The Case for Vegeterianism

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I haven’t eaten meat in nearly a month after reading an article by Peter Singer, entitled, “Environmental Values.”

It contains a strong argument against “speciesism” the belief that the human race is superior to all other beings for various reasons, one of them being the capacity to reason. However, it should be acknowledged that animals are sentient creatures, and capable of feeling pain. This view is utilitarian, due to the hedonic consideration of all the creatures involved, including humans.

My belief that animals deserve equal consideration is founded on the sheer amount of suffering farm animals undergo. No man would be castrated and plow fields until he dies. No woman would want to be milked by a cow.

In Singer’s article there is a difference between “shallow” and “deep ecology.” Shallow ecology pretty much entails what I’ve written, only sentient creatures need apply. However deep ecology, the reverence of bacteria say, creates problems. Should we not wash our hands in order to save the microbes, should we only drink dirty water? Surely we shouldn’t let viruses thrive in our immune systems? The answer of course not, saving viruses is not a defensible position.

However, a rare flower might have intrinsic aesthetic value. Other parts of the environment such as forests and deserts may provide shelter and food for sentient creatures besides humans. Therefore ecosystems are worth saving. They are not merely aesthetic. We have an obligation to be kind to animals.

2

There is no morality. Nothing is wrong.

3

But Tabula Rasa, isn’t relatavism self defeating in the sense that “Truth is relative” is not a relative claim, it’s an objective claim?

4

I don’t feel obligated. I enjoy steak and lobster. If you’re going to tell me I can’t drill for oil or cut down trees and yada yada I’ve heard it before. People since ancient times have done these things and yet we’re still here.
It can’t be that serious.

5

Five logical mistakes in one paragraph! Good job Natalie. :slight_smile:

Here’s another thread we had on this topic recently:

ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … speciesism

(edit2: You’ll need to run past some arguing between Dunamis and Adlerian to get to the interesting discussion post page 2)

Glad you’re enjoying Singer, OP. :slight_smile:

6

Really now? I dare you to challenge them.

7

I look at it as; If animals are willing and able to kill me and eat me or other animals then How is it wrong? The food chain is real. It works like this: A rabbit is a vegetarian its body derives its nutritional needs from the plants it eats. A carnivor eats the rabbit, it gets its nutritional needs from the rabbit meat that also contains vegetable protiens and enzymes that help the carnivor’s nutritional needs. The vegetable will utilize the feces from both carnivor and rabbit to fill its needs, plus nutrients in the air and soil and water, the plant is low dog on the food chain by the way. Now is this carnivor going to be able to eat me? Possibly if I give it the chance. Will the rabbit eat me? No, this kind of leans toward me eating the carnivore rather then the rabbit because if you put moral values on eating meat, the ones that should be eaten are the ones willing to eat you. But, strict eating of carnivor meat will make another carnivor or omnivor sick.
Take a look at cannibal health issues for one minute example.

A plant may carry proteins and enzymes that are very very similar to meat proteins of a herbivore but, it lacks certain enzymes and proteins that carnivors and omnivors need. Strict vegatarinism is still not been fully studied on the long term health issues, there are major studies going on following people that have volunteered. It will be sometime until those studies have concluded.

If a wolf or a tiger or an ape, or a bear, will eat cow, chicken, fish, pork etc. Then why can’t we. An ape and a bear are omnivors , a tiger and wolf are predominately carnivors but, do consume vegetable matter at times. The difference is we know that it causes pain to die in a violent manner. the animals do not know this or if they do, based upon the assumtion that they are sentient, which they are not, they are driven by basic needs. Our needs can possibly be fulfilled in other ways.
Not fully proven yet, I will wait until the studies come out with their findings. Until that time I will enjoy my meat.

It is not the eating part that turns most people into vegatarians it is the butchering process. Well I can’t butcher a thousand animals and stay sane so I rely on someone else to fill that need and I pay them for it.
I hate the process and wish there were better ways. But, it is not going to affect my basic need for meat.

8

Sure thing. It seems like you have made your mind up (as have I, ho ho, but not really…it often changes in the light of good argument as I hope yours might) but keep it open for a second.

[1]That you don’t feel obligated - you imply that your feelings counter a bearing upon the value of the validity of the argument at question. This is a proposal that bears a subjectivity similar to ‘It’s right because I said so’. It’s a basic fallacy.

[2] That you enjoy steak and lobster - you imply that the hedonistic value of something directly infers, or perhaps embues, the related action or ‘necessities’ as right by virtue of them resulting in your pleasure. It’s a selfish argument but it’s also logically fallacious to suggest that purely because it grants you pleasure it is morally ‘right’.

[3]That you have heard it all before thanks to hearing alot about felling trees or digging for oil - here you are suggesting that the case with regards to speciesism is alike to the case for cutting down trees (presumably ‘anti’) or digging for oil (presumably ‘anti’) but just because two things are alike in some respects does not mean they are alike in all respects. This is similar to saying that carrying guns is ok because you could easily kill someone with a baseball bat and baseball bats can be carried, so why not guns? Its bad logic. Fallacy of weak analogy.

[4] That people since ancient times have done these things - simply because people have always done something, or indeed, simply because most people have always done one thing, does not validly infer truth to the conclusion that those things, or that thing, is the right thing to do - or indeed even remotely acceptable. The fallacy of the majority view.

[5] That it cannot be that serious - it’s not correct to conclude that something is not serious based on four logically dubious arguments. Indeed, it’s not even logical to conclude that something is not serious based on one valid good argument - that in itself would be argumentum ad logicam.

Anyway, I’m not trying to pick on you but it is important, particularly in a philosophical context, that if you are going to propose a certainty in public such as you have - that you do so not only with some thought but in such a way as to be rational. You wouldn’t want to be mistaken for an idiot, which I am confident you are not. I’m also not being very charitable with my exposition of your paragraph - for example you could easily say you are expressing opinion and not attempting to justify it as anything but. Yet, your language is dismissive of the original post which in itself is lacking in respect for a topic that some people take very seriously and some have even gone so far as to claim ‘the most important topic the world faces today’ due to its possible ramifications on the world poverty issue we, as a race, face.

9

Well, grand! You don’t like my opinion. It doesn’t make me wrong. Point is, ahem: If this has been going on for thousands of years and we’re still a living species, they’re still a living species. I don’t have a problem! It works, therefore, it’s ok.

10

yeah i’ve been vegetarian for roughly 10 months now. the one thing i understand about it completely is that it’s a personal decision, and personal decisions can only be made by the person they affect. it doesn’t really make a difference whether you eat meat or not, in the sense that society moves on either way. you save 70-90 animals a year by not eating meat, but on the other hand, if you like meat, you can just go “well i’m not ever gonna meet those animals so i don’t really care.”

the point is, if you think vegetarianism’s good, go for it. but you’ll have a hard time convincing a meat eater to quit. the best way to get someone to change is through example only. getting in someone’s face about it makes them not like you and not like vegetarianism. half of my friends still don’t even know i don’t eat meat, cause i never told them when i switched. the argument can swing either way, so i prefer to avoid it unless it is brought up with me by someone else.

11

PantheistAnimal:

Can you describe this ‘equal consideration’ a bit? If I swat a housefly buzzing around my dinner, am I guilty of murder?

This is still speciesism, every bit as much as eating meat is speciesism. All you've done is included a few more species under the tent of the 'elite', using criteria that the uber-elite (humans) consider to be worthwhile.
12

Hi, Pan. Singer says that animals are worthy of moral consideration (which I agree with, so far as that goes, and on an entirely different basis, for a different purpose) because they suffer. Christian morality, to name one, allows suffering - for example, I may suffer because I do the morally right thing. Think Job. Think Jesus.

Tell me why suffering, in itself, is a criterion at all, if you would, please. Are you a christian, by the way? I am, for the record, an atheist social-contractarian. Thank you in advance.

faust

13

Uccisore, you are correct that this is still specesism in the sense that creatures such as houseflies do not count as much as an elephant. But houseflies do not have nervous systems complex enough to feel pain. A housefly is not concerned whether it lives or dies, an elephant is concerned.

The animals that deserve “equal consideration” are sentient, capable of feeling pain. If were a virus, I would only do what I was programmed in my genes to do, I would not experience any emotion, I would never philosophize.

Of course some “lower” life forms’ lives have to be taken to sustain life. We should establish then, that the criteria for “higher” life forms are the capacity to feel pleasure and pain. Humans are not the only ones in this group.

14

Did an elephant tell you that?

15

We human beings are just as much part of the food web as every other creature. I make no apology for the fact that I regularly feast upon the cooked flesh of dead animals.

16 
That's a portion of my problem- yes, we prefer some creatures over others. 
The other half is that we've 'discovered' that a highly-developed nervous system and capacity for complex emotion is the best objective quality for which species get preferential treatment and which don't. And which creature posesses these qualities to the greatest degree? Why, US of course! The very species deciding the fate of all the others have decided that what makes humans uniquely human is the creme de la creme of evolution. A little too convenient, don't you think? Not only do some live and some die, but you live or die based on [i]how much like us [/i] you are.  
Now, that said, I too believe that animals need some degree of consideration. I have an obligation not to cause undue suffering, and of course some kinds of animals have the capacity to suffer greatly. But it all inescapably revolves around human beings- torturing a dog is wrong for a human, it is not wrong for a cougar.
17

If the vegetarian issue is to be one of moral consideration, this thread will continue for, oh, maybe two or three months. Leave the morality issue out of it, and it becomes an interesting subject because it allows a discussion of what is healthy, what is ecologically sound practice, and all the ramifications thereof.

If you consider it a personal moral issue, good for you, but it is a bit unrealistic to expect everyone else to feel guilty about chowing down on a 12 oz steak or a plate of oysters…I’ve been mostly vegetarian for almost a year, but it isn’t a big deal for anyone but myself. I still look wistfully at a plate of shrimp now and then…

18

[size=75][Tab scratches head in perplexion][/size]

Oh My God!!! Those poor streptococci !!! I’m a murdering bastard !!! :cry:

19

Actually I don’t think anyone is expecting everyone to stop eating animals. I think what is trying to be discussed is “Is it a moral issue?”.

There are those of us who believe that it is a moral issue, hence we argue the sentient being angle. For those of us who believe it’s a health issue, we argue the health angle.

What if we looked at either angle as being ultimately the same thing. What is healthy for our planet? Is it not healthier for our planet to produce vegetables? Is it not a moral duty to our planet to observe what will keep her healthy?

For myself, I prefer to respect all life and all life includes flies - and let me just say and I would be burned at the stake for saying this - but no, I do not kill flies but for some unknown bizarre reason, I never seem to have a problem with flies. Killing is an issue of humanity. That we kill because we desire meat, is simply not a good enough reason. We may as well kill our fellow man because we believe implicitly that canabalism is the ultimate way forward. Some say that animals are here for us to eat, they will use biblical proof or some such evidence. Of course the biblical proof is open to interpretation so we’re not going to go there…

I think deep in our hearts we understand that eating animals feels wrong it goes against our conscience, not in the nature of things. We just need to come up with a good enough rationale to align with what we already know is true.

A

20

Hahaha. So, you’re telling me that…deep…deep inside my conscience I feel wrong about being a carnivore? Is it unhealthy to eat animals? No. It’s actually high in protein and low in carbs. If you feel wrong about it that’s a personal issue and not the ecosystem’s.