Vegetarianism

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bassnation

the abyss
bun-u said:
I have a (possibly strange) emotionless response to animals and I’m trying to figure that out in relation to other people responses.
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i don't think its that strange. people have to survive, resources have to be consumed from somewhere. if you don't care about it, then thats probably the way the majority feel.

there is a human rights connection in my opinion - but not so much trying to proscribe them for animals.

putting aside from the animals-as-utility argument (which i have sympathy with) its worth noting that people who torture animals (NOT referring to fox hunting here which is another discussion altogether) sometimes go on to become serial killers. our attitude towards other sentinent life reflects how we treat other human beings.

don't mean to sound pompous here, or self righteous. i'm not holding myself up as some saint like example, but it is something that interests me.
 
J

Jezmi

Olli Oliver Steichelsmein
bun-u said:
Why some people think that animals should have virtually the same “rights” as people? Why some people think that certain types of animals should have more rights that others? If the animals are not aware we are giving them rights, then surely these are ‘human rights’ for people who like (or can’t abide the mis-treatment of) animals?
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Isn't killing and eating other animal species, but treating own species differently the exact behaviour of the animal kingdom? And therefore doesnt everyone/thing/animal have the same rights? (and i'm limiting myself to being a vegeterian or not, leaving out mistreatment of animals)
 
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infinite thought

pigferatu
bassnation said:
its worth noting that people who torture animals (NOT referring to fox hunting here which is another discussion altogether) sometimes go on to become serial killers.
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ah, yes, but psychopaths also tend to have an extreme <i>affection</i> for animals...just look at Tony Soprano's love of ducks!
 
O

owen

Well-known member
sleevenote to Rapeman's 'Two Nuns and a Pack Mule'-

'we don't hate vegetarians, we just think they're funny'

(i was a veggie for over a year, and to my shame what made me break it was corned beef hash...)
 
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bun-u

Trumpet Police
infinite thought said:
ah, yes, but psychopaths also tend to have an extreme <i>affection</i> for animals...just look at Tony Soprano's love of ducks!
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You could also trot out the well-worn line about Hitler being a veggie
 
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infinite thought

pigferatu
but he wasn't really tho - his personal cook at some point stated his favourite meal was stuffed squab (pigeon): http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/hitler.html

But let's not get started on this!!!! No doubt the dark recesses of the interweb will turn up billions upon billions of contradictory statements...killer question briefly unearthed tho: If Hitler loved animals, "and especially dogs", then why did he test his suicide pills on Blondie, his cherished canine companion?

ho ho ho
 
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bassnation

the abyss
bun-u said:
You could also trot out the well-worn line about Hitler being a veggie
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lol, but surely a mention of hitler on a discussion thread automatically loses the argument!

(even if it is a valid point)
 
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owen

Well-known member
what actually annoys me a little about vegetarianism is its assumption that you can somehow ethically opt out of an inherently brutal system- i.e, all of us in some way participate by proxy in destruction of forests, wear clothes made sweatshop conditions, buy stuff made in maquiladoras etc ad nauseam etc- i find it a bit of a leap to tolerate this and then draw the line at factory farming...
 
B

bassnation

the abyss
owen said:
sleevenote to Rapeman's 'Two Nuns and a Pack Mule'-

'we don't hate vegetarians, we just think they're funny'

(i was a veggie for over a year, and to my shame what made me break it was corned beef hash...)
Click to expand...

jesus, really? corned beef hash? :)

i went back to eating meat after 15 years of vegetarianism because i realised i didn't care in the same way that i did as a teenager about the issue.

for food, or other resources i think its fair game. the things i have a real problem with, still, are killing chimps or whales. too close for comfort, intelligence wise. i realise this is not entirely consistent, as moral frameworks go.

i've got a lot of mixed up sometimes contradictory emotions about meat eating.

don't you hate it when you can see both sides of an argument simultaenously?
 
T

tryptych

waiting for a time
bun-u said:
I find the different attitudes people towards animals quite fascinating – and this is why (while accepting that abstinence from meat can be done on health and religious grounds) I am interested in this notion of empathy. Why some people think that animals should have virtually the same “rights” as people? Why some people think that certain types of animals should have more rights that others? If the animals are not aware we are giving them rights, then surely these are ‘human rights’ for people who like (or can’t abide the mis-treatment of) animals? If most if not all human rights/ moral codes are based on some form of discernable payback or benefit to us as a species, then what are we getting back from helping animals? In banning fox-hunting are we saving defenceless foxes or outlawing the perverse enjoyment some individuals get out of it?

I have a (possibly strange) emotionless response to animals and I’m trying to figure that out in relation to other people responses.
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The empathy response is an interesting one. Empathy is currently a hot field of research in the cognitive/consciousness sciences, and there has been some interesting work that has shown that people will develop empathic relationships with decidedly non-sentient things (plants, inanimate objects..) if they are made to move artifically in a way that is suggestive of intelligent (human) behaviour, even though they are fully aware that such things are non-sentient.

Whether this could be used to suggest that all empathy with non-humans is, to an extent, misplaced, is a bone of contention.

I'll dig up some refs if people are interested.
 
D

dogger

Sweet Virginia
bassnation said:
jesus, really? corned beef hash? :)

i went back to eating meat after 15 years of vegetarianism because i realised i didn't care in the same way that i did as a teenager about the issue.
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Lol, so did I. Well, 8 years to be precise. I think one of the main things was that I was fed up eating cheese sandwiches. So I moved on to tuna sandwiches and felt much healthier. (Was living in a college room with no cooking facilities at the time.) Now I like rare steaks...

bassnation said:
for food, or other resources i think its fair game. the things i have a real problem with, still, are killing chimps or whales. too close for comfort, intelligence wise. i realise this is not entirely consistent, as moral frameworks go.
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Yeah. An attempt to come up with a consistent moral framework on this issue was made by Peter Singer. But some people really didn't like it. He basically concludes that we evaluate a creature's moral worth by its intelligence (ergo, its capacity to feel pain?). But this leads him to the conclusion that babies born with certain types of terminal conditions should be killed since morally, they are worth less than some animals. Controversial. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer
 
D

dogger

Sweet Virginia
Oh and before I forget, there's also a very convincing (in my opinion) argument for the moral validity of meat-eating in the introduction to the River Cottage Meat Book. :) Tho he does stress it should be from small organic producers. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall... I so agree with his views and yet I find him so *very* annoying...
 
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Omaar

Guest
owen said:
what actually annoys me a little about vegetarianism is its assumption that you can somehow ethically opt out of an inherently brutal system- i.e, all of us in some way participate by proxy in destruction of forests, wear clothes made sweatshop conditions, buy stuff made in maquiladoras etc ad nauseam etc- i find it a bit of a leap to tolerate this and then draw the line at factory farming...
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But not consuming battery farmed animals is something you can actually easily not to do, if only to ease your conscience. Its only a small action, but it's one you can very easily have control over. Opting out of Capitalism on every level is impossible.

Capitalism for me means making compromises all the time, but this is one aspect of my life where I can act according to what I believe.

er, what is/are maquiladoras?

Anyway, the animals will have their revenge one day. Has anyone read oryx and crake? fantastic.

I don't understand how anyone could argue that it's OK to keep an animal in a cage so small that it can't move for it's entire life. Even if you don't have any empathy for animals, surely this must strike you as being a particularly abominable practice?
 
O

owen

Well-known member
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquiladora
obv not mentioned here is the near-slave labour conditions these things tend to have

my point was- what necessarily is the point of this particular ethical choice other than conscience-easing? when one is unaviodably embroiled in all manner of other horrors?
 
J

jasonh

Newbie
Omaar said:
Anyway, the animals will have their revenge one day. Has anyone read oryx and crake? fantastic.

I don't understand how anyone could argue that it's OK to keep an animal in a cage so small that it can't move for it's entire life. Even if you don't have any empathy for animals, surely this must strike you as being a particularly abominable practice?
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Yes - Oryx & Crake is a brilliant book, and a salutory warning of where we are going.

I remember an old 2000AD comic strip from years ago with a potato going back in time and executing people for eating chips. The potatoes had evolved after a nuclear war. Point being - can plants feel pain? Don't they contribute to an ecosystem? Aren't they farmed? I know its a bit of a belaboured point, and you may not be able to wholly equate plants and animals, but....

I have no issue with vegetarianism, and I believe animal welfare to be paramount. I would always try to buy organic local produce - again, you try to make the choices in a "capitalist" system that are less damaging and compromising, but you have to make a choice one way or the other.
 
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Omaar

Guest
owen said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquiladora
obv not mentioned here is the near-slave labour conditions these things tend to have

my point was- what necessarily is the point of this particular ethical choice other than conscience-easing? when one is unaviodably embroiled in all manner of other horrors?
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ah, tah for that.

Anyway, the issue goes back to some of things discsussed here, eh:

http://dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=697&highlight=ethical+consumer

Hmm, I guess it sort of depends on how you look at ethics. In one sense you might not eat meat so that you're not violating a particular principle (conscience easing - thou shalt not kill etc), but in another perhaps more existential way of looking at it you might look at the issue on a sort of case by case basis where every action has an ethical component to it, and in performing a particular action you may or may not be playing a part in a broader structure that you disagree with in terms of ethics. If you look at it in this way, the action is either completed or not completed not as a matter of conscience easing or in the hope of changing larger structures - looking at it on a micro level like this means you don't need to look at this action in the context of other ethical decisions.

er, I hope that made sense.
 
F

fldsfslmn

excremental futurism
I quit eating meat in order to migrate my overall consumer demographic and start receiving better quality junk mail.
 
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luka

luka

Well-known member
im more and more disgusted with all the fake meat about, particularly in supermarket sandwiches and the beyond meat style burger pattys. partly because theyre horrible to eat and partly becasue they make me paranoid some psychopath has swapped them for real meat just to trick me into ruining my karmic bank balance
 
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