Is it not morally wrong to drink the milk of an animal that was forcibly impregnated and whose child was murdered for said milk? Why stop at vegetarianism?
It's not clear here if you think that is the only problem with rape, child theft, torture, and murder. It's not even clear whether you understand that a child has to be created, neglected, and abused for a mother's milk to be sold.
I think cattle are moral individuals that have the capacity to be wronged. That is all. That doesn't require that they are human-like people with full human-like capacities and rights. Just because a human is worth more than a cow doesn't mean a cow is worthless and you can do whatever you want to her, doesn't mean that a cow cannot suffer every bit as harshly as you can.
Giving different words to the crimes we commit against animals is a way of insulating yourself from the crimes you commit, like how calling cow flesh "beef" insulates you from the horror and cruelty you commit.
Coming in quite hot and using a lot of assumptions, my friend
Is there a serious problem with the standard agricultural practices of large dairy farms of systematic forced pregnancy, either destruction of the calf or adding to the birth cycle once old enough, and other layers of mistreatment that should neither be condoned or continued? Absolutely and we should all strive to get the whole process abolished.
That said, most cow breeds overproduce milk for their calfs needs and it is unhealthy for them to stay full at all times. Milking them is a kindness and until we can undo eons of selective breeding, needs must.
I have an endless list of problems with the agricultural world and its practices but the reality is if we all went pure vegan right now, more animals would suffer in preventable ways. Tapering off the demands for the products of big agriculture, especially by forcing the market towards small farms treating the animals with kindness, and working towards reversing the changes we've caused in the breeds that make them more product than animal is the best route to end exploitation of animals.
If you care about animals, shaming people does fuck all. Educating them without assuming malice goes a whole lot farther towards your point of view. Also recognizing that literal millennia of selective breeding will not be undone in a single generation and the process of reversing is slow and fraught with its own challenges that need to be addressed.
Tldr: educate yourself beyond the rhetoric and hanlons razor. Idealism is great for concept but will fail on the reality when put into practice
Yeah I think so probably. The animal product industry seems pretty messed up. Very un-cool what we do to them. Inefficient too but that's another argument.
I guess you're not going to bait stickly into examining the consequences their choices have on others who are powerless to protect themselves from those consequences. He's too clever for that kind of bait.
Morals are internal and are often informed by one’s culture, upbringing, and lived experience. There is a wide array of answers here and that’s not surprising.
For me I do consider vegetarianism to be a more moral option, I am not a vegetarian though. I think that Americans eat more meat than they need to and men in particular are targeted to over consume meat to the detriment of their health. With these things in mind I do try to eat less meat and go through phases when I am more successful.
After taking a college course about the meat industry, my partner decided not to purchase meat, but still does eat it.
Depends on who you ask and the background of your question.
Yes
It is undeniable in current day the horrors industrial farming creates and inflicts on millions of sentient beings to sustain a business that was originally fomented in order to supply food for a post-war world where several countries were rendered with little or no usable land for farming.
The traditional model of farming, where animals were an integral part of a production chain that kept the land itself alive and reduced waste to a minimum was destroyed to give place to a highly destructive model where lowest cost, hight profit margins and speed of production is absolute.
In this process, thousands, if not millions, of landrace animals, along with heirloom seed varieties, went extinct and were lost. Petroleum products and by-products entered the daily life, from food, to clothing, to essentially anything imaginable. Not because those were better but because it was cheaper and protected interests.
Knowing this and still leaning heavily on an animal protein based diet with no concern for its toll on our collective ecosystem and the suffering it creates is nothing short of regrettable.
No
Meat is cheap. Artificially cheap but still. Processed foods cheaper; with meat in it, even more.
Many people throughout the world do not have access to the means to have a fully exclusive or at least heavily based vegetable diet, either because of the environment they live in or simply because they lack the means to afford it. Many people in developing countries still depend on cattle to provide food and raw materials, if not on hunting, trapping and fishing. Even more people, in rich, developed countries, don't have the money to afford a proper diet, even less a vegetable based one.
These people are as worthy of living as any other. It can not be taken against them wanting to survive.
Maybe
Some people aren't aware how much their personal decision can have a meaningful impact.
Others don't have the time or hability to extract from vegetables meals that can truly satisfy them and don't want to resort to ultraprocessed foods. Others are simply too deep into a cultural mindset that blocks them from experimenting.
It is just another type of barrier. There is a degree of lack of interest and effort in this stage but we can't (shouldn't) hold against people their personal circumstances, which adds poorly when it comes to changing minds, habits and cultures.
I generally agree with you, however your argument does add some subjectivity to the maybe and no sections. I'd add that while not every situation can accommodate a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle, in 2026 the vast majority of people have the capability to change to a non-meat diet without any detriment to their health or lifestyle besides social ostracism of unaccepting peers depending on where they live.
Are you reducing the harm to others in a actually statically significant quantity though?
To others I suppose you refer to animals.
By being vegan you mosly reduce harm to a few species of big animals.
Most animals by quantity are insects.
If you count by individuals a person who saves a few ant nest from the horrors of nature and give them a nice controlled habitat would reduce the number of harm happening to individual animals orders of magnitude over what a diet change could achieve.
As for environmental damage. It's a way. But not the only way. The most effective way to control environmental control would be to reduce the number of humans on earth.
You have to take into account that animal agriculture is responsible for the vast majority (70%) of plants that we grow and we use pesticides for them. If we stop eating animals or stop using animal products all together we need tremendously less pesticides and harm less insects in turn.
First, agriculture made for animal consumption doesn't have the same quality sanitarian standards as agriculture made for humans.
Second, not all animals require vast agriculture.
We could also war animals that do not requiere such agricultural measures. I have eaten cows, pigs and chickens that were raised traditionally, out of the natural fields and the parts of the plants that we humans do not want to eat.
In fact for a environmental perspective traditional farming is far better than vegan diet.
It is not minimizing harm in the way you can't hear a plant scream. That's the same logic people had about fish. This is a foolish and irresponsible way to think of consciousness.
I will agree it is minimizing harm on environment however we have much room to improve even on that standard.
Like not burning crops simply because it doesn't make money.
"Plants feel pain" is an argument that supports a plant-based diet because it is more efficient to consume plants directly than to feed them to animals.
stepping into moral logic around consiousness around pain and suffering: that the shittier arguments vegans come up with to feel satisified with themselves over others with magical thinking and that shit needs to stop.
Vegans' moral arguments are just fine, it's just that most people don't give a shit. When you realize how shitty most people are to other people, it makes the need to take a different approach very obvious.
A foolish and irresponsible way to think about consciousness would be to pretend we can actually define it, then go around professing things are either conscious or not without considering there might be a scale.
so you say you cant define it but you can throw something you dont know on a scale? so its only ok if you do it. uh huh. i see. that is some bullshit, fool.
Morals are subjective, I don't consider myself the arbiter of truth and I also reject theistic positive claims stating otherwise such as objective morals or free will. Personally I know I can survive without eating animals, so I'd rather not be indirectly involved in the killing of other animals where it is reasonably possible and I don't consider humans more important/superior to any other animals, generally.
I think you could get a lot of people to even admit to valuing very old trees over a lot of people too so even some plants are worth leaving alone, according to some of us. Like Red Wood giants in Cali, for example. All the land cleared of wildlife to grow food for billions of humans is disturbing stuff at least to me as well. The planet is actually kinda... small. I've come to realise. I fully reject humanity's unearned superiority complex.
I acknowledge it's hard/impossible to be absolute in the vegetarian ideal given all the ramifications of industrial overpopulation and just casually participating in the society I was born into. Best I can do on this suffering planet, that I never consented to being born to live temporarily upon pointlessly, is to minimize (elimination is unrealistic) the suffering my life inflicts on others.
In other words, I don't owe anyone jack shit, not even Mommy Dearest. Yet I still stand by this moral position. Although I'd argue this is just who I am and always was. The justications put into words and labels applied came later. You'll notice I didn't condemn meat eating in this comment and that's quite deliberate. You are not me. I just explain my position when asked and it's up to others to adopt it or not.
"I don’t owe anyone jack shit, not even Mommy Dearest," is a decidedly edgelord thing to say. Other parts of what you were saying are not trying to be edgy, and I think I get that you were trying to create some kind of rhetorical contrast, but that's just objectively an edgelord comment. I edited my comment to tone it down, but not before you saw it, so I guess I have to stand by that.
But when factoring in e.g. water consumption and CO2e per unit of food consumed, I would argue the average vegetarian diet to be significantly more ethical compared with the average omnivorous diet.
Obviously the type of animals involved, the way they are treated and killed, and religious views add more complexity to this case.
edit: the essence of my point is that this isn't a black and white matter.
I think that's a flawed argument. Cow milk production requires that cows get pregnant once a year, and the calves can't all become milk cows, too - thus, cow milk production cannot exist without cow meat production. And IIRC milk products still have a worse environmental impact than chicken meat.
TBH I'm not sure about the environmental impact of eggs vs meat. But animal welfare is generally the main reason why people keep to vegetarian or vegan diets, and chicken farming is not great in terms of animal welfare.
The bottom line is: 1 cow birth per year (or let's call it cow deaths, because that's what is most relevant here) yields around 10.000L of milk. Out of which around 1000kg of cheese can be produced, plus of course the meat of that calf.
Does that make it ethical? I don't think so. But I would say around 1.5-2x less unethical compared to eating meat, which is significant.
I read a book called "change of heart" by a vegan animal activist, which was all about research into what actually worked in terms of convincing people to reduce animal suffering. For him, it would be ideal if we reduced animal suffering to zero. But even encouraging someone to eat less meat (e.g. Meatless Mondays) reduced animal suffering, and was a win in his book. I kind of agree with that.
The way I see it is similar. If everyone stopped eating animal products today like turning off a faucet, literal millennia of selective breeding guarantees there will be animal suffering. A better option is to reduce overall consumption while also working towards reversing the changes we've made to the animals to turn them into products. At this time, dairy cows overproduce milk making milking a requirement for the animals health and safety. Poultry is a whole other discussion that isn't quite as environmentally problematic but way more ethically problematic that requires a whole extra level of discussion towards improvement
Do you think dairy farmers eat their 100lbs wheels of cheese? It's the same thing.
In either case, you're talking about harm reduction when it is so trivial to eliminate harm. It is in fact EASIER. But your attachment to the fruits of abuse won't let you see it that way, and you're looking for ways to make your abuse more emotionally palatable.
Treating a vulnerable individual as a means instead of as an end is fundamentally wrong. No amount of benefit to you short of saving your life can make it morally acceptable. In a famine we have to make hard choices and sometimes we have to sacrifice others. That's not the situation right now. We grow more food each year than humanity could eat in two years without harvesting any vulnerable individuals.
My point is: ethics should not be confused with a single dimension of ethics. Whether something I'd ethical, depends on your beliefs.
Simultaneously, if animal welfare is all we optimize for, vegetarianism is a step forward. And indeed, so is pollotarianism when optimizing for just environmental impact. Perfect is the enemy of good.
For water consumption and CO2, avoid beef, milk and cheese. Chicken and eggs are no issue, they cause less harm in that regard than many plant products (like almonds).
Overall, most humans agree that it is morally wrong to make other creatures suffer. Eating meat, or dairy, definitely leads to animal suffering (it actual leads to human suffering too).
There is indeed a very small scientific community that has some (very preliminary) research done on a “nervous system” in plants. The wood-wide-web is part of those hypothesis. It is very intriguing, but reading the interviews with these scientists and their publications didn’t leave me with the impression that plants feel emotions, or that they think, are cognitive or learn from pain. Do you have scientific data to proof otherwise?
If it's possible and you're capable to do it, then I think it's a moral choice.
If it's a matter of survival, health or inaccess to a variety of food, I don't think it really is a choice one should have to make on grounds of morality.
Being vegetarian or omnivorous isn't very different, morally, as producing milk still requires killing calves. I think the better comparison would be with veganism
Yes, it is an economic requirement. They can't compete with beef cattle for meat production, keeping them alive just makes the milk more expensive than the farmer down the road who murders his calves can sell it for.
How do you recoup the costs of raising a bull to full weight (which happens at a fraction of its natural lifespan) without slaughtering him? It's like saying breathing isn't necessary because you can just hold your breath.
I think it depends on where you get your meat, eggs, and dairy.
A proper farm where the animals are kept safe, healthy, and happy for longer than they'd live in the wild, and in the case of meat killed quickly and painlessly? That could be considered morally okay.
Factory farms where they lead short, filthy miserable lives, constantly being bred to maximize milk production? Nah, that is not morally okay.
Carnism is the typically unconscious and unexamined belief that cruelty and violence to vulnerable individuals such as livestock can sometimes be good or acceptable. It's not. The more you pick at it, the more it falls apart. I spent years trying to find ways to be an ethical consumer of other individual's flesh. It's fucking impossible, it contains contradictions you can never solve. Your whole idea of a "proper farm" would be laughable if it wasn't such a horrifying and self-serving delusion. Just stop abusing vulnerable individuals, it's actually so much easier than trying to consume "ethical meat".
No, I have a developed system of morality, quite strong. And eating meat doesn't contradict it.
For anyone curious the model is based on avoidance of cruelty. Cruelty is what makes people bad. If you do something with cruel intentions it doesn't matter what you destroy, a human, other animal, a plant or even a geological formation. If you do it with cruelty on mind you are a bad person.
But if your intentions are others, then there's nothing bad. You eat meat not because you want to be cruel towards an animal, but because you want to eat. Then it's ok.
It's all about avoiding cruel intentions on humans. Those are my morals at least. I follow them and judge anothers based on them.
From Wikipedia: "Cruelty is the intentional infliction of suffering or the inaction towards another's suffering when a clear remedy is readily available."
Because eating meat requires cruelty per this definition IMO.
That definition is quite good, I would add that for cruelty to be cruelty the objective of your actions needs to be the cruelty.
Eating meat doesn't fall into that definition, fron my point of view.
You being alive causes a lot of suffering in the world, just because you are alive, you cannot live without doing harm to other living beings.
You draw you line on "I'm not cruel because I go out of my way not to eat meat". There are infinite lines you could draw before and after or in parallel. Someone could say "Ido not walk because I may step on some bug and that would make me cruel, and anyone who walks and thus step on bugs is cruel".
A clear remedy to avoid causing harm to absolutely any other living being is stopping being alive one self. I don't see much people following that route, and considering any living being as cruel would mean that that interpretation of what's cruelty is irrational and faulty. The intention for the suffering to exist is inherent in the cruelty. People need to enjoy that suffering in order to be cruel.
I do not enjoy damage to animals, it's just something inevitable when I eat them. Suffering is not my objective, not the objective of anyone who eats meat, I would assume. So no, they are not being cruel.
From my point of view, if the objective of your actions is not to cause suffering, even if your actions cause suffering, then you are not being cruel. Intention matters here.
From my perspective it is just unnecessary harm thus cruelty because you can live perfectly fine without eating or using anything provided by animals.
A clear remedy to avoid causing harm to absolutely any other living being is stopping being alive one self.
Veganism just wants you to reduce your harm to animals as much as is practically possible. Refusing to walk is not practical, not eating meat or dairy is very practical.
Take into account that one of the basis of my theory is that animals have no rights per se. When thinking about it it seemed illogical as it's impossible to police, control, or even tu conceive. How could you give rights to some invertebrate living 50 foot underground with a lifespans of 3 days that won't even see a human in that time?
My ideology thinks about humans. I'm human. Society is form by humans. Humans are the only rational being on earth. We can work with humans.
My definition of cruelty and why avoid it is not based on reduce harm to animals, I don't care about that. It's based on reduce harm on humans. That's why the intention and the enjoyment of causing suffering is the thing to avoid. Because that's what create "bad" humans, "cruel" humans. Humans that will hurt other humans. That's the only reason why I think that cruelty (towards anything, animal or not, even alive or not) is to be avoided. Just as a way to create a better society for humans.
As long as humans are "good" and not hurting other humans I don't really care if animals suffer. They are "lucky" that cruelty towards animals is proven to make humans worse. But just farming and managing livestock for human consumption has not been proven to do that, as there's not cruel intentions in it. Just intentions to feed ourselves.
Take into account that one of the basis of my theory is that animals have no rights per se.
That is where we fundamentally disagree.
They are "lucky" that cruelty towards animals is proven to make humans worse. But just farming and managing livestock for human consumption has not been proven to do that, as there's not cruel intentions in it.
Plant based diet has actually shown some relationship data with some forms of aggressiveness.
Study proposes normalize the data according to childhood trauma, but even then it would only show that plant based diet and omnivore diet have no differences.
And while there are also papers which relation eating meat qith aggressiveness. Most aggressiveness linked with diet is usually related to red meat consumption in excess. Not with all meat, neither with a balanced consumption of red meat.
Anyway, all those are barely noticeable. Not worth the benefits of people being able to chose their own diet.
As said the fundamental difference in philosophies, is the consideration of the existence of "animal rights" or not.
In a selfish tone, we concede all human, human rights because it's the path that leads to better live for one self. If you discriminate another human that human could have reasons to hurt you (legitimate reasons) It's proven that egalitarian societies work better. With animals this does not happen. Animal attitude towards humans is unchanged if we give them rights or not. It's not like a mosquito is going to stop bitting me because I consider it a first class citizen. Animal contribution towards my well-being will be the same, I eat them or not.
From a practical point of view, giving animals rights achieve no goals neither for me or humanity as a whole. That's why I only concede humans rights, because giving human rights do make humans better, thus makes my life better.
Glad you ask. The core of the moral framework are humans. Life should be good for humans. Why humans? Because I'm a human. And my moral framework should be universal, applicable by any other human on earth, because offering a morality that work good for every human is the only way to ensure that everyone can follow it and then have a good society. It doesn't apply to animals as animals themselves cannot adhere at any moral framework they don't have the ability to do so.
That being said the moral dogma look to ensure the behaviours that should ensure that human life is good. Slavery is bad for a human, so it's a bad thing. It's quite simple. A human suffering is just plain bad.
Why I mentioned cruelty before. Because in my moral framework animals have no rights, they couldn't they are not passive subjects of my morals. But the relationship between humans and animals (and plants and other elements is not inconsecuential in human-human relationships). Humans who are cruel inevitably cause pain in other humans, thus why cruelty is to be avoided. Including cruelty towards animals, planta or other elements. Humans have the right to live in a cruelty free world. That's why being cruel towards an animal, like causing the animal pain for no other reason that causing it pain, is bad, is cruel and creates a bad world for humans (in essence I'm not caring about the animal here, just about what world is being created for the humans). But if an animal gets killed just because it's a source of food, and cruelty had no part in the equation, then it's not bad, as that behavior doesn't create a bad world for humans to live in.
morals are anecdotes that define your personal integrity. morals are arguable at best and carry little to no merit outside of personal experience.
I believe you mean ethical.
ethically, no, it's not wrong. mostly because the animals we consume are bred and raised specifically to eat. however, the treatment of those animals in corporate factory farms is unethical, and so makes the consumption of the products from those establishments unethical.
No. The nature of life consumptions of living things. I do believe however that it is preferable to eat from the least sentient of creatures as possible. You can even go further and eat things which does not kill things at all like fruitarians. This would be following the ethic of least harm. Its almost impossible for anyone living in the modern world to not be destroying it with their consumption. Most vegans for example would be doing more harm to me than say someone native to the americas before colonialism that ate meat.
Something interesting and anecdotal. We get a lot of Indian immigrants in my area, and they're primarily vegetarian. But as soon as they move here, they become anaemic, because the lentils etc grown in our soil doesn't have enough nutrients for survival. They have to start taking supplements. I'm not sure why that is, but it makes me wonder if people would be more willing to be vegetarian here if it was actually viable nutritionally.
Oh sure that is the issue with all diets. Kinda depends how you look at it. Morally I would see milk and egg as not being an issue. That is why I said like the fruitarians because you would be hard pressed to find a mondern one who accepted those animal products. Jains have a whole sorta categorization of how bad it is to eat particular things.
It's a difficult question, so I hope some people who have interesting things to say about it will turn up here. All I can contribute is this link: Ancient Arguments For Vegetarianism
I would argue that no, it is not morally wrong per se to be non-vegetarian. Meat consumption is not morally wrong in general, it is just morally wrong in our society. We kill way too many animals to be sustainable and every animal you eat contributes to that. We harm climate and ecosystems to sustain our meat consumption. We hold animals captive and make them hurt and suffer. In this society you can not eat meat in a morally okay way.
Or you could simply off your opinion based on the information as presented.
This seems like an attempt at trying to sidetrack the topic rather than providing an answer. Which is odd given that commenting here is opt in. It's not like someone directly approached you and asked the question.
What's the value of life? Is the life of an animal worth less than that of a human and a plant or mushroom worth less than an animal? IMO, they are all worth the same, human or haybale, cow or soybean.
if you are concerned with putting a stop to unnecessary suffering or climate destruction, vegetarianism accomplishes essentially nothing.
veganism is a moral baseline, it is literally the least we can be doing.
If it is about producing less waste and consumption, it is moral in that humans consume less vegetation than a cow would and therefore less toiling of the earth.
But on a conscious level it is the same. Either meat or plant is just as conscious as the other.
at least eating meat: consumers are at least admitting to the suffering they are committing on another conscious being and have the humility to acknowledge as much while they also acknowledge they require to eat to continue to survive in human form. this is what it means that existance is the cause of suffering. regardless of what you consume.
The type of vegans who refuse to acknowledge plants as a conscious being for no other reason that a plant cannot run away or make noise to 'prove' their consciousness to them and then have the audacity to turn around and judge others. i believe that to be immoral and unethical as well as emotionaly manipulative and deeply disassociated to the encumberance of life.
Eating plant based: while it is healthier, it is better treatment to the earth itself by consuming less but i would not be fooled into thinking there is a moral high ground in consuming consciousness to be looking down on anyone else.
You are so close yet so far. You're still missing that one link of refinement to make your argument water tight and it is very important to acknowledge nuance here.
You don't suddenly eat less just cuz you changed what you're eating. Caloric intake is still requiring to be the same.
If you change to plants you need less animals to eat. They'd in turn require less.
You can't just lazily spew thermal dynamics and nothing to connect it. It makes you sound almost smart but missing the point.
Again you keep missing your opportunity regardless how often I'm bringing it to you on a silver platter. I'm arguing with myself for you...and its a point i actually agree with. And yet you still keep missing it lol. im not even àrguing against thermal dynamics. i was arguing consiousness. you are so lost. I guess some ppl really can't be helped.
consiousness has been undeniably defined on a scale and now has been located within the physical body and i have all these scientific papers to back it up so i can continue to use magical thinking to feel better about eating plants which over animals using the consious argument [citation needed]
You are what you eat. Cows eat grass. Cows are machines that convert grass into more cows. Cows are essentially converted grass. Thus, if it’s ok to eat grass, it’s ok to eat cows. Checkmate.
No, quite the opposite. If people didn’t eat meat then people wouldn’t herd cattle, so most cows wouldn’t ever exist. What is worse, living and then dying, or not living at all? We’re doing the animals a favour by raising them, feeding them, caring for them. A favour which they repay by allowing us to eat them. Anything else would be morally wrong. Now excuse me, my steak is ready.
What is worse, living and then dying, or not living at all?
Laughs in antinatalist
More commonly, I think people would base this on quality of life. An animal being born to spend its entire life in a tiny, disgusting cage in generally deplorable conditions doesn't make the cut by any reasonable standard.
To add on to that, most modern livestock live absolutely miserable lives.
I was going to add a separate comment, but in the interests of brevity, I think I'll just put it here:
I find that in order to answer questions like OP's, it's helpful to remember who we are and how we lived for the ~2.5Myrs total of humanity's (i.e. genus Homo) existence. So in terms of our diet, we've been opportunistic omnivores (heavy on plants) for the vast majority of that time, much like our fellow apes. It's a completely sustainable way of living, and our bodies are perfectly engineered for that.
At the other end of the spectrum would be a pure carnivore diet, which science studies consistently find to cause increased cardiovascular disease and cancer rates. On top of all the enormous waste, expenditure, and utter cruelty towards livestock.
Point is-- if you consider all that, I think you can find some pretty decisive answers about the "morality" of one's diet.
At the other end of the spectrum would be a pure carnivore diet, which science studies consistently find to cause increased cardiovascular disease and cancer rates.
You will find there have been no studies on the pure-carnivore (zero carb) diet wrt cvd or oncogenic effects.
There have been observational epidemiology on high carb omnivores (75% plant) which people like to extrapolate around and make causal statements such as 'caused increased.... rates' which the data cannot support.
Right, I got a little carried away with the 'pure' angle, but I do recall seeing many abstracts / summaries of studies for quite a few years that found that diets heavy on meat indeed seem to correlate to increased cancer & CVD incidents.
Shouldn't be too surprising based on studies of the GI systems of numerous herbivores vs. numerous Carnivorans, either. Extra-long GI vs. very short one depending on diet. Ours certainly seems to be a middle-ground, omnivore-type GI. AFAIK only rarely do we find from archeology & anthropology evidence that humans ate very-high meat diets, such as Innuit peoples for example.
Right, I got a little carried away with the ‘pure’ angle,
Fair enough the moment takes us all sometimes.
but I do recall seeing many abstracts / summaries of studies for quite a few years that found that diets heavy on meat indeed seem to correlate to increased cancer & CVD incidents.
Not quite - these are FFQs applied to the general populations so protein is really around 15%. There is considerable debate in the literature if these findings are clinically meaningful.
Not just the moment, but the motivation to get the core of a point across to a casual audience with a brevity of verbiage.
Not quite - these are FFQs applied to the general populations so protein is really around 15%. There is considerable debate in the literature if these findings are clinically meaningful.
What is your relevant background in such matters, if I may ask?
is it morally wrong to breathe? i mean, you're using another being's oxygen.
the question isn't whether it's right or wrong, but about where you draw the line. that you can only decide for yourself.
Is it not morally wrong to drink the milk of an animal that was forcibly impregnated and whose child was murdered for said milk? Why stop at vegetarianism?
artifical insemination doesnt need to happen for milk production
It's not clear here if you think that is the only problem with rape, child theft, torture, and murder. It's not even clear whether you understand that a child has to be created, neglected, and abused for a mother's milk to be sold.
You cannot even accept "torture"? Really. Well then that clarifies your original comment.
they should be killed swiftly and painlessly
non sequitur
you're clearly speaking from a place of ignorance, about what you want to be true. you should learn more about where your food actually comes from and what externalities are being paid by others because of your choices. right now you're just brainwashing yourself so that you don't have to emotionally cope with your cruelty and violence.
He thinks cows are people.
I think cattle are moral individuals that have the capacity to be wronged. That is all. That doesn't require that they are human-like people with full human-like capacities and rights. Just because a human is worth more than a cow doesn't mean a cow is worthless and you can do whatever you want to her, doesn't mean that a cow cannot suffer every bit as harshly as you can.
Giving different words to the crimes we commit against animals is a way of insulating yourself from the crimes you commit, like how calling cow flesh "beef" insulates you from the horror and cruelty you commit.
Coming in quite hot and using a lot of assumptions, my friend
Is there a serious problem with the standard agricultural practices of large dairy farms of systematic forced pregnancy, either destruction of the calf or adding to the birth cycle once old enough, and other layers of mistreatment that should neither be condoned or continued? Absolutely and we should all strive to get the whole process abolished.
That said, most cow breeds overproduce milk for their calfs needs and it is unhealthy for them to stay full at all times. Milking them is a kindness and until we can undo eons of selective breeding, needs must.
I have an endless list of problems with the agricultural world and its practices but the reality is if we all went pure vegan right now, more animals would suffer in preventable ways. Tapering off the demands for the products of big agriculture, especially by forcing the market towards small farms treating the animals with kindness, and working towards reversing the changes we've caused in the breeds that make them more product than animal is the best route to end exploitation of animals.
If you care about animals, shaming people does fuck all. Educating them without assuming malice goes a whole lot farther towards your point of view. Also recognizing that literal millennia of selective breeding will not be undone in a single generation and the process of reversing is slow and fraught with its own challenges that need to be addressed.
Tldr: educate yourself beyond the rhetoric and hanlons razor. Idealism is great for concept but will fail on the reality when put into practice
Yeah I think so probably. The animal product industry seems pretty messed up. Very un-cool what we do to them. Inefficient too but that's another argument.
Is it morally wrong to ask a bait question on a public forum?
It's bait if it makes me angry
I guess you're not going to bait stickly into examining the consequences their choices have on others who are powerless to protect themselves from those consequences. He's too clever for that kind of bait.
I don't understand wht you mean.
But I'm not baiting anyone. I wanted to see people's personal opinions and get some insight from their arguments.
Morals are internal and are often informed by one’s culture, upbringing, and lived experience. There is a wide array of answers here and that’s not surprising.
For me I do consider vegetarianism to be a more moral option, I am not a vegetarian though. I think that Americans eat more meat than they need to and men in particular are targeted to over consume meat to the detriment of their health. With these things in mind I do try to eat less meat and go through phases when I am more successful.
After taking a college course about the meat industry, my partner decided not to purchase meat, but still does eat it.
Depends on your morals.
Depends on who you ask and the background of your question.
Yes
It is undeniable in current day the horrors industrial farming creates and inflicts on millions of sentient beings to sustain a business that was originally fomented in order to supply food for a post-war world where several countries were rendered with little or no usable land for farming.
The traditional model of farming, where animals were an integral part of a production chain that kept the land itself alive and reduced waste to a minimum was destroyed to give place to a highly destructive model where lowest cost, hight profit margins and speed of production is absolute.
In this process, thousands, if not millions, of landrace animals, along with heirloom seed varieties, went extinct and were lost. Petroleum products and by-products entered the daily life, from food, to clothing, to essentially anything imaginable. Not because those were better but because it was cheaper and protected interests.
Knowing this and still leaning heavily on an animal protein based diet with no concern for its toll on our collective ecosystem and the suffering it creates is nothing short of regrettable.
No
Meat is cheap. Artificially cheap but still. Processed foods cheaper; with meat in it, even more.
Many people throughout the world do not have access to the means to have a fully exclusive or at least heavily based vegetable diet, either because of the environment they live in or simply because they lack the means to afford it. Many people in developing countries still depend on cattle to provide food and raw materials, if not on hunting, trapping and fishing. Even more people, in rich, developed countries, don't have the money to afford a proper diet, even less a vegetable based one.
These people are as worthy of living as any other. It can not be taken against them wanting to survive.
Maybe
Some people aren't aware how much their personal decision can have a meaningful impact.
Others don't have the time or hability to extract from vegetables meals that can truly satisfy them and don't want to resort to ultraprocessed foods. Others are simply too deep into a cultural mindset that blocks them from experimenting.
It is just another type of barrier. There is a degree of lack of interest and effort in this stage but we can't (shouldn't) hold against people their personal circumstances, which adds poorly when it comes to changing minds, habits and cultures.
Take your pick.
I generally agree with you, however your argument does add some subjectivity to the maybe and no sections. I'd add that while not every situation can accommodate a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle, in 2026 the vast majority of people have the capability to change to a non-meat diet without any detriment to their health or lifestyle besides social ostracism of unaccepting peers depending on where they live.
My entire argument is subjective, like any other, as it stems from my personal views, thoughts and experiences.
No.
Sincerely, A lifelong vegetarian.
Vegetarians are the worst kind of carnist. Would take so little, still don't give a shit.
Yes
Yeah, the most ethical diet is plant based.
Why do you ask it?
explain how you developed this idea it is more ethical. based on what exactly?
Minimizing harm to others and harm to the environment is more ethical than not minimizing harm to others and harm to the environment
Are you reducing the harm to others in a actually statically significant quantity though?
To others I suppose you refer to animals. By being vegan you mosly reduce harm to a few species of big animals.
Most animals by quantity are insects.
If you count by individuals a person who saves a few ant nest from the horrors of nature and give them a nice controlled habitat would reduce the number of harm happening to individual animals orders of magnitude over what a diet change could achieve.
As for environmental damage. It's a way. But not the only way. The most effective way to control environmental control would be to reduce the number of humans on earth.
You have to take into account that animal agriculture is responsible for the vast majority (70%) of plants that we grow and we use pesticides for them. If we stop eating animals or stop using animal products all together we need tremendously less pesticides and harm less insects in turn.
this isn't true. humans consume about 2/3 of all crop calories.
First, agriculture made for animal consumption doesn't have the same quality sanitarian standards as agriculture made for humans.
Second, not all animals require vast agriculture.
We could also war animals that do not requiere such agricultural measures. I have eaten cows, pigs and chickens that were raised traditionally, out of the natural fields and the parts of the plants that we humans do not want to eat.
In fact for a environmental perspective traditional farming is far better than vegan diet.
It is not minimizing harm in the way you can't hear a plant scream. That's the same logic people had about fish. This is a foolish and irresponsible way to think of consciousness.
I will agree it is minimizing harm on environment however we have much room to improve even on that standard.
Like not burning crops simply because it doesn't make money.
"Plants feel pain" is an argument that supports a plant-based diet because it is more efficient to consume plants directly than to feed them to animals.
i agree with the efficiency.
stick with that argument.
it works for you.
stepping into moral logic around consiousness around pain and suffering: that the shittier arguments vegans come up with to feel satisified with themselves over others with magical thinking and that shit needs to stop.
Vegans' moral arguments are just fine, it's just that most people don't give a shit. When you realize how shitty most people are to other people, it makes the need to take a different approach very obvious.
Everyone requires a certain amount of mental gymnastics to consume any living plant or creature to continue to exist in a meat body.
You can pick and choose food but you don't get to pick and choose who has consciousness.
Denying that is shittier.
A foolish and irresponsible way to think about consciousness would be to pretend we can actually define it, then go around professing things are either conscious or not without considering there might be a scale.
so you say you cant define it but you can throw something you dont know on a scale? so its only ok if you do it. uh huh. i see. that is some bullshit, fool.
I said "consider there might be" whereas you were all over the thread speaking in absolutes to support your weak hypothesis.
Nuance is obviously lost on you which is a shame as it's kind of a prerequisite for the philosophical debates you keep attempting to engage in.
you certainly defend yourself in absolutes. pick a lane.
not a matter of objective fact
Yeah.
They would need to specify to which set of ethics are they talking about. And then we could compare to which ethics a vegan diet adhere more or less.
Morals are subjective, I don't consider myself the arbiter of truth and I also reject theistic positive claims stating otherwise such as objective morals or free will. Personally I know I can survive without eating animals, so I'd rather not be indirectly involved in the killing of other animals where it is reasonably possible and I don't consider humans more important/superior to any other animals, generally.
I think you could get a lot of people to even admit to valuing very old trees over a lot of people too so even some plants are worth leaving alone, according to some of us. Like Red Wood giants in Cali, for example. All the land cleared of wildlife to grow food for billions of humans is disturbing stuff at least to me as well. The planet is actually kinda... small. I've come to realise. I fully reject humanity's unearned superiority complex.
I acknowledge it's hard/impossible to be absolute in the vegetarian ideal given all the ramifications of industrial overpopulation and just casually participating in the society I was born into. Best I can do on this suffering planet, that I never consented to being born to live temporarily upon pointlessly, is to minimize (elimination is unrealistic) the suffering my life inflicts on others.
In other words, I don't owe anyone jack shit, not even Mommy Dearest. Yet I still stand by this moral position. Although I'd argue this is just who I am and always was. The justications put into words and labels applied came later. You'll notice I didn't condemn meat eating in this comment and that's quite deliberate. You are not me. I just explain my position when asked and it's up to others to adopt it or not.
We are social animals. We all owe each other our entire survival.
Anything that offends you gets the thought terminating edgy label applied, I see you bud. Username checks out.
"I don’t owe anyone jack shit, not even Mommy Dearest," is a decidedly edgelord thing to say. Other parts of what you were saying are not trying to be edgy, and I think I get that you were trying to create some kind of rhetorical contrast, but that's just objectively an edgelord comment. I edited my comment to tone it down, but not before you saw it, so I guess I have to stand by that.
A vegetarian diet isn't much more ethical than an omnivore diet, anyway. Veganism has a much better argument.
People seem to focus on the ills of the dairy industry when talking about vegetarians, but the egg industry is particularly egregious.
Eggregious*
If ethical = animal welfare, perhaps.
But when factoring in e.g. water consumption and CO2e per unit of food consumed, I would argue the average vegetarian diet to be significantly more ethical compared with the average omnivorous diet.
Obviously the type of animals involved, the way they are treated and killed, and religious views add more complexity to this case.
edit: the essence of my point is that this isn't a black and white matter.
I think that's a flawed argument. Cow milk production requires that cows get pregnant once a year, and the calves can't all become milk cows, too - thus, cow milk production cannot exist without cow meat production. And IIRC milk products still have a worse environmental impact than chicken meat.
TBH I'm not sure about the environmental impact of eggs vs meat. But animal welfare is generally the main reason why people keep to vegetarian or vegan diets, and chicken farming is not great in terms of animal welfare.
The bottom line is: 1 cow birth per year (or let's call it cow deaths, because that's what is most relevant here) yields around 10.000L of milk. Out of which around 1000kg of cheese can be produced, plus of course the meat of that calf.
Does that make it ethical? I don't think so. But I would say around 1.5-2x less unethical compared to eating meat, which is significant.
I read a book called "change of heart" by a vegan animal activist, which was all about research into what actually worked in terms of convincing people to reduce animal suffering. For him, it would be ideal if we reduced animal suffering to zero. But even encouraging someone to eat less meat (e.g. Meatless Mondays) reduced animal suffering, and was a win in his book. I kind of agree with that.
The way I see it is similar. If everyone stopped eating animal products today like turning off a faucet, literal millennia of selective breeding guarantees there will be animal suffering. A better option is to reduce overall consumption while also working towards reversing the changes we've made to the animals to turn them into products. At this time, dairy cows overproduce milk making milking a requirement for the animals health and safety. Poultry is a whole other discussion that isn't quite as environmentally problematic but way more ethically problematic that requires a whole extra level of discussion towards improvement
Whether something is moral or ethical doesn't depend on the commercial benefit you can derive from it! What the actual fuck!!
Not OP, but I think the argument is more about nutritional benefit than commercial benefit.
Yes, thank you for clarifying this.
Not sure why anyone would assume monetary/commercial benefit here.
Do you think dairy farmers eat their 100lbs wheels of cheese? It's the same thing.
In either case, you're talking about harm reduction when it is so trivial to eliminate harm. It is in fact EASIER. But your attachment to the fruits of abuse won't let you see it that way, and you're looking for ways to make your abuse more emotionally palatable.
Treating a vulnerable individual as a means instead of as an end is fundamentally wrong. No amount of benefit to you short of saving your life can make it morally acceptable. In a famine we have to make hard choices and sometimes we have to sacrifice others. That's not the situation right now. We grow more food each year than humanity could eat in two years without harvesting any vulnerable individuals.
I thought you were talking about environmental impact? Both cow milk and cow meat have a worse environmental footprint than chicken meat.
My point is: ethics should not be confused with a single dimension of ethics. Whether something I'd ethical, depends on your beliefs.
Simultaneously, if animal welfare is all we optimize for, vegetarianism is a step forward. And indeed, so is pollotarianism when optimizing for just environmental impact. Perfect is the enemy of good.
For water consumption and CO2, avoid beef, milk and cheese. Chicken and eggs are no issue, they cause less harm in that regard than many plant products (like almonds).
Not sure I’m getting your point, but meat tastes better than lettuce.
Vegetarianism is a dietary preference. Veganism is a moral philosophy. They don't have anything to do with each other.
Overall, most humans agree that it is morally wrong to make other creatures suffer. Eating meat, or dairy, definitely leads to animal suffering (it actual leads to human suffering too).
I hate it when people eat my diary. That is morally wrong.
So you believe plants or fungi don’t suffer when you eat them?
This is an argument in favor of plant-based diets, since it results in fewer plants being eaten
There is indeed a very small scientific community that has some (very preliminary) research done on a “nervous system” in plants. The wood-wide-web is part of those hypothesis. It is very intriguing, but reading the interviews with these scientists and their publications didn’t leave me with the impression that plants feel emotions, or that they think, are cognitive or learn from pain. Do you have scientific data to proof otherwise?
Of course not. But nobody has evidence that cows think or have emotions beyond physical sensations either.
How can anyone be so data blind? These things are studied by actual biologists.
Don't engage with them. It's a troll account.
Hush, so am I.
Have you ever actually seen a cow in person townie?
If it's possible and you're capable to do it, then I think it's a moral choice.
If it's a matter of survival, health or inaccess to a variety of food, I don't think it really is a choice one should have to make on grounds of morality.
Being vegetarian or omnivorous isn't very different, morally, as producing milk still requires killing calves. I think the better comparison would be with veganism
It certainly is not a requirement. They don't have to use the males born to make veal.
Yes, it is an economic requirement. They can't compete with beef cattle for meat production, keeping them alive just makes the milk more expensive than the farmer down the road who murders his calves can sell it for.
Sell them to beef ranchers. Make even more money and meat. 🤦♂️
the vast majority of dairy calves are brought to full weight before slaughter, but slaughter still isn't necessary.
How do you recoup the costs of raising a bull to full weight (which happens at a fraction of its natural lifespan) without slaughtering him? It's like saying breathing isn't necessary because you can just hold your breath.
you can just choose not to do that
As in, choose not to be a dairy farmer or consume dairy products?
even a dairy farmer can just choose not to kill.
I think it depends on where you get your meat, eggs, and dairy.
A proper farm where the animals are kept safe, healthy, and happy for longer than they'd live in the wild, and in the case of meat killed quickly and painlessly? That could be considered morally okay.
Factory farms where they lead short, filthy miserable lives, constantly being bred to maximize milk production? Nah, that is not morally okay.
Carnism is the typically unconscious and unexamined belief that cruelty and violence to vulnerable individuals such as livestock can sometimes be good or acceptable. It's not. The more you pick at it, the more it falls apart. I spent years trying to find ways to be an ethical consumer of other individual's flesh. It's fucking impossible, it contains contradictions you can never solve. Your whole idea of a "proper farm" would be laughable if it wasn't such a horrifying and self-serving delusion. Just stop abusing vulnerable individuals, it's actually so much easier than trying to consume "ethical meat".
No, I have a developed system of morality, quite strong. And eating meat doesn't contradict it.
For anyone curious the model is based on avoidance of cruelty. Cruelty is what makes people bad. If you do something with cruel intentions it doesn't matter what you destroy, a human, other animal, a plant or even a geological formation. If you do it with cruelty on mind you are a bad person.
But if your intentions are others, then there's nothing bad. You eat meat not because you want to be cruel towards an animal, but because you want to eat. Then it's ok.
It's all about avoiding cruel intentions on humans. Those are my morals at least. I follow them and judge anothers based on them.
What is your definition of cruelty?
From Wikipedia: "Cruelty is the intentional infliction of suffering or the inaction towards another's suffering when a clear remedy is readily available."
Because eating meat requires cruelty per this definition IMO.
That definition is quite good, I would add that for cruelty to be cruelty the objective of your actions needs to be the cruelty.
Eating meat doesn't fall into that definition, fron my point of view.
You being alive causes a lot of suffering in the world, just because you are alive, you cannot live without doing harm to other living beings.
You draw you line on "I'm not cruel because I go out of my way not to eat meat". There are infinite lines you could draw before and after or in parallel. Someone could say "Ido not walk because I may step on some bug and that would make me cruel, and anyone who walks and thus step on bugs is cruel".
A clear remedy to avoid causing harm to absolutely any other living being is stopping being alive one self. I don't see much people following that route, and considering any living being as cruel would mean that that interpretation of what's cruelty is irrational and faulty. The intention for the suffering to exist is inherent in the cruelty. People need to enjoy that suffering in order to be cruel.
I do not enjoy damage to animals, it's just something inevitable when I eat them. Suffering is not my objective, not the objective of anyone who eats meat, I would assume. So no, they are not being cruel.
From my point of view, if the objective of your actions is not to cause suffering, even if your actions cause suffering, then you are not being cruel. Intention matters here.
From my perspective it is just unnecessary harm thus cruelty because you can live perfectly fine without eating or using anything provided by animals.
Veganism just wants you to reduce your harm to animals as much as is practically possible. Refusing to walk is not practical, not eating meat or dairy is very practical.
Take into account that one of the basis of my theory is that animals have no rights per se. When thinking about it it seemed illogical as it's impossible to police, control, or even tu conceive. How could you give rights to some invertebrate living 50 foot underground with a lifespans of 3 days that won't even see a human in that time?
My ideology thinks about humans. I'm human. Society is form by humans. Humans are the only rational being on earth. We can work with humans.
My definition of cruelty and why avoid it is not based on reduce harm to animals, I don't care about that. It's based on reduce harm on humans. That's why the intention and the enjoyment of causing suffering is the thing to avoid. Because that's what create "bad" humans, "cruel" humans. Humans that will hurt other humans. That's the only reason why I think that cruelty (towards anything, animal or not, even alive or not) is to be avoided. Just as a way to create a better society for humans.
As long as humans are "good" and not hurting other humans I don't really care if animals suffer. They are "lucky" that cruelty towards animals is proven to make humans worse. But just farming and managing livestock for human consumption has not been proven to do that, as there's not cruel intentions in it. Just intentions to feed ourselves.
That is where we fundamentally disagree.
That's not entirely true though: The Psychological Impact of Slaughterhouse Employment: A Systematic Literature Review
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358322559_Is_a_Plant-Based_Diet_Associated_with_Relationship_Aggression
Plant based diet has actually shown some relationship data with some forms of aggressiveness.
Study proposes normalize the data according to childhood trauma, but even then it would only show that plant based diet and omnivore diet have no differences.
And while there are also papers which relation eating meat qith aggressiveness. Most aggressiveness linked with diet is usually related to red meat consumption in excess. Not with all meat, neither with a balanced consumption of red meat.
Anyway, all those are barely noticeable. Not worth the benefits of people being able to chose their own diet.
As said the fundamental difference in philosophies, is the consideration of the existence of "animal rights" or not.
In a selfish tone, we concede all human, human rights because it's the path that leads to better live for one self. If you discriminate another human that human could have reasons to hurt you (legitimate reasons) It's proven that egalitarian societies work better. With animals this does not happen. Animal attitude towards humans is unchanged if we give them rights or not. It's not like a mosquito is going to stop bitting me because I consider it a first class citizen. Animal contribution towards my well-being will be the same, I eat them or not. From a practical point of view, giving animals rights achieve no goals neither for me or humanity as a whole. That's why I only concede humans rights, because giving human rights do make humans better, thus makes my life better.
this is great. have you read Why Kant Animals Have Rights? by Alex Howe
how convenient!
What is your argument against slavery under this moral framework?
Glad you ask. The core of the moral framework are humans. Life should be good for humans. Why humans? Because I'm a human. And my moral framework should be universal, applicable by any other human on earth, because offering a morality that work good for every human is the only way to ensure that everyone can follow it and then have a good society. It doesn't apply to animals as animals themselves cannot adhere at any moral framework they don't have the ability to do so.
That being said the moral dogma look to ensure the behaviours that should ensure that human life is good. Slavery is bad for a human, so it's a bad thing. It's quite simple. A human suffering is just plain bad.
Why I mentioned cruelty before. Because in my moral framework animals have no rights, they couldn't they are not passive subjects of my morals. But the relationship between humans and animals (and plants and other elements is not inconsecuential in human-human relationships). Humans who are cruel inevitably cause pain in other humans, thus why cruelty is to be avoided. Including cruelty towards animals, planta or other elements. Humans have the right to live in a cruelty free world. That's why being cruel towards an animal, like causing the animal pain for no other reason that causing it pain, is bad, is cruel and creates a bad world for humans (in essence I'm not caring about the animal here, just about what world is being created for the humans). But if an animal gets killed just because it's a source of food, and cruelty had no part in the equation, then it's not bad, as that behavior doesn't create a bad world for humans to live in.
Depends on your morals. For mine it is.
No.
morals are anecdotes that define your personal integrity. morals are arguable at best and carry little to no merit outside of personal experience.
I believe you mean ethical.
ethically, no, it's not wrong. mostly because the animals we consume are bred and raised specifically to eat. however, the treatment of those animals in corporate factory farms is unethical, and so makes the consumption of the products from those establishments unethical.
probably not.
No. The nature of life consumptions of living things. I do believe however that it is preferable to eat from the least sentient of creatures as possible. You can even go further and eat things which does not kill things at all like fruitarians. This would be following the ethic of least harm. Its almost impossible for anyone living in the modern world to not be destroying it with their consumption. Most vegans for example would be doing more harm to me than say someone native to the americas before colonialism that ate meat.
Fruitarian diet is quite dangerous.
It's already hard eating all necessary nutrients on a vegan diet. Possible, but harder than with omnivore diet.
But restricting to just fruits... I don't know if it's even possible to get all your body needs just from fruits.
Something interesting and anecdotal. We get a lot of Indian immigrants in my area, and they're primarily vegetarian. But as soon as they move here, they become anaemic, because the lentils etc grown in our soil doesn't have enough nutrients for survival. They have to start taking supplements. I'm not sure why that is, but it makes me wonder if people would be more willing to be vegetarian here if it was actually viable nutritionally.
Oh sure that is the issue with all diets. Kinda depends how you look at it. Morally I would see milk and egg as not being an issue. That is why I said like the fruitarians because you would be hard pressed to find a mondern one who accepted those animal products. Jains have a whole sorta categorization of how bad it is to eat particular things.
Yes
It's a difficult question, so I hope some people who have interesting things to say about it will turn up here. All I can contribute is this link: Ancient Arguments For Vegetarianism
"eels that come when called"?
I would argue that no, it is not morally wrong per se to be non-vegetarian. Meat consumption is not morally wrong in general, it is just morally wrong in our society. We kill way too many animals to be sustainable and every animal you eat contributes to that. We harm climate and ecosystems to sustain our meat consumption. We hold animals captive and make them hurt and suffer. In this society you can not eat meat in a morally okay way.
Where did this question originate? Why has it come up in your day to day conversation?.
Give us you opinion and I might be more inclined to share my opinion.
Or you could simply off your opinion based on the information as presented.
This seems like an attempt at trying to sidetrack the topic rather than providing an answer. Which is odd given that commenting here is opt in. It's not like someone directly approached you and asked the question.
Why
It hasn't
Don't have one yet
What's the value of life? Is the life of an animal worth less than that of a human and a plant or mushroom worth less than an animal? IMO, they are all worth the same, human or haybale, cow or soybean.
When driving a car, would you swerve into a haybale to avoid hitting a human? Would you swerve into a human to avoid running over a pile of soybeans?
if you are concerned with putting a stop to unnecessary suffering or climate destruction, vegetarianism accomplishes essentially nothing. veganism is a moral baseline, it is literally the least we can be doing.
Depends on what you are basing your morals on.
If it is about producing less waste and consumption, it is moral in that humans consume less vegetation than a cow would and therefore less toiling of the earth.
But on a conscious level it is the same. Either meat or plant is just as conscious as the other.
at least eating meat: consumers are at least admitting to the suffering they are committing on another conscious being and have the humility to acknowledge as much while they also acknowledge they require to eat to continue to survive in human form. this is what it means that existance is the cause of suffering. regardless of what you consume.
The type of vegans who refuse to acknowledge plants as a conscious being for no other reason that a plant cannot run away or make noise to 'prove' their consciousness to them and then have the audacity to turn around and judge others. i believe that to be immoral and unethical as well as emotionaly manipulative and deeply disassociated to the encumberance of life.
Eating plant based: while it is healthier, it is better treatment to the earth itself by consuming less but i would not be fooled into thinking there is a moral high ground in consuming consciousness to be looking down on anyone else.
Eating plants directly causes less plant harm compared to feeding them to animals and then eating those animals.
Because it's more efficient. Every step along the food chain a lot of energy is lost due to thermodynamics.
same damage. animal eats plant. you are also eating plants. there isnt a zero sum just cuz you moved off of one onto the other.
had you argued less animal farming you might have had a good point as feeding large amounts of meat is inefficent.
you really missed your chance there.
No that's why I brought up thermodynamics.
Directly eating plants kills less plants than eating animals that grew up eating plants all their life.
unless we feed animals p arts of plants we don't want. one harvest, two uses.
What if the left over parts are not enough and you had to dedicate lots of land and grow crops just to feed farm animals?
you don't have to. just don't do that.
You are so close yet so far. You're still missing that one link of refinement to make your argument water tight and it is very important to acknowledge nuance here.
You don't suddenly eat less just cuz you changed what you're eating. Caloric intake is still requiring to be the same.
If you change to plants you need less animals to eat. They'd in turn require less.
You can't just lazily spew thermal dynamics and nothing to connect it. It makes you sound almost smart but missing the point.
Again you keep missing your opportunity regardless how often I'm bringing it to you on a silver platter. I'm arguing with myself for you...and its a point i actually agree with. And yet you still keep missing it lol. im not even àrguing against thermal dynamics. i was arguing consiousness. you are so lost. I guess some ppl really can't be helped.
Either meat or plant is just as conscious as the other [citation needed]
consiousness has been undeniably defined on a scale and now has been located within the physical body and i have all these scientific papers to back it up so i can continue to use magical thinking to feel better about eating plants which over animals using the consious argument [citation needed]
Oh dear, seek help.
Seek citations
For what? Burden of proof is on you.
Why? No vegan ever produced a paper proving consciousness. Why do they get a pass?
I'm not here defending vegans, I'm here questioning your batshit insane take that animals have an equivalent level of consciousness as plants.
no, for 100,000 years we went vegetarians.
proof?
No, if you are Vegan. Yes, if you eat animal products. The question is, do you care?
You are what you eat. Cows eat grass. Cows are machines that convert grass into more cows. Cows are essentially converted grass. Thus, if it’s ok to eat grass, it’s ok to eat cows. Checkmate.
No, quite the opposite. If people didn’t eat meat then people wouldn’t herd cattle, so most cows wouldn’t ever exist. What is worse, living and then dying, or not living at all? We’re doing the animals a favour by raising them, feeding them, caring for them. A favour which they repay by allowing us to eat them. Anything else would be morally wrong. Now excuse me, my steak is ready.
I think many would prefer to not exist than to be brought into the world to live and die like a farm animal.
Fun fact: the plantation owners in the southern states of the USA used this argument to defend slavery.
comparing slaves to animals is what slavers do.
Other way around. Not comparing slaves to animals, comparing animals to slaves.
the comparison operator is commutative. it's the same thing.
They use a different point of reference
However, I appreciate your mathematical explanation
Good point. Why should we treat animals like slaves then?
no one said we should
So it must be right?
How does one eat a slave? What are the best methods of preparation? Any recipies to share?
Don’t be a jerk.
Jerk chicken is pretty good, but why wouldn't I use that on my slave? Too spicy?
Laughs in antinatalist
More commonly, I think people would base this on quality of life. An animal being born to spend its entire life in a tiny, disgusting cage in generally deplorable conditions doesn't make the cut by any reasonable standard.
To add on to that, most modern livestock live absolutely miserable lives.
I was going to add a separate comment, but in the interests of brevity, I think I'll just put it here:
I find that in order to answer questions like OP's, it's helpful to remember who we are and how we lived for the ~2.5Myrs total of humanity's (i.e. genus Homo) existence. So in terms of our diet, we've been opportunistic omnivores (heavy on plants) for the vast majority of that time, much like our fellow apes. It's a completely sustainable way of living, and our bodies are perfectly engineered for that.
At the other end of the spectrum would be a pure carnivore diet, which science studies consistently find to cause increased cardiovascular disease and cancer rates. On top of all the enormous waste, expenditure, and utter cruelty towards livestock.
Point is-- if you consider all that, I think you can find some pretty decisive answers about the "morality" of one's diet.
You will find there have been no studies on the pure-carnivore (zero carb) diet wrt cvd or oncogenic effects.
There have been observational epidemiology on high carb omnivores (75% plant) which people like to extrapolate around and make causal statements such as 'caused increased.... rates' which the data cannot support.
Food frequency questionaires prove nothing
Right, I got a little carried away with the 'pure' angle, but I do recall seeing many abstracts / summaries of studies for quite a few years that found that diets heavy on meat indeed seem to correlate to increased cancer & CVD incidents.
Shouldn't be too surprising based on studies of the GI systems of numerous herbivores vs. numerous Carnivorans, either. Extra-long GI vs. very short one depending on diet. Ours certainly seems to be a middle-ground, omnivore-type GI. AFAIK only rarely do we find from archeology & anthropology evidence that humans ate very-high meat diets, such as Innuit peoples for example.
Fair enough the moment takes us all sometimes.
Not quite - these are FFQs applied to the general populations so protein is really around 15%. There is considerable debate in the literature if these findings are clinically meaningful.
Not just the moment, but the motivation to get the core of a point across to a casual audience with a brevity of verbiage.
What is your relevant background in such matters, if I may ask?
I've been reading the debate with great interest.
What are yours?
Well, not anything like your avatar?