this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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We do actually allow animals to eat humans. There is no law anywhere that forbids a shark from eating a person.
As for people eating people, it's a cultural taboo, like putting your elbows on the dinner table.
Why do you think I was talking about the legal framework? We take active measures in stopping animals from eating humans. You could make an argument that we even punish animals when they do eat a human, granted we have a chance to do that. Bears, wolves and dogs are shot regularly, after they have attacked a human. Sharks also have been killed when it was thought that they actively prey on humans. We do not allow it.
When you want to talk about laws it is considered murder to slaughter a person as feed for animals. It is also considered murder to kill a person to eat them. Murdering people is forbidden by law.
I mean, animals take active steps to stop humans eating them too. We even have laws to protect species of animals that have killed humans. Tiger hunting, as an example, is illegal.
Honestly, we're much nicer to animals than animals are to us or they are to other animals.
I don't see how the way animals treat humans or other animals is relevant for the discussion about the ethics of meat eating. They aren't nice so we can kill them to eat their meat is certainly not an ethical argument.
Animals try to stop humans from eating them because they do not want to get hurt. Or, if you want to be more precise, hurting and frightening them is a stimulation that induces intense negative emotions in animals which leads them to defend themselves. That is to distinguish them from plants, which also defend themselves, but without having emotions in between. The negative emotions in between is what we call suffering. And even in the ethics of hedonism, less suffering is better.
We have laws to protect animals because most humans agree that animals are in a weaker position when compared to humans. They are very much at our mercy.
The way humans treat animals is the same as how animals treat animals because humans are animals. Just because we are smarter doesn't make us any less a part of the natural world.
A dolphin is smarter than a mackerel, it doesn't make the dolphin immoral for eating them.
Humans are animals, but animals all have their unique traits. And for humans morality is a dimension they can't remove themselves from. It's an innate trait we are very likely born with.
Whether this can be said about dolphins or any other animal is up for debate and doesn't even concern the question whether it is morally okay to kill and eat them.
But you've yet to establish eating other animals as morally wrong.
Since I believe in science and science has established that most animals can suffer eating meat is morally wrong.
Do animals in the wild not suffer more? From disease, from predation?
If we let every cow out of the farms tomorrow, how many billions will starve to death? Seems pretty cruel to me.
As you maybe can imagine ethical vegetarians and vegans do not want to just release all domesticated animals into the wild. Most of them were genetically modified by humans through selective breeding and won't be able to survive. Some of them suffer because of the way breeding changed their bodies. The main goal is to bring the breeding to a halt. And to take measures that current domesticated animals can live their lives in relative peace.
And just to try an predict what your next two points might be: Yes that would mean that some of them would live in not so great conditions. For example the last domesticated cow will die lonely. It is still much less suffering overall than to continue breeding them.
And of course that would mean these domesticated breeds will go instinct. I see no problem with that because they do not add to the diversity of the fauna in any significant way. Stopping to breed them will increase diversity even, because there is a considerable amount of space occupied by monocultures for animal feed and the industry around meat and dairy itself.
You're skipping over a hell of a lot of points with your 'just let them live in peace' bit. There are tens of millions of livestock just in my country that are entirely capable of living in the wild because that's how they currently live. In the UK, cows live in fields for ten months of the year and sheep live in fields throughout. There they are given antibiotics and protected from predators.
You let them out without anyone to take care of them and they will die by the millions every year. Do you know how many yows would die giving birth without human invention? Do you know the survival rate of twin lambs without human intervention? Do you think a life of disease, exposure and predation is better than the life they currently have?
The species as a whole would survive, but at a much lower population and in much worse conditions.
I swear vegans spout off about things they know nothing about.
You can just stop breeding them. I have no problem with all domestic animals going extinct. It's hilarious how meat eaters are appalled by that idea but gladly torture and murder animals just to feast on their carcasses.
You understand they breed themselves, right? The same species that were native to the area for millions of years before industrialisation will continue to survive there afterwards, just in much worse conditions and at a much lower population.
You have no problem with animals dying in pain as long as it stops them dying painlessly? Awesome
You really need to educate yourself about the meat and dairy industry. It is quite obvious that you aren’t making a rational or moral decision, but an emotional one. The overwhelming majority of animals in this industry do not breed themselves. It is easy to stop it from happening at all. And what species are you talking about anyway? Farm animals aren’t native anywhere and haven’t lived for a million of years. They were created by humans.
This is getting ridiculous, you are arguing from a place of ignorance. I've raised cheviot sheep for more than twenty years.
All species are native to somewhere, we haven't made species out of nothing. We've bred breeds, for sure.
I'm fascinated by your gormless attempts to explain my own culture to me. The sheep I raise come from flocks dating back to the neolithic. The techniques for raising them have barely changed in that time. The quad bike might raise a few caveman eyebrows but that's about it.
They free roam the moors nine months of the year, field graze for three. I honestly don't care what you think now. You have your own misinformed opinion of what all farming is like and you won't listen to someone who does it any other way.
And you can feed all humans with the eggs, milk and meat of those sheep everywhere on earth? Because the last time I checked we were writing about the ethics of eating meat. And you are trying to build a straw man because you actually do not have any arguments why it is “ethically good” to exploit animals.
But you've yet to establish eating other animals as morally wrong.