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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/26/2009 8:31:33 PM | In the not-too-distant future, the burgeoning global population and inefficiencies of traditional animal protein production are going to be forcing some hard choices on people. It is a simple fact that insect protein takes far less energy to produce than traditional cattle. We may well be facing the choice of producing only for ourselves and letting millions (if not billions) of people to starve to death in other areas of the planet (and I don't imagine they'll simply sit there & starve to death quietly, so expect food & resource wars), OR switching to insects as cattle for animal protein. The steaks we enjoy today may be replaced with delicious & nutricious plates of cooked locusts, crickets, various larvae & other delicacies... Bon appetite.
How do we feel about the probable switch? Would we prefer going to war to keep our cows & let people starve to death in the food "free market", or would we prefer to learn to like dishes that currently make us retch at the thought of eating? | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/26/2009 8:40:08 PM |
The steaks we enjoy today may be replaced with delicious & nutricious plates of cooked locusts, crickets, various larvae & other delicacies... Bon appetite.
Wonder what a bugburger would taste like.  | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/26/2009 8:41:23 PM | @ Dukky
Why insects?
Beans and rice form a complete protein. Throw some veggies, and you have a complete meal.
However, Prabhupada did survive on grasshoppers for awhile. Only I never understood it. Why eat grasshoppers when you can obtain your nutrient sources from plants?
Albeit, knowing that plants are living things? (Things?) | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/26/2009 8:46:55 PM |
Beans and rice form a complete protein
The problem with that is that we will likely be eating Monsanto's (untested) genetically modified garbage. I think I'd rather eat wild bugs. I'm sure they'd be much healthier in the long run. | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/26/2009 8:57:20 PM | Perhaps the best argument that I can see for the fact that people are meant to eat meat is the fact that humans possess canine teeth. To my knowledge, every other species on the planet with canine teeth is either carnivorous or omnivorous.
The basic argument against this seems to be that humans are not special and have no right to raise other animals for food, while at the same time saying that humans are special and should resist our cravings for meat and ignore the fact that we have clearly evolved to eat it. This seems to me to be a direct contradiction.
In answer to the original question, neither PETA nor vegans in general can lay any claim to being 'more moral' or 'more ethical' than the rest of us. They both hold extremist points of view, and while IMHO they are welcome to them, it does not make them better than anyone else. | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/26/2009 9:00:35 PM | I don't know, you'd have to feel awful strongly to actually give up meat food. I can't even imagine it. Not just giving up meat of all types but butter, milk, cheese, eggs etc...all things I can't imagine living without. I don't know what the heck I'd eat. What's for breakfast? Salad and beans? Yeech! Give me eggs and bacon and toast with butter and a huge glass of milk. Or a nice bowl of cereal with milk. How about a BLT? Sausage? Cheese omelet? I don't think I'd bother getting out of bed if I was a vegan. 
^^^^Hey Timotu...nice axe man...Gibson ES335 per chance? | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/26/2009 9:55:32 PM | What originally prompted my musing about animal rights was my newfound respect for life...all life, as something incredibly precious. In my own case, I'm determined to live out my years happily. I wish this happiness for everyone. I'm similarly saddened by all the misery in the world and my yearning to implement true justice through natural law is a function of the caring I feel for all living things. It does, however create some problems on a personal level in that I now feel that I'm living inauthentically.
Being a living thing that requires sustenance from other living things makes killing a simple matter of necessity and therefore not in itself immoral. I have no problem with killing to eat, so long as I do it as humanely as possible and no more than necessary. Where I do run into problems is in unnecessary suffering & killing, whether for food or other reasons. I'm reminded of a pamphlet I once got from some humane society or other. In it they were quite explicit about how dogs in the Phillipines were often strung up by the neck and tortured to death with piano wire because it improved the flavour of the meat. This may or may not have been an accurate portrayal of the situation dogs face in the Phillipines, but I do know they are treated as food there. As a dog lover, this filled me with revulsion, but I then had to ask myself what made dogs so special that they should not be treated thus, when we here in North America basically tortured calves by confining them from birth to slaughter in tiny pens fed on nothing but milk (even after they would normally be weaned?) so the meat would be more tender & delicious.
Needless to say, I no longer eat veal (and I used to LOVE veal scallopini). The taste doesn't offset the guilt I'd feel in tacitly supporting such a barbaric practice, so while my personal boycott of veal likely doesn't have much effect, at least that is one item that is consistent with my personal ethics. The problem for me now is, I'd like to extend my boycott to all cattle, but find I can't go too long without eating red meat. I've got it down to a minimum now (which is making me healthier overall - too much red meat isn't really good for you), but still feel something like a heroine addict must feel like when trying to kick the habit. I make light of my ethical dilemma, but in truth, it really bothers me to be a hypocrite. I do hope I can one day either kick meat altogether, or at least only eat what wild meat I kill myself to at least have some kind of negative impact on factory farming of cattle for slaughter (a practice I abhor).
I do have another option that would at least allow me to be ethically consistent, though I do feel in my heart that it is wrong anyway and reject it out of hand. Some ethicists argue that we need not grant any rights to anyone incapable of returning the favour, so most, if not all animals are then "fair game", as they appear to be incapable of moral agency. However most of these same ethicists grant a special dispensation to humans that are incapable of moral agency and grant them rights anyway. Their rationalizations for doing so ring hollow and I can't accept them. There are a few, however that are at least consistent in saying that even humans incapable of moral agency should not be granted human rights either. This would leave us free to treat them in the same manner that we treat animals, so we could then ethically own them, enslave them, kill them, keep them as pets, etc. If I could adopt that philosophy, I wouldn't have to feel bad about killing or enslaving animals, because it would at least be no different for people; the same rules would apply to all. The movie, "Jerry is a Man" illustrates a technologically advanced "slave owning" society built on just such a premise. It's pretty funny too. I recommend watching it. | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/26/2009 10:24:31 PM | Here is an intresting view point to consider.
Veganism means slavery.
In order to produce your cheap tea, rice, coffee, bananas and beans, millions of people suffer under unfair wages and brutal workloads in awfull conditions.
On top of that do you know how many millions of tons of toxic crap get dumped into the enviroment and our bodies through aribale farming? And what about the carbon footprint of those tomatoes you just baught that have ben flown in from Spain?
Vegans can not claim to be any more moal than anyone else, its a falasy. Everyone is equally guilty of destroying the world around us for our own comfort. | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/26/2009 10:27:49 PM |
Everyone is equally guilty of destroying the world around us for our own comfort.
An excellent point! I hope that people seeing your post will find themselves more inclined to buy locally grown food, or better yet, to grow some food of their own. | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/26/2009 10:54:27 PM |
"Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical..."
I have to say that I dislike that you are grouping vegans and PETA into one category in your title. True, many PETA members are (or claim to be) vegans, but many, many vegans are not members of PETA.
Many -- I might say, even most-- people become vegans because of a spiritual reason that does not involve a political agenda of liberating animals. It might be a religious agenda, but not a political one. (Although it could be argued that all religious agendas are inherently political, but that is another debate.)
For example, for some people becoming a vegan can be like going on a hunger strike to advance a political cause.
A hunger strike is not the same as fasting, even though both involve abstaining from food for a period of time.
The fasting person usually wants to use the body for other purposes than to digest food for a period of time--this can clarify one's thoughts and allow the body to cleanse itself from toxins, so the fast is considered a benefit to the person's body and spirit. Or the fasting is done to loose weight. Here the intention is to solve a problem or improve a bodily situation. In this case, nobody is getting at all upset watching a person fast unless they are anorexic.
The hunger-striker is looking for a sense of urgency, empathy, even pity, to force another political group to clarify its position, possibly to non-violently hold up a contrast to a forceful, controlling political agenda, as when Ghandi went on fasts to gain attention for India's independence. Here, the intention is to imply personal suffering and sacrifice, to GET people watching upset.
A vegan diet done to improve one's health doesn't get most people upset, except those who assume another agenda that is unspoken by the vegan.
A vegan diet can be done as a response to a developing awareness that animals can, indeed, suffer. It is essentially, then a boycott of products made from animals.
Yet, unfortunately, becoming a vegan does little, in itself, to minimize the suffering of animals unless the vegan combines the action of boycotting animal products with other actions that demonstrate why the person has become a vegan/meat boycotter.
PETA seemingly solves this dillema by offering a menu of actions that a person can take, with or without the cooperation of like-minded others, in addition to the admittedly very passive action of simply boycotting meat purchases.
By depriving a meat supplier of a customer, a vegan is purposefully not promoting the raising and slaughter of food animals by not financing the producer. This is is called voting with your dollars. This is the free-market system, the American Way.
However, vegans do not in any way influence the way the practice of raising the animals or slaughtering of them is done, UNLESS they do other things like writing letters, and political advocacy to raise awareness of how the products are made.
Even a meat-eating person can advocate for the humane treatment of food animals, and the humane slaughter of food animals. There only has to be a way to discriminate between humanely-treated meat and the non-humanely treated meat before money is paid for it. At this point in time, this is not easy to do. Our food industry was not designed to make this process transparent to consumers.
This could be a goal, of both moral, ethical meat-eaters -- and moral, ethical non-meat eaters; the transparency of the product, from the very begining of its production.
The fact is, that humans have an awareness that SOME animals can, indeed, suffer. And if an animal that is a companion animal suffers, that its owner can suffer, too, in dealing with the illness and suffering of a pet/family member.
If some animals do suffer, then our food animals can suffer, and the problem (for the animals) is that we are not around to see it happen. So really, (for the humans,) it is a matter of out of sight, out of mind. If the taste is the same, then our senses are only informing us of one dimension of a huge process, a huge industry, and the existence of many livelihoods, many levels of profit and many agendas...that we often are completely unaware of when we consume our food.
We sit down to dinner and bless our bounty. We live in the wealthiest country in the world, (even still) and we know we are blessed. We have an abundance of food. We can thank American ingenuity, hard work and our government's investments. We have an opportunity in this country, more than most others, to CHOOSE how we eat, what we eat, how much we eat, where we eat, etc....
With this abundance of freedom, of choice, of plenty, of ingenuity, we can now choose to be more aware of possible suffering, and do something about it. It doesn't have to come with lots of angst and woe from lots of misguided political actions....
And just becoming vegan is probably THE most passive way to do anything at all about it. Unless everyone becomes a vegan, the problems the animals experience will still exist unless something OTHER than just veganism is done. The problem for humans is the same, though. Out of sight, out of mind. Unless someone talks about it, writes about it, or someone watches a film about it.
Otherwise, it is just a matter of preference, or health concerns for people who choose to not eat meat.
Vegans who become vegans for moral and ethical reasons do nothing to change how animals are treated, and do nothing to change any level of suffering or experience of quality of life for animals if all they do is stop buying animal products. There will only be a few less animals on farms because the demand is slightly less. These few simply will not be born into this world, on a farm, and will not be fed and confined for the year or so they might otherwise have existed.
"Many of us criticize vegans and PETA. In fact PETA is practically considered a terrorist organization because it stands in opposition to our society's position on animal rights. Nevertheless, I find their position to be ethically consistent with the premise of respect for all life. They are therefore being authentic and more moral than our society, so why are they considered "nutjobs" and "terrorists" by the bulk of society?"
If you believe that the means justifies the end, then doing unethical things to advance a moral cause is just. In my opinion, that is the same "logic" that backed up the Inquisition. (Let's slaughter the Cathars to save their eternal souls--for their own good.) If PETA, or any group, is using unethical, immoral means then this becomes PART OF THE EQUATION. It cannot be otherwise. For every moral position has an opposite, or differing position, ad infinitum. So there will be an infinite number of reasons to to unethical, immoral things to someone (or some group, or some being that can suffer) if their cause/purpose/existence is not identical to one's own.
To save one's child a person might kill. To save a distant relative one might attack another person. To save an animal one might spend a lot of money on a pet's veterinary bills. But to save an animal, not a companion, that one hasn't seen, and to do something unethical in the process, well, that is extreme.
At what point does an unethical act, done for an ethical "reason" become moral? Does this include saving our planet, an inanimate object which we live on? Can we justify doing semi-unethical things to save our home? Like spying on our neighbors to see if they are doing things (like making methamphetamine) that might jeapordise the saftey of our home?
A lot of unethical things are done by people (I call it insanity) to "make a point." There is the proverbial "slippery slope" whereby fear-mongers can motivate people do quite crazy things in the name of "saving" some cherished ideal, or political concept, or peice of property or a type of lifestyle. People take guns to enforce our borders when the government seems to not be doing enough. People slander others to "save" still other people from them....without even those others realizing it.
I believe that to be moral, and ethical, you have to consider the means as well as the end in action as well as speech. Then the message and the medium are the same. Consistency will promote a cause, but perhaps not grab as much attention initially, or be as quick (which, sadly, in the case of preventable suffering, the quicker the better) but will in the end be justified because insanity will never be promoted as valuable. And in any endeavor, this is a good thing. Because however careful you think you are being, however rational, and logical, and morally sound, your organisational successors might not be so enlightened, and use your forays into insanity "for the sake of the cause" to do things you never dreamed of for reasons you would never have supported.
All organizations fall prey to this. It is an organizational flaw. This is a reality that all organized groups must deal with as a trade-off to the many benefits of becoming organized in the first place. | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/27/2009 12:05:48 AM |
I have to say that I dislike that you are grouping vegans and PETA into one category in your title
Too bad...it served my purposes to do so in that many vegans tend to share the same (or a similar) view on animal rights.
if an animal that is a companion animal suffers, that its owner can suffer, too
What gives one the right to "own" an animal?
We live in the wealthiest country in the world, (even still)
False.
We can thank American ingenuity, hard work and our government's investments.
Don't forget exploitation of other nations through imperialism, in particular the exploitation of latin American "banana republics."
It doesn't have to come with lots of angst and woe from lots of misguided political actions....
One might have said the same of the American revolution that created your country. Would you say that the armed revolt was misguided?
If you believe that the means justifies the end, then doing unethical things to advance a moral cause is just
I believe that the end becomes the means used to achieve it.
that is the same "logic" that backed up the Inquisition
...and most armed revolts.
I believe that to be moral, and ethical, you have to consider the means as well as the end in action as well as speech
Agreed...As I believe the end becomes the means, the means must never be unethical if we expect an ethical result.
insanity will never be promoted as valuable
I don't know where you're coming from with this. To what are you attaching the "insanity" label?
All organizations fall prey to this. It is an organizational flaw
Only if the organization is itself flawed. If it is not, then the reality would be that any members of the organization would agree to uphold its principles and abide by its rules to remain members. | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/27/2009 1:06:06 AM | Grouping vegans and PETA together assumes that all vegans are being vegan for ethical/moral reasons, and many are not. PETA members, however assume an ethical stance since the word "Ethical" is part of their name. The definition of vegan is simply someone who doesn't eat animal products.
We humans give other humans rights to ownership. It is assumed that God gives rights to humans, but for those who are Athiest then I would think that no one gives the right to us from the "outside," we have given it to ourselves. Ownership implies responsibility as well as rights. At this time, this is the best an animal can hope for in terms of quality treatment by humans. Being a companion to humans getting the "best" treatment, but at the risk of abuse or neglect if the human in question is not a good pet owner. Some animals might prefer the ownership of a farmer that practices a "free-range" and "organic" style of farming, since they get to live without chains around their bodies and they get to interact more with others of their species, and even procreate--which most companion animals do not get the chance to do.
American ingenuity is something that can both help us and hurt us. The way we got here is another whole story...and I agree with the imperialism, but it is off-topic. The commonality is exploitation. Yet, I believe American Indians did not exploit animals in that they did not waste them, remove them from their wild state, and appreciated their contribution--even to honoring their spirits--even though they consumed animals and utilized every part of their bodies for clothing, shelter, and tools.
"A lot of unethical things are done by people (I call it insanity) to "make a point." This is my definition of insanity...doing unethical immoral things and using ethics and morals to justify them. PETA has the word "Ethical" in their name. Hence the insanity of them doing ANYTHING unethical...LOL!
I believe all organizations have this flaw...that the very rules and original ideas that were used to create them get subserved by subsequent members. You can't exclude everyone that has a difference or the organization eventually looses all its members.
For example, America can't tell all the people who break the law to move out of America. So we have jails. You can't create an organization that is completely homogenous enough to prevent this from happening. Our founding fathers knew this and tried to prevent it with a unique structure, but even that has been circumvented (by, I think the thing that they feared would happen with incorporations.) We are just too clever a species to not be able to find loopholes in just about everything.
Don't get me wrong, there are good reasons to organize. I am a trained grassroots organizer and have started six groups. I just think that you can't assume an organization is inherently good just by looking at its rules as they are written on paper. There are the written rules and the unwritten rules...
Its just best not to assume anything, and to be sure to develop a good sense of discernment and judgement of your own, and also a willingness to stand against the group if necessary, or to leave the group, in the case it drifts toward unethical and immoral ways.
...And start a new group! I think that new groups need to be started! Old groups loose their original vision sometimes, as they get distracted by the many details of simply remaining a group. An effective group can be created with as few as three concerned and active people.
Here is my name for a group: End Unnecessary Suffering. EN*UN*SUF. Heck with the definition of what/whom exactly is suffering. Endless debates surround who gets to decide what suffering is, and what things can suffer. Let's assume that someone thinks preventable suffering is happening. Then promote the prevention.
Avoid denouncing the cause and just promote the thing which is wanted. | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/27/2009 1:43:20 AM | People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have perhaps become Animals for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Since people are animals first, and people only lately, and we tend to revert under stress...
Animals would have joined, except that the name implied that only People could be members. Perhaps PETA should elect a certain percentage of animals to their board and they would get more representation from the other species.
I am not entirely joking here. That would solve a lot of their image problems.
If you can eat or even "humanely" kill a relative of a board member you are really being unethical...
Animals do organize. Their methods of organization, family structure and social lives are, in fact, used all the time by Biologists, Psychologists, Evolutionists, Anthropologists and Sociologists to explain and justify human organizational behaviors. Insects are very organised. More well-organized than our species.
Dogs love to be in packs. They go a little crazy when we isolate them in our homes, apart from each other and even from us while we are at work and at school. I think that every animal will agree with me that isolation from others of its own species is like a form of punishment we usually only reserve for the worst-behaving humans. | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/27/2009 1:50:10 AM | Ugh. I go to work, and come back to find 2 1/2 more pages on the already page and a half I was behind....So many arguments I have to ignore to keep up with the momentum of the topic. Nonetheless, to address people who....addressed my comments;
>>>Well, I can't fault them for that.
Well, I should rephrase- they have a concept of property rights- they just have no respect for other peoples property. Now, if someone were to firebomb their headquarters, I doubt we'd be hearing them prattle on about how property is an abstraction that is unnessary and needs to be redefined- they'd be outraged- and yet, this is the same organzation that supports violence to promote an idealogy- basically, the defination of terrorism.
>>>How is that any different from a bounty hunter who might have gotten $50M from the US Government for Osama Bin Laden's head, even though he has never been convicted of a crime under US law?
What relivance does that have to do with what we are discussing? I say a man burned down part of an university because he felt they didn't act to a high enough moral standard, and PeTA attempted to pay for his legal fees- you counter it challenging that the Government is paying to have a terrorist killed? huh?
>>>If true, you have a good point.
And it is. Heres a quick google result(ooo- Newsweek!)
Since 1998 PETA has killed more than 17,000 animals, nearly 85 percent of all those it has rescued.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/134549
>>>I do note that these people appear to be fighting what they consider a just war of liberation not unlike the American civil war's (ostensible) purpose of liberating the slaves.
And that concept is niave and wrong. To claim a creature who cannot conceive rights, responsiblities, and consequences deserves rights is complete madness. It punishes creatures who cannot conceive what they did wrong. A society where animals hold equal status to people will very quickly see the exchange of animals from the private individual, where the individual is responsible for the actions of their animal, to the state, who would undoubtably quickly turn animal prisons into concentration camps because of lack of resources.
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>>>Grouping vegans and PETA together assumes that all vegans are being vegan for ethical/moral reasons, and many are not
We've been over this before- clearly, PeTA is not an animal welfare agency- they are a Vegan Advocacy Group. They exist to encourage and promote what they feel are the standard vegan ideals. Disagree? Don't bring it up with me or other people who conclude this must be so- take action. I am not guilty of generalization because the three most active vegan adovacy groups are PeTA, ELF and ALF. I do not believe that all vegans suscribe to what PeTA says 100%- but they do agree on many key issues.
>>> Some animals might prefer the ownership of a farmer that practices a "free-range" and "organic" style of farming, since they get to live without chains around their bodies and they get to interact more with others of their species, and even procreate--which most companion animals do not get the chance to do.
I think this brings an important question- how do you know? How do you know an animal gives a damn if its on an organic farm or not? | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/27/2009 2:08:37 AM | Hmmm. How do we know that an animal gives a damn? Well, I don't think animals damn anything, for one thing. And that is probably the best thing about them.
And if you assume that an animal doesn't care what happens to itself, then what is the problem if someone else thinks so? You seem to care more that there is no reason to care....so we should all be carefree...like the animals. So if we should all be carefree, you should not stress out about it so much.
There is no way to prove it either way, I guess. Unless, of course you were able to give each individual animal a choice of what place to exist in. But nobody would ever do that with their property. Giving property a choice of what to be and how to exist sounds a lot like it isn't properly property then.
If animals don't care what happens to themselves, then we really shouldn't be using their behavior in scientific research to help us to determine human behavior patterns at all. Perhaps all psychology textbooks will have to be rewritten. Maybe not such a bad thing...
"Disagree? Don't bring it up with me or other people ..."
This is a forum. We are allowed to disagree and to bring it up. This forum's title is a question about what our opinion is. | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/27/2009 2:41:52 AM | | That question isn't posed correctly .... there are two different issues linked together . Society .. moral or /and ethical .. what does that mean ? There is no fully good person and no fully bad person .. our beauty as a species is that somehow we manage to come to a fairly stable balance individually and as a species... it is a fragile thing this balance and we have seen it breakdown time and again . So it's vital that we teach our kids to not go fully into a destructive situation , to try to find another way ... compromise ? But even vegetables I have read somewhere scream in pain as they are cut or cooked and if a human being can't read the pain of suffering on another's face then he's apsychopath . As for the cat story ... cats for some sick reason are sadistically treated all the time . And again if a person can enjoy hearing the pain of a cat being tortured , let alone seeing it as suffering , then that person lacks some quality that keeps us marginally ahead of the beastial members of out species in history . My stomach actually'turns' if I see mindless cruelty . | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/27/2009 3:58:55 AM | I still don't understand the Vegan arguement. Milk from cows doesn't hurt the cow. Eggs from a chicken were never going to be chicks. A hen will lay eggs even if there is no rooster around. Remember, working on raising my own food.
I beleive in humane slaughter of animals. Dukky not all calves are treated poorly to become veal. I would recommend finding a local farmer and butcher and you can still have you cutlets.
I support groups like the Humane Soceity, and ASPCA, but not greenpeace and PETA because they put animals over humans. That is backward thinking.
Korea is where they tend to eat dogs. Don't bring a black dog to that country and not watch him, because he may become supper.
I still go with the Kosher laws, as some of the most humane ways to eat meat. The screaming animals is one of the reasons that shell fish are prohibited. I'm about to break that one this weekend but I love my crabs. Yum. | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/27/2009 5:35:29 AM |
I'm about to break that one this weekend but I love my crabs.
It's ok to love crab but please don't love your crabs (if you know what I mean )
I find it interesting the people who believe that animals have no emotions, dreams, compassion etc. Where have you been, have you never been exposed to animals?
You should have seen my friend's dog around kittens. So gentle...  | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/27/2009 6:46:39 AM | The moral argument surrounding the eating of meat comes down to a simple concept.
Is it ethical for sentient beings to be used as a commodity against their will, which may include imprisonment, torture, slaughter, etc. or should all life be free to experience life with freedom to choose, dignity and freedom from pain inflicted by others.
If you agree that it is ethical for sentient beings to be used or abused by those that possess power over them, then you by default have to extend the same moral argument to humans. | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/27/2009 6:51:54 AM |
Beans and rice form a complete protein
The problem with that is that we will likely be eating Monsanto's (untested) genetically modified garbage. I think I'd rather eat wild bugs. I'm sure they'd be much healthier in the long run
There are many vegetarian foods that are delicious. Indian food, Mexican food, and some Chinese and Japanese foods as well.
The problem is that western culture was raised on meat and potatoes, and we are suffering the health consequences of this by having the highest rates of obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, osteoporosis, and other diseases linked to meat in the world.
Vegetarian foods are coming available, however because vegetarians are still in a slim minority the food companies do not cater to them. | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/27/2009 7:09:36 AM | I still don't understand the Vegan arguement. Milk from cows doesn't hurt the cow. Eggs from a chicken were never going to be chicks. A hen will lay eggs even if there is no rooster around. Remember, working on raising my own food.
Unfortunately it is impossible for humanity as a whole to raise their own livestock for food. The choice facing humanity is factory farms, which includes the environmental degradation, animal torture, and health problems, or vegetarianism.
So to your comments, Milk from cows does hurt the cow. Eggs from a chicken does hurt the chicken. Meat from a pig does hurt the pig. You need to brush up on the conditions these animals have to suffer through in factory farms. | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/27/2009 7:27:01 AM |
The moral argument surrounding the eating of meat comes down to a simple concept.
Is it ethical for sentient beings to be used as a commodity against their will, which may include imprisonment, torture, slaughter, etc. or should all life be free to experience life with freedom to choose, dignity and freedom from pain inflicted by others.
If you agree that it is ethical for sentient beings to be used or abused by those that possess power over them, then you by default have to extend the same moral argument to humans. It seems as though many here would do just that.
I do not argue that it is unethical to use sentient beings as a commodity. My argument is that cattle, pigs and poultry can hardly be considered sentient. Sentient beings are capable of higher mental functions such as forethought, planning and self awareness. I have not seen any evidence of this in any of the livestock I have ever observed.
(The guitar is actually a Samick LA-30, but you are correct that it is a knock-off of a gibson ES-335. This one was the closest thing I could afford.) | |
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| Are vegans and PETA more moral and ethical than society?
Posted: 8/27/2009 7:27:39 AM |
I think this brings an important question- how do you know? How do you know an animal gives a damn if its on an organic farm or not?
Here is what may be a strange and wacky concept.
Give them the freedom to choose.
Open the cages, take down the fences, and if it chooses to stay in the cage, or the fence, then you know.
Oh right.
I forgot.
We are the gods.
We decide whether sentient beings should be in cages or not.
Their life belongs to us, not them. | |
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