I'll be completely honest; I didn't enjoy watching this for a number of reasons. As part of my efforts to improve my health I have been talking to doctors and have been recommended to look at...
I'll be completely honest; I didn't enjoy watching this for a number of reasons.
As part of my efforts to improve my health I have been talking to doctors and have been recommended to look at Knives Over Forks - the website, that is - as a resource to find more veg-based dishes. It actually is a surprisingly good resource; I found some really interesting things I want to try out.
This documentary is actually a little old, and it certainly isn't that well produced. Also have to give this a content warning: this film features a lot of video of surgeries on human beings. It was really gross.
I'm sharing this because this is perhaps the single best argument I've ever seen advocating for a vegan lifestyle. But I'm probably doing it a disservice because I'm using the "V" word - the documentary takes great pains to avoid using the terms vegan or even vegetarianism. It minimizes arguments based on morality and spends most of it's time focusing on health effects. I thought it would be interesting for people like me who have spent a long time refusing to acknowledge arguments against consuming animal products. It really provides a tsunami of reasons why it would benefit you to switch to a whole foods plant based diet - weather or not you call it vegan.
If anything, I figured it would give us some interesting conversations.
philosophically there are parts of vegan/vegetarianism that I respect and admire. but in the end i arrived to the following conclusion: welcome to planet earth, where organisms eat each other....
philosophically there are parts of vegan/vegetarianism that I respect and admire. but in the end i arrived to the following conclusion: welcome to planet earth, where organisms eat each other.
there's nothing wrong with eating meat. what's wrong are modern practices like factory farming and cafos. i would say that, if you are fortune to be able to, you should be buying the highest quality, locally produced, ethically raised meat you can source. And probably be mindful about the quantity of meat you eat as well.
I’m at the point where I say “I only eat meat socially”. It’s easy for me to pick vegetarian options for myself, but I will not make any noise when offered a barbecue because I value the social...
I’m at the point where I say “I only eat meat socially”. It’s easy for me to pick vegetarian options for myself, but I will not make any noise when offered a barbecue because I value the social aspect too much. But I’m very glad if someone provides vegetarian options at their cook out.
The way I see it, the issue is we eat way too much meat. Not that we should never ever have any. Once a week with friends is a reasonable cadence in my opinion.
I love that my protein tends to come with tons of fiber, costs less, and causes less carbon emissions.
The little pudding cups at work use beef gelatin instead of corn starch or pectin. Why?? And don't get me started on McNuggets. By the time they're being formed into shape you may as well have...
I don't really think a lot of these products need to have any of this
The little pudding cups at work use beef gelatin instead of corn starch or pectin. Why??
And don't get me started on McNuggets. By the time they're being formed into shape you may as well have started with tofu. The meat paste needs to be re-saturated with chicken stock because it's bleached and void of any original chicken flavor.
Do you have a reputable source on that McNuggets factoid? Rumors like these are a pet peeve of mine so I'd appreciate you backing that up if it's real. I honestly can't imagine why they would need...
Do you have a reputable source on that McNuggets factoid?
Rumors like these are a pet peeve of mine so I'd appreciate you backing that up if it's real. I honestly can't imagine why they would need to bleach the chicken when they start as white meat to begin with.
"Those bastards lied to me" - looks like that's not true. Sadly the best source for how McNuggets are made on YouTube is a video that was sponsored by McDonalds. But I can't imagine they'd make...
"Those bastards lied to me" - looks like that's not true. Sadly the best source for how McNuggets are made on YouTube is a video that was sponsored by McDonalds. But I can't imagine they'd make major omissions.
I've been a vegetarian for almost a decade now. When people ask why, I tell them that basically any reason is good enough, whether it's for the environment, health, or animal welfare. But to be...
I've been a vegetarian for almost a decade now. When people ask why, I tell them that basically any reason is good enough, whether it's for the environment, health, or animal welfare. But to be honest, at this point I just find meat kinda disgusting. I've been a vegetarian for long enough that I don't even process it as food anymore; rather I view it as something to be avoided, like spoiled milk or rotten eggs.
Yet when a friend or a colleague or whoever embraces a plant-based diet, they usually explain that they're doing it for the environment or for their health; the moral angle seems to have fallen by the wayside. I find this rather perplexing, since the moral implications of meat seem the most obvious: with few exceptions, animals don't like being eaten!
So I pose this question to you, Tilderinos: environmental issues aside, why do you think it is (or isn't) morally permissible to eat meat?
To be completely honest, I think that moral arguments were always the worst ways to argue for or against any particular issue. The specifics of morality is not as universal as we'd like to think....
To be completely honest, I think that moral arguments were always the worst ways to argue for or against any particular issue. The specifics of morality is not as universal as we'd like to think. Moral arguements only work if both parties carry the same morals; you can't push your morals on to other people and in some ways I feel it's unethical to do so (see also: theocrats attempting to write law based on their religious beliefs). Beyond that telling someone to make a massive change in their personal philosophy will always result in a lot of tedious philosophical conversations, and a lot of people are just tired of hearing them happen over and over again. That's actually the main reason why I'm not directly answering your question.
Like I mentioned in my opening comment, the main reason why I was interested in this film is because it doesn't bother with moral/ethical reasons to stop eating meat. It focuses entirely on what most people tend to think is most important - themselves - and gives them a multitude of reasons to make the switch that are more personally relatable and therefore are more likely to listen to.
And even then, watching this didn't make me stop eating animal products. I've been consuming animal products for my entire life and like the film mentions, they can often act like drugs. It's going to be a long transition until I can remove meat and other animal products from my life. This is a massive lifestyle change. It's so massive that honestly I find it hard to believe that it's a realistic goal.
Thanks for responding! To be perfectly honest, though, I was a little disappointed in your response -- it feels like a cop-out. I would let it slide, but I strongly disagree with the thrust of...
Thanks for responding! To be perfectly honest, though, I was a little disappointed in your response -- it feels like a cop-out. I would let it slide, but I strongly disagree with the thrust of your argument:
I think that moral arguments were always the worst ways to argue for or against any particular issue.
Moral arguments abound! If you disagree with systematic racism or transphobia or the like, you are appealing to morality. I mean, sure, you don't need to get into the weeds of the categorical imperative to understand that police brutality is immoral. But if someone stupidly asserted that Tyre Nichols's murder was just, how else would you respond except with a moral argument (murder is wrong you contemptible ignoramus)?
I'm going to skip ahead for a minute.
you can't push your morals on to other people and in some ways I feel it's unethical to do so (see also: theocrats attempting to write law based on their religious beliefs).
I think you should reconsider this statement in context of the BLM movement or, for that matter, any other protest. What is a protest if not someone "pushing their morals on to other people"? I assume you, like me, generally support protests, so long as you actually support the reason they're protesting.
As for theocrats: the issue with arguing with religious people is that you have to argue on their terms. They have already accepted that their holy scripture is correct, so if you want to convince them against a position they support, you have to structure your argument within their religious framework. Obviously this feels pointless restrictive if you aren't a member of their religion.
But I'm not religious, so I'm guessing we live in the same moral universe.
The specifics of morality is not as universal as we'd like to think.
On the other hand, belief in moral relativism is not universal, either! I will avoid dragging you down into a thorny, philosophical debate, but for context I would describe myself as a relativist with respect to meta-ethics (i.e., we make moral judgements in a relative way) yet am optimistic that a universal moral framework exists, even if we haven't found it yet.
But even if we were to accept moral relativism outright, there are certain activities that are almost universally considered ethical or unethical. For example, shooting people at random would be condemned by nearly everybody, since there are seldom moral frameworks in which randomly slaying people is considered just. Even within moral relativism, we can still talk about what is moral; we can even discuss what most people should consider moral. Moral relativism, after all, is not the same thing as moral nihilism.
At any rate, we have deviated way too far from the topic at hand (meat) and accidentally strayed into a tedious philosophical discussion. Sorry about that.
So let's talk about meat. I don't think it's a hopelessly complicated moral question. Rather, I think it's just something people take for granted because there's so little social pushback (and it's not like the animals can argue for themselves). To be honest, that's what I find so bothersome about your answer. I'm asking people to think critically about the ethical implications of eating meat, and you're giving people permission to not think about it at all.
If you think the original question is too pie-in-the-sky, consider the nearly isomorphic question: why is morally permissible to eat animals, excepting human animals? I think we already agree it's wrong to slaughter humans for food, so what makes animals different?
It's going to be a long transition until I can remove meat and other animal products from my life. This is a massive lifestyle change. It's so massive that honestly I find it hard to believe that it's a realistic goal.
I'm actually more sympathetic to this position than you might think. I've written a couple essays worth of responses by now, so surely someone is thinking, Well, if you care so much about the animals, why aren't you a vegan? And my answer is the same as yours: it's hard! Personally I don't think being a vegetarian is very difficult at all; you can get 90% of the way there if by avoiding obvious meat products (the other 10% being sneaky meat like gelatin). That said, I understand that vegetarianism is harder for some people than others, especially if they live in a meat-heavy culture.
Most moral decisions require balancing doing good to others versus doing good to yourself. I would never advocate that someone eschew all of Earth's pleasures to live a maximally ethical life. But if you don't even consider the Other when making a moral decision, how can you possibly expect to be ethical?
I don't take offense that you take my response as a cop-out. To be fair, it was; I have no interest in talking about the morality of meat or animal welfare because I have seen so much of it it...
I don't take offense that you take my response as a cop-out. To be fair, it was; I have no interest in talking about the morality of meat or animal welfare because I have seen so much of it it makes me reflexively yawn when I see it coming. And like I pointed out earlier I don't think it's the best way to accomplish the objective of getting people to stop consuming meat.
The difference between morality and ethics is supposed to be that morality is an innate property of mankind. Likewise, there is supposed to be a set of morals that are objectively true for everyone. I seriously disagree with them. People who reject moral relativism seem to live in a completely different world from the one I live in. I know I'm skipping a lot here but I want to make this story short; I don't think innate morals are real and I think that the thing that people call morals are ethics tied with emotions that are usually reinforced by society. We do have records of cultures that engage in cannibalism, after all.
You are right that moral arguments are commonplace when it comes to human rights issues. And while, yes, I do think they are making the right kinds of arguments, the fact that these issues keep going on and on in spite of how important people seem to think they are are also a marker of how ineffective they are. And that's in a best-case scenario, where the people you're trying to humanize are already human! Imagine how much harder it is for a person to accept that when you're talking about animals.
Like I mentioned before, morals are also usually reinforced by society. The other thing that is stopping people from reconsidering eating meat is that meat is part of their culture. By telling people to stop eating meat you are telling them to rebel against their society, something that could potentially get you ostracized. They're not so common nowadays, but there are some people who can't stand the idea that someone would want to live a lifestyle that doesn't include meat.
Lest we all forget, the whole reason why this topic exists is because this lifestyle was presented to me in a way where morality didn't have anything to do with it. Most critically, I was never made to feel like I was judged for making the decisions that brought me to that point. I remember a time on this site where we kept talking about how we could get bigots to change their song by being nice to them but I was always skeptical about that idea until it happened to me. And it did so specifically by avoiding moral talking points in general, keeping emotions tame, and sidestepping questions of society by making the focus on individual health rather than social norms.
Actually, we're pretty close to agreement here. I think we form moral judgements in essentially the same manner we form social/norm judgements. If we save up for an upscale restaurant and our...
The difference between morality and ethics is supposed to be that morality is an innate property of mankind. Likewise, there is supposed to be a set of morals that are objectively true for everyone. I seriously disagree with them. People who reject moral relativism seem to live in a completely different world from the one I live in. I know I'm skipping a lot here but I want to make this story short; I don't think innate morals are real and I think that the thing that people call morals are ethics tied with emotions that are usually reinforced by society. We do have records of cultures that engage in cannibalism, after all.
[ ... ]
Like I mentioned before, morals are also usually reinforced by society. The other thing that is stopping people from reconsidering eating meat is that meat is part of their culture. By telling people to stop eating meat you are telling them to rebel against their society, something that could potentially get you ostracized. They're not so common nowadays, but there are some people who can't stand the idea that someone would want to live a lifestyle that doesn't include meat.
Actually, we're pretty close to agreement here. I think we form moral judgements in essentially the same manner we form social/norm judgements. If we save up for an upscale restaurant and our experience is tarnished by someone at the next table loudly talking on the phone the whole evening, we might despise them as much as if they'd pissed on the table.
But the key difference -- and I realize I'm really splitting hairs -- is that I believe only the casting of moral judgements is reenforced by society, independently from whether a moral judgement is actually correct. Of course, you might object that this is just semantics, and that the veneer between moral judgements and morals isn't just paper-thin but non-existent. Fair point. But I am optimistic that some moral frameworks are objectively better than others, and perhaps that there even exists a universally best framework; otherwise how could we claim with moral authority that the Holocaust or slavery were wrong?
I have a really hard time understanding the moral argument. Animals don't like being eaten? Neither do many of the plants we eat. Like animals, we bred them to become something easier to farm, yet...
I have a really hard time understanding the moral argument. Animals don't like being eaten? Neither do many of the plants we eat. Like animals, we bred them to become something easier to farm, yet they still have natural defenses.
Vegans make the least moral sense to me. They're so black-and-white in their thinking they scorn honey, or the idea that eggs and milk could be gotten humanely. You can't be a "real vegan" and have a beehive and a few backyard chickens if you eat their products.
I think owning pets is probably the strangest contradiction of "vegan for the animals" vegans. The backyard chicken is okay as a pet but suddenly deeply immoral if you take its eggs. If you think that "animals don't want to be eaten" is a good enough reason not to eat them, then sure "animals don't want to be domesticated and kept as pets" is a good enough reason to not do either of those two things. Just like the chickens we have bred to have breast meat so large they can hardly walk, we have bred dogs to be so pathologically needy of human company they experience anxiety and distress if left alone for a few hours. Once you domesticate an animal they "enjoy" being a pet, their bodies and lives exist solely for human benefit. And if you don't have a truly domesticated pet, like insects or birds, these pets will escape from you if given the chance.
(Tangent but cats occupy such a weird category in this. They arguably domesticated themselves but unless you keep them at home / in bad kitty prison, they will murder every bird and rodent they get their sociopathic little paws on)
Thanks for replying in my stead. /u/meme, you seem to be a bit confused about what veganism actually is, so I'd like to provide some clarification. At its core, veganism is simply the idea one...
Thanks for replying in my stead.
/u/meme, you seem to be a bit confused about what veganism actually is, so I'd like to provide some clarification. At its core, veganism is simply the idea one should strive to minimize the suffering of animals. Since human beings are also animals, vegans will generally also be concerned about human welfare, too. Thus, despite internet caricatures, if a vegan were forced to choose between saving a child and a chick from a burning building, they're going to pick the child -- and this would be perfectly consistent with their guiding principle, since humans experience suffering more greatly than chickens.
This philosophy also explains the lack of concern about plants: plants lack a nervous system and (as far as we know) a capacity for suffering. I think this point is pretty obvious? If your neighbor weed-wacked the hedges, you'd call them a good neighbor; if they weed-wacked a rabbit, you call them a psychopath.
I think of veganism as a philosophy, while vegetarianism is just a description. In fact, they don't even perfectly overlap. Technically an oyster isn't vegetarian -- it is an animal, after all -- but plenty of vegans eat oysters. Why? Because an oyster, lacking a central nervous system, is basically a naturally-occuring form of lab-grown meat (albeit a rather briny one). Indeed, the vast majority of oysters are farm-raised, making the analogy more complete.
Of course, not all vegans agree with that position, just as there's also disagreement over honey. We can only speculate on the internal life of a bee or an oyster, so some people prefer to be extra cautious.
That said, if a vegan has a pet chicken, and that chicken happens to lay an egg, I think most vegans would be fine with eating it.
I would say consuming meat is morally permissible as it is, in general, a necessity. The ability to healthily subsist entirely on plants as an advanced, developing society is predicated on what we...
I would say consuming meat is morally permissible as it is, in general, a necessity. The ability to healthily subsist entirely on plants as an advanced, developing society is predicated on what we did as omnivores. I'll cite what I can tomorrow, but there is even some suggestion that nutrition contributes to societal advancement because of the improved abilities it generally causes, and plants are inefficient at offering some important nutrients, sich as vitamins (a couple in the B complex, D2, and a few amino acids and maybe a couple others I've missed). This was more through the invention of cooking leading to the dawn of human civilization, but my understanding is animal flesh played a part in separating man from ape.
The far end of this question, at least if you accept the previous premise, "is it acceptable to eat animals in an era when we can synthesize their nutritional obsolescence? "
I would say we haven't reached this critical juncture of making animals obsolete as complete food sources, at least in a way that is both physically and mentally nourashing for the entire populatioj ofnany developed nation and that the consumption of animals is morally justifiable, at least currently. Once we reach that point, I'd gladly offer an emphatic "no."
There's also a big "but": the current system of deriving nutrition from animals is exceptionally cruel and must be changed. Lab grown beef and Impossible Burgers don't correct the mistreatment the animals we eat, and they deserve pleasant lives with compassionate treatment and merciful slaughter, and rocessing that doesn't cause harm to employees or animals in other parts of the supply chain. I would say our method of making food from animals is currently, generally, unethical even if I can defend the eating of animals itself as an ethical practice.
I guess, in short, the moment it isn'tat all necessary for anybody to eat an animal under normal non-coercive circumstances is the moment at which consuming animals is immoral and unethical.
I also want to clarify that these are genuinely my thoughts on the matter, no "devil's advocate" or anything, but I wanted to be thorough because this is how I've considered it. Food Inc, and Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" actually informed my opinions on this a good deal.
Thanks for responding! In the interest of generating some discussion, allow me to gently push back some. I swear I'm not trying to proselytize -- I just think people eat meat almost automatically,...
Thanks for responding! In the interest of generating some discussion, allow me to gently push back some. I swear I'm not trying to proselytize -- I just think people eat meat almost automatically, without giving it much critical thought (I'm not accusing you of that, however). So in the interest of forcing people to "slow down" and think more carefully about meat, let me give a "vibe" response. A more meticulous response to your post is also (optionally!) provided below.
Vibe response
I think you're concentrating too much on what's sustainable for society at large without considering whether a vegetarian diet is sustainable for you. Even if we assume an equally nutritious vegetarian diet is unsustainable at the population level (presumably because it requires a level of diligence that most people can't afford, either for cost or for time), surely it's possible for some subset of the population. And if it's possible for you, then shouldn't you be a vegetarian, too?
But I would also point out that people don't generally live in a manner as to min-max their nutritional intake. On the contrary, many people live rather unhealthy lifestyles. There seems to be friction between the idea that (1) meat is moral because it's more nutritious and (2) the idea that people should be allowed to binge-eat a bag of chips without consequences (am guilty of this myself). If we're only concerned about nutrition, then wouldn't the moral argument for banning junk food be as strong as the moral argument for eating meat?
And of course, meat is not always the more nutritious option (I guess my citation should be the linked documentary?).
Consider this: I can stop at any gas station in America and buy a bag of peanuts or a microwaved beef burrito for about the same price. Does anybody think that microwaved beef burrito is the healthier option? Is it even the tastier option? Yet people will reflexively reach for the latter. Some cow was raised to be slaughtered specifically for this purpose. Along the way it was likely kept in conditions that could only be described as "inhumane" if applied to humans, but somehow considered satisfactory when applied to other animals. That cow died so it could become a half-eaten, mediocre burrito, its final resting place to be split between the landfill and the sewers.
Anyway, sorry if that last paragraph comes across as overly passionate. As I said, I'm not trying to proselytize -- I just want people to empathize with the animal at the other end of this transaction, even if it's only for a minute.
As promised, a more thorough (headier) response to your post is also provided below.
Dissected response
I would say consuming meat is morally permissible as it is, in general, a necessity. The ability to healthily subsist entirely on plants as an advanced, developing society is predicated on what we did as omnivores. [...] This was more through the invention of cooking leading to the dawn of human civilization, but my understanding is animal flesh played a part in separating man from ape.
I'm willing to accept this premise (even if I'm a bit skeptical), but it all feels largely irrelevant about what we should do now? The "moral assumption", so to speak, is that eating meat is fine so long as it leads to the betterment of society. There are a couple subtleties in this argument, however, which I think are worth addressing:
Progress is not guaranteed. If we accept the premise of your argument, there is a nutritional cost in developing a piece of technology which is best paid in meat. But not all technologies are good (consider how social media addiction, which is harmful to soceity, is predicated on the existence of social media).
Taking this assumption to its extreme, it suggests that the only people who should be allowed to eat meat are those who contribute meaningfully to society -- yea for employees of NGOs, nay for employees of Meta and Twitter.
I submit that the moral assumption is not necessarily true. To put it in starker terms: it suggests that we are allowed to kill N many (or possibly unlimited) animals for each piece of technology X.
In fact, people generally agree that N should be fairly small for some items (consider cruelty-free beauty products). That said, this reasoning isn't universal -- plenty of people don't care about whether a product is cruelty free or not, for example.
While not an argument against the moral assumption, I will point out that estimating what N is appropriate for X is an intractable, moral calculus nightmare. Try to imagine how much meat was eaten while the smartphone was being developed. Where do you even begin the calculation? Do you begin with the number of employees at Apple who personally worked on the first iPhone, or should you include all the people who made those conditions possible (the employees of Apple, the taxpayers of California, ...?)? Should we also include all the technology required to actually ship the device, i.e. the manufactuering plant and all its requirements? And when we actually do arrive at a number, how do we evaulate it? To be more concrete: trillions of chickens die every year for food. That isn't just a large number -- that's an unfathonably large number, devoid of basically any relatable human scale. Could one argue that killing a trillion chickens to maintain the status quo is fine, but killing ten trillion chickens is excessive?
Although I said I was willing to accept your premise that eating meat was a requirement for modern society, I will point out that it's almost impossible to argue the counterfactual -- frankly, there's never been a largely vegetarian civilization to compare against. Perhaps the closest comparison is India (~20-40% vegetarian), but I don't think you could unilaterally call it a success story or a failure; it has its own messy history.
Nevertheless, I understand that the opening paragraph is just the motivation for your argument, so let's continue.
I would say we haven't reached this critical juncture of making animals obsolete as complete food sources, at least in a way that is both physically and mentally nourishing for the entire population of many developed nation and that the consumption of animals is morally justifiable, at least currently. [fixed some typos for clarity]
This seems to be conflating an ideal with people's actual lived experiences. The majority of people in developed nations do not eat healthily -- think of the obesity epidemic, for example. I would guess (caveat: baseless speculation) the majority of meat eaten in developed nations comes in the form of fast/ultra-processed food, which I doubt is contributing to the physical and mental nourishment of its consumer.
(Certainly I think it would be better for health, the environment, and for the animals to replace meat subsidies with subsidies for developing more sustainable, nutritious food; but of course, that doesn't address the question of whether eating meat is moral at the current moment.)
I think the larger problem, however, is that by arguing for some nutritional standard, it begets the question of when the meat substitutes are good enough. I doubt meat substitutes and meat will ever achieve 100% nutritional parity since they are, fundamentally, different foodstuffs. I would contend, however, that they are good enough right now -- I am a vegetarian, after all, and I work in a field that requires some level of mental acumen (physics).
There's also a big "but": the current system of deriving nutrition from animals is exceptionally cruel and must be changed.
And of course I agree with you here!
I also want to clarify that these are genuinely my thoughts on the matter, no "devil's advocate" or anything, but I wanted to be thorough because this is how I've considered it. Food Inc, and Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" actually informed my opinions on this a good deal.
An aside: I'm against eating meat, but I think that if one must eat meat, then the meat should at least be honored: cooked skillfully and eaten entirely.
That cow died so it could become a half-eaten, mediocre burrito, its final resting place to be split between the landfill and the sewers.
An aside: I'm against eating meat, but I think that if one must eat meat, then the meat should at least be honored: cooked skillfully and eaten entirely.
I tried twice to write responses but felt I sorta went long. I will say there are some points I sorta stumbled on, mostly by forgetting a bit here or there, but on the whole it gave me more to...
I tried twice to write responses but felt I sorta went long. I will say there are some points I sorta stumbled on, mostly by forgetting a bit here or there, but on the whole it gave me more to consider. The bit about a cow and the burrito is, honestly, a large part of the issue, and I'm definitely guilty of not making the best decisions when given the opportunity.
I'll point out the issues in what I wrote, at least, and you did a great job addressing them.
I accidentally implied a single meat substitute is needed, but it's not. A system of nutrition is what is required.
I failed to describe what that vegan epoch would be, unintentionally, but it left a huge hole I think you fell in on my point: If we can get everything we need from plants, we simply don't need animals. * This everything just needs to be had in regularly occurring relatively short time frames. I think there were a couple of points where I did this, but you helped me sort through them, even.
I implied that meat is responsible for current progress. Frankly, we've probably been coasting a bit, nutritionally speaking, for a couple thousand years, since we've been processing all sorts of stuff into our food in the form of fungal and bacterial cultures, and globalizing it with international trade as it has changed over the ages.
* Or rather we can subsist on non-animals, as fungi, algae, and lichens provide things like D3, B12, and other stuff. We don't need a complete nutrition bar, even if, at least I find the concept cool (and off-topic)
I'm not sure the moral arguments are falling by the wayside so much, I think it's more that, now that they're widespread, people find environmental or health arguments less likely to start tedious...
I'm not sure the moral arguments are falling by the wayside so much, I think it's more that, now that they're widespread, people find environmental or health arguments less likely to start tedious and repetitive arguments with meat eaters. I'm vegan for a lot of reasons but I typically leave morality out of the discussion in mixed company.
I think the modern industrial abstraction of meat and its source renders moral arguments as conceptually abstract as a Trolley Problem for most consumers. People interface with animal products in...
I think the modern industrial abstraction of meat and its source renders moral arguments as conceptually abstract as a Trolley Problem for most consumers. People interface with animal products in clean sterile settings and they receive their product neatly packaged, bloodless, disembodied.
But indeed, moral arguments do not and cannot resonate with people because the conditions for resonance are no longer present in our modern society.
That's a good point! I love cooking, but I stopped preparing any meat dishes years before I stopped eating meat altogether. Even without having to see the animals themselves, raw cuts of meat were...
That's a good point! I love cooking, but I stopped preparing any meat dishes years before I stopped eating meat altogether. Even without having to see the animals themselves, raw cuts of meat were just like, this offputting, visceral reminder of what I was about to eat.
I can understand that feeling even as a meat-eater. I wonder if we have decided that cow, pig, and chicken are the meats that we eat because they are the least offputting ones. Lamb and duck are...
I can understand that feeling even as a meat-eater.
I wonder if we have decided that cow, pig, and chicken are the meats that we eat because they are the least offputting ones. Lamb and duck are served at high-end restaurants but if you were to purchase either of them as raw meat it's really gross; they are very sinewy and smell very strongly when raw.
I'll be completely honest; I didn't enjoy watching this for a number of reasons.
As part of my efforts to improve my health I have been talking to doctors and have been recommended to look at Knives Over Forks - the website, that is - as a resource to find more veg-based dishes. It actually is a surprisingly good resource; I found some really interesting things I want to try out.
This documentary is actually a little old, and it certainly isn't that well produced. Also have to give this a content warning: this film features a lot of video of surgeries on human beings. It was really gross.
I'm sharing this because this is perhaps the single best argument I've ever seen advocating for a vegan lifestyle. But I'm probably doing it a disservice because I'm using the "V" word - the documentary takes great pains to avoid using the terms vegan or even vegetarianism. It minimizes arguments based on morality and spends most of it's time focusing on health effects. I thought it would be interesting for people like me who have spent a long time refusing to acknowledge arguments against consuming animal products. It really provides a tsunami of reasons why it would benefit you to switch to a whole foods plant based diet - weather or not you call it vegan.
If anything, I figured it would give us some interesting conversations.
philosophically there are parts of vegan/vegetarianism that I respect and admire. but in the end i arrived to the following conclusion: welcome to planet earth, where organisms eat each other.
there's nothing wrong with eating meat. what's wrong are modern practices like factory farming and cafos. i would say that, if you are fortune to be able to, you should be buying the highest quality, locally produced, ethically raised meat you can source. And probably be mindful about the quantity of meat you eat as well.
I’m at the point where I say “I only eat meat socially”. It’s easy for me to pick vegetarian options for myself, but I will not make any noise when offered a barbecue because I value the social aspect too much. But I’m very glad if someone provides vegetarian options at their cook out.
The way I see it, the issue is we eat way too much meat. Not that we should never ever have any. Once a week with friends is a reasonable cadence in my opinion.
I love that my protein tends to come with tons of fiber, costs less, and causes less carbon emissions.
The little pudding cups at work use beef gelatin instead of corn starch or pectin. Why??
And don't get me started on McNuggets. By the time they're being formed into shape you may as well have started with tofu. The meat paste needs to be re-saturated with chicken stock because it's bleached and void of any original chicken flavor.
Do you have a reputable source on that McNuggets factoid?
Rumors like these are a pet peeve of mine so I'd appreciate you backing that up if it's real. I honestly can't imagine why they would need to bleach the chicken when they start as white meat to begin with.
"Those bastards lied to me" - looks like that's not true. Sadly the best source for how McNuggets are made on YouTube is a video that was sponsored by McDonalds. But I can't imagine they'd make major omissions.
I've been a vegetarian for almost a decade now. When people ask why, I tell them that basically any reason is good enough, whether it's for the environment, health, or animal welfare. But to be honest, at this point I just find meat kinda disgusting. I've been a vegetarian for long enough that I don't even process it as food anymore; rather I view it as something to be avoided, like spoiled milk or rotten eggs.
Yet when a friend or a colleague or whoever embraces a plant-based diet, they usually explain that they're doing it for the environment or for their health; the moral angle seems to have fallen by the wayside. I find this rather perplexing, since the moral implications of meat seem the most obvious: with few exceptions, animals don't like being eaten!
So I pose this question to you, Tilderinos: environmental issues aside, why do you think it is (or isn't) morally permissible to eat meat?
To be completely honest, I think that moral arguments were always the worst ways to argue for or against any particular issue. The specifics of morality is not as universal as we'd like to think. Moral arguements only work if both parties carry the same morals; you can't push your morals on to other people and in some ways I feel it's unethical to do so (see also: theocrats attempting to write law based on their religious beliefs). Beyond that telling someone to make a massive change in their personal philosophy will always result in a lot of tedious philosophical conversations, and a lot of people are just tired of hearing them happen over and over again. That's actually the main reason why I'm not directly answering your question.
Like I mentioned in my opening comment, the main reason why I was interested in this film is because it doesn't bother with moral/ethical reasons to stop eating meat. It focuses entirely on what most people tend to think is most important - themselves - and gives them a multitude of reasons to make the switch that are more personally relatable and therefore are more likely to listen to.
And even then, watching this didn't make me stop eating animal products. I've been consuming animal products for my entire life and like the film mentions, they can often act like drugs. It's going to be a long transition until I can remove meat and other animal products from my life. This is a massive lifestyle change. It's so massive that honestly I find it hard to believe that it's a realistic goal.
Thanks for responding! To be perfectly honest, though, I was a little disappointed in your response -- it feels like a cop-out. I would let it slide, but I strongly disagree with the thrust of your argument:
Moral arguments abound! If you disagree with systematic racism or transphobia or the like, you are appealing to morality. I mean, sure, you don't need to get into the weeds of the categorical imperative to understand that police brutality is immoral. But if someone stupidly asserted that Tyre Nichols's murder was just, how else would you respond except with a moral argument (murder is wrong you contemptible ignoramus)?
I'm going to skip ahead for a minute.
I think you should reconsider this statement in context of the BLM movement or, for that matter, any other protest. What is a protest if not someone "pushing their morals on to other people"? I assume you, like me, generally support protests, so long as you actually support the reason they're protesting.
As for theocrats: the issue with arguing with religious people is that you have to argue on their terms. They have already accepted that their holy scripture is correct, so if you want to convince them against a position they support, you have to structure your argument within their religious framework. Obviously this feels pointless restrictive if you aren't a member of their religion.
But I'm not religious, so I'm guessing we live in the same moral universe.
On the other hand, belief in moral relativism is not universal, either! I will avoid dragging you down into a thorny, philosophical debate, but for context I would describe myself as a relativist with respect to meta-ethics (i.e., we make moral judgements in a relative way) yet am optimistic that a universal moral framework exists, even if we haven't found it yet.
But even if we were to accept moral relativism outright, there are certain activities that are almost universally considered ethical or unethical. For example, shooting people at random would be condemned by nearly everybody, since there are seldom moral frameworks in which randomly slaying people is considered just. Even within moral relativism, we can still talk about what is moral; we can even discuss what most people should consider moral. Moral relativism, after all, is not the same thing as moral nihilism.
At any rate, we have deviated way too far from the topic at hand (meat) and accidentally strayed into a tedious philosophical discussion. Sorry about that.
So let's talk about meat. I don't think it's a hopelessly complicated moral question. Rather, I think it's just something people take for granted because there's so little social pushback (and it's not like the animals can argue for themselves). To be honest, that's what I find so bothersome about your answer. I'm asking people to think critically about the ethical implications of eating meat, and you're giving people permission to not think about it at all.
If you think the original question is too pie-in-the-sky, consider the nearly isomorphic question: why is morally permissible to eat animals, excepting human animals? I think we already agree it's wrong to slaughter humans for food, so what makes animals different?
I'm actually more sympathetic to this position than you might think. I've written a couple essays worth of responses by now, so surely someone is thinking, Well, if you care so much about the animals, why aren't you a vegan? And my answer is the same as yours: it's hard! Personally I don't think being a vegetarian is very difficult at all; you can get 90% of the way there if by avoiding obvious meat products (the other 10% being sneaky meat like gelatin). That said, I understand that vegetarianism is harder for some people than others, especially if they live in a meat-heavy culture.
Most moral decisions require balancing doing good to others versus doing good to yourself. I would never advocate that someone eschew all of Earth's pleasures to live a maximally ethical life. But if you don't even consider the Other when making a moral decision, how can you possibly expect to be ethical?
I don't take offense that you take my response as a cop-out. To be fair, it was; I have no interest in talking about the morality of meat or animal welfare because I have seen so much of it it makes me reflexively yawn when I see it coming. And like I pointed out earlier I don't think it's the best way to accomplish the objective of getting people to stop consuming meat.
The difference between morality and ethics is supposed to be that morality is an innate property of mankind. Likewise, there is supposed to be a set of morals that are objectively true for everyone. I seriously disagree with them. People who reject moral relativism seem to live in a completely different world from the one I live in. I know I'm skipping a lot here but I want to make this story short; I don't think innate morals are real and I think that the thing that people call morals are ethics tied with emotions that are usually reinforced by society. We do have records of cultures that engage in cannibalism, after all.
You are right that moral arguments are commonplace when it comes to human rights issues. And while, yes, I do think they are making the right kinds of arguments, the fact that these issues keep going on and on in spite of how important people seem to think they are are also a marker of how ineffective they are. And that's in a best-case scenario, where the people you're trying to humanize are already human! Imagine how much harder it is for a person to accept that when you're talking about animals.
Like I mentioned before, morals are also usually reinforced by society. The other thing that is stopping people from reconsidering eating meat is that meat is part of their culture. By telling people to stop eating meat you are telling them to rebel against their society, something that could potentially get you ostracized. They're not so common nowadays, but there are some people who can't stand the idea that someone would want to live a lifestyle that doesn't include meat.
Lest we all forget, the whole reason why this topic exists is because this lifestyle was presented to me in a way where morality didn't have anything to do with it. Most critically, I was never made to feel like I was judged for making the decisions that brought me to that point. I remember a time on this site where we kept talking about how we could get bigots to change their song by being nice to them but I was always skeptical about that idea until it happened to me. And it did so specifically by avoiding moral talking points in general, keeping emotions tame, and sidestepping questions of society by making the focus on individual health rather than social norms.
Actually, we're pretty close to agreement here. I think we form moral judgements in essentially the same manner we form social/norm judgements. If we save up for an upscale restaurant and our experience is tarnished by someone at the next table loudly talking on the phone the whole evening, we might despise them as much as if they'd pissed on the table.
But the key difference -- and I realize I'm really splitting hairs -- is that I believe only the casting of moral judgements is reenforced by society, independently from whether a moral judgement is actually correct. Of course, you might object that this is just semantics, and that the veneer between moral judgements and morals isn't just paper-thin but non-existent. Fair point. But I am optimistic that some moral frameworks are objectively better than others, and perhaps that there even exists a universally best framework; otherwise how could we claim with moral authority that the Holocaust or slavery were wrong?
I have a really hard time understanding the moral argument. Animals don't like being eaten? Neither do many of the plants we eat. Like animals, we bred them to become something easier to farm, yet they still have natural defenses.
Vegans make the least moral sense to me. They're so black-and-white in their thinking they scorn honey, or the idea that eggs and milk could be gotten humanely. You can't be a "real vegan" and have a beehive and a few backyard chickens if you eat their products.
I think owning pets is probably the strangest contradiction of "vegan for the animals" vegans. The backyard chicken is okay as a pet but suddenly deeply immoral if you take its eggs. If you think that "animals don't want to be eaten" is a good enough reason not to eat them, then sure "animals don't want to be domesticated and kept as pets" is a good enough reason to not do either of those two things. Just like the chickens we have bred to have breast meat so large they can hardly walk, we have bred dogs to be so pathologically needy of human company they experience anxiety and distress if left alone for a few hours. Once you domesticate an animal they "enjoy" being a pet, their bodies and lives exist solely for human benefit. And if you don't have a truly domesticated pet, like insects or birds, these pets will escape from you if given the chance.
(Tangent but cats occupy such a weird category in this. They arguably domesticated themselves but unless you keep them at home / in bad kitty prison, they will murder every bird and rodent they get their sociopathic little paws on)
Thanks for replying in my stead.
/u/meme, you seem to be a bit confused about what veganism actually is, so I'd like to provide some clarification. At its core, veganism is simply the idea one should strive to minimize the suffering of animals. Since human beings are also animals, vegans will generally also be concerned about human welfare, too. Thus, despite internet caricatures, if a vegan were forced to choose between saving a child and a chick from a burning building, they're going to pick the child -- and this would be perfectly consistent with their guiding principle, since humans experience suffering more greatly than chickens.
This philosophy also explains the lack of concern about plants: plants lack a nervous system and (as far as we know) a capacity for suffering. I think this point is pretty obvious? If your neighbor weed-wacked the hedges, you'd call them a good neighbor; if they weed-wacked a rabbit, you call them a psychopath.
I think of veganism as a philosophy, while vegetarianism is just a description. In fact, they don't even perfectly overlap. Technically an oyster isn't vegetarian -- it is an animal, after all -- but plenty of vegans eat oysters. Why? Because an oyster, lacking a central nervous system, is basically a naturally-occuring form of lab-grown meat (albeit a rather briny one). Indeed, the vast majority of oysters are farm-raised, making the analogy more complete.
Of course, not all vegans agree with that position, just as there's also disagreement over honey. We can only speculate on the internal life of a bee or an oyster, so some people prefer to be extra cautious.
That said, if a vegan has a pet chicken, and that chicken happens to lay an egg, I think most vegans would be fine with eating it.
I would say consuming meat is morally permissible as it is, in general, a necessity. The ability to healthily subsist entirely on plants as an advanced, developing society is predicated on what we did as omnivores. I'll cite what I can tomorrow, but there is even some suggestion that nutrition contributes to societal advancement because of the improved abilities it generally causes, and plants are inefficient at offering some important nutrients, sich as vitamins (a couple in the B complex, D2, and a few amino acids and maybe a couple others I've missed). This was more through the invention of cooking leading to the dawn of human civilization, but my understanding is animal flesh played a part in separating man from ape.
The far end of this question, at least if you accept the previous premise, "is it acceptable to eat animals in an era when we can synthesize their nutritional obsolescence? "
I would say we haven't reached this critical juncture of making animals obsolete as complete food sources, at least in a way that is both physically and mentally nourashing for the entire populatioj ofnany developed nation and that the consumption of animals is morally justifiable, at least currently. Once we reach that point, I'd gladly offer an emphatic "no."
There's also a big "but": the current system of deriving nutrition from animals is exceptionally cruel and must be changed. Lab grown beef and Impossible Burgers don't correct the mistreatment the animals we eat, and they deserve pleasant lives with compassionate treatment and merciful slaughter, and rocessing that doesn't cause harm to employees or animals in other parts of the supply chain. I would say our method of making food from animals is currently, generally, unethical even if I can defend the eating of animals itself as an ethical practice.
I guess, in short, the moment it isn'tat all necessary for anybody to eat an animal under normal non-coercive circumstances is the moment at which consuming animals is immoral and unethical.
I also want to clarify that these are genuinely my thoughts on the matter, no "devil's advocate" or anything, but I wanted to be thorough because this is how I've considered it. Food Inc, and Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" actually informed my opinions on this a good deal.
Thanks for responding! In the interest of generating some discussion, allow me to gently push back some. I swear I'm not trying to proselytize -- I just think people eat meat almost automatically, without giving it much critical thought (I'm not accusing you of that, however). So in the interest of forcing people to "slow down" and think more carefully about meat, let me give a "vibe" response. A more meticulous response to your post is also (optionally!) provided below.
Vibe response
I think you're concentrating too much on what's sustainable for society at large without considering whether a vegetarian diet is sustainable for you. Even if we assume an equally nutritious vegetarian diet is unsustainable at the population level (presumably because it requires a level of diligence that most people can't afford, either for cost or for time), surely it's possible for some subset of the population. And if it's possible for you, then shouldn't you be a vegetarian, too?
But I would also point out that people don't generally live in a manner as to min-max their nutritional intake. On the contrary, many people live rather unhealthy lifestyles. There seems to be friction between the idea that (1) meat is moral because it's more nutritious and (2) the idea that people should be allowed to binge-eat a bag of chips without consequences (am guilty of this myself). If we're only concerned about nutrition, then wouldn't the moral argument for banning junk food be as strong as the moral argument for eating meat?
And of course, meat is not always the more nutritious option (I guess my citation should be the linked documentary?).
Consider this: I can stop at any gas station in America and buy a bag of peanuts or a microwaved beef burrito for about the same price. Does anybody think that microwaved beef burrito is the healthier option? Is it even the tastier option? Yet people will reflexively reach for the latter. Some cow was raised to be slaughtered specifically for this purpose. Along the way it was likely kept in conditions that could only be described as "inhumane" if applied to humans, but somehow considered satisfactory when applied to other animals. That cow died so it could become a half-eaten, mediocre burrito, its final resting place to be split between the landfill and the sewers.
Anyway, sorry if that last paragraph comes across as overly passionate. As I said, I'm not trying to proselytize -- I just want people to empathize with the animal at the other end of this transaction, even if it's only for a minute.
As promised, a more thorough (headier) response to your post is also provided below.
Dissected response
I'm willing to accept this premise (even if I'm a bit skeptical), but it all feels largely irrelevant about what we should do now? The "moral assumption", so to speak, is that eating meat is fine so long as it leads to the betterment of society. There are a couple subtleties in this argument, however, which I think are worth addressing:
Nevertheless, I understand that the opening paragraph is just the motivation for your argument, so let's continue.
This seems to be conflating an ideal with people's actual lived experiences. The majority of people in developed nations do not eat healthily -- think of the obesity epidemic, for example. I would guess (caveat: baseless speculation) the majority of meat eaten in developed nations comes in the form of fast/ultra-processed food, which I doubt is contributing to the physical and mental nourishment of its consumer.
(Certainly I think it would be better for health, the environment, and for the animals to replace meat subsidies with subsidies for developing more sustainable, nutritious food; but of course, that doesn't address the question of whether eating meat is moral at the current moment.)
I think the larger problem, however, is that by arguing for some nutritional standard, it begets the question of when the meat substitutes are good enough. I doubt meat substitutes and meat will ever achieve 100% nutritional parity since they are, fundamentally, different foodstuffs. I would contend, however, that they are good enough right now -- I am a vegetarian, after all, and I work in a field that requires some level of mental acumen (physics).
And of course I agree with you here!
Again, thanks for your sharing your thoughts!
An aside: I'm against eating meat, but I think that if one must eat meat, then the meat should at least be honored: cooked skillfully and eaten entirely.
I tried twice to write responses but felt I sorta went long. I will say there are some points I sorta stumbled on, mostly by forgetting a bit here or there, but on the whole it gave me more to consider. The bit about a cow and the burrito is, honestly, a large part of the issue, and I'm definitely guilty of not making the best decisions when given the opportunity.
I'll point out the issues in what I wrote, at least, and you did a great job addressing them.
I accidentally implied a single meat substitute is needed, but it's not. A system of nutrition is what is required.
I failed to describe what that vegan epoch would be, unintentionally, but it left a huge hole I think you fell in on my point: If we can get everything we need from plants, we simply don't need animals. * This everything just needs to be had in regularly occurring relatively short time frames. I think there were a couple of points where I did this, but you helped me sort through them, even.
I implied that meat is responsible for current progress. Frankly, we've probably been coasting a bit, nutritionally speaking, for a couple thousand years, since we've been processing all sorts of stuff into our food in the form of fungal and bacterial cultures, and globalizing it with international trade as it has changed over the ages.
* Or rather we can subsist on non-animals, as fungi, algae, and lichens provide things like D3, B12, and other stuff. We don't need a complete nutrition bar, even if, at least I find the concept cool (and off-topic)
I'm not sure the moral arguments are falling by the wayside so much, I think it's more that, now that they're widespread, people find environmental or health arguments less likely to start tedious and repetitive arguments with meat eaters. I'm vegan for a lot of reasons but I typically leave morality out of the discussion in mixed company.
I think the modern industrial abstraction of meat and its source renders moral arguments as conceptually abstract as a Trolley Problem for most consumers. People interface with animal products in clean sterile settings and they receive their product neatly packaged, bloodless, disembodied.
But indeed, moral arguments do not and cannot resonate with people because the conditions for resonance are no longer present in our modern society.
That's a good point! I love cooking, but I stopped preparing any meat dishes years before I stopped eating meat altogether. Even without having to see the animals themselves, raw cuts of meat were just like, this offputting, visceral reminder of what I was about to eat.
I can understand that feeling even as a meat-eater.
I wonder if we have decided that cow, pig, and chicken are the meats that we eat because they are the least offputting ones. Lamb and duck are served at high-end restaurants but if you were to purchase either of them as raw meat it's really gross; they are very sinewy and smell very strongly when raw.