Unlike (say) cats, humans do not require meat in their diets to obtain sufficient nutrition.
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I am opposed to causing suffering. Humanely killed animals do not suffer. AndâŚthatâs pretty much it.
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According to Wikipediaâs History of Vegetarianism, some of the earlier adopters were mainly Japanese, Greek and Indian, though some Native American tribes (ex. the Choctaw tribe) also adopted it. Many Jews and early Christians in the Roman Empire adopted vegetarianism. Later, famous fellows like Leonardo da Vinci, Rene Descartes, and Immanuel Kant took on vegetarianism in the style of the Greeks who inspired them. Still later, even Ben Franklin adopted vegetarianism, though luckily he saw the light and came back to red meat.
So, to summarize:
Greece: Conquered by Alexander the Great, and then again by the Romans
India: Controlled by a company, and then under the control or influence of the UK, from the 1700s until 1947
Japan: Had two atomic bombs dropped on them. (Sorry!) Now largely associated with kawaii and hentai.
Native Americans: We all know what happened there. (Sorry to you too!)
Jews in the Roman Empire: Have had it rough before and since.
Christians in the Roman Empire: Had it rough. (Been doing pretty ok since then though.)
Leonardo da Vinci: Is dead, and died at 67. Thereâs clearly a message there, right?
Rene Descartes: Died at 53. Dang!
Immanuel Kant: Poor health all of his life. Is also dead.
Benjamin Franklin: Died of pleurisy. Doesnât sound like fun. Still, good thing he switched back to meat, or maybe he would have died long before age 84!
Clearly, thereâs a trend. Iâd consider becoming a vegetarian (no I wouldnât; not really), but it just seems too risky.
So if we kill you humanely and you donât feel any pain, thatâs OK?
And you know who else was a vegetarian?
Thatâs right.
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What? Are you trying to imply someone in particular? If so, I donât get it.
Well, Iâm not sure what your comment had to do with anything I said. But to answer the question, Iâm referring to that Austrian guy with the funny mustache who generally gets mentioned any time a moral argument goes on on the Internet.
My comment was a joke. All of the vegetarians I mentioned were very notable and respectable people.
I suppose that my joke failed, since I had to explain that it was a joke. I thought I was being really sillyâŚ
I was wondering when this would GodwinâŚ
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No, because I am not an animal. Animals have moral value, but not the same moral value as humans. I donât see a contradiction there. The existential fear of nonexistence is outside the mental capacity of most animals; barring extenuating circumstances (endangered species, nursing mother, somebodyâs petâŚ), I see no moral problem with painlessly ending an animalâs life.
I wish I could find it right now, but a few years back I read a blog written by a family pig farmer. He said that, in his experience, pigs fear pain, but they donât fear death. You can lead an adult pig into a slaughterhouse still reeking of fresh pig blood and sheâll trot obediently after, taking it easy and not so much as twitching an ear as you press the bolt gun to her forehead and wipe away her consciousness in a painless instant. When you hear of animals panicking on the way to the slaughter, itâs because their predecessors died in pain and stress and they respond to the stink of fear.
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Youâre a vegetable or mineral?
OK, so you want to give animals different moral status to humans. So why argue about humane versus inhumane in the first place? If rules of moral treatment donât apply when dealing with animals, the whole question of humane vs inhumane is a pointless distraction. You could just say âYou donât have to give moral consideration to animals, but we treat them humanely because it makes us feel better.â
I think youâre very much mistaken about that. You should check out Temple Grandinâs lectures about how cattle behave at a slaughterhouse. They absolutely fear for their lives if they work out whatâs going on. Chickens grieve for the dead, as far as we can tell; check out the discussions online from people who keep them. (We know that other social birds such as parrots absolutely do grieve, so itâs not ridiculous anthropomorphism.)
Maybe pigs have no ability to fear death, but if so, theyâre an exception.
^^ Is actually a tracking-subscription link, pftt.
No, silly. JAMA.
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