Oh, I like the ethical doors this opens.
Ah, come on. If it is the case that Inuit cannot live without eating meat - then they are not in the same situation. IOW it could be a practice that ‘ought’ to be minimized as much as possible given other priorities/oughts that compete with it. Like, say, is the case in the idea of minimizing the pain of animals used in experimentation.
I happen to think that animals should not be used in experimentation at all.
But look - the Inuit could be kept alive. As ethical beings, we could simply supply them with a vegan diet. Even if this would destroy their way of life - I’m just invoking those other “oughts”. After all, you claim that it is because they could not survive that it’s okay. But they could survive. We could just cut down on some luxuries that we enjoy, and send them some veggies in the mail.
It seems to me that a vegan diet is an ongoing chemistry experiment. Sure, vegans can also survive, with careful study, supplements, professional advice, extra medical care.
We’ll just visit all these modern “goods” on the Inuit. it’ll be fine. The right thing to do.
That would have killed my aunt Myrtle. She’s not an Inuit however.
I realzed this but opted to just accept that as a given to focus elsewhere.
Right, though ‘we’ve’ been destroying their way of life for quite a while now.
I pick my spots. I accepted that as a given to follow one line of argument.
Easily. And I am quite sure we have cut off people from their traditional way of life and eating without any ethical considerations at all.
I thought this was a meat eating thing, not a no animal products diet thing. EDIT: oh, I see he does say animal products also. I hope he knows this may include his running shoes and belts.
Wait, you point out that REALLY what you said is not true. They don’t have to die. As if I suggested this rather than you. In fact I believe II wrote ‘if it is the case that’… Then even though I do not take this line, you respond as if I did? Where did I suggest intervening in Inuit lifestyle? I specifically defended not doing that.
Though perhaps you were just thinking out loud here and not responding directly to me. Pardon my crankiness.
The whole area make me think of female genital mutilation. Perhaps that’s why I am cranky.
And God, if only non-Inuit meat eaters in general were concerned about protecting the Inuit way of life. And all that would entail about their awareness and thinking about the world, etc.
By the way, I eat meat.
Because im an omnivore.
Moreno - yeah, I think you’re being cranky for no reason, here.
My point is that any moral argument against eating meat is a difficult one. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say impossible.
That’s funny. I think a moral argument in favor of eating meat is impossible.
Well, volchik - I’m not sure how you can avoid veganism, which means no exploitation of animals at all, once you claim that your argument against eating meat is a moral one. And then how do you treat the great number of people in the world who cannot be vegans, due to economic considerations? Is this a human population control method, in the end? In that way, it at least makes sense.
Sure, difficult, but it seems like other moral issues where elimination is not possible, so minimization and weaning from are the goals. You are in essence a vegan in the world of animal vivisection. So most people are wrong from your position. However many people agree, in a general way, with ending unnecessary research, and deciding what that is is difficult. Also to figure out when other modes of testing - computer simulations, human testing - can really replace animal testing and in each case.
At least the Inuit, to whatever extent they live traditionally, are eating wild game, not factory farmed meat. And factory farming is very much experimentation on animals.
Humans have been meat eaters before there were humans. Meat is concentrated energy and we are evolutionarily adapted to utilize every part of meat in our diet. You don’t take a few million years of evolutionary adaptation and casually dismiss it as “unethical”. Your body doesn’t give a rat’s ass about ethics, it just wants the best energy sources available. The shift from a predominate meat diet to grains is an evolutionary new thing of only the last 50,000 years as we moved from hunter/gatherer to agriculturist society.
It isn’t that humans can’t survive without meat, but it takes jumping through hoops to get all the nutritional needs from vegetable materials alone. That’s fine if that’s what you choose, but to suggest that it is “wrong” for others to eat meat is sanctimonious bull shit.
I can understand discussing the process of arriving at meat on the dinner plate - and any or all ethical considerations within that process, but the should we or should we not eat meat is a bogus argument. You simply can’t ignore the unalterable fact that life consumes life. Whether vegan or meat eater, all of the energy that sustains our life comes from other living entities. Is ripping a potato or onion out of the ground to be eaten any more “ethical” than killing a chicken for Sunday dinner?
Until humans turn green and produce all their energy needs by photosynthesis, the issue of meat eating -vs- vegan is null.
Ever read Peter Singer?
You haven’t thought hard then.
Moreno -
While I am against factory farming, at least in its more extreme versions, and maybe in all of them, depending on how it is defined, and am against animal experimentation, with the same qualifications, I think this is a side issue. And by the way, I am a carnivore. It’s not my position per se to be a vegan. I don’t have a moral position on eating meat. In the end, my position on experimentation is not moral, but aesthetic in the Nietzschean sense.
Mo - I have read Singer. Nutball.
tentative - agreed on all counts. Since you said it better than I would have, I’ll just copy and paste if i need that element of my view later in the thread.
I meant it metaphorically. An animal testing ‘vegan’. Not simply an animal testing ‘vegetarian’ - who thinks some testing is OK, analogous to eating dairy.
OK.
Is this true in general, that where others have morals you have aesthetic preferences?
Since when is meat the best energy source available?
It’s certainly one of the best protein sources but as an energy source it sucks.
Don’t just stop there. Provide the argument.
Moreno - It is generally true, yes. But I have other grounds to support meat-eating, well-expressed by tentative. I don’t think it’s feasible for the vast majority of humans to refrain form eating meat or using animal products. I would be hard-pressed to recommend a practise that only a relative few, relatively wealthy people could undertake. If a given person wants to be a vegan, I have no objection to that, of course.
So, I would support the right to eat meat, because the alternative for many is to starve, and once you’re dead, the other rights you may have had don’t really matter. It seems that the only sensible system of rights is one that makes staying alive to enjoy those rights primary.
Ummm, you might want to do a little homework… The fats in meat are easily converted to glucose and then stored by the liver in the form of body fats. It takes a lot of grains and starches to produce the same amount of usable energy. Consider: We would never have progressed to hunter/gatherer without meat. We’d still be living on leaves and fruits, frolicking in the trees and being the meat source for other predators.
Me quoting a friend: If folks didn’t eat cows how many of them would be around? A whole lot less than there are now.
Moreno: Which, in the end, implies that he or she should be having as many babies as possible, since to not do this denies them life.
Me: I suppose if one equates the two, yes.
My friend’s point [I think] is this:
The cows are bred to be slaughtered. That’s true. In the interim, however, they do get to experience what cows do in being around. The good and the bad and all the stuff inbetween. And the cow is oblivious to all the philosophical and political implications of this.
Not to mention to thoughts like, “Oh, God, I’m going to die!”
With children it’s quite different. Or so it seems to her [and me]. We refrain from “breeding” children for many reasons. Some don’t want or like kids. Some can’t afford to raise them. Some think, “I refuse to bring more children into this wretched fucking world”. Etc.
It’s a different sort of logic applied to a different sort of life brought into this world for a different sort of reason.
In any event, I would never think to blame the vegetarian for denying the right of unbred cows to live; anymore then I would blame John and Jane Doe for practicing birth control.
We simply rationalize what we do. The reasons folks give for eating meat and the reasons folks give for not eating meat are merely points of view rooted in dasein. And one point of view is not necessarily more rational or ethical than any other point of view.
Beyond that we can only live in the actual world that we do and try to nudge folks over to our own rationalizations. But there is always the possibility that new sets of circumstances will nudge us over to their side instead. I’ve seen it happen. With me, for example.
Makes sense. Unless, from a countervailing point of view, it doesn’t. For example, it can be rationalized it is better for the tribe to move on into the 21st century with the rest of us. Let’s yank them into it by exposing [to them] the primitive nature of the world they live in now. Convince them to leave the forest—for better or for worse. It will always be a complicated and problematic world.
It just depends on which particular logic – predicated on which particular set of premises – you apply.
Much grazing land is only suitable for that (grazing). The best use of grass is to turn it in to high quality nutrient (that happens to contain b12).
“Let the cow eat the grass, I’ll eat the cow .” (Vince Gironda I believe).
Road kill is such a waste.
What fats, lol ?
100 grams of chicken breast has 5 grams of fat.
100 grams of beef has less then 10 grams of fat.
You get more fat then that in a tablespoon of olive oil or in an ounce of nuts.
Meat is a really poor source of fats. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
The best energy sources are things with a lot of sugar.
And contrary to popular belief, we don’t like those things because they are sweet, they are sweet because we like them.
Our sweet tooth is an evolved instinctual preference for high energy food.