At a high level, I have no control over your actions, you have no control over mine. We can argue until we’re blue in the face, but when someone walks away after that argument, they’re free to do as they please.
Physically, you don’t need to eat meat. I’d recommend a good dietician if you want to go vegetarian or vegan, at least until you figure enough out that you can maintain the intake of all your required vitamins and nutrients as you transition. There are more than a few of them that are typically provided by meat products for most people’s eating habits, you’ll want advice on how to suppliment that without relying on pills. Suppliment pills can be helpful, but you probably don’t want to have to take them all the time.
Eating meat can certainly be healthy too, speaking mainly for ones nutritional needs. The nutrients in meat are, in some cases, fairly rare in plants, so it can vastly simplify the job of meeting your nutritional needs.
For vegans, on a social and societal level, I agree with the concepts surrounding factory farming and the unethical treatment of the animals that become meat. No argument from me. However, thinking that any meat consumption is tantamount to murder, is not a view I share. Animals, and their meat, are eaten by other animals (including humans - separate from farming… I’m talking about actual hunting here). In nature, there’s no hesitation about this, no remorse, and no known sorrow from the animals who “lost someone” to being food. Sadness over the passing of an individual is almost (but not entirely) a human phenomenon. Same with morals and ethics… To name a few. Ethically, I don’t personally have a problem with animals dying for food. I do however have a problem with the abuse and maltreatment of animals that will become food. While alive, animals should be given some measure of dignity and respect. They should not be forced into living their lives in small cages and jammed together with hundreds of their kin in a confined space the way factory farming often does.
Eating meat does not and should not imply that a person is complicit nor agrees with the concept of factory farms or anything they do. Some people do not have the time, effort, money or focus to dedicate to finding alternatives. You don’t know their life and you should not judge based on their eating habits alone. It’s presumptive and arrogant to think that people have the bandwidth to even grok the concept of changing their entire lifestyle because of factory farms. In the same manner, vegans and vegetarians should not be negatively judged for their decisions either.
The only points of contention I have in the whole debate is that eating meat, in and of itself, whether you bought it off a shelf or obtained it through hunting, does not make one a murderer; and, while it’s fine to share ideas, demanding that others change their ways because you have an opinion, is unacceptable. If someone is curious and willing to listen, sure, chat all you want. However, telling them that their choices are wrong and that they must do something differently, isn’t a practice I can support.
At the end of the day, as most people learned from the lion king, there’s a circle of life. Things will die so other things can live. Plants will absorb the minerals and nutrients from the rotting corpses of so-called “higher” life forms, and those “higher” life forms will eat the plants to live. Those plant eaters will be eaten by other animals, who will eventually die and become fertilizer for the plants. The cycle continues. Eating animals is something that animals do all the time, and it’s not condemned. News flash, humans are also animals. We have the ability to eat and gain strength from meat. You have the free choice to either partake in that activity or not, but make no mistake, that’s your personal choice.
IMO, we should all eat more vegetables. Meats have become so prevalent that there’s basically meat included in every meal of the day. That’s a bit much. Eat a salad. Everyone should reduce their meat intake, at the very least. If you want to go all the way to being vegetarian or vegan, go for it. It’s your choice, your life, your body, and you’re free to use it, and/or abuse it, in whatever way you wish.
For me, the ethical problems of factory farms are definitely an issue. Personally, I’d rather see a regulatory solution for the treatment of animals, since it would improve the life of all of those animals (at least for the duration they’re alive), and improve their situation when they are slaughtered, so it is more humane. After they have been slaughtered, my level of care about how they’re treated, pretty much disappears. As long as the resultant product is safe and not harmful, I couldn’t care less. I’m only concerned with their life from birth to death. After that, meh. Regulatory changes would be simple and more effective than trying to change the hearts and minds of everyone in an effort to have the pubic at large, stop eating meat; bluntly, trying to convince an entire society to do anything for it’s own good, is pretty much impossible. I’m not sure what the “annoying vegans” (not all vegans, just the ones who get in people’s faces about it), are trying to prove. They won’t convince everyone, it’s basically impossible. It’s like they’ve taken on this impossible task and it’s not going well, and they’re steaming mad about it… Bro, you did this to yourself. I believe the only way to put an end to the animal abuse in factory farms, is to regulate it. I don’t know what that regulation looks like, I’m not a lawyer, nor do I have any ties to nor interest in becoming a politician/government decision making person. I know change is needed and I have no ability to enact that change, but I would vote for anyone who did.
I don’t consider death, in and if itself to be inhumane. I consider torture to be inhumane. I consider forced imprisonment in a small space to be inhumane. I even consider suffering to death, it be inhumane. Euthanizing something, can absolutely be humane. I don’t believe that factory farms are being humane by my standards.
I don’t think that asking them to be humane to their flock is too much to ask. Our food deserves it. They’re giving their life for your ongoing existence and enjoyment, the least we can and should do, is ensure they’re not spending that life in pain.
I highly recommend you check out a book called “A Bold Return to Giving a Damn”. It’s about a cattle rancher who turned his ranch into a form of regenerate agriculture. One of his main point is that the current meat industry provides cheap meat that is subsidized by the environment. His ranch is called White Oak Pastures. Fascinating book and definitely changed the way I look at meat consumption. I still eat meat but my extended family raises a cow every year so I think its a little but better than the industrial food system currently at work.
Hey, edgelord case against veganism: meat is absolutely murder, but we treat workers poorly enough that literally everything you ever buy is probably murder, including corn. We are drowning in a river of innocent blood, and there are no clean hands. Trying to clean them before we get to shore is absurd.
And it’s corollary: meat is extra murder, because those animals don’t kill and butcher themselves.
‘Other things are bad too’ is not an argument I personally find convincing. Though I absolutely agree with you that we are all partaking in a horrible system where our standard of living is built on mountains of suffering.
Decent arguments. Little bit of what about-isms there. We could get into a whole, long, discussion about how people aren’t treated much better in society, though we have the “freedom” to “choose” between equally terrible options to work for less than we need to survive, to “decide” what essential items we can afford and which we must do without, and to “earn” a living because we are not deserving of a life unless we work to get one.
But IMO, that would be more what about-isms.
This is also very contingent on the definition of what constitutes “murder”. Where the generally accepted definition, according to the Oxford dictionary, is the unlawful killing of one human being by another. Since the animals which are food are not humans, no murder has occurred. This is in line with the legal terms as well, as far as I understand, but legal terms will vary from location to location. I won’t dwell on it too much. The fact is that many people, apparently including yourself, seem to conflate “the intentional act of killing something” with the term “murder”, whether it applies or not, but the dictionary definition of the term is why I started this reply the way I did, indirectly, capitalism, and specifically the corporations that facilitate capitalism, are indirectly responsible for the suffering and death of more than a few humans. I would argue that they’re responsible for a lot of it. Firing people who are otherwise doing acceptable work for reasons unrelated to their position or the work that needs to be done, such as for interpersonal issues or simply to “trim the fat” by reducing labor costs (firing long-term, highly paid workers to replace them with low paid, new workers) is one such example. A nontrivial number of those fired for reasons such as this may fall into depression and commit suicide, and the corporation is directly responsible for the circumstances leading to their death and therefore has committed murder; alternatively, they may terminate someone who has fallen ill, since they cannot do the job sufficiently anymore (does not meet expectations, kind of thing), and due to the illness, and now being unable to financially pay for the help they desperately need, they die. The corporation is again responsible for that death and therefore has committed murder.
I’m not sure that line of reasoning would stand up in court, and bluntly, IANAL, so I don’t care to find out. Obviously there’s more circumstances, I only described two. I’ll let you imagine the rest.
The question of “is killing an animal for food, considered murder” is far more philosophical in nature. It’s certainly a valid consideration, but legally, animals are not humans. Humans are also animals, but not all animals are humans, and certainly, the animals we eat (mainly chickens, cows, pigs, and lambs), are definitely and distinctly, not humans. Therefore the definition of murder, in the context that it is understood under the law, does not apply. Certainly we are, in some manner, whether directly or indirectly, responsible for the death of those animals, but murderers, we are not (unless you’ve actually committed the act of murder).
QED: eating meat is not, and should not be considered to be, in any way, shape, or form, committing, or otherwise endorsing, abeding, or having any role in anything that is, by definition, murder.
The phrasing of that kinda got away from me.
Moving on.
Certainly farmland accidents happen, and in those cases, the people who die, could be considered murdered, by the people who eat the product which they were farming at the time. Certainly that has happened, and will happen. Albeit indirectly, the people who demand the food that the person was farming at the time, could be considered ambiguously an accessory to the murder, at least. I don’t think the court would agree with that line of logic at all, but, it is nevertheless, something that can be considered to be the case in a philosophical way. In those cases, where does the responsibility for that pertains death lay? With the company that employed them to death? With the consumers that demanded the product? Or is it nobody’s fault and simply an accident. The courts, I believe, would either side with blaming the company, or ruling that it was an accident, never the customers fault. Philosophically, everyone is at fault.
As you can see, regardless of whether the product being farmed is grain, corn, or livestock like cattle or chickens (etc), those deaths are technically on all of our hands. Meat cannot be extra murder, unless the meat is human, in which case there’s probably a lot of other crimes happening. It can’t be extra murder because no humans have died in the creation of the meat; at least, no more than with any other product of farming.
Certainly, we, the consumers, are responsible for the deaths/killing, of animals for food (at least those of us who are not vegans), but we can certainly be held to account for the suffering of the animals we consume, when they were raised for the purposes of becoming food.
It’s a small but important distinction. One only humans could make. What does that mean for ethics? That’s going to be a very personal issue. Everyone’s ethics vary slightly. If you consider that the product that is “meat” is akin to “murder” because you believe that murder isn’t just a human on human killing, then it would be highly unethical to partake in such products. That is a personal moral and ethical choice, both to believe that, and resign yourself to never consuming the meat of an animal.
For me, whenever these things come into question, I always consider two things: the legal definitions and guidelines of it, and I attribute the philosophy of “do unto others” (I think everyone knows this one).
In the former, murder is bad, but murder is human vs human, so, no help on this from there. It’s completely legal. In the latter case, I wouldn’t want to be tortured while alive only to be killed for my meat. However, personally, I could not give any fewer fucks about what happens to my body after I’m dead. Eat me, for all I care. So, in that context, the suffering of the animals matters to me. However, eating meat after the fact is irrelevant. Therefore, I give all the shits I can give about the quality of life those animals have, but I could not care less whether they are eaten by humans, other animals, or if they simply decompose, afterwards.
This leads me back to my original reply. I want to see better conditions for these living animals. I feel we should accomplish that through legislation and regulation.
At a high level, I have no control over your actions, you have no control over mine. We can argue until we’re blue in the face, but when someone walks away after that argument, they’re free to do as they please.
Physically, you don’t need to eat meat. I’d recommend a good dietician if you want to go vegetarian or vegan, at least until you figure enough out that you can maintain the intake of all your required vitamins and nutrients as you transition. There are more than a few of them that are typically provided by meat products for most people’s eating habits, you’ll want advice on how to suppliment that without relying on pills. Suppliment pills can be helpful, but you probably don’t want to have to take them all the time.
Eating meat can certainly be healthy too, speaking mainly for ones nutritional needs. The nutrients in meat are, in some cases, fairly rare in plants, so it can vastly simplify the job of meeting your nutritional needs.
For vegans, on a social and societal level, I agree with the concepts surrounding factory farming and the unethical treatment of the animals that become meat. No argument from me. However, thinking that any meat consumption is tantamount to murder, is not a view I share. Animals, and their meat, are eaten by other animals (including humans - separate from farming… I’m talking about actual hunting here). In nature, there’s no hesitation about this, no remorse, and no known sorrow from the animals who “lost someone” to being food. Sadness over the passing of an individual is almost (but not entirely) a human phenomenon. Same with morals and ethics… To name a few. Ethically, I don’t personally have a problem with animals dying for food. I do however have a problem with the abuse and maltreatment of animals that will become food. While alive, animals should be given some measure of dignity and respect. They should not be forced into living their lives in small cages and jammed together with hundreds of their kin in a confined space the way factory farming often does.
Eating meat does not and should not imply that a person is complicit nor agrees with the concept of factory farms or anything they do. Some people do not have the time, effort, money or focus to dedicate to finding alternatives. You don’t know their life and you should not judge based on their eating habits alone. It’s presumptive and arrogant to think that people have the bandwidth to even grok the concept of changing their entire lifestyle because of factory farms. In the same manner, vegans and vegetarians should not be negatively judged for their decisions either.
The only points of contention I have in the whole debate is that eating meat, in and of itself, whether you bought it off a shelf or obtained it through hunting, does not make one a murderer; and, while it’s fine to share ideas, demanding that others change their ways because you have an opinion, is unacceptable. If someone is curious and willing to listen, sure, chat all you want. However, telling them that their choices are wrong and that they must do something differently, isn’t a practice I can support.
At the end of the day, as most people learned from the lion king, there’s a circle of life. Things will die so other things can live. Plants will absorb the minerals and nutrients from the rotting corpses of so-called “higher” life forms, and those “higher” life forms will eat the plants to live. Those plant eaters will be eaten by other animals, who will eventually die and become fertilizer for the plants. The cycle continues. Eating animals is something that animals do all the time, and it’s not condemned. News flash, humans are also animals. We have the ability to eat and gain strength from meat. You have the free choice to either partake in that activity or not, but make no mistake, that’s your personal choice.
IMO, we should all eat more vegetables. Meats have become so prevalent that there’s basically meat included in every meal of the day. That’s a bit much. Eat a salad. Everyone should reduce their meat intake, at the very least. If you want to go all the way to being vegetarian or vegan, go for it. It’s your choice, your life, your body, and you’re free to use it, and/or abuse it, in whatever way you wish.
For me, the ethical problems of factory farms are definitely an issue. Personally, I’d rather see a regulatory solution for the treatment of animals, since it would improve the life of all of those animals (at least for the duration they’re alive), and improve their situation when they are slaughtered, so it is more humane. After they have been slaughtered, my level of care about how they’re treated, pretty much disappears. As long as the resultant product is safe and not harmful, I couldn’t care less. I’m only concerned with their life from birth to death. After that, meh. Regulatory changes would be simple and more effective than trying to change the hearts and minds of everyone in an effort to have the pubic at large, stop eating meat; bluntly, trying to convince an entire society to do anything for it’s own good, is pretty much impossible. I’m not sure what the “annoying vegans” (not all vegans, just the ones who get in people’s faces about it), are trying to prove. They won’t convince everyone, it’s basically impossible. It’s like they’ve taken on this impossible task and it’s not going well, and they’re steaming mad about it… Bro, you did this to yourself. I believe the only way to put an end to the animal abuse in factory farms, is to regulate it. I don’t know what that regulation looks like, I’m not a lawyer, nor do I have any ties to nor interest in becoming a politician/government decision making person. I know change is needed and I have no ability to enact that change, but I would vote for anyone who did.
I don’t consider death, in and if itself to be inhumane. I consider torture to be inhumane. I consider forced imprisonment in a small space to be inhumane. I even consider suffering to death, it be inhumane. Euthanizing something, can absolutely be humane. I don’t believe that factory farms are being humane by my standards.
I don’t think that asking them to be humane to their flock is too much to ask. Our food deserves it. They’re giving their life for your ongoing existence and enjoyment, the least we can and should do, is ensure they’re not spending that life in pain.
Thoughtful comment, I really liked it. Thank you for sharing
I highly recommend you check out a book called “A Bold Return to Giving a Damn”. It’s about a cattle rancher who turned his ranch into a form of regenerate agriculture. One of his main point is that the current meat industry provides cheap meat that is subsidized by the environment. His ranch is called White Oak Pastures. Fascinating book and definitely changed the way I look at meat consumption. I still eat meat but my extended family raises a cow every year so I think its a little but better than the industrial food system currently at work.
Hey, edgelord case against veganism: meat is absolutely murder, but we treat workers poorly enough that literally everything you ever buy is probably murder, including corn. We are drowning in a river of innocent blood, and there are no clean hands. Trying to clean them before we get to shore is absurd.
And it’s corollary: meat is extra murder, because those animals don’t kill and butcher themselves.
‘Other things are bad too’ is not an argument I personally find convincing. Though I absolutely agree with you that we are all partaking in a horrible system where our standard of living is built on mountains of suffering.
Decent arguments. Little bit of what about-isms there. We could get into a whole, long, discussion about how people aren’t treated much better in society, though we have the “freedom” to “choose” between equally terrible options to work for less than we need to survive, to “decide” what essential items we can afford and which we must do without, and to “earn” a living because we are not deserving of a life unless we work to get one.
But IMO, that would be more what about-isms.
This is also very contingent on the definition of what constitutes “murder”. Where the generally accepted definition, according to the Oxford dictionary, is the unlawful killing of one human being by another. Since the animals which are food are not humans, no murder has occurred. This is in line with the legal terms as well, as far as I understand, but legal terms will vary from location to location. I won’t dwell on it too much. The fact is that many people, apparently including yourself, seem to conflate “the intentional act of killing something” with the term “murder”, whether it applies or not, but the dictionary definition of the term is why I started this reply the way I did, indirectly, capitalism, and specifically the corporations that facilitate capitalism, are indirectly responsible for the suffering and death of more than a few humans. I would argue that they’re responsible for a lot of it. Firing people who are otherwise doing acceptable work for reasons unrelated to their position or the work that needs to be done, such as for interpersonal issues or simply to “trim the fat” by reducing labor costs (firing long-term, highly paid workers to replace them with low paid, new workers) is one such example. A nontrivial number of those fired for reasons such as this may fall into depression and commit suicide, and the corporation is directly responsible for the circumstances leading to their death and therefore has committed murder; alternatively, they may terminate someone who has fallen ill, since they cannot do the job sufficiently anymore (does not meet expectations, kind of thing), and due to the illness, and now being unable to financially pay for the help they desperately need, they die. The corporation is again responsible for that death and therefore has committed murder.
I’m not sure that line of reasoning would stand up in court, and bluntly, IANAL, so I don’t care to find out. Obviously there’s more circumstances, I only described two. I’ll let you imagine the rest.
The question of “is killing an animal for food, considered murder” is far more philosophical in nature. It’s certainly a valid consideration, but legally, animals are not humans. Humans are also animals, but not all animals are humans, and certainly, the animals we eat (mainly chickens, cows, pigs, and lambs), are definitely and distinctly, not humans. Therefore the definition of murder, in the context that it is understood under the law, does not apply. Certainly we are, in some manner, whether directly or indirectly, responsible for the death of those animals, but murderers, we are not (unless you’ve actually committed the act of murder).
QED: eating meat is not, and should not be considered to be, in any way, shape, or form, committing, or otherwise endorsing, abeding, or having any role in anything that is, by definition, murder.
The phrasing of that kinda got away from me.
Moving on.
Certainly farmland accidents happen, and in those cases, the people who die, could be considered murdered, by the people who eat the product which they were farming at the time. Certainly that has happened, and will happen. Albeit indirectly, the people who demand the food that the person was farming at the time, could be considered ambiguously an accessory to the murder, at least. I don’t think the court would agree with that line of logic at all, but, it is nevertheless, something that can be considered to be the case in a philosophical way. In those cases, where does the responsibility for that pertains death lay? With the company that employed them to death? With the consumers that demanded the product? Or is it nobody’s fault and simply an accident. The courts, I believe, would either side with blaming the company, or ruling that it was an accident, never the customers fault. Philosophically, everyone is at fault.
As you can see, regardless of whether the product being farmed is grain, corn, or livestock like cattle or chickens (etc), those deaths are technically on all of our hands. Meat cannot be extra murder, unless the meat is human, in which case there’s probably a lot of other crimes happening. It can’t be extra murder because no humans have died in the creation of the meat; at least, no more than with any other product of farming.
Certainly, we, the consumers, are responsible for the deaths/killing, of animals for food (at least those of us who are not vegans), but we can certainly be held to account for the suffering of the animals we consume, when they were raised for the purposes of becoming food.
It’s a small but important distinction. One only humans could make. What does that mean for ethics? That’s going to be a very personal issue. Everyone’s ethics vary slightly. If you consider that the product that is “meat” is akin to “murder” because you believe that murder isn’t just a human on human killing, then it would be highly unethical to partake in such products. That is a personal moral and ethical choice, both to believe that, and resign yourself to never consuming the meat of an animal.
For me, whenever these things come into question, I always consider two things: the legal definitions and guidelines of it, and I attribute the philosophy of “do unto others” (I think everyone knows this one).
In the former, murder is bad, but murder is human vs human, so, no help on this from there. It’s completely legal. In the latter case, I wouldn’t want to be tortured while alive only to be killed for my meat. However, personally, I could not give any fewer fucks about what happens to my body after I’m dead. Eat me, for all I care. So, in that context, the suffering of the animals matters to me. However, eating meat after the fact is irrelevant. Therefore, I give all the shits I can give about the quality of life those animals have, but I could not care less whether they are eaten by humans, other animals, or if they simply decompose, afterwards.
This leads me back to my original reply. I want to see better conditions for these living animals. I feel we should accomplish that through legislation and regulation.
This needs to be in a BestOfLemmy post.