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I think its hard to morally justify consuming animal products in this day and age, under a capitalist system where animal welfare is not recognised. For people

• JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  The moral pitch for abstinence from meat in general, or meat one hasn’t killed themselves, is one of the most unsuccessful animal rights campaigns in history. People like meat. Those same people are moving into cities. The population is not going to hunt. Moral arguments are fun to make, but without a plan they’re just bloviation. Pushing people to prioritise humane legislation, advocating a switch from intelligent animals and related methods, while less emotionally satisfying, are altogether more effective.
  • thwraway29 9y ago
    There are many coherent, good arguments against animal product consumption which have nothing to do with morality. Environmental cost of production and subsequent effect on health are two popular arguments for abandoning animal foods. There are also the poor workers in slaughterhouses and surrounding communities to be concerned about, e.g.: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/20/north-carolina-hog-industry-pig-farms https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/20/north-caroli...
  • edejong 9y ago
    Yet here in the Netherlands I see many coworkers and friends moving partly or totally away from meat due to moral concerns. Others choose to pay higher prices for livestock raised in better conditions.
    • distances 9y ago
      Same in Finland. Lots of people who have no intention of going full vegetarian have nonetheless added meat-free dishes and locally, ethically produced meat for their diets.
  • white-flame 9y ago
    Another problem with such moral pitches is that at no place can a clear line be drawn between life that is okay to simply raise & kill for feed, and life that isn't. There's all sorts of attempts to morally distinguish between eating furry animals that have big glassy eyes and birth cute little babies, and other less anthropomorphically-empathetic animals such as birds, fish, or insects. That certainly may be a preference, but it's not a scrutable predicate with any shared sense of objectivity. Any time someone draws any specific moral line based on life or intelligence, everybody else raises an eyebrow about the legitimacy of that line. Even taking it all the way down, plants have communities, negotiate resource exchange, have fear & pain responses, and are basically just as alive as anything else. They just eat differently and move slower. And yet we eat their live young (care for some sprouts in your salad?)
    • placebo 9y ago
      The fact that a clear line doesn't exist is used too many times as an excuse to continue doing what is obviously wrong. Logically, you could take it the other way to the extreme and say that since there is no clear line, then there isn't an obvious reason not to raise certain humans for their meat either. The fact that life is not black and white but a lot of grey levels does not imply that there is no such thing as black or white. If one's moral compass and integrity are still intact, then even knowing the constraints, one would usually try to make the grey a little brighter.
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      • white-flame 9y ago
        How can you both agree that a clear line doesn't exist, while in the same sentence saying "obviously wrong"? If you mean obvious to your specific sensibilities that's fine; but if you mean global consensus or objectively, then that's self-contradictory. Plenty of people genuinely don't care about the treatment of food animals, or even of humans outside their perceived tribe. It's just as "obvious" and consistent within those entire groups that there's no concern there. "Moral compass and integrity" are less about intact or unintact, and more about "similar to mine". This is why pure moral arguments don't change anything, because people don't share morals. Now, some do have broader subscription, like not murdering people, and there you can defer to the shared moral. But others (like animal rights) are observably divided, so rallying on violation of local moralisms has no meaning to those outside that moral locality. It's exactly the same as religions yelling at non-adherents for acting in violation to the religion's tenets.
  • Luc 9y ago
    Simply striving to reduce (not eliminate) meat consumption seems to work quite well. Smaller portions, one veggie day per week, or eating oysters and mussels (not capable of feeling pain). And eat less chicken. A lot of them need to suffer to supply the same amount of meat as a cow for example.
  • molloy 9y ago
    Moral arguments for veganism aren't made because they're more emotionally satisfying than arguments for animal welfarism, that comes across as pretty condescending to suggest. A lot of vegans don't support welfarist approaches. More effective in what metric/s? Do you have sources to back that claim?
    • nxc18 9y ago
      The entire argument he was responding to defined the problem as a moral one. I think the staggering amount of meat products consumed daily speaks for itself - animal rights isn’t exactly a new concept.
  • argentenergy 9y ago
    I know it might be hard for you to understand, but some people gasp are able to abstain from eating meat even though they enjoy it. Maybe it's not just due to the moral argument, but a lot of times it is a large player. For myself, I have gone plant based for my health first and foremost, which is a common thread I find among fellow vegans. It is certainly still important to make morality important. I think your assumption that people can't overcome their desires for a greater good leaves a cavernous amount of room for people to surprise you. I'm not sure that's such a bad thing, either.
  • theyregreat 9y ago
    Wrong. It’s you who is rationalizing not living morally-consistently as yet another BS excuse. Most people are just too selfish, weak and exhibit too much cognitive dissonance to do anything but rationalize their unsustainable behavior because it costs them immediately nothing. In that case, meat needs to be heavily taxed like cigarettes and alcohol because too many people can’t or won’t give up something that is threatening the future of the planet, creates lakes of shit and is the opposite of humane. People treat their dogs and cats better than other feeling animals whom they don’t need to kill. I suggest you watch videos on YouTube by the SHARK to see what’s really going on at CAFOs and other facilities. The planet can’t take it (methane and CO2) and it directly causes “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” suffering and pain proportional to purchases. I used to eat piles of meat but have not for about a decade because I became educated about the multifaceted reality of the climate, environmental, ecological and animal welfare aspects.
• ogre_magi 9y ago
  I have no trouble morally justifying it.
  • naasking 9y ago
    Well, maybe no trouble justifying it, but I'd hazard it's likely not a morally sound argument.
• kiba 9y ago
  I don't morally justify it, no matter how barbaric it is. For me, meat just taste too good.
  • thwraway29 9y ago
    That's not a justification, though, as there is a victim involved. Also, it is not the meat that tastes good, but rather cooking with plant-based seasonings, spices and additions which make a decaying carcass actually palatable. Given that it's possible to emulate the same nutritional profiles and even taste of meat with entirely non-animal derived ingredients, the choice here is pretty clear.
  • tdb7893 9y ago
    I love hot dogs, tacos, and pepperoni pizza too much to be vegetarian but what I did was just cut down my meat intake. I eat meat for no more than 3 meals a week
  • megous 9y ago
    Animals certainly don't care about your inner mental processes. They can only experience consequences of your actions. So your first sentence seems quite meaningless.
    • zzalpha 9y ago
      TBH, I'm not sure what you're trying to say, here. The parent's statement was simple: they don't care about the "barbarism" of eating meat. I think it's taken as a given that they therefore don't much care about what animals experience as the consequence of their actions. So I'm not sure how your comment is relevant or what you meant to achieve by making it. Could you clarify?
      • megous 9y ago
        I didn't understand the point of the first part of the comment: > I don't morally justify it, no matter how barbaric it is. It wouldn't matter either way even if he tried to morally justify it. Like with people eating foie gras. They justify it by saying that it's their right to eat what they want. Meanwhile poor geese can't care less, doesn't have any concept of morality, just suffers either way, because the result is the same. People just like eating their ill livers. And it doesn't matter if they justify it or not.
• oh_sigh 9y ago
  Opting out simply isn't good enough, because you may just end up translating animal suffering into human suffering if you just eat vegetarian products without knowing how it is sourced. What is more moral, eating a steak from a cow that was killed for its meat by decently paid, respected workers - or - eating a chocolate bar made with palm oil whose products were farmed using slave and child labor?
  • distances 9y ago
    This is not a logical line of thought. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as
    • oh_sigh 9y ago
      That is not at all what my line of thought was. My point was that you can't just cut meat out of your diet and think that you are behaving more moral than before. If you increase, say, your chocolate, or palm oil, tea, etc consumption, then you may be increasing human suffering compared to when you were an omnivore.
      • distances 9y ago
        I don't see this making any sense at all. Why would eating less meat result in more palm oil consumption? For me this sounds like a complete nonsense justification for not reducing the amount of meat in one's diet.
        • squeaky-clean 9y ago
          Because you still need some kind of food to replace that meat with? The point being that not all foods are ethically made. It's not as easy as meat == always the only immoral food choice and not-meat == always good. By reducing meat consumption, if you replace it with other non ethically sourced foods, are yo really helping? And if those new foods take advantage of human workers and slavery, is that better than an animal's suffering? They aren't saying "Well plants can also be bad, so just stick with meat." It's "if you switch blindly without any research, you may actually ending causing more suffering for people and animals in the world than if you had stuck with meat." Edit since I can't reply to posts below mine. It's not just about calories. I really think this sentence was overlooked from the parent post way up: "What is more moral, eating a steak from a cow that was killed for its meat by decently paid, respected workers - or - eating a chocolate bar made with palm oil whose products were farmed using slave and child labor?" Research conditions of cacao workers if you think this example is a joke or being made up.
• whipoodle 9y ago
  Nobody wants to hear it. They just don't.