marie-claude

I suppose it's completely possible that getting a shot to the brain doesn't kill you, but if it doesn't kill you, then you most likely go into a coma from all the blood loss and lack of brain tissue, unless it missed the important parts of your brain that much, but animals like cows don't really move a lot, so it's probably pretty easy to get a clear shot of their head.

Well, actually, the stunning doesn't kill the cows. Bullet shots are really not the norm. Stunning lets the animal supposedly insensibilized. There are lots of mishaps, though. Recently, we've had one highly mediatized case in Qc of a horse slaughterhouse where the hits where commonly missed the first time. At any rate, even if the suffering is short when done adequately, it isn't painless.

if your brain is destroyed before the pain impulses can get to it you feel no pain...

I tried to find sources and reports about animal slaugther that are freely accessible to all, but most are published in peer-reviewed journals. I did read several of those. There is one here that I could find a link for which is free: http://scholarship.l...412&context=lcp

As I previously said, I'd agree with you that a perfect shot would probably cause very minimal pain as it would nearly instantly cause brain death. However, not all shots are perfect shots, quite obviously, so that various amounts of pain are to be expected. Gun shots have also been reported in many studies not to be used as it sends brain pieces down the lungs of the animal in some cases, which isn't desirable given the mad cow problem. Non-penetrating stunning seems to be quoted as slightly less efficient in many studies.

At any rate, if you make perfect shots at home killing your animals, well, good for you. Overall, though, in the industry, the study above says that suffering remains commonplace. Note also that the ethics proposed are one of "minimizing needless suffering", i.e. what I have been arguing all along.

>>The state and federal laws described above represent significant progress

>>toward minimizing needless suffering in the slaughter process. Yet such

>>suffering remains commonplace, and much more can and should be done.

Needless to say, I think that the most certain manner to avoid causing an animal needless suffering is to avoid raising it to one day kill it and eat it.

No i would not and i think it's appalling...

Yup.

You have yet to demonstrate that killing equals pain, a direct shot to the brain results in death with no pain, the brain cannot feel pain and the shot travels faster than pain impulses.. it is just not true that killing results in pain...

Well, we've been having a public debate brought by politicians over reasonable accomodation for religious minorities to kill meat in the halal or casher fashion, which is deemed to be "cruel" and "more painful".

This type of killing seems indeed to cause pain: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17972-animals-feel-the-pain-of-religious-slaughter.html

Now, does the regular stunning method followed by bleeding causes pain? Yes it does (linking one example, but there are many for various types of animals and methods): http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0043933906001097

Probably that killing by a bullet shot directly at the good spot wouldn't involve much suffering. Still, to die from a shot is not pain free, usually, even though the pain is very short. I didn't deny that there are more humane ways to kill sentient beings, only that suffering is usually experienced when one is dying, even shortly, unless heavily medicamented or being killed in a very efficient way, which isn't the case for most regularly consumed animals that can be bought on the market.

yes he does and totally unbiased too i bet...

Well, I never argued he wasn't biased in commenting the study, but you can look up the study by yourself if you can find the original source and think that he isn't reporting the conclusions adequately.

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this, i know i am not going to convince you and I know i am not going to be convinced, good luck with the rest of the world, i think i am quite liberal on this, very few others are...

Indeed.

Shot to the head? Instantaneous incineration? 5 ton steel block being dropped at terminal velocity?

I doubt you'd have much useful meat after the last two methods.

Even a shot in the head involves some pain, but it is probably more humane: http://web.mac.com/flip/AUR/Archives_of_Uncomfortable_Research/Entries/2006/9/12_The_possible_pain_experienced_during_execution_by_different_methods_files/Hillman1993Execution.PDF

BTW, I wouldn't say that what Moontanman is doing sounds "evil" either. There is a whole lot of shades of gray between "evil" and "slightly unethical".

Plants? Bacterium?

I was talking short for "killing of sentient beings".

First of all, i will concede that such practices are indeed cruel but not those are not farm animals, such "meat factories" are far from what a farm is.

Would you also dispute that a whole lot of animals we eat comes from factory farms? Plus, this type of "farming" is growing.

http://markbittman.com/america-the-sht-factory

I challenge that the raising of animals for food is inherently cruel and leads to suffering, the people who raise them can be shown to suffer by your broad standards.

Well, there is a difference between one person suffering because of her own choices and making another being suffering. Also, killing is not performed without pain. But I'd agree with you that improvements in living conditions of animals are a step in the right direction.

Oh contrare, your views on farming are totally disconnected from reality, you read farm and you see a factory, not the same thing...

Well, I know personally in my family three farmers, and I can say that their practices include daily suffering for the animals. Not necessarily heavy suffering, but still. Milk cows, veals, and sheeps. The veal industry is pretty pathetic.

That's true but I do get my eggs from chicken that actually run free, you can tell by the yolks if they are eating things like bugs, but I do know where my eggs come from.

Well good for you.

As for nociception...

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=nociception

it's only relevant if you agree with him, he is a vegetarian, of course he feels that way... it's like asking a creationist to say why he doesn't believe in evolution and using his views to justify not believing in evolution...

The paper isn't itself written by that vegetarian. He only reports the study.

It is of course a continuation of old traditions, in some places dogs are eaten, in some places cats or horses and I would not eat either unless I was really starving. Cows are stupid creatures, we have bred them to be so, just a look at what they were bred from will show how far they have come to be our "food beasts" and while pigs might still be smart an encounter with a wild boar will convince you really quickly that domestic pigs are lacking quite a bit compared to their wild brethren. The sad thing is that we have lost contact with the animals we eat, we no longer take care of them or even see them as animals, they are just packages of meat, this i agree with.

 

Everyone should try to raise and eat your own meat, rabbits will do, once you see the emotional investment that goes into actually raising a food animal I think some people might tend to not be so quick to think of meat as just a package like carrots of broccoli. But i honestly don't see killing a food animal as unethical... mistreating it while it is alive i can see as unethical, i can't imagine not being moved by the killing of an animal...

Well. I am moved by the killing and the suffering of an animal. I wouldn't kill an animal such as a cow or a pig myself. I killed fish, I could manage preparing a rabbit, but I'd prefer to stick with growing vegetables if I have a say. Oh wait, I do have a say, and that's why I don't do it! As I said, I respect people who at least hunt or kill their own food. It's way less hypocritical than buying arranged meat in esthetic packaging enabling you not to think where it comes from.

Relevant: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/201202/meat-eaters-downplay-animal-minds

You continually equate farm animals and killing with suffering, are you aware that humans created these animals? They are not just wild animals that were taken from some idyllic life and forced into servitude. We bred them to be passive, to be easily killed and have limited awareness. I will be the first to admit that all animals deserve not to be horrifically treated but with out us they would not exist, in some ways we are more like parasites on them than predators.

I know we bred them as they are now, but one problem is that we bred them into creatures that possibly suffer more, not less. Debeaking chicken is ok and doesn't cause suffering? Macerating chicks doesn't cause suffering maybe? Or wait, castrating pigs doesn't cause suffering? Many procedures cause suffering, let alone the overcrowding of cages or contention of animals.

I can't see why you think that killing to eat is unethical, it suggests that we are somehow immoral for killing animals to eat, that somehow we are better than animals in some way or maybe it's superior I'm not sure but you have failed to show why this would be relevant.

Again, I never argued that "killing" was the greatest part of the problem, but the suffering is. I did offer reasons as to why we are "better" than animals in some way, though I didn't use "better" as a wording. I said that we had a more comprehensive understanding of the consequences of our actions and of the whole world in general, and that we do believe that we can choose to act as we do according to rationales. I also proposed that reducing suffering was a good thing. You still haven't debated as to why this argument is unsound or silly.

The argument that raising beef is ecologically unsound is easier to support than it being unethical.

Well, that too. Raising beef is ecologically unsound which is unethical. It is unethical to destroy our environment because this will ultimately cause us and all the other living beings inhabiting the world with us more suffering.

I suppose I generally agree with what your saying, but to play devil's advocate, isn't it unethical to not feed many hungry people?

Yes, if you *can* feed people and you don't, it creates unnecessary suffering. Now, ideally, producing meat requires more land, so that a solution including less meat production should be of more help than one including more meat. But I don't argue that simply producing less meat would generally and automatically lead to less people starving; there is a whole lot more considerations and logistics surrounding that problem.

Also, the things about pain and suffering are still "evolution" based. People might only strive to avoid pain because there is an evolutionary mechanism to tell if suffereing is happening to one's body and mechanisms that implore how to react, so that realm isn't necessarily under ethics.

Yes, of course, pain and suffering are the result of evolution. That's why I did ask if we did consider humans as mere automatons or as beings able to anticipate the consequences of their decisions and able to understand the world that surrounds them in a more complete manner than, say, earthworms or shrimps. I do believe that since we can choose (or at least are under the very real illusion that we can choose) what we do, we can choose to avoid making others suffer if it ain't necessary. Failure to do so would be, IMHO, unethical. As I said, there are other ways to consider the "good" than to appeal to "suffering". People are free to debate such other views with me, if they so wish.

This is not true, animals can be killed without torture and killing doesn't mean that torture is ok, again a strawman...

Can animals be raised without suffering? Can they be killed without suffering? Are hens in battery something you would accept for cats? What amount of suffering would you call torture?

Unnecessary suffering is point of view isn't it?

It's but one ethical stance. If you have a better one that leads to coherent conclusions, you are free to share and debate it.

So if I anesthetized the cow and killed it with no suffering it would be ok?

What about the whole life of the cow? To me, death is only part of the suffering of farm animals' lives.

so killing whales is ok? you confuse me, i think your argument against killing animals is simply your own personal agenda you want to impose on others.. sounds a bit like religion...

*sighs* I'm telling the same thing since the very start. To me, it's about unnecessary suffering. It would be very ill-advised from me to tell people who can't do anything else but feed on animals not to do it. In the absolute, I think that killing human beings is wrong too, but if I must choose between my life and that of someone attacking me, I'll protect my own life. Survival does matter.

Again with the suffering thing, to kill does not equate with suffering, or torture, or being unethical...

I believe that to cause unnecessary suffering is unethical. If you want to argue the contrary, please do so. I never equated killing with suffering, you did. Of course, that being said, I'd argue that to be killed usually causes pain, but you need to take into account the suffering endured during their lives.

I think this was dispelled in an earlier post in this thread, vegans need certain supplements in their diets because a lack of animals in their diet cannot be replaced by vegetables alone in any reasonable manner.

The only required potential supplement would be B12, and you can get it from yeast. Plus, you need vitamin D supplements in winter to live in Canada. So well. What's the problem with supplementing our diets again?

And, being vegan is *not* about eating only vegetables. Legumes, beans, lentils are also plant food.

Shellfish do not feel pain? they avoid unpleasant stimuli, they respond to touch, I don't follow you on this. And why is ok to kill anything if it's unethical to kill then it's unethical to kill, insects are alive respond to stimuli and can eve be tamed to allow them selves to be handled, even wild ones. Crustaceans like shrimp respond to external stimuli, i seriously think this is an invalid way to look at the world.

I didn't talk about shrimps, I said some shellfish without naming them. You are fighting strawmen. Nociception ain't the same thing as pain or suffering. Some plants show reactions to stimuli.

Again, you do not understand animals or farming if you feel this way. Don't think for a moment those tame farm petting zoos are how animals are kept on a farm, farm animals can be dangerous,

Did I ever say the contrary? You keep assigning me opinions on things I never said anything about.

then free range eggs are ok?

It depends. Some eggs labelled "free-range" mean chickens packed in barns but "free" to roam, and more gets killed than when they are caged in batteries.

your argument is not consistent, if killing is unethical then killing anything is unethical, microbes respond to unpleasant stimuli, intentionally torturing or killing something for pleasure is not the same as killing for food or for survival.

Again, nociception is not pain. I already said that killing for pleasure wasn't the same thing as killing for survival. The thing is, you don't need meat to survive.

Do you know what a strawman argument is? What does this actually mean in relation to the OP? I have never advocated torturing anything, another strawman.

I know, but failure to show how it is one doesn't make you right. I know you never argued torture; I just try to point out that applying a double-standard is possible, but if one is coherent, then one should admit torture.

As for people unable to choose otherwise being unethical, this doesn't follow at all. I said that causing unnecessary suffering was unethical. When you have no choice but causing suffering, well, you have no choice. This doesn't make you unethical, no.

Define suffering... When did i say i thought suffering was ok?

I'd say that suffering is "pain", i.e. it is more than nociception. Well, if suffering ain't ok, why are we arguing at all?

I like to eat chicken but my feelings toward them is radically colored by being flogged incessantly as a small child by a rooster, kill em all I say... lol I know not a good argument..

LOL. I'd be biased too.

I'm a nudist... I do bath and but I seldom perfume myself and i see no reason for others to do so unless they like they effect. naturalistic fallacy, wow, so you do know that you are continually using fallacies or do only those view points you disagree with count as fallacies?

Again, it doesn't suffice to call something a fallacy to turn it into one.

I disagree that eating meat is unnecessary, you'd have to show me how the human race could raise enough quality food that would not contain animals flesh of some sort. The way i see only a special few can do so and they base their behavior on falsehoods like killing animals is torture...

But we could. It takes more land to produce meat to feed people than to produce grains or vegetables for them to feed on directly. Of course, there is always the problem of making sure people starving get the food, but you know, we have a meat system and they are starving now. What do they send to starving people as food staples again? Oh, yes, grains, rice, beans. They are cheap and nutritionally interesting. My point was not a global one when I said that we didn't need meat, it was a biological one. A human being doesn't need meat to thrive. I'd not advocate that Inuits can survive where they live without meat though, that would be just plain stupid.

Those are good reason to lower your meat intake but not a good reason to completely stop eating meat... You go from an either or argument to maybe just a little bit?

Of course. I already acknowledge in a previous post that you most probably haven't read that the ethical argument aiming at reducing unnecessary suffering was most probably the only reason to quit all meat. I am not quiting an argument for another, just pointing out reasons that may make you want to lower meat consumption.

and you keep talking about red meat, I eat mostly local seafood as meat but I realize not everyone has that option and not everyone eats huge chunks of meat with a few if any vegetables. But when i do eat red meat, like a steak, i like it almost raw, blood gushing from it, I am not ashamed of eating meat or my diet, you go from saying no meat to lowering your meat intake and where do you think that supplemental animal proteins comes from?

We don't absolutely need animal proteins to thrive. There is enough proteins (and even some complete ones at that!) in the vegetable world if one wants to eat only plants. I not not everyone eats that badly, I was talking about the "American Standard Diet".

Because animals do not make that distinction. And where do you draw the line at killing animals? Mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, arthropods, worms? Where is the line drawn?

Sorry, I edited my post when you were answering. I meant "I don't feel superior to anyone" -- I already pointed out that humans have a special status in my view because they can predict the outcomes of their actions in a much distant future than animals to. They can act in ways that seem to be contrary to their nature, i.e. they can use contraception, for instance. I personally try to avoid killing sentient beings. I eat yeast, but no insects. Some shellfish probably don't feel pain, but I don't like shellfish. Some insects most probably don't feel pain either, but they don't attract me much from a gustative standpoint. I prefer sticking to my insect-free diet. I'd consider it worse to eat pigs, who are as intelligent as dogs, or to eat horses, than it would be to eat insects. I think that there is a gradual continuum, as I already said, and the more an animal is able to be aware and suffer, the more I find that killing it for mere taste is unnecessarily causing suffering.

Oh yes they do, you obviously have little experience with farm animals...

Well, they do only if you give them reasons to fear you. I have not a vast experience with farm animals, but some experience, yes.

I see eggs as chicken fruit, eggs as commercially produced are not alive and do not have the capability of hatching... often this is true in farm raised birds as well but not generally I admit...

Of course, eggs are not alive. The chicks that are killed in the production of eggs are the male chicks from the hatcheries. Eggs per se needn't involve animal killing, but when massively produced, yes, they do.

We are "just beasts" if you think otherwise please tell us what separates humans from animals? Our "special status" is our own assertion made from our perspective it is a data point of one and therefor meaningless...

Well, if you believe humans are only acting on instincts and beasts incapable to make rationale for their decisions, then we have nothing to discuss anymore. There is no ethics and the rapists is free to rape anyone on its instincts telling him to do so.

That's exactly what we do, this idea that we are somehow superior to or different from animals is false. yes, from our perspective we seem to have the ability to choose but that is from our perspective.

I'd even agree that free will might very well be an illusion. But nobody acts and lives as if all his choices are illusions. We believe we can choose, and we rationalize our decisions all the time. I am only pointing out that when we rationalize, we should at least strive for coherence. If you condemn torturing a baby, you should condemn torturing an adult chimp if you are applying the same standard, because every data seems to point that the adult chimp is most probably more self-aware than a newborn.

Then we go on and try to project our perspective on animals, yes we can look at baby animals and think oh how cute or look at an animal and think of how beautiful it is but when the rubber meets the road we are just an animal who thinks it's superior.

So being the only species that can use, say contraception, or make useful predictions using science... All this is rubbish and we are nothing more than mosquitoes, right?

Put you on an island where their is nothing to eat but animals and you will eat animals or do you think you'd have the moral fiber to allow your self to starve to death to avoid eating an animal? If you'd eat an animal to survive then you are a hypocrite, a cow would starve...

I've always been paying attention to talk about "unnecessary" suffering. Of course, I value my life and should I have no choice but eating animals, I'd eat animals. This has got NOTHING to do with our lives in developped countries where abundance of everything is allowing anyone to choose what he eats. This is not being hypocritical at all.

You are projecting human morality onto animals and assuming they have no morals because we don't agree with their behavior. This is false, animals have moral behavior, lions do not kill other lions for food, in fact lions kill each other at a rate far lower than humans kill other humans... Wolves, those dastardly immoral beasts from the gates of hell... no they are animals acting on their own values, wolves do not kill and eat other wolves as food, they take care of their young, defend their mates and families. All social animals have what can be described as morals and some are close enough to our own that we can identify them as moral behavior. What we call morals is just our own social behavior.

Actually, I'd agree with this, and my post was poorly written in this respect. Like sentience, intelligence and other characteristics, I do believe that there is a continuum over the animal kingdom and our evolution history. So yes, what we call "morality" is just complex, social rules for behaving ourselves.

I see no reason not to eat other animals, i find the idea of how some animals are raised for food to be deplorable but to say that killing another animal for food is immoral or unethical is nonsense.

At least, if you are coherent and think that animals have no value and we can use them for anything, then I'd say you are entitled to your opinion. However, most people are against causing suffering to animals when it's not necessary. The thing is that they consider it necessary to put tasty chicken in their mouths, when it is not. I just ask people to be coherent. If you don't care about animal sufferings for your food, why should you care about animal suffering for anyone's mere entertainment?

I have to agree, I find such things to be deplorable, I was raised on a farm and we raised animals as food, the conditions weren't as good as animals would enjoy in the wild but then they didn't have to consistently worry about predators either. We never killed an animal in the presence of other animals, that was thought to be cruel but it had some practical reasons as well, animals get suspicious if they see you kill some of their own and become harder to handle... well except for chickens... they don't seem to care and will eat their own but that is another thing entirely. ( i readily admit to not liking chickens, every time i eat chicken i think, Hmmm revenge is sweet and so is chicken meat...) I do my best to insure that the animal products I eat are raised in a reasonable manner but to say that it's unethical for humans to kill to eat is a stretch past the point of breaking...

I don't like chicken either. It's not a question of "liking" or not animals. I see no reason why "taste" should justify any amount of suffering.

Humans evolved due to pressures that sent our species in the direction of eating meat, our large brains resulted from both the increased food value of meat and the need for brain power to catch and eat other animals and avoid being caught and eaten while doing so. Our nearest relatives, chimps, eat meat as well. Is it better for an animal to be hunted in the wild and killed and eaten to be consistently under the stress of being hunted or is it best to be raised on a farm to be eventually eaten?

Well, we aren't quite still living in the woods, right? I don't deny anything you said in the above paragraph. But just stating that something is natural doesn't mean it's good. It is also pretty unnatural to wear clothes, to perfume ourselves, to shave, etc. To say that "natural" is good is committing the naturalistic fallacy. I won't compare which is best between living in the wild or in a farm as for me, it is unnecessary, at this point of the human history to continue to eat meat. Farm animals don't belong to any ecosystem in the wild.

You cannot say that it's wrong for a humans to eat meat, our digestive system shows that to be false, we evolved to eat meat but you do have a leg to stand on when it comes to food production but it will take far more than trying to shame people by telling them eating meat is wrong to change the system.

I agree that it may take more than telling them it's wrong. Actually, I started by reducing my meat consumption because many studies show that eating as much meat as we do in America is a very bad idea for your health. Our digestive system allows us to eat meat, yes, and if I'm not mistaken, we even evolved some capability to eat more meat than other apes without getting as much adversive effect from dietary cholesterol than they do, but this doesn't mean that eating the amound of meat we do now is good for us. Our diet should be mainly composed of fruits and vegetables, and supplemented by some animal proteins when available. Now look at how our plates are composed in America: a big piece of meat surrounded by a little bit of vegetables, plus, loads of dairy, especially cheese. This is not healthy at all. Also, the environmental toll of raising cattle, especially, to come back to the topic of the thread, is pretty much disastrous. These two reasons are good ones to want to reduce meat and some animal products, and they have nothing to do with animals' well-being.

BTW, i do know people who do not eat meat, I see no reason to show them as more or less moral or ethical than anyone else, some of them i wouldn't trust alone in the dark for sure... but hey they don't condone the killing animals so they should be morally superior.. horse feathers...

Of course. I don't pretend in any way to be superior to anyone else in general. I just try to be coherent. I don't believe my gustatory tastes should pass before the life of an animal. Tell me how this makes me feel superior to animals.

BTW, we allowed our chickens free range and our ducks as well, they never tried to escape because they feared wild predators far more than they feared us... loved to eat duck eggs, which they would defend but they never left us for the freedom of being hunted by wild predators and if a predator did come round they flocked to us for protection.

Yes, animals don't see humans giving them food as predators. So what? I can't access eggs that didn't cause at least some chicks to be killed to bring them to my table, so it's easier to just not eat eggs. Plus, I don't need eggs to survive.

And would you care to explain why Foer's quote is a strawman?

But, I don't see the killing of animals for food as unethical, I guess because if we didn't corral the cows and chickens in safe environments, they would be gobbled up by other predators as fast as you could snap your fingers anyways. (Especially the chickens.) Food chains are an integral part of ecological systems on Earth, and humans are also part of those ecological systems. Why is it ok for a tiger to eat a gazelle, but not ok for me to eat a chicken?

Quite simply, I'd say that to invoke the "food chain" argument, you have to advocate that humans are just beasts like any other animals that walk the Earth. Usually, people believe humans have a "special status" somewhat. Now, does this special status come with increased power, or with increased responsibility?

If you say humans can't help it, and that they feed on other animals following blindly their instincts, like any other animal does in the wild to survive, I'd say ok. There's no ethics involved in that.

If you say humans can think about their choices and act according to some moral standard, then invoking the food chain makes no sense. What people seem to do when they invoke the food chain is applying a double standard: humans are moral, except when it comes to putting food in their plate. The tiger eats a gazelle without caring about its suffering simply because it isn't an animal that can contemplate moral arguments. If you say humans are moral animals, than I say they'd have the minimal responsibility to act like they are moral animals and at least care about how they raise animals for food.

What I find the most hypocritical is that usually people will be obfuscated at cats and dogs being piled in tiny cages in shelters, after being abandoned by their owners, but happily eat pork coming from farms where they use contention crates, or eat eggs from chicken in batteries. Most people don't think it's ok to make animals suffer unnecessarily, but they don't react when animals are kept in suffering conditions to satisfy their gustatory habits and preferences.

The ethics of anything depends on what you decide.

There's really no physics of the universe saying what "deserves" to die and what "deserves" to live, what is actually "right" or "wrong", living things just have to decide that for themselves. Do we want all these cows that don't necessarily deserve to die to in fact die to feed a random species? Or, to us are the values of cows lives un-important and don't necessarily deserve to live? There's no mystical force to decide for us, whatever we decide is on us.

Of course, this entire instance is purely relative to human beings, because whatever we decide the value of cows to be, cows themselves can easily and probably do think something differently. It's relative, much like time.

I generally agree with that. We can decide what we believe is ethical and what isn't. Of course, it's also relative, as cows probably don't want to be eaten (though, really, we have no means to know what goes on in a cow's head). We can infer from the behaviour of most animals that they usually strive not to get eaten and so they must "value" their life to the extent that their own brain development allows them to.

We usually perceive suffering as bad, and many people would agree with a somewhat utilitarian view stipulating that something that is good increases one's well-being or reduces one's suffering. So we can say that we strive to avoid suffering, and that this is good. If it's good for us, it's good for others too, usually. All beings that can experience pain and suffering strive to avoid it. Some suffering might be necessary though (we have no choice but controlling pests when growing food, say). That's fine. Some suffering is unavoidable. But if we can reduce suffering, especially for sentient beings that can experience pain not only when put to death but during their lifetime, and if this suffering is the result of human behaviours that are not necessary, then why not change our behaviours? I do not *need* to eat meat. I can very well live without. Plus, many recent studies point toward health problems caused by meat, and the American Dietetic Association states the following:

"The results of an evidence-based review showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of death from ischemic heart disease. Vegetarians also appear to have lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes than nonvegetarians. Furthermore, vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index and lower overall cancer rates. Features of a vegetarian diet that may reduce risk of chronic disease include lower intakes of saturated fat and cholesterol and higher intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, soy products, fiber, and phytochemicals."

I avoid meat because even though it was a very useful calorific source at some point during human evolution, we now know it is not the healthiest food around. Plus, we used to eat animals living in the wild, not selectively bred animals kept confined in cages. I have much more respect for someone hunting its own food than I have for our modern ways where people buy animal parts that don't look much like animal parts because if they did, people would feel disgusted to prepare them. We put pads in meat trays so that the consumers won't see any blood that could repulse them. From animals, we've gone to "animal products". This is a twisted way to look at living things, methinks.

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I'd like to quote this:

"Why is taste, the crudest of our senses, exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other senses? If you stop and think about it, its crazy. Why doesn't a horny person have as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to killing and eating it? It's easy to dismiss that question but hard to respond to it. And how would you judge an artist who mutilated animals in a gallery because it was visually arresting? How riveting would the sound of a tortured animal need to be to make you want to hear it THAT badly? Try to imagine any end other than taste for which it would be justifiable to do what we do to farmed animals."

-- Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

Are you ethically opposed to eating animals because they are sentient, or because of the conditions under which they are raised? Would you be ethically opposed to eating animals if while living they were really enjoying themselves?

Both. The way they are raised is utterly pathetic, and worse than the killing actually, methinks. Humane killing sounds like an oxymoron when it comes to food production. Yes, you can humanely euthanize, but humanely kill to eat, I doubt it (problems with chemicals in food comes to mind). And no, stunning doesn't look exactly like a painless method. Plus, euthanizing is helping someone who is in pain go away from pain, whereas killing a healthy being for food is causing unnecessary pain. I will add that to raise "ethically" animals "enjoying themselves" would require a lot more lands and space than we usually use, and it's already a lot more than what is necessary to feed someone on a veg diet. The ethical meat would be, yes, more ethical when it comes to suffering, but not that ethical when it comes to land use and ecology. You'd have to eat less meat in order to have ethical meat and be sustainable.

Your comments on read meat accepted - especially after the latest tranche of research published in the last few days - however the problems with over-consuming red meat has very little to do with the question of ethical choice. Red meat is only a small part of the question and it is the over-consumption not the consumption per se that is deleterious to health. Vegan diets for children need to be either scrupulously monitored and very carefully constructed - or more likely supplemented or are dependent on fortified foods. It is much easier to achieve a balanced diet, when that diet contains meat, dairy products and fish - even though it is possible to do this with a vegan diet, it is not simple.

Yes, I stuck to red meat because of the topic's subject matter (beef). I agree that it doesn't sound exactly that simple for someone who has not tried it to eat balanced and vegan, but it is. As far as children health goes, there is not one species that *needs* to rely on the milk of another species to thrive. To say humans need that is sheer nonsense. You can get all the calcium you need from plants (mostly green leafy vegetables, cabbages), plus the calcium bioavailability must be taken into account. Anyhow, it's not really a problem to substitute dairy. As for fish, yes, I can agree that Omega-3 are harder to find on a vegan diet (though, not impossible to find: where the fish finds it -- algae, but also more common and practical, flaxseeds and hempseeds).

I think Trip confirmed that - it has always been my belief. I am not sure, however, that I want to live my life on the basis of max efficiency. And I do not believe that any increase in efficiency will help the massive distributional and political problems that sentence an unforgivably large percentage of the world's population to food scarcity.

I also agree that having a more efficient way of life here may not really help to bring food to those starving. However, it will help reduce the gaz emissions. This point was about the environmental impact of your choice, not about food solidarity, mind you. I never argued that eating less meat here would feed the masses. That being said, if the whole world wanted to eat the Standard American Diet, we'd lack land to grow the grains to feed all these animals. It takes less land to feed people on grains, legumes and vegetables directly. So that it's more part of a global solution to eat less meat than to eat more.

Cuteness argument - quite agree. On the final section would re-iterate Zapatos' final question "Would you be ethically opposed to eating animals if while living they were really enjoying themselves?"

Answered above.

I presume you would, as you are Vegan and you admit the ethical argument is really the only argument that would completely support that choice; but would like to hear your views. Personally i think a strict line must be drawn between two different questions - the eating of meat as it is produced for consumers in the western world today, and the eating of meat per se.

I agree that a line must be drawn. My view is quite simple. Living sentient beings care for their lives (most tend to avoid pain or react negatively to it, and they seek survival). That we, as a species, judge that their own life is not meaningful for them is a touchy issue. I can't really know what it is like to be a bat (invoking Nagel). Damn, I can't really know what it is like to be a physics major, so how the hell am I supposed to know what it is like to be a horse or a gorilla? But it is generally accepted that in doubt, we should apply the charity principle. Do I *need* meat? No. Does eating meat and animal products cause pain to sentient beings? Yes. Can I choose to do otherwise? Yes. So why not doing it? [Your answer here].

http://boingboing.ne...wkins-on-v.html

OK, a FB friend invited me to join the talk in here. I'm vegan. I'll start with this argument:

That's why I think vegan people are stupid. Are the farmers supposed to let the now-useless cattle graze on their valuable land? Where will they all go? Doesn't make sense to me.

That's very stupid to think that everyone will go vegan tomorrow morning and we'll have lots of useless cattle to let graze on the land. Do you really believe what you wrote? People are gradually eating less meat in some parts of the world. Chicken consumption dropped in the US (that's why the government bought some for schools). The number of animals bred will just go down if people reduce their consumption gradually with time. This doesn't leave us with plenty of useless animals to care for in a near future.

Now, why am I vegan?

1) Health considerations: Red meat (and even more so processed meat) have been linked to numerous cancers. Everything points toward a reduction of our meat consumption from a health point of view. The health argument doesn't point clearly towards vegetarism or veganism though. But these are considered healthy diets by the American Dietetic Association at all stages of human life, and they even credit it with some reduction of the major killer diseases in North America. So meat is *not* a necessity, but something we eat out of taste and habits.

2) Environment: Since this is about beef, specifically, let's only point out that beef grazing requires a lot more land than to feed the same amount of persons than if those persons would eat a plant-based diet. The figures vary depending on the sources, but it's more efficient to feed directly on the plants than to give plants to cattle and then eat cattle.

3) Ethics: Most people recognize that cats and dogs--pets--should not be tortured or kept in inhumane conditions. Some people even object to eating horses. Still, eating a horse or a cow or a pig or a dog, what's the difference? At the very least, someone eating meat should discriminate based on the qualitative sentient life of animals, not on their cuteness. I think that the philosophical stand against eating animals is solid enough. The ethical argument is, BTW, the only one that can be invoked to argue in favour of a strict veg diet, IMHO. You can have an eco-conscious consumption of some animal products (but cattle is not one of those, methinks) and you can have a healthy diet that is not veg. However, in all cases, your diet, to be healthy and eco-friendly, should be reduced in meat. If like Bentham you believe that what matters about animals is not whether they can think but whether they can suffer, and if you think that someone raising dogs for breeding in tiny cages without basic care but for profit only, by selling puppies, is not morally acceptable, then you should think about whether raising animals--any animals--in tiny spaces is morally acceptable too, because it is done in order to provide you a pleasure that is a mere taste, not a necessity.