The ethics of eating animals | Peter Singer, Peter Egan, Christopher Belshaw and Mary Ann Sieghart

[@TheInstituteOfArtAndIdeas]

What do you think of this deabte? Leave a comment below. You can watch the full debate at: iai.tv/video/in-love-with-animals?KZbin&

[@neoepicurean3772]

Belshaw's argument is flawed as there is no way to meet global meat demands through hunting, even if they did kill instantly. If that were the case then we wouldn't be having this discussion.

[@BlissBlessHappiness]

The self-evident truth.

[@h.hholmes.492]

I don't quite understand the points of Christopher Belshaw.

[@billywillis47]

Not mine but I wish it was. If you aren't supposed to eat animals why are they made of meat? Joe Brand, class!

[@DeusExHomeboy]

No action is inherently moral or immoral. Firing a gun is only immoral if there's a sentient, innocent organism in the way of the bullet, but it's not immoral if done in self-defense/preservation. Eating meat isn't inherently immoral. The immoral aspect only emerges when an innocent organism suffers/dies without its consent, by the actions of an organism that understands consequences (this is important because there are organisms {even young humans, and humans with mental disabilities} who do not possess enough cognitive range or information to understand consequences. However, since the universe has objective, fixed laws, that implies there is no pure subjective morality within it. Every system within a deterministic universe will possess deterministic properties. the feeling of *subjective morality* only emerges in the interpretations of limited organisms, such as you and us. Subjectivity emerges due to a lack of sufficient information, and the dependency on the interpreter's biological limitations. So to reduce it to the meat argument - It's immoral to be a contributor in the death of a sentient organism, to eat it *WHEN OTHER OPTIONS EXIST, which is the case for almost every single human living within the convenient sphere of human civilization.* In a situation when no other options are available, the context changes, and killing another organism to ensure one's survival becomes morally acceptable. But even in that situation, there are people who'd chose to let themselves die. Also- there's no nutrient/mineral/etc within an animal's body that cannot be sourced elsewhere, so the 'eating meat for health' is a bogus, invalid argument.

[@BlissBlessHappiness]

EXACTly.

[@dusanmal]

I'll start by paraphrasing famous Mythologist and thinker, Joseph Campbell - In the process of growing up it comes a time to realize that the life, by its very nature is vicious... Life consumes and destroys to exist. Evolutionary law of survival of the fittest through natural selection is inevitable and required for ever improving life and the very ability to have "ethics". Now to more focused scientific fact of who we, humans are: what defined our evolutionary branch by current scientific consensus is exactly the positive feedback loop of being placed by changes in geology and climate in the environment lacking edible plant stuffs but plentiful in grass-eaters and deciding to catch and eat more meat that created bigger and more capable brains looping back to increased ability to catch and eat even more meat... We are by our evolutionary path predominantly meat eating omnivores, it is just in the last 0.4% of our evolution that we discovered agriculture and increased our plant consumption by producing and eating that what we in purely natural circumstances couldn't! This is evident in our natural nutrient requirements, truly natural vegan food eating human would die within a year. Artificial, industrial enrichment of food stuffs is what allows "vegans" (who thus are not really what they claim to be) to survive on false "non animal origin" food. So, if we are honest to ourselves, to who we are and honest to Mother Nature and her rules of life, there is absolutely no need to restrain usage of animals in our diet, just the opposite, eating them is what we Naturally are.

[@danrl9710]

Life is vicious but it's also kind. Kropotkin's much under-publicized Mutual Aid proved this as Darwin's survival of the fittest theory was being coopted by the capitalists of the industrial revolution. How do you reconcile "we are by our evolutionary path predominantly meat eating omnivores" with the fact that evolution has also taught us that our closest relative is the chimpanzee, a species that derives only 6% of its calories from meat? Do you suppose we were much different to that prior to the industrial revolution, when gathering was a lot safer and sustainable than hunting? I think you can only make your argument work based on a fairly recent speciation of hominid, because for the vast majority of our species' existence our diets would surely have been similar to that of a chimpanzee. Last, although we're obviously part of the animal kingdom, our unparalleled level of sentience confers an unparalleled level of responsibility, or in this context morals and ethics. If this means anything at all, we must surely consider the act of taking a fellow sentient animal's life to be at the very top of the list for careful and logical deliberation. I don't see this happening in our culture today, when we head to the grocery store to buy wrapped body parts from another species.

[@speleoth]

@dusanmal Wow you wrote a wall of text just to make the Naturalistic Fallacy.

[@reesanbacarya7998]

Kill animals with love! Ethics of being eaten. Born to be eaten : a short talk Bob-cow: Saun you are sweet. Saun: Bcow you are soft and sour. But I heard you are tender too. Bcow: Thank you chewy. They sing together. BCow & Saun: Let us pray we may be Best cuts of royal tables Where our flesh be our dignity And let they praise our taste. We are born to be eaten.

[@gavinr5576]

Including the matter that made up an animal into my meat vehicle and carrying it with me for as long as that matter remains a part of me is the ultimate act of love. It doesn't get much closer than literal physical union. When I die my matter will return to the Earth ecosystem where it will re-enter the cycle of life, slowly ascending the food chain untill it once again reaches unity with a sentient body and then again inevitably dissolves. Galactic clusters absorb smaller one's, our very own galaxy is in the process of absorbing several smaller dwarf galaxies and is on track to be absorbed by the Andromeda galaxy itself in a few million years. The Proto-Earth absorbed countless smaller bodies during the formation of our solar system in order to reach the equilibrium it did that allowed human life to evolve in the first place. Human history is filled to the brim with examples of one culture assimilating less powerful cultures with the ultimate product being the dominant species on this planet and the only sentient one that we are yet aware of. This trend extends down even further into the realm of micro-biota and lower again into simple matter and then to the sub-atomic scale, but I think you get my drift. It is the nature of the Universe itself that the powerful absorb the less powerful resulting in ever more intricate and beautiful expressions of complexity and, dare I say, intelligence, but I guess we're somehow above all that.... right? When one gives gratitude for the lifeforms (ALL lifeforms, not just the one's whose physiology is close enough to my own that I oh so graciously extend empathy to it) that form the substrate for one's own body the self-imposed guilt tripping of Post-Modernist Veganism becomes unveiled for what it truly is, an exaggerated human collective ego that believes it can be separate from, and thereby superior to, the natural cycle that has existed since the birth of the Universe.

[@BlissBlessHappiness]

Respectfully, please do not confuse post-modernism, a deplorable set of half-truths, with vegan Ahimsa (a 3000+ year old) philosophy. You are utterly confused; and, unfortunately, Pythagoras is not available to straighten your mental deformity. Sadly, your reasoning amounts to nothing more than late sophism.

[@gavinr5576]

@@BlissBlessHappiness LoL, your reply drips with the exact moral superiority I alluded to. Traditional veganist movements generally keep to themselves, which is why untill recently veganism was a tiny proportion of society, but since the rise of post-modernist veganism and it's zealous promotion by their acolytes veganism has experienced a significant surge in popularity. But you go ahead and pretend they aren't connected if you'd like.

[@BlissBlessHappiness]

@@gavinr5576 Respectfully: look in the mirror.

[@DeusExHomeboy]

Gavin, look, all this elaborate display of mental gymnastics is all well and good, but your whole argument can be used to justify rape, slavery, genocide, ethnic cleansing, rape, rape, forced impregnation, murder, thievery, deception, literally anything. *Basically, appeal to nature, or physics, or anything else is a bad argument. The more broad and vague you make your justifications, the more space they have for logical gaps.* Edit: Imagine raping a baby after giving it gratitude for being a lifeform and thanking it for letting a more superior human utilize it. ALSO - Almost every lifeform with a brain on this planet is sentient. You need to correct your understanding of the word. "Sentience" evolved in brains way before humans even came close to existing, thanks for the specie-wide compliment though.

[@richardwagner5742]

All this concern for animals having a good life, no one discusses nature has predictors and prey. If eating animals what about evolutionary preditors eating animals?

[@mushy470]

Ah yes. I'm such a lion. I get in my heated car to my superstore and pick up some meat wrapped in plastic that was factory farmed from artificial insemination and fed antibiotics etc. Its the circle of life.

[@speleoth]

Simple, they do not have moral agency like we do. They are also obligate carnivores that need to eat meat, we are opportunistic omnivores and therefore, unlike these predators, do not need to kill to survive.

[@arunshankars8398]

At least the lion doesn't cage the deer, subject it to inhumane living conditions, and torture it for several weeks before it's murdered. The act of it hunting down the deer is violent, but the violence is only for about a couple of minutes. With industrial farming, the violence is for several weeks. It's insanely cruel.

[@robedwards5709]

I agree now push off while I have my steak pie.

[@BlissBlessHappiness]

Acknowledgement is the first step - well done; may your further path be a fruitful one.

[@DeusExHomeboy]

@@BlissBlessHappiness Sadly a deterministic universe implies that rob Edwards will either continue like this, or stop eating animals. But what will happen is already decided since universal laws got locked in. He needs to experience something that matches his configuration to cause a change. I doubt words are it.

[@BlissBlessHappiness]

@@DeusExHomeboy True. Determining whether the cosmos is completely deterministic, however, is beyond the scope of human cognition.

[@bornatona3954]

Bla bla bla