I know this is not the case in so called "humane" slaughterhouses. I'm all for veganism, I'm gonna go vegan once I move out of my parents house. But I was talking about veganism with me dad and he brought this up.
One of the main arguments for veganism is that even if animals may be less intelligent than us, they have the capacity to feel pain. And that pain is not worth the 5 minutes of sensory pleasure we get from their meat. But what if there was a perfect slaughterhouse that ensured that the animals lived a healthy and happy life, and that their death was completely pain free(similar to how dogs are put down), would it be justified to eat meat from animals killed in that slaughterhouse?
I know that no such slaughterhouse exists currently. But what if in the far future we do?
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When a moral outcome for animals isn't quite clear, it can be useful to apply the same for humans and see how it works there. E.g. if a bear attacks you, is it ok to shoot them? Well, check with the human case, if a human attacks you, is it ok to shoot them?
So let's do that here. If there was a perfect slaughterhouse where we could kill humans painlessly and without their awareness, would that be ok?
I'd say 'no". Because it's not only the pain that you cause, it is also the potential to future joy that you take away. The same applies to animals who have a good life. Taking that good future life away is bad, imho.
I like that approach, considering how it would translate to humans. Although OP is analyzing ethics only on one spectrum: pain. I don’t think that’s a reasonable sole criterion for dietary choices, and is not the full belief system of most vegans, but in OP’s framework, considering only pain, I think there are a lot of ways to kill and eat humans and other animals without causing them pain, like gassing them when they sleep. Though if you lived in a society where people were randomly gassed in their sleep and eaten, the anxiety over that possibility would probably break OP’s ethical requirement.
I think an extension of your approach to comparing with humans is to consider how you’d feel if you personally were eaten in the circumstances you propose. It hits more personally than humanely harvesting food humans in the abstract.
I think the difference here is that the humans in the slaughterhouse know what life and death means. They don't want to die. But I don't think animals do, they would run away if we try to kill them, but that's instinct. They don't think "if I don't run away I will cease to exist".
Also, when I put myself in that situation, I don't really see the problem. If I die instantly without any pain or prior warning. I wouldn't mind, in fact there wouldn't be an "I" to mind.
There are a lot of videos on YouTube where cows and other animals show up at slaughterhouses and all get scared. I can't tell you what's going through their minds but they usually spend the rest of the time trying to break out.
That's why I said "IF". No slaughterhouse like I described exists currently. My question was hypothetical.
I was replying to what you said about animals not knowing what life and death are and just running away due to instinct. They're smarter than that. Many animals mourn their loved ones and hold funerals in the wild.
We're not in a position to say that animals don't know in some sense what mortality means.
I agree. I expect that OP will discover or clarify that pain is not the only factor when applying this to the human context.
Right. Which is why using extending the analogy to humans is not an effective way to evaluate it for animals.
You could use the same heuristic to eliminate prisons and all consequences. If I were punished under the circumstances we propose for mass murderers, I wouldnt like it. I dont think this a useful thought experiment.
Animals can and do feel anxiety, so thus comparison is a very good one on thay front. Anxidty is not uniquely humam, my dog got anxious when I left the house unexpectedly. I imagine a cow would feel anxious if their mom or best friend went missing one night, and not knowing who would be next, as someone disappears every night.
Prisons are not the same case, (reformatory ones, not enslave and punishment system) the reform ones the goal is for the imcarcerated and their society's benefit. A closer comparison would be a long term mental health hospital or boarding school, not a slaughterhouse. It is a useful thought experiment. I do see the point that it could be used to abolish the enslave and punishment prisons as those should have gone out in favor of rehabilitation and education decades ago.
Obviously the degrees are much different. Humans can get anxious about something happening on the other side of the planet.
Do you think the people in the reform ones want to be there?
The efficacy of rehabilitative incarceration is quite low. The vast majority of incarceral crime-reduction comes from the removal itself.
Humams are also capable of ignoring things happening right in front of them, and animals are aware of distance, and are known to look at stars and distant objects.
I also know kids that don't want to go to school, people that are afraid of vaccine needles, my grandma tried to sneak out of hospital post surgery due to her dementia. Something is justified to be forced if it's for their benefit, animal ag isn't for the animals benefit, reform prisons are.
This varies a lot based on country, US has abysmal rates but they don't have much of a reform system and have a system that encourages recidivism, the norwegian system which most of the world should have copied decades ago has a much lower rate.(of course they also have a social safety net that prevents recidivism from desperation, which we also should have copied.)
Schools and vaccines are primarily for society's benefit, not the individual person's. I'm not the one that tried to ground it in what people want, so you can take this issue up with bobi.
Reform has been tried numerous times in the US, it simply doesn't work well. One of the main reasons countries like Norway have lower recidivism is because the crime rate is lower to begin with. This means fewer criminal networks and pockets of culture that would enable and encourage repeat offending. Crime is simply less normalized. Large swathes of Americans flaunt their criminal lifestyles.
We can set aside this societal anxiety by taking isolated cases (what if you and only you were killed this way, or only unaware children bred for the purpose?), or by adding to the hypothetical that the deaths are kept secret or disguised from non-killers, or by simply assessing the other aspects of the problem that are also relevant to animals.
It should be possible to analogize when the situations are this similar, even if they’re not identical. Most of the reasons it would be wrong apply to non-humans too.
The top comment already addressed killing in defense. Prison is just confinement in defense (which is meant to be morally better than killing, though this isn’t always the case). Defense of self and others can justify actions that are otherwise unjustified.
Considering how you would feel in another human’s shoes, per the golden rule, doesn’t mean being against self defense. Why would it be any different for non-humans?
I would say that it does. I would not want someone to act in self-defense against me. I think self-defense is justified regardless.
I wouldn’t like being in prison, but if I murdered a lot of people, I think I’d still feel my imprisonment was reasonable, ethical, and appropriate.
And yet you'd still prefer to not be in prison. If they released you, you would leave.
Yes. That’s not the question I’m suggesting.
So would shooting and killing an animal that attacks you and then eating it be unethical? For example moose will attack people hiking. So will some deer. And boars. And bulls. So on.
Let's use this tool to find out. What would you say:
Would shooting and killing a human that attacks you and then eating their corpse be unethical?
I don't have an issue with that specific circumstance. How often do you personally run into this scenario? Do you get attacked by fish and kill them in self defense often? Is that why you're pescatarian?
I wasn't making any point further than questioning the extent of your stated hypothetical. Do you get offended every time people ask Socratic questions about something you say?
I'm not offended and I answered your question so not sure what the issue is? Want to try answering mine now?
Yeah, most people dont realize even on “happier” farms or farms where the animals actually see sun or touch grass, most cows or pigs raised for food still only live a handful of years. That would be the equivalent to ending a human life during adolescence based on how long those animals can live. No one is letting a cow or pig “live out their life” to some semblance of natural completion and then consuming it. Its being killed for food 15-20 years early when those animals can live a solid 20 years. (Cause that wouldnt be cost efficient to keep them alive that long, right?) 🙃 You can give a child a great life, but stopping their life prematurely? Impossible to ethically justify unless you dont acknowledge natural lifespans or sentience, logically speaking. Even not comparing to a human, people wouldnt do that to their pets. Humans arent capable of only forming an emotional bond with cat or dog species. Thats just societal normalization.
I mean, if we de-cultivated all the current pasture-land, we'd just be inviting natural habitats to return, where animals would also come into existence and would - in the vast majority of cases - be killed at a fraction of their potential full lives, and they would also die painful deaths. There might even be more of them, so overall suffering might increase.
And I doubt the arable land currently used for fodder crops would be re-wilded. It would just be used for corn-ethanol, so crop-deaths from that farming would continue.
I'm plant-based, and in any practical sense, demanding that as many people as possible abstain from consuming animal products is the correct course of action and will remain correct for the forseeable future 100%.
So a total abolition of animal farming would be preferable to the status quo, but it may not actually be the best possible outcome from an ethical perspective.
Except in the animal case, that future joy was only ever possible because of them being bred for eventual slaughter in the first place.
If you ground veganism in utilitarianism, then a scenario in which the animals live a net positive utility life and are then killed in a way that keeps the utility positive, this kind of animal agriculture would be morally good -- not just permissible.
You would need some aspects of deontology to avoid this problem. However this also means giving up "unnecessary suffering of animals is bad" as a foundationally true.
So as long as it's your parents they can kill you in the slaughterhouse?
If you are a utilitarian, then this situation isn't objectionable. More sentient beings exist than they otherwise would (because we have the motivation to breed them for food), and they live net positive lives. Anybody could kill them. Death is not morally relevant for a utilitarian.
How do you reconcile that this argument logically seems sound to you - yet its not what you actually believe and practice?
For example, you wouldn't actually in real life argue it was OK that someone killed their child right?
If this is "utilitarian" ethics then i've personally never met anyone in my entire life who believes in or values utilitarian ethics. So how is this applicable here in any meaningful way?
I'm not a utilitarian. I'm just explaining where utilitarianism-based veganism would have trouble.
Loads of people think they are utilitarian -- multiple in this thread. They just haven't thought through the undesirable implications of that. It is applicable here because many vegans use something like "unnecessary suffering of animals is wrong" as their bedrock truth. This is a utilitarian stance. I'm all for a hybrid or deontological grounding of veganism, but the arguments about suffering would need to be refomulated.
Killing them reduces utility, when you could just keep them alive. The decision point to kill reduces total utility.
You are straight up incorrect.
You are missing the point about the lives not even being there in the first place without the intentional breeding.
I'm 100% correct on this. Professional moral philosophers pointed this out decades ago
You are conflating stages in the process. At the point you choose to kill them you are reducing utility through that act.
If the lives don't exist in the first place, then we can utilize the resources spent on creating their lives elsewhere and make a decision at that point that optimizes utility there.
Either they missed something, or you misunderstand them.
The problem with utilitarian ethics (and consequentialism) is that you can't always know consequences prior to the decision playing out. They are all analytical thought experiments that only provide support for decision making, but are not adequate alone.
No. You are arbitrarily looking at one stage instead of the overall situation.
Sure. It is hypothetically possible that the resources could create enough utility elsewhere to overcome the loss in utility from the net-positive aninal agriculture.
Or the professional philosophers are right and you are misunderstanding it. If you accept the premises that animal agriculture creates additional lives and the hypothetical premise that it is done in a way that each life is a net positive, the conclusion is unavailable under utilitarianism--it is good.
This is you agreeing with me.
How is killing them better than not killing them?
Well no, because humans can produce more utility to themselves and society as productive members of society than as meat.
Also, good luck finding parents who willingly sell their children for slaughter.
This is irrelevant because these humans would not exist otherwise.
Also irrelevant.
Utilitarianism is often misunderstood in this way.
It does not accept an action because it brings higher utility than another action. Utilitarianism only accepts the highest utility action. Killing a happy animal is not the highest utility action.
Again. This is straightforward if we apply this to humans. If my wife and I have a child on the condition that we will kill them to eat later, that is not the best action, and therefore not the one supported by utilitarianism.
And for deontology, how is that in any way not able to support the human version: "unnecessary suffering of humans is bad"? And in any case, the vegan view may simply yield that anyway, as its focus is on exploitation, not suffering.
This argument is flawed in several ways. First, it mischaracterizes utilitarianism by treating it as an all-or-nothing theory that can only evaluate the single best possible action, when in fact utilitarianism ranks outcomes and can judge one action as worse than another even if neither is optimal. Second, it assumes without argument that killing a happy animal cannot maximize utility, thereby smuggling in controversial assumptions about population ethics, replaceability, and downstream effects that many utilitarians explicitly reject. Third, the appeal to a human analogy is misleading, since utilitarian evaluations are highly sensitive to contextual differences such as social consequences, psychological harm, norm erosion, and rule-based considerations, meaning that condemnation of the human case does not straightforwardly transfer to the animal case.
Finally, the discussion of deontology conflates the claim that “unnecessary suffering is bad” with deontological constraints against exploitation or killing, even though many deontological theories treat suffering as morally relevant only derivatively and do not grant animals the same rights or moral status as humans. Together, these errors give the impression that the conclusions follow directly from standard moral theories when in fact they rely on additional, unargued premises.
Sorry, utilitarianism says the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the guiding principle. It very much requires the best action.
I only posed the tool of using the human case to compare, and asked the question. Feel free to add whatever additional context you like. And clarify which bits that apply to the human case do not apply to the animals case in a way that gets a different result.
You might have missed this one:
The first statement does not imply the latter. A guiding principle does not mean directional improvements are the same as directional impairments. You might not know you are doing it, but you are arguing that the worst possible outcome would be morally equal to the second best possible outcome. This is just clearly and obviously wrong.
I gave you a short list of them already.
I addressed that too. Did you not read my comment? Deontology only deals with suffering derivatively/indirectly.
I'll repeat this one more time, utilitarianism requires the best action to be taken. That is consistent with being able to grade levels of bad. E.g. if I hit my wife once a week that is less bad than daily. But it is also not as good as not hitting her at all, so hitting her once a week is still bad.
Deotology could easily add a rule "intentionally causing unnecessary suffering is bad". Now I added the term "intentionally" here to be precise. Omitting it in a deontological context would imply it imho, but I'm happy to be unambiguous here if that isn't what you meant.
This is not an appropriate description of utilitarianism. It is consequence-based. There is no knowledge of the best action at the time it is done, so it is nonsensical to say that the best action is required.
If hitting her caused her to stay home instead of go out with her friends and she would have died slowly after a car crash if she left, then hitting her was better than not hitting her. It is impossible to think in terms of required actions under utilitarianism.
They could add any rule they want, the point is that there would need to be a more foundational explanation for why unnecessary suffering is bad. It would not be a bedrock truth in and of itself.
You and I have very different understandings on what utilitarianism or deontology mean and imply...
That's a weakness to utilitarianism, not to veganism.
Can only an utilitarian make this statement?
Agreed.
As a foundational truth, yes.
However this also means giving up "unnecessary suffering of animals is bad" as a foundationally true.
Why?
Because you would now be in the world of deontology, which does not determine morality on the basis of suffering.
Why not also have a combined moral theory with a hierarchy? E.g. suffering is bad but so is killing.
You could have a hybrid theory. One popular one is called threshold deontology. However, this would require a refomulation of most of the more popular vegan arguments.
I think the difference here is that the humans in the slaughterhouse know what life and death means. They don't want to die. But I don't think animals do, they would run away if we try to kill them, but that's instinct. They don't think "if I don't run away I will cease to exist".
Also, the "potential for future joy" existed only because we bred those animals. If taking away the potential to future joy is immoral, abortion should be immoral. But the case with abortion is the suffering of the mother. But what if the mother is completely healthy, financially stable, the right age with all the resources to raise a child? Wouldn't you say taking away the potential for future joy from the child outweigh the slight inconvenience caused to the mother?
Is the only difference that the humans in the slaughterhouse know what life and death means and that animals only avoid death by instinct?
The ramifications of that would be that killing young children is fine. And, if science would show that animals actually don't want to die, you'd go vegan?
To your point on abortion, the potential joy of something becoming a someone is not the same as that of a someone becoming a something, imho. The certain "slight" inconvenience to someone who already is sentient trumps any "rights" of non-sentient ones even if there is a possibility they could become sentient later. Like, male masturbation isn't mass murder. But in the end, veganism allows for pro-life and -choice, so it doesn't matter to this discussion I don't think.
i think the more interesting question is not whether we should eat meat, but if we should use any other animal products, if there was no agricultural-industrial complex operating for profit.
You also take away potential future suffering. Why doesn't that make it into the equation? I hate spoilers, but it has to be said that any utilitarian "logic" will ultimately fall apart trying to tackle any such cases.
Future suffering is included and considered. The OP states that the animals have a good life, so joy must outweigh suffering by definition of this scenario.
Yes, that means killing animals who suffer more than experience joy (the current situation for many) is actually morally merciful. However, the problem here is breeding these animals into existence in the first place. It's a catch 22.
What is better for a cow:
- three days of very painful disease and then an awesome month at a sunny pasture
- three days at a sunny pasture and then a month of slight, constant inconvenience
- instant removal of all higher brain function and brain pain center at birth, resulting in any ability of producing both negative and positive value erased?
I'm honestly always amazed by those utilitarian attempts at putting suffering and happiness into a moral balance sheet.
In the off chance this is asked in good faith, let's explore it.
Utility values. Of course this is an estimate based on limited and incomplete data and it is subjective. So feel free to adjust these if you feel they are not accurate t what you meant
Then we simply calculate:
So the first scenario has a higher utility. What is wrong about such an approach?
The problem is it has zero relation to how anything is actually perceived, though. Humans don't perceive pleasant/unpleasant experiences like that at all.
For example, if you're experiencing a shorter but constant unpleasant experience, you will point it as worse than same experience, but then a bit less unpleasant experience for some additional to time. It doesn't make any sense, but that how we work.
Perception of pain/discomfort has nothing to do with maths and adding. You can live a life of severe suffering, but be still extremely content with what you achieved in it, or simply be conditioned to be thankful for every moment. Past suffering seems much less important than upcoming suffering, which seems less important than present suffering. Calculating anything here is just bonkers and has nothing to do with reality.
So, which of your scenarios would you choose, and why?
There's a big difference between "consciously choose" and "assess in retrospect". One would choose the less total discomfort on paper, but then humans were asked which type of experience they would like to repeat (after actually experiencing it) they would choose the one with more total discomfort. So "which would I choose" changes entirely whether it was presented to me mathematically vs as an even that I have actually experienced. Ultimately, it kind of doesn't really matter.
So you're wiggling out of answering a simple question you asked me?
Alright, have a good one!
I answered in the most detail anyone could possibly ask for, including what would my answer be conditionally and why in each case. If you fail to extract the answer from my comment then it's certainly not on me.
Only if the animals have a net negative life as a result. If their life is net positive and they wouldnt have had that life without the breeding, then it is an overall good. The catch 22 is with your argument. As soon as you grant the fact that there'd be more animals than there otherwise would have been, then the net positive animal agriculture hypothetical is permissible. If you reject that additional animals are created through breeding and they have net negative lives, then we can justify the slaughter as merciful ending of more suffering. The only "out" here (within OP's hypothetical) would be arguing that no additional animals are created AND they live positive lives that are prematurely cut short.
We already have the other thread going on for this: killing a happy animal is sub-optimal to keeping them alive. Utilitarianism aims for the best outcome, not something that isn't the worst.
100% true. However, a utilitarian looks at the aggregated utility, not the individual case.
Wrong. As I explained in the other thread.
You're assuming that everyone extends their morality to animals. Just because you do it doesn't mean others will.
Most people do that, so it's safe to presume without evidence to the contrary. E.g. "it is not ok to kick a cat."
You don't even need to make that assumption anyway. This is simply a tool you can use to make it easier to find reasons for certain moral dilemmas. Some of those reasons may not apply to animals, others will.
They said it "can be useful to" not that everyone does it. There are people that don't extend their morality to people of a different race/ethnicity/gender.
You still refuse to say exactly why you don't think morality should be extended to animals. Which honestly just makes you seem like you're still stuck in the constant state of intense cognitive dissonance we vegans have managed to escape from.
Feel free to try to explain exactly why it is you think animals, beings that suffer, don't deserve moral considerations. Or just keep saying stuff like "morality is subjective" without any critical thought, I don't honestly care personally.
I didn't say they didn't deserve it; you decide who "deserves" and who doesn't "deserve" to have your morality applied to them. I don't apply it to them because they aren't human beings like me, not because they don't deserve it. I don't apply it in relation to any merit.
I don't think you know what cognitive dissonance means.
In that case I decide that you don't "deserve" to have any morality applied to you. I don't apply it to you because you are incapable of understanding certain things that to me are obvious.
We do not do that in any other circumstance. If animals were subject to the same laws as humans, they would all bem immediately arrested.
Even vegans don't do this. You think it's wrong for humans to eat other animals, yet it's fine for bears to do the same.
No one is imposing human laws on animals. The point is that everyone has a right to self defense regardless of the attacker.
The goal of veganism is to stop breeding farm animals. That will completely remove the potential for any kind of future for the vast majority of them.
I agree.
In the case of current farming, the lives are terrible so not having them is indeed an improvement of utility.
Of course, there could be all sorts of other sentient life that takes the place of the animals we exploit instead. E.g., imagine how many free fish the sea would have without fishing.
And the vegan solution is to remove them from the face of the earth. The solution for the rest of us however is to improve animal welfare.
To improve their welfare so you can kill them...?!?
Are you happy for this? I like puppies, but not grown dogs. So what I do, I buy a puppy and get all the joy of them while they get a great life. For about a year... then I humanly slaughter the puppy and have a great meal for Christmas too.
(fun fact, that's completely legal in the UK)
I have no problems with death of animals. Among wild birds for instance only 1 out of 10 survives until adulthood. All the rest die a very early death from starvation, predators, sickness, accidents, a sibling kicking them out of the nest etc.
I guess I am yes.
Why would that be different from eating a pet rabbit or a pet sheep? Over here most horses can be considered pet horses. Most of them end up in sausages after death. Example
My dogs perfectly healthy. Just coming up to 2 years old. I'm pretty sure she'd consider her life a good one.
I think it would be incredibly fucked up to have her put down right now.
The thing with euthanasia is we do it when the life isn't (or fairly certainly won't be soon) worth living.
But I'm vaguely open to the idea of eating genuine euthanized animals.
It's just not economically feasible to keep the cow alive 5 times longer to get a smaller quantity and likely a lower quality of meat - even without the higher living standards.
And the invisible hand of the market is a dom daddy
Let's say you just love killing dogs. However, you also love giving them good lives before killing them. This motivates you to breed lots of dogs that would otherwise not be born -- and all of them have good lives until being painlessly killed in their sleep. Is this a net good or a net bad?
Let's say my goal in life is to impregnate as many woman as possible. They give birth and i treat the children well. I give them perfect, loving, lives. Until they are 10 years old, at which point I euthanize them in their sleep. Is this a net good or net bad?
Issues like suffering of the mothers aside, a utilitarian would have to say it is a net good.
I disagree with this, which is why I'm not a utilitarian.
Why not just be a utilitarian that doesn't arbitrarily handwave suffering mothers?
Because this wouldn't solve any of the problems. If suffering mothers were the only thing saving it, then you'd be conceding that orphans were fine to kill.
I don't know what problems you're talking about.
You could be a utilitarian that considers mothers, orphans - people in general.
Most are.
I only mentioned the mothers because that was the only qualifier you gave to utilitarians thinking the scenario was positive, for some strange reason.
Nothing about being a utilitarian means you have to arbitrarily discount people.
The ones I outlined
You either didn't understand what I said or you don't understand what utilitarianism is.
Because you could argue that even if killing the people was a net positive utility, the resulting suffering of the mothers could swing it negative.
It systematically discounts people. Nobody matters in utilitarianism. Only aggregated utility matters.
Thanks for clarifying.
The other thing I said solves them.
No u.
Whole lotta things could.
But most utilitarians don't think killing people like that is good. And they would also consider the mothers.
So your reason to not be a utilitarian relies in two massive assumptions /strawmen.
I don't get it.
All morality discounts people. Only good/bad matters, not people.
But utility is generally defined as being large part the experience of people.
It would help if you elaborated on and tried to support your opinion here, if it's worth proclaiming.
Nope.
Nobody claimed killing people was good.
You don't get it, I agree.
No. Many forms of deontology start with saying that humans have intrinsic worth. This isn't the case in utilitarianism.
But the people are irrelevant. They are just vehicles of utility. If there was a "utility monster", enslaving all of humanity to bring it pleasure would be morally good.
I did, but you didn't understand it. So idk where to go from here.
I don't like killing dogs (to my knowledge), so I can't really answer precisely.
When we say "give them a good life", what do we mean?
Wait till they're dying of natural causes, let them have a single happy moment and then stamp on the puppy or what?
Cus if the former, then I don't really know how that's different or relevant, except I'd enjoy the killing, not just prevent their suffering.
If it's the latter, then that's obviously messed up.
If it's somewhere between them - that's probably where any interesting discussion lies.
How can other animals be worth so much that they deserve to live free of suffering or pain, but also worth so little that they don’t deserve to live at all? This seems like ignoring fundamental rights and favoring less fundamental rights.
Make the animal in question a dog or a human and the answer usually becomes clear. Giving someone a short “good life” doesn’t justify taking that life prematurely, and if you only gave them a good life so you could justify killing them, that’s just cruel. It’s not at all like putting down a terminally suffering dog, which is done in the best interest of the animal when there is no other choice. Killing for personal pleasure is fairly unrelated to euthanasia in both motive and outcome.
You’d necessarily be killing those who don’t want to die and separating family, flock, and herd. “Humane” suggests benevolence and caring for the subject. There just isn’t a humane way to kill someone who doesn’t want or have to die.
By believing that being free of suffering has a lot more value than being alive in itself. I never understood all these talks about "life being the greatest gift", "life being a miracle" yada yada. Fuck that, if someone gave me a choice between having a great, joyous, rich and fulfilling but short life, or a long but painful and miserable one, I would choose the first option without hesitation.
Naturally we need to have laws against just taking other people's lives to ensure maximum safety within society, but personally I think not only euthanasia, but also assisted suicide or even consensual murder should be legal. Though of course I understand why it's not, since it would create too great of a potential for abuse. Though I still find it interesting how people's opinions about murder change when it comes to death penalty but I digress.
That brings us to the humane way of killing that for you isn't possible if the subject doesn't want to die, but that's the thing, I don't think animals are capable of abstract thought enough to decide if they do or don't want to die. I can say that I have thought about it and I want to kill myself, but an animal is only driven by survival instinct and fear of pain. I think using the word "want" here isn't accurate, an animal can't just ponder its own existence while chewing on grass and decide that it doesn't want to live. So in my opinion as long as you kill it in a way that doesn't trigger these instincts it totally can be humane.
Also I assume that for most people, who aren't as suicidal as me, this view about animals having the right to not suffer but not necessarily to live, simply stems from believing in a hierarchy of living beings. Humans are at the top of it so for a variety of reasons human life has value in and of itself and taking it away is viewed as wrong in and of itself, animals are lower in the hierarchy, so for the killing of the animal to be considered wrong it needs to be done in a certain way, in certain circumstances, etc. generally it's a calculation of benefits vs costs.
How can humans be so special as to have a unique responsibility to others animals but not special enough to not have rights over other animals?
How can humans be so special to have a unique responsibility to other humans but not special enough to not have rights over other humans?
Point over head moment
Vegans simultaneously believe
It is wrong for humans to kill other animals for food because those animals have equal moral worth
It is fine for non-human animals to kill other animals for food, as they can't be held to human moral standards
>It is wrong for humans to kill other animals for food because those animals have equal moral worth
No one said animals have "equal moral worth" just that they have moral worth to not be bred, confined, slaughtered at 1/4 their natural lifespan and otherwise exploited. Not that it's relevant to this exchange but just wanted to correct you're future understanding.
>It is fine for non-human animals to kill other animals for food, as they can't be held to human moral standards
Correct because you'll notice "moral worth" and "held to human moral standards" as an actor are two totally different concepts.
Children are given equal moral worth to adults. Hell they might actually be given more moral worth considering you're looking at a much graver punishment for assaulting a toddler vs an adult.
And at the same time they are not held to the same level of moral standards in regards to their own actions. Hence why the legal system treats them completely differently and doesn't try them as they do adults.
*Not that it's relevant to this exchange but just wanted to correct you're future understanding.
*Your
Your is the possessive. You're is a contraction of "You are"
Nope, children are not given the right to vote, stand for office, etc. We have age of consent laws because we understand children are cognitively inferior to adults.
Children will one day become adults with equal rights and responsibilities as adults. I don't know why vegans insist on using children as an analogy for other animals.
It's even less cool to assault a developmentally disabled toddler.
If the Analogy's bad, you haven't found why.
Since when does having an obligation of compassion mean having a right to kill? I don’t see the connection.
Soylent green is people! I mean how would you harvest cows or other animals at their last moments....plus their meat will be all tough and old. That's why you eat em in their prime. But I still can't figure out why there is such animosity towards people that eat meat. It can't be because the animals are killed for food. Because tomatoes or almonds or any other vegetables production inhumanely kills animals as well, assuming slaughtering livestock is inhumane. Imagine all the moles that get tilled up and the chipmunk as well. Mice, snakes, rabbits all killed in the name of vegetables. Nothing vegan about a carrot it just has a better disguise. At least the animals I kill I eat it and the animals you kill are left to rot away or become fertilizer for your veggies. So just think you go all this way to not eat animals just to eat them anyway.
More plants are used in feeding the cows, pigs, etc. than in feeding people. To get 1kg of beef, the cow has to have eaten 7-25 kg of feed. That means by eating plants directly, we're consuming less plants and therefore decreasing the harms caused by plant farming.
But I'm not the one that is concerned about body counts. Plus at the end of the day animals are still destroyed to grow vegetables for your supposed cruelty free diet. So unless you are growing your own food in your backyard, you are just outsourcing your body count.
We're not saying we're completely eliminating body count. We're trying to get it as low as possible.
A true vegan would grow his own vegetables and collect rainwater to water them. And have solar panels to power his house. And probably ride a bicycle. Everyone else touting the vegan moniker is just [virtue] signaling
So you either have to be perfect or horrible? You can't be inbetween?
Not at all. All I am saying is that animals are killed no matter your food lifestyle. And more times than not it is the vegan that thinks they are taking the morally superior stance. So go eat a burger and I'll have a salad.
If that feed is grass it genuinely doesnt concern me in any way.
Would you accept these terms an conditions for yourself, for you own life, or your loved ones? If not, what makes animals' desires not matter here while yours do?
Also I think you're not taking into account the natural lifespan vs animal ag lifespan. You bring up euthanizing dogs but we don't generally accept that as ok when they're 2 years old
In virtually every circumstance we consider other species to be normally inferior. If we did not, we would hold them to the same standards and subject them to the same laws.
And so because our laws don't apply to them, therefore we don't need to take into account their suffering when deciding what to eat, it simply doesn't matter the amount of pain we inflict, because that what our law says, because that's historically the way things have been?
It's that many of these animals (such as chickens) shouldn't really have moral worth. I don't really care that bugs suffer when I kill them, and a chicken isn't much more clever than a bug.
You clearly haven't spent much time with chickens.
Also if lack of cleverness is all that it takes for it to be ok to kill, then many humans wouldn't last very long
That's the thing, there's no "suffering" here. It's pain free
Some humans are mentally incapable of following the same standard and laws as you, and so they are held to a different moral and legal standard. Does that mean that children, dementia patients, and people with severe brain damage are inferior? Does it mean you can kill them?
If not, why would it mean that for a pig or a dog?
No.
For the same reason why taking a perfectly healthy dog / cat / toddler, euthanising them and serving their carcass would be wrong.
As an aside, euthanol (drug used for pet euthanasia) renders meat unsuitable for consumption, so the practicality of how this theoretical painless death would be achieved is another matter.
How to get animal based meat without killing innocent individuals who can suffer and don't want to die? Wait for cultured (aka lab) meat to become available. Until then- go vegan!
Very few people have tried cultured meat, but I have tried animal free dairy milk that was made from precision fermentation. Other than that one possible exception, I have never knowingly eaten animal products since I went vegan about 8 years ago.
No suffering here, it's pain free
If slaughter were pain free, wouldn't the companies profiting from selling animal products invite people to watch, or show the process in advertising? Some vegans have put hidden cameras in slaughter houses to reveal the suffering. Pigs in the UK are killed with CO2 gas. They scream a long time before they succumb.
Even before the slaughter, farm animals suffer in factory farms in many ways. Most meat eaters acknowledge that suffering, but create the demand for more of it, 3 times a day.
Bro did you even read the post? I said "IF". I know that pain free slaughter houses don't exist. The question was hypothetical.
No. A couple of minutes of taste pleasure does not justify murder.
Agreed. Humans only think about themselves. The earth is for all creatures
If you need to eat meat that badly that you’d have to imagine a world, that would never happen, in which we’re treating animals nicely before we kill them so you can have it then I think we’re on different pages. You’re still killing an animal so you can eat it, whether you spoiled it with riches and luxury, or stuck it in a shitty barn at the end of the day that cow is a burger. Sure living a peaceful life is significantly better but it’s just a commodity still.
This does not happen in the real world. Even the "highest welfare standards" allow torture and cruel practices like CO2 gas chambers and other standard practices.
https://youtu.be/eVebmHMZ4bQ?si=XfQ7tLZA3paf9BoT
Even if (which is a big "if") There is still the rights violation of taking someone's life at a fraction of their lifespan which you said would be a "happy life."
The right to life is a human right.
Vegans argue to extend that for other animals who are sentient like ourselves.
I have a question for you, OP. What are you trying to determine? If the vegan consensus was that, yeah, in this scenario it would be ethical, what will you have learned? And for the opposite; if the vegan consensus was that this would not be fine, what will you have learned?
Veganism is about animal rights. As long as the animal does not actively consent you have no right to kill them for your own trivial taste pleasure.
If you are fine with living only a fraction of your life, forced into living this fraction according to some stranger's idea of what a "good life" for you would be, a stranger who is not even a member of your own species and therefore might have a completely different perception of reality, pleasure, etc. and then being killed so that same stranger can put you on their plate, go ahead.
I myself 100% refuse to participate in any such absurdity and do not want to force someone else into a situation like that.
Now I’m sitting here wondering if vegans have issues with organ transplants and donation. If it’s already dead is it an issue? Would a vegan not take a liver transplant from another human? Or is it since the human marked it is ok (consent) then it is ok? Is it truly just about consent?
Veganism has nothing against organ transplants from people who consented to donating their organs and very much against organ transplants from people who got their organs "harvested" without their consent. Their organs are theirs to give not ours to just take.
About what else should it be, if not consent?
It doesn’t exist, it won’t exist, and you can’t justify taking the life of anyone that wants to live.
The food chain needs no moral justification. It is natural.
So eating other humans is okay as long as I follow it up with "it's part of the food chain"?
What you think is "okay" and what you think isn't "okay" has nothing to do with the food chain. Nature is neither; it simply is.
Exactly the food chain requires no moral justification
What's your address? Totally unrelated
Earthquakes are natural too and forest fires, but we still try and stop or mitigate them
I don't see what that has to do with what I said
That we have moral agency and can try to stop things that are natural if we deem them to be evil. Plus there’s nothing very natural about artificially inseminating animals, raising them in factory farms, and sending them to slaughter houses in mass number.
A tornado or an earthquake isn't something we "consider bad," it's that they are objectively harmful. There's no moral judgment involved; it's not the best comparison.
I haven't said we should do or refrain from doing something because it's natural; I've said it makes no sense to judge what's natural from a moral standpoint.
Exploiting animals is also objectively harmful.
For the animals, not for us.
Natural doesn't mean moral. Lions rape and kill other lions. It wouldn't be moral for humans to do that to humans.
Not necessarily. Morality is neither intrinsic knowledge that we possess intuitively nor universal knowledge that we access without prior introduction. It is transmitted and learned, like culture. It is relative.
Yeah so in your morality, is raping and killing other humans moral just because it is natural?
No.
That means according to your morality, something being natural doesn't mean its moral. So why are you saying killing animals is moral because it is natural?
I never said that. I said it makes no sense to assign it a moral value, whether that value is positive or negative.
So it doesn't make sense to assign moral value to raping and murdering either right? Cuz it's "natural"
No. This ultimately still unjustifiably uses animals for food - something that isn't necessary to do. They would also likely not live to anything close to their natural lifespan in such a scenario so, again, this is unnecessary and cruel, even in your suggested scenario.
Something is said to be unjustified when it has no explanation to defend itself, not when it is or is not necessary.
Okay, substitute 'unnecessarily' if you're butthurt about that
It's like, worse to take a good life from someone. If their life is only suffering, murder could be considered closer to a mercy. It isn't a mercy if you have that selfish reason for murder, of course.
How do you define a good life? If you were in that situation, would you be happy living that life? An entire life of crowded confinement. Denial of the things you're driven by instinct to need. Artificial diet. No protection or space to get away from aggressive other animals. Denied medical care that taints meat or eroded profits.
Death is never "instantaneous". To sell the meat, the slaughter must occur in a licensed processing facility. This means catching & confining, possibly long shipping times, and the unload process. They can be packed shoulder to shoulder in a trailer in extreme summer heat and hauled halfway across the country. Processing plants work to maximize profits, and in the US the lines run maximum speed allowed without consideration of an individual animal's needs.
Is the death pain free? These certainly aren't methods used for death row criminals. We don't even do this to the family dog or cat. To offer a suffering free passing, it requires a peaceful environment, sufficient time, and medications. None of that is compatible with profits and meat safety.
Idk why you want to eat death so bad. It’s weird
The plants that vegans eat are also dead.
Nah the fruit carries the seed. The plant remains. It needs the seed to be carried away
I'm not talking about eating fruits or seeds, I'm talking about eating dead plants, like lettuce, spinach, or radish.
I don’t eat rabbit food, vegans can thrive on fruit nuts seeds legumes
Would it be justified if you were talking about human meat? If you think it is that's fine, we can agree to disagree then.
No/ veganism is fighting exploitation of innocent sentient beings. To humans it’s an even exchange. We will give you a great deal, a cushy bed, alfalfa etc, etc…, You then give us your life. But this is where people often make the mistake. Veganism is not about welfare. It’s about consent. We have to be careful not to use the words animal abuse. Vegans have to remember we are abolitionists. Leave welfare to the Humane Society. It’s just another justification. It’s just a way to make humans feel better about their violent choices. I always read these comments about oh I buy from Farmer John down the road. Farmer John loves his animals. I’ve seen it myself. It’s just a bunch of crap. Excuse after excuse after excuse.
I've been thinking about this exact thing yesterday. I've been vegan since 1 year. Then introduced mussels because they can't feel pain. And now thinking about fish and birds, since the group they live in doesn't really care about their absence, and they don't form bonds. My main reservation is the suffering while caught and killed. But I feel like that if the death is instant, I wouldn't have a problem with it.
PS. Specifically talking about fish, birds, and maybe crustaceans that are not relational animals. Land mammals like sheep, cows, pigs, and also octopuses, squid and bigger sea mammals are strictly out of the question.
I guess I care most about pain/suffering rather than a belief that life is somehow sacred.
What is this hypothetical meant to show? There isn’t any large-scale producer in the world that operates this way or even feasibly could.
But, since you asked: animal exploitation isn’t just wrong because pain is caused to the animals. Breeding them and keeping them in a confined space violates their autonomy. Killing them robs them and their companions of future experience.
Animals aren’t dumb. Many of the farmed animals we keep are social animals: they have relationships and familial bonds with others (even sometimes cross-species), they play, they express emotion, they can solve puzzles and perform complex tasks. They care about what happens to them and each other.
Is murder ok if you can kill people instantly and painlessly, and you don't torture them first?
Why do you compare human beings to animals, as if they had the same moral value for everyone?
Because the closest analog to sentient non-human animals is human beings.
Why would someone make an ethical argument suggesting alternative treatment for sentient animals that are killed after mistreatment and suggest that only the mistreatment and not the killing is relevant?
Humans ARE animals. It’s basic biology buddy.
This reads like "but pretty please can we still have slaves and murder them if we are extra nice to them?"
No sane person would ask this unless you really hate the thing you are enslaving and murdering.
This just raises the question: what have animals done to people such that they are so inclined to bend over backwards to justify the insanely evil treatment against them?
To answer your question: no. Almost nothing justifies it save for some extreme hypotheticals where we would need to torture and murder an animal to save a galaxy of sentient beings or something like that.
No, it still would not be justified. Imagine if some super intelligent alien species invaded the Earth and fed on humans, as a human would you be okay if they gave you 40 good years before they decided to eat you? No. And this is to not even get into all the other negatives of eating meat like the impact on the environment. At the end of the day, being vegan will always be the morally superior option outside of edge cases like socioeconomic/medical issues that prevent you from adopting that lifestyle.
No. Because you are still exploiting the animal for its body even if the animal died naturally after living a long lovely life.
Most of us wouldn’t eat our pets or relatives because we as human people have complicated views on death. And the meat from someone that died naturally after living such a long time would have plenty of complications in itself on a culinary stance.
Basically, it would be disrespectful to the body of the animal.
No and you can't do that. Stop lying to yourself.
The scenario that you described is a fantasy. Doesn’t exist, likely never will. No point in debating it since it’s just mental masturbation. What does exist is the current system, which is so far from “humane” that the choice between veganism and complicity is obvious for any thinking, feeling person.
Is it wrong to kill animals only insofar as it causes suffering to said animal during death?
No. It’s better than what people do now, but it still is harming an animal
No. How is "killing animals for food is wrong" so hard to understand?
All meat is destined to be eaten. Every living thing is destined to die.
If you dont eat a steak, something else will, probably bacteria.
Animals in the wild typically die very painful deaths. Dying quickly, being drained of blood, then fed to hungry humans, dogs, cats, etc, is kinder, no? Better than being swallowed whole and being dissolved alive (the death of many fish), or being tackled and having bites taken out of you while still alive, or slowly starving to die a slow painful death.
Every piece of meat that goes bad could have been fed to some other animal. I would rather feed 10 dogs than billions of bacteria.
Theres nothing wrong with eating meat. It's healthy, good for the environment, and perfectly humane if done right. Bad farming practices are bad though
This sub is debate a vegan where people can propose questions for vegans to answer. So I'm not sure why you, a meat eater, is answering the question.
This is for debating veganism. It says so in the description. I am simply debating veganism
I just don't understand why you'd come to r/debateavegan and reply, as a non-vegan, to a poster who is non-vegan. You are completely failing to debate a vegan, the whole purpose. Generally, non-vegans post a question/topic, and vegans reply. And then discuss continues from there. Having a non-vegan ask a question about veganism just for another non-vegan to answer is completely against the point of this subreddit. You're cutting out the vegan part entirely.
No, don't breed cows into existence to be turned into "steak" in the first place.
These are victims bred into existence, they are not taken from the wild. It is 'kinder' not to breed, exploit amd kill them in the first place.
Nonsense assertions.
https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/meat/
https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation
This point applies to all animals with muscles.
Most animals are not domesticated.
Eating meat is part of a healthy diet. The risk of cancer is due to unhealthy habits and unhealthy sources of meat. Not all meat is created equally.
That is a problem with bad farming practices, and human overpopulation. not eating meat itself.
The right way to farm animals does not involve abuse.
Since you've asserted your opinion with no evidence, you'll be shocked to know that the majority of mammals and birds are, in fact, farmed.
https://ourworldindata.org/wild-mammals-birds-biomass
That's about 60% of mammals and 70% of birds.
The issue with farming is the rights violation of taking a life at a fraction of their lifespan. This can be avoided by not breeding them in the first place. Any cruelty and abuse documented is a problem on top of that, which is infact systemic across "high welfare" too.
In a debate, we use evidence. If you can't present any, then we should just dismiss your points based on the fact they are baseless assertions.
Since you've cherry picked a cherry picked article, you'll be shocked to know that bugs (animals! we can eat!) alone outweigh humans in biomass. (search it on your preferred browser!)
Yes, a ton of animals are farmed. But most are not.
Also, your second point is an issue with farming practices. Not eating animals itself
Animals are killed to produce "meat"
That is the rights violation.
Bugs biomass doesn't change the fact that the majority of mammals and birds are farmed, and neither does it change the detrimental effects on the environment.
But again comparing farmed animals against wild is not relevant when farmed animals are bred into existence to be farmed which is avoidable.
You cannot present evidence that your morality is objective or universal, nor that we should share it. We must all therefore dismiss your points.
They made unsupported claims about health and the environment. You missed the point.
The same statement can be used against your "morals" for cruel and exploitative practices against farmed animals.
Just curious why you might think eating meat is good for the environment?
Meat’s a pretty inefficient way of producing food. In fact it’s a pretty terrible system overall, because not only is it driving deforestation, ruminants are also farting methane into the atmosphere. It also might not as healthy as you think, considering it contributes to antibiotic resistance, and many meats (processed/red) are or are likely carcinogenic.
When done well, it should be good for the environment. It should support biodiversity, not harm it. There are many farms already that are trying to help the environment. Look up regenerative farming
Meat being unhealthy is an over generalization, from a few pieces of meat being unhealthy. Of course, super processed hot dogs (a red meat, I think) are terrible for you and carcinogenic. But a nice, fresh piece of fish that lived in clean water?
From what I understand regenerative agriculture is quite an ill-defined term. In the case of grass-fed beef for example, it would seem unrealistic for it to help the environment if demand for beef continues to rise and it requires more land (than feedlots!) anyway. Imo regenerative farming is more of a philosophy rather than an approach and I would like to see farms embrace it through and through in order to see its benefits.
I do agree that fish is healthier than say pork or beef. But I’ll have to stop here without getting into the other stuff
Thank you for providing a reasonable response :)
But yeah regenerative agriculture isnt well defined. But a lot of farmers are doing their best, and doing what they can to help the environment.
For example, most of my chicken and some of my beef (Not much, they only have a few cows) come from a really nice place. The chickens have access to a pasture, filled with yummy bugs and native plants. And an indoor area, when they want to be out of the sun, rain, cold, heat, wind, etc. Same for the cows.
The chickens are a healthy breed, and are slaughtered at some point in adulthood. Same for the cows.
I do understand that I am lucky to know someone who does this
What you're describing already exists and is actually fairly common. Traditionally, beef animals are raised on pasture. They are fed well, protected from predators, and receive medical care as required. These are robust and healthy animals. When their time comes, it is instant and pain-free.
This contrasts radically from the sort of lifestyle a similar animal would experience in the wild, where they are constantly hunted, sickly, and rarely survive to old age anyway. Their deaths are usually horrific. Being eaten alive or wasting away in agony over days and days from injury or disease
This type of question comes up over and over again on this sub. As someone who is a vegan due largely to utilitarianism, sure, this situation seems moral.
The problem is that it's not real and not a possibility. Just eat plants and lessen suffering. It's not complicated.
You're saying this wouldn't be possible on a small scale? I could probably imagine it already being the case in small villages with family farms.
Yes. And due to external factors like food availability and bioavailability of foods, eating meat is still widely justified even if does not meet that standard you mention.
And yes. Such slaughterhouses do exist. Or at least those who heavily minimize suffering.
Eating meat would also be ok if the anima suffered and the death was not pain free.
No, come here and let me cause you pain for awhile. It’s okay
I see animals as lower beings without a soul, mechanical constructs doing what their preprogrammed brain says so.
If you ascribe to the philosophy we are equals to animals and you want to hurt me you are a sadist.
Spend enough time with animals and you will see they offer the same love as humans often in higher quantity and unconditionally. If I’m being honest with you I think people like you get exactly what you deserve. You bring your own pain. 😌
Hahaha, there are alot of false assumptions in your post you silly goose. Creatures dont have the capacity for love, its something else you see, just spend multiple animal generations with them and you will notice what I know.
But thanks I'm happy and very blessed with the life I live.
Based on your posts I see you have alot of hate and anger in you. Hopefully someday you can find it in yourself to love grow and heal.
They do love. You are stuck in too low of a consciousness to perceive it. Sounds cold and lonely. Hard not to be angry in a dark cold foolish world with cold slimy swines
Well we do differ from opinion here. But I wont reply your hate with hate, may the love of christ embrace you in these dark times.
Merry Christmas!