4 ms·

Most don't agree with because for many it's part of their identity, it's what they grew up eating every day with their parents. To find their way of life being

Most don't agree with because for many it's part of their identity, it's what they grew up eating every day with their parents. To find their way of life being classified as unethical is jarring to say the least, so they put up a barrier to doing so. I do not find fault in that attitude either, to be human is to have emotion, and to feel a sense of belonging. For someone who grew up on barbecue that's hard to reconcile. However, a rigorous impartial analysis always categories eating meat as not ideal on both moral and ethical grounds. It probably has higher consensus among philosophers than climate change does with climate scientists. The irony is that I doubt all philosophers are vegetarian/vegan, so they themselves are probably the biggest hypocrites (or they have built up some system of ethics where being unethical on this is okay). I come from a country where even if you're not vegetarian, your dose of meat is a few pieces of chicken once a week. It was very straightforward for me to choose vegetarianism and even then I struggled with it. I have nothing but respect for someone from rural Texas who chooses to be vegetarian though; that is just infinitely harder.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mrfusion 6y ago
Just from a diet standpoint. If I want to be somewhat low carb it’s a struggle to get full without meat.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  That's convenience, which probably isn't the thing that decides the ethics.
- dvtrn 6y ago
  When you say struggle: is this a struggle finding alternatives in your local food markets or struggle committing to making the dietary changes?
  - mrfusion 6y ago
    Maybe part ignorance, just not having ideas.
    - dvtrn 6y ago
      That’s fair. One of the hardest parts is being conscious and cognizant when shopping for food what we’re buying-ways to do this could include actively reading nutrition tables on food packaging and through this you start to get an idea of what certain foods do for you and you begin shopping with a purpose versus shopping to make the fridge look full. Strategically Replacing meat with certain veggies and legumes for example can get you that protein and carb kick but also are a great source of fiber while being easier to digest. Depending on your personal diet choices you might find a bag of beans not only costs less but can get you the same amount of carbs and proteins per serving across multiple servings than a single serving cut of meat. Some beans for your thoughts ;)
      - asdff 6y ago
        If I lean too heavily on beans I end up with devastating effects once I pass the meal due to all that fiber. Any supplement that can counter this?
        dvtrn 6y ago
        I'm no true dietician, but curious: do you have issues normally with other fiber laden foods?
dilap 6y ago
Here's a question: Is it immoral for lions to eat zebras? Here's another question: Imagine the entire Earth is actually a factory farm for aliens. Every time someone dies, their body is actually secretly used for alien food. Would you want Earth to cease to exist? Or perhaps a closer analogy, imagine super-powerful aliens take over Earth and terraform Mars and Venus, which they use as human farms. Maybe 30 billion humans live on Earth, Mars, and Venus, leading full lives with everything provided to them that a human wants, but killed at 18 years of age. Alien human-rights activists wish to stop the humans from breeding, and let the population fall to several thousand. They will devote the planets to instead growing Alien Corn. Do you want this to happen?
- gizmodo59 6y ago
  I don’t think lions eating zebras is a good comparison. We have evolved and flourished with agriculture and so we don’t have to consume meat unless the agricultural produce has gone way down. I also think the general argument is how animals are treated with so many horrific videos out there which are just torture in my opinion and not a clean kill. If someone is doing a clean kill without the animal suffering and making sure it’s living in good conditions, that’s a right step in many ways.
  - jojobas 6y ago
    We can't survive without Vitamin B in various forms, which is not found in plants at all (some fermented soy products do contain some, but it's incorrect to say we evolved to not eat meat).
- est31 6y ago
  Have you seen how an industrial farm looks from the inside? I'm a meat eater and I love the taste and stuff, but you need to admit that many animals didn't have a great life at all. So beyond meat solves a real problem. Some folks want all meat production to be banned, I disagree. There are forms of farming which are better for animals, make their lives worth living. They are just more expensive regarding resources as well as money, so can't scale as well as industrial meat production. In the ideal world we've done away with industrial meat production but still keep a limited number of animals for meat production, real meat still being available but most people don't buy it for everyday consumption because it's expensive.
imgabe 6y ago
> Most don't agree with because for many it's part of their identity, it's what they grew up eating every day with their parents. To find their way of life being classified as unethical is jarring to say the least, so they put up a barrier to doing so. When you make up a reason for someone to believe something, sure it's easy to argue against it. Many people balk at finding eating meat unethical because it simply isn't. There is no consistent system of ethics that finds it unethical. Deciding that some forms of life are "conscious" and should be protected and other forms of life are not is completely arbitrary. Living things consume other living things to survive. Surviving is not unethical, or if it is your system of ethics is self-defeating and will lead to your own extinction, which makes it useless.
- ramraj07 6y ago
  Can you cite a single acceptable literary citation that says eating meat is not unethical? What's acceptable? Probably not a blog post, ideally a work by an academic philosopher. Something in between can be murky for sure.
  - imgabe 6y ago
    If you're going to go by whatever "academic philosophers"[1] say instead of thinking for yourself, I really don't know what to tell you. [1] By and large, over-privileged people who've never done anything useful in their lives. It's easy to preach to people about what they should eat when you've always had plenty of food.
    - ramraj07 6y ago
      Oh I think for myself first. Also I'll show myself out given its clear what type of person I'm talking to.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mrfusion 6y ago

Just from a diet standpoint. If I want to be somewhat low carb it’s a struggle to get full without meat.

maxerickson 6y ago
That's convenience, which probably isn't the thing that decides the ethics.
dvtrn 6y ago
When you say struggle: is this a struggle finding alternatives in your local food markets or struggle committing to making the dietary changes?
- mrfusion 6y ago
  Maybe part ignorance, just not having ideas.
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    That’s fair. One of the hardest parts is being conscious and cognizant when shopping for food what we’re buying-ways to do this could include actively reading nutrition tables on food packaging and through this you start to get an idea of what certain foods do for you and you begin shopping with a purpose versus shopping to make the fridge look full. Strategically Replacing meat with certain veggies and legumes for example can get you that protein and carb kick but also are a great source of fiber while being easier to digest. Depending on your personal diet choices you might find a bag of beans not only costs less but can get you the same amount of carbs and proteins per serving across multiple servings than a single serving cut of meat. Some beans for your thoughts ;)
    - asdff 6y ago
      If I lean too heavily on beans I end up with devastating effects once I pass the meal due to all that fiber. Any supplement that can counter this?
      - dvtrn 6y ago
        I'm no true dietician, but curious: do you have issues normally with other fiber laden foods?

dilap 6y ago

Here's a question: Is it immoral for lions to eat zebras? Here's another question: Imagine the entire Earth is actually a factory farm for aliens. Every time someone dies, their body is actually secretly used for alien food. Would you want Earth to cease to exist? Or perhaps a closer analogy, imagine super-powerful aliens take over Earth and terraform Mars and Venus, which they use as human farms. Maybe 30 billion humans live on Earth, Mars, and Venus, leading full lives with everything provided to them that a human wants, but killed at 18 years of age. Alien human-rights activists wish to stop the humans from breeding, and let the population fall to several thousand. They will devote the planets to instead growing Alien Corn. Do you want this to happen?

gizmodo59 6y ago
I don’t think lions eating zebras is a good comparison. We have evolved and flourished with agriculture and so we don’t have to consume meat unless the agricultural produce has gone way down. I also think the general argument is how animals are treated with so many horrific videos out there which are just torture in my opinion and not a clean kill. If someone is doing a clean kill without the animal suffering and making sure it’s living in good conditions, that’s a right step in many ways.
- jojobas 6y ago
  We can't survive without Vitamin B in various forms, which is not found in plants at all (some fermented soy products do contain some, but it's incorrect to say we evolved to not eat meat).
est31 6y ago
Have you seen how an industrial farm looks from the inside? I'm a meat eater and I love the taste and stuff, but you need to admit that many animals didn't have a great life at all. So beyond meat solves a real problem. Some folks want all meat production to be banned, I disagree. There are forms of farming which are better for animals, make their lives worth living. They are just more expensive regarding resources as well as money, so can't scale as well as industrial meat production. In the ideal world we've done away with industrial meat production but still keep a limited number of animals for meat production, real meat still being available but most people don't buy it for everyday consumption because it's expensive.

imgabe 6y ago

> Most don't agree with because for many it's part of their identity, it's what they grew up eating every day with their parents. To find their way of life being classified as unethical is jarring to say the least, so they put up a barrier to doing so. When you make up a reason for someone to believe something, sure it's easy to argue against it. Many people balk at finding eating meat unethical because it simply isn't. There is no consistent system of ethics that finds it unethical. Deciding that some forms of life are "conscious" and should be protected and other forms of life are not is completely arbitrary. Living things consume other living things to survive. Surviving is not unethical, or if it is your system of ethics is self-defeating and will lead to your own extinction, which makes it useless.

ramraj07 6y ago
Can you cite a single acceptable literary citation that says eating meat is not unethical? What's acceptable? Probably not a blog post, ideally a work by an academic philosopher. Something in between can be murky for sure.
- imgabe 6y ago
  If you're going to go by whatever "academic philosophers"[1] say instead of thinking for yourself, I really don't know what to tell you. [1] By and large, over-privileged people who've never done anything useful in their lives. It's easy to preach to people about what they should eat when you've always had plenty of food.
  - ramraj07 6y ago
    Oh I think for myself first. Also I'll show myself out given its clear what type of person I'm talking to.