The Case For Abolishing Meat Consumption

Shadowtongue

@smoothie
Just because we value ourselves as more important, whatever that itself means, doesn't mean we factually are. If there are ten kids in a playground and one group of five values themselves as more important than the other five, can they kill and eat those other five and be justified somehow? How does intellectual superiority grant moral exemption? After all, can we then kill and eat mentally challenged people or can people with exceptional intelligence kill and eat people of lesser intelligence?

Shadowtongue

@CYDdharta
My case isn't that non-human animals are also people. While classifications can be tricky, non-humans definitely aren't people. However, my case is that if we want to protect the lives of humans, then we should also prevent the killing and eating of animals too since no difference between humans and animals warrants different moral regard. Now, we can't govern nature nor can we treat animals of the exact same legal standard as people due to animals' ungovernable nature, but the moral gravity is still universally the same regardless.

RickeyD

@Shadowtongue ; The written word of God and the indwelling Holy Spirit...neither of which you, in your unregenerate state, can understand.

Shadowtongue

@RickeyD
 How is it that you know that the Bible's scripture comes from god and not just man alone?

RickeyD

@Shadowtongue ; It is not possible that fulfilled prophecy and the symmetry of Scripture spanning 1400-years, 3-Continents, 40-writers, manifest by the hand and mind of mankind. It is NOT possible...the Scriptures come to us via the Holy Spirit.

MayCaesar

Shadowtongue said:

@MayCaesar
Morality can be subjective depending on what it's predicated upon, but you do recognize that the principles of experiencing life, pain, pleasure, et cetera are principles found in all forms of sentient life and so the nature of killing and eating is the same across all sentient life and thus should be treated with consistent regard, right? If we are to avoid death and strive for prosperity in the forging of a social contract, then, in order to be objective, we should strive to make sure to avoid the killing and eating of non-human life as well.

But a social contract is only possible between intelligent beings of a comparable cognitive ability, and on Earth only humans qualify for this. Then can be no social contract between a human and a bear, for example.

Similarly, if a very advanced alien civilisation occupies Earth, there will be no social contract between a human and an alien; our cognitive ability to them would be like ants' cognitive ability is to us. They may have their own social rules (not necessarily similar to ours, for that matter; perhaps they do not think it wrong to kill others of their kind), but there can be no social rules between them and us, because we are not and cannot be a part of their society.

Shadowtongue

@RickeyD
Any religion can, no matter how invalid, become widely popular as a result of various social factors and subsequently has then the capacity to be spread and believed at great lengths. Haven't other religions which I'm sure you disagree with lasted a long time and endured a great legacy as well?

Shadowtongue

@MayCaesar
So can we kill and eat a mentally challenged person since they can't engage in our degree of social contract? How does cognitive capacity determine whether or not an entity can be killed and eaten?

RickeyD

@Shadowtongue ; My Lord loathed religions...they are death regardless of their tenure in Time. I've never been attracted to religion...it's man made and futile. Jesus Christ did not enter Time to bring a religion but to announce its end, Judaism - the Covenant of Law, and He initiated the Covenant of Grace via the Gospel - Good News of God's redemptive plan for mankind. There is no forgiveness of sin and there is no life in God's Kingdom except by trusting-believing in Jesus Christ as your Mediator for sin.

piloteer

@Shadowtongue

There's only so far we can go with our devotion to egalitarian ideals, and yours are probably a bit overbearing. If we apply the same standard of value for life that we do on ALL sentient beings, then people could be violation of your egalitarian standard because even something as simple as walking can kill insects which are also sentient beings. If you take your argument a little bit further, why is sentience even the threshold for your standard for value of life? Why should we hold no value in the lives of the vegetables? New studies show that plant forms do indeed have sentience and are aware of not only their own existence, but of the existence of other plants. It is now known that plants can communicate by emitting chemicals to other plants, and plants even have a social existence. It's been demonstrated how trees will actually sacrifice some of their own nutrients and help other dying trees to stay alive. Your egalitarian argument is DOA because it's fairly easy to overcome. 

   If you really want to make a convincing case against eating meat, you should probably focus on the egregious environmental harm it causes instead of your pedantic devotion to egalitarian value of all life forms.   

MayCaesar

Shadowtongue said:

@MayCaesar
So can we kill and eat a mentally challenged person since they can't engage in our degree of social contract? How does cognitive capacity determine whether or not an entity can be killed and eaten?

A person who absolutely cannot engage in any reasonable degree of social contract, I suppose, is no longer really a person. There have been several cases of feral children who grew up in wild conditions, isolated from humanity, and they were essentially wild animals, and all attempts to integrate them in the human society in any way failed completely. Whether we can kill and eat them or not depends on our morals. I would not do it, but I would definitely try to stay away from them.

Most mentally challenged people still are able, at least, to understand some basic social norms. Those that cannot - and that have no real hope of learning to - perhaps should be put out of their misery, for their own good. I do not know if it is the right solution or not, but it is definitely not out of question.

CYDdharta

Shadowtongue said:

@CYDdharta
My case isn't that non-human animals are also people. While classifications can be tricky, non-humans definitely aren't people. However, my case is that if we want to protect the lives of humans, then we should also prevent the killing and eating of animals too since no difference between humans and animals warrants different moral regard. Now, we can't govern nature nor can we treat animals of the exact same legal standard as people due to animals' ungovernable nature, but the moral gravity is still universally the same regardless.

But is isn't immoral for humans to eat animals.  It isn't immoral for lions to eat antelopes.  It isn't immoral for bears to eat deer.  It isn't immoral for dogs to eat rabbits. It isn't immoral for cats to eat mice.  Man cannot govern nature because man is part of nature, as is the food chain.

piloteer

MayCaesar said:

Most mentally challenged people still are able, at least, to understand some basic social norms. Those that cannot - and that have no real hope of learning to - perhaps should be put out of their misery, for their own good. I do not know if it is the right solution or not, but it is definitely not out of question.

Since when did understanding social norms become the standard for having a valued life, and since when did society gain the ability to be the judge jury and executioner to uphold that standard? Your obviously just trying to adhere to some kind of argumentative consistency so your willing to make asinine statements to do that. There are better and much easier ways to discredit the premise of this argument without having to resort to embracing eugenics. Just read the post I made before your last one and call it a day.   

Shadowtongue

@RickeyD
It doesn't matter what your scripture alone says. Your scripture only bears weight if reality backs it up. Why should I trust that the scripture, its history and these unsubstantiated sensations of yours bear any weight in dictating truth? Give me an argument that proves the validity of your religion.

MayCaesar

@piloteer

I was not the one who started talking about social contract and social norms; I was responding to @Shadowtongue, who used these concepts, explaining how reasoning based off these concepts leads to ambiguous conclusions.

One of the abilities a debater has to develop is to understand the premise behind the other person's argument and criticise it based on that. You cannot criticise someone's argument by using a different premise than them, as you twist their argument when doing so.

Shadowtongue

@CYDdharta
Your argument is a fallacy because it asserts that if X is natural, then it is justified. We have eaten meat and still do to this day like many other organisms, but there are many things in animalistic human nature that we avoid to reach a more enlightened society, such as aggression, broad generalizations, selfish appetites, so on and so forth. Therefore, just because we are a part of nature and have animalistic qualities to our being does not necessarily mean that the actions or perspectives born out of these things yield merit in principle.

RickeyD

@Shadowtongue ; There is no argument that will make or coerce or convince an unbeliever to turn from unbelief and trust in Jesus as Lord and believe what the Holy Spirit has provided in the Scriptures. Unless you're willing to pursue God with all you heart, you will not find Him and unless you're willing to open the pages of Scripture and internalize them with a heart that is willing to believe, you will never know Truth and you will never experience life in God's Kingdom. I cannot argue you out of Hell and into Heaven...you must sincerely desire God's Truth and God's forgiveness of sin by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, alone.

Shadowtongue

@piloteer

It is true that walking can kill insects, but, while the consequence is to morally be avoided, we can recognize that nature is ungovernable and so we can only do so much with regard to tragedy in interaction with nature. Sentience is my threshold because that is when a thing can experience life and the consequences of actions upon it; it is not immoral to puncture a basketball because no subject is experiencing harm or deprivation of life. As for your point on plants, it is true they can do complex things, but these things are not truly sentience because they are just the result of reactions based upon successful genetic blueprints because they have no consciousness to be aware of what they’re doing; cells can interact  with one  another and  work to benefit  each other like in our bodies, but these cells are just conscious-less groupings of living matter and so killing a plant carries the same moral gravity as destroying a brick since both are not experiencing life or subsequent sensations.

Shadowtongue

@MayCaesar
Whether we can kill and eat them or not depends on our morals? Sure, so in order to be objective on how we conduct ourselves, it should be based around an objective moral basis. Lifeforms, logically speaking, should avoid death since no pursuit exists in the destruction of the self, and so, since the ability to experience life exists in all sentient life, we should regard the lives of others with beneficial respect as well. Therefore, it is objectively immoral to kill and eat the mentally challenged person.

CYDdharta

Shadowtongue said:

@CYDdharta
Your argument is a fallacy because it asserts that if X is natural, then it is justified. We have eaten meat and still do to this day like many other organisms, but there are many things in animalistic human nature that we avoid to reach a more enlightened society, such as aggression, broad generalizations, selfish appetites, so on and so forth. Therefore, just because we are a part of nature and have animalistic qualities to our being does not necessarily mean that the actions or perspectives born out of these things yield merit in principle.

...but you haven't proven eating meat is not justified, you've just assumed it.  In fact you're undermining your own vision of an enlightened society by relying on broad generalizations for your argument.

MayCaesar

@Shadowtongue

Objective moral basis cannot exist in principle. There is nothing logically suggesting that us valuing our lives has to make us value others' lives. We generally value other people's lives due to our tribal instinct, where we want to get along with others so they could support us, and to get along with them, we must help them survive - but the same argument does not really apply to other animals, who we do not get along with by default, or humans that cannot reciprocate these feelings.

Dee

@MayCaesar


Will talk later , good points 

YeshuaBought

Shadowtongue said:

@RickeyD
It doesn't matter what your scripture alone says. Your scripture only bears weight if reality backs it up. Why should I trust that the scripture, its history and these unsubstantiated sensations of yours bear any weight in dictating truth? Give me an argument that proves the validity of your religion.

Yes it does matter, what the Bible says, and people get their rights, from God, not government. I am not government property, and will do whatever I wish, end of story.

piloteer

MayCaesar said:

@piloteer

I was not the one who started talking about social contract and social norms; I was responding to @Shadowtongue, who used these concepts, explaining how reasoning based off these concepts leads to ambiguous conclusions.

One of the abilities a debater has to develop is to understand the premise behind the other person's argument and criticise it based on that. You cannot criticise someone's argument by using a different premise than them, as you twist their argument when doing so.

I'm not criticizing your argument for using a different premise, I'm criticizing your argument for needlessly embracing eugenics. 

piloteer

@Shadowtongue

That's a pretty arbitrary threshold to establish for having value in the life of other beings, especially since you cannot objectively or empirically prove that plants or any other beings do not have feelings. Admitting that nature is ungovernable, and just by living we cause other beings to die, that also hurts your argument because the fact of the matter is life feeds on life.

Lets start with YOUR standard for sentience being the qualifying denominator for the only life forms that have value worth not eating. How are you, or anybody else for that matter the rightful judge for what constitutes enough value for a life form for us to not eat? I assume we all understand that even plants have a life. It seems the only true precedent you apply to your value for life is whether you can relate or empathize with those other forms of life, but any devotion to egalitarianism is kind of out of the question when it comes to your threshold for what constitutes a valued life. It's a tad bit disingenuous to only slap the "sentience" qualification of valued life forms since you yourself just happen to be within that qualifying group. It's also worth noting that you are a life form that just so happens to be genetically predisposed to being able to hunt, catch, and eat other animals to gain sustenance that is arguing that we are immoral for doing so, even though your argument for the value of plant species is only an appeal to the fact that you can't empathize with their experience.      

How do you know plants do not possess some other form of emotion, or a mechanism that can constitute as an equivalent to emotions that we ourselves can't even explain or conceive of because we do not possess the physical systems that plants rely on for that system to work? Basically, I'm asking how do we truly know that plants do not have some other form of emotion that we ourselves cannot conceive of that can constitute as some form of recognition of their own experience of a life? When we take a peruse through the PETA website we see that the very best they can muster on the matter of whether plants have feelings is simply, "we just don't know". If that is the best we can do when it comes to our devotion to egalitarian ideals of the value of life, then our egalitarianism is just a relative concept that can be arbitrarily placed anywhere on the spectrum of the topic based solely on nothing other than a personnel preference, and your preference seems to have a complete disregard for the scientific truths that we were born to be able to hunt and eat other animals, and life feeds on life. Those points juxtaposed with the fact that your threshold for the value of other lifeforms is not truly based in egalitarianism, it's only based on your personnel preference which happens to be whether you can relate to the life form in some manner is where the threshold for true value falls with you, and that makes your argument plain and simply disingenuous.

Beyond all the speculative aspects of this discussion, there's the fact that you haven't presented any objectively based evidence that discredits the multitude of studies that do say plants do in fact have a realization of their self and are aware of their lives as an experience and are aware of other plants lives and possibly even the lives of other beings that aren't plant based. As you will see in my link below, Jack C Schultz who is a professor of plant biology says that plants are just really slow animals. They have social interactions with other plants, they can communicate by emitting chemicals to other plants, and they can react to insects, and even catch and eat insects. So even if we take your arbitrarily based considerations for "sentience" being the threshold for having a valued life, you've yet to even accurately establish that plants are not sentient beings. Your claim that their sentience "are just the result of reactions based upon successful genetic blueprints" not only doesn't really make any sense, but it doesn't actually demonstrate that plants "have no consciousness to be aware of what they’re doing", which is your arbitrarily based considerations for what constitutes enough value for us not to eat. You haven't established that plants do not meet your own arbitrarily based threshold for having a valued life. I'm sorry but if your going to present this issue philosophically in this manner, there isn't one single aspect of your argument that cannot be philosophically overcome by empirical argumentation and objective evidence. 



http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170109-plants-can-see-hear-and-smell-and-respond

https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/plants-have-feelings-too
          
https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-intelligence-may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plants

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6168395/Plants-feelings-Shrub-leaves-warn-neighbours-danger-nervous-system.html

Shadowtongue

@RickeyD
I'm going to rewind our conversation to start out fresh and without entanglement. The first question I want to ask you is this: how does knowledge arise?

Shadowtongue

@CYDdharta

I did in my initial argumentation. After all, let me ask you, how can we be objectively consistent in saying we should preserve and protect human life but at the same time should be able to kill and eat non-human sentient life? Also, what broad generalization did I commit?

Shadowtongue

@MayCaesar

Morality is the ways in which people should act, and this ‘should’ element must arise from objective reality.  For example, if one is walking to a store and a rock is in his way, then he 'should' avoid the rock so as to not cause hindrance or harm along the way, a purely logical observation. When one is alive, everything actively done is predicated upon a pursuit of some kind to achieve an end result, whether it be to walk, sit, eat, so on and so forth. Therefore, one cannot logically commit suicide because no pursuit exists for the living entity since the entity will be destroyed upon this action, meaning no end result exists for the self to make this an objectively valid action, thus making the act of self-termination an objective error; this means we should avoid death in order to be as logical as possible. Subsequently, since the baseline of experiencing life exists in all sentient life, we must objectively regard the lives of others as equal to that of the self.  This is pure objectivity. Finally, with all this in mind, we must treat animal lives like those of human lives, aside from complete legal sameness since nature and feral organisms aren’t governable, a mere practical exemption.

Shadowtongue

@YeshuaBought

Why does the scripture alone matter and how do people get their rights from this god of which this scripture describes? Anyone can make this claim about any type of constructed belief system, not just you. For example, if someone follows a cult who studies obscure scripture on the supposed existence of a snake god in the woods who gives immortality upon sacrifice and is the supposed constructor of human law, is this person now objectively justified in saying his scripture factually matters and is where rights truly come  from and will sacrifice people and animals as he wishes, end of story?

RickeyD

@Shadowtongue ;

 Knowledge of God and his power and dominion find its genesis in the Holy Spirit - His Scripture and in Nature.

Happy_Killbot

There is an argument for abolishing meat consumption, but I don't think the value of the life of animals is a good one, especially since in a world without meat most of them will never get any chance at existence.

The real argument against meat consumption has to do with resource availability- because animals take up a lot of space and require a lot of food to grow and sustain meat is much more resource intensive. As the human population expands, we will eventually need to cull animals that are being raised for their meat because we will not have enough land to sustain those animals. This will of course trend with a rise in meat prices, due to increases in land costs.

Shadowtongue

@piloteer

You: That's a pretty arbitrary threshold to establish for having value in the life of other beings, especially since you cannot objectively or empirically prove that plants or any other beings do not have feelings.]

Me: Why is this an arbitrary threshold? It is true that I cannot necessarily prove absolutely that plants don’t experience, but the same can be said about phones, rocks, salt, clouds, planets or literally anything outside of our own direct experience, and, also, we can reasonably infer that the experience of life and of sensations only arises out of consciousness because  we know consciousness is not only the  taking in of stimuli but also the awareness of the taking in of stimuli, which is above things like plants, fungi, cells or other un-cognitive lifeforms since it this means not only reaction but experience of reaction.

You: Lets start with YOUR standard for sentience being the qualifying denominator for the only life forms that have value worth not eating. How are you, or anybody else for that matter the rightful judge for what constitutes enough value for a life form for us to not eat? I assume we all understand that even plants have a life. It seems the only true precedent you apply to your value for life is whether you can relate or empathize with those other forms of life, but any devotion to egalitarianism is kind of out of the question when it comes to your threshold for what constitutes a valued life. It's a tad bit disingenuous to only slap the "sentience" qualification of valued life forms since you yourself just happen to be within that qualifying group. It's also worth noting that you are a life form that just so happens to be genetically predisposed to being able to hunt, catch, and eat other animals to gain sustenance that is arguing that we are immoral for doing so, even though your argument for the value of plant species is only an appeal to the fact that you can't empathize with their experience. 

Me: I’m not applying some qualification onto entities, but rather pointing out the objective principle that if we humans are to strive for protecting our kind from death, then there exists no objective differences between our kind and that of other sentient life that allows us to be objectively consistent in saying we should protect humans but be also able to harm animals. Plants are disqualified upon the objective basis that, while they indeed have complex mechanisms and aspects to their being, they aren’t experiencing what is happening to them, just reacting. Just because a phone has complex mechanisms and can react doesn’t mean it’s experiencing life.

You: How do you know plants do not possess some other form of emotion, or a mechanism that can constitute as an equivalent to emotions that we ourselves can't even explain or conceive of because we do not possess the physical systems that plants rely on for that system to work? Basically, I'm asking how do we truly know that plants do not have some other form of emotion that we ourselves cannot conceive of that can constitute as some form of recognition of their own experience of a life? When we take a peruse through the PETA website we see that the very best they can muster on the matter of whether plants have feelings is simply, "we just don't know". If that is the best we can do when it comes to our devotion to egalitarian ideals of the value of life, then our egalitarianism is just a relative concept that can be arbitrarily placed anywhere on the spectrum of the topic based solely on nothing other than a personnel preference, and your preference seems to have a complete disregard for the scientific truths that we were born to be able to hunt and eat other animals, and life feeds on life. Those points juxtaposed with the fact that your threshold for the value of other lifeforms is not truly based in egalitarianism, it's only based on your personnel preference which happens to be whether you can relate to the life form in some manner is where the threshold for true value falls with you, and that makes your argument plain and simply disingenuous.

Me: Plants may have feelings, but just because something has feelings doesn’t mean it’s actually being experienced. For example, let’s take a person. If you stab him, it will hurt him and he will experience this pain. Now, let’s say we remove his consciousness element to his brain but keep his basic brain functions. If you stab this conscious-less person, it will hurt and the brain will send out the message that it hurts, but no sentience means nothing’s experiencing the pain, just reacting and exihibiting feelings on a mechanical level, so this whole point of yours does not  amount to much. Now, for the fact that we were built to kill and eat animals, sure, I’ll concede that readily, but this a nature fallacy where you’re stating that since X is natural, then X is justified in principle, but we are built to also be other animalistic things which we avoid for a more just society so, no, nature does not necessarily also equal correct.

 You: Beyond all the speculative aspects of this discussion, there's the fact that you haven't presented any objectively based evidence that discredits the multitude of studies that do say plants do in fact have a realization of their self and are aware of their lives as an experience and are aware of other plants lives and possibly even the lives of other beings that aren't plant based. As you will see in my link below, Jack C Schultz who is a professor of plant biology says that plants are just really slow animals. They have social interactions with other plants, they can communicate by emitting chemicals to other plants, and they can react to insects, and even catch and eat insects. So even if we take your arbitrarily based considerations for "sentience" being the threshold for having a valued life, you've yet to even accurately establish that plants are not sentient beings. Your claim that their sentience "are just the result of reactions based upon successful genetic blueprints" not only doesn't really make any sense, but it doesn't actually demonstrate that plants "have no consciousness to be aware of what they’re doing", which is your arbitrarily based considerations for what constitutes enough value for us not to eat. You haven't established that plants do not meet your own arbitrarily based threshold for having a valued life. I'm sorry but if your going to present this issue philosophically in this manner, there isn't one single aspect of your argument that cannot be philosophically overcome by empirical argumentation and objective evidence.

Me: The findings of the articles are interesting and show more capacity within plants than previously thought. However, this complexity does not mean actual experience. As I pointed out earlier, you can essentially have a human feel and react to pain but not actually experience pain if you take his consciousness out of his brain but left basic functionality. So, while a plant can be aware of  its surroundings, communicate, act upon information, et cetera, this does  not  equate to the experience of life as a self  because these things can all be achieved  by  living  but conscious-less organisms. I’ll go back to my cell point. Cells can behave very complexly but they almost certainly do not experience because they are mere cells and not part of a broader unit which is able to experience life via cognition. Satellites at observatories can do complex mechanical function, Bluetooth headphones, cellular devices and other non-living things can do complex things too independently but this does not mean now that satellites, phones, so on and so on experience life via the self. So, in the end, despite your assertion that my arguments do not hold, it is actually the other way around.

MayCaesar

Shadowtongue said:

@MayCaesar

Morality is the ways in which people should act, and this ‘should’ element must arise from objective reality.  For example, if one is walking to a store and a rock is in his way, then he 'should' avoid the rock so as to not cause hindrance or harm along the way, a purely logical observation. When one is alive, everything actively done is predicated upon a pursuit of some kind to achieve an end result, whether it be to walk, sit, eat, so on and so forth. Therefore, one cannot logically commit suicide because no pursuit exists for the living entity since the entity will be destroyed upon this action, meaning no end result exists for the self to make this an objectively valid action, thus making the act of self-termination an objective error; this means we should avoid death in order to be as logical as possible. Subsequently, since the baseline of experiencing life exists in all sentient life, we must objectively regard the lives of others as equal to that of the self.  This is pure objectivity. Finally, with all this in mind, we must treat animal lives like those of human lives, aside from complete legal sameness since nature and feral organisms aren’t governable, a mere practical exemption.

You are assuming that avoiding harm and surviving are somehow ultimate logical directives for humans. Yet humans have been known to risk/sacrifice their lives for others, at the moments when they put others' lives above theirs. There is nothing illogical in that.

Also, even if we assume that survival is objectively logical (it is not), your need to survive by no means implies that you need to have regard for the lives of others. When a killer enters your room, you will fight that killer and possibly kill him/her; your regard for others is conditional.

These arguments based on objectivity and naturality are a wrong way to make your case.

Shadowtongue

@MayCaesar

You did not properly address my case. When I say one should avoid death, it is to adhere to logic. There is no logic in pursuing suicide because pursuits have to have end goals in mind as it is the end goal which causes the pursuit to occur to begin with, but no end goal exists in the event of suicide for the self because the self will be terminated in this act and thus not live  to reach an end result, meaning there is  an objective error in the suicidal process because the  act of suicide is  a  pursuit to reach and end goal but no end goal exists in fruition from this act, making it an action predicated upon falsehood.

As for regarding the lives of others, it does mean you should have regard for the lives of others. This is because both you and all other sentient life possess experiencing lives, and so you should regard their experiencing life with benefit since you, logically speaking, should preserve your own life as well.  The fact that experiencing life is among all sentient organisms means treatment regarding the experiencing of life must be consistent. Now, if a killer is trying to murder you, then you logically should defend yourself because your life should be treated beneficially too, and so while killing should be avoided, if an aggressor cannot be set back any other way then there is no choice but to kill the murderer since the intent is not out of an aggressive, offensive nature but out of necessity to survive. Self-defense is the only exception to this objective moral standard since the aggressor is actively trying to harm and kill others and thus force others into necessary protection of their own lives.

Dee

@MayCaesar

I was never really persuaded by the argument of necessity regards meat eating as I was vegetarian for 2 years and suffered no adverse effects in the fact the opposite in my case , but again that’s just me, but a sizable amount of people in some countries are indeed vegetarian with no ill affects.

What cannot be denied is that a huge amount of animals go through appalling suffering on “factory farms” and surely that must enter the equation regarding the argument which in fairness you acknowledge 

The other argument is that if we are in favour of meat eating are we not guilty of Speciesism which in a way is like racism as it’s a form of prejudiced discrimination on non -relevant grounds and is something to be avoided and condemned as vigorously as racism.
Speciesism takes the species as the defining feature of moral worth not the capacity of the individual concerned to have interests 


I read a piece recently that claimed meat eating would be  viewed the same way as slavery is by us now by future generations as animal suffering would finally be a persuasive enough reason to finally convince most , I’m not so sure but there you go 

Shadowtongue

@RickeyD
Well, let's start outside of Christianity for a moment. Knowledge comes from information that is taken in by the person and subsequently understood for what it is. So, what information did you acquire that led you to understand that Christianity is true?

Shadowtongue

@Happy_Killbot
It's true we can't impose morality upon animals, but the objective principle still stands that there is no difference between us humans and other non-human sentient life that allows us to be consistent when we say we can't kill and eat humans but yet can with animals, that is unless you can point out a supposed valid difference?

Ampersand

@Shadowtongue

Cows/chickens/pigs aren'te  the same as humans. They aren't sapient in the way humans are and they aren't the same species.

I don't eat meat either, but for me it's for environmental reasons.  AlthoughI prefer not to cause harm to sentient beings I just don't care that much and frankly but my own self interest higher than the life of a animal. in a few decades when we either have climate change under control or we're all doomed so it doesn't matter, I really hope I can eat the out of some KFC.

RickeyD

@Shadowtongue ; The Scriptures.

Happy_Killbot

@Shadowtongue

The difference between animals and humans is fairly straightforward.

Humans have greater capabilities and superior mental faculties when compared to animals. Thus we can enact our will as we please to a greater degree. In the amoral (not immoral) world of nature, power is king, and humans have power over animals because we are more intelligent.

Humans invented morality. In nature, there is no such thing. A lion will eviscerate a gazelle because it is hungry, it evolved that way over millions of years and this process was driven by the fundamental laws of physics.

Without humans, there is no morality. If animals are to be subject to our views of such, it is by our mercy. Morality was not made to control animals, and there is little we can do to truly subject them to it. A lion doesn't bother asking for the gazelle's consent, and the cow can not comprehend giving consent.

This is my personal view of morality, that informed consent is the quantum unit of its measure. An animal can neither give consent nor be informed, thus they are outside of the set of moral actions and can not be subject to such laws.

To put this into perspective, let's consider the example from Douglas Adam's book Restaurant at the end of the universe. Suppose there is a cow which has been breed to want you to eat it, and is capable of telling you so. Would it then be appropriate to eat that animal, given that it want's you to?

MayCaesar

Shadowtongue said:

@MayCaesar

You did not properly address my case. When I say one should avoid death, it is to adhere to logic. There is no logic in pursuing suicide because pursuits have to have end goals in mind as it is the end goal which causes the pursuit to occur to begin with, but no end goal exists in the event of suicide for the self because the self will be terminated in this act and thus not live  to reach an end result, meaning there is  an objective error in the suicidal process because the  act of suicide is  a  pursuit to reach and end goal but no end goal exists in fruition from this act, making it an action predicated upon falsehood.

As for regarding the lives of others, it does mean you should have regard for the lives of others. This is because both you and all other sentient life possess experiencing lives, and so you should regard their experiencing life with benefit since you, logically speaking, should preserve your own life as well.  The fact that experiencing life is among all sentient organisms means treatment regarding the experiencing of life must be consistent. Now, if a killer is trying to murder you, then you logically should defend yourself because your life should be treated beneficially too, and so while killing should be avoided, if an aggressor cannot be set back any other way then there is no choice but to kill the murderer since the intent is not out of an aggressive, offensive nature but out of necessity to survive. Self-defense is the only exception to this objective moral standard since the aggressor is actively trying to harm and kill others and thus force others into necessary protection of their own lives.

First, the conclusions in logic are based on initial postulates, and initial postulates do not necessarily have to have some sort of end goal in mind that lays in the hands of the individual. It is perfectly logical to sacrifice your life in a way that moves the world towards some end goal you may have had in life. Survival instinct is a purely biological mechanism that has only a loose connection to logic.
Second, logic is not all there is in life. People who tend to be overly logical actually tend to be quite miserable, as they get wrapped up in their heads, unable to appreciate the world around them (I know, I have been like that myself, until I diagnosed the problem and took steps to fix it). Aside from logic, emotions are also extremely important, and if you sacrifice your emotions for logic, then, again, you are likely to be miserable.

Preserving my own life may benefit me, but preserving others' lives - not necessarily so. What objectively do I have to gain from, say, saving life of a starving kid 10,000 miles away from me, who I would never interact with anyway?

Dee said:

@MayCaesar

I was never really persuaded by the argument of necessity regards meat eating as I was vegetarian for 2 years and suffered no adverse effects in the fact the opposite in my case , but again that’s just me, but a sizable amount of people in some countries are indeed vegetarian with no ill affects.

What cannot be denied is that a huge amount of animals go through appalling suffering on “factory farms” and surely that must enter the equation regarding the argument which in fairness you acknowledge 

The other argument is that if we are in favour of meat eating are we not guilty of Speciesism which in a way is like racism as it’s a form of prejudiced discrimination on non -relevant grounds and is something to be avoided and condemned as vigorously as racism.
Speciesism takes the species as the defining feature of moral worth not the capacity of the individual concerned to have interests 

I read a piece recently that claimed meat eating would be  viewed the same way as slavery is by us now by future generations as animal suffering would finally be a persuasive enough reason to finally convince most , I’m not so sure but there you go 

Quite possibly. I would say that speciesism is based on something far more tangible than racism, as the differences between races are negligible and mostly superficial, while the differences between species are dramatic, to the point where some can barely interact with each other in a meaningful way (for example, as much love and compassion as you may have towards mosquitoes, you will not be able to prevent them from sipping your blood against your will without application of some force).

I do find it likely that one day animal farms will be seen in a very negative light, however, and almost certainly outlawed.

Dee

@MayCaesar

A fair point indeed, I think it’s like the abortion debate in that it creates robust debate but never any clear answers.

I’m debating some of the finer points of Evolution with Sand he has quoted you several times ,I was wondering would you have a look as I’m not totally sure what he’s saying regarding what you said to him.

piloteer

Ampersand said:

@Shadowtongue

Cows/chickens/pigs aren'te  the same as humans. They aren't sapient in the way humans are and they aren't the same species.

I don't eat meat either, but for me it's for environmental reasons.  AlthoughI prefer not to cause harm to sentient beings I just don't care that much and frankly but my own self interest higher than the life of a animal. in a few decades when we either have climate change under control or we're all doomed so it doesn't matter, I really hope I can eat the out of some KFC.

I think the environmental argument against eating meat is the only valid one, because it is very persuasive. I hope someday KFC will have cultured chicken meat so you can realize your dream of eating the $£!T out of some KFC without killing an animal. Get one of them chicken on chicken sandwiches, I hear they're delightful.  

Shadowtongue

@Ampersand

Cows, chickens and pigs aren’t the same as humans so this difference then justifies their consumption? Can we kill and eat intelligent alien life since they’re not human, now?

The quality of being sapient determines whether or not we should eat it? So if a human is born with a severe brain deformity in which he experiences life but has a very primitively formed, and thus not truly sapient, brain we can kill and eat this person now? What parameters define the quality of sanctified sapience? Why limit ourselves to just sapience? How about intelligence as well? Can smart people kill and eat people? Can geniuses kill and eat people of average intelligence?

[Edited due to a necessary word being absent in my statement.]

Shadowtongue

@RickeyD

Okay, so we know that there are many religions that exist in the world, so when you first delved into Christianity's scripture, how did you recognize that this is the one, true religion and not just one faith among many tales or superstitions?

Shadowtongue

@Happy_Killbot

Greater capacities and mental faculties determine whether or not we can kill and eat something? Can we kill and eat mentally challenged or comatose people since we can enact our will to a greater degree upon them?

Whether or not man invented morality depends on what the morality is predicated upon. Morality can be a mere invention by man if it is predicated upon subjective presuppositions or emotions, but it can exist in an objective sense if we understand objective rules and principles. For example, we have the intellectual capacity to realize that if we forge a social contract to sanctify human life, then there’s no objective consistency if we also allow ourselves to consume sentient non-human life. This is factual and thus an objectively moral statement, and therefore such an objective principle will exist even if humans are gone by nature of it being a rule of reality. It’s true that nature doesn’t abide by morality and isn’t governable, but this is because nature is flawed in this right and this observation does not contradict the prospects of objective morality.

An animal can neither give consent nor be informed so this means they are exempted from moral codes? Can we kill and eat comatose people since they can’t give consent or be informed, now?

As for your Douglas Adam case, no, that does not mean it is justified to kill and eat the cow. If a person comes up to me and says they want me to molest them out of mental disturbance, can I now molest them and should I not suffer legal penalty for my actions? Of course not, because, whether or not an entity wants harm inflicted upon itself, we can still understand how we should act from the perspective of objective principles and not just how an entity thinks or acts. Not to mention that that would set a very unstable foundation for a social contract.

Shadowtongue

@piloteer
Did you at any point make a reply to my latest statement? Just to check if I missed anything or not.

Shadowtongue

@MayCaesar

Well, let’s dissect this. Do we both agree that an action that is in our control is necessarily done on the basis of something being strived for to cause the action to occur to begin with, whether the thing is directly or indirectly known? Let’s start here. Yes or no?

Sure, we aren’t just pure logic machines, nor should we, since emotions are what give us the desire to embark on things to begin with, but you do realize that emotions do not create facts, right? One can easily have the position of recognizing how reality works with logic and empirical observation and acting upon this with emotional ambitions.

As for your life versus another person’s life, how are you objectively being consistent when you act to preserve your own life and bring prosperity to yourself but not protect or aid another person?

Ampersand

Shadowtongue said:

@Ampersand

Cows, chickens and pigs aren’t the same as humans so this difference then justifies their consumption? Can we kill and eat intelligent alien life since they’re not human, now?

The quality of being sapient determines whether or not we should eat it? So if a human is born with a severe brain deformity in which he experiences life but has a very primitively formed, and thus not truly sapient, brain we can kill and eat this person now? What parameters define the quality of sanctified sapience? Why limit ourselves to just sapience? How about intelligence as well? Can smart people kill and eat people? Can geniuses kill and eat people of average intelligence?

[Edited due to a necessary word being absent in my statement.]

Do you believe that all animals deserve every single right and respect due a human? Should we spend as much on healthcare for each individual insect as we do a human?

Because if the answer to the above is no, you're already conceding the point of animals having lesser rights and it's just a case of where we draw the line.

piloteer

@Shadowtongue

My apologies. I haven't got around to it, but I intend to do so at some point, because I find this to be an interesting discussion, regardless of your wrongness. (kidding). I hope to get back to this soon. I'm currently wrapped up in a debate regarding mandatory vaccinations if you'd like to get involved there, that would be most satisfactory. It's in the political section if you're interested.