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Other like-minded people are some of the former vegetarian/vegan run butcher shops [0]. Basic premise is they only wanted to eat meat if it was from somewhere w
by dr_orpheus 4y ago
Other like-minded people are some of the former vegetarian/vegan run butcher shops [0]. Basic premise is they only wanted to eat meat if it was from somewhere with animal well-being and conservationism as a focus, and they came to the conclusion that the best way to do that was to source the meat themselves.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/dining/butchers-meat-vegetarian-vegan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/dining/butchers-meat-vege...
- sweetheart 4y ago> Basic premise is they only wanted to eat meat if it was from somewhere with animal well-being and conservationism as a focus When meat is being served, you know animal welfare is not being considered. One cannot claim to value the welfare of a being before killing it prematurely and unnecessarily. That is a simple fact. EDIT: I'd love if someone could reply and provide an analogous situation where we can safely say that we value someone's wellbeing before causing them fatal harm, outside of mercy killings.
- ch4s3 4y agoI think this is a matter of having different values. One can easily hold animal life at a lower value than their own dietary preferences and cultural practices, while also wanting to minimize the animal suffering involved. In fact some religions command particular practices around slaughter that are intended to be a quick as possible. You could come up with plenty of analogies. Self defense is an easy first place to look. You can hold the value the health and wellbeing of all other people as equal to your own right up until the point that they directly threaten you with fatal harm.
- sweetheart 4y ago> Self defense is an easy first place to look. There are some extremely relevant and notable moral differences between someone defending their own life from a threat, and raising a lamb in a cage so small that it cannot turn around, forcing it to drink it's own urine in a desperate attempt to recycle the little iron it has in it's system (gotta keep the meat anemic and tender!), before stunning it with a bolt gun and slitting it's throat. All because you enjoy the taste. It is not a case of having different values. It is a case of being socialized from a young age to disregard the wellbeing of certain animals. The values are fundamentally the same.
- ch4s3 4y agoYou’re arguing against a stew man. I responded to a prompt about cases where one might make an argument about not causing suffering up until the point of taking lethal action with respect to people. In fact I was making a case for considering animal welfare as a meat eater.
- sweetheart 4y agoHow exactly did I mis characterize your argument? I’ve reread it about 10 times and cannot understand how you’re advocating for animal welfare. You say that people can easily value animals lives less than their tastebuds, but still want to minimize suffering (which is wrong, because minimizing suffering would mean not killing anyone). Then you make the case that self defense could be a similar example of taking well-being into consideration while still causing fatal harm. I make the point that self defense isn’t remotely like the act of killing animals for food, and you said I’m building a strawman. What exactly is being lost in translation?
- fargle 4y agowho "raises a lamb in a cage so small that it cannot turn around, forcing it to drink it's own urine?" I can find no legitimate evidence that this is even a thing. It seems a mixture of peta propaganda about various other animals but not lambs. I can't find a single example of "forced to drink it's own urine ... [for iron]". raising an animal for meat isn't pretty but it's never in fact what this comment alleges.
- sweetheart 4y agohttps://youtu.be/zmu0-1qj-vo https://youtu.be/zmu0-1qj-vo You’re right. I meant to type veal. Here you go!
- fargle 4y agobut again, I can find nowhere where animals are "forced to drink it's own urine in a desperate attempt to recycle the little iron it has in it's system" so lambs and calves are not the same, and drinking urine is not a thing. it's possible you might be getting overly upset about stuff you don't completely understand. for a more balanced and professional take on veal and eating meat: https://youtu.be/bMGIAZDqYYs https://youtu.be/bMGIAZDqYYs
- ribosometronome 4y agoPlenty of things are a matter of having different values. Eating meat, going to church, drinking alcohol, owning slaves, stealing from each other, killing, making idols of things in heaven. Some of these, despite being technically allowed by religious customs (like how the Quran sets better conditions for slaves than what they generally saw at the time, and even encourages their release, but still allows for the practice) are bad despite the religious institution having previously been an improvement. And the others, like making idols, doesn't really matter if you're outside the religion.
- ch4s3 4y agoI’m merely using religious values as an example for why someone might eat meat but also be concerned with animal welfare, and that there exist worldviews where the two are compatible. For myself I’m content in asserting that animals are not human and there’s no reason to afford them the same rights as humans. If I assume that I have the same faculties for reason but need to come to a conclusion behind a veil of ignorance, I would still be ok with a world in which people eat some meat.
- retrac 4y agoThe same moral paradox exists elsewhere. Consider prisons and capital punishment. Can a person believe in capital punishment while simultaneously believing condemned prisoners still have certain rights and that prisons should be humane places, even on death row? Even countries that have executions do not usually sanction the physical torture of prisoners condemned to death, in large part because such cruelty is repugnant and unnecessary. (Some may say capital punishment would count as repugnant and unnecessary too, of course. But the point stands.)
- Dove 4y agoThe thing is, the death of the cow is necessary. It is necessary for the life of the cow. The alternative is not for the cow to go on living -- feeding and protecting and caring for cows costs money! -- the alternative is for the cow to have never been born. The death of the cow and its sale as meat is how it pays its keep. It is why the cow has a life at all. Is that a horrible deal? Not even all humans think so. You might hear, for example, a soldier say that his job is to die for his country. Mind you, he doesn't sign up to die as a certainty -- it's probabilistic, and there is a moral difference there. But plenty have said, at the end of the day, that their death is their job. And been okay with that. Now, humans, when they agree to die, like to die for big, noble causes. Something bigger than themselves. Religion! Politics! Or even something as small as a family. It has sometimes seemed tragic to me to consider the breeding animal: she will have generation after generation of children, and they will all die young. This would indeed be an unbearable situation for a human -- but for an animal? They don't crave the sort of impact on history that humans do. They don't think about the future. They don't think about death. They are creatures of the present and of comfort. So it seems to me that swapping a human in for a cow or a rabbit or a chicken in a "What would you die for?" question is unrealistically anthropomorphic. The attachment animals have for their young is not the same as it is for humans -- it's not even the same from animal to animal. Crows are one way, chimpanzees another; cows one way, fish another. You have to get to know the the animal to know. To care for a human's well-being does mean you guarantee the human has a legacy, a place in history -- even if it is as small as guaranteeing their children have children. To care for a cow's... I'm really not convinced cows care about that. Could you ask a cow, "Would you rather have a stressful life in the wild, or a peaceful life on a ranch, given that the latter might be shorter?" I don't think a cow could even process that question. I think it wants to live comfortably today; I'm not convinced it has any concept of tomorrow at all. But it could live longer? It could, but someone has to pay for it. The cow on its own effort, paying its own way in the wild, lives a short and hard life. And the cow at a ranch is still paying its own way -- just in the form of meat -- and it gets a lot for it, between temperature controlled environments and food and treats and medical care. The cow as a pet, could live in that same human supported environment for a long time, and perhaps pays its way in love. Or as a religious symbol or something. That does happen. But there are a limited number of such jobs. Humans only need so many pet cows. So does every cow deserve to be a pet? I think this is really the crux of the philosophical difference: do you have to do everything for others that you can? I myself think that to answer that question in the affirmative is naive and hellish -- that questions of obligation and love and compassion are a lot more complex than that. But that is beyond the scope of this comment. But in a nutshell -- I think humans giving a cow a charmed 20 year life is a tremendous gift. I also think humans giving a cow a charmed two year life is a tremendous gift. I don't think the possibility of the first negates the goodness of the second. I, myself, think there is absolutely nothing wrong with cows on ranches living lives of relative happiness and abundance, and in the end paying their way in meat. I think that's fair. I think the cows are happy. I think they're certainly better off than if the humans weren't involved. I think it's completely obvious that the ranchers care for them, perhaps even love them, and I see nothing wrong or contradictory about the entire situation. And to be terribly blunt -- I think being horrified at the situation has much more to do with the human than it does with the cow. Vegans have a reputation as obnoxiously performatively moral. Trying too hard to look better than others, the perspective having more to do with self-interest than with compassion. I don't know if that's true in every case, but I do know that people who are closest to actual barnyard animals don't have a problem with the situation. I can relate. I am a city girl, and I used to worry about whether slaughtering chickens was fair to them -- until I met one. At which point I immediately said, "Oh, I get it -- you're food." What am I saying? I think veganism motivated by compassion for animals would naturally spring from spending time with animals. And maybe in some cases it does. But in my experience, it's the opposite: people who spend time around animals usually have my reaction. Veganism seems to come, on a population level, from being far away from animals and narcississtically concerned with your own sin and culpability. I think, as a rule, it is about the human, not about the animal. Maybe not everyone will feel that way. But I do think a lot of the vegan litany of concerns about animal cruelty fade pretty hard when you talk to a farmer about why things are that way. And I do think a lot of the issues turn on an anthropormiphism that isn't realistic, and that goes away when you observe the animals going through their lives. Does that cover all of the issues and differences? Probably not, but I think it covers the most driving ones. It goes the other way, too. People who are close to animal death -- either because they raise animals or because they hunt them -- even if they are comfortable with eating meat, tend to regard that animal life and sacrifice as a sacred thing. City folks don't care one way or another about throwing out meat, whereas country folks might opine, "it is a sin to waste". I guess what I'm trying to say with that is that there's more than one way of expressing the sentiment that life is sacred. A lot of the vegan objection to farm life is that farms are cruel. And to be sure, some are. I think you could find common cause with a lot of non-vegans, if you wanted to improve conditions either through law or education or certification or some other means (and indeed, skipping all of that and going straight to not-very-effective self denial is part of what makes it look silly and human-centric to me). But I also think this is beside the issue, as farms are not necessarily cruel, and some very plainly aren't cruel at all. Like, I buy my beef from this place (https://www.flyingbbar.com/ https://www.flyingbbar.com/), and I've met the cows. They're happy. I've talked to the ranchers. They clearly care. I don't think it is fair to say that those who eat meat necessarily don't regard animal welfare -- I think it is just that they see it and express it differently than you do. To me, well-cared-for farm animals are a lovely thing, I find the fact that they are given life to be a blessing and a goodness in the world, and I don't find the death in the bargain to be unfair or cruel -- on the contrary, I think an animal's contributing to human thriving is a much nobler meaning in life than almost any animal could hope for. To me, the perspective that says it is better not to live than to live and die seems very hollow, and the perspective that says all human energy is obligated to go into making animals pets seems backwards and devoid of any sense of proportion. I think we have better things to do, and that animals helping us do those things is ennobling for everyone. Anyway. Your mileage may vary. I'm sure it does. But perhaps that helps provide some perspective.
- horsawlarway 4y agoWithout defining welfare, you aren't really making a point. I'd argue the following: Imagine that tomorrow a new species pops out, they are technologically superior to humans in every way - they are generally more capable, and they completely dominate any attempt at rebellion we put up. Afterwards - they offer us a choice between two options: Option 1: They eliminate us entirely. We compete with resources with them, and they don't like it. They will hunt us down with not with malice - but something much worse: complete apathy. They will kill us on sight, destroy our environment, mindlessly slaughter us as they form the planet in the shape of their liking. Option 2: They happen to find us quite tasty. They will still do the above, but they will also set aside preserves where they keep a large number of us fit and fed and generally allow us to do as we please. We can have children, hold ceremonies and holidays, continue to exist and live. The downside? Every now and then they will harvest a fair number of us to eat - because they find us quite tasty. Which option would you take? Because frankly - I might well choose options number 2. Further - I'd suggest quite strongly that this is the set of options humans have currently given to basically every large animal that our habitat overlaps with (and that's most of them). We are rapidly exterminating basically every species that competes for resources with us. If we stop eating cows - there aren't going to be many cows left. Full stop. Ex: Between the 1500s and the late 1800s, we dropped the total number of wild bison in the US from >30million to ~400. 4 fucking hundred. Today we're "preserving" them, so the number is back to around 500,000. Of those 500,000 - only about 11,000 are "wild" in any sense of the word, and most exist in national parks.
- sweetheart 4y agoYou are more than capable of figuring out why the scenario you laid out has very little, if anything, to do with how we treat animals. I have responded the comment you just wrote _literally_ hundreds of times. I am so tired of it. You can figure it out, you seem smart.
- horsawlarway 4y agoSo respond here - since I seem so smart - and lets have the discussion. Otherwise you're dicking off because you don't want to engage with the content. I engaged at your request, and this is the best you can do... run away while claiming you're correct? Hardly a compelling response. Again - my firm belief is that if we weren't raising them as livestock - many of them would be borderline extinct. So I've defined welfare as "they are alive, and here, and my children can interact with them." Hopefully - we can continue to move those livestock into better conditions as we become more wealthy as a society. You're defining it as "how dare we make something bleed". I think your definition is childish.
- myshpa 4y ago"Ethical butchers" is an oxymoron.