> Especially when you consider that plants are also organisms, many of which exhibit complex reactions to stimuli, signalling among individuals, memory, etc. I

> Especially when you consider that plants are also organisms, many of which exhibit complex reactions to stimuli, signalling among individuals, memory, etc. Is this an argument for or against eating meat? I have seen some stuff on how plants have some form of "intelligence" (or more accurately as you put it, reactions to stimuli), and I could see how that could be used to justify eating meat as well. I'm being dense here, but hoping to understand your point better. > That's a bit oversimplified, because it implies that the genesis of humans (or their ancestors) eating animals is simply arbitrary, an accident of history. But it's pretty clear that eating animals provided some massive advantages over not doing so, and later domesticating animals for consumption even more so. Yes, eating meat was incredibly important for us to develop both physically and as societies. It would be rather foolish to condemn people for eating meat thousands or even hundreds of years ago. It's just when you are at the point when pretty much everyone (or at least pretty much everyone reading this) has access to relatively cheap quality vegetables, we are at a different point.