I have never understood this logic. If a lion eats a zebra, there’s nothing wrong with it, but when a human eats a cow, they’re a horrible person. (also I know that not all vegans think like this)
I personally believe there’s nothing inherently wrong with eating meat, and instead the problem is how we treat the animals we eat and that we eat way too much meat, taking it for granted.
the issue is that we’re doing it on a massive scale semi-automatically.
keeping small amount of animals in decent-ish conditions (like on a small farm) and killing some for food/meat is fine.
keeping thouthands of animals in tiny cages where they basically can’t move at all is not.
We are intelligent and capable of considering the idea that an animal may not want to die, and we have it within our means to survive without meat, or with much less meat than we currently consume.
Animals who are being lead to slaughter have been observed to panic and try to flee. They do not want to die. What right do we have to take the life of an animal that wants to live as much as any other person? We are capable of considering this question. Animals are not. That’s the difference.
Even as a carnivore you would not eat a freshly born baby straight out of the mother’s womb, whereas any other predator would see it as an easy meal. There IS a moral implication in taking life.
We can only afford to question this because we are in a utopia of sorts compared to just a few hundred years ago. We are capable of understanding that there are philosophical, moral, and ethical dilemmas to eating meat in 2023. However, if the world went to shit and say an electrical storm wiped out all electronics on Earth, we would not even hesitate to eat meat in as little as a few months in.
Socrates was already criticising it in 450 BCE. Also all Indian religions were championing non-violence as early as mid-1st millennium BCE. This is nothing new nor revolutionary and people were already questioning their actions when “the world was shit” as you put it.
People can strive to become better in any situation.
Arguing that something’s okay because it’s a natural behaviour is the naturalistic fallacy. The difference is that other species don’t have any choice over how they live or even the mental capacity to think about the morality of their actions. Humans that are well-off and don’t have medical conditions that clash with veganism do.
I used to agree with the second paragraph, but watching videos of pigs/cows/chickens being slaughtered changed my mind. Imo their prior treatment doesn’t really negate what happens there- and even if it did, I couldn’t use ideal farm conditions as a defense when the vast majority of meat I’ve been eating is raised under less ideal conditions.
(This isn’t calling anyone who eats a burger satan, to be clear. Just trying to say my views in good faith.)
I have never understood this logic. If a lion eats a zebra, there’s nothing wrong with it, but when a human eats a cow, they’re a horrible person. (also I know that not all vegans think like this)
I personally believe there’s nothing inherently wrong with eating meat, and instead the problem is how we treat the animals we eat and that we eat way too much meat, taking it for granted.
the issue is that we’re doing it on a massive scale semi-automatically.
keeping small amount of animals in decent-ish conditions (like on a small farm) and killing some for food/meat is fine.
keeping thouthands of animals in tiny cages where they basically can’t move at all is not.
We are intelligent and capable of considering the idea that an animal may not want to die, and we have it within our means to survive without meat, or with much less meat than we currently consume.
Animals who are being lead to slaughter have been observed to panic and try to flee. They do not want to die. What right do we have to take the life of an animal that wants to live as much as any other person? We are capable of considering this question. Animals are not. That’s the difference.
Even as a carnivore you would not eat a freshly born baby straight out of the mother’s womb, whereas any other predator would see it as an easy meal. There IS a moral implication in taking life.
We can only afford to question this because we are in a utopia of sorts compared to just a few hundred years ago. We are capable of understanding that there are philosophical, moral, and ethical dilemmas to eating meat in 2023. However, if the world went to shit and say an electrical storm wiped out all electronics on Earth, we would not even hesitate to eat meat in as little as a few months in.
Socrates was already criticising it in 450 BCE. Also all Indian religions were championing non-violence as early as mid-1st millennium BCE. This is nothing new nor revolutionary and people were already questioning their actions when “the world was shit” as you put it.
People can strive to become better in any situation.
Arguing that something’s okay because it’s a natural behaviour is the naturalistic fallacy. The difference is that other species don’t have any choice over how they live or even the mental capacity to think about the morality of their actions. Humans that are well-off and don’t have medical conditions that clash with veganism do.
I used to agree with the second paragraph, but watching videos of pigs/cows/chickens being slaughtered changed my mind. Imo their prior treatment doesn’t really negate what happens there- and even if it did, I couldn’t use ideal farm conditions as a defense when the vast majority of meat I’ve been eating is raised under less ideal conditions.
(This isn’t calling anyone who eats a burger satan, to be clear. Just trying to say my views in good faith.)