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“I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm'd off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a g

“I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm'd off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion consider'd, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc'd some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I din'd upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.” — Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography

ornornor 3y ago
I’d say the difference is that we have the possibility to not eat them and still sustain ourselves well. Fishes don’t have canned beans and tofu factories, it’s either eat other fish or die, there is no choice. Unlike for humans, where eating animals is a choice not an obligation.
- Pamar 3y ago
  This is basically the position of Plutarch on the matter of eating meat: http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/plutarch01.htm http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/plutarch01.htm ... humans have the option to choose differently, carnivores cannot. In a sense, exercising the option makes us "more human" (or less animal) than defaulting to a meat diet.

ornornor 3y ago

I’d say the difference is that we have the possibility to not eat them and still sustain ourselves well. Fishes don’t have canned beans and tofu factories, it’s either eat other fish or die, there is no choice. Unlike for humans, where eating animals is a choice not an obligation.

Pamar 3y ago
This is basically the position of Plutarch on the matter of eating meat: http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/plutarch01.htm http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/plutarch01.htm ... humans have the option to choose differently, carnivores cannot. In a sense, exercising the option makes us "more human" (or less animal) than defaulting to a meat diet.