Should you feel guilty for eating meat?

[mooncalf]

The earth will consume you and feel no guilt, so naturally you should consume and feel no guilt. If you wish to not consume this or that because you think it will improve you in some way, by all means try it out.

 

[notyouraveragejoe]

Take my spuds, take my corn
Take me where I cannot farm
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the steak from me

Take me out to the grill
Tell 'em I will have my fill
Burn the leaks and boil the peas
You can't take the steak from me

There's no place I can be
Since I found that bovine meat
But you can't take the steak from me

I like meat, don't feel bad. Eat more.

Tee Hee that is awesome. And I've never felt bad since it is so good that I get distracted. In fact with horse meat I get intense pleasure eating it because I hate horses. They are evil so I shall feast on them. Its the same way I deal with mean teachers.

 

[loc978]

No, you shouldn't feel guilty. Don't let anyone tell you that you should either.

If one would eat pigs, lamb and cows meat whilst refusing to consume dog or cats meat one is hypocritical and should take a look into ones values.

The guy's got a point. Can't say how many people I've met who would be perfectly willing to kill and eat someone's pet pig [http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID19726/images/ggeorge_clooney_pet_pig_inspires_paris_hilton_to_buy_one.jpg], but be grossed out by farm-raised dog in South Korea. If the animal is raised specifically for meat, or is wild and properly selected for hunting, what do you care what species that animal is? Are the Spanish wrong to eat horse meat simply because some horses are prized sport animals? Are we in the US wrong to eat beef because some Hindu belief states that cattle contain the honored spirits of our ancestors?

 

[Reynaerdinjo]

Even then you have to ask yourself whether the life they live is so abhorrent to them that they'd rather not have ever lived at all or produce offspring. Ultimately they most likely do not have the capability to comprehend that, so those who do must make the decision for them. I have see no such distress in domesticated cattle to warrant such a population collapse, but some poultry farms can be a bit extreme.

It's not just poultry farms. Factory farms have thousands upon thousands of animals who are so bored that they literally go insane. Consider this excerpt from the PETA website about pigs:

intensive confinement (of mother pigs) causes debilitating stress and intense boredom. Missing their piglets, and with nothing to do but stare at the bars in front of them, mother pigs often go insane, neurotically chewing on their cage bars or obsessively pressing on their water bottles. After three or four years, when their bodies are exhausted and their minds are pushed to or even past the brink of insanity, they are shipped off to slaughter.

Meanwhile, the male piglets have their testicles cut out of their scrotums, their tails cut off, many of their teeth clipped in half, and their ears mutilated, all without any pain relief. They are placed into pens crowded with many other piglets, where they are kept until they are large enough for slaughter. The animals are given almost no room to move because, as one pork-industry journal put it, "[O]vercrowding pigs pays."

Or how about the slaughter of cows:

Cattle are transported hundreds of miles in all weather extremes, typically without food or water, to the slaughterhouse. Many cows die on the way to slaughter, but those who survive are shot in the head with a captive-bolt gun, hung up by one leg, and taken onto the killing floor where their throats are cut and they are skinned and gutted. Some cows remain fully conscious throughout the entire process. In an interview with The Washington Post, one slaughterhouse worker said, "They die piece by piece."

There are thousands of horrible examples to find all over the internet of the absolute abhorrent treatment of animals by factory farms.

 

[maninahat]

A meatless diet is easy to sustain, more economical, and on a larger scale, kinder to the livestock which no longer exists to be slaughtered.

That is debatable on several fronts.

- A meatless diet is easy to sustain only if you know what to eat and where to get it, and have the time to do so. Unless it includes eggs which makes things much simpler

It's not difficult to spend five minutes researching on the net, and five minutes in the grocery section of a supermarket.

- It is only more economical (for the consumer) if you are very deliberately trying to be economical. It is easy to spend more for your food on a vegetarian diet if you are looking for convenience. However if you meant the cost to produce the food is inherently more expensive for meat then ignore this part.

Meat is invariably more expensive than vegetable produce. It is entirely due to the cost of producing meat that this is the case. The only thing that tends to be more expensive are the convenience, processed vegetarian foods, like veggy burgers and all that. A frugal person could easily have a sustainable, cheap diet without that crap.

- There are over a billion cows on this planet. There would be far less if they were not domesticated for the purpose of the products they produce including meat. The same can be said for other livestock. Whether or not we eat the meat at the end of their life has little to do with how they are treated up to that point. Thus if you are against eating meat for the sole reason of their treatment you should also be against any animal products. Thus to be a vegetarian for this reason logically leads to becoming a vegan.

Yeah, I can see the sense in that. If you are against livestock or "animal exploitation" in general, veganism is the way to go.

Even then you have to ask yourself whether the life they live is so abhorrent to them that they'd rather not have ever lived at all or produce offspring. Ultimately they most likely do not have the capability to comprehend that, so those who do must make the decision for them. I have see no such distress in domesticated cattle to warrant such a population collapse, but some poultry farms can be a bit extreme.

I addressed this argument in another post. Some people feel that cows have it fairly good, considering they are well fed, kept, and killed quickly, without much pain. They are totally ignorant of their lot in life, so they can live blissfully unaware of what we have in store for them.

If people were put in an identical situation, we would immediately see how unethical the system would be. But a cow isn't a person, so many people are fine with putting them in that situation. I, however, can't bring myself to see it that way. My consience tells me that an animal's ignorance and stupidity is not enough to make the situation any less exploitative or demeaning.

 

[Keneth]

Would one of those gigantic Bengal Tigers you have back home feel the slightest bit guilty about eating you? Didn't think so. Enjoy your hamburger.

 

[Bertylicious]

I'm guessing what we're really talking about is the confinement, brutalisation and eventual slaughter of a living being. I'm also guessing that for the context of this argument that we're not counting plants as living beings.

Really it comes down to your view on what morality is; i.e. whether morality is objective or subjective. If one's view is objective as defined by divine law then nuance is irrelevant as the law either permits it or does not. If one's view is subjective then it comes down to your view on cute widdle wanimals or the negative impact a life of bloody horror has on abatoir workers.

My view is that there is no such thing as morality; merely consequences. Sympathy, compassion, affection are real things and doing horrible shit will ultimately maim a person's ability to feel. Farming and even slaughtering animals is actually not so terrible an activity, to be honest, so I don't regard the aiding and abetting of such activity by the eating of meat to be so bad.

Less than ideal though. Ideally we would have Meat Cubes of synthetic meat.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

Honestly I wouldn't kill them but I'm not going to stop eating bacon over morals. I am going to do plenty of worse things in my life then eat meat.

 

[Reynaerdinjo]

I'm guessing what we're really talking about is the confinement, brutalisation and eventual slaughter of a living being. I'm also guessing that for the context of this argument that we're not counting plants as living beings.

Really it comes down to your view on what morality is; i.e. whether morality is objective or subjective. If one's view is objective as defined by divine law then nuance is irrelevant as the law either permits it or does not. If one's view is subjective then it comes down to your view on cute widdle wanimals or the negative impact a life of bloody horror has on abatoir workers.

My view is that there is no such thing as morality; merely consequences. Sympathy, compassion, affection are real things and doing horrible shit will ultimately maim a person's ability to feel. Farming and even slaughtering animals is actually not so terrible an activity, to be honest, so I don't regard the aiding and abetting of such activity by the eating of meat to be so bad.

Less than ideal though. Ideally we would have Meat Cubes of synthetic meat.

Actually, there is an altogether different approach to morality that can be both scientific and objective. You should definitely read "The Moral Landscape" by Sam Harris if you're interested. Read more about it on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape

You say that slaughtering animals 'is not so terrible an activity', yet you provide no reasons for your claim. So this leaves me to ask: why?

 

[jboking]

See: In Vitro Meat.

Vegetables are living things, yes, but they are not in the same league (or kingdom) as animals. They don't feel pain, and they don't have the mental capacity to evaluate their situation, feel fear, anger or depression. Plants don't suffer when they are farmed, so they aren't a problem for vegetarians.

Have you ever heard of a chemical scream? Plants, as living creatures, do seem to understand when they are being attacked. They may not move and think like you do, but they are still alive. If you only want to not kill things because they are similar to you, then I'd say you have entered a form of morality that I willingly choose not to follow. Even if plants don't react to death like we would, if we are going to make this an argument of morality, you are still consuming life to continue your life. Life is life, period.

But then you probably already knew all that. Don't waste my fucking time, playing dumb.

Don't waste my time being an [edit: Sorry, I used a mean word and don't feel like getting moderated] Jerk. I just wanted to have a conversation, but if you wanted to have an insult festival, we could do that too. I came into this looking at it from a moral sense. In the end, I feel that no matter how the life ended, painlessly or otherwise, a loss of life is still just that.

I also love how you never seemed to pay attention to the last comment. In Vitro Meat.. In vitro meat is meat created in a lab from animal muscle cells. Using these cells they can grow meat virtually indefinitely. This is meat that will not grow into an animal, because it is just muscle cells, not full on DNA. This means that the meat we would grow would never be attached to an animal and could be harvested with zero pain or loss of life. It is, simply, the most moral choice.

 

[Reynaerdinjo]

In the end, I feel that no matter how the life ended, painlessly or otherwise, a loss of life is still just that.

Different forms of life warrant different amounts of our concern. I think this should be obvious: an ant doesn't have the same potential for pain or happiness as a full grown pig.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

I love meat. Something about the fact that I'm consuming the flesh of another living being for my own personal pleasure just makes me feel alive.

 

[jboking]

In the end, I feel that no matter how the life ended, painlessly or otherwise, a loss of life is still just that.

Different forms of life warrant different amounts of our concern. I think this should be obvious: an ant doesn't have the same potential for pain or happiness as a full grown pig.

If you are going to say you shouldn't feel bad about killing one thing because it's capacity for pain is insignificant compared to more developed animals, you could take that to its logical extension and say that one shouldn't feel bad about killing livestock because they do not have the same potential for pain or happiness as a full grown human. However, this isn't the point I was trying to make. I was saying that the question of morality I see is killing in order to sustain your life. The argument for not eating meat is that, (from my perspective) even though it would appear natural (due to the whole teeth argument), we are advanced enough to not have to do what is 'natural' if that means harming another living thing. I'm taking that argument and moving it to the next level. Plants do have to experience death to be eaten. This may seem acceptable or natural, but it is still killing something to continue our lives when we don't have to. In Vitro Meat. Fund it.

 

[Bertylicious]

blah blah blah objective morality vs subjective morality blah blah blah killing animals isn't that bad blah blah blah

Actually, there is an altogether different approach to morality that can be both scientific and objective. You should definitely read "The Moral Landscape" by Sam Harris if you're interested. Read more about it on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape

You say that slaughtering animals 'is not so terrible an activity', yet you provide no reasons for your claim. So this leaves me to ask: why?

Sorry dude. Turns out some of us have to work for a living so I didn't have time.

Let us use the dear old nazis as an example. When they started murdering people in their concentration camps they started off by machine gunning row upon row of men, women and children into mass graves. They noticed that this had a profound effect on the psychology of the men doing the butchering. That's why they started using gas chambers; so they could kill loads of people without having such a negative impact on the soldiers.

Similarly, modern abatoirs focus on quick, clean, killing. This is largely for the sake of the meat rather than the workers, but it still results in fewer terrified animals depressing everyone with their misery.

 

[xPixelatedx]

I like how everyone acts like this isn't even a discussion because of 'the food chain' and all that jazz; it's not a big deal at all... until someone gets eaten by a lion or crocodile. Then everyone flips the hell out and hunts down/kills the offending animal, even if they didn't pose a threat to anyone else because of how far into the wild they lived. The news also talks about it like it's the most horrible thing ever, "This person wasn't just killed, they were eaten".

No, we aren't biased at all! Haha I love how silly our species is.

That said, I love beef.

 

[BNguyen]

The problem is that a statement of fact, such as "humans are meant to be eating meat from a biological perspective" does not correlate with a value statement, such as "it is right to eat meat". It is simply a (formal) logical mistake. There are lots of things humans are "meant" to do from a biological perspective that we don?t do because we accept it as wrong. And conversely, there is al lot of things that it is not "natural" for us to do, but we still do them because we see them as right. Would you also argue that industrial society is wrong because it doesn't fit our natural, nomadic way of life? You say that it is natural for us to sleep. But surly the natural way to sleep is in a tree or on the ground? Why do you use a bed? Because we have moved on from our natural prerequisite conditions. We are just that intelligent.

I previous poster pointed out rather cleverly that this argument confuses what is natural/right with what is necessary. I agree that it is necessary for us to sleep, crap eat and survive. How we do this however is up for moral scrutiny.

Wile sure, what we do now is not considered entirely natural, but it is a natural process to grow, develop, and become better than what we were. Our methods to secure the same basic needs have changed but What I meant by natural is that we need them in order to survive. It doesn't matter how we do them as long as we can do them at all. I'm not saying the natural way or as some would call it "how it was" is the same way I view it. It is natural for us to want to eat and meat carries with it a lot of naturally occurring chemicals that give us excellent levels of protein and calcium and activates reactors in our brains to allow us to fill up faster that way we aren't always needing to eat. A similar reaction can be gained from plants but that is because it fills us without causing a reaction in our brains.

If you could somehow change humans to such a degree that our bodies did not need the nutrients that meat provided then all power to you, but as long as my body needs proteins and calcium, I'll continue to consume animal products. Humans were not built to be herbivorous because our bodies are completely inefficient at extracting the nutrients, we can only do so from particular plants, not like say a cow can. That and our teeth would rapidly wear down from only eating plant matter due to the abundance of brittle molecules in the plants structure. And we were not meant to be completely carnivorous for the same reasons - meat is tender, so our teeth do not wear down as fast but rather, they grow soft, so we offset this by eating plants which build up our gums.

Millions of people survive and live healthy lives by eating vegan diets. We now know what humans need to be healthy and by applying this, a vegetarian lifestyle can be nutritionally complete. You can get all the nutrients you need through plants or animal products other than meat, such as eggs. Saying humans can't live like that is an outdated statement.

You do know that veganism rejects the dietary use of animal products don't you? That means no eggs and no milk. And I'm saying that people need the chemicals provided in both sources to live healthy lives. Some people may seem healthy at a glance but as their bodies lack sufficient amounts of protein, their muscle mass with deteriorate.

I've said this before to another poster, but as long as we have conflicting views and no concrete means of finding a place that we can agree on, we'll just have to give up arguing. But all in all, my posts, are just my opinions and while opinions are up for criticism I'm sure we both have better things to do than to break down each other's opinions.

 

[Navvan]

1. It's not difficult to spend five minutes researching on the net, and five minutes in the grocery section of a supermarket.

2. Meat is invariably more expensive than vegetable produce. It is entirely due to the cost of producing meat that this is the case. The only thing that tends to be more expensive are the convenience, processed vegetarian foods, like veggy burgers and all that. A frugal person could easily have a sustainable, cheap diet without that crap.

3. Yeah, I can see the sense in that. If you are against livestock or "animal exploitation" in general, veganism is the way to go.

I addressed this argument in another post. Some people feel that cows have it fairly good, considering they are well fed, kept, and killed quickly, without much pain. They are totally ignorant of their lot in life, so they can live blissfully unaware of what we have in store for them.

If people were put in an identical situation, we would immediately see how unethical the system would be. But a cow isn't a person, so many people are fine with putting them in that situation. I, however, can't bring myself to see it that way. My consience tells me that an animal's ignorance and stupidity is not enough to make the situation any less exploitative or demeaning.

1. Difficulty is in the eye of the beholder. What you find simple others find difficult, and what some others see as simple you find difficult. It is certainly a manageable task, but some people have more going on in their life than to try and plan a vegetarian diet.

2. This is exactly what I stated in this section in my own post.

3. This is where we really disagree. Sapience is an important attribute when considering how to treat another organism or object just as much as sentience is. If something is sentient we should not inflict it with unnecessary pain. If something is sapient we should not be the one to control their life outside of protecting our own.

You don't mind eating plants, growing them, and treating them however you wish because they are not sentient, and rightfully so. Likewise we both dislike harming animals unnecessarily because they are sentient. I however do not mind exploiting animal livestock because they are not sapient. So long as they are not distressed/in pain/treated poorly throughout their life.

[
It's not just poultry farms. Factory farms have thousands upon thousands of animals who are so bored that they literally go insane. Consider this excerpt from the PETA website about pigs:

Firstly I consider PETA as trustworthy a source on this issue as a Farming Association. That is extremely biased toward one side. However I will address the issues.

- My initial post was referring to personal experiences, poultry farms and cattle ranches that I've witnessed personally which is why I did not mention Pigs, Turkeys, Llama, Fish, and so forth.

- I am familiar with the controversy surrounding Sow Stalls, and I do find them to be unethical as do a number of countries and a number states within the U.S. They do not sometimes go "insane" because of boredom. They sometimes become extremely irritated to the point of hostility due to extensive close confinement.

- The Docking of tails and ears is done because the animals have a tendency to bite these areas. This leads to infection, more pain, and death. It is not done for fun. It would also be ridiculously expensive to give pain medication (and also dangerous for the pig that soon after birth) for the time in which the docking procedure takes place. It is the lesser of two evils in this case.

- For the reasons above in addition to health reasons I do actively limit my pork consumption. To be more explicit I only eat pork when it is offered to me, and I have not purchased any pork related products within my lifetime that I am aware of.

- Slaughter should be done as painlessly as possible, and I agree that is not always the case. For that reason I support more active laws such as an enforcement of the existing Humane Slaughter Act. However that does not address the inherent ethics of eating meat only the ethics from eating meat that originate under such circumstances.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

I feel guilty for eating fish (the only 'meat' I eat) -- I know that I don't really need to eat them in order to survive, when I can pop to any supermarket and fill up on products that aren't created upon the death of animals.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

I'm very confused if eating meat/seafood is justified and that we shouldn't feel guilty for killing living things for our consumption.

It's probably been said (I didn't read the whole thread), but plants are living things too. What makes them so different?

I've often heard, "Animals can feel pain."

One (and I know that this is going to sound crazy, but bear with me), we don't know for sure that plants don't feel pain. Yes, our current scientific knowledge tells us that they can't and I trust that is true, but science changes as we discover new things, there's always the possibility (however small) that they can, and then what are we to do? Starve to death in the name of not causing pain?

Two, livestock can be, and usually are, killed in a quick and painless fashion. I can see the arguments against eating things like veal or factory-farm livestock where they are horribly mistreated as they are raised, but if it's range-fed, organic livestock and the killing is done quickly and painlessly, the pain issue is a non-issue.

I've heard compelling arguments against non-organic livestock or other cruel things like veal, and accept those, which is why I avoid those products, but I've never heard a compelling argument for why all meat is bad, so I will continue to eat it.

 

[maninahat]

See: In Vitro Meat.

Vegetables are living things, yes, but they are not in the same league (or kingdom) as animals. They don't feel pain, and they don't have the mental capacity to evaluate their situation, feel fear, anger or depression. Plants don't suffer when they are farmed, so they aren't a problem for vegetarians.

Have you ever heard of a chemical scream? Plants, as living creatures, do seem to understand when they are being attacked. They may not move and think like you do, but they are still alive. If you only want to not kill things because they are similar to you, then I'd say you have entered a form of morality that I willingly choose not to follow. Even if plants don't react to death like we would, if we are going to make this an argument of morality, you are still consuming life to continue your life. Life is life, period.

My moral argument is to prevent suffering and pain where possible. Plants are excluded because they cannot feel pain or suffering. Chemical screams are categorically not in the same league as pain sensations, and as a plant has no mental capacity to speak of, a "chemical scream" is not really analogous to a pain sensation. No where did I say that I believed in the sanctity of life, or that all lives are equally valuable. They aren't.

But then you probably already knew all that. Don't waste my fucking time, playing dumb.

Don't waste my time being an [edit: Sorry, I used a mean word and don't feel like getting moderated] Jerk. I just wanted to have a conversation, but if you wanted to have an insult festival, we could do that too. I came into this looking at it from a moral sense. In the end, I feel that no matter how the life ended, painlessly or otherwise, a loss of life is still just that.

I'm sorry if it was meant as a genuine question. I just assumed that the moral differences between killing animals and killing plants was so obvious, that you already knew the answer, and were just asking me out of intellectual dishonesty.

I also love how you never seemed to pay attention to the last comment. In Vitro Meat.. In vitro meat is meat created in a lab from animal muscle cells. Using these cells they can grow meat virtually indefinitely. This is meat that will not grow into an animal, because it is just muscle cells, not full on DNA. This means that the meat we would grow would never be attached to an animal and could be harvested with zero pain or loss of life. It is, simply, the most moral choice.

yes, in vitro meat would be the a more moral choice, but it isn't even available on the market yet. It won't be for a long time, until they find a much cheaper way to create it in bulk. I ignored it because it isn't yet relevant to consuming habits of normal people. Mention it again in twenty years time.