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talkpolitics
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?
(no subject)
Date: 16/2/11 01:13 (UTC)We just don't like the way it makes us feel. And that's what we call morality.
Ironic Icon is Ironic
Date: 16/2/11 01:16 (UTC)You can say whatever you like, but torture is immoral, prima facie.
Re: Ironic Icon is Ironic
Date: 16/2/11 01:27 (UTC)Oh I agree, but your assertion that morality is real doesn't mean anything.
It's a lot like saying left is real.
Re: Ironic Icon is Ironic
Date: 16/2/11 01:30 (UTC)Morality is real, and it's not entirely relativistic and at the core of it is the moral fact (that's right, I said it!) that torture is wrong.
Re: Ironic Icon is Ironic
Date: 16/2/11 01:40 (UTC)I agree that torture is wrong, but ask yourself for a moment, WHY is torture wrong (i.e. contrary to morality)? Preferably without circularly arguing that torture is wrong because its immoral and immoral because it is wrong.
Re: Ironic Icon is Ironic
Date: 16/2/11 02:18 (UTC)This means there are lots of qualifiers and lots of situational factors--but I start with pain being bad and go from there.
It's bad to cause pain--unless it is to prevent greater pain.
Again, very vague--but I believe it to be the moral guidework with which I ought live my life.
Morality is the code of conduct which we ought follow--to torture another without cause (torturing a terrorist when a nuclear bomb is about go off in NYC (or some variation) is always the hypothetical justification for torture, right?) is to break that code of conduct.
If your asking for the groundwork of "why be moral" that's different, and I don't have an answer.
But morality is about collective living and empathy and self-preservation. If it's true what they say, and factory farming is a greater contributer to global warming than cars are....well, I need to be moral to save myself as well as others.
Re: Ironic Icon is Ironic
Date: 16/2/11 04:01 (UTC)Re: Ironic Icon is Ironic
Date: 16/2/11 04:12 (UTC)Re: Ironic Icon is Ironic
Date: 16/2/11 13:31 (UTC)Inherently good or bad?
Re: Ironic Icon is Ironic
Date: 18/2/11 22:37 (UTC)I think maybe the problem is in terminology: you can have subjective facts, which depend upon the specific mind perceiving them, or objective ones, which are true irrespective of the perceiver, but you can also have intersubjective facts, which are true according to the aggregation of many subjective facts.
One example of intersubjective facts are the meanings of words. Any good linguist will tell you that the dictionary's job is not to produce word definitions, it is to document the definitions which already exist in popular usage. In this sense, the word "left" has a clear, definite meaning, which doesn't depend upon the person interpreting it.
Likewise, there are some unifying moral facts which are true by virtue of being sufficiently popular, and by virtue of being consistent with the collective self-interest of the subjective entities in question.
I suspect that enders_shadow is trying to talk about intersubjectivity, not objectivity.
Re: Ironic Icon is Ironic
Date: 20/2/11 01:53 (UTC)I was not suggesting that morality depends upon it being sufficiently popular. It is objectively wrong to kill someone because and only because they are left handed.
I do not care if every single person on the planet holds the opposite view, they are all wrong. No amount of personal, subjective views on it can alter the objective nature of it--being left handed isn't morally relevant and to kill someone for a morally irrelevant reason is immoral.
Re: Ironic Icon is Ironic
Date: 16/2/11 17:05 (UTC)Re: Ironic Icon is Ironic
Date: 17/2/11 08:40 (UTC)I know I cannot prove it.
It remains my belief.
Re: Ironic Icon is Ironic
Date: 17/2/11 09:36 (UTC)Re: Ironic Icon is Ironic
Date: 16/2/11 13:06 (UTC)That depends. Go down to the Planck scale and we'll talk again.
(no subject)
Date: 16/2/11 02:40 (UTC)There is nothing inherently wrong .
(no subject)
Date: 16/2/11 02:54 (UTC)The key word here is inherently.
(no subject)
Date: 16/2/11 13:08 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 16/2/11 15:57 (UTC)(edited)