With regards to the argument that eating meat is wrong for ethical reasons:

Why is killing wrong?

Why is making things suffer wrong?

Ironically:

Killing, raping, incest and so forth are all "natural" - yet we don't practice those things.

Quote: Original post by superpig
With regards to the argument that eating meat is wrong for ethical reasons:

Why is killing wrong?

Why is making things suffer wrong?

I hope you are asking this from the philosophical perspective, because otherwise someone should warn your neighbors.

I've never studied ethics. I guess its quite hard to measure and compare suffering and joy and I agree saying whats right and whats wrong is many times quite hard, subjective or maybe even impossible to decide.

But as I understand the words "ethics" "wrong" "suffer", the dilemma here is quite simple. Saying "rape is unethical" is pretty much derived from the definition of the words. Asking why its unethical to rape for me is like asking why a triangle must have 3 corners. I'm sure a philosopher would scream and pull his hair on this weak answer, but I don't care much for the philosophy of it. If you don't think rape is unethical then there is no point discussing it farther because either you have brain malfunction or we can't agree on the words definition. And my point is rape is just a small difference from what animals suffer for your sandwich.

Anyone have any thoughts on the idea that millions of animals every year are Alive because they are a food source? Because we harvest grains grown in a highly efficient manner to feed them, and insure they stay alive long enough to produce usable food?

Is a short and productive life worse than no life at all?

Quote: Original post by Iftah

Quote: Original post by superpig
With regards to the argument that eating meat is wrong for ethical reasons:

Why is killing wrong?

Why is making things suffer wrong?

I hope you are asking this from the philosophical perspective, because otherwise someone should warn your neighbors.

I've never studied ethics. I guess its quite hard to measure and compare suffering and joy and I agree saying whats right and whats wrong is many times quite hard, subjective or maybe even impossible to decide.

But as I understand the words "ethics" "wrong" "suffer", the dilemma here is quite simple. Saying "rape is unethical" is pretty much derived from the definition of the words. Asking why its unethical to rape for me is like asking why a triangle must have 3 corners. I'm sure a philosopher would scream and pull his hair on this weak answer, but I don't care much for the philosophy of it. If you don't think rape is unethical then there is no point discussing it farther because either you have brain malfunction or we can't agree on the words definition. And my point is rape is just a small difference from what animals suffer for your sandwich.

The best way to understand why the questions were asked is to try to give a genuine answer, not the tautological non-answer you gave here.

Either you will give a definitive answer or you won't. Nobody before you has succeeded. Every ethical philosophy invented by mankind has met some form of opposition by quite a number of people (including people who agree with the conclusion that killing and the causing of suffering are wrong). So it's extremely likely you'll fail. And when you fail you'll wonder why you were so confident before, and then you'll realize why the questions were asked.

The subject of ethical philosophy exists because of this phenomenon.

Quote: Original post by nilkn

Quote: Original post by Iftah

Quote: Original post by superpig
With regards to the argument that eating meat is wrong for ethical reasons:

Why is killing wrong?

Why is making things suffer wrong?

I hope you are asking this from the philosophical perspective, because otherwise someone should warn your neighbors.

I've never studied ethics. I guess its quite hard to measure and compare suffering and joy and I agree saying whats right and whats wrong is many times quite hard, subjective or maybe even impossible to decide.

But as I understand the words "ethics" "wrong" "suffer", the dilemma here is quite simple. Saying "rape is unethical" is pretty much derived from the definition of the words. Asking why its unethical to rape for me is like asking why a triangle must have 3 corners. I'm sure a philosopher would scream and pull his hair on this weak answer, but I don't care much for the philosophy of it. If you don't think rape is unethical then there is no point discussing it farther because either you have brain malfunction or we can't agree on the words definition. And my point is rape is just a small difference from what animals suffer for your sandwich.

The best way to understand why the questions were asked is to try to give a genuine answer, not the tautological non-answer you gave here.

Either you will give a definitive answer or you won't. Nobody before you has succeeded. Every ethical philosophy invented by mankind has met some form of opposition by quite a number of people. So it's extremely likely you'll fail. And when you fail you'll wonder why you were so confident before, and then you'll realize why the questions were asked.

I don't doubt these questions can produce dozens of books and articles and interesting discussions, but if you agree that sadism is wrong then why must we discuss exactly why its wrong?
I tried to challenge you into thinking why is meat eating so different from sadism and I got answered by a non-answer question "why is sadism wrong". I think we all agree that it is wrong and so it can be considered an axiom for the proof that followed and examining it deeper is a waste of time and even irrelevant. However I will try to give you a genuine answer and it is written at the end of this post.

I know comparing the meat industry to human rape is very offending in several levels (to rape victims, to meat eaters, even friends of meat eaters) and I am sorry if I offended any of you. While I would never be friends with a rapist, I have many meat eating friends.
I was trying to convey my line of thought, and I was trying to "shock" you into thinking about it deeper, but eventually this sense of wrongness is personal, and I can't force it on you.

Still I would like challenge you to answer why do you consider sadism wrong but consider meat industry not wrong?

The difference that I find between the two and the reason I have meat eating friends is that a rapist knows and everyone around him knows it is evil, but most meat eaters are ignorant of their evil and so in a sense are still ethical. I am sure I am indirectly attached to many evil deeds (children made my shoes? underpaid farmer grown my coffee?).

Now to my genuine answer. I suppose killing is wrong and making things suffer is wrong because of several elements, the major two are:
1) evolution pre-programmed us into feeling compassion, having a sense of wrongness, etc... those are very beneficial to society based animals that we are.
2) social pressure and education (from parents, school, peers) affect our sense of wrongness.

If you studied some game-theory you know the population of "nice" players is unstable and a small percent of "evil" players is much more stable, which explains why after all our evolution there are still some "evil" children who beat up smaller children for fun. Combined with the 2nd element (bad parenting, evil friends, etc...) this brings us to the mix of good and bad people we have on Earth.
So killing and making things suffer is wrong because... we are conditioned by evolution and education to define it as wrong. We have no such conditioning for meat eating. Does that make meat eating less wrong? not at all.

You see, above what evolution pre-programmed us and above education and peer pressure comes our intelligence and free thought. Evolution pre-programmed us to sense what is up and what is down. Does that mean there is no objective meaning to the word "up"? Does that mean we are not allowed to imagine a universe with other "up" dimensions (where potential energy is reduced in two dimensions)? These imagined "up" will have no intuitive feeling to it for us because we are pre-programmed to understand only one up direction.
In the same way evolution gave us intuitive feeling for several "wrongs" but can we not think hard and examine the concept and find new wrongs? These new wrongs may not have that intuitive sense of wrong, and it will take some thinking to notice these wrongs, but its still just as wrong.

woo I genuinely answered why we feel that killing is wrong without describing what exactly wrong means :)

Quote: Original post by Iftah
I hope you are asking this from the philosophical perspective, because otherwise someone should warn your neighbors.

When I question something, I don't necessarily disagree with it, I just want to understand it better.

Quote: Saying "rape is unethical" is pretty much derived from the definition of the words.

Who defined the word? I'm not sure I like the idea that the authors of the dictionary get to decide for the human race what's right and what's wrong. Or maybe it was society who defined it? They say that rape is defined as unethical because they think that rape is defined as unethical because they derived that from the definition of rape.

It's circular - you can see that, right?

Quote: if you agree that sadism is wrong then why must we discuss exactly why its wrong?

Meat eating is different from sadism because with sadism, the suffering caused is the ends in itself - the pleasure comes from the fact that the being suffers. Meat eating entails suffering (or at least death), but it's a means to an end, it's not something from which pleasure is derived. People make jokes like "many bovines died to bring us this beef formation," but really, they're not eating meat because it required the suffering and death of a being - they're eating meat because it's delicious.

Maybe by "sadism" you mean the act of "deliberately causing a being to suffer," regardless of pleasure derived. When a criminal is arrested and imprisoned, they suffer. When I refuse to give somebody a product in my shop because they don't have the money to pay for it, they suffer. Are these wrong?

Quote:
I suppose killing is wrong and making things suffer is wrong because of several elements, the major two are:
1) evolution pre-programmed us into feeling compassion, having a sense of wrongness, etc... those are very beneficial to society based animals that we are.

Did evolution pre-program us with information on how to feel about slavery?

Quote: 2) social pressure and education (from parents, school, peers) affect our sense of wrongness.

This is how we learn that things are wrong, yes. Social pressure and education can teach us lots of things that are incorrect, though. How do we know that "thou shalt not kill" and "thou shalt not cause a being to suffer" aren't incorrect?

Quote:
So killing and making things suffer is wrong because... we are conditioned by evolution and education to define it as wrong. We have no such conditioning for meat eating. Does that make meat eating less wrong? not at all.

Again, this is an explanation for why we as individuals don't recognise that meat eating is wrong, but it's not an explanation for whether we should recognise it.

Quote:
In the same way evolution gave us intuitive feeling for several "wrongs" but can we not think hard and examine the concept and find new wrongs?

Of course. We can also think hard and examine the concept and remove old wrongs, too.

I think we agree on most (all?) of the points, that's why I didn't want to spend time discussing it. I don't pretend to know how to define an objective "wrong" or that it is even possible.
What I did/do try to say is that we all agree sadism is wrong (I mean sadist = someone causing suffering of others for his pleasure). We know this from deep down feelings. I say meat eating is just as wrong even though you may not feel that deep down feeling. You know high up its very much the same, but it takes some thinking and does not come naturally (for most people).

A natural born sadist may not have that same feeling of wrongness as we do when he is hurting others, but we expect him to control himself, to refrain from harming. Sadly I think most of us are natural born sadists in regards to farm animals. We don't have an intuitive feeling of wrongness there. But just as I expect a sadist to refrain from kicking dogs for fun I expect myself to refrain from doing a very similar thing.

The difference that a sadist is taking pleasure from the suffering itself and that meat eating takes pleasure indirectly doesn't make much difference IMHO because frankly its not very indirect at all.

Quote: Original post by Iftah
Sadly I think most of us are natural born sadists in regards to farm animals. We don't have an intuitive feeling of wrongness there. But just as I expect a sadist to refrain from kicking dogs for fun I expect myself to refrain from doing a very similar thing.

The difference that a sadist is taking pleasure from the suffering itself and that meat eating takes pleasure indirectly doesn't make much difference IMHO because frankly its not very indirect at all.

So basically what you're saying is that any animal that eats another animal is a sadist because they inflict a small amount of suffering to the victim while in the process of killing it? Cats, Spiders, and lions (as examples) are all unethical/sadists because they eat mice, flies, and gazelle (respectively, as examples)? Are they wrong for killing another animal in order to survive?
Personally I would say absolutely not, its part of the food chain/circle of life.

Quote: Original post by geo2004

Quote: Original post by Iftah
Sadly I think most of us are natural born sadists in regards to farm animals. We don't have an intuitive feeling of wrongness there. But just as I expect a sadist to refrain from kicking dogs for fun I expect myself to refrain from doing a very similar thing.

The difference that a sadist is taking pleasure from the suffering itself and that meat eating takes pleasure indirectly doesn't make much difference IMHO because frankly its not very indirect at all.

So basically what you're saying is that any animal that eats another animal is a sadist because they inflict a small amount of suffering to the victim while in the process of killing it? Cats, Spiders, and lions (as examples) are all unethical/sadists because they eat mice, flies, and gazelle (respectively, as examples)? Are they wrong for killing another animal in order to survive?
Personally I would say absolutely not, its part of the food chain/circle of life.

You'd be surprised but most farm animals suffer very much for years and years, not just a small amount before death.
Read back a few posts and see I said that unlike most vegetarians, for me its not so much the eating part its the suffering while the animal is alive that bugs me. I say "meat eating" in the posts above because for most people it is connected - if you eat meat you don't care for the animal pain while its alive.
Egg laying chickens (at least here in Israel) suffer perhaps the most of the farm animals. From birth to death they suffer a wide range of tortures so I think egg eating from such source is immoral even though the egg was never alive and didn't cause the chicken to die.

Obviously lions have no moral dilemma about eating a zebra. They need to eat in order to live but thats not why they "think its ethical". The truth is lions haven't evolved the sense of wrongness we did, nor do they have ability to think about ethics. Their simple understanding of wrong is at most stealing a female from another male. Looking at them and saying their ethical actions justify ours is silly. Not to mentions us humans do much worse to animals than a quick kill the lion does.

Unlike lions, you do have a sense of wrongness for animal torture. You do have the ability to think about what is right and what is wrong. You can survive easily without eating meat.