Animal Ethics - Is it wrong to eat animals?

[Sy Borg]

By the same token, why bother trying to help the poor? No matter what you do, more keep appearing.

Perhaps we should eat the poor? After all, if it doesn't matter whether we kill or eat animals, then why does it matter to kill and eat people? After all, these are only relatively, rather than absolutely, different activities.

[Alias]

Well, does abstaining from animal products actually save any animals in the process? Or is it just to clear one's conscience? If that's only the case, then it seems rather pointless. Since your moral actions change nothing, and the same amount of animals will be supplied regardless.

Regardless of demand?
It doesn't sell, so you don't make any profit, so you keep breeding, raising, shipping, butchering, packing and refrigerating?
I don't think that's how the market operates.

[NasloxiehRorsxez]

By the same token, why bother trying to help the poor? No matter what you do, more keep appearing.

Perhaps we should eat the poor? After all, if it doesn't matter whether we kill or eat animals, then why does it matter to kill and eat people? After all, these are only relatively, rather than absolutely, different activities.

Fair point. it's difficult to come up with a counterargument to veganism.

[Sy Borg]

It's a balance IMO, Naslo. The best counter-argument to veganism is health and survival, along with our evolutionary history. Eskimos, desert people and others living in places lacking in plant life are obviously not unethical for eating meat.

Further, eating plant matter kills animals too - animals lose their habitats to agriculture, and necessary pest controls take a toll on invertebrates and pest mammals, as does harvesting. To live is to kill, so it seems only logical to minimise food animal suffering and maximise sustainability.

Fortunately (for animals), it's increasingly clear that there are optimal amounts of meat eating for health, and it's not so much, just a few serves per week would seem optimal for health (aside from certain athletes with specialised diet needs for their sports, or use of supplements).

[LuckyR]

Why do you say that?
Supermarket steak has no feelings.

Well, does abstaining from animal products actually save any animals in the process? Or is it just to clear one's conscience? If that's only the case, then it seems rather pointless. Since your moral actions change nothing, and the same amount of animals will be supplied regardless. In fact, you could probably be able to argue that it's ethically preferable to consume the meat, as it doesn't go to waste.

Sure it does. Currently the dairy industry is feeling the impact of almond milk. It is completely logical to consume less (or no) meat. This will lead to less animal husbandry. However it is also logical to consume some meat, because that product already exists. The opportunity for change is in the hands of the rancher who decides to have fewrr calves, piglets etc because the economics doesn't pencil out to breed at previous levels. Not letting a steak go unsold at the market (as an isolated action).

[Eduk]

First of all would it be fair to make the following statements.
1. There are farms where the animals are kept in unethical conditions and the harm done to the animals serves no purpose other than greed/lazyness/incompetence/cruelty.
2. Just being alive causes the death of some life and certainly limits the potential of other life. But simply existing is not unethical?
3. Given the above its theoretically possible to consume animals ethically but only under the right conditions?

For example would it be possible to breed an animal for the express purpose of reducing mental ability and consciousness. Thus making it more ethical to consume said animal?

Owning your own chickens (whom you tend to) and consuming their eggs might be ethical? Eating the occasional chicken might be ethical?

Is it ethical to over breed the chickens for the purpose of consumption? For example in the wild excess chickens simply starve until an equilibrium is found. Much in the same way that killing a single fox has no impact on fox population (over time).

What scale can an operation be before it becomes unethical?

Personally I have no objection to a well run farm. With well tended animals. Animals breed not only for yeald but also for health, taste (unethical?), Mental well-being. These farms do exist.

[Alias]

The human nutritional factor is amply covered by modern technology. In case supplements are insufficient, you can already have the "real thing"
with no animal suffering.

Currently, there are 3 very active countries in the cultured meat research: The USA, mainly California, with companies like "Memphis Meats", "Modern Meadow", "Hampton Creek" or "Finless Foods" (cultured fish), the Netherlands with"MosaMeat" and last not least Israel with "Supermeat" and "The Kitchen Foodtech Hub". Japan could become a further hotspot of research with the open source "Shojinmeat Project". http://www.futurefood.org/in-vitro-meat/index_en.php

Huge health advantage: it's absolutely controllable: no unwanted hormones, antibiotics, diseases or contaminants; the fat and cholesterol content is limited. Environmental advantage: No vast grazing lands and water-rights wars; no slaughter-houses and transport trucks; no animal feed - the fields where feed crops are grown, the harvesting, storage and silage are all liberated for other purposes.
These factories are right in the city where most of their product will be consumed: minimum shipping and storage requirement; maximum flexibility and response to local demand.
The energy required to run the production is more than compensated by the energy saved on the stages it bypasses.
Of course, the industries thus bypassed all become obsolete and there will be an enormous backlash in their defense.
But, like automation, it's still coming.

[Eduk]

So in the meantime Alias should we just ignore the problem of unethical farming and wait, patiently, for science to solve our problems.

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Re: Animal Ethics - Is it wrong to eat animals?
We should first consult a tiger or a lion. Or even an ant or a boar.

[-1-]

Fortunately (for animals), it's increasingly clear that there are optimal amounts of meat eating for health, and it's not so much, just a few serves per week would seem optimal for health.

Please tell that to my Meals on Wheels service in my town. The plates they deliver are fifty percent meat, 20 percent veggies, 20 percent carbs, and the rest is the packaging (which I sometimes eat, having been left hungry with so little carbs.)

[Felix]

Greta: Perhaps we should eat the poor?

Nah, let's eat the rich, we'll get far more bang for our buck - and vice versa.

Gertie: The only counter-argument which concerns me is the consequentialist one, if we don't keep farm animals then they'll either have a worse time of it in the wild, or go extinct.

Call me crazy but I'd prefer the extinction of cattle to that of apes, tigers, leopards, elephants, bears, wolves, not to mention snakes, toads, salamanders....

I would of course miss all those marvelous fringe benefits that Alias mentioned: "methane emissions (but hey, who doesn't love a cow fart?), inordinate land and water consumption, the stink of pig farms (I won't tell Miss Piggy you said that!), the carnage of poultry operations, the pollution of transport and processing plants, refrigeration and storage, etc."

And that's just the short list, there are many others: soil depletion from overgrazing, animal manure from the large ranches and factory farms running off into our rivers and streams to kill the marine life and cause toxic algal blooms. Yes, I will definitely miss all that....

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We should first consult a tiger or a lion. Or even an ant or a boar.

Well, I put my anteater in charge of ant welfare, but it's funny how the number of welfare recipients keeps decreasing. I'll have to look into that. Salvador Dali never mentioned having this problem, but I suspect he gave his anteater a higher salary and/or a shorter work week. Or maybe his rhinoceros kept the anteater in line... yeah that's probably it.

[Alias]

So in the meantime Alias should we just ignore the problem of unethical farming and wait, patiently, for science to solve our problems.

What meantime? There isn't a switch that will be thrown one day and change everything. This technology exists now, and is growing; more people are becoming aware. So is the popularity of vegan and vegetarian diets growing (they have their own health benefits, which have not been discussed) and of eating locally grown, fresh and unprocessed food. Change happens all the time; one demand, one market situation, gives way to another gradually, and suppliers follow the trend set by consumers.

The ethics of factory farm practices have been touched upon earlier in this thread. That's a separate issue from the one being asked in the OP, which regards the eating, not the treatment, of other species. As to treatment, we need to include more than just food animals; though they obviously suffer in the largest numbers, there are all kinds of abuses of pets and wild animals, as well.
Nowhere did I suggest that this should be ignored. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to dealing with that problem - besides legislative impotence - is the preponderance of wealth opposing public education on this subject. You can find out what actually happens to chickens or pigs, only from videos smuggled out of the facilities at considerable risk to the whistle-blower.

[Eduk]

Alias I think the treatment of some animals in some farms is very well documented. And generally known? I don't see too much risk to the whistleblower either?
Nothing wrong with processed foods. Locally grown is a complex subject.
There is so much woo around food it's almost impossible not to have been fed false information. For example many people believe organic farming to be more healthy to consume doesn't use chemicals and is generally better for the environment.
Still others would prefer both organic only farming and the subsequent death of billions of humans. Not a common view granted.
One thing about lab cultured meat. Doesn't it currently require the death of more livestock than simply eating the livestock directly? I mean I understand one day this won't be the case. One day I'll be able to walk to my replicator and say 'fish', but it's hard to know how far that is away.
Regarding the OP I was making the point that the treatment of the animals defines whether eating them is moral or not. Of course that's open to discussion.
Oh and finally a balanced diet including meat with plenty of leafy vegetables is the most healthy diet. It's rare that something is so simple.

[Alias]

Eduk -- Alias I think the treatment of some animals in some farms is very well documented. And generally known?

You see some videos on YouTube; not on mainstream prime time. You have to look for it. The people who need to to be told are not the ones seeing these videos - the majority of Americans would prefer to keep pretending we're treating all the livestock well and killing them humanely. People will go to some lengths to keep pretending what's convenient for them. Their legislators - under the influence of agribusiness lobbyists - are generally quite willing to help them keep up the pretense.
[url]ttps://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/us/taping-of ... crime.html[/url]
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... rs/273962/
http://www.mercyforanimals.org/time-mag ... tleblowers

I don't see too much risk to the whistleblower either?

You're not supposed to see it. The beatings and intimidations happen off-camera.

Nothing wrong with processed foods. Locally grown is a complex subject.

Both of those can be contentious issues, not particularly relevant here. I merely mentioned them as trends that affect the industry.

One thing about lab cultured meat. Doesn't it currently require the death of more livestock than simply eating the livestock directly?

I don't see how. All you need is a few cells, harvested painlessly.

One day I'll be able to walk to my replicator and say 'fish', but it's hard to know how far that is away.

Why posit a replicator? Lab-grown meat, poultry and fish are a reality right now.
This was last year https://www.eater.com/2017/3/15/1493392 ... phis-meats
https://bistro-invitro.com/en/bistro-invitro/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/scie ... 36676.html

Regarding the OP I was making the point that the treatment of the animals defines whether eating them is moral or not. Of course that's open to discussion.

I took it to refer specifically to the killing and eating. I think i covered the circumstances in my first response.
How it is done is a secondary of question, with its own permutations.
It's convenient to roll them together, given the state of factory farming today, where most of our supply originates.

Oh and finally a balanced diet including meat with plenty of leafy vegetables is the most healthy diet.

Sure. But it can be balanced in other ways. The omnivorous digestive system and modern technology gives us a lot more choice.

[-1-]

-1- :

We should first consult a tiger or a lion. Or even an ant or a boar.

Well, I put my anteater in charge of ant welfare, but it's funny how the number of welfare recipients keeps decreasing. I'll have to look into that. Salvador Dali never mentioned having this problem, but I suspect he gave his anteater a higher salary and/or a shorter work week. Or maybe his rhinoceros kept the anteater in line... yeah that's probably it.

My anteater's rhinoceros kept teaching to monkeys how to train dogs to be seeing eye, until the bloody monkey got three blind dogs, and not having realized they were blind, it drove the monkey nuts that they lead the hapless human blinds into poles, into red light intersections with cameras, and into war.

So the rhino got canned, and is currently underemployed, being eaten by the soldiers of the French foreign legion when there is no fresh rhino meat available.