The Ethics of Eating Meat

[Secret Chief]

Yeah, that's junk science there.

I believe not. There's plenty of scientific research to demonstrate a reduction in meat consumption is a healthy choice.

Meat is perfectly healthy to eat

It can be, depending on what it is.

"According to Cancer Research UK, if no one ate processed or red meat in Britain, there would be 8,800 fewer cases of cancer." -
- Yes, bacon really is killing us

Heart disease and cancer are largely genetic as is diabetes and obesity.

Heart disease and some cancers (particularly bowel cancers) are well established as being linked to excessive meat consumption. Obesity comes from consuming more calories than expending calories (long term), irrespective of genes.

Eating fat doesn't make you fat -- it's more likely to make you slim as your body uses that to energize you over longer periods of time.

Eating fat is more likely to make you slim. OK.

Carbs are the real enemy for all the conditions you mentioned... When you consume them your body has to sock them to fat quickly because your blood is overwhelmed by the sugar. I've never weighed less after going heavy meat/fat diet. (I still eat veggies and love them... ) Weigh the same as I did when I was 20 right now and I'm 45.

Obviously personal anecdotes prove nothing but seeing as you started it ( ): I am 60. I have followed a vegetarian diet for 36 years. I have a lifetime's collection of free t-shirts from road races, mostly half marathons. My BMI is 22.

Carbs are not an enemy. They are simply part of our diet, hopefully a healthy and varied one.

it's just not an efficient source of fat

One doesn't need an efficient source of fat. We don't need much daily fat.

And preferably not the wrong sort:

Good Fats, Bad Fats, and Heart Disease

Meat only diet requires you to add organ meat to your meal plan, but is otherwise completely healthy.

That is not the consensus of advice from nutrionists.

"...the diet is extremely restrictive and likely unhealthy in the long term. Plus, no research backs its purported benefits."

- Carnivore Diet Review: Benefits, Downsides, and Sample Menu

You can live either way, but fact remains there are many cases where vegan diets are inadvisable.

Yes, one should always consider personal health circumstances as well as nutritional advice when considering any diet, or dietary changes. A varied, well balanced healthy vegan diet is possible, as is an unhealthy vegan diet, vegetarian diet, omnivorous diet or carnivorous diet.

 

[Secret Chief]

I do think that factory farming is horrible. I've seen plenty of videos of that and don't wish to ever see them again. So I know exactly what you're talking about in terms of the cruelty. I think throwing male chicks in a grinder right after they're born is awful. Personally, I would be in favor of lab grown meat. I would eat it. I hope it becomes feasible to sell on a large scale in the near future.

But I still do don't think the problem is with eating meat itself. After all, we are animals ourselves and far be it from me to think as if we are above nature and have the right to judge one of its mechanisms for survival. To me, the problem is industrialisation. A hunter and a small farmer killing an animal one on one is one thing, but conveyer belt slaughter is another.

Unfortunately a world human population of 7.8 billion (and growing) means that the great majority of meat comes via "industrial slaughterhouses."

 

[Secret Chief]

This appears to be an extremely controversial opinion among botanists, which many in the field have rejected:
Botanists Say Plants Are Not Conscious

While obviously plants are alive, and may have some sensory systems that are analogous to mental ones in some ways, this seems a far cry from consciousness to me.

To be on the safe side though, just eat pebbles.

 

[Secret Chief]

By refraining from doing something unethical I think we can be unethical. Lions kill, so to oppose their extinction supports killing. That's an example.

Lions kill because they are carnivores. They are part of a natural food chain. To oppose their extinction has nothing to do with that. It is based on the fact that it is arrogant human behaviours that have endangered their existence.

Many of our choices are compromises. If one considers an issue important enough, one weighs up the varied considerations and then makes the best decision one feels able to. Obviously, making no change is a choice just as much as making a change.

 

[Brickjectivity]

All killing isn't a matter of ethics. Ethics only become involved when ethical actors become involved, individuals who can reason about what should or shouldn't be done.

Maybe. I'm not sure of that. In accounting of any kind, all sums and all subtractions are included, and there seems to be some ethical accounting that doesn't involve direct manipulation.. If a king makes a terrible law, people die, yet that king may be unaware of its affects. This is how I treat the action of preserving a predator species, even our own.

I wholeheartedly agree that ethical questions are often quite complex and involve a "lesser of two evils" approach. I tend to be an ethical utilitarian, so my approach would ask what action produces least harm. And while that can be a difficult question, I don't think it's an unsolvable one most of the time.

I mostly agree there. I think that my emphasis is that what is ethical changes based upon how close you are to the decision about something. I think a person's logic is skewed, somewhat like space is skewed by gravity or velocity. The whole person stretches or shrinks, and this means their ethical understanding and perception does. The most obvious example is a mother and their child. At times their idea of what is ethical changes to mean "Whatever is good for my child is good," and its because they are close. There are also people who cannot see ethics from someone else's point of view -- at all. Most of us can a little but not all the way.

This strikes me as a rationalization to simply keep doing things that one recognizes are unethical because other things they're doing are also unethical. One has to start somewhere. If you believe you should be doing more to help orphans and strangers, then do more. But that's a separate question.

No, I think rather than a rationalization I'm trying to point out that focusing on what we eat automatically helps us ignore more difficult ethical considerations. Let me get away from this topic to point out the way homosexuals often get persecuted. Why does that happen? It happens because its convenient to be able to feel ethical about something which doesn't apply to ourselves. Its easy for me to feel ethical about eating meat, but its not easy to feel ethical about all the things I'm not doing. Yes, definitely not eating meat could be considered an ethical choice, but its not the most important ethical choice. I'm saying its not that big of a deal considering what I am.

 

[Secret Chief]

If a king makes a terrible law, people die, yet that king may be unaware of its affects. This is how I treat the action of preserving a predator species, even our own.

Predators are a part of the living world. Are you suggesting there could or should be a world without predators?

Yes, definitely not eating meat could be considered an ethical choice, but its not the most important ethical choice. I'm saying its not that big of a deal considering what I am.

If, for you, it is not that important, would anything make it important enough for you to change your diet?

 

[Secret Chief]

I think about and have no problems eating meat.
For those who would say I am unethical for eating meat, their bold empty claim reveals more about them than it does about me.

Why is it an empty claim?

 

[Secret Chief]

Yes, that's another exception. Their cow worship is very odd according to the global norm.

Yes, and the ancient Egyptians were very enlightened for 3,000 years in their veneration of cats.

 

[SalixIncendium]

I see no ethnical problems in eating meat, itself. To me, the ethical issues are around slaughter and humane treatment while alive. I do not find ethical vegan arguments to be persuasive, but the health arguments have a point (we tend to eat way too much meat, particularly in America).

The only time I find it unethical to eat meat is when it's from animals like cats and dogs, which were not domesticated as livestock and have a special bond with humans. That is something I do feel is disgusting and offensive. But I'll let the countries who practice that (mostly China and Vietnam) stop that practice on their own. Other than that, I would not eat reptile or amphibian meat, or insects. It does not seem tasty at all. Snails, either. I also won't eat any animal I've had as a pet, either. I have a basic American diet when it comes to meat - beef, pork, chicken, lamb, turkey and fish.

The reason many switch to vegetarianism and veganism isn't necessarily an ethical problem with eating meat itself. It's exactly because of the inhumane animal husbandry.

As I see it, if one purchases and eats meat from producers with such inhumane practices, one is supporting the industry and thus accepting them.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Predators are a part of the living world. Are you suggesting there could or should be a world without predators?

Yes. That is within human grasp, by the way. We could tweak our genes to produce the 9 missing amino acids and all the vitamins that we need, and then we'd only need energy and minerals to live.

We could the change tastes of our descendants, and meat would stop attracting us. Then humans would live ever after without killing to eat. It still wouldn't take care of our evil impulses, such as our lust for power and tribalism, just as bulls and cows though vegetarians nevertheless are tribal and violent. Rabbits are, deer and other vegetarian mammals that I can think of. These, were they intelligent like us, would have wars and strife as we do. Their diets would not make the difference necessary to elevate them above our species.

If, for you, it is not that important, would anything make it important enough for you to change your diet?

What do I do, then? Caring about what vegetarians think is more important than being a vegetarian. My concern for them matters more than what I eat or whether I eat meat; because they are my fellow humans. I will avoid trying to provoke them and not call them strange. I'll be sympathetic and consider their ideas. I'll admit predation is part of my lower nature, not something to be proud of. I'll try their food and try to find ways to make vegetables taste better.

 

[McBell]

Why is it an empty claim?

It is not merely an empty claim, but a BOLD empty claim.

Eating meat is ethical in my neck of the woods.
Normal even.
It is those who do not eat meat (again, in my neck of the woods) who are the odd ones out.

 

[Left Coast]

It is not merely an empty claim, but a BOLD empty claim.

Eating meat is ethical in my neck of the woods.
Normal even.
It is those who do not eat meat (again, in my neck of the woods) who are the odd ones out.

The question I asked at the start of this thread is not just whether people think eating meat is ethical, but why. What ethical reasoning do you use to arrive at your conclusion? Do you believe mistreatment of animals is unethical?

 

[Secret Chief]

It is not merely an empty claim, but a BOLD empty claim.

Eating meat is ethical in my neck of the woods.
Normal even.
It is those who do not eat meat (again, in my neck of the woods) who are the odd ones out.

Fair enough you consider it normal, ethical and you are in the majority where you live (probably true everywhere). But why is it a bold EMPTY claim?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

The reason many switch to vegetarianism and veganism isn't necessarily an ethical problem with eating meat itself. It's exactly because of the inhumane animal husbandry.

As I see it, if one purchases and eats meat from producers with such inhumane practices, one is supporting the industry and thus accepting them.

Not everyone has much of a choice.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Not everyone has much of a choice.

A choice whom to purchase meat from or a choice of whether or not to purchase meat?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

A choice whom to purchase meat from or a choice of whether or not to purchase meat?

Both. Some people can't buy food at all and must depend on pantries and such.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Both. Some people can't buy food at all and must depend on pantries and such.

I can understand the limitation on from whom to purchase meat, but why would one not have a choice of whether or not to purchase meat?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I can understand the limitation on from whom to purchase meat, but why would one not have a choice of whether or not to purchase meat?

I mentioned one scenario. Also some people have health problems and have to eat meat. My mother, for example, was vegetarian for a while until she developed anemia and her doctor told her to start eating meat again.

 

[Secret Chief]

I mentioned one scenario. Also some people have health problems and have to eat meat. My mother, for example, was vegetarian for a while until she developed anemia and her doctor told her to start eating meat again.

Any diet can of course lead to deficiencies and hence health problems. If someone intends to make a significant change to their diet they would be best advised to ensure they will be getting all the nutrients they need (and nothing to excess). This is certainly possible with a vegetarian diet. Simply cutting out a significant element of one's diet (eg meat) without making suitable nutritional replacements is probably not a good idea.

 

[Vinayaka]

The reason many switch to vegetarianism and veganism isn't necessarily an ethical problem with eating meat itself. It's exactly because of the inhumane animal husbandry.

As I see it, if one purchases and eats meat from producers with such inhumane practices, one is supporting the industry and thus accepting them.

There are many reasons.
- financial ... it is cheaper if you know what you're doing
- environmental ... meat industry is a huge contributor to greenhouse gas
- health ... lots of studies show it's healthier
- religion ... some religious groups insist on it