I love animals

[Chaigidel]

but I just cant stop eating them

is vegetarianism a moral highground or just a needless self induced restriction?


I would pretty much be a vegetarian if I had to kill the cute little myself, so; should this be a moral delimma? or is the blood of innocents something I just need to learn to love because thats what feeds me.

I sure love the taste of blood, I just cant get it out of my head that its wrong in some way.

[Gary88]

remember, all death is good. or so you said.

[Chaigidel]

all human death is good, animals are pure and follow the master without question.

human death is good.
perhaps I should just go to eating them.

[Shaun]

all human death is good, animals are pure and follow the master without question.

Not always. My dog never does what he is told.
But I still love animals. I also eat them as well, but only for the protein and taste, and because it is natural.

[Da Skinna]

Well... cannibalism is underrated.

Or so I've heard.

[Gary88]

i heard most canibals are undercooked.

[Simetrical]

The answer is straightforward enough for me. God commands us to kill animals for all sorts of reasons, and on the other hand did not command us not to eat them, so vegetarianism has no plausible basis in traditional Judaism.

On a more secular level, I don't accept that animals have any moral rights. Quite simply, they are incapable of agreeing to a social contract. Rights are not unilateral, they are reciprocal: you are given rights provided you respect others' rights. Criminals who do not respect others' rights to life, liberty, property may themselves be deprived of same. Animals are generally too stupid to respect anyone's right to anything, and so their rights in turn merit no respect.

Of course, the question of children, the senile, and the mentally retarded is immediate. Society should not disregard the rights of the old and senile, because that also disregards the rights of the young and healthy: their right to look forward to a future without fear, to know that even if they become feeble-minded they will be cared for.

Small children and the mentally retarded are more interesting. Arguably, they don't deserve much of any rights, and should be given rights only to the extent people are willing to take care of them. You can protect a child from strangers' abuse by assigning rights to his parents, but what if his parents don't want him, or actively want to harm him? I haven't seen any convincing secular argument in favor of rights for small children or retards. (The religious arguments are of course enough for me personally.)

[Pontifex Maximus]

But Sim, mentally retarded people can't help that, they should be looked after (not eaten).

[Simetrical]

That's not a logical argument. Rocks can't help being rocks, does that mean we need to look after them? Being unable to look after yourself does not merit a moral imperative for others to look after you, not by itself. What does? Adhering to a social contract does, in my opinion, but that doesn't apply to people who are very severely retarded. What else? The answer will affect who gets rights and who does not.

It's worth pointing out that the window between intelligent enough to be moral, and intelligent enough to be more than a vegetable, is narrow. In practice, if you're okay with not giving any rights to people in persistent vegetative states, you might be okay with not giving any rights to people who only have basic perceptual and motor skills and no real cognitive ability. Once someone is intelligent enough to, for instance, speak, they would be protected under a social-contract philosophy. So the mentally retarded might not be an issue.

Infants remain interesting. They will in the future obey the social contract, probably, but why should that give them any rights now?

[Pontifex Maximus]

That's not a logical argument. Rocks can't help being rocks, does that mean we need to look after them? Being unable to look after yourself does not merit a moral imperative for others to look after you, not by itself. What does? Adhering to a social contract does, in my opinion, but that doesn't apply to people who are very severely retarded. What else? The answer will affect who gets rights and who does not.

It's worth pointing out that the window between intelligent enough to be moral, and intelligent enough to be more than a vegetable, is narrow. In practice, if you're okay with not giving any rights to people in persistent vegetative states, you might be okay with not giving any rights to people who only have basic perceptual and motor skills and no real cognitive ability. Once someone is intelligent enough to, for instance, speak, they would be protected under a social-contract philosophy. So the mentally retarded might not be an issue.

Infants remain interesting. They will in the future obey the social contract, probably, but why should that give them any rights now?

It's just common human decency. While retarded people may be retarded, they are human and deserve to be treated as such.

[Richard]

That's not a logical argument. Rocks can't help being rocks, does that mean we need to look after them? Being unable to look after yourself does not merit a moral imperative for others to look after you, not by itself. What does? Adhering to a social contract does, in my opinion, but that doesn't apply to people who are very severely retarded. What else? The answer will affect who gets rights and who does not.

It's worth pointing out that the window between intelligent enough to be moral, and intelligent enough to be more than a vegetable, is narrow. In practice, if you're okay with not giving any rights to people in persistent vegetative states, you might be okay with not giving any rights to people who only have basic perceptual and motor skills and no real cognitive ability. Once someone is intelligent enough to, for instance, speak, they would be protected under a social-contract philosophy. So the mentally retarded might not be an issue.

Infants remain interesting. They will in the future obey the social contract, probably, but why should that give them any rights now?

All this talk of 'rights' gives me a headache. I don't think you're taking the natural instincts of humans into account. You know, how we're inclined to look after ourselves and offspring first, then those closest to us, and so on. Having the knowledge that animals also possess intelligence and are capable of suffering brings them into people's list of things we have feelings towards, where previously they were thought of (as some humans were) as animated objects there to be exploited, in addition to harming them out of necessity to survive (again, same with some humans and still is in much of the world).

Nothing has 'rights'; if some rule is all that makes somone care for something then that's rather disheartening. It's the individual's OWN feelings that govern what 'rights' they bestow upon others.

[Chaigidel]

well I look at it this way-- whatever we do to anything we do to god, I know animals suffer, I know that god who knows all things must feel that suffering, thus to treat anything with mercy is a mercy to your father.

but the whole process of life is based on the dance of death we engage in daily, eating, being eaten.--- but religiously I know god knows all things, and thus suffers with all things all the time, so any small mercy you can bring at any time no matter how small or meaningless the life ( such as that of a fly) mercy is something that god will remember.-- if we are merciful to our father.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

I don't see anything wrong with eating animals, though some animals are harmful unless cooked/prepared correctly. As long as you do it right (as to not hurt yourself) theres nothing wrong with it imo.

[MaximiIian]

is vegetarianism a moral highground or just a needless self induced restriction?

To me, killing and eating a plant is little different than killing and eating an animal. We are omnivores, and it is our natural way to eat whatever suits our body to maintain homoeostasis. Both are acceptable means to a healthy body.

[Da Skinna]

[Erwin Rommel]

awwwwwwwwww shucks



but srsly after time its either me or a fat bloated pig

[Spiff]

I dont think cruelty to animals is tolerable, but then i don't think it is cruel to kill animals for food since this is essentially how things should be in nature. Some people may view killing animals for food as unnecessary for humans, but i don't think that makes it "wrong", just a personal choice. Cruelty to animals i would consider as any unnecessary suffering - i think a person who is cruel to animals is in some cases demonstrating an unhealthy sadistic attitude which society is probably best to punish.

Regarding rights, there are two schools of thought as far as i know. Hart for example suggests that the ability to create a duty in someone else rests on the ability of the individual to also release that person from the same duty, while D.N. MacCormick on the other hand takes a contrasting view that the ability to create a duty in someone else is a matter of personal interest more than anything, so correlative rights can be created on the basis of protecting the interests of the subject. Whether you can extend this to 'animal rights' or not im not sure.

Either way this article seems to discuss the issue:
http://www.stephankinsella.com/texts/wellman_rights.pdf

[Simetrical]

well I look at it this way-- whatever we do to anything we do to god, I know animals suffer, I know that god who knows all things must feel that suffering, thus to treat anything with mercy is a mercy to your father.

If God actually minds, why didn't he tell us not to do it? Some creations are meant to be destroyed. Does the confectionist suffer when he sees someone eat what he creates? Do special-effects artists who create entire scenes just to blow them up get upset by that? It's the purpose of what they do, what they created. Why would it distress them?

I dont think cruelty to animals is tolerable, but then i don't think it is cruel to kill animals for food since this is essentially how things should be in nature.

Is that a good rationale? Animals in nature also kill each other. Does that justify humans killing each other? Humans should be morally superior to nature, at least in certain ways. What I object to is people who want us to treat animals with humanity when the animals themselves have no such concept toward us, and cannot.

Regarding rights, there are two schools of thought as far as i know. Hart for example suggests that the ability to create a duty in someone else rests on the ability of the individual to also release that person from the same duty, while D.N. MacCormick on the other hand takes a contrasting view that the ability to create a duty in someone else is a matter of personal interest more than anything, so correlative rights can be created on the basis of protecting the interests of the subject.

I don't understand the distinction. Your PDF is way too hard to read, not to mention book-length.

[Spiff]

Is that a good rationale? Animals in nature also kill each other. Does that justify humans killing each other? Humans should be morally superior to nature, at least in certain ways. What I object to is people who want us to treat animals with humanity when the animals themselves have no such concept toward us, and cannot.

Well i see it as useful to kill animals for food, they give us nutrition in that regard which is useful to our society. Killing animals or people for fun or for no reason as animals presumably do isn't useful to society, on the other hand, and falls into what i noted as cruel - which animals probably don't have a concept of. But yeah i agree anthropomorphising animals is a bit odd.

I don't understand the distinction. Your PDF is way too hard to read, not to mention book-length.

heres a smaller version of the point regarding 'choice vs interest', i think:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-rights/#3

The topic came up briefly in a rights analysis in one of my modules last semester, we looked at Hohfeld's development of Kants work on rights but it was fairly brief, so i don't pretend to be an expert.. i just know the debate exists among some people.

[Scipio praeditus]

"Do unto others as thou wants done upon thy self", or something along those lines.

This spoken rule shared to my knowledge by most those religious and atheist, when observed without restriction, should lead one to abstain from the mutilation (be it psycological or physical) and killing of all sentient life.
You may argue that this applies only to humans, maybe even only those displaying a certain mental capacity and/or social behaviour.

But as was inferred; where does one draw the line?
Certainly not at the mentally/socially disfunctional and children.

Consider this; Can a people be of more value than another because they have developed a more sophisticated culture, a more encompassing language and smoother social interaction?
If these "people of more worth" have reached the limits of their lands capabilities (trough over farming and over population) and the squalor threatens to destroy their society, are they then in their right to conquer a "lesser" neighbour's land and kill its occupants to maintain their own advanced culture (the source of their worth)?

Obviously not, but one must remain realistic.
Untill we can eat nutricious vat grown meat (I stress nutricious, wich will take some time to perfect), or supermarkets start selling healthy vegetarian food (meaning, balanced ingedients like unroasted nuts/seeds, beans, organic greens/mushrooms and the like) in easy to cook packages, dead animals will remain an essential part of our diet.

However some day in the distant future, if we get there, our development towards benevolent social interaction must inevitably lead us to value all life equally.