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Author Topic: ethical to eat meat  (Read 10233 times)

Offline donnaballard

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ethical to eat meat
« on: March 20, 2012, 12:22:10 PM »
the new york times is having a contest to find the best answer to "why is it ethical to eat meat?" rules are stated here
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/tell-us-why-its-ethical-to-eat-meat-a-contest.html
anyone care to enter?
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Destor

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Re: ethical to eat meat
« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2012, 01:01:13 PM »
Hmmm interesting, I can think of a few solid angles at which to approach this:

Agriculture causes damage on a huge scale.
Animal protein/fat were likely the catalyst that allowed our cognitive abilities to progress to the point where we can have an intellectual debate regarding the ethics of eating said animal protein/fat.
Killing for food is a fact of life for many other organisms.

I don't know if I would have time to put together a piece of writing on top of school work though as that would take some meticulous research.  Perhaps I'll mull over the idea...
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Offline Jean

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Re: ethical to eat meat
« Reply #2 on: March 20, 2012, 01:34:45 PM »
I would argue that we don't need an ethical reason to eat meat. We are animals, and part of our natural diet is other animals. We don't need an excuse to eat meat any more than a lion does.

To me, the ethical concerns are around HOW we eat meat - how we raise it/catch it, kill it, and whether we are wasteful in our use of it. We have the capacity to understand the suffering of other creatures, which gives us a responsibility to minimise any suffering they may experience at our hands.
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Offline PaleoDavid

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Re: ethical to eat meat
« Reply #3 on: March 20, 2012, 01:51:02 PM »
Quote from: Jean on March 20, 2012, 01:34:45 PM
I would argue that we don't need an ethical reason to eat meat. We are animals, and part of our natural diet is other animals. We don't need an excuse to eat meat any more than a lion does.

To me, the ethical concerns are around HOW we eat meat - how we raise it/catch it, kill it, and whether we are wasteful in our use of it. We have the capacity to understand the suffering of other creatures, which gives us a responsibility to minimise any suffering they may experience at our hands.


Big +1.
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Offline Kimbits

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Re: ethical to eat meat
« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2012, 03:31:38 PM »
Quote from: Destor on March 20, 2012, 01:01:13 PM
Hmmm interesting, I can think of a few solid angles at which to approach this:

Agriculture causes damage on a huge scale.
Animal protein/fat were likely the catalyst that allowed our cognitive abilities to progress to the point where we can have an intellectual debate regarding the ethics of eating said animal protein/fat.
Killing for food is a fact of life for many other organisms.

I don't know if I would have time to put together a piece of writing on top of school work though as that would take some meticulous research.  Perhaps I'll mull over the idea...

Vegetarian counter-arguments to these will be:

1) Large-scale agriculture was developed to feed and raise livestock.
2 & 3) They're going to say that we don't "need" that any more.
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Destor

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Re: ethical to eat meat
« Reply #5 on: March 20, 2012, 06:28:39 PM »
Agriculture on a huge scale would definitely be required to feed the planet with nothing but plant material though...

Bah I definitely don't care enough to attempt arguing against veggie zealots.
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