BigLundi wrote...
Well, as a student training to be a professor in philosophy I can say the following things about that.
1. Arguing from an emotional place is logical in the realm of moral discourse, as morals reflect our minds and how we feel about suffering and pleasure and virtues and laws in general.
2. There are much less painful and monstrous ways to obtain meat from animals that...don't involve hanging them upside down while still fully conscious and slitting their throats, waiting for them to bleed out. I think going towards that goal of letting these animals in the LEAST die in more ethical ways before eating them is...something at the very least.
3. As someone who hopes to teach ethics one day...I'm not a utilitarian. Applying cold hard numbers to determine how things ought to be is insufficient for me.
I am asserting that the goal of humanitarian slaughter isn't a good idea because no matter the amount of mitigation of pain you provide, the stance that we're helping them by making their deaths easier doesn't alleviate the core ethical conflict that comes with harvesting them in the first place. Therefore, it is an exercise in futility and serves as a cumbersome guilt generator.
In regards to utilitarianism, I don't believe that it is just numbers. Rather, the push towards human sustainability and efficiency inevitably comes with compromises like these. We're talking about one of the most noble things our people can do to help itself, mind you. Food production has an extraordinarily high utility, to the point where it is reasonable to have discussions on whether ethical considerations should be made.
BigLundi wrote...
I don't see how you draw the logical line from, "Animals can suffer, so let's not treat them inhumanely to "Animals are going to talk and demand equal rights at some point while a pig stands on two feet."
Why is it so absurd to apply morals to technological advancements? Einstein did it with the atomic bomb. As far as animals not being able to develop past us and 'keep records' I believe I went over this in my first post. Jeremy Bentham: The question is not 'can they reason?' or 'can they talk?' but 'can they suffer?" And the answer to that is an emphatic yes.
It isn't absurd as a whole, but this particular instance maintains a very real and somber absence of a good ending. You reference that we should make steps towards creating a more human way of executing animals, but it's more of an emotional band-aid than an actual problem solver. Additionally, you know what the key difference between the bomb and animal cruelty? We can't use animal cruelty against ourselves in a military fashion. The line of demarcation is significant.
BigLundi wrote...
Not speaking for all vegetarians, but I don't believe in some karmic source of divine punishment for those that screw over livestock or anything like that, I just don't find it very moral, personally, to support an industry so callous as to the nature of animals. Why does suffering not matter when it happens to animals, but it does when it happens to humans? Why do you draw that line? What's the ethical difference between throwing a live man in a boiling cauldron to eat and throwing a live pig into a boiling vat to eat?
You just went into the karmic circle I was mentioning. There is nothing in reality that indicates that this will actually happen to humans. We will deal with it when we get there, but at this very moment, we're probably not going to have a substantial role reversal to where that question of suffering becomes applicable to us from the victim's perspective. Moreover, I would go as far as to say that it is insulting to assume that people are going to have such a low guard that they'll be duped into doing that to another human on a large scale within a realm of reasonableness.
This is the reality: We're not the pigs and we're not food. On a one-to-one scale, yes, we're deplorable, but we reasonably value human life over the value of that which we will eat. It goes back to my first point about how uphill the vegetarian proposition is. We have to stop eating pigs and stop considering pigs as food for this boiling pot analogy to be remotely equal.
BigLundi wrote...
...Ok, so you say our morals deteriorate the more we advance...why...is that not a good reason to curve the technological advancement in a different direction? We're the ones in control over where our technology develops towards...so can't we control it...you know...not going towards treating animals like nonliving objects incapable of suffering?
I'm not saying it's a bad thing to try and curve it, but you're measuring a level of guilt that comes only after you've dwelled on it verses something that actually sustains people. While yeah, you can make the statement that meat companies are heartless bastards, but given that they have to supply to a large amount of perfectly reasonable people, I'm willing to cut them some slack on the basis that they're serving a greater, more tangible ethical need.
BigLundi wrote...
I don't see the parallel. There are legitimate reasons for one, and I personally don't see any for the other. Are you saying that it's inevitable that we're going to have meat shoved in our faces so...just accept it?
Haha, yeah, that doesn't make sense. I apologize. However...
You talk about having meat shoved in your face, but it seems to me that meat is actively pursued by many and therefore this victim position doesn't actually reflect itself in reality. It is provided not out of spite but out of demand. This is a convincing picture you're painting, but it's not an accurate depiction of what is going on.