Animal ethics

Interesting thread, PG! It's a topic that I've thought about myself for a long time. If I'm not mistaken, you have become a vegetarian (or even a vegan?) because of your moral convictions about this subject, right?

I'll say upfront that I'm still a very huge meat lover and eater, but I do have a lot of respect for people who are vegetarians and vegans by choice, because they don't want to contribute to the suffering of animals. I think it requires a lot of empathy to do that (especially if you like the taste of meat and give it up because of moral reasons).

I've also come to the conclusion that they're probably on the right side of this argument, morally/rationally speaking.

Every single argument in favor of westerners (in particular) eating meat that I've read so far can easily be refuted rationally. Here's a small example of a web page that does that.

Notice that I'm not speaking about people in African tribes (for instance), because they often don't have any other options to stay alive than killing animals and eating them. They don't really have a choice.

I've never considered giving up meat, though and that's basically because I (as a human) am not purely a morally rational creature. It's not something we should be proud of or anything, but it's simply the truth.

In my course of morality philosophy only one of the five chapters was about how to rationally approach morality, while the other four were about "moral instincts", which tackles morality based on how we function neurologically and culturally as a species. There's an important rational component to humans that can guide us through these instincts in what we'd call a morally responsible way, but the "moral instincts" (which are formed genetically and culturally over many years) are still a part of us that we can't simply ignore. It just factually exists. It's part of who we (as a group and individually) are and it has its evolutionary utilities.

In the case of eating meat, my instinct of selfishness (which results in my unwillingness to give up eating meat) is simply overruling the instinct of empathy I have for the animal that has been killed so that it can be eaten by me.

I would be less eager to eat cats and dogs, because my empathy for them is larger than for chickens (for instance) and possibly also larger than my selfishness (which would result in not eating them). The same goes for eating fellow humans.

This doesn't mean that eating meat can be rationally justified by those instincts, but it helps us to better understand why so many people (including me) still refuse to give up meat. Everyone is influenced by their various intrinsical instincts in different ways.

A person can rationally "know" that a certain action is morally wrong, while still doing it anyway. It's part of human nature.

Again, this is not a rational/moral excuse or a justification for anything (it would be very dangerous if it was). It's just an observation that makes you look at human morals differently.

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The conservative is a good argument that makes sense rationally, but I personally disagree with it. It is true that when change occur there are economical, social repercussions that sre negatives, but I think that sometimes the changes are worth it. In the 18th century the debate among philosophers and intellectuals was about monarchy, how is it legitimate, etc. Some like Edmund Burke tought that the monarchy wa important, that the revolution that happened in 1789 in France was disrupting the order, creating poverty, etc. He was right in the short term, but overall I think we can all agree that the elected government is a better alternative then a royal monarch. The same goes for slavery, the 60's emancipation movement, etc. You can argue that those are bad things, but I would strongly disagree.


You're absolutely right about the cows, I think it would be a good start or compromise for people just to stop eating cow. Non only is it the worst for the environment, but it's not good for people's health (compared to chicken that is relatively healthy).

Why are they indispensable?

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About 10 months ago I started really asking myself questions about it, questionning my moral intuitions such as I would never eat a cat or a dog, but I don't have any kind of problems eating a pig, a cow or a chicken. What made one worst then the other? Then in philosophy classes we saw Epicurus that promotes life with the biggest amount of pleasure and the fewer amount of displeasure as possible. And then I realized that the amount of pleasure I have eating meat can't be compared with the displeasue a non human animal can feel by being killed. Then I started research, I found out about Singer and so on. But I LOVED meat, I ate it at almost every meal and I dislike eating beans, chickpea, etc. So I went gradually, started to eat only biological meat, but in a fewer quantity then gradually it lead to me being a vegetarian and it's been 2 months now and I admit that it is very hard, but I want to live according to what I judge is an ethical live.

agreed

Yeah you could defend that, but what I would say is that you should try to give particular attention to what kind of meat you eat, (less beef as possible), from local farmer preferably that you know treats his animal with a minimum of respect, etc. I think it's a reasonnable compromise.

I also had a course on moral philosophy and it was the same, most of the class was about our moral intuitions or sensibilities, how neurologically devellop moral sentiments. 200 years ago when a man hit his wife or his child I'm sure it wasn't seen as a good thing, but it wasn't a big thing. Now we develloped some sort of empathy, of moral intuitions that goes agains't it and I'm glad so yeah it's very very important to take in consideration. However, I personally try not to base my actions upon them because they are kind of arbitrary and they constantly evolve, modify. I try to act according to what I rationally judge good even if it goes agains't my intuitions. But I can completely understand that it is not the case of others and I have to take in consideration this fact and not accuse people who disagree and try to convince them. I think we should try to transform the moral intuitions and it's by talkin about it with respect, calm and intelligence that we can do it.

You're right, but I think we should at least try to fight human nature. I agree with Kant on that he says that emotions, passions pushes us to act immorally (I obviously do not agree about what he thinks of morality, but how he arrives to his catgorical impératives is very interesting I think) and that our duty is to figh agains't our instincts, our passions to actually act morally, according to reason. I'm not saying I always achieve to go against my nature, but at least I try haha.

This proves that you have a very strong personality and that you are a principled man. Respect!

I think my biggest problem is that I don't take that duty as seriously as I probably should, because there's a lack of absolute authority when it comes to morality (outside of the law). I've never been a very self-disciplined or principled person. I'm profoundly careless when it comes to my actions. It often doesn't correlate with my personal beliefs and thoughts at all. I'm not sure where that disequilibrium exactly originates or originated, but I've noticed that I have it in a much worse form than most other people that I know. I truly respect (and partly also envy) people with a lot of self-control in that area.

Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer wrote this column last month and I give him props because I'm sure many of his peers on the Right weren't supportive of his opinion: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/in...eating_wi.html

We are already in the process of designing meat grown in a lab. Right now it's super expensive and for those who have tried it, they've acknowledged it tastes pretty bad. But the day will come when they can design it to have perfect flavor and it will be cheap. That day will come. As for eating meat, I don't think it's immoral, but we have got to start treating animals better. And we've got to start treating the earth better. It'd be nice if humans would start realizing there's more to the world than the reach of their arm holding up their bloody smart phone in front of their face.

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Cobpyth, duty might be a strong word, but yeah it's hard and I also am very lazy it depends on what, but the fact that you are understanding of the problematic is already good I think


Kaplan, I don't know if the practices of the future are so arbitrary. I don't think morality is that much of a random thing. Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, etc. kind of guessed the political system we would have after monarchy, Thoreau was agains't slavery, etc. Ethics is not an empirical science like physics or chemistry, but we can certainly imagine what path it will take. And in my opinion it always evolves, I think the next step will be respecting the suffering of sentient beings and to ackowledge our importance in the preservation of our planets (working agains't pollution, etc.)


The fake meat alternative seems really interesting to me, but I don't know much about it I will do some research on that!

Good response, allow me to answer.

Mostly what I am trying to say is that arguments about "ends" are often worth little without taking into account "means." I just can't fully disagree with the "conservative" argument because for almost any goal I can imagine a price that might be too high. I won't quibble much since we agree that alleviating the suffering of animals is a worthwhile goal, especially if it can be done through nonviolent means (for example cutting back subsidies). On the other hand there are some concrete examples in animal ethics where I think (and suspect you would agree with me based on your response to Cobpyth's Africa example) the cost in human suffering is too high. Most of my examples involve conservation politics which is a very complicated issue, is not justified only or even primarily in terms of animal rights (though that's probably what a lot of westerners have in mind when they think of it), and is somewhat tangential to the ethics of eating meat, so I won't go into detail right now. If you're interested I'd recommend looking up "fortress conservation". This page seems like a pretty good introduction.

Sorry, I was in kind of a rush when I responded and ended up conflating two things that I was thinking of, and also didn't go into enough detail. The first thing is that, as far as I can figure, sentience is indispensable for defining a moral agent. I guess a better term might be "intelligence" since you could argue that sentience is binary rather than hierarchical: either something has it or it doesn't. (Intelligence is a loaded word but I can't think of another one at the moment). This is important because It refutes reductive arguments from nature. More trivially such a distinction seems like it would have to come up in explaining why we owe some consideration to our food while, say, a shark doesn't.

That's one answer, but now I think the question you had more in mind was how to define a being worthy of our consideration, and that you're offering sensation (or capacity to suffer) as an alternative, more determinable hierarchy. I hadn't considered that before, so it's very intriguing and worth thinking about some more. I'm somewhat skeptical that it's sufficient on its own, though (maybe you don't think that it is either). As I understand it, defining one's moral imperative around the capacity of another being to feel pain seems like it would entail a form of utilitarian ethics, which leads to some non-trivial problems. For example if we define our moral imperative merely as "limiting pain", does that mean it's okay to slaughter pigs by euthanizing them? Also we might want to consider a somewhat broader concept of pain, for example emotional pain (is it ethical to separate a cow from its calf) and in such cases it seems like it would be very hard to operationalize "pain" without some recourse to relative intelligence or consciousness. Pain also raises the issue of possibly upending a hierarchy with humans at the top. If it were determined that a cow had a greater capacity for suffering than a human, would we then owe greater consideration to cows than to humans? I admit I haven't given it enough though, so maybe I'm misunderstanding you (and Singer), or you already have answers to such questions that don't involve hierarchies of "sentience" (again, admitting that was probably not the best word).

in the case of african tribes I'd say it's acceptable because they do not really have other alternative and I don't think they realize the immorality of their gesture. Personally I can't blame someone for eating meat if he thinks eating meat is a good thing, what I'm trying to do is convince and show the implications of this choice. And that ultimately it will become largely accepted in society that the suffering of non human animals also counts.


I think what gives us consideration for our food compared to a shark is our capacity to reason, the capacity to understand the suffering of others and to avoid it if we can. I can of agree that hierarchy seems almost natural, but we seem, as the years pass, try to destroy it as much as we can. Before it was horrible there was the king at the top, then men more important then women, then white men more important then black men, etc. Now we kind of understand that such hierarchical distinctions don't really make sens. Non human animals migh be the next step.

You're absolutely right about that and that is where utilitarian ethics find it's limit. It doesn't give intrinsic value to life andto calculate the amount of pain seems kind of counter intuitive. If shot someone in the back and he dies instantly without ever seeing me then it would be acceptable because he didn't suffer. There is something more then suffering to judge such questions I think, but it remains a very important aspect of life. So I'm not saying that suffering should be the ultimate judge of everything, but if wecan avoid inflicting it on others we should do it.

I keep finding myself more and more at odds with eating animals. The way we treat the cows, chickens, fish, etc. that we eat is terrible. They are living things, they DO have consciousness, hell, they even have personalities. Ever seen a cow being put out to pasture after a long winter? They are overjoyed to see the grass again, it's a wonderful thing to see. I feel horrible about putting other living beings to death so I can eat them when there's other sources of food available to me. I am conflicted, because I do eat meat, and I have issues with how the animals are treated. I have stopped eating red meat, I've stopped eating pork, and I've never liked fish, which is a start, but I still eat chicken because i do need the protein...but I would love to find another way.

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I would not eat any animal that I would deem a pet. That includes certain animals in groups that I would normally eat like cattle or chickens. I had a pet cow once, didn't eat it, but I would go out and buy steaks while I had her. Had a pet chicken once, didn't eat it, but I would go out and buy nuggets. I think you see where I am going with this, right. I even had a pet deer once, but I hunt them every fall to eat. I never kill more than we can eat. We do grow and butcher our own meat. It's all part of the circle of life here on the farm.

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My biggest problem with the entire thing is the people who are naïve enough to think that if you buy meat from the store it was made there and no one killed anything to make it. They make hunters out to be such horrible people but in all honesty hunters are much more merciful to their kills than the people who raise the animals that they eat on a daily basis that are bought from the store.

Interesting thread, this makes me want to write a story about a future where eating animals is illegal and there are underground speakeasies where people go for bacon cheeseburgers.

There is something primal and eternal about eating meat. I think as humans, as animals, we have a right to explore and understand our primal nature. Hunting should not be illegal!! It's wrong to raise an entire generation of people with lies, telling them to act against their nature and to be something that they're not. It's unhealthy, we need to accept ourselves for what we are.

But I do think a lot of our industry is sick and unnatural, raising animals with an entire life of suffering is a crime against nature. I'd say it's a crime against god but I'm not part of that faith.

Has anyone read cold mountain? I think it was in the movie too.. a woman who raises sheep or lamb for slaughter. She is compassionate and loving as she raises and kills them.

I don't care about cats, yeah sure I'd eat one if it was served to me at a guests house. But not a dog, not unless I was on an arctic expedition gone awry and it was either me or them.. at that point I would eat the dog.

What makes it worse you ask?
Dogs think like humans more than any other animal on the planet, even more than the monkeys we are related to. There have been studies on this, and the theories behind it are that dogs and humans have been together in close proximity for so many thousands of years that dogs have evolved to suit us.

Dogs are a gift from mother earth. They are loyal and loving friends that would die to protect us, loyalty should not be rewarded with wanton consumption of their flesh.

What according to me makes someone a moral person.. is that what this is asking?

This is incredibly difficult to define and I'm positive there are many experts in this area that have fallen short in answering that question. What hope do i have? By fine I will try.. compassion, consideration, conscience, consistency.

We are pretty much in the same situtation, I managed to also cut on the chicken, but it wasn't easy I'm sure you'll be able eventually to do so!

So if it is in the nature of someone to have sexual intercourse with a child he shouldn't suppres it? If someone has the desire to kill an other human being he shouldn't suppres it? Morality is to put the boundries in which we should go agains't our nature and what I'm arguing is that the way we treat animals now is grave enough so the we should go agains't our nature.

Agreed, except for the crime agains't god part lol (I don't care for metaphysical hypothetical entities :P)

Never heard of it I'll look it up


Why the fact that they are closer to human would give more value to their life?