If certain animals arent killed to control their numbers, then their food source becomes scarce and they all begin to starve; is it morally wrong to kill animals for their own good ( you could apply that logic to humans too )? Killing animals for food is morally justified because they taste nice and contain the the nutrients we need to survive; I know of a few veggies who have to take a shite load vitamin supplements & iron tablets due to suffering from anemia; is it morally right to make yourself suffer just because you dont like the thought of killing the cuddly-wuddly animals? I also find the argument that killing animals = killing humans highly entertaining- humans can be food for other animals in the food chain too- would you question the morals of a tigershark, greatwhite, Boa constrictor or Alligator? The better question would be is it morally justified to use land for growing food for animals when the land could be used for growing crops for people to eat; it takes vast amount of energy to raise a single cow to the age at which it can be slauightered for meat, the same amount of energy could feed whole communities of people. Thats a better question. On the subject of Halal meat; I've seen videos of giraffes being slauightered for meat- their deaths were neither quick nor painless. Neither were the deaths of various other animals being slaughtered according to what some fairy story book says; morality vs religion- have fun with that one kids...
I'm not saying all moral standards are wrong but many are, from another culture or religious sects point of view, wrong. Who's right? When you question a moral then how can it be right? Instead of slapping your own moral law on a questionable act then turn to the natural order of things and inveriably you'll get an answer that is for the benefit of all. You are right sorry. I should really have been less lazy and just had the top one as natures rule but I'm getting tired and this is a discussion that I should have left ages ago as it's elevated far beyond my intellectual level really but the subject matter is something that I feel very strongly about. I just want to change the world for the better, even if it means we have to go back to fighting for survival (but I would prefer to keep the beneficial technology that we have created along the way here). Guess that makes me a new-age hippy eh?
In short, yes. Evolution "knows" nothing. It is not an agent, it is a process. It has no "design" or plan. Vegans, on the other hand, may or may not be right ( I don't know) in their reasons for being vegans but the comparison is not logically sound. I think preliminary studies are showing that organically grown food is less nutritious. In which case nature takes its course and the strong survive the weak ones die - not really any of our business. Really? Questioning something does not say anything about whether the thing is right or wrong. It's the answers to the question that decide that. Natural law is not for the benefit of all. Natural law just is. It doesn't care if Hawkins dies because he is not physically able to survive on his own. In short, nature is amoral. Humans, otoh, are moral agents with the ability to consider the various implications of complex situations and make decisions in light of the evidence. It is, therefore, our responsibility to consider the consequences of our decisions. That is a laudable sentiment, but we are never going to change the world for the better by abandoning morals.
I did read the thread, I fail to see your point; you say that humans ( an animal after all ) killing other animals is wrong & is no different to humans killing young children and mentally handicapped people ( or vegetarians as they are known ). Well thats just bollocks quite frankly and has nothing to do with food at all- its a totally different subject altogether ( see: extending life vs extending suffering ). If humans eating animals is morally wrong, then animals eating humans must be okay, no? You tell me what you're basing your arguments here as they really are not making any sense - I think its you who need to go and take a look at things abit more closely; there are certain sheeple that will ignore the overwhelmingly brilliant arguments & carry on spouting their 'meat am bad, boo' rhetoric without having a leg to stand on regards validating their arguments- especially in the context of modern times and farming practices. Morality is a social construct, just like laws, to prevent us all from running around doing whatever the hell we like with no regard for the consequences; unfortunately some hippies applied that notion to the rights & wrongs of eating animals. And yes, most animals bred for eating do taste nice, thats thw whole bloody point, as do certain other 'wild' species*. If you dont like it then fine, just dont expect everyone to come around to your way of thinking, especially if you keep regurgitating the same flawed arguments repeatedly... *I went hunting a few months back with my airrifle, bagged me a nice bunny rabbit- put that in a stew with some veg & chicken stock for a few hours and had me a nice meal. Kill it, cook it, eat it. If this were the 'real world' and we didnt have supermarkets to get food from, nor shops to buy fertilizer & crop seeds from, I think a great many people would be thoroughly screwed pretty much- theres little morality to worry about when you're starving hungry and the only food available has to be hunted and killed
I know there's no agency behind the process of evolution, it is simply an emergent natural process. Cognition too, is a process, the process of thought. The comparison of two processes is logically sound, regardless if one is devoid of agency and the other watched too much Rolf's Animal Hospital That may be so, but the advantages of short-term nutritional concentration are mitigated, if not overwhelmed, by potentially harmful epidemiological consequences.
Iv never eaten a single animal in my life, (im 20) and never will. My view is that Animals are equals, and nothing less. You would eat your best friend? No, so why an animal? because there not as smart as us? well ill go fry my self up a kid with downs then shall I? There is absolutely no need to eat animals at all, the amount of environmental problems and starvation is makes in the would is ludicrous. Animals killed because or rising numbers? IE fox's ect.... So you think if we wasn't around the hole country will be over run with fox's and other animals.... No, numbers may rise, but no so much that it rapes the land (unlike us). The numbers fall again on there own after a shortage of food due to a high number of fox's, then because of the shortage of fox's ect because of low number of rabbits/chickens, there food (chickens, rabbits ect) will rise again. This repeats it self, and has done before man walked this earth. Its called an equal equilibrium which all living things do on this planet, something we cant seem to understand. Same thing for deers and other hunted animals. I feel very strongly about Animal rights and I'm part of a number of "groups" that I don't care to detail on here. A lot people hate us, and see us a terrorists. We don't create terror, we stop the terror. Its not just to products them selfs, ie: leather, meat, fur, wool and other food, its the way its carried out, skinning cats and dogs alive, then leaving them to die on the floor in shock, poorly carried out deaths of farm animals, where a lot of the time the animals are still live when been processed, keeping dogs and cats in very small cages, then throwing the ones they don't want into a dustbin lorry's ALIVE, still able to hear the painful screams as they get crushed. Just a small example of why Humans are f0oking scum. Do not reply to me unless you have watched this: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6361872964130308142# Its graphic, you have been warned! At least then you will have a glimps into the real world of animal products and what does on behind closed doors. Sorry if this come to you a bit forward, but its the truth.
Uhh, if that question was directed at me, I'm afraid I can't answer personal questions in forums. It distracts people from the discussion topic, then the same people who ask the questions accuse me of hijacking the thread. At physicsforums.com, I answered personal questions while desperately trying to bring the conversation back to the hyperbolic characteristics of the spacetime interval metric equation. When they were shocked by the answers to questions they themselves asked, they threw me out, saying I posted off-topic. That's not fair. Email me instead, or read my blog, where I talk about my horrible psychotic religious mom. Not being autistic, you'll probably misinterpret this reply as a snub, but there's nothing I can do about that. -faye
What arguments of his are you talking about? All I said is that you should read him. > It's true that the effects of his arguments would trickle down to this, but whether his arguments are valid is still far from decided. I don't mean to be disrespectful, and people are always telling me I'm "too honest", but I don't think you know what you're talking about. You probably didn't even read Nietzsche but just wikipedia'ed his name. Again, what arguments of his are you referring to? > My question is (quite obviously) asked with the assumption that morality exists Well that's (quite obviously) a presumptuous assumption, isn't it? It's like deciding, for no good reason, that "god" exists, then making a serious, academic, big deal about figuring out what "he" wants us to do. There is no "theology" because there aren't any gods. The whole thing is make-believe. If you're the one who asserts that morality has some objective, tangible reality, then you ought to be able to tell everyone what that reality is. But you can't just make stuff up, then expect other people to explain it to you. > Yes, morality is relative, but ,IMO, that doesn't make it irrelevant. "Relevant" is an arbitrary opinion, too. I hate to be pedantic, but it was you who began this philosophy class. > In short, I don't think Nietzsche has anything to do with this. Then ignore Fredrick Nietzsche and his books, and respond just to what I said, as if I thought it up myself. Specifically, how can you ask other people what is moral, when morality is just an opinion? If you're asking whether eating meat is consistent with some set of rules, that might be a meaningful question; however you need to specify the rule set, and that, again, is arbitrary. That's what I meant when I said that you're free, and you can't escape that fact. Hindus have one set of dietary laws, Jews have another, and the USDA has their own list of things not to eat. Red is gray and yellow, white--but WE decide which one is right, and which is an illusion. -faye
Firstly Spec, you've said there is a difference between denial of current life and denial of future life. In this you would be right, but not for the reasons you would be satisfied with. Each and every living organism has one goal, and only one goal: reproduction (the continuation of genes). Beyond this, there is no point to any life. Such as it is, any current organism that has gone past the point of continuation of it's DNA can be seen as forfeit of it's life in a naturalistic view. Potential for new life (continuation and recombination of existing memetic genotypes) by a far and wide margin outweighs continuation of existing life beyond the immediate reproduction. Therefore, murder can be seen as the equal, if not the superior moral viewpoint to masturbation. On the one hand you are denying the continuation of an existing life that may or may not be past it's reproductive phase, while on the other hand you are directly denying future offspring the chance to live, and for the continuation of your genes to take place. While the organism you are killing may contain some of the same genes you contain, offspring definitely contain fifty percent of your genes. This is a bit of a silly way to look at it, I'll give you that, but if you were too look at life from a moral viewpoint via nature, then this is the obvious outcome. To see otherwise is to show your bias and ignorance. Masturbation over procreation is an intentional denial of the continuation of your genetic structure, and of future generations. Moving onto the topic of killing another living, reproducing organism, and why the perceptual "objectional" death of a particular Kingdom (Animalia) is deemed morally objectionable in comparison to another Kingdom (Plantae). To what extent do we deem those within the Animalia as morally objectionable to kill? Do we do this because they look somewhat like us (anthropomorphising)? Or is it out of some form of self-imposed "care for the helpless" habit? Maybe you object to the killing of Animalia on the basis that they are of a more related species than those of the Plantae Kingdom? Any one of these arguments can be reduced to infinitum rather easily if we do away with either of the two former arguments (as they're facetious and self-gratifying at best). We share quite a lot of our genetic structure with any species you should so pick from the Plantae Kingdom, less so than Animalia yes, but not as to be unrelated. So to say that we shouldn't kill those of whom we are related could be said to continue onto all species of which we have relation, which happens to be every single last species on the planet which utilizes DNA for reproduction. Where do we draw the arbitrary line of relatedness? Fifty percent (most of the Animalia Kingdom)? Twenty percent (most of the Plantae Kingdom)? Five percent (those of the Archaea and Bacteria Domain)? This is without taking into issue the obvious problems with assigning a percentage towards the relatedness between any two organisms on a genetic level (I won't get into this here, as it'll make my lengthy argument even longer, and more boring). I do not believe that it is a moral issue to condemn or condone the wholesale slaughter of any species, be they of direct genetic relation to ourselves, or a very distant ancestor. To argue that we have the mental capability to make such decisions is laughable, as we're no more free from our own genes than the next creature (contraception, suicide, and other seemingly "unnatural" daily occurrences can easily be explained by mutations, imperfections, and confusion in the translation of genetic material). We're survival machines for our memetic genes, which have very cleverly programmed us in a rather successful way to try and propagate themselves in world perceptually free of predation, disease, and hunger. These are basic wants for any creature, but we've just gone slightly past most due to our innate ability to manipulate, as honed over several millennia. We may seem to each other as rather clever beasts, but we're no better than that gazelle running from the lion which seems to keep popping up in this thread. We've the illusion of comparative "intelligence" and an abstract conciousness which is able to have the brief notion of "future", but this is no more special than the ability to run away from a lion rather quickly; it's no more or less advanced than being able to turn quicker than a lion. We as a species of genetic memes have adapted to unrelenting circumstances which would have seen us dinner without the adaptation of a proportionally large frontal-cortex. Anything therein is simply an adaptation to our environment, better allowing us survival within the natural world. Morality, or the act of deciding whether or not to kill or help another, is no more free to decision to us now than it was to our brethren five million years ago. Aesthetically we can look at slaughter and consumption of those members of the Animalia we find tasty as wrong, but it is incorrect to see this aesthetic as anything more than that. We can make it more or less pleasant to look at, but subjective morality is nothing to hang an argument of nutrition on. If you enjoy the aesthetic of killing Plantae more than that of Animalia, then I've no problem with it; this is simply how you differ from me. But one way or another you are taking the life of another organism in your hands and controlling it's continuation of life. I've specifically avoided the usage of the terms "plant" and "animal", as they can be misleading (there are countless species that bridge the gap between). I've instead opted for the direct Latin classifications of the two major Kingdoms of which we consume to avoid any muddled grey-area which may arise from any such species between the two more classic definitions of animals and plants.
Good for you. How old are you, height & weight? Once again, another person comparing eating animals bred for food to eating humans. your point is invalid. Fixed spelling. Humans are omnivores- we evolved to eat meat & plants, just like alot of other animals. Are you saying those animals shouldnt eat other animals too, or just humans because we developed this notion of morality? The problem we face is not a moral one, it is a logistical one- too many people, not enough of the right food to feed them, hence farming practices to make the most effective use of a finite area of arable land. Fox hunting is a disgusting practice carried out by toffs on horse back- it has little or nothing to do with over-population, it is merely a sport. If farmers insist on keeping chickens then they should make certain their enclosures are fox-proof; the animal is only doing what comes naturally to it in killing the chickens ( to eat them, naughty Mr. Fox, didnt you know thats immoral? ). Nature will maintain an equilibrium even if mankind does rape the planet to the brink of destruction, it just takes a much longer length of time to recover than humans can understand or deal with. Every time a massive natural disaster occurs that wipes out 99% of all the life on the planet, it bounces back over millennia- man kind cannot deal with such a concept as long term geological upheaval, hence why you have lots of hippies jumping up & down saying that we're killing the planet; the earth itself spews out more toxic fumes than humanity has done since it showed up on the planet- read this: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html Fact: Mount Vesuvius spewed out more toxic chemicals when it errupted than mankind has ever. If you hate humanity so much, you better just kill yourself I guess- everything you do, touch, eat & sleep on is the result of humanity's efforts to tame the planet and make it a survivable & enjoyable place to live. If you would rather freeze to death sleeping in a field, dying from some preventable illness because your moral delusions wont allow you to take man-made drugs & wear clothes made form natural or man made fibres ( boo, oil ), then have fun. Otherwise, you and your criminal buddies are nothing more than well meaning, ill informed hypocrites.
OK, you've piqued my interest: what consequences? Can you provide us with direct examples beyond the potential? What peer-reviewed studies have you read, and then sought out the rebuttals and counter-arguments and collaborative tests from those studies? A bit of a tangent, yes, but I feel a good one towards the subjective "morality" of foodstuffs. Is man-created food any more or less perceptually "moral" than those of which have evolved by the influence of other evolving creatures in it's environment over millions of years? Is there a difference? I'll start you off with a good consequence! I like that consequence.
can you back that up? what nonsense Ok then, your closest family pet, would you eat him/her? didn't think so.. already said how old i am, and perfectly healthy thank you.
Animal-right activists who dont wish to name the groups they belong to are hardly likely to obey the law- plenty of examples I could list but you'd just justify it however you want. Peaceful demonstration & altering people's habbits is a far better route to ending the suffering of animals, short of wiping out the whole of the human race. But then, you'd still have animals eating animals- fix that one why dont you. Not at all. Morality is simply a sense of knowing right from wrong, dont try and turn it into a sense of whats neccessary & un-neccessary for survival. Umm, you just said exactly the same thing again as you did last time. I'll make it easier for you; some animals = food, people = not food. I guess you're having a hard time understanding that, woudl you like me to draw you a picture? Comparing breeding animals for food to eating people is not only retarded, its... well, its not even a point or argument, its just idiocy- people arent bred for food ( well, I hope not anyway.... ). One species of animal will naturally pre-date on other species, humans are animals, go figure. Sorry, ment mental age & IQ. Just wandering if you're a scrawny 9 stone chap who has to supplement his diet in order not to keel over and die on a daily basis. Glad you're happy and healthy. Now, if you knew that the plants you eat are the result of being fed animal waste as a fertilizer, and those animals are bred on a farm for food, woudl you still eat the plants? This is kinda fun- all the points raised about the morality of eating animals have been addressed thoroughly several times already, now we're just going round in circles- I can do this all day if you like. I wont though, because its pointless; you have your view point & beliefs, I have mine- respecting what we eat and treating it well is far more important- if humanity and do that, then there is no case to answer for not eating animals. If I dress up as a lion and go rip someone's pet chicken or duck apart and eat it, is that wrong? Because thats perfectly fine for wild animals to do...
so resulting to insults now? why not? why end more life's than we need to? life that can feel pain, and pleasure the same as us, happiness and sadness, the same as us, and fear, the same as us. why not? meat is meat, no matter where it comes from, and also we tastes like bigs (useless fact alert lol)...... apparently. So its not even like we taste bad, not that i know what a pig does taste like. What makes you think vegans or vegetarians would do that? I have a lot of vegan and veggie friends (which none of use need or use supplements), all perfectly healthy, its just am image only people that don't know none animal eaters think we are some thin dying weeds...
