One thing that is puzzling me for some time is why vegetarians think it's more moral/nice/whatever to eat plants and not animals If you acknowledge tha

One thing that is puzzling me for some time is why vegetarians think it's more moral/nice/whatever to eat plants and not animals If you acknowledge that animals are sentient (and it's not hard if you've had pets), then it's interesting to look at the meat on your plate and them compare it to the animal that's your friend that's lying down next to you. If you're eating pig there's a good chance that the animal you're eating had potential to be even smarter than the dog. That's weird. That we choose some animals to slaughter for what is really a minor convenience (being able to eat meat) yet we make equivalent animals a close friend. It's similar to this idea that we can at the same time be good neighbours yet be happily gassing/bombing/napalming populations a little further off just because we don't know them. A problem with meat in the modern world is that it's all packaged when you get it and this makes the relationship impersonal. It's good to ask before every meal involving meat, "if I had to make the decision to kill this in order to eat it, would I do it?" It becomes a sliding scale thing and you pick a position. Does it ruin my day if I step on an ant on the way to work in the morning? Do I write poems to the death of flies? No. At the same time, I've cut the majority of meat out of my diet. It's a human fabrication. True, but you're papering over something. I doubt you live a life comparable to the guy in _A Clockwork Orange_. I doubt that you walk away from restaurants when you're in a foreign city and have zero change of being caught. Your own conduct is evidence that you agree that not all fabrications are equivalent. Obviously you have principles yourself. You can break the cycle you criticise of ethos being pack oriented by choosing to live by a value system that extends beyond the human pack. try to do as much good as you possibly can The circumstances in which meat is created is a horror. Cutting down on the amount of meat you eat is a fast way to reduce your footprint. I think pigs, chickens, lamb and cage eggs are the worst, and have found no impact on my life by eliminating these altogether apart from inadvertently eating things with those eggs in.