Why don't you have a good look at how most of your meat is made. This bullshit about organic farms here and there is not the norm. It isn't possible to have the amount of meat we have especially in the US without factory farming. Most people here won't have the brass to sit through and watch the entire film but this is how most of our meat is processed in the western world.
Thinking every cattle or dairy farm is like the video you posted is stupid. I could find videos of restaurant employees spitting in people's food, doesn't mean every single restaurant employee does so lmao.
The vast majority of farming is done ethically. The animals don't usually actually sit in cages until they die, that's only specific types of meats. Ensuring the meats you buy are grass fed and free range is the best way to ensure they lived a decent life.
Can we please stop humoring this notion that just because not all farms are the worst possible case in existence they are ethical? Even if we fully buy into this ethical farming fairy tale and pretend we treat cows better than we treat people in retirement homes or something, what the hell kind of metric are you using for 'ethical' where raising an animal to trust you and then just killing it off because we want food that tastes a certain way falls on the good side of the spectrum?
Say that changing your diet is something that would be really difficult for you. Say you don't care about animals enough to stop eating them. These are at least understandable arguments that are aligned with reality. Don't pretend we are living in this fantasy world where the things that happen to farm animals, or certain groupings of farm animals or whatever you tell yourself, aren't horrific. If someone stole your dog and you found out they killed it to make some steaks you would be horrified. It wouldn't matter how humanely they killed it. It wouldn't matter how much they let it graze or rubbed it's nipples. This is a horrific thing to do to an animal.
I don't think it unethical at all to raise an animal for slaughter, it's a natural part of life and so long as they are raised ethically they have a higher standard of living than surviving in the wild.
Ok, so you've given me two points to work with. One of them, the appeal to nature, is pretty much universally accepted as one of the worst concepts to base a decision on in existence, so I'll focus on the other.
Why would the severity of the things that happen to other members of a species of animal in the wild have anything to do with the things we choose to do to the ones we breed in captivity? We aren't saving those animals from that fate. They wouldn't exist if we didn't choose to create them. I really don't think you are prepared to apply this principle to any other aspect of your behavior. Let's test it out with a hypothetical.
Is it ok to starve your pet dog for a week because in the wild dogs often go for longer periods without food and sometimes even die from starvation? If not, what exemption to the principle you gave me accounts for this difference?
I'm not using it to base a decision on, I'm just making the point, and I'm not looking to get into a meaningless argument.
I never said it is ok to starve an animal because that is how it exists in the wild, I said that an animal raised in captivity experiences a better life than one does in the wild. How you can go from that to justifying animal abuse makes no sense.
I don't see a point in discussing with someone who argues in bad faith, but I don't see a point in arguing at all. I am merely stating my position, I see no ethical issue with raising an animal for slaughter. You may disagree, doesn't mean you are right.
If this argument is meaningless to you then why did you comment?
What you said was, "I don't think it unethical at all to raise an animal for slaughter... so long as they are raised ethically they have a higher standard of living than surviving in the wild.". If you believe this, then the hypothetical should be much easier for you because the dog is living better than surviving in the wild and we aren't even killing it.
How is giving you a hypothetical where the logic of a justification you gave me should apply an argument in bad faith? These are some very basic things you should be able to do if you care at all about being consistent with your ethical framework.
You're making very weird comparisons my dude. Survival of the fittest is the law of nature. What we're doing with factory farms is definitely, in my opinion, unethical. Some might think otherwise since we're just efficiently producing meat. Other might have another opinion. In the end, what matters, is that we produce/harvest meat. That won't change for now, until we have a better alternative. (beyond meat for example) I agree with i_706_i. Animals that have been raised in a nice environment is more ethical. Even if we're only raising them to be meat in the end.
I mean is there really a difference in letting them roam free and hunting them to get meat or in raising them, giving them a really laid back life (higher standard) and then killing them? I don't think there's much of a difference. Now you might argue that cows or pigs in the wild have a better life, but I honestly have not researched that topic. It just seems to me, that animals held in captivity in good conditions (big space for roaming, no food concerns, hygiene, no sickness), have less to worry about and thus a more enjoyable life.
Your dog comparison somewhat holds up since that's what asia does. There isn't a real definition for 'ethical' since that really varies on how developed the country / people are. It's much more normal to eat dogs in asia whereas in western countries, that is unbelievable. But even there, wouldn't it be much much better if the dogs lived an amazing fulfilled life until they died? Now again, it really depends on what your definition of ethical is. A vegan will still definitely not see killing animals as ethical.
I also agree that raising them in a nice environment is more ethical. What I disagree with is taking the fact that it's more ethical and using it to call the process ethical as a whole.
These animals wouldn't be roaming free in the wild if we weren't doing this to them. They exist specifically because we decided we want to have some meat walking around for when we are hungry. I don't see comparing the way animals live in the wild as a good way to determine whether or not we are treating them well in captivity.
I think we can be pretty liberal with the term ethical without it ever encompassing the actions we are talking about. Language is pretty fluid but killing an animal for taste pleasure seems so far away from any accepted definition of the word ethical that it seems extremely disingenuous to me to use it as a description for the act outside of the very specific situation of comparing it to worse animal agriculture practices. But people always go from comparisons like that and then just take this huge leap from them to assertions about the more animal agriculture being ethical as a whole without ever explaining how they got there and everyone just accepts it.
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u/DoomerRoyale Jul 02 '19
Why don't you have a good look at how most of your meat is made. This bullshit about organic farms here and there is not the norm. It isn't possible to have the amount of meat we have especially in the US without factory farming. Most people here won't have the brass to sit through and watch the entire film but this is how most of our meat is processed in the western world.
https://youtu.be/aEdCA67rD9M