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RE: It Is Ethical To Eat Meat

in #life • 8 years ago (edited)

You could say the same thing about humans, as you can about animals.

If you're locked up in a cage, you're less likely to suffer and get infected with diseases, breaking bones, getting killed by others etc.

But is that a better life than being free and taking risks? I know what I would pick.

I wouldn't say that less discomfort is an argument for breeding animals, for the sole purpose of keeping them locked up, in order to eventually kill and eat them.

I haven't reached a conclusion, however, and I'm neither a vegan or vegetarian. I just thought I'd bring my input to the specific argument.

8 years ago in #life by
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     8 years ago 

    The point you dispute did not alone make up my whole argument. I gave other reasons for respecting the rights of people that do not apply to animals.

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       8 years ago 

      I know, that's why I specified that this one argument is sort of irrelevant. I don't want to dispute your other arguments, as I can see the logic in most of them.

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         8 years ago 

        I don't see how it is irrelevant. People argue that causing animals pain and suffering is wrong therefore that eating animals is wrong as it causes that pain and suffering. The point I made in response is that it may very well be the case that animals would endure more pain and suffering if we do not eat them, so the pain and suffering argument is questionable. Regardless of what this means regarding how we treat people, that holds.

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           8 years ago 

          Well, animals wouldn't endure any pain if we didn't breed them at all. Wouldn't that be even better?

          “A charmed life is so rare that for every one such life there are millions of wretched lives. Some know that their baby will be among the unfortunate. Nobody knows, however, that their baby will be one of the allegedly lucky few. Great suffering could await any person that is brought into existence. Even the most privileged people could give birth to a child that will suffer unbearably, be raped, assaulted, or be murdered brutally. The optimist surely bears the burden of justifying this procreational Russian roulette. Given that there are no real advantages over never existing for those who are brought into existence, it is hard to see how the significant risk of serious harm could be justified. If we count not only the unusually severe harms that anybody could endure, but also the quite routine ones of ordinary human life, then we find that matters are still worse for cheery procreators. It shows that they play Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun—aimed, of course, not at their own heads, but at those of their future offspring.”
          ― David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence

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             8 years ago 

            “One particularly poor argument in defence of eating meat is that if humans did not eat animals, those animals would not have been brought into existence in the first place. Humans would simply not have bred them in the numbers they do breed them. The claim is that although these animals are killed, this cost to them is outweighed by the benefit to them of having been brought into existence. This is an appalling argument for many reasons. First, the lives of many of these animals are so bad that even if one rejected my argument one would still have to think that they were harmed by being brought into existence. Secondly, those who advance this argument fail to see that it could apply as readily to human babies that are produced only to be eaten. Here we see quite clearly that being brought into existence only to be killed for food is no benefit. It is only because killing animals is thought to be acceptable that the argument is thought to have any force.”
            ― David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence

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               8 years ago 

              I don't think you're carefully reading what I'm saying. I can't imagine responding as you have if you did. Because I argued specifically that if we did not continue breeding most domesticated animals through husbandry, I thought they were likely to suffer even more. And yet that is what you ask for without any argument to the contrary?

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                 8 years ago 

                Your reply also doesn't take into account my point about the nature of domesticated animals being such that, they have been, through thousands of years of selection, designed for such a lifestyle, quite unlike human beings.

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