pro choice."
ps - but to be quite honest I'd gladly trade in my meat eating habits if it means other would trade in their abortion practices.
If you regard eating animals as a positive good, do you now feel guilty for not eating more of them? Shouldn't you morally be required to buy as much meat as you can afford, to encourage the birth and lives of as many animals as possible?
I personally hope for the day when chicken meat cells can be cultivated directly like a yeast, and grown in vats. Then no animals would be involved, there would be no huge waste products, and I would still get my chicken dinner to eat.
But you'd consider that immoral, right? And the vegetarians would probably find some objection too.
The most salient commentary along these lines comes from A. Whitney Brown:
"I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals. I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants."
The whole meat/water usage thing is a canard. Quack Quack.
Many mature trees in our forests consume nearly 200-300 or more gallons of water a day. A DAY! That's of course using peak water usage on hot days. But still, spread that around and it's clear a tree uses far more water than a cow.
Demagogue the statistics to make them sound good and you've got up to 73,000 gallons of water per year. Per tree.
Why does this sound insane? Because we have absolutely no idea how to imagine that much water. 2000 gallons of water for a cow sure seems like a lot, we gotta do something about it! Everytime you get 1 inch of rain, you get 13,500 gallons of water in your yard. Your yard alone.
Enough with the water stats demagogues.
Water usage is certainly a concern. In areas where we are overpopulating the desert and using water wastefully. Giant water fountains in the middle of Vegas?
But don't tell me to lay off the hamburger because it uses too much water. Because if you do, I'll just cut down another tree on the moutain behind my house to even things out. (and chop it and burn it in the winter time! gasp!)
I'm not sure why anyone is making such a big fuss over this. I happen to be of the same camp as Megan, and yes, I take flak from non-humane-meat eating people (like my sarcastic parents) who constantly give me the "why don't you just stop eating meat" shpeal.
The point is humans consume meat. We have always consumed meat. I'm not saying you MUST consume meat, but it's okay to do so.
It's also okay to say that millenia ago, before there were such high human populations, animals were wild, and were able to engage in natural behaviors up until one was killed during a hunt. They mated, got exercise, played if they were so inclined, and in general, lived their animal lives. So, therefore, it's okay to say that since you're going to eat meat, you'd rather eat meat that came from an animal that was able to engage in natural behaviors.
Being isolated from other animals when you are herd animals, not getting exercise when you are an outdoors animal, not being able to mate, not being able to spend time with your offspring (in the case of veal cows who are stuck in tiny cages away from their parents) cause stress. Not in the "oh I wish I was doing that" level of consciousness sense, but causes hormonal stress to the animals. Simply because they are animals. They have evolved to behave a certain way, expect certain things, and when they go differently stress is induced.
And in the end, whether this is fair anthropomorphizing or not, all of you who do NOT care where your meat comes from, who are you, and why are you so special that you can deem another animals condition is so beneath yours that letting them fester in squalor is what they deserve?
Here's a link to the "E Magazine" article I mentioned above.
Ned, I would beware of anything Paul Ehrlich says (or anyone who cites him as an authority). -- rwe
Ehrlich is probably not the best source, although in this case I don't think he's off base. Science has an interesting article (somewhat old) that charts how much energy is used to procure calories from different sources. You can download the full text. Page 6 of the PDF (originally page 312 in the journal) inclues a chart titled "Calories of energy subsidy for 1 calorie of food output". Some examples:
Range-fed beef is a net producer of energy, but feedlot beef actually consumes 10 calories of energy to produce each calorie of food -- which the article calls an "energy subsidy". This energy subsidy comes from fuel, electricity, fertilizer, irrigation, food processing, packaging, transport, refrigeration, and other sources.
As an addendum, the energy subsidy is man-made energy input into the food chain. It doesn't include, for example, the solar energy that makes the plants grow.
The Science article also charts the "energy subsidy" for the U.S. food system as a whole. In 1920, it was just under 1 calorie input per calorie produced. As of 1970, it was up to almost 10 calories input per calorie produced. The article is from 1974, so that's the latest data available.
"But milk cows and laying hens are treated worse than the members of their species who are raised for meat."- Like some Hindus/Jains, my family is lacto-ovo vegetarian and I'm trying to convince them to give up milk/cheese precisly for these reasons. Thanks for the excellent post.
rwe- "I've never seen utilitarianism extended to include animals. I'm pretty sure Bentham and Mill had only human beings in mind."
Really? Have you heard of Peter Singer?
Shorter 'joe'- "I don't care about the consequences of my actions--don't bother me with silly morals"
"Ehrlich is probably not the best source, although in this case I don't think he's off base."-jl
But people get a great deal of pleasure (or utility, as economists put it) out of eating meat, and that shouldn't be ignored... I want my steak tartare.
Anyway, the idea that banning meat would significantly alleviate poverty and hunger in the third world is just silly. Poor countries like Bangladesh, Guatemala and Cameroon need sustained increases in GDP per capita. Nothing else will subsitute for that.
And Ehrlich and his environmentalist friends have been pushing policies on poor countries that would help to keep them poor. Africa still hasn't recovered from Rachel Carson's unfounded attack on DDT. Nor has it come back from the import substitution and misguided capital spending urged on it by leftists who looked to the Soviet Union as a model of economic dynamism.
These countries need political stability, free markets, greater invesments in health, infrastructure and education, and reduced corruption. Meat has little or nothing to doi with it... Above all else the poor countires need to avoid listening to the Ehrlich's of the world, who bring destruction wherever they go.
rwe-
"Africa still hasn't recovered from Rachel Carson's unfounded attack on DDT."
You do know this is a myth, don't you?
See here
And here
and here
"Really? Have you heard of Peter Singer?"-rickm
Rick, I hadn't until now. I have to confess that my knowledge of 20th century philosphers is much poorer than my knowledge of philosophers from previous centuries. That's partly because, when I have studied recent philosophy, it has generally seemed distinctly lacking in wisdom.
But anyway, I wouldn't criticize Singer, since I know nothing about him except what I just read on Wikipedia (which isn't always reliable). Does he have an answer to my earlier question of all utilitarians:
"Okay you've defined what you mean by morality--it means something like pursuing 'the greatest happiness for the greatest number'; so why should I be moral?"
I'm not suggesting that no one could answer such a question. Plato and Aristotle had plausible answers. I just don't think a utilitarian could offer a convincing answer, whether he believed in "animal liberation" or not. But maybe you'll show me I'm wrong.
PS: I'll look at the DDT links when I get a chance. I have something to do just now, but I'm open to the possibility that I'm misinformed. Noone's infallible, after all. Ms. McCardle proves that on a regular basis.
I suggest that those of you who are taking the information provided at factoryfarming.com at face value reconsider. That website (and others like it) is known among animal producers as a rather silly joke. The idea of sinister farmers cramming animals shoulder-to-shoulder into darkened cellars and letting them "marinate in feces" is absurd.
The fact that modern domesticated livestock are the result of thousands of years of artificial selection is quite often ignored by those who compare truly "wild" animals' optimal living conditions with those of the average American pig.
The ethics of livestock production are based on optimizing the production of meat/milk/eggs for human consumption. If they weren't, we would still be stalking antelope in small tribes, and this blog wouldn't exist. High-technology is the child of agricultural consolidation and intensification, as is the mulling of animal welfare in a city.
If you want to eat "humane" meat, go ahead. I really don't care. But remember that the only mental distress arbitrary living space designations will reduce are humans'.
Mark-
No, This- "The idea of sinister farmers cramming animals shoulder-to-shoulder into darkened cellars and letting them "marinate in feces" is absurd." is stupid.
Are you really that obtuse to not see the difference between someone choosing to crusade against horrible living conditions for livestock, and not being categorically against livestock production and all of its consequences--even past ones?
THE MORALIST AT THE SHAMBLES
Where slaughter's beasts lie quivering, pile on pile
And bare-armed fleshers, battled in bloody dew,
Ply hard their ghastly trade, and hack and hew,
And mock sweet Mercy's name, yet loathe the while
The lot that chains them to this service vile,
Their hands in hideous carnage to imbrue;
Lo, there - the preacher of the Good and True,
The Moral Man, with sanctimonious smile.
"Thrice happy beasts," he murmurs," tis our love,
Our thoughtful love that sends ye to the knife
(Nay, doubt not, as ye swelter in your gore.);
For thus alone ye earned the boon of life,
And thus alone the Moralist may prove
His sympathetic soul - by eating more."
"..all of you who do NOT care where your meat comes from, who are you, and why are you so special that you can deem another animals condition is so beneath yours that letting them fester in squalor is what they deserve?
Posted by Stephanie | December 14, 2007 12:57 PM
Stephanie,
You ask a good question. Interesting, though, that our blog hostess is a devout "Index 'investor'" and, thereby, supports many firms (Tyson, ConAgra, YUM, etc.) who practice, exactly, the types of things she is decrying in her post..
http://www.stock1.com/sp500t.htm
http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/343.html
The part of this discussion I don't quite get is that dealing with the abattoir, is that, too, supposed to be 'humanely' done(?)
rwe-
No, I don't think Singer has an answer to your broader question "why should we be moral". However, I don't think anyone else does either ('cept jebus).
Singer argued, from utilitarian principles, that the life of an animal has utility, and their life and death should be weighed against the utility derived from enjoying their meat. Thus, he was against eating meat (death for taste?) and conditionally supportive on testing pharmaceuticals on animals. Oh yeah, and killing babies.
A) I come from farming stock, so I'm not exactly unfamiliar with what farms look like.
B) The marinate in their own feces comment comes, not from activists, but from a business school case on reducing destructive chicken behaviors arising from their extremely overcrowded environment.
Thank you Megan, your post spells out the core of why I gave up being a vegetarian as well. If you only get your information on nutrition and animal welfare from Vegetarian Times, or just don't pay any attention, being some brand of vegetarian makes sense. If you do read widely though, in addition to the main issue that Megan list, things that are high on most vegetarian's lists of Important Things are the same reasons to eat humanely grown and slaughtered meat. Things like species diversity, animal welfare, the health of the soil, viable small farms, organic agriculture, poverty in the third world, and so forth, all of which are made better by raising animals humanely for meat. (and conversely are effected negatively by raising them as industrial commodities.)
And I would add to Megan's post, that as far as a "good life" for animals, being raised on a humane farm with regular meals, room to roam, shelter, and the company of your own kind is way better than the life that wild animals lead as well.
And to the people who are making fun of Megan's really mild anthropomorphism of animals, contemporary cognitive research into what animals do and don't feel is very much on her side. Animals aren't humans, but they do feel pain and fear and not giving a flying you-know-what about that seems really wrong to me.
sam: How can a tree consume 300 gallons of water each day? That much rain doesn't fall on the tree, and no one's taking care of it.
My objection to things like restricting oneself to humanely-raised meat, or vegetarianism, or veganism, is not so much that other people do it as such, as it is to the fact that these practices tend to lead to an obnoxiously shrill, self-righteous attitude toward those who do not practice them. While our lovely and talented hostess is much too well-mannered for this, there are plenty of others who do their best to p*ss in the soup.
Kind of like how a lot of people in the temperance movement seemed to be more into it for the fun of calling anybody who enjoyed a beer a worthless alcoholic who'd end up dying in the gutter than anything else. For some reason, this sort of crypto-asceticism makes many practitioners annoyingly willing to lash out verbally at those who disagree. I will acknowledge freely that this is not the case in all cases---but it does happen, a lot. Here in Iowa, some anti-meat activists thought they'd get some publicity, so they "pied" the Pork Queen.
I don't think anyone else does either ('cept jebus)
I've often wondered why a son of Canaan and the founder of Jerusalem occupies such a prominent place in the theology of left-wing blog posters. Especially given that the sons of Israel smote the Jebusites (along with the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, etc.) It's like they have their own separate Abrahamic religion.
Can you clarify?
Technomad-
Your post speaks volumes of your character and where your priorities are. Ooops! Am I being shrill and self-righteous? SO SORRY!
Put me down as an appalled meat eater. I just can't, can't can't can't understand people who ascribe moral value to animals. You said it yourself. Cows don't generally build castles or feel love. They're, well, animals. It doesn't MATTER whether they suffer!
I just don't get it.
I have been a vegetarian for forty years, but I neither defend vegetarianism, nor condemn those who choose meat. Each to his own!
My reason for being a vegetarian is a little different from what I have seen here. When I was a child growing up in Alaska, I was forced by my parents to kill and butcher many wild animals, and I developed an aversion to the flesh of dead beasts. For example, my parents and I killed more than 200 snowshoe rabbits in one day, cutting off only their hind legs (yes, two hundred).
It sounds like all of those who have commented so far are urban people who may never have had occasion to kill anything. In this case "Meat" becomes a commodity that is produced far away: someone else does the killing and butchering, and your involvement consists of philosophical speculation, and whether or not you will exchange money for the product.
I do wonder how your practices might differ if you were personally confronted with the reality of taking another being's life so that you might eat its flesh?
I don't know. "I'm pretty sure that [living conditions in Darfur, Congo, Gaza, reservations, urban slums in the third world, prison cells ] do not constitute a life worth living; if those [people] had the cognitive and mechanical capacity to commit suicide, they would." Is that a true statement? Seems to me that humans have an incredible ability to adapt to our living conditions. Why do we assume that we can adapt and other animals can't?
There is some really intellectually stimulating defenses of meat-eating here. PEG here, with his acute moral sensibility, admits that animals are capable of suffering, but doesn't grant them any moral status because they "generally don't build castles."
Then there is Bill Harshaw, whose point reduces to noticing the fact that humans suffer, ergo, animals are ok with suffering.
MEH:
You raise an excellent point regarding Megan's investment choices...unless of course, at some point some day, she's going to own enough of Tyson's stock to be on its Board to force a change in company behavior ;)
It's something I think of often about investors in general (oil stocks, etc), but hadn't thought of in this case (probably because she agrees with me on this issue - willful blindness I suppose).
Anyway, excellent point, and probably why I suck at investing - I try to avoid things like that.
As for the abbatoir, it's of course impossible to make it perfect - it is killing - unless we start using barbituates to knock them out first (I have no idea how potentially UNviable this option is as far as the amount of meat we eat).
But I do think there are ways to make the slaughtering either more or less stressful for the animal. And I do think we owe that to them. There are cases where pigs are cut apart alive, and there are cases where cows are slaughtered within earshot of other cows that are trapped (and about to be slaughtered). Regardless of your thoughts on HOW cognizant animals are - they do have fight or flight mechanisms, and believe me - those mechanisms kick in in a situation like that. There are ways to reduce stress, and some are in effect already.
If you're interested in knowing more, I'd point you to Temple Grandin's webpage:
http://www.grandin.com/
She's has developed lower-stress livestock handling facilities. Pretty fascinating stuff.
Of course, shy of that, having a cow on your own farm slaughtered as quickly as possible would probably be less stressful than sending them off to a processing facility. Hopefully, on a farm, one's own involvement with the workings of the farm would make one feel an imperative to make the process as painless and quick as possible, as opposed to factory farming where those that are involved with the slaughtering have little if any emotional investment in the procedure.
Moisture from the soil. Trees don't get their water direct from rain falling in their leaves. The roots absorb moisture from the earth. 200 to 300 gallons is not a number I made up.
Here is some discussion of tree water usage:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=720450
There is plenty more out there. I live in the desert near a popular national park and have read frequent stats that some of the desert trees (little to infrequent water) use 10,000+ gallons of water a year.
Trees in wetter areas use a lot more.
My main point was this whole water usage citation is a joke without discussing relevant numbers. A city the size of Atlanta is said to get 2.5 BILLION gallons of water from 1" of rain fall. That's just the city. Not the surrounding countryside. 1" rainstorm is a good storm, but it's not uncommon and gets 4-5 inches of rain every month.
So keep the numbers in perspective when someone hyperventalates that a year's supply of beef for a family of 8 takes 2000 gallons of water to generate.
"You do know this is a myth, don't you?"-rickm
Well, Rick, I looked at the links. I have some of my own. There is this:
Evidently the World Health Organization believes that DDT is effective in stoppng malaria and the WHO is not generally considered a tool of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" to disrecit Rachel Carson and the environmental movement. If mosquitos had developed resistance to DDT, rendering it useless, then I doubt the WHO would be pushing it now.
The Director of Health Services of Uganda also disagrees with you. he pleads "Give us DDT" and blames Rachel Carson for dicouraging its production and use... And he too seems an unlikely surrogate for Rush Limbaugh. I don't really know, though. This falls outside my expertise.
On econmic questions, I am on much firmer ground. And I'm quite certain that anyone who thinks banning meat would alleviate poverty in any significant way is badly mistaken. What poor countries need is to follow the examples of the East Asia and the United States. They need better institutions and freer economies. I recommend William Easterly's books to those who think that a lack of foreign aid is the central problem.
As far as I know, nothing lives without consuming the remains of other living things. It's fundamental to the structure of living organisms.
So why eat the remains of animals, rather than plants? I enjoy variety in my sources of protien.
As for the objection that eating animals is cruel to the animals, I am, in fact, sympathetic to the suffering that conscious organic beings experience -- being one myself.
I fully agree with Megan that humanly slaughtered meat is preferable, but I can't agree that simply by eating animals we are reducing the quality of those animals' lives.
Every animal that is born must die. The suffering an animal goes through being killed by a human can certainly be less than the suffering it would go through by being killed by a non-human predator, or by dying of old age.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch how feline predators in Africa attack the genitals of their prey first, to weaken them and bring them down. Watch a cat play with a mouse. Watch a bird bring captured prey back to its nest, still alive.
Or watch those same predators grow old and starve to death as the lose the ability to hunt, or worse, die of a slow infection.
Stephanie,
Grandin's efforts should be lauded, there's no reason, including Financial, for the treatment that we dish out to the many animals we raise for food.
It's too bad that more people haven't seen cartoons like this one: http://www.themeatrix.com/
What we feed these animals, that we then consume, should, at the minimum, give us cause for pause.
Speaking of barbiturates, they often wind up in pet 'food' due to there utilization of rendered animals that have been euthanized..
see this: http://www.frrhealthypet.com/id35.html
or: http://www.messybeast.com/cat-food-industry.htm
many of those fine firms, and their pimps, are found in the S&P500, as well..PG, KRO, SWY for starters..
"It doesn't MATTER whether they suffer!"-peg
That seems a little extreme to me, though I am just about to eat Chef's salad in good cheer. The thing is, we are omnivores by nature. If your moral code isn't rooted in human nature, then what is it rooted in?
On the other hand, I am an animal lover (or, at least, I like all animals that won't try to kill me), so I have a certain sympathy for the beasts. I would rather avoid any unnecessary suffering on their part.
Policy makers (and consumers) have to weigh the benefits, in terms of reduced suffering on the part of the animals, against the costs, in terms of higher meat prices. I suspect also that certain means of raising livestock produce a less nutritious grade of meat, so there could be a kind of spurious efficiency here. But then once again I'm getting out of my depth.
So, I'm happy to eat meat, but I'd rather the animals weren't living miserable lives before they were slaughtered. Human beings matter much more to me than cows and pigs, but the latter still matter some. And I have no way of convincing peg to care about them. If he is religious, then he ought to consider whether God wants living creatures to be treated with some kindness. If he's an atheist, then "everything is permitted" I guess...
"the thing is, we are omnivores by nature. If your moral code isn't rooted in human nature, then what is it rooted in?"
Our nature is also to lie, cheat, steal, kill, and rape.
oh, sure Megan, poke with a cattle prod why'owntcha? :devil:
everyone knows soylent green is people, right?
or how'bout
true environemntalist should be cannibals, because humans don't have natural predetors, and need them...
IIRC everyone eats living organisms to live, and most living organisms eat other living ones to live...
so beyond that is an issue of semantics. Which is groovy, but I can't figure out why people think it's so self evident. Does an egg cry out in pain, where a carrot doesn't? How do you know this? Did the fly I just swatted have a moment of terror when I imploded it? Are the various bacteria on my countertop plotting a revolution, because I use cleaner to clean? Seem like people have a convenience event horizon, and that is exactly where they stop caring about living welfare.
'sOK it makes sense, but why not be honest?
The moral imperative for human creatures is a construct that we did. In the natural world, if you are weak, you are meat. Even for plants, the surviving plant eats the nutrients of the soil which have come from, other decaying organisms... the whole circle of life thing [cue Elton? NO.] That doesn't make it a BAD construct, but neither does it rise to the "Truths Self Evident" of moral imperative.
Why do so many people feel such need to take a stand on it? If it's part of a personal moral code, fabulous! But don't be shocked to learn that it isn't mine.
If you truly want humane, find a local farm coop, and volunteer during harvests. Get as close to your local farmer as you can, ESPECIALLY if you are vegetarian. Find out what it's like to make things grow, plant or animal. THEN make some decisions about your intent. Maybe your intent will be to buy locally, from people you know and trust... That rewards the right people, for doing things you agree with.
The reason I think about it in that way, is due to the fact that inhumane ways of raising things is primarily an economic thing. It's maximization to put a calf in a stall and not allow it to move, and force-feed it. Likewise a chicken factory farm, is just getting the most bang for the buck in chicken production. Large mechanical dairies with mechanical production. Special varieties of soybeans that are the easiest to cultivate, and harvest. Apples in the summer imported from Chile. These are economic realities. You wouldn't ship apples around like that, unless there was a market for them. If everyone demanded free-range chicken, the factory farms would go away.
In this way, your wallet is the closest expression of your 'moral' stand on food, not your guilt, or condemnation...
Rickm-
I am quite aware of the difference between what Megan is saying and the oppostion to animal agriculture. Let me clarify what I was trying to say (by paragraph):
1)factoryfarming.com should not be the only source of information that people use to judge the livestock industry. It contains many inaccuracies and loaded language.
2)Livestock are different from wild animals in how they experience the world, and that should influence our ethical standards for animal care. I think that such differences are relevant when the killing of an animal is acceptable under humane meat standards.
3)Modern animal agriculture is closely linked to our curent society, and should not be viewed as aberrant. This is different than claiming that all agriculture should be viewed as all good or all bad.
4)I don't care if people eat humane-certified meat. Doing so will result in a net increase in personal happiness...of humans. I believe that the jury is still out on how the animals "feel" about it.
Respectfully,
Mark
Mark-
"I believe that the jury is still out on how the animals "feel" about it."
Really? Well to some extent sure, we can never know. But we also can never know if other humans feel pain. Each of us only has one data point--our own being--to show that homo sapiens, as a species, feel pain.
But really, do you think the jury is still out on whether a chicken suffers when its beak is melted off? or when a baby cow is kept in a cage too small to move around? or when a cow is hung by its hind legs and drained of blood while alive?
Are you equivocating or just resigning yourself into a generalized moral agnosticism--a comfortable view for those who don't want to think about the mass slaughter and horrid conditions of animals.
"Our nature is also to lie, cheat, steal, kill, and rape."
Speak for yourself Rick... But seriously, Nietzsche's question comes to mind (I forget from which book, Beyond Good and Evil maybe):
It's in an eagle's nature to swoop down, kill his prey and eat it. It would be absurd to call that "immoral." And Chimpanzees are merciless killers too. According to Wikipedia,
So chimps like to kill and eat monkeys, and when they get drunk they attack children too. Is this immoral? Again, it would be silly to say so.
So what makes human beings so different. We are, after all, very close relatives of the chimp. Why should we be the only one's to ignore our omnivorous nature and stop eating meat?
Again, the rational thing seems to me to continue eating meat but to avoid any needless suffering, which is I guess what McCardle also believes, more or less. Hey, everyone's gotta be right some time.
rwe-
I though this was obvious but... the difference with humans is, we have a choice.
"I though this was obvious but... the difference with humans is, we have a choice."
Well, maybe. Now you're getting into the question of free will and determinism, which is a slippery subject. Niezsche thought the "liberum arbitrium a thoroughly stupid idea, as I imagine you know. Maybe PEG can't help being unsympathetic...
Rickm, free will (and jokes) aside, it certainly is true that human beings have a higher capacity for reasoning than other animals. But I don't see how that leads to the conclusion that we shouldn't eat meat.
I see that some people have an emotional reaction to the deaths of animals that causes an aversion to meat. And that's okay. No one should force them to eat meat (probably even PEG and Ted Nugent would agree with that). But why should the rest of us who enjoy meat give it up?
We don't share your passionate aversion.
Rickm-
I don't doubt that synapses are firing and hormones are being released when animals are handled/killed by humans (or other animals).
I am not sure that they are "aware" of what is happening to them, so I am unwilling to use that as a basis of an ethical decision.
People can be in a coma and still respond to pain stimuli, but that does not mean they have any clue what is going on. There needs to be a better understanding of what constitutes "suffering" if we are going to debate the square-footage of a pig's pen.
Mark
"it certainly is true that human beings have a higher capacity for reasoning than other animals. But I don't see how that leads to the conclusion that we shouldn't eat meat."
You are hopping over a few steps in the logic. I don't think the initial post, nor anything I introduced, talked about first principles of morality. If that is where you want to fight your battles--then fine. I was under the impression that, in this and any discussion on what is the right thing to do, everyone agreed that there is such a thing as good and bad and that people should adhere to some moral code. In a discussion on whether eating animals is moral (and, in our society, the necessary complement to that is whether we should perform an act that supports a horrid thing like factory farming), it is counterproductive to talk about first principles of morality. Any conversation on what is to be done can easily be derailed by such a diversion.
I, and I suspect this goes for Megan, do not eat meat out of some visceral aversion to meat or repulsion from the thought of a dying animal. I do it because I think animals--as conscious beings that can feel pain and suffer--deserve some moral consideration. Don't try to belittle cerebral arguments about the immorality of meat-eating by reducing those arguments to an emotional reaction.
Mark-
Like I said, this: "I am not sure that they are "aware" of what is happening to them, so I am unwilling to use that as a basis of an ethical decision." can be used to justify any killing, of any animal (except the self).
I'm not sure that anyone else is really 'aware' of what is going on around them. That doesn't give me license to kill them.
Okay sam, I see what you mean. The problem is just: is this an apples-to-apples comparison? Are we comparing:
-*human*-added water to crops
to
-*human*-added water to random tree in wildlife preserve?
I think they are talking about the water that a human must add to the soil to get the desired output.
"I, and I suspect this goes for Megan, do not eat meat out of some visceral aversion to meat or repulsion from the thought of a dying animal. I do it because I think animals--as conscious beings that can feel pain and suffer--deserve some moral consideration. Don't try to belittle cerebral arguments about the immorality of meat-eating by reducing those arguments to an emotional reaction."[rickm
Well, first, McCardle does eat meat, just as I do (the title of the post is "Why I eat meat"). Not that she is an unimpeachable authority, but I don't see why you see her as an intellectual ally in this.
Second, you seem to think that most people agree with you about what is moral and what isn't. In fact they don't. Most people eat meat on a regular basis and enjoy it. Vegetarians are a small minority. If you want to persuade people who eat meat not to eat meat, you have to provide a cogent argument.
And third, I also accept that some things are good and other things are bad. I just don't think eating meat is one of the bad things. It affords a lot of pleasure and provides nutrition to the body. So it seems to me perfectly rational to consume it. And it still seems to me that you are allowing emotion to get the better of you. To the extent there is an argument it seems to be:
"Eating meat is wrong, It's wrong to do what's wrong, therefore it's wrong to eat meat."
But that's a tautology, cerebral or not.
Rickm-
"I'm not sure that anyone else is really 'aware' of what is going on around them. That doesn't give me license to kill them."
Do I really have to spell it out?
I do not put humans and animals on the same moral plane. I can resonably assume that other humans are self-aware based on my own experiences, so I refrain from killing them (sarcasm).
Unless an animal demonstrates self-awareness, then I will assume that it is not equivalent to a human. There cannot be an agreed-upon definition of animal "suffering" until everybody accepts your view of animal vs human morality.
rwe-
I would argue that eating meat produced in factory farms is bad for a number of reasons. One of those is that the conditions of the animals in those factory farms is horrible. Chickens have their beaks melted off, cows are vivisected while still alive, and then there is veal. I have never seen a reasonable argument that makes the case that there is no moral difference between those conditions in the factory farm, and the conditions in 'humanely raised' meat. As I said before, animals, such as pigs and cows, are conscious, and clearly exhibit characteristics that suggest that they can feel pain. I cannot prove this--but I also cannot prove that other human beings can suffer. If animals suffer under factory farming conditions, and one eats meat produced under those factory farms, then one is practically supporting the existence, practice, and continuation of those factory farms and all they entail, including the conditions of the animals in those farms. If one does not eat meat produced in factory farms, then one does not support those farms and all they entail. Supporting those farms is wrong because of the conditions they force the animals to live in.
"I am not sure that they are "aware" of what is happening to them,.."
Rocky Mountain National Park has been an elk refuge for decades. Many of them will leave the park in summer. I once hunted a few miles from the park. They stayed there during archery season, finding us only a mild annoyance, since the winds were uncommonly treacherous there. Every elk I saw knew of me first. However, once the rifle seasons start, they retreat to the park. A warden said many hunters wait at the boundary; few are successful, as the elk know where the line is.
I cannot ask the elk to share their feelings, but their behavior indicates awareness.
"I have never seen a reasonable argument that makes the case that there is no moral difference between those conditions in the factory farm, and the conditions in 'humanely raised' meat."-rickm
Rick, I'm sympathetic with that argument (just not with the argument that eating meat is always wrong no matter how the animals are treated). The foot and mouth problem in Britain a few years ago came from a farmer who was illegally feeding his animals the lowest possible grade of food. The condition he kept the animals in was quite reprehensible both in itself and because of the health hazard he created.
I also want animals to be treated humanely... By the way, I recommend to any animal lovers around the old British series "All Creatures Great and Small," which is availiable on Netflix. It's hard to watch that show and not feel some sympathy for the animals when they are suffering (usually due to illness, but occasionally to mistreatment as well).
my apologies to Kronos Worldwide(KRO)
in my above post, I meant KR, or Kroger
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=KR
Though, personally, I'd still like to understand how MM squares her passion for Indexing and her views on 'humane' meat..
MEH
I'm surprised in all these comments that no one has even thought to mention the most obvious reason for eating free range animal products: they're are far more nutritious and healthy for you!
Bovines are designed/created/evolved (whatever you believe) to graze on grasslands. Factory farming and dairy farming that rely primarily on feeding the cows grain (especially GMO grain saturated in pesticides throughout the crops entire life) is as far removed from the natural diet of these animals as you can get. This leads to unhealthy animals, who we than slaughter and eat, leading to unhealthy humans.
As for the other Vegetarian arguments...
1) The argument that vegetarian crops would be a more efficient source of feeding the world's hungry or that it is better for the environment... all a bunch of propaganda. Naturally farmed cattle and livestock subsist primarily on grasslands and plains unsuitable for intensive, mono-culture farming.
2) Agricultural farming is responsible for far more environmental degradation than even the worst factory farms. Single crop plant fields deplete the soil within a few harvest cycles, and most commercial farms saturate the ground and adjacent or subterranean water sources with pesticides. More rain forests are chopped down to create land for soy and corn crop land than is used for cattle grazing.
3) Human beings, whether we were created or evolved, have been equipped with incisors for tearing and masticating flesh, and our bowels produce hydrochloric acid - which is a feature ONLY found in carnivores and omnivores in any other species.
4) Certain vital nutrients that are essential for the human body can only be obtained from animal protein and fat - especially vitamin B12.
6) Many vegetarians love to get on a high horse about how they are somehow morally superior because they eat "humanely." Of course, they do not stop to think that modern methods of farming and harvesting crops includes the wholesale massacre of all manner of living creatures that live amongst the crops by harvest machines...or the millions of other animal lives that are ended by pesticides that are dumped on the crops. Yes, organic farming does not do these...but to sustain the world's population on a strict vegetarian diet that many vegetarians advocate would HAVE to require the modern methods of industrial agriculture to sustain that many humans.
5) Finally, most vegetarians enthusiastically promote soy as an effective substitute for animal protein. Foolish fools. The problems with soy "food" are finally coming to light....
In short - vegetarianism is the idolatrous worship of animals, putting them on the morally equivalent plane of human beings. While human beings should not enjoy inflicting suffering on another living creature, we should feel about as sad for the slaughtered chicken, pig or cow as the lion does for the antelope.
Life feeds on life.
I think the vacuity of the pro-meat arguments is betrayed by Dave and others' silly defense that consists of: hey, lions, tigers, and monkeys do it and so can we!
Really, you are beyond parody.
Vacuity? The only thing that was vacuous was your attempt to boil down my entire argument into a simple, "silly defense."
As I wrote:
3) Human beings, whether we were created or evolved, have been equipped with incisors for tearing and masticating flesh, and our bowels produce hydrochloric acid - which is a feature ONLY found in carnivores and omnivores in any other species.
In other words, if human beings were designed or evolved to be vegetarian, we would not have the physiology of the omnivore.
You simply cannot refute my basic point, so you resort to insulting me.
Your own pathetic vacuity is beyond parody.
I think the vacuity of the pro-meat arguments is betrayed by Dave and others' silly defense that consists of: hey, lions, tigers, and monkeys do it and so can we!-rickm
Yeah, Dave. Much better is Rick's argument:
Dave-
"In other words, if human beings were designed or evolved to be vegetarian, we would not have the physiology of the omnivore."
We also evolved to procreate with anything that moves. We also evolved to kill, lie, cheat, steal, rape, pillaged, and basically do anything it took to survive. Most of us are past that point where our survival is at stake.
Our incisors and our stomach acids also allow us to kill and eat other humans, but I don't think you think that suggests we should do so. In short, there seems no valid reason to derive our morality from what evolution physiologically shaped.
and rwe, I articulated my argument earlier. You even said you were sympathetic to my argument. To take a line from Davey, "You simply cannot refute my basic point, so you resort to insulting me."
Let's not be too hard on Rick. He's obviously one of those ,a href="http://www.andrews.edu/NUFS/vitaminB12.html">B12 deficient vegetarians.
He doesn't even know his mental faculties are impaired by his silly choice of diet based on ideology rather than physiology.
We also evolved to procreate with anything that moves. We also evolved to kill, lie, cheat, steal, rape, pillaged, and basically do anything it took to survive. Most of us are past that point where our survival is at stake.
Yes, through the evolution of thought, we have constructed morality to define what is right and what is wrong behavior in interacting with fellow human beings. But none of that disassociates or changes the basic level of subsistence we were designed to exist at. We don't HAVE to lie, cheat, steal, rape or pillage to survive on a primal level. But we do need to eat. And what we need to eat is a variety of foods...including animal based proteins and fats.
Our incisors and our stomach acids also allow us to kill and eat other humans, but I don't think you think that suggests we should do so. In short, there seems no valid reason to derive our morality from what evolution physiologically shaped.
Talk about a vacuous argument. Lions don't normally eat other lions. They eat prey species. Their biological design has evolved (or was created) to derive optimal nutrition from their prey species.
While it's true that a human can subsist on human flesh, those of us that are sane can clearly differentiate between the morality of eating animals and eating our fellow human beings.
So Dave, do you derive all your morality from physiology (whatever that means)? Or just the morals that you find convenient?
My diet--like all the other choices I make--is based on morality. Its not so bad being concerned with the consequences of your actions. You should try it sometime.
Oh, and that link for which I screwed up my tag is this: VITAMIN B12 FOR THE VEGETARIAN
Has anyone been over to Hugo's place to make sure he's OK? Something pretty bad must have happened to keep him out of this thread.
No Rick, I, like most people in this country (including you, whether you realize it or not) derive my moral values form the Judeo-Christian tradition that shaped the foundation of this country.
There's a big difference in determining your morality based on your behavior and actions, and eating animals, something we were naturally designed to do.
rwe's point is actually a pretty good refutation of your argument. Where do you draw that line at "eating meat is murder?" Do you really consider escargot to be a crime of immorality? What about the popular Mexican delicacy of crickets?
What kind of morality do you seek to stake your superiority on just because you deny eating the diet your body was designed for?
"and rwe, I articulated my argument earlier. You even said you were sympathetic to my argument. To take a line from Davey, "You simply cannot refute my basic point, so you resort to insulting me."-rickm
Settle down Rick. I was just in a jocular mood. Besides, you started with the insults. Presumably I was one of the "others" who, along with Dave, were being accused of intellectual vacuity. If you throw a punch, you've got to expect to get hit back.
You're right though. I prefer civilized discourse. Even McCardle doesn't deserve insults... not many anyway.
Contra everyone arguing no difference between meat and plant in terms of environmental load:
Is that from some left-wing rag? Nope, it's last week's Economist (link, may be subscription?) that explains why food prices have been rising. Two things: wealth (and the corresponding increase in meat consumption) and energy (ethanol subsidies).
Granted, there's crops, and then there's federally subsidized monocrops. My wife and I are into it mostly for the sustainability (we'd eat grass-fed buffalo if given the chance). Eggs from local cage-free hens, organic soy milk, and what-not. But the point is to minimize our load as much as practical. We don't think, "Gee, we can't graze in the park, so let's just give up and go hit Mickey D's." What is the nirvana fallacy again?
Incidentally, I don't care what the rest of you eat. This comment is about 1000 times as preachy as I am in real life. 843 to be exact. I'm okay with Megan's choices, which include bicycle commuting.
Good post Megan.
Good discussion in the comments too.
Ned Ludd posted this excerpt from E magazine
First, the figures John Robbin's uses have been base on inaccurate, outdated information in the past and so it would probably pay to take them with a grain of salt..
Second thing, it always pays to think of root causes when trying to understand / mitigate environmental destruction.
.
How did the water the cow consumes in California get there? It got there via massive government works projects that moved the water from other western states to california. Not eating beef is not going to keep that water from going to california.
Statements like this from E magazine are so painfully ignorant they hurt my eyes and make me want to bang my head on the table until the pain stops.
This statement completely misses the fact that politics and bad government policies are the biggest cause of starvation and food insecurity not a shortage of food..
Zimbabwe provides a unfortunate, ongoing, textbook example of this.
.
Second, it utterly ignores the fact that the US government currently spends hundreds of millions of dollars paying farmers to not raise crops.
.
In the past the US government has required farmers to destroy portions of the crops they were raising in order to reduce the surplus of grain supply.
.
Difficult to argue that a grain shortage is the problem when the government is enacting policies to get rid of a grain surplus.
For, as a matter of fact, quite apart from the conditions, good or bad, under which the animals live and die, it is a pure fallacy to say that it is a kindness to bring them into existence.
Because it is impossible to compare existence with non-existence. Existence may, or may not be pleasant: but non-existence is neither pleasant nor unpleasant – it is nothing at all. It cannot, therefore, be an advantage to be born, though, when once you are born, the good and the evil are comparable. The whole question is a post-natal, not a pre-natal one; it begins at birth.
What a picture is conjured up... The bereaved moralist, knife and fork in hand, swayed in difference direction by the call of duty and the scruples of affection!
The plea that animals might be killed painlessly is a very common one with flesh-eaters, but it must be pointed out that what-might-be can afford no exemption from moral responsibilty for what-is.
More barbarous, or less barbarous, such slaughtering may undoubtedly be, according to the methods employed, but the “humane” slaughtering, so much bepraised of the sophist, is an impossibility in fact and a contradiction in terms.
rwe said,
If you want to understand why this book would be a good place to start Animal Rights & Human Morality They may not build castles but they do enjoy each others company and walking around.Finally you said,
I know a lot of people who are dedicated carnivores that have worked with cattle their entire life. They would find that statement to be utterly incomprehensible and incorrect.
Hey TJIT,
I didn't say any of that stuff. Those quotes are from other people (like PEG). And I certainly don't agree with the 1st and 3rd of them. Were you drinking when you read the comments?
Here's a quote that actually is from one of my posts:
rwe,
Thousand pardons and please accept my apologies.
Those quotes should have been properly attributed to PEG | December 14, 2007 2:39 PM
Not drinking just lost my place going up and down the comment thread.
TJIT
rwe,
The foot and mouth disease outbreak also showed some of the potential downsides of fast, cheap worldwide transport.
The precise source of Britain's foot-and-mouth epidemic has never been traced.
But the committee concluded illegal imports were the "most likely cause" - and had also triggered an outbreak of "swine fever" in 2000.
TJIT, if you do decide to drink I recommend Johnny Walker Black. I propose a toast to St. Francis of Asisi. "Laudato sie, mi signore, cum tucte le tue creature..."
Our incisors and our stomach acids also allow us to kill and eat other humans, but I don't think you think that suggests we should do so.
Rickm, haven't you heard? The reductio ad absurdum argument is out of fashion now and we're not supposed to use it here. Liberalrob and SoV will be along any minute to tell you your argument is stupid and can be refuted by merely saying so.
rwe,
Good suggestion. Guinness Stout is also nice. Strictly medicinal of course, good source of B vitamins and flavonoids.
Cheers,
TJIT
so anyone want to give me the letterman list on the leap of morality, or even the wheel of morality?
Simplistic approach is: Humans are not like other animals, who kill and eat based on biology and instinct. Therefore, humans have the ability to make the call about IF they kill and eat based on biology, or if they make the decision on what they eat based on some other idea.
The part where I my confusion lies is the word should... Since human beings have the ability to make the decision, they Should make the decision NOT to eat meat for the following reasons...
That "should" seems to indicate that the argument seems self evident, and I have yet to see that. The reasons seem to revolve around how we as humans react to doe-eyed animals, not around anything intrinsic to those animals. The argument seems to go like "We shouldn't allow animals to be in situations where, if they were humans, they would feel pain."
OK. We can do this. We can help the cow count back from a hundred while giving it a seditive, and then stopping it's heart with another drug. This is how most vets put animals down.
How does that affect the eating of meat one way or another, in terms of morality? If that is the argument, then yes, sure, we can pass laws to make the killing of meat animals 'humane' at that level. But that STILL doesn't show how it is immoral to eat meat.
Seems like it is only immoral to eat meat in that argument, IFF 'cows and rabbits are people too!' And I would LOVE to see the proof on that. We as humans can treat them like people, but that doesn't MAKE them people.
HOW we end their lives doesn't change the argument, we can do it many different ways. If the argument is ABOUT ending their lives, OK, so we can wait till they keel over from natural causes, and then eat them right?
Is it immoral to eat a cow, if it's an old cow that died? Or is it immoral only if we are the agent of death, and we have made it's life for this purpose. If that is true, are we safe in going back to being fishers, and grabbing fish with a hook. Or do we have to wait till after it has spawned, and is in death throes?
Seems like the arguments about humane treatment and eating meat are 2 different things...
rwe: "Why should I be moral?" contains the word "should". There's no non-tautological way to ask that question; it's equivalent to "why is it moral to be moral".
we'd eat grass-fed buffalo if given the chance
So would I! Yum. Megan, forgot to note that next time you're in Hanoi you should go for the grilled buffalo meat at Highway 4. Buffalo in Vietnam still live the life buffalo were meant to lead, more or less -- though I can't vouch for how they're slaughtered.
I am religious, and I don't think God wants living creatures to be treated with some kindness. Not particularly, anyway. As far as I know, it doesn't say anywhere in the Bible that Jesus died for cows' sins, and there's a good reason for that: cows don't sin. They don't sin because to commit a sin, you need free will. (Here, I segway into the non-religious part of my argument.) And animals don't have free will. Nor do they have the use of reason, or emotions, or any of the things that make humans, well, human. More precisely, any of the qualities that make humans moral subjects. Animials are not subjects of morality; therefore, we have no moral obligation toward them.
As an Enlightenment type, I take the source of my (secular) morals in the idea that humans are by nature beings endowed with Reason and therefore deserve to be moral subjects. I take the source of my religious morals in the idea that my God came to this Earth and chose to die to absolve the sins of every single human being, and that if God loves him then so should I. This is what tells me that every human being, whoever he is, whatever he looks like, is my brother and deserves to be treated morally.
None of this applies to animals. Animals are not endowed with Reason (with the possible exception of certain species of apes, but come on, you're not likely to order their meat in a restaurant any time soon), and Jesus certainly didn't die for any animal. So I see no moral obligation toward them.
Don't get me wrong, feeling a moral obligation toward animals is an admirable thing, but ultimately it doesn't make sense. It's motivated by anthropomorphism. We see an animal get hurt and, obviously, we want him to stop suffering, because we know what suffering feels like, and we don't like it, and we have empathy. We want to treat the animal like it's human. We see our own human nature reflected in that animal. It's an admirable trait, it shows the breadth of our empathy. But it's ultimately wrong, because even though we see our own nature reflected in that animal, it's just not there.
It's just an animal. It's not your aunt Hortense. So get over yourselves. Or do whatever you like, I'm not asking you to do anything, but I do have to say that I don't get it.
I just don't understand what would be the source of a moral obligation to a cow. I just don't get it. Sorry.
(That was way more than anyone should ever have had to write on the subject. I also have a couple quatrains on the fact that the more people care about animals, the less they seem to have spent time around REAL animals, in nature or in a farm. Our forefathers were around animals all the time, and they weren't so squeamish. This is a pet peeve of mine.)
The comments about how much water it takes to raise various crops, etc. especially this one:
[Okay sam, I see what you mean. The problem is just: is this an apples-to-apples comparison? Are we comparing:
-*human*-added water to crops
to
-*human*-added water to random tree in wildlife preserve?
I think they are talking about the water that a human must add to the soil to get the desired output.
Posted by Person |]
The comparison is for total water - not just human added water. As an example, I live in South Lousiana - a major sugar cane producing area. Sugar cane requires on average between 60 and 100 inches of water a year in order to grow. The water comes partly from rain 50 - 60 inches a year) and partly from soil moisture (low water table, runoff from non-sugar planted areas. None of it is irrigated. Growing the same crop in a desert would require massive amounts of human added water, but the total actually required by the plant is the same. Growing wheat in my area actually requires that it be planted on fields with good drainage - to prevent it from getting to wet and getting slime molds and fungal infections. If you are in a naturally rainy area, the amount of water a crop (or animal) requires simply isn't a consideration. Only if the water a crop needs has to be actively supplied by people is the water consumption of that crop an environmental issue
It is actually impossible to make an informed decision, morally or otherwise about anything like this these days, because once you realise that the main arguments for and against, the studies and reports published are usually provided by those with vested monetary interests, you will see that we just do not have the facts.
I came to this conclusion having been told by one particularly obnoxious anti lifer, that the milk and dairy products I consume in my vegetarian diet contain pus from cows.
At that point I suddenly realised I had been the victim of kill joys all my life. Nasty people who want to negate every pleasure I have right down to my enjoyment of a nice cold glass of milk and place some hideous mental imagery on it that will stop me from enjoying it.
I am afraid that I cannot live on fresh air alone and so hence at some point I am going to have to kill something, be it a beetroot or whatever.
Having been veggie all my life I am now considering selective cannabilism instead, whereby I will no longer be responsible for bringing suffering to carrots, lettuces, cows or chickens. Instead I will simply farm vegan activists and eat them.
So, I'm not sure if comments have a used by date, but here goes.
Firstly, I have to say that more important than what anyone thinks (even the 'trees drain our water supply' guy), is that they've thought at all.
I came across your corner of the web via an article detailing a bicycle accident (I'm an oft bruised bicycle commuter myself), and while your blog doesn't really have anything to do with my life down here in Australia, I have found yours to be an incisive an even-handled analysis of events (your recent Blogging Heads debate, for example).
So, while I'm from the Vegan side of town (and a town far from yours too), I very much respect your choices. Perhaps respect is the wrong word - what I mean is the warm sensation evoked by the actions of a complete stranger that give you hope that everyone's not a complete loon. Long story short - I think I've decided you're a good egg (I did contemplate making that sound less patronising, but I really like the phrase 'good egg').
Anyway, my reason for typing (apart from the desire to put the thought out of my head) is that while I don't believe in 'correcting' people's opinions (here we go, you're thinking) to test your values, I suppose, you need to probe the opposing argument.
What I'm driving at is the suggestion that 'it is better to have never been born than to have lived a slave' is moot because a cow in unlikely to have ever compared anyone to a summer's day. While slave isn't a word I would have used, the vegan logic, if there is such a thing, boils down to this;
Would you ever suggest to a friend that their dog, who is perhaps 4 or 5 years old, has had a good run, and there's no reason not to consider dog-burgers?
For whatever reason (most likely outdated utilitarian ones) dogs in western society are not for eating. And yet, while we don't tend to use them in the way we once did (hunting, security etc) they're still with us. People own pigs as pets, some people cows, I've owned sheep as pets in the past, and plan to one day own chickens. Your argument that 'lives lived is better' seems to be predicated on the following;
- that if there were no beef industry, there would be no cows because no-one would own a cow for the sake of it
- that cows are somehow aware of their number, and that low population growth (unlike liberty) is of concern to them
- that cows unborn are marked up on a chalkboard somewhere
- that a humanely killed cow (and I'm not doubting that there is such a thing) is killed at the end of a full life (rather than when tastiest) OR,
- that cow years 1-5 are much like the years that follow, so killing them whenever makes no difference
I don't find evidence of the first four (we don't eat dog to have more dogs, we just like them), and even if 5 is true, why not kill them after 1 year? Then you could have even more cows.
I certainly accept that humanely killed beef is perhaps less cruel than pesticide industry farmed veggies (as the oft mis-quoted Peter Davis 2003 University of Oregon study suggests), but the fact remains that there is simply not enough land or water to provide organic grass fed beef for everyone... which leaves everyone (myself included) right back at the start of the food-ethics merry-go-round.
I find the 'I'm doing it FOR the animals, which is something vegetarians should consider' argument specious, because it doesn't mesh with one of the more simple elements of the conservative-veggo ethic, i.e., that while animal-human equality is debatable, animal-animal equality is a no brainer. In other words while I'm fine with the disagreement on what defines cruel in a dietary sense, the tortuous argument that props up the 'survival of the cows' bit is where your article nose dives. It has the same ring to it as the suggestion that walking is worse than driving a car because it burns more food-carbon - that of an argument reverse engineered from a behaviour.
That's all I got.