Ethical dilemma on eating meat

*sigh* I really should not watch the movie _Babe_ at the same time I'm in
the middle of re-reading _The Plague Dogs_. I've really been struggling
lately about the ethics of eating meat. Before low-carb, I was eating a
semi-vegetarian diet, no mammals and only occasional chicken and fish. Now
my diet is meat and veggie based, with more red meat, chicken, and fish
than I was eating before. And I struggle with it.

I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, it's natural to eat meat,
animals eat other animals all the time, and I am an animal. I don't
believe in god, so I don't believe some higher power grants us or animals
"rights." I don't believe there is any such thing as "natural rights," I
believe that rights are what a society agrees on and bases its laws on.

On the other hand, a lot of the animals I eat are sentient, feeling
creatures with the ability to suffer, and thanks to modern farming
processes they lead miserable lives before being slaughtered and ending up
on my table. I feel sometimes that since I have the ability to think and
care and choose, it's my responsibility to make choices that do not
increase the suffering of these creatures. Like, it's ok for mankind to
use animals, but not to abuse them.

My options a

1. Continue eating the way I am and ignore my misgivings.
2. Attempt a low-carb vegetarian diet, which at this point, to be honest,
seems more difficult than it would be worth, given the wishy-washy nature
of my misgivings.
3. Try to find sources for cruelty-free meat. I sometimes wish I lived in
a community of small, traditional farms, where the cows grazed on the
fields and the chickens were fed in the yard, and lived free of suffering
until they were humanely and quickly killed.
4. I just thought of this option and it may be the best one, but could be
construed as hypocritical: Continue to eat the way I am, but try to assuage
my guilt by doing some volunteer work involved with animals, possibly at a
kill-free shelter.

Any thoughts?

--
-Michelle Levin (Luna)
http://www.mindspring.com/~lunachick
http://www.mindspring.com/~designbyluna

Luna wrote:
:: *sigh* I really should not watch the movie _Babe_ at the same time
:: I'm in the middle of re-reading _The Plague Dogs_. I've really been
:: struggling lately about the ethics of eating meat. Before low-carb,
:: I was eating a semi-vegetarian diet, no mammals and only occasional
:: chicken and fish. Now my diet is meat and veggie based, with more
:: red meat, chicken, and fish than I was eating before. And I
:: struggle with it.
::
:: I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, it's natural to eat
:: meat, animals eat other animals all the time, and I am an animal. I
:: don't believe in god, so I don't believe some higher power grants us
:: or animals "rights." I don't believe there is any such thing as
:: "natural rights," I believe that rights are what a society agrees on
:: and bases its laws on.
::
:: On the other hand, a lot of the animals I eat are sentient, feeling
:: creatures with the ability to suffer, and thanks to modern farming
:: processes they lead miserable lives before being slaughtered and
:: ending up on my table. I feel sometimes that since I have the
:: ability to think and care and choose, it's my responsibility to make
:: choices that do not increase the suffering of these creatures.
:: Like, it's ok for mankind to use animals, but not to abuse them.

If there is no god, why burden yourself with this responsibility? You
aren't accountable to anyone. You'll be dead in some 60 odd years or so
anyway, and what you did regarding those animals won't matter, will it?

::
:: My options a
::
:: 1. Continue eating the way I am and ignore my misgivings.
:: 2. Attempt a low-carb vegetarian diet, which at this point, to be
:: honest, seems more difficult than it would be worth, given the
:: wishy-washy nature of my misgivings.
:: 3. Try to find sources for cruelty-free meat. I sometimes wish I
:: lived in a community of small, traditional farms, where the cows
:: grazed on the fields and the chickens were fed in the yard, and
:: lived free of suffering until they were humanely and quickly killed.
:: 4. I just thought of this option and it may be the best one, but
:: could be construed as hypocritical: Continue to eat the way I am,
:: but try to assuage my guilt by doing some volunteer work involved
:: with animals, possibly at a kill-free shelter.
::
:: Any thoughts?

Like you said, you're an animal. Animals don't worry about humanely killing
other animals and they don't care about how other animals live their lives.
They kill to survive. You eat store bought dead animals for the same
reason. So I say take option 1.

But perhaps you really think you're something more than an animal, so that's
why you struggle with this issue....

Plants and trees have been shown to have adverse reactions to damaging
stimuli: in other words, they can be thought of as feeling pain. If you
don't eat anything that feels pain, what will you then eat?

--
JC

Eat less, exercise more.

--
"Luna" wrote in message
...
*sigh* I really should not watch the movie _Babe_ at the same time I'm in
the middle of re-reading _The Plague Dogs_. I've really been struggling
lately about the ethics of eating meat. Before low-carb, I was eating a
semi-vegetarian diet, no mammals and only occasional chicken and fish.
Now
my diet is meat and veggie based, with more red meat, chicken, and fish
than I was eating before. And I struggle with it.

I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, it's natural to eat meat,
animals eat other animals all the time, and I am an animal. I don't
believe in god, so I don't believe some higher power grants us or animals
"rights." I don't believe there is any such thing as "natural rights," I
believe that rights are what a society agrees on and bases its laws on.

On the other hand, a lot of the animals I eat are sentient, feeling
creatures with the ability to suffer, and thanks to modern farming
processes they lead miserable lives before being slaughtered and ending up
on my table. I feel sometimes that since I have the ability to think and
care and choose, it's my responsibility to make choices that do not
increase the suffering of these creatures. Like, it's ok for mankind to
use animals, but not to abuse them.

My options a

1. Continue eating the way I am and ignore my misgivings.
2. Attempt a low-carb vegetarian diet, which at this point, to be honest,
seems more difficult than it would be worth, given the wishy-washy nature
of my misgivings.
3. Try to find sources for cruelty-free meat. I sometimes wish I lived
in
a community of small, traditional farms, where the cows grazed on the
fields and the chickens were fed in the yard, and lived free of suffering
until they were humanely and quickly killed.
4. I just thought of this option and it may be the best one, but could be
construed as hypocritical: Continue to eat the way I am, but try to
assuage
my guilt by doing some volunteer work involved with animals, possibly at a
kill-free shelter.

Any thoughts?

--
-Michelle Levin (Luna)
http://www.mindspring.com/~lunachick
http://www.mindspring.com/~designbyluna

"Luna" wrote in message
...
*sigh* I really should not watch the movie _Babe_ at the same time I'm in
the middle of re-reading _The Plague Dogs_. I've really been struggling
lately about the ethics of eating meat. Before low-carb, I was eating a
semi-vegetarian diet, no mammals and only occasional chicken and fish.
Now
my diet is meat and veggie based, with more red meat, chicken, and fish
than I was eating before. And I struggle with it.

I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, it's natural to eat meat,
animals eat other animals all the time, and I am an animal. I don't
believe in god, so I don't believe some higher power grants us or animals
"rights." I don't believe there is any such thing as "natural rights," I
believe that rights are what a society agrees on and bases its laws on.

On the other hand, a lot of the animals I eat are sentient, feeling
creatures with the ability to suffer, and thanks to modern farming
processes they lead miserable lives before being slaughtered and ending up
on my table. I feel sometimes that since I have the ability to think and
care and choose, it's my responsibility to make choices that do not
increase the suffering of these creatures. Like, it's ok for mankind to
use animals, but not to abuse them.

My options a

1. Continue eating the way I am and ignore my misgivings.
2. Attempt a low-carb vegetarian diet, which at this point, to be honest,
seems more difficult than it would be worth, given the wishy-washy nature
of my misgivings.
3. Try to find sources for cruelty-free meat. I sometimes wish I lived
in
a community of small, traditional farms, where the cows grazed on the
fields and the chickens were fed in the yard, and lived free of suffering
until they were humanely and quickly killed.
4. I just thought of this option and it may be the best one, but could be
construed as hypocritical: Continue to eat the way I am, but try to
assuage
my guilt by doing some volunteer work involved with animals, possibly at a
kill-free shelter.

Any thoughts?

--
-Michelle Levin (Luna)
http://www.mindspring.com/~lunachick
http://www.mindspring.com/~designbyluna


Hi Luna,
I really relate to your feelings on this matter. I was vegetarian for five
years until recently, and have had come to terms with a range of ethcial and
psychological issues since giving it up. I only eat white meat, although
this in no way allays my guilt - I mean why should a chicken have any less
rights than a cow or a pig, or a dog or a cat?

Im not sure I can offer you any real advice as Im still coming to terms with
this myself. All I can say is try to incorporate as much vegetarian into
your diet as you can (tofu is my friend!) and try not to give yourself too
hard a time. Right now my priority is to get healthy, and unfortunately
being vegetarian contributed to my weight gain. And I know what you mean
about the difficulties of being vego and low carb - its hard - even most
cheese have rennet in them!

I know that at heart I am a vegetarian, and once I reach my goal I intend to
become more strictly vego (although in a less harmful way than before of
course). Im not keen to get into the whole political debate surrounding
vegetarianism and my reasons for believing in it as it nearly always ends in
circular, frustrating arguments with non-vegetarians, but for me, when I
break it down, being vegetarian is a logical choice, for a range of ethical,
environmental and political reasons. I'll leave my little rant there!

Oh - and helping out at an Animal Shelter may not help with your meat-eating
guilt (it may make it worse - all those cute furry faces!), but Im sure it
would be REALLY rewarding! Good luck Luna, let us know what you decide to
do!

Luna wrote:
My options a

1. Continue eating the way I am and ignore my misgivings.
2. Attempt a low-carb vegetarian diet, which at this point, to be honest,
seems more difficult than it would be worth, given the wishy-washy nature
of my misgivings.
3. Try to find sources for cruelty-free meat. I sometimes wish I lived in
a community of small, traditional farms, where the cows grazed on the
fields and the chickens were fed in the yard, and lived free of suffering
until they were humanely and quickly killed.
4. I just thought of this option and it may be the best one, but could be
construed as hypocritical: Continue to eat the way I am, but try to assuage
my guilt by doing some volunteer work involved with animals, possibly at a
kill-free shelter.

Any thoughts?

For people to eat, something has to die. For any animal to eat,
something has to die. There's no guilt to living as you must. As your
body is designed for.

Eating meat isn't an ethical question, it's an anthropomorphic one. We
attribute human characteristics to animals and they don't have them.
Animals aren't noble or ethical. They aren't concerned with cruelty,
only survival. They don't anguish over the realities.

Meat is what my body is designed for. Yours, too.

Pastorio

In article ,
"Pat" wrote:

Like, it's ok for mankind to
use animals, but not to abuse them.

Not according to PETA. We're all equal, us animals, remember? Can't "use"
them at all.

4. I just thought of this option and it may be the best one, but could be
construed as hypocritical: Continue to eat the way I am, but try to
assuage
my guilt by doing some volunteer work involved with animals, possibly at a
kill-free shelter.

Any thoughts?

--
-Michelle Levin (Luna)

My thoughts a get rid of the PETA-induced guilt. It isn't appropriate and
it isn't useful. An animal wouldn't think twice before eating you! It's the
natural structure of the world. Top of the food chain, and all that. Don't
treat animals badly that you come in contact with, but understand that
anything you eat has suffered at some point. Plants are alive, too, you
know. You have enough to worry about without worrying about some steer in a
feed lot in west Texas.

Pat in TX



It's not PETA induced, I felt bad about eating animals even before I ever
heard of PETA. Can't remember at exactly what age I made the connection
between beef and cows, pork and pigs, but it gave me pause. I don't feel
as badly about eating the animals as I do about the way they're treated
when they're alive.

--
-Michelle Levin (Luna)
http://www.mindspring.com/~lunachick
http://www.mindspring.com/~designbyluna

It's not so much the eating part that bothers me, or even the killing part,
it's the part where the animals suffer most of their lives before they're
slaughtered that bothers me the most. Maybe I should take up hunting, I
would have no ethical dillema at all about killing an animal in the wild,
with a nice clean shot so it died instantly, and then eating it. The thing
about plants is, they seem to live pretty good lives when raised for food,
they're given fertilizer, pests and competing plants are kept away from
them, they're given the optimal treatment for growth and health. Animals
are given the optimal treatment for getting big, but there's no concern for
their psychological health. And no, I don't think plants have a
psychology, I'm not quite _that_ loopy.

In article ,
"JC Der Koenig" wrote:

Plants and trees have been shown to have adverse reactions to damaging
stimuli: in other words, they can be thought of as feeling pain. If you
don't eat anything that feels pain, what will you then eat?

--
JC

Eat less, exercise more.


--
-Michelle Levin (Luna)
http://www.mindspring.com/~lunachick
http://www.mindspring.com/~designbyluna

In article ,
Bob Pastorio wrote:

Luna wrote:
My options a

1. Continue eating the way I am and ignore my misgivings.
2. Attempt a low-carb vegetarian diet, which at this point, to be honest,
seems more difficult than it would be worth, given the wishy-washy nature
of my misgivings.
3. Try to find sources for cruelty-free meat. I sometimes wish I lived in
a community of small, traditional farms, where the cows grazed on the
fields and the chickens were fed in the yard, and lived free of suffering
until they were humanely and quickly killed.
4. I just thought of this option and it may be the best one, but could be
construed as hypocritical: Continue to eat the way I am, but try to assuage
my guilt by doing some volunteer work involved with animals, possibly at a
kill-free shelter.

Any thoughts?

For people to eat, something has to die. For any animal to eat,
something has to die. There's no guilt to living as you must. As your
body is designed for.

Eating meat isn't an ethical question, it's an anthropomorphic one. We
attribute human characteristics to animals and they don't have them.
Animals aren't noble or ethical. They aren't concerned with cruelty,
only survival. They don't anguish over the realities.

Meat is what my body is designed for. Yours, too.

Pastorio


Um. Yeah. The problem isn't eating the meat, or the animals dying, it's
the suffering involved in their lives before they're slaughtered. And,
well, I believe animals are concerned with suffering and cruelty when it's
happening to them. They can suffer. They do suffer. They suffer so I
can eat them. Some of the conditions they live in that I've heard and read
about are tantamount to torture, and that's what doesn't sit well in my
conscience. And as far as "attributing human characteristics to animals"
goes, I think it's pretty arrogant to assume that humans are the only
animals that can think and feel. If you look at studies done with simians,
for example, you can find that they demonstrate attachments to each other,
empathy for one another. One experiment I read about concerned monkeys,
one monkey could push a button for food but it would give a painful shock
to another monkey, in view of the first monkey. When he figured it out, he
stopped pushing the button and went without food until the experiment was
over, nearly starving. Anyway, I don't want to go to extremes in either
direction, not the PETA rout where they seem to value animals above humans,
but nor do I want to live my life with total disregard for animals.

--
-Michelle Levin (Luna)
http://www.mindspring.com/~lunachick
http://www.mindspring.com/~designbyluna

"Luna" wrote in message

It's not so much the eating part that bothers me, or even the killing
part, it's the part where the animals suffer most of their lives
before they're slaughtered that bothers me the most.

Ah. I guess, from a human point of view, food animals seem to suffer.
But compared to the wild, they get plenty of good food and water, have
their medical needs tended to. No they don't get to wander around
'free', unless they're 'free range' because that takes lots of room.
But the old days where the animals really suffered crammed in together
to tightly is generally over-- they've found that overstressed animals
are poor quality, are sickly, don't produce, and generally cost more in
the long run.

Maybe I should
take up hunting, I would have no ethical dillema at all about killing
an animal in the wild, with a nice clean shot so it died instantly,
and then eating it.

Better get very skilled with your shots then. It's not easy to hit a
moving animal at all, much less get in a 'clean shot'. While it's nice
and to be prefered, it doesn't happen that often, which is why hunters
take a knife with them to give the mercy stroke when they finally catch
up to their wounded prey (I'm most familiar with deer, but the same
could be said for any prey).

Animals raised for food are far more likely to be killed quickly in a
humane way, even though it might not look painless to us.

The thing about plants is, they seem to live
pretty good lives when raised for food, they're given fertilizer,
pests and competing plants are kept away from them, they're given the
optimal treatment for growth and health. Animals are given the
optimal treatment for getting big, but there's no concern for their
psychological health.

Are you certain?
--
revek
"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."

Luna wrote:

Animals
are given the optimal treatment for getting big, but there's no concern for
their psychological health.

Nature has never had any concern whatsoever for animals' psychological
health. There's no such concept in nature, only in the minds
of humans. The very idea is an anthropomorphism, a human-centric
fantasy.

Of all the species that have ever existed since the inception of
life, the majority of them have gone extinct, very close to 100%.
In their natural state animals spend their lives in a constant
state of terror, subject to the stress of starvation, competition,
predators, deadly weather conditions, natural disasters, etc.
And when nature is done with them they are discarded without
hesitation and certainly no concern for their psychological
needs.

--
Reg email: RegForte (at) (that free MS email service) (dot) com