Maybe the human body didn't develop for eating meat but to call it a freak of nature is a bit of an exageration imo. I think that, during ice ages, primitive humans would have no choice but to consume meat. Rather than a freak of nature I think it's quite fortunate that our bodies are capable of consuming meat as well as vegetables. Also, that website says that you're only a true omnivore or carnivore if you find a road-kill appetising. That's complete nonsense. By that logic I'm not meant to eat vegetables either, since I don't find vegetables appetising. I'm pretty sure that if we were living like wild creatures and our survival depended on whatever we could find with our own hands then that road kill would look a whole lot more appetising than it does to us now. I still think that the only reason to go vegetarian, but only on a global scale, would be socio-economic.
For what it's worth, I absolutely love the taste of meat (I would wager more than 98% of humans on the planet), but I read Peter Singers book Animal Liberation a couple of years ago, and from that afternoon I've been a veggy
When I was back at school I remember this topic comming up once and the teacher saying something along the lines of 'animals which are farmed live safe and quality (free range etc) life until they are comsumed by humans'. Basically, it's alot safer for an animal to live on a farm than in the wild. The appendix (believed to be used in digestion of leaves as primates) has all but lost it's function. It's also not a freak of Nature but evolution. What ever the early form of humans started out as they changed/adapted to incorporate meat into their diet. The only reason people have to be a veggi is the 'suffering' animals endured during culling. In my opinion, it's alot better way to go than say an animal on the descovery channel being mauled by a pack of predators.
Exactly... We are predators... highly evolved ones mind you, but in the end it all boils down to the fact that humans are omnivores and those that choose to only eat vegetables are the exception to the rule... IMHO; the moral challenge should not be placed on whether we should kill other animals for food... I think it should be shifted to the treatment we do give said animals while they're alive. One thing I do despise is hunting as a sport. I understand that most hunters will also use or at least give away the meat from their kills, but it still just boils my blood to see some idiot on TV whispering to the camera "look at that gorgeous buck over there in the distance... that must be a 10 pointer easily" and then blam... kill it. I think I remember watching a stand up comedy show where Chris Rock said that the US was the only country where people went hunting on a full stomach. It may be an exageration; given that Brits and Canadians also love to hunt, but it did make a point... Hunting for the fun of it is just killing for the sake of killing... and I can't stand it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/08/secret-abattoir-video-animal-abuse?ref=nf Well that teacher is sadly mistaken If i was a farmed animal, i would much rather my chances in the wild than ending up in a place like that....
The psychologist Kohlberg (and many philosophers) would disagree. Morality also serves to maintain coherent sense of self. For 14 cats out of 40, you are what you do.
It was more about living a longer and safer life on a farm than the wild. Also video's like that just show how f****d up some people really are, you can tell if they didn't have a job in an abattoir then they'd be locked up later on in life for doing those acts to someone else.
Yup, and soldiers who commit war crimes are just a few rotten apples... Not so. It all sounds kind of familiar. The men in the abattoirs are no different from the ordinary soldiers who ended up abusing prisoners of war or the "kill teams" in Afghanistan who killed civilians and kept photos of their dismembered corpses, skulls and pieces of bone as their trophies. People exposed to, and forced to commit acts of brutality first become desensitised to it, and then become brutal themselves. Which throws up an interesting observation: if society is morally OK with eating animals, why are these men acting out? One would think that the act of killing some pigs, cows and sheep shouldn't rattle them from their rational, professional detachment. But here they are, for all appearances going a bit, well, crazy. Are abattoirs just a bit too far over the edge? Is the mass production and large-scale slaughter of livestock objectifying the act of killing and eating an animal to such an extent that people are losing their connection with it, and ultimately, their connection with themselves? People who hunt for their food in the wild, or raise their own livestock certainly do not behave that way. The act of engaging with the animal through hunting or rearing it, killing and eating it, is an act of engagement with nature itself; a deep awareness of the cycles of life and death and the intricate interconnectedness of all life, including humans. To kill and eat an animal is, in a way, humbling. This is why many tribal hunters ask for forgiveness of the animal's spirit. You realise that your life comes at a price, and you are better worth it. We the mass-consuming city slickers have lost that connection. We send others out to kill for our food like we sent others out to kill for our oil. I wonder if we would still be buying 4x4s and turbocharged sportscars if we had to go to Iraq ourselves, jerrycan and gun in hand. Perhaps we'd take the bike more often. Similarly, if we had to kill our animals ourselves perhaps we'd eat more vegetables. Either way, it would be a healthier lifestyle, and perhaps also a more moral one.
For the most part every human has a job which helps their society (without benifit scroungers there'd by no Jeremy Kyle/ trisha....which come to think of it would be a good thing). Being a complex society we need people to fill a wide variety of jobs from police to doctors to teachers to builders etc. Farmers can be classes as hunters who provide for the rest of people, and with this roll being filled not everyone has to 'hunt' for their food. Earlier in this thread someone said humans weren't built to eat meat. Personally I think humans instinctively have an urge to hunt, but because of the way we've evolved to rely on a network of co-operation between different jobs this urge is never fulfilled in some people. Due to the lack of expression this 'urge' manifests in misguided and deluded acts of cruelty to weaker animals and or humans. Then again this doesn't mean it's not right to eat meat because of a handful of individuals who act a certain way. An animal is consumed and is processed to sustain life, much the same way as a plant (both living organisms). Not eating meat because it's possible to survive without it doesn't mean you shouldn't. Pretty sure my cat can survive without meat, but if I took away her Whiskas she wouldn't be happy. At the end of the day I'm of the opinion people are free to choose what they want, whether that's to eat meat or not. Either way no one should go around forcing or trying to justify their believes on others.
The question shouldn't be 'Is it morally right to kill animals for food?' but rather it should be 'Should vegans be classed as a seperate species?' and would we be justified for farming them for meat. To be honest, it would give a whole new meaning to the term veggie burger.
Well I do think it's entirely up to each individual whether they are comfortable eating meat or not (I do). But to claim humans shouldn't eat meat from an evolutionary perspective is blatantly wrong and that website seems to be incredibly biased. Humans are designed to eat meat because..... well we can. End of discussion really. We're not (or no longer) designed to eat grass because..... well we can't. I'd also point to our binocular vision and the fact that people have been eating meat certainly for hundreds of thousands of years and presumably before that (although I don't really know much about early human evolution). Of course maybe I'm wrong and we 'shouldn't' eat meat from an evolutionary perspective (whatever that means) and if so then so what? We shouldn't live in centrally heated houses (from an evolutionary perspective), we shouldn't drive cars, fly planes, sit in front of computers.....
Yeah I know what your saying, but my computer, and most other peoples computers don't make big of effect as farmed animals do (but still damage the earth none the less). Could you imagine no starving people in the whole world? because its something we have ground up with its something that we can hardly comprehend happening, it would be such a massive shift in human satiety, and for the better. We just have to give up the luxury of a type of food, but it will never happen to we absolute have to, which will probably be 100's of years from now but people will look back and say why the hell didn't we do this before. Its not only animals that suffer for us, its other humans as well. The argument of because we eaten animals for so many years does not make it right does it? We used black people for slave labour for years and years, but we now know that was wrong, and no longer do it. Its so much easier not a value animal products, when you are raised from birth to not to be involved with it, and I think that's half the battle won right there, not feeling the need to use animals, but instead respect them as equals. Where animal liberation lies, so does human liberation, i just wish i could live to see it.
Yeah I wasn't trying to argue we should eat meat because we're designed to. I was just objecting to someone saying we aren't designed to eat meat that's all. Environmentally I know it's bad to eat meat but then there are lots of things I do that harm the environment that I could change easily. Everyone decides what they will and wont do as should they be able to.
Is it morally justifiable to not kill animals for meat? Who in the UK would own a farm animal? If the animals were not farmed, there would be no reason to have any. We couldn't have wild cattle, it would just be a mass cull and then no livestock in the uk at all. A small dairy herd might exist, but what would happen to those when they died? It'd be expensive to have to cremate them. In addition as a farmed dairy herd, alot of cows are sent to slaughter at 10 but may live to 15, but if there would be no market for meat the only income would be from dairy produce. As soon as the cow produces an un-econmoc yeild it would either become a massive burden to the farmer and cause milk prices to make milk uneconomic. Or be culled and disposed off, which would be a waste of a good rescource. A dairy herd without revenue from slaughter would be un-economical. Soya based alternatives would be much cheaper, causing the same colapse of the livestock market, resulting in a mass cull.
If you read past posts, I explain why there is no need for us to control animal numbers. Please look back and read it before posting about it. Cows that would become wild would not need us to dispose of them when they die..... do we need to dispose of every animal in the world when dies? no we don't, other wildlife takes care of that them selves. Also im talking total liberation, not a half arsed job, so no animals used in any way for profitable means. so no deary products included with no meat. That may come as a shock to you, but would you walk up to a cow and suck on its glands with your lips? i know i wouldn't! just because its packaged up nicely and you have been told from birth "its ok to do this" does not make it ok at all. As a result of deary products, almost all male cows get killed at birth, which in all honestly is Balearic and sickening just because the farmer cannot make profit from him. Also about the age you said they get killed at.... some cows get killed a 3-4, depending on the product there going to be turned into. You fail to realise unknowngamer, that there would be NO animals used for human profit... not just pigs for meat, they will be independent from humans, so the farmers would be pretty much f0cked untill he/she change's over to crop farming.
yeap, a vegan world. pretty much sure it will never happen, and that's just my ideal world, a fantasy.... full of nothing but benefits to everyone and everything. But ill make do with meat free world for now like we where discussing before
