/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6637315]

Is it ethical to eat meat when we are perfectly capable of surviving without it?

[Anonymous No.6637321]

>>6637315
/lit/ - literature

[Anonymous No.6637325]

>>6637315
/lit/, fagmo.

[Anonymous No.6637327]

>>6637321
Peter Singer - writer

[Anonymous No.6637451]

>>6637315
Is it ethical to even live ?

[Anonymous No.6637454]

>>6637315
Peter Singer is a complete moron, and all his arguments can be destroyed without effort. I can't believe people take that pretentious illogical fucknut seriously. As for the first troll, the onus is on you: why should eating meat be unethical? Why should our ability to survive without it have anything to do with the question?

[Anonymous No.6637509]

>>6637454
thou shall not kill

[Anonymous No.6637542]

Why wouldn't it be? Everything alive suffers and dies, everything organic is eaten to give sustenance to other organisms.

[Anonymous No.6637543]

My answer is: it depends.

The symbiotic relationship we have with animals is a fair exchange and was agreed upon by the natural process of evolution. Thousands of years ago certain animals decided to follow our tribes as they migrated, eating our scraps, and we began to slaughter them for food and they continued to follow us. Fences are a modern invention, we have herded animals without fences and without much effort for a long time.

The exchange is that they live a stress free life, have less disease, never go hungry, and don't die a death that involves getting your limbs torn off by a preditor while you're still alive.
The pigs get to play in the mud and have a healthy, happy life time before being slaughtered. A single pig produces 250 pounds of meat, enough to feed a small family for an entire winter. There is nothing immoral about the husbandry of animals. It is an aesthetic arrangement. Protection, happy life, and then quick death, for an entire family kept alive for a winter.

On the other hand the current arrangement is not that contract these animals signed when they started following us. The current system retards their quality of life, length of life, and doesn't deliver on the promises of less disease and quick deaths. Standing knee deep in cow shit being force fed corn mush and pumped full of antibiotics do your rotten flesh doesn't spread isn't an aesthetic arrangement.

In short, I don't believe it's unethical to support farms that raise animals traditionally. I do believe it's unethical to support factory farming, not only for animal cruelty but also the ecological damage they inflict.

[Anonymous No.6637551]

>>6637543
>was agreed upon
>decided
>we

Yeah, nah. Please try again.

[Anonymous No.6637552]

>>6637509
You'll have to do better than that. Singer openly takes a Nietzschean position, and advocates not only abortion but infanticide (suggesting that killing babies before 28 days post-birth should be allowed) and euthanasia. He literally cares more about animals than people, whereas the Old Testament never suggests that not eating meat (or not sacrificing animals to God, for that matter) is an idea even worth considering.

[Anonymous No.6637559]

>>6637543
> contract these animals signed
The fuck?
>ecological damage
Clouding the issue. OPs question is about eating meat, not raising it.

[Anonymous No.6637563]

>>6637551
It's artistic expression, I don't literally mean we had a dialog with animals.

[Anonymous No.6637575]

This book has one of the best arguments for eating meat in it. If anyone is interested in justifying your diet you should get it.

[Anonymous No.6637596]

>>6637542
I'm going to mummify myself for an ethical purpose. It would be ethically unsound if bacteria or a larger creature would consume my flesh. It would also be ethically unsound of me to provide for others a situation that coerces them with the punishment of death to do something unethical.

Just because you are hopelessly corrupt and will subject others to coercion doesn't mean I will, you organicist pig!

[Anonymous No.6637607]

>>6637596
>ethically unsound
How do you justify your stance using words like that? It's beyond me.

[Anonymous No.6637631]

This is not meant as a counterargument but rather a separate question: don't plants deserve not to be killed for food too? They are living things too after all.

Ideally, we should be able to do what they do, I believe. Such a goal may be a long long way off, but we should set that as our end goal all the same.

[Anonymous No.6637653]

>>6637315
Is it ethical to read /lit/ when we are perfectly capable of surviving without it?

[Anonymous No.6637657]

>>6637315
is it ethical to feed cheetahs in zoos meat when they are perfectly capable of surviving without it?

we can engineer protein pastes for them to consume

[Anonymous No.6637702]

>>6637631
Sorry if my meaning wasn't clear. By "do what they do" I mean use photosynthesis to obtain energy.

It seems possible given recent advances. Artificial photosynthesis (photo cells, with their sub-50% efficiencies, being a very poor first attempt) has been so hard to nail down, because we didn't even have natural photosynthesis figured out all this time. But recently it was discovered that plants are able to achieve seemingly impossible near-100% efficiencies because they rely on quantum effects. Plants are capable of causing photon particles to behave as waves. These waves then propagate over an extended area, which ensures that every photon finds its way to a processing center and is not wasted. Knowing this, we could conceivably harness this effect in a potential future technology.

[Anonymous No.6637704]

>>6637315

I would say no, maybe even 100 years ago it would be a maybe but now someone can get b12 vitamins and tons of protein through rice & beans, nuts, soy, hemp etc. its not even expense if you are smart and do some research into how to do it best.

[The cats No.6637708]

>People replying seriously

You fucking retards are the reason he keeps making this off topic bullshit thread every week

[Anonymous No.6637716]

Yes, perfectly ethical. Whether animals suffer is a morally irrelevant question.

[Anonymous No.6637719]

>>6637657
its not ethical to keep a cheetah in a zoo. worse than eating meat every once in a while.

[Anonymous No.6637725]

>>6637702
>>6637631
"deserve"?
Reciprocity is an observed relationship between two phenomena, individuals don't act because reciprocity has exerted its force on them.

Your idea of deserving comes out of human reciprocity, something we only speak of because it gives us solace from the fear that our good deeds will be returned with evil.

If you think reciprocity is a causal force, I will act the prophet to your uncivilized mind:

You will get everything you deserve and everything that happens to you will be due to your having deserved it.

Have fun!

[Anonymous No.6637732]

what do we loose for going against ethics if it benefits us? Is it any different if an animal overkills and overeats? Is the universe going to punish us for breaking its laws?

[Anonymous No.6637748]

>>6637732
Whoah! Slow down there buddy!

1. A discussion of the ethical is one of human laws, not universal ones.
2. If you think human beings are merely objects of the universe, then human action is brought about by patterns dictated by universal laws.

Therefore, this is a discussion of human laws and it is therefore only for people who believe that human beings are more than physical objects.
If you resign that an individual is made entirely of physical matter, then a discussion of ethics (human laws) cannot proceed as distinct from a discussion of physics (universal laws).

[Anonymous No.6637750]

>>6637607
he feels like this, especially after being trained for years by his parents and the society to feel like this

[Anonymous No.6637759]

>>6637315
No.

[Anonymous No.6637760]

>>6637748
still, whats going to happen if we go against them? are we going to be punished by other humans? what if no one sees you.

[Anonymous No.6637782]

>>6637760
It follows naturally from my explanation.
If you believe in ethics, its easy for you to also believe in further unjustified ideas, like God, Satan, Hell, or whatever other ethnically distributed metaphysical lore you ascribe to.

Religious people fear atheists because they think the atheist has no God to deter him from a unpunishable crime.
The atheist may retort that he has himself, his own code of honor or justice or utility that prevents him from committing an unpunishable crime.

No belief in anything beyond the physically observable + No risk of punishment by observed means + No risk of punishment by unobserved means = no reason to believe that anything will punish you.

Law is created by man for his own purpose in hope that other people do not break it against him.

A utilitarian argument for ethics, though a poor one:
If you manage to coerce everyone with ethics, then nobody breaks them against anyone else. Therefore, everyone benefits from a belief in ethics.

[Anonymous No.6637804]

>>6637725
That was not the best choice of words, I agree.

I don't really mean to say that "all living things deserve to live." That would be silly considering that all living things die, and so it would be kind of like saying "all living things deserve to live eternally."

To refine that statement a bit, I think that all living things strive to live, which is true. Survival is our most basic instinct. From here, I'm not sure how much of stretch it would be to say that all living things also strive for well-being. And to take a pretty big leap further, given enough time, all living things will reach some state adjacent to the state in which their well-being would be as secure as it can physically be.

That is not to say that this state is or ought to be guaranteed by any unseen force, nor by anything in fact. Not even by their own striving for it.

There are no guarantees, but there is a fair chance that this state is attainable. And I'm pretty sure that even if life can't reach it, it will still die trying.

[Anonymous No.6637808]

No it's not

Current farming industries are literally cruel and unusual animal torture. Even the best family owned grass fed organic sunshine and rainbows farms at the end of the day have to slaughter a sentient being for the pleasure of a hamburger or an omelette. It's irresponsible and immoral, because we knowingly choose to satisfy our preference at the cost of our health, the environment, the lives of the workers in the slaughterhouses, and of course, the lives of innocent animals.

[Anonymous No.6637816]

>>6637315
Nope

>Socrates: Would this habit of eating animals not require that we slaughter animals that we knew as individuals, and in whose eyes we could gaze and see ourselves reflected, only a few hours before our meal?
>Glaucon: This habit would require that of us.

>Socrates: Wouldn’t this [knowledge] hinder us in achieving happiness?
>Glaucon: It could so hinder us in our quest for happiness.

>Socrates: And, if we pursue this way of living, will we not have need to visit the doctor more often?
>Glaucon: We would have such need.

>Socrates: If we pursue our habit of eating animals, and if our neighbor follows a similar path, will we not have need to go to war against our neighbor to secure greater pasturage, because ours will not be enough to sustain us, and our neighbor will have a similar need to wage war on us for the same reason?
>Glaucon: We would be so compelled.

>Socrates: Would not these facts prevent us from achieving happiness, and therefore the conditions necessary to the building of a just society, if we pursue a desire to eat animals? >Glaucon: Yes, they would so prevent us.

[Anonymous No.6637824]

>>6637804
Good, you've realized the meaninglessness of your own distinction.
Go forth knowing (and acting on) the truth, that nothing deserves anything. What happens will happen with "deserving" entirely elsewhere.
As to what you deem as having been deserved or undeserved, just apply them however it best serves you. The distinction is otherwise without any worth at all.

...a certain meme would suggest that all things are of this nature...

[Anonymous No.6637831]

>>6637315
Thomas Edison alked about this a bit:

>Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

[Anonymous No.6637839]

>>6637631
Plants do not feel or have nonioceptors to feel pain. I realize some animals don't either, but the majority of livestock in the agricultural industry do. It's a matter of suffering mostly, but deforestation and the overall health of the environment is a matter of concern as well. GMOs and the threat of a shrinking biodiversity within the plant kingdom due to due industrialized farming is not something vegans ignore, typically.

[Anonymous No.6637853]

>>6637831
Literally can't do it.

Living things eat one another.

In the literal biological sense, and in the sense of competition.

We harm others merely by living our lives as best we can, and out-competing them.

I do my job well, so there is no place for the next man to work the bar here.

In out-competing him for this position in society I have harmed him in as real a way as if i'd hit him with an axe.

Except one is "acceptable", the other is only"contextually acceptable".

[Anonymous No.6637856]

>>6637732
What makes us different from our ape cousins? Our frontal cortex allows us to plan and imagine abstract ideas like "the future." Because we can think in more complicated ways, which is how we dominated the planet btw, we are obligated to use that ability to think to the best of our abilities. Violence is the last refuge for the incompetent, so why are we killing animals when we know a better way?

[Anonymous No.6637860]

>>6637839
Lesser of two evils, I would say.

[Anonymous No.6637866]

>>6637853
>Living things eat one another.
Plants only eat sunlight and chemicals.

I tell you, plants had it all figured out a while back and we animals are just an evolutionary spandrel that should not even exist.

[Anonymous No.6637868]

>>6637808
Who cares about animals, pffft.

[Anonymous No.6637871]

>>6637856
We absolutely do not know a better way.
If mere survival is your goal, then leave this place of discussion and survive elsewhere; I am sure that if you use all of your capabilities you can do it without using the work of anyone else (thanks to knowledge others have produced by their work).

What meat provides is not merely survival but a specific kind of fulfilling, enjoyable experience. Nobody contends that meat is necessary to human life.

I do not feel any obligation to sacrifice anything for anyone. What is the obligation of the tide on the stone it erodes, or the beach that is created by this action?

You can think in more complicated ways, but all that means is that you have the power to surround yourself in an abstraction.

Know that your ideals (your idols, a certain man might say) about reality have no power over me.

[Anonymous No.6637873]

>>6637831
>Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution
Please.

He should stick to electricity.

[Anonymous No.6637875]

>>6637853
>literally can't do it
you know vegans exist right? Like today, living among us? It's not a mythical thing. It's actually proven to be a healthier diet.

Maybe you can't do it, but maybe that says more about you and your stubbornness than it does about ethics or nature.

[Anonymous No.6637876]

Who is going to stop us?

[Anonymous No.6637877]

>>6637808
>omelette
>slaughter
fuken vegan prolifers

[Anonymous No.6637878]

Reading a biography of Da Vinci, came across this
>Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. We live by the death of others: we are burial places! I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.

[Anonymous No.6637887]

>>6637873
>He should stick to electricity.
"Life is nothing but an electron looking for a place to rest." -- NOT an Electrician

[Anonymous No.6637894]

>>6637875
Vegans still eat other living things, learn to read you piece of shit.

[Anonymous No.6637900]

>>6637871
so killing is justified if it's for your own pleasure? Pls.

>inb4 more farting noises

[Anonymous No.6637910]

"A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral."

[Anonymous No.6637922]

>>6637315
I'm a healthy vegan, the only part that upsets other vegans and meat-eaters is that I eat oysters as well

[Anonymous No.6637924]

>Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, don’t harass them, don’t deprive them of their happiness, don’t work against God’s intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you – alas, it is true of almost every one of us!
- Fyodor Memestoyevsky

[Anonymous No.6637932]

>>6637839
how convenient it is to
-to decide what to do in focusing on pain
-to focus on pain in the form of some biomarker

tell me why these two points are appropriate to you ?

[Anonymous No.6637942]

>>6637808
>because we knowingly choose to satisfy our preference at the cost of our health, the environment, the lives of the workers in the slaughterhouses, and of course, the lives of innocent animals
First of all, ethics are rules imposed to us by us. We choose to follow them, nothing will happen if we don't; of course, that doesn't argue for or against you, but it means that the natural state is killing, and not killing is an alteration of that (good or bad, you choose). Second, all of the sacrifices you mention can be diminished and eventually stopped if we apply the right techniques. Third, yes, I believe my pleasure is worth doing those things, and minimizing damage is IMO good, but I don't really have the obligation to avoid it.
You could say destruction of the environment is punishment, but for me it's a consequence of lack of planning and technology.
>>6637900
Yes, yes it is.

[Anonymous No.6637943]

>>6637922
>vegan
>eats an animal

[Anonymous No.6637944]

>>6637932
and why they must matter to somebody else ?

[Anonymous No.6637945]

>>6637877
For every female chick bred to lay eggs in a commercial farm, there are as many male chicks born. They share the egg laying genetics, but as males, they do not lay eggs. They do not have the genetics of the "meat" chickens, and cannot be considered profitable by the agricultural industry. So 50 percent of the egg laying chicken population (the males) are thrown in a wood chipper like machine immediately after they are identified as unprofitable/male. It's cheaper to dispose of them this way than by any other means. That's fucking slaughter. That's the cost of a dozen eggs at a grocery store for 3 dollars.

[Anonymous No.6637947]

>>6637924
>alas, it is true of almost every one of us!
Including every single predator in your beloved nature, memeyevsky
>select all images with steak
hehehehe

[Anonymous No.6637950]

>>6637900
I don't seek justification in the real.
Why would I give up any of my own agency to another? Especially you, who thinks that it serves some higher value to incriminate and reject oneself.
Killing isn't justified or unjustified, it is real. This is much more than can be said of your "ethics"!

[Anonymous No.6637957]

>>6637950
Ethics are real in the sense that they affect us, who affect reality, but there is no real obligation to follow ethics. These people keep judging you based on their code.

[Anonymous No.6637973]

>>6637957
Show me where you keep your ethics. What you mean to say is that your speak of ethics is real (in that it is speech) and your thoughts about ethics are real (in that they are thoughts) and that actions based on these are real (in that they are actions).

What I speak of is true reality, that which is identifiable in itself.

[Anonymous No.6637975]

>>6637894
You advocate eating animals but I'm the piece of shit. Ok lol

[Anonymous No.6637981]

>>6637973
Are you jaden smith or just high?

[Anonymous No.6637986]

>>6637975
This comment is the result of you believing your code applies to me though, so yes, you are a piece of shit because your communication abilities are insufficient yet you believe yourself to be superior to me.
>>6637973
I'm not disagreeing with you though, but thanks for explaining it

[Anonymous No.6637996]

>>6637315
Not at all.

[Anonymous No.6638020]

>>6637981
How Can Your Ethics Be Real If They Are An Abstraction That You Create In Order to Order The Order of Orders to Order All Orders of Reality? You Just Want To Have Created Something, Realize That The Mind Does Not Create, It Observes. Ethics Are Then A Distinction, Something You Use To Decide Whether You Like Or Dislike Something You See.

[Anonymous No.6638029]

Moby Dick coming at ya:

>Go to the meat-market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal’s jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feasted on their bloated livers in thy pate-de-foie-gras.

[Anonymous No.6638049]

>>6637451
This is a good question, tbh. What makes us think life is inherently superior to death? In death there's no suffering, no pain, and in life we avoid that.

[Anonymous No.6638055]

>>6637315

Alright so applying the epistemology of "economic man" for arguments sake:

I will continue to eat meat until the consumption of non-meat products provides me with the same advantage as eating meat products. That is the meat substitute with the following qualities:

1) A meat substitute which offers me the same protein per 100mg, amino acids, and iron found in meat.

2) The same price or cheaper than consuming meat

3) Is the same price as meat with externalities of production not factored in

4) The negative externalities of not consuming meat are less than those of consuming meat.

5) Tastes the same as meat

Until a substitute is available I will continue to eat meat because not eating meat would put me at a competitive disadvantage. I make sure the meat I eat is free range and farmed relatively 'ethically'.

How am I wrong?

[Anonymous No.6638067]

>>6637986
Well I am superior to you, that's the only reason I think that. Maybe if you were more well-read you would come to similar moral conclusions and become less inferior minded.

[Anonymous No.6638073]

>>6637315
somehow the humans who do not like to eat meat find some arguments to eat vegetables.

Imagine if those were also sentients !

>>6638049
nobody even think of this possibility, because they refuse to consider the problem in its totality

[Anonymous No.6638083]

>>6638020

[Anonymous No.6638113]

>>6638055
So joyless are the meals of the vegan that they believe food's sole purpose is to sustain their life. No wonder they think so- that is the only purpose their own food provides.

It is on this misunderstanding that your opponents might think that vegan products might provide you with the same advantage as meat.

[Anonymous No.6638140]

>>6638067
You're going to need to establish a non-garbage criteria for your superiority before you expect anybody to take such a claim as anything more than an expulsion of warm gasses.

[Anonymous No.6638154]

>>6638113
Why do you think vegan meals are joyless? Don't tell me your one of those babies that wont eat his veggies.. If you care enough to eat, you should eat good food, full of joy and health. There is a whole world full of healthy delicious vegan meals that are soy free and aren't trying to mimic meat. If you were vegan you wouldn't want to eat something that looks like meat anyway. Sounds unappetizing to me blech.
You can get all you need and more without meat, and you don't have to risk heart disease, hypertension, colon cancer or any of the problems associated with meat eating

[Anonymous No.6638170]

>>6637866
>implying all eucharyotic lifeforms aren't pleb casuals

[Anonymous No.6638171]

>>6637315
ITT: Stop liking what I don't like

[Anonymous No.6638174]

>>6637315
Where are the ghostbusters in this thread?

[Anonymous No.6638188]

>>6637945
>citation needed

[Anonymous No.6638194]

>>6638073
Keyword being "imagine".

[Anonymous No.6638232]

>>6638154

I think they're joyless because they mostly taste fucking terrible. Prove me wrong.

[Anonymous No.6638425]

>>6637552
thou shall not kill

[Anonymous No.6638433]

>>6638049
>thinking the avoidance of pain and suffering of the self is inherently ethical.

[Anonymous No.6638452]

premiss 1: vegetarians are leftists
premiss 2: vegetarians are puny and have low test
premiss: 3 - Right wingers doesn't believe in being a skinny faggot
premiss 4 - ; Right wingers don't belive in 'muh feels'
conclusion = vegetarians are gay and not redpilled

[Anonymous No.6638488]

>>6638452

I'm taking an anti-vegetarian stance in this thread but all I have to say to you is:

Fuck off back to /pol/ summerfag.

[Anonymous No.6638517]

>>6638488
>feminist logic

[Anonymous No.6638537]

>mfw meat eaters will never come up with a reasonable ethical response so they resort to

>"it's just how nature works breuh" (even though they're likely fat lumps who eat factory produced meat) or

>"because eating meat tastes good lol!" which indicates they're worried about considering the issue too deeply in case they feel guilty enough to stop eating bacon ("lol bacon is EPIC XDD") or

>"it's survival of the fittest. I don't care about animals" (wow edgy as fuck bro)

Seriously, there will never be a logical rational argument for eating meat.

P.S. I never engage people in meat debates. Meat eaters are ALWAYS the ones to get confrontational. Don't know why people spew this bullshit about vegetarians lecturing people about how bad they are. Personally i don't really care, but it always irritates me when people try to debate your diet.

[Anonymous No.6638544]

>>6638537
If the animals lived a decent life, in proper conditions outside or whatever and were killed humanely, I think that's good enuff

[Anonymous No.6638553]

>>6638544
Well fair enough, but you must realize that their life is always going to be cut short. It's not like they're euthenised in old age.

[Anonymous No.6638559]

>>6637631

Plants allow themselves to be cultivated and eaten. Many seeds survive digestion by smaller animals and it's a method for them to germinate, hence why fertilizer is an optimal condition for them to grow in. There is an agricultural theory that we are in a somewhat symbiotic relationship, as we tend and cycle crops while expanding them, and when we die, they live off our biodegrade. All very natural.

[Anonymous No.6638564]

>>6638452
fucko back to pol wit ye, lad ye muff scab

oyo, by the by, I love steak m80

[Anonymous No.6638577]

>>6638537
>>>tumblr

Most people I get into arguments with who don't eat meat are usually out of breath by the end of the argument because they weight 200lb's

[Anonymous No.6638585]

>>6638537
Because we like it, and we can you ignorant fuck.