It's personal and Political.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

So, I first saw this as just an amusing macro.
Then I got the book in the pic as a xmas gift. I have been working my way through it. It's not a straight-up case for vegetarianism. It is written by a vegetarian--who admits as much. But from my reading of his work the authors point isn't to convert you, but to inform you and let you decide.

Now, I'm not a vegetarian. But I may become one. This book is making me pause and think.

Also I think I should say this early on: what I am discussing generally applies to the "first world". In places where food choices are not as plentiful as in the US or other industrialized and developed nations, perhaps the "choice" to eat an animal is one that is easily made as it's eat the animal or starve. So, forgive me if this doesn't exactly apply to you: I know we have an international crew here, but hear me out, if you would.

(for the sake of this post, I shall use "animals" to mean non-human animals)

We can all agree that animals have feelings, right?
Any of us who have had dogs or cats as pets know that they can feel pain, e.g. when we accidentally step on their tail, they shriek in pain and we acknowledge that. We use pain to teach our pets: if a dog does something he shouldn't we give him a thwack on the nose (not too hard of course, but enough to let him know: "don't do that!")

We imprison Micheal Vick for his dog-fights, right?

So we all agree animals can feel pain. And if you don't like my stated assumption that will not be contested in this post (looking at you, horse lover) you can ignore my post. There will not be a discussion of if animals feel pain here. It is assumed and accepted that they do.

Now, dogs aren't so different from pigs or chickens. Yes, there is a difference between them, but there's no reason to assume that pigs, turkeys, chickens and cattle don't feel pain.

Now, if you don't know, you should know that 95%+ of the meat eaten in the US is factory farmed. Now, factory farms are quite what you might imagine them to be. Gigantic "farms" that operate like a factory. The humane element has been removed and replaced with cold efficiency. If baby pigs aren't of the proper size, they will be picked up by their hind legs and have their heads smacked into the concrete floor and then tossed down a chute waiting for the truck that collects all the many pigs killed this way.

The horrors of factory farming are nearly too long to list. Not only do they morally mutilate those who must work in such factory farms, but they also cause significant health risks to humans. Factory farmed animals are fed antibiotics before they are sick--because the "farmers" (more appropriate might be: "factory owners") realize the conditions that their animals live in are so atrocious that they are *expecting* them to get sick.

Then there's the environmental damages done due to the billions of pounds of shit these animals produce. Now, usually shit can be useful as manure--right? But this shit is loaded with all sorts of crap (like antibiotics) and is created in such a quantity that it is not so great for the planet.

Then there's the fact that to produce all the meat we eat, we must feed the animals--and there are starving children who would very much like the food we give to our farmed animals. And yet, we don't. We give it to Bessie so we can have a nice big burger later.

So, I am here asking for help. Tell me, how may I order my next bacon cheeseburger without lamenting the utterly cruel treatment that my burger was built from? The expected death and suffering of factory farmed animals is documented and proven. There's an annual % of the animals *expected* to die at the farm, in transport, and an expected % of them who will not be stunned properly before being killed and an expected % of them will be improperly killed and thus suffer longer than needed. These expected percentages are such because the goal of factory farms is to make money: not to produce animal meat that comes from animals that were treated humanly. We treat our animals with no humanity--nor humanely. We speed up the process that animals are raised in by genetically mutating them. Turkeys on factory farms are *incapable* of reproducing on their own. The insanity of it all is just too much.

So yes, help me. I love my bacon cheeseburgers. They taste AMAZING.
But how can I ever order another one?

Is it as easy as:


And again: in places where meat is a needed part of the diet to fend off starvation, this doesn't apply. But in the US and Europe where factory farming is the predominant method of getting animal meat--can we really allow the cruelty to animals to continue? When we buy food at the supermarket for our BBQ aren't we really farming by proxy and thus supporting the inhumane treatment of our factory farmed animals? Do we need laws to prevent the inhumane treatment of animals? or should we all just be vegetarians and reduce the demand for meat so that the industry doesn't need to fit 5000 chickens in a space that could humanely fit 100?

Comments

[jlc20thmaine.livejournal.com]

Can plants feel pain? Do they have feelings? Can they communicate? What happens when we find that the answers to these questions are yes? What do we eat then?

If your issue is with factory farming then buy local. It helps the local economy, better quality meats, better for the environment, doesn't contain any added drugs, and some local farms even barter.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

As a resident of NYC, there's few local farms for me to get meat from if I want a burger.

And plants seem to lack a CNS which, from my understanding, is necessary to feel pain.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Also: Do you eat meat? Do you see a problem with the factory farming system?

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

You're right to distinguish those who eat meat to survive, I'd suggest it's right to further distinguish between those who buy meat that has been humanely raised, although here YMMV and you need to try to find ways to verify what's meant by the claim and those who hunt vs. those who buy meat from the supermarket that's come from typical meat factories.

My rule of thumb on all this is the Kantian ethic extended to non-human animals "act so as to treat [animals] always as ends in themselves, never as mere means". This doesn't necessarily rule out ever killing an animal for food, it does rule out blithely disregarding the way in which the animal was treated or any sort of avoidable cruelty and possibly many/most farming techniques.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

Can plants feel pain? Do they have feelings? Can they communicate? What happens when we find that the answers to these questions are yes? What do we eat then?

I don't think anyone the OP or most standard vegetarians would argue that it would be wrong to eat meat if that were the only way to survive. So, in an answer to your question, if plants could feel pain and we needed to eat them to survive, there would be no moral objection to actually eating them.

I never understand, though, why people pose this possibility as some kind of reductio ad absurdum of vegetarianism. First, there's no evidence that vegetables do feel pain as they lack nervous systems, FFS, and secondly, vegetarianism isn't based on the principle that it is always wrong in every possible circumstance to cause pain.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Plants do not have a central nervous system so your question will allways be no.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Well, given that the vast majority of the meat in the US is produced by factory farming anyone who wanted to eat only humanely treated animals would have a lot of work cut out for them. The market for really-and-truly humanely treated animals is small (labels like "free-range" or "organic" mean virtually nothing)

Do you eat meat?

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Is one hour too much bother? I used to live in Jersey, and there was no lack of Amish markets where the meat is still produced in a more old-fashioned sense. And there are several in the Princeton/Trenton area. I know the train routes are still pretty convenient to that area from the city.

As for bacon burgers, once you buy the meat, make it yourself. They're not hard or very time consuming to make. You can make a burger better than any you'll get from a chain restaurant, and at least as good as you'll get at a higher class one.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

But how do you know? huh huh huh?

I love some good skepticism, but sometimes, it's too far.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

It's a circle of life. We eat meat, cancer eats us.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I don't know if going to another state is really buying local. Even if it's NYC to NJ.

And I don't own a car, or have a license to drive one. So that makes the trip something of a hassle, yes.

The Amish would probably be one group of people that I wouldn't mind getting animal meat from.

As I have asked others: do you eat meat?
Do you get it from the Amish markets?

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

anyone who wanted to eat only humanely treated animals would have a lot of work cut out for them.

Absolutely, they would, the food system in North America is pretty hellish for animals.

Do you eat meat?

I was a strict vegetarian for 18 years, I didn't and don't think eating meat was/is always wrong but as you note trying to eat humanely was just too much trouble, I've recently started eating some seafood in an effort to see if a diet richer in protein helps me train to run.

I can't stop myself...

[russj.livejournal.com]

Join PWEETA today!

(http://www.ooze.com/pweeta/)

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Does cancer speed up our growth so that we can be slaughtered in 39 days instead of 80? Does cancer do this knowing that this speeding up is going to cause all sorts of medical problems for the 39 days we do live for?

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

No, cancer is just broken DNA replicating itself and propagating it's cell line without contact inhibition or cell junctions.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Seafood, though I didn't mention it in my post, isn't all that much better.

To get tuna or salmon (most commonly consumed fish in US) there are usually 100+ other fish that are caught in the fishers nets who died and get thrown back into the sea dead.

But slightly better given that the fish aren't always prevented from living their normal lives before being caught, killed and eaten.

And aren't there other ways to get protein? Even lots of it?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I think I've read some folks are keeping chickens in the city for fresh eggs, but not for meat. I am not sure if that's legal to do, but it certainly makes a lot of economic and green-sense to do that. But the clean-up has to be mess-- chickens shit like crazy.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Right. So you understand why your comment isn't particularly useful in dealing with the issue, right?

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

What issue? The fact that you mercilessly eat meat regardless of your moral qualms, and then run around and castigate others for your own guilt? I'm here to give you forgiveness and the good news of Jesus Christ, our personal Lord and Savior.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

You are so totally useless.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Why consider a central nervous system to be a necessary condition? It's certainly integral to our experience of pain, but I think to generalize universally from that shows a lack of imagination.

Sci-fi is full of artificial intelligences which lack anything that we'd recognize as a nervous system, but whose internal information-states still bear something analogous to ours. Can we say for sure that something similar is not at work within a plant? We already know that some plants communicate with their neighbours using pheromones. The question is not about their anatomical similarity to us, but about the presence or absence of higher-order experience them - whatever physical form that may take.

All that aside, mijopo's objections above are all quite true. None of this implies that it's unacceptable to eat plants; the point is just that it's problematic to go around affirming or denying creatures' rights based on how much or little they resemble us.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

When I said 100+ other fish, I meant, 100+ other fish types

They may get thousands and thousands of fish caught in their nets who they weren't looking for.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

You could try a little harder.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I know.