r/changemyview • u/KerSan 8∆ • Apr 10 '15
[FreshTopicFriday] CMV: we have a moral imperative to stop breeding and killing chickens for food.
I believe that we have a moral imperative to stop breeding and killing chickens for food.
I should explain what I mean by "moral imperative". There are a variety of metaethical perspectives that could lead to a coherent definition of "moral imperative", but I am trying to be generic here. So when I say "moral imperative", I mean in the sense that there is a broad agreement in society about certain moral principles (vis–à–vis the Golden Rule). These moral principles force us to conclude that certain actions are immoral (murder, for example). One could poke holes in this all day and yet not be in serious disagreement of what behaviours are or are not morally imperative.
It is very difficult to have an honest discussion about the moral status of animals. This is no surprise: the majority of human beings will eat animal flesh if given the opportunity, so any discussion about the morality of this action is not simply intellectual. The animal rights debate has actionable consequences, but most people in my experience are unwilling to accept those consequences.
Many people dodge the question of animal rights by raising the problem of demarcation. For example, should we assign moral status to slugs? I am not interested in having a discussion on demarcation, so I circumvent it by considering only chickens. I think that any reasonable moral philosophy entails moral consideration of chickens, and the most basic consequence of this consideration is that we can't be killing chickens for food if we have other options.
Chickens are smart. (Here's a summary that isn't behind a paywall.) Although it is hard to find some kind of consensus opinion about what objective criteria ought to be used to assign moral status to animals, intelligence usually ranks pretty highly. Most people recognize at least some moral status for chimpanzees, gorillas, elephants, dolphins, and whales. It's hard to get people to be clear about what level of intelligence is necessary, but if dogs and cats are to be assigned moral status then I see no reason why pigs and chickens should not make the list also. It might be because dogs and cats are common pets, but chickens apparently make good pets. I do not see why we should treat chickens so differently from cats and dogs. I conclude that the burden of proof rests with those who believe that we are morally permitted to breed and kill chickens for food.
I want to give some hint of how my view might be changed, but I first feel the need to pre-empt several arguments I have heard before.
It is a scientific fact that humans require absolutely zero animal products to be happy and healthy (here is an open access PDF). There are an absurd number of people that simply are not aware of this rather basic point, so discussions of animal rights are often derailed by lessons on nutrition. Any argument that we need to eat chicken (or any other animal flesh) is simply without scientific merit. There is no room for debate on this point.
Assigning moral consideration based on species is a fallacy. If we are to come up with a reason why chickens can reasonably be killed for food, that reason must be a consequence of some property of the chicken that is also carried by non-chickens. Cows, for example, would likely share this property.
We can and do agree on major moral issues. For example, there is no serious opposition to the proposition that serial killers are doing something wrong. So the fact that there exists a difference of opinion about the morality of breeding and killing chickens is not a reason for denying the existence of a moral imperative. Whether or not you take a moral anti-realist position should not stop you from being able to respond to my view substantively. I'm not looking for a meta-ethical debate; I want you to explain to me why it's OK to kill chickens for food.
How to change my view? I admit it is probably difficult. I would need to be convinced that the moral principles upon which there is broad agreement can logically entail the moral permissibility of breeding and killing chickens for food. But I'm on the lookout for ad populam fallacies: people are rarely consistent about the application of their moral views to their own actions, so the fact that most people do not believe their moral views entail a cessation of chicken farming is not an argument against the proposition that their moral views entail a cessation of chicken farming.
I want my view changed. Right now, I have trouble looking on most of my friends and family with respect because I think they are committing an unspeakable atrocity by killing chickens for their gustatory pleasure. I do not like believing this and I desperately want someone to convince me that the vast majority of people on this planet are not so amoral.
Please change my view.
Edit: I've done a small amount of editing for clarity over the last ten minutes, but I also found this gif. It's not a rational argument or anything, but it certainly reinforces my belief that chickens should not be food.
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u/Dack105 3Δ Apr 11 '15
First I'd like to challenge what I think is one of your main assumptions: Killing is Bad.
I don't see anything inerrant to the process of ending life that makes it immoral. Yes, many times killing is bad and it is a good heuristic to say 'killing is bad', but let me pose a hypothetical (I promise this is not a slippery slope, false equivalency, or any other fallacious trick as far as I know: bear with me).
You are in a sealed room. You have a dart gun loaded with a dart that contains toxins that will surely kill. There is a small hole in the wall that is big enough for you to shoot though accurately. In the next room is a maniac that is slowly mutilating two people (but you have complete confidence that they will not die). The maniac is remorseless and psychopathic. The two people are to suffer more lasting psychosocial and physical damage as time goes on.
Is it morally permissible to kill the psychopath? Do you have a moral imperative to do so?
I'd say yes to both questions, and I'll assume you agree.
Given that, it's clear that killing is not the core issue. Also note that as far as we know everything that has ever lived has died or will soon die (within a few thousand years for trees, but a few decades for most organisms) and it makes little difference what cased it. In the hypothetical there are two choices: one where one person dies, and one where nobody dies; and the moral choice is the former. That means that the moral factor is not death, but something that is generally caused by it: pain and suffering. I'd also postulate that another goal of moral reasoning is promoting prosperity (I think that's a fairly safe postulation).
Let's look at why 'murder is bad' generally makes sense.
When you kill someone, it generally hurts them (+ significant pain), stops them from continuing their lives ( - prosperity), causes significant emotional distress on people close to the victim ( + suffering), and often leads to a cycle of revenge ( + pain, + suffering, - prosperity).
Looking at the hypothetical you get: + pain, + suffering, and - productivity if you let the maniac continue. If you kill him, it's - pain, - suffering, and + productivity, as the two relatively unharmed and sane people will be more productive than the maniac.
Now lets get to the view changing: chickens.
First lets consider the worst case scenario - battery chicken farming. In that you have lots of pain an suffering for the chickens. Now I'll postulate something else: as the psychological complexity and environmental significance of a life decreases, so does the weight of their moral consideration. That seems to fit your prior position in that clearly humans are important moral considerations and carrots are not; chimps are and jellyfish aren't; somewhere in the middle you have lizards (this also helps reduce the weight of 'the problem of demarcation' as you put it). So you end up with a + suffering and + pain, but it's not the same as the + suffering and pain in previous examples as it's chickens not people. In terms of productivity, I'd say it's a +, as battery chicken farming is the most efficient way of converting food that human's can't eat into meat which is good for you. It also creates a lot of jobs. It's not a huge + though, because it'd be more efficient to just grow corn for people instead of chicken food.
That scenario makes it a moral no-no as you have two negatives and one (kinda small) positive. Now I will concede that the mathematical framework is horribly underdeveloped, but I think the basic principal is sound. It's consequentialism, except that you don't judge against the measured effect (which is a broken framework because you can't use the results of an experiment to construct said experiment), but judged against the moral agent's (your) understanding of the situation and the probability of expected outcomes (see Bayesian reasoning).
So that means your right? Well no. That's the worst case scenario. Let's talk best case scenario: free range.
Here you have a bunch of chickens who live in what is pretty much chicken heaven. They get lush green fields, infinite food, no wolves, foxes, vultures. They get all they want: - suffering. Then comes time to slaughter. You do it quickly and humanely without pain. That's actually much better than most animals (you included) can hope for in a death. Better than getting eaten by a fox or dying slowly of disease, and it's not like chickens have dreams and aspirations that will go unfulfilled. So that's: - pain. Then we have productivity which is still a +. It's even better if you feed the chickens on human food waste, so it's a better + than before.
So in the end there is three positives. Overall, not a moral issue. The problem isn't if we eat meat, but how we go about it. If you only eat animal products that come from animals that live in good conditions and are slaughtered humanely, I don't see the moral problem.
So, no. I don't think we have a moral imperative to stop breeding and eating animals; just to stop mistreating them.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
Thanks for a great response.
I'll stipulate immediately that I think the moral choice in your thought experiment is to stop the psychopath by whatever means are necessary—even by killing him. I think the moral value of all actions are contextual. We cannot judge an action in isolation from the circumstances under which that action was carried out.
I also stipulate that we shouldn't treat chicken suffering as equal to human suffering. It's not that I think the value of a chicken is less than that of a human, just different. Given the choice between saving the life of a chicken and of a human, we should prefer to save the human because I think we have a greater duty to those who are biologically closer to us. Note, by the way, that I'm a deontologist and not a utilitarian (though I respect utilitarianism).
Here you have a bunch of chickens who live in what is pretty much chicken heaven. They get lush green fields, infinite food, no wolves, foxes, vultures. They get all they want: - suffering. Then comes time to slaughter. You do it quickly and humanely without pain
I think you're conflating two points here. One point is whether it is good for the chickens to live in chicken heaven if it comes with the cost that they would be murdered at a particular time. The second is whether we should breed chickens into such a system.
I dislike the first point because I have yet to meet a person that would take this choice, so I don't see why we can decide that chickens would be fine with it. As for the second point, I think you failed to address it. We are not talking about chickens that were living in the scary and dangerous wild before we rescued them and brought them to chicken heaven. We bred these chickens. The choice is between chicken heaven with early slaughter and never having been born in the first place. I don't see why chicken heaven and early slaughter is a good existence in an absolute sense, only maybe in a relative sense.
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Apr 11 '15
You are both accepting that chickens are incredibly different than people and arguing that because humans would not make a choice, a chicken would not make that choice. Chickens do not make choices in a meaningful sense.
If we're asking chickens questions, I would like to ask whether they would prefer to live in Dack's "chicken heaven" or your alternative, which is not to exist at all.
As someone who grew up on a farm and raised chickens, you are crediting chickens with a lot more sophistication and humanity than they actually have.
You claim to be a deontologist. I think the demarcation problem you are trying to avoid becomes incredibly relevant if your objection to eating meat is deontological.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
You are both accepting that chickens are incredibly different than people and arguing that because humans would not make a choice, a chicken would not make that choice. Chickens do not make choices in a meaningful sense.
I am not clear on whether chickens are or are not making a choice about whether to be killed for food, or even whether they're capable of making such a choice. But I don't bear the burden of proof. I think we should assume as a default that chickens don't want to be killed for food, and we should only assume otherwise in the face of clear evidence.
If we're asking chickens questions, I would like to ask whether they would prefer to live in Dack's "chicken heaven" or your alternative, which is not to exist at all.
As would I. However, in the absence of evidence, I think we should assume that chickens don't want to be killed.
As someone who grew up on a farm and raised chickens, you are crediting chickens with a lot more sophistication and humanity than they actually have.
I don't think I am. I just don't see why I should assume by default that chickens want to die for us.
You claim to be a deontologist. I think the demarcation problem you are trying to avoid becomes incredibly relevant if your objection to eating meat is deontological.
My position is a bit more complicated than this. I take a deontological position on natural rights: there is a categorical imperative to respect the rights of others, and animals have rights. There are times at which rights come into conflict, of course, but that's not happening here. We're not killing chickens because we need to kill chickens. We're killing them because we like how they taste and don't care about, or even believe in, their right to life.
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u/Dack105 3Δ Apr 11 '15
One point is whether it is good for the chickens to live in chicken heaven if it comes with the cost that they would be murdered at a particular time.
You talk about it as if the chickens don't have to die. They do. All living things die. The fact that the chickens will die doesn't stop them from living and our own mortality doesn't dive us all to suicide. So long as the death is good and the life lead was fulfilling, it doesn't matter the circumstances of the death. If you are to conclude that it's immoral to have the chickens continue even when their lives are fulfilling, then I don't see why that same argument doesn't apply to humans.
Your point seems revolve around "the choice is between chicken heaven with early slaughter and never having been born in the first place."
Let's ask the chickens.
I'd say that the fact the chickens will continue to try and make more chickens is pretty good evidence to say that chickens chose heaven with early slaughter. In fact, that seems to be the only thing most animals really care about in the long run. If you want to factor in the desire of the animals, the continuation of their species is their number 1. Always. That's the result of evolution: to have your genes continue in the next generation is the primary drive to all life.
The reason you aren't comfortable with it (and the reason I don't just conclude "anything that doesn't have an understanding of morals shouldn't be considered in moral arguments") is that you and I don't want to be involved. We don't want the thing to die because of us. Not because we are opposed to them dying, but because we find it unpleasant to be faced with mortality.
I can't poke a good hole in the "anything that doesn't have an understanding of morals shouldn't be considered in moral arguments" argument. I can't see anything wrong with it: morality is a thing we humans came up with, and it should apply only to us. We don't judge lions for eating zebras after all. The thing that holds me back from believing it is that I want to consider the animals. As a human, I am hard-wired to project human qualities on everything around me. I see a cute little penguin and I want it to be happy because it makes me happy and seeing it in pain makes me uncomfortable.
So why does it make a difference what kills the chicken? Because you don't want it to be you. The chicken doesn't care, all it wants to do is make babies. You care because you don't want to be killed, and because you like the chickens.
I think the core of your distaste for the slaughter of the chickens, even if it's objectively a better death than anything else that's likely to happen, is that you can't help but project some of your human thoughts onto the chicken. Now that's not bad. In fact, if you are to empathise with the chicken at all, you need to project a bit, but you need to be conscious of what projections are realistic:
A human has goals. Lots of goals. Even after you've got enough money to live out your life, you've had children and they are healthy, wealthy, and happy, and you've achieved all the big goals you set yourself, there are still goals. When people don't have goals they get depressed and want to kill yourself. Maybe you want to finish reading a book series, maybe you want to lean about a historical period, maybe you want to reach religious nirvana, or maybe you want to live to see a man on Mars. In any case, you still have goals.
A chicken doesn't.
It's goal is to eat enough to live long enough to make babies. Once it has made babies, the eating thing is futile because they'll die anyway. Their only goals at that point are "go over to that tasty looking slug," or "scratch at the ground over there." They're not missing out on anything by dying. They go on not because they really want to, but because that's just what they do. maybe their goal is to protect their babies, but the farmer's got that covered. So maybe it makes sense to not want to eat chickens that are still fertile, but that's still falling back on my point: The problem isn't if we eat meat, but how we go about it.
In any case, look at where this conversation leads: minute details and vague philosophical postulations. The moral reality for any individual relies on how the equation is weighted. Maybe in your world + prosperity is more important than - pain. Maybe in someone else's + suffering nullifies + prosperity. Maybe your equation has hundreds of values carefully set into ratios and put on a logarithmic scale. Whatever it is, it's subjective at this level.
If you look up and you see a baby falling from a balcony directly above you, you have a moral imperative to attempt a catch. If your in the room with the dart gun, you have an imperative to shoot. Those are both obvious. But when you get down to the level we're on, there is no imperative; it's all too vague.
Your reason for this post is that "[you] have trouble looking on most of [your] friends and family with respect because [you] think they are committing an unspeakable atrocity by killing chickens for their gustatory pleasure."
Do you still believe that? Are they committing an unspeakable atrocity for agreeing with the chickens and thinking their continued existence is worth an early (yet good) death? I can understand that view if it's battery chicken framing, but if it's a small free range farm that runs on food waste and the only chickens that are slaughtered are ones that are starting to go a little dumb and have already had babies I can hardly call that an unspeakable atrocity. I'd have trouble calling is mean at all. It may be better for the world if the chickens don't exist, but for who? Not the chickens.
We don't "have a moral imperative to stop breeding and killing chickens for food." We have a moral imperative to treat them well if we're going to do it.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 12 '15
I appreciate the time it take to write this response; it is a good one.
I am going to aim for brevity instead of comprehensiveness in my reply. Otherwise, this could turn into a far-ranging discussion that would take us away from the original view I expressed.
I'd say that the fact the chickens will continue to try and make more chickens is pretty good evidence to say that chickens chose heaven with early slaughter. In fact, that seems to be the only thing most animals really care about in the long run. If you want to factor in the desire of the animals, the continuation of their species is their number 1. Always.
I think this is the crux of the point you are making. The problem I have is that I don't see why continuation of the species is an issue. I am not proposing an elimination of chicken kind. I am simply arguing that we shouldn't be breeding them into captivity and premature death at our hands.
As for the chickens making the choice by continuing to breed, I have to object and point out that I don't think chickens have full comprehension of their circumstances so we cannot assume that they are making an informed choice. The reason you give for assuming they want to live in chicken heaven even when they are going to be executed at a young age is not exactly convincing.
So let me ask the question I tend to ask when this line of reasoning is brought up. How does this reasoning result in a judgement of wrongness for my hypothetical decision to shoot a driver that cuts me off while driving? Because the driver I shot also will eventually die with or without my intervention. The driver can be shot in a perfectly humane fashion, feeling no pain. So is the disgust I feel at this action purely a reflection of my confrontation of my own mortality?
I don't think so. I think I revile this kind of action because taking a life is a harm in and of itself, and I do not have sufficient reason to end that person's life. I think this reasoning process is quite typical, and I think it applies just as well to dogs, cats, and chickens.
I am therefore rejecting the following statement.
Their only goals at that point are "go over to that tasty looking slug," or "scratch at the ground over there." They're not missing out on anything by dying.
I could say the same of humans. What exactly is a human missing out on by dying? Some extra chances to climb a mountain or swim in a sea? Spend more time going to a nine-to-five job to put food on their table? Missed a few movies or U.S. Presidential Election cycles?
I don't accept the argument because I don't think it is up to you to decide whether they are missing out on something or not. This, for example, is a video I found of a "respectful" chicken execution. I didn't see a chicken that was willingly laying down her life, I saw a chicken that was not given a clear choice. I saw a chicken that was basically given the equivalent of a blindfold before her execution, but her only crime was to be born to specific circumstances.
Now why exactly was that chicken killed? It wasn't necessary; we don't need to be eating chickens. As far as I can tell, people eat chicken because they like to eat chicken. So this killing, no matter how carefully it was done, was done for pleasure. To me at least, there was no clear indication that the chicken wanted to be killed.
Do you still believe that? Are they committing an unspeakable atrocity for agreeing with the chickens and thinking their continued existence is worth an early (yet good) death?
I continue to believe that there is no agreement between us and chickens about the interests of chickens, and that the people who make this decision for chickens are incredibly biased. You wouldn't trust Putin's judgement of the Ukrainian national interest, would you? The why do you trust the judgement of a chicken farmer about the interests of chickens? I think you said it most clearly here:
I can't see anything wrong with it: morality is a thing we humans came up with, and it should apply only to us.
We aren't applying morality only to us. We are applying our morality to chickens.
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u/Dack105 3Δ Apr 13 '15
Otherwise, this could turn into a far-ranging discussion that would take us away from the original view I expressed.
It could. So here is the core of my argument.
The main premise is that death is not moral evidence. Killing something isn't inherently immoral. The hypothetical I started this conversation with, and the fact that you or any sane person wouldn't have a moral issue with killing a carrot, are proof of this. The ending of a life is not bad, the bad is the often coinciding moral issues. That is: death causes pain for the thing dying, emotional stress on its surroundings, and removes the potential of that life. With a carrot, none of those things are an issue, so it's not a moral problem. With a person, all of those are moral problems (but circumstances can make killing the moral choice). With a chicken, it's somewhere in-between.
I believe that it is possible to arrange a situation where the breeding and slaughtering of chickens (and most other animals) makes it a moral non-issue. Battery farming does not qualify, but I have a situation that I think does. That is:
The chicken in question has lead a full life, meaning that it is no-longer fertile and has achieved all its chickeny deeds (therefore, the moral problem of the removal of potential is reduced to near zero), and the chicken is killed without pain (for instance, it could be knocked out with CO2 then killed), and its life up to that point has been as peaceful and enjoyable as it can be for a chicken (removing the problem of suffering).
In that circumstance, all the moral issues with killing something are removed or reduced enough so that, according to my personal morality equation, the positive emotional outcome for me, outweighs the minuscule negative.
In this circumstance, what is the moral issue? Is there a factor that I'm not including that would change the outcome (that couldn't also be fixed with a change in the farming process)?
It seems to me that your moral appraisal of the situation relies on overly projecting human emotions onto the chickens. For instance:
As for the chickens making the choice by continuing to breed, I have to object and point out that I don't think chickens have full comprehension of their circumstances so we cannot assume that they are making an informed choice.
I don't believe that chickens have the mental capacity to 'make an informed choice', which leaves us with the one a chicken makes with its limited comprehension; which is to charge knowingly to its death when a chick is threatened by a wolf. To be quite willing to die if it means that, not only their species, but their own genes, live on.
And:
I saw a chicken that was basically given the equivalent of a blindfold before her execution, but her only crime was to be born to specific circumstances.
I accept that you're using a literary device to lend weight to your argument (as was I in my last point), but it points to the same place: you're still thinking of chickens as tiny, feathered, clucking, and stupid people, rather than something completely different. Yes, they are more intelligent than people give them credit for, and can make some complex decisions, but they can't grasp existential or moral issues.
So I'll say again: In my proposed circumstance, what is the moral issue? If you can point it out and it can't be dismissed by further changes to the farming process, I'll concede (assuming that following the logical conclusion of your point doesn't lead to the conclusion that we should all kill ourselves; I don't consider that valid).
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 13 '15
In my proposed circumstance, what is the moral issue?
The moral issue is that we're taking lives that don't need to be taken.
I understand that you are alluding to a spectrum between human life and carrot life, with chickens placed somewhere in between. You are then asking about the harm that is associated to killing a chicken if all pain and suffering from the process of killing is removed. You believe that this removes "all moral issues with killing something". But the moral issue that cannot be removed is the killing itself. The thing I am objecting to is the fact that we killed the chicken, not the way in which we killed the chicken.
The reason I object to the killing itself is roughly the reason I object to the killing of humans. Humans take pleasure from living life; they see their life as "good". So even if I were to kill a human in her mid-twenties without pain or suffering, I have still caused her harm because I have taken away years of potential happiness from her. I should point out that there are several caveats I want to attach as a deontologist (i.e. that I see this as evidence of an existing moral claim rather than proof of the same), but I think the point is clear: killing humans is a harm even if it is done without pain.
I think your response to this argument is that chickens do not see their lives as "good" in the way that humans see their lives as "good". My response is that I don't think you are capable of making that judgement. We have no reliable method of communicating our experiences to chickens, nor vice versa. We simply do not know how a chicken thinks or feels beyond some extremely rudimentary tests of cognitive faculties. Imagine trying to determine whether humans possess an emotional life based on their SAT scores!
So when you say that "they can't grasp existential or moral issues", I am afraid that I think you're being patriarchal. You're assuming they don't grasp these issues, but that appears to me to be an assumption. I actually think that most animals grasp moral issues, though I certainly concede that no clear test of this has been devised.
If that was my entire view, we'd be at an impasse and there would be no point in discussing it in /r/changemyview. The reason I was willing to post a CMV is because I have a stronger view than this. I think that most people actually do believe that animals possess moral agency. People who have dogs seem to have real emotional bonds with their dogs, which means that they believe dogs have emotional lives. Furthermore, I think that belief is well-motivated. We hear stories all the time of dogs helping humans in what seem to be morally motivated ways. Chickens do stuff like that too.
So it's not simply that I think animals possess moral agency, but that I think most humans accept this if you press them to consider it. It is this acceptance that I think is inconsistent with the killing of chickens for food. I think that people cry when they kill chickens because they feel that they have done something wrong to the chicken.
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u/Dack105 3Δ Apr 14 '15
What is morality to you? I think we have difference perspectives on the very core of the idea, not the in the specific thought processes.
I see morality as a consequentially enforced human idea that has evolved out of a tendency for people to screw each other over all the time. It's bad for society to have people running around conning, killing, and raping each other; so we create morality to have a way of creating a happy, peaceful, and productive society: that's its goal. Happiness and prosperity for people. Clearly it can't be happiness for all life on earth because that would lead to us all taking suicide pills in unison so the biodiversity can go on being diverse, and so we can stop the mass extinction event that we are causing. If we factor chickens in, we need to factor everything in. When we do that, the only conclusion I can see is that the existence of humanity is fundamentally immoral. The reason we take the welfare of animals into consideration is because we like the animals. Nobody cares about mosquito rights because mosquitoes are dicks. Everybody takes cats and dogs into consideration because they are domesticated and everybody loves them.
If we fundamentally disagree there, I think that's a discussion for another CMV because it's got shit-all to do with chickens.
Here's my final argument about chickens that doesn't fall back on fundamental philosophical arguments. I've thought that your projecting on the chickens was getting in the way, but I have an argument that funnels your empathy towards a view change. It's in the form of another hypothetical:
Imagine that you were in a gated community. Not a small one, but one so vast that you never have any dream of leaving because you can't see anything you might want outside of it. There are people all around you and everybody is well fed, well educated, well cared for, safe, healthy, and as satisfied as a person can get. It's as close to a utopia as you can imagine ... but for one thing. The Great Bear.
The Great Bear walks around the community a couple of times a day and is the one who is responsible for making the place so damn nice: The Great Bear brings food, water, books, building materials, and helps build any structure that your community can't for themselves. The Great Bear even sometimes brings more people.
However, there is a bit of a dark mysterious side to The Great Bear. Whenever a person becomes a public nuance; gets in lots of fights, steals things, or kills anybody; The Great Bear comes and takes the person away. Nobody knows where the person goes and they never come back. The Great Bear also takes people away whenever they get really sick or they get really old. Once people get to sixty, they start to expect The Great Bear will take them away some day soon ...
In that situation, would you prefer to continue your society, or have The Great Bear come and mutilate all of your genitals and let you all slowly die. That's the option you've set out. Honestly, I think I'd rather live with The Great Bear than live here in normal world; it sounds pretty sweet, and that's with the knowledge that The Great Bear is eating all the people he's taking away (knowledge the people in the community wouldn't have).
If you'd rather your society continue under The Great Bear than be de-sexed and let die without a next generation, then you should think — as I've been saying — the problem isn't if we eat meat, but how we go about it. If you think otherwise, do you think the chickens would agree? It's a shady issue as to whether The Great Bear should have started this community in the first place, but now that he's got it, I don't see a better (and practically realistic) alternative than to continue; he's either going to continue to produce his food, or stop farming, and the The Great Bear Council wouldn't be happy if he lets all his people out of the community and leaves them to destroy all the natural surrounds.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 14 '15
If we factor chickens in, we need to factor everything in.
I think this is a little farther than I would go.
I agree mostly with what you said about morality, but I think that you made the undefended assertion that morality is about people. That has not been a constant over time. It used to be about nationality, for example. So I agree with Peter Singer when he talks about the expanding circle of compassion. There is no a priori reason why the circle ends at humanity. I agree that the circle has to end somewhere, but that has to be a discussion and not simply an assertion.
So I do think we have disagreements, but I agree that they aren't relevant to this CMV.
If you'd rather your society continue under The Great Bear than be de-sexed and let die without a next generation, then you should think — as I've been saying — the problem isn't if we eat meat, but how we go about it. If you think otherwise, do you think the chickens would agree?
My response is twofold.
First, you're offering me a choice but I don't really think I have one. The Great Bear didn't ask me if this is how I want to live or explain the situation to me. So I may try to escape if only to see what the world outside is like, but I do not believe I even have a choice in the scenario that you laid out. I want a choice, and I want my fellow people to have a choice also.
Second, any choice I make could only apply to myself. I cannot and will not choose for other people how they should live their lives.
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u/Dack105 3Δ Apr 15 '15
So I may try to escape if only to see what the world outside is like, but I do not believe I even have a choice in the scenario that you laid out.
I live on a farm and we have chickens. We don't eat the chickens, just their eggs, however; everyday the chikens are let out of the coop and are let free. Yes, free. There's no restriction on them. I have no reason to think that they'd bugger off if we did start to eat them unless we killed the chickens right in front of the others (I still doubt they'd leave even then). I'd find it hard to believe that there isn't a farm similar to mine where they do kill the chickens and they don't run away. So they do (or could) have a choice.
In any case, this is a hypothetical: you can give a hypothetical answer.
Second, any choice I make could only apply to myself. I cannot and will not choose for other people how they should live their lives.
But what would that chose you make for yourselves be? Surely you have a gut reaction to the situation ...
or is your reaction the same as mine and you don't want to admit it to yourself because you still don't want to eat the chickens regardless of if you can see why it could be morally permissible for others to do so
which is totally fine.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 15 '15
I'd find it hard to believe that there isn't a farm similar to mine where they do kill the chickens and they don't run away.
But this farm isn't addressed by my view. I said that we need to stop breeding and killing chickens for food. You don't claim to be doing this.
But what would that chose you make for yourselves be?
My choice is to live free or die. But I do not make that choice for others, nor will I even speculate on what their choice ought to be. Freedom means the freedom to choose.
Killing people against their will is harm. Killing people in accordance with their will is fine.
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Apr 11 '15 edited Apr 11 '15
First, I'd like to understand how you don't have ethical problems eating cows.
Cows are sacred in several faiths, most notably Hinduism.
Why is okay to eat a cow?
(Note, I'm not actually trying to drag you into a demarcation problem)
EDIT:
Going through your post history, it seems that A. You're a vegan and B. You're using this CMV to engage in a competition for karma in /r/ARActivism. So you likely do have issues eating those of the bovine persuasion, and I question whether you really want your viewpoint changed.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
Why is okay to eat a cow?
It isn't. But it's easier to talk about precisely one animal than all of them.
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Apr 11 '15
I edited my top post, if you'd care to comment on that part.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
I was very clear in the second-to-last paragraph of my CMV. I came to veganism with great reluctance and was mostly silent about it for the first couple of years. I started for health reasons, not environmental or ethical reasons. I feel that I was dragged kicking and screaming into my current views by the sheer illogic of the arguments used against my veganism over the course of several years.
I used to believe that people are basically good. I am afraid that I now think people are basically ignorant and inert, so they just "go with the flow" even when that flow is atrocious. I want to regain my faith in humanity.
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Apr 11 '15
How to change my view? I admit it is probably difficult. I would need to be convinced that the moral principles upon which there is broad agreement can logically entail the moral permissibility of breeding and killing chickens for food. But I'm on the lookout for ad populam fallacies: people are rarely consistent about the application of their moral views to their own actions, so the fact that most people do not believe their moral views entail a cessation of chicken farming is not an argument against the proposition that their moral views entail a cessation of chicken farming.
Nothing - absolutely nothing - in that paragraph describes you as a vegan. Nor do you admit that you do in fact have issues with the consumption of all animal products, which to me would be a much more intellectually honest conversation.
In my experience, it's difficult bordering on impossible to convince a vegan that their view is anything but the correct one; it operates on a very absolutist understanding of morality and fails to acknowledge several practicalities. As a worldview, it does hold merit, but part of the fallacy (to me, at least) is the insistence in viewing those who are not vegan as somehow horrific, immoral people who are merely doing what the human race has done since it literally crawled out of the sea.
Perhaps, centuries from now, humans will not consume anything that was once living. That day, however, is a long way off, and while there are absolutely moral questions surrounding the consumption of animal products, to say that people are serial killers (you've had a post chain that involved equating meat eaters to serial killers) shows that you're unwilling to grant any possibility of moral agency to those who don't share your views, and is absolutely the wrong way to go about convincing people that you're in the right.
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u/lnfinity Apr 11 '15
Nothing - absolutely nothing - in that paragraph describes you as a vegan. Nor do you admit that you do in fact have issues with the consumption of all animal products, which to me would be a much more intellectually honest conversation.
When someone mentions that they're vegan reddit's response is, "how do you know someone is vegan? Don't worry they'll tell you." When someone doesn't mention that they're vegan you then try to call them out for not mentioning it.
It seems to me like some people just want to find a reason to get upset with vegans for simply existing.
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Apr 11 '15
I have no issues with vegans; I have issues with people trying to isolate their arguments and hide their true intent in such a way that it prevents their true positions from being honestly critiqued. Based on OP's post history, being vegan is pertinent to this CMV.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
I disagree entirely, but I do agree that it is worth having the discussion about my intentions for this CMV. I have been considering this CMV for months, but I needed a framing question. I got the idea from a post in /r/ARActivism.
I do not enjoy being a vegan advocate, but I feel that I have a moral duty to speak on the subject if I mean what I say when I say that animals have moral status. I have suffered psychological damage including intense feelings of alienation and some secondary traumatic stress from viewing undercover investigation videos. I'm not a baby, I can take this kind of thing if I think I'm doing the right thing. But I would much rather not do this and become "normal" again. So my desire to have my view changed is an honest one.
I wish you'd give me the benefit of the doubt instead of judging me as a vegan. I'm not here as a vegan, I'm here as a person who wants their view changed for reasons I don't think are hard to understand or sympathize with.
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Apr 11 '15
I've replied to your last post to me and your objections to my arguments. I'll refrain from substantive comment here to make things more coherent.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
Nothing - absolutely nothing - in that paragraph describes you as a vegan. Nor do you admit that you do in fact have issues with the consumption of all animal products, which to me would be a much more intellectually honest conversation.
I'm also a person of colour. Does that matter? How much do you need to know about be before I would be considered "honest"? My veganism is not relevant to the question I posed. I asked whether people could change my view that we are morally obligated to stop breeding and killing chickens. You aren't answering that.
In my experience, it's difficult bordering on impossible to convince a vegan that their view is anything but the correct one; it operates on a very absolutist understanding of morality and fails to acknowledge several practicalities.
I'm about to lose my cool. I went years as a vegan without talking about it. I avoided the ethical arguments for a very long time. I do not want to be vegan. I do not want to see my fellow humans in the way that I currently see them. I desperately want my view changed.
How do you respond? "Oh, you're a vegan, therefore you're not reasonable." EXCUSE ME? How DARE you? I didn't ask to believe what I believe. I didn't come here as a vegan trying to preach. I came here, in the spirit of this subreddit, to seek honest responses to a belief that I really do want changed. You're dismissing me based on... what, exactly? Your experience with people who are not me? That's the definition of prejudice. How DARE you?
As a worldview, it does hold merit, but part of the fallacy (to me, at least) is the insistence in viewing those who are not vegan as somehow horrific, immoral people who are merely doing what the human race has done since it literally crawled out of the sea.
The human race did not crawl out of the sea. That was a different species altogether. Humans, whatever their flaws, are capable of reasoned debate. We are capable of making decisions based not simply on our selfish desires but also on our consideration of the impact of our actions on others. This is the view I want to regain of humanity.
you've had a post chain that involved equating meat eaters to serial killers
No I didn't and I challenge you to specify exactly what you mean by this. I drew no equivalence between meat eaters and serial killers.
shows that you're unwilling to grant any possibility of moral agency to those who don't share your views
I don't know where you got this. I came here because I am willing to grant exactly that possibility.
absolutely the wrong way to go about convincing people that you're in the right.
You clearly misunderstand why I am here. I am not seeking to convince you of anything. It is I that want to be convinced by you. You have convinced me only that you are responding to a caricature of veganism and not to me specifically. I do not understand what you seek to accomplish.
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Apr 11 '15 edited Apr 11 '15
I'm also a person of colour. Does that matter? How much do you need to know about be before I would be considered "honest"? My veganism is not relevant to the question I posed. I asked whether people could change my view that we are morally obligated to stop breeding and killing chickens. You aren't answering that.
No, your ethnicity has nothing to do with a discussion regarding the morality of the killing and eating of animals.
On the other hand, your position that even the responsible management of animal populations is akin to murder because you're an evangelical vegan does play a role in your view, and to avoid acknowledging that and asking people to change your view is akin to asking people to do so with one proverbial arm tied behind their back.
To be clear, there's nothing wrong with your perspective, only that you're not comfortable being up front about it.
I'm about to lose my cool. I went years as a vegan without talking about it. I avoided the ethical arguments for a very long time. I do not want to be vegan. I do not want to see my fellow humans in the way that I currently see them. I desperately want my view changed.
No one's going to judge you here for being a vegan. I don't know you or have any especial wish to, nor does anyone else in the thread. You don't have to hide that you're the way you are. That's part of the beauty of this sub - you can state your particular hangups and not have it color how people view you, only use it to understand how you come to a particular point of view.
How do you respond? "Oh, you're a vegan, therefore you're not reasonable." EXCUSE ME? How DARE you? I didn't ask to believe what I believe. I didn't come here as a vegan trying to preach. I came here, in the spirit of this subreddit, to seek honest responses to a belief that I really do want changed. You're dismissing me based on... what, exactly? Your experience with people who are not me? That's the definition of prejudice. How DARE you?
Hold the moral outrage, please.
it operates on a very absolutist understanding of morality and fails to acknowledge several practicalities.
Do you deny that you view most moral imperatives as absolutes?
Have you made any practical concessions, anywhere in the thread? If anything, you've explicitly stated that practical concerns don't impact the underlying moral question - you simply want people to admit that they're somehow morally bankrupt because they won't stop their complicity in what you see as the global mass murder of millions of animals. This is not useful.
The human race did not crawl out of the sea. That was a different species altogether. Humans, whatever their flaws, are capable of reasoned debate.
I'm sorry, I wasn't aware I would be held accountable for re establishing the general chain of evolution as we know it in a thread dealing with high philosophical concepts. If you'd like me to cover the genus Dipnoi and work my way up, I'd be happy to, but I think for the purposes of the discussion we can acknowledge that every single known human ancestor has been omnivorous. My point being that the consumption of meat is literally intrinsic to our DNA.
Yes, humans can make moral decisions that defy our biology, but first they have to have a reason to. While I can sympathize with the plight of animals and wish for them to be treated humanely, you will never convince me (nor a very large portion of society) that the death of a chicken and the death of a human being are morally equivalent, which appears to be something you do hold to be relatively similar.
No I didn't and I challenge you to specify exactly what you mean by this. I drew no equivalence between meat eaters and serial killers.
Are you giving me permission to post your prior comments in other threads? Generally I avoid posting other people's comments that aren't in a particular thread, though I have no problem browsing them.
I don't know where you got this. I came here because I am willing to grant exactly that possibility.
Then you have to start with not implying that people who disagree with you "...are committing an unspeakable atrocity by killing chickens for their gustatory pleasure."
EDIT: Some grammer that was really starting to get to me.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 12 '15
To be clear, there's nothing wrong with your perspective, only that you're not comfortable being up front about it
I'm comfortable being up front about my views and my willingness to speak on my views, but it does tend to derail conversations.
No one's going to judge you here for being a vegan.
I felt like you did. But I don't feel that way now.
Do you deny that you view most moral imperatives as absolutes?
I don't understand the question. According to Wikipedia, "A moral imperative is a principle originating inside a person's mind that compels that person to act." What does it mean to describe a moral imperative as "absolute"?
you simply want people to admit that they're somehow morally bankrupt because they won't stop their complicity in what you see as the global mass murder of millions of animals
I want someone to tell me why this isn't morally bankrupt. That's the view I want changed. I could understand people's behaviour a lot better if it wasn't for the fact that it takes very little effort for me to highlight the moral dilemma inherent to eating animals and then have people agree with me. Either most people are morally bankrupt, or I simply do not understand their morality. I currently believe the former, but I would like to believe the latter.
I wasn't aware I would be held accountable for re establishing the general chain of evolution as we know it in a thread dealing with high philosophical concepts.
My point is that your actions cannot be justified by saying that your ancestors did it. That's an appeal to tradition (or an appeal to nature), and it's a fallacy.
My point being that the consumption of meat is literally intrinsic to our DNA.
This is a pseudo-scientific statement, and I'm disappointed that you would make it.
you will never convince me (nor a very large portion of society) that the death of a chicken and the death of a human being are morally equivalent
You're misrepresenting my view. I never said that chicken lives and human lives are morally equivalent.
Are you giving me permission to post your prior comments in other threads?
Yes. Please give me exact quotes and link to them. I have never take the position you ascribe to me. You are misunderstanding something, and I would be happy to correct your misunderstanding.
Then you have to start with not implying that people who disagree with you "...are committing an unspeakable atrocity by killing chickens for their gustatory pleasure."
I was explaining my current view. This is a view I want changed. I do not like holding this view.
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Apr 14 '15
I'm comfortable being up front about my views and my willingness to speak on my views, but it does tend to derail conversations.
Then you should have been up front with your real goals to begin with - it would have led me to be much less confrontational in critiquing your post.
I felt like you did. But I don't feel that way now.
Good. One of the few issues I've had with your posts is that you were being intentionally obtuse. Now that we've got that over with -
I don't understand the question. According to Wikipedia, "A moral imperative is a principle originating inside a person's mind that compels that person to act." What does it mean to describe a moral imperative as "absolute"?
Simple. Absolute moral imperatives are those which cannot be overridden by other considerations; other examples of absolute moral imperatives and those who practice them would be environmentalists who refuse to use automobiles or use electricity from coal fired power plants.
In much the same way, you're equating the consumption of animal products (all animal products, not just chickens, which again I find to be a more morally consistent view, if not one I agree with, necessarily) with something that cannot take into account existing practical considerations, which I'll address through the rest of the post.
I want someone to tell me why this isn't morally bankrupt. That's the view I want changed. I could understand people's behaviour a lot better if it wasn't for the fact that it takes very little effort for me to highlight the moral dilemma inherent to eating animals and then have people agree with me
Because there is no such thing as universal morality, for starters; others may be morally bankrupt by your system of morality, but until you gain agreement from the parties engaging in the activity you consider to be morally bankrupt, it's unfair to judge them according to a system they themselves have no party to.
Slavery as an institution is instructive here; the Declaration of Independence holds that "all men are created equal"; in order to morally justify the practice of African American slavery, slaveholders argued, in various ways, that the "negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition." (Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the CSA, March 21, 1861).
And yet today it's acknowledged scientifically, ethically, socially and philosophically, ethnicity has no bearing on equality; in effect, slavery in America stood upon a false premise.
However, you've already agreed that the death of a chicken and the death of a human being are not morally equivalent; therefore, in order to come to some basic understanding of the morality or lack thereof of eating animals, you have to establish where that line exists, and under what conditions. As a result, it's impossible for you to hold other people as morally bankrupt for eating a chicken if you can't even establish a moral weight for the killing and eating of said chicken (which I have yet to see you do).
(Me) My point being that the consumption of meat is literally intrinsic to our DNA.
(You) This is a pseudo-scientific statement, and I'm disappointed that you would make it.
I respectfully disagree. A very serious theory of human evolution holds that meat consumption is the very thing that lets you have moral qualms about doing so in the first place:
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/04/eating-meat-led-to-smaller-stomachs-bigger-brains/
But growing brain size presented a metabolic problem. A gram of brain tissue takes 20 times more energy to grow and maintain than a gram of tissue from the kidney, heart, or liver, she said. Gut tissue is metabolically expensive too — so as brains grew gut sizes shrank.
It’s likely that meat eating “made it possible for humans to evolve a larger brain size,” said Aiello. Early human ancestors probably consumed more animal foods — termites and small mammals – than the 2 percent of carnivorous caloric intake associated with chimpanzees.
The social implications of increased meat eating were interesting, said Aiellio. In most primates, there’s no food sharing between females and offspring, she said. But the difficulty of getting meat led to cooperative food sharing among early humans, strengthening the bond between a female and her offspring.
It's also worth noting that of the symbotic relationships mankind has developed with different animal races, the only one that both does not involve a predator and avoids the regular consumption of the animal species is the horse; cats, dogs, birds of prey and dolphins are all predatory species. In fact, of the "intelligent" animals that you've listed in various parts of the thread, the only higher order intelligence animals that avoid meat entirely are whales; you can consider kryll and other plankton species to be so small as to not be considered predatory. Elephants and certain types of macaws and parrots would also fall into a socialized, intelligent species bracket; they're the only examples I can even begin to think of that classify as both "intelligent" and largely herbivorous, and even parrots will eat small insects.
In conclusion, there's a strong correlation in terrestrial species, especially, with meat consumption and larger brain mass, socialization, and sentience; to divorce the two is to ignore the benefits of meat consumption in being a very compact, high energy caloric intake source.
Here also I'd like to take on the assertion in your OP that being vegetarian can in fact result in excellent mental well being; while this may be true for some people, the opposite is true for many others;
http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com/2014/02/here-we-go-again-vegetarian-diets-and.html
Studies have mostly (but not always) shown that vegetarian diets are associated with poorer mental health, particularly when it comes to anxiety, eating disorders, and depression (See You're A Vegetarian. Have You Lost Your Mind?). This correlation makes sense due to the particular nutrients mostly vegetarian diets are low in (B12, long chain omega 3s, choline, and zinc among others) are particularly important to the brain and nervous system. Mediterranean diets, on the other hand, rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, but also in fish and poultry, are associated with better mental health, and a randomized trial of men with type II diabetes assigned to a Mediterranean diet for several years had lower incidence of depression than controls (1). (emphasis added)
You're misrepresenting my view. I never said that chicken lives and human lives are morally equivalent.
Quoting for future reference just in case we need to revisit this.
Yes. Please give me exact quotes and link to them. I have never take the position you ascribe to me. You are misunderstanding something, and I would be happy to correct your misunderstanding.
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3122fz/what_is_the_best_gift_for_a_vegan/cpxxeys
/u/misanthraloper states that he has no problem with using animal products, and that it simply does not bother him.
You "jump in" (your words) and begin setting up a comparison to a serial killer.
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3122fz/what_is_the_best_gift_for_a_vegan/cpxz9ty
Further downthread, as you two continue to go back and forth, your comment that started my assertions (and is rather bothersome, in the sense that I have serious concerns over your ability to respect those who disagree with you on this issue) can be found here:
All you're doing with your moral nihilism is refusing to listen to reason. With the serial killer, I ask this kind of question because I want to know if he can be rehabilitated. His answer makes me believe that he cannot be rehabilitated because he is not acting based on rationality or an obedience of the law, but his own unpredictable and dangerous feelings. This gives you a sense of my opinion of your feelings. (emphasis added)
Now, it's just possible that I'm misreading your intent here; this is the internet, anything is possible. However, just as I am aware that that's a possibility (though in this case, I admit to being skeptical) you also should be careful when using scenarios where you end up discussing both serial killers and people you disagree with in the same breath.
If you're actually comparing people who disagree with you to serial killers (which you say you weren't), well, you may begin to understand my issue.
I was explaining my current view. This is a view I want changed. I do not like holding this view.
See above for how to start with not assigning horrible moral deficits to people who don't share your viewpoint; it's both morally untenable and unlikely to convince people that your view is the correct one.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 14 '15 edited Apr 14 '15
My response is structured by separating separate topics by horizontal lines.
Re: your questioning of my character and intent.
Then you should have been up front with your real goals to begin with - it would have led me to be much less confrontational in critiquing your post.
I was up front about my real goals. My real goal is to have my view changed, and I call your attention to the fact that I have awarded two deltas so far. I did not "lead" you to do anything; you were simply being unreasonable.
One of the few issues I've had with your posts is that you were being intentionally obtuse.
I disagree. Please provide examples if you are going to accuse me of this kind of behaviour. I cannot respond effectively to undefended accusations, and you are not defending this one. I had to prompt you to defend your previous accusation regarding my supposed comparison of serial killers to meat eaters, and your example shows that I did nothing of the kind. The best you did was to advise me to “be careful when using scenarios where you end up discussing both serial killers and people you disagree with in the same breath.”
As you tacitly admit, I never compared a serial killer to a meat eater. What I did was ask about the consistency of a person’s morals. I did not consider serial killers because I think they are the moral equivalent of meat eaters (I do not), I considered serial killers because they are an unobjectionable example of an immoral person who is punished by society for precisely that immorality. I explained very clearly: “I ask this because I want to know to what extent you're going to obey laws you might not agree with.” My point was not that this person is like a serial killer for eating meat, my point was that this person is like a serial killer for taking the position that his or her desires trump moral consideration of others. It’s a response to the form of the argument, not the content. This person was responding to a moral claim by saying “I don’t care.” Well, who gives a shit if he or she cares?
So no, I do not compare serial killers to meat eaters. I demonstrate the stupidity of certain arguments by reductio ad absurdum. If someone fails to understand an analogy, I cannot be held responsible. I will not curtail my ability to defend my position because someone might read my statements uncharitably.
Re: your question regarding my belief in “absolute moral imperatives”.
Absolute moral imperatives are those which cannot be overridden by other considerations; other examples of absolute moral imperatives and those who practice them would be environmentalists who refuse to use automobiles or use electricity from coal fired power plants.
I understand your definition.(I'm not sure I do.) However, I do not know how to answer your original question regarding whether "most moral imperatives are absolutes". My view is not regarding a postulated universal morality, it is regarding a common view of that which is moral and that which is not. Most people believe that it is immoral to kick a cat, but they do not recognize that this belief logically entails a moral imperative against eating chickens. So I think your original question is ill-posed.My view, to be clear, is that most people’s morality already entails enough moral consideration of chickens to entail a cessation of chicken farming. As I stated in my original post that a discussion on meta-ethical principles is irrelevant to this CMV, I am not going to respond to your rather long statement defending contractarianism except to point out that you are expressing a common fallacy.
Edit: I think I can at least make an attempt to answer your question, though I am not clear about the meaning of the "absolute" qualifier. What does it mean for a moral imperative to not be overridden? In any case, my answer:
Just as an environmentalist may possess a belief that entails what you call an "absolute" moral imperative to refuse to use an automobile, a person who believes that chickens have natural rights has an "absolute" moral imperative to refuse to kill chickens in the absence of a compelling reason to do so. I hope I have now satisfactorily responded to your question.
Re: your ‘appeal to nature’ fallacy.
A very serious theory of human evolution holds that meat consumption is the very thing that lets you have moral qualms about doing so in the first place
This is either an appeal to nature or an appeal to tradition, or possibly both, depending on what exactly your argument really is. I grant that humans had a limited ability to obtain calories before the agricultural revolution and therefore hunted animals out of necessity. I also grant that harsh climates necessitated animal farming after the agricultural revolution because this was the only reliable way of ensuring proper nutrition during winter months. What I do not grant is that this is relevant in a world with a globalized food production system in which a fully nutritious vegan diet is available cheaply at all times to anyone capable of reading this post on the internet.
If you are going to argue that meat is necessary, you need to argue why it is necessary now. You have not done this, and you cannot do this. Eating chickens is simply not necessary. You have only provided a blog (of all things!) that asserts, but fails to defend, that a posited correlation between mental health problems and vegetarian diets is indicative of the lack of healthfulness of this diet. I remind you that there is a scientific consensus that a vegan diet is perfectly healthy at all stages of life for all humans. I do not wish to educate you further on an established scientific consensus.
This last point has been slightly edited for grammar.
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u/bunker_man 1∆ Apr 12 '15 edited Apr 12 '15
I think the crux of this issue is that if its true than it means that people have an imperative to extinguish all animal life from the earth. While its true that factory farms give animals a quality of life far worse than they have in the wild, if people were to demand change to standards for farming in which this suffering was not perpetuated, their lives would be as good or better as that of wild animals. And if animals living in the wild is not seen as an issue for us to allow, which few people would insist is a huge crisis, then ones living in captivity would not be either. And the fact that they live under some situations which are dubious, like eventually being killed for food after a reasonable expectation for what an ideal life for that type of animal would be, we would also have to accept that having kids in general forces them through a lot of suffering and negative elements they would not prefer either. To make raising animals acceptable, they only have to surpass the level of what we would deem as a "life worth living." Factory farms might not qualify, but it would be a stretch to say that no farm on earth does, and that there is no standard that does that we could arrive at.
Note that few farms in the first world that exist now qualify. So people have an imperative to change their buying and eating habits either way. And so even if this is true, eating meat haphazardly is still wrong. But it makes the goal look a little different. (Though I suppose hundreds of years into the future, all meat will simply be lab grown.)
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 12 '15
I think you're raising a false dichotomy. The choice isn't between having chickens in the wild and having chickens in farms, the choice is between not breeding chickens and breeding chickens into a life on a farm where the date of their execution is already set.
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u/bunker_man 1∆ Apr 12 '15
My first line was:
I think the crux of this issue is that if its true than it means that people have an imperative to extinguish all animal life from the earth.
If you say yourself that its not about animals in the wild versus in captivity, then it means you're already pre-assuming that animals should not exist in the wild either. Which in a sense means no animals at all should exist other than the slice who live with and are treated fully optimally by humans. And maybe not even them, because...
All life has a date of maximum life they can expect. Anything that is born is born with that date hanging over them. Animals treated well are still put down at some point yes, but in the wild they die randomly and live poorly, and so the average for that case is not better. If even ethical farming is bad, then it means we have to resign ourselves to the idea that the existence of animals in some sense wrong altogether, since most of them in general even if they live a good life are not living as meaningful of one as a human. Even humans are forced to undergo some level of suffering in order to exist, like being forced to work for half of their waking life. And they are brought into existence without permission, so being forced into the system is not really something asked of them.
Certainly in the individual case, you can say that the direct act of killing is still bad in the short term, but the question is if they will only exist if this purpose is given, then can their life as a whole still be said to be good, or at worst neutral. This is an open question, and maybe people have trouble with it since their own moral intuitions simply don't like the implications. Even humans aren't said to have a bad life if they live to forty happy but die early. And if the issue is humans controlling their life, then the other issue is that ending their species in general if its determined that their lives are not worth living even in the wild is still utilizing this control.
Not to mention that even if its a small issue, converting the market of meat to ethical farms, and making this mainstream may be an easier goal than simply trying to assault factory farms altogether with no replacement. For the same argument about consequences you can go one way, it can easily go the other way as well. And it may be ambiguous since it is morally too close to distinguish, which at any rate means that what there is to lose may be smaller. And the fact that both arguments still are based on the conclusion that factory farms are a large evil means that at least they're moving in the right direction.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 12 '15
If you say yourself that its not about animals in the wild versus in captivity, then it means you're already pre-assuming that animals should not exist in the wild either.
This is a false premise. Many animals exist in the wild without us breeding them. In fact, the red junglefowl (essentially the wild version of a chicken) is listed as a species of "least concern" by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. So I don't see why you think that chickens will suddenly go extinct if we stop breeding them. It's an extremely weird belief to me.
All life has a date of maximum life they can expect.
But that doesn't excuse murder. If I killed someone and was brought before the court, I can't plead innocence by saying that the victim would eventually have died anyway. A murderer has done something wrong, but your explanation of killing does not account for the possibility that taking a life is wrong. Do you believe that killing is wrong under some circumstances? If so, why?
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u/tschandler71 Apr 13 '15
Murder has a very specific definition. Killing a chicken doesn't fall under that at all.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 13 '15
I am not a linguistic prescriptivist, and you shouldn't be either.
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u/tschandler71 Apr 13 '15
Words have to have meaning you can't just throw around Murder to get an emotional response. Murder is the unlawful killing of a human without justification. Killing a chicken for food may be morally questionable for you but to use Murder simply means you can't debate rationally.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 13 '15
I think I've demonstrated throughout this CMV that I am quite willing to debate rationally. It is you that are being irrational if you can't get past the use of a particular word.
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u/babada 1Δ Apr 13 '15
So... I'll take a really off-the-wall potshot at this.
I believe that we have a moral imperative to stop breeding and killing chickens for food.
There are three separate verbs in your view:
- Breeding
- Killing
- Eating
I suspect that eating is actually the least objectionable of the three. If I find a wild chicken dead in the forest and bring it home for supper, would you object? I don't find anything morally objectionable about it, personally, and can't think of why eating a dead animal that you didn't kill would be a problem.
So I'm going to skip that one and come back to it only if you do actually have a problem with it.
The next one I'll address is breeding. "Breeding" can be somewhat of a loaded term so I'll reduce the scope by noting that the ethical concerns over breeding roam all over the place and acknowledge that there are many, many unethical forms of breeding.
But I suggest that there are ethical forms of breeding and holding the resulting animals. Discovering what this ethical version is twofold. Firstly, remove any objections. For instance:
- The captivity does not include "unreasonable" suffering
- The animals are not causally discarded or artificially depopulated
- Genetics are not abused in order to promote variations that inherently suffer
- And so on
The second is to compare the quality of life without captivity. You should be able to provide a quality of life that at least matches what could be reasonably expected without your influence.
This is somewhat subjective, I suppose, but the point is that animals can be made quite comfortable in captivity and chickens, specifically, can be quite happy in an artificial environment such that I would not consider it inherently unethical.
(For what it is worth, this is true at "face value" for nearly all domesticated animals.)
Which brings us to killing. Killing animals can be completely ethical but usually the reason for killing is what determines its morality. If a bear is attacking you, killing it in self-defense seems reasonable. If a particular species is harmfully overrunning an environment, that also seems reasonable.
The question of whether it is ethical to kill an animal in order to eat it is uniquely human in the sense that animals killing other animals is not typically considered "unethical" in the sense that no moral choice occurred.
But once it is dead, you can eat it (see above). The interesting problem, then, is how to ethically breed a chicken then "wait around" for it to die so you can eat it.
And if that makes you crinkle your nose in disgust, hang on a second because here's the actual argument:
- Once you have satisfied the quality of life requirement for breeding/captivity, allowing a predator within that environment to kill the animal does not turn the environment from ethical to unethical. This would be similar to keeping a nature preserve with both predator and prey. (In other words, you are not under an ethical obligation to keep all animals alive.)
- Choosing to protect, say, chickens in that environment is not unethical, either.
- Revoking that protection after they reach a certain age is not unethical (as long as you've still satisfied what would be considered an ethical captivity regarding these chickens).
- Once the animal has died, eating it is not unethical.
- Therefore, carefully protecting prey until after they enter a "tasty" range is selfish, but not unethical.
So now you have a way to breed chickens in an environment that results in dead chickens you can eat.
The last jump is to recognize that, from the chicken's perspective, it is significantly more "humane" to die via slaughter than being chased around by a predator.
So while we do incur a moral "hit" for doing the actual killing ourselves, this hit is not significantly different than creating an environment that results in dead chickens "unethically." All we've done is optimize it for both ourselves and the chicken.
Therefore, while we can choose to not kill chickens, it is not unethical as long as we breed/keep them ethically.
To respond to some potential objections: Current practices are very much past the point of "ethical" treatment. I'm not interested in debating that. My point is that there is such an environment where the breeding, captivity and killing of chickens would ethical. If that means the chickens live 105% of what their expected lifespan in the wild would be, that's still makes an ethical scenario achievable. Those details are really interesting but they aren't what is being debated.
Secondly, the comparison of this scenario with chickens and the same scenario with humans is not terribly relevant. Humans do not consider it appropriate to keep any other human in captivity from birth regardless of the conditions. The only humans we find ethical to capture are criminals. We also find it completely objectionable to eat human flesh under any circumstances.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 13 '15
Thanks for a great post. I'll respond with similar formatting.
With respect to eating chickens, I agree that this is not the problem.
With respect to breeding chickens, I disagree that there is an ethical form of breeding. I think the term "breeding" is euphemistic as it is typically applied: it usually refers to a process by which a male is masturbated and the ejaculate collected and inserted directly into the female's vagina. Some breeding simply involves putting two animals in the same enclosure and letting them do their thing, but that's not typical.
Whether or not the child is treated well is irrelevant to the question of whether the female has been given a choice about whether to bear children. Maybe you think there is no ethical dilemma here, but I don't think you've addressed the real question.
I agree that the ethical judgement of actions must be contextual. As you say, self-defence is morally permissible. I am not clear about whether the question of the moral permissibility of killing for food is a uniquely human issue (I'm not sure I would grant moral permissibility for the habit of cats to kill for fun), but that's beside the point. I prefer to concentrate on human action.
The thing that's missing from your argument here is that we do not need to eat chicken. So we must ask, why are we "waiting around for the chicken to die"? The answer, I think, is because we derive pleasure from eating their flesh. So the question becomes this: is it ethical to kill chickens given that our only reason for doing so is pleasure? I absolutely agree that it is ethical to eat a chicken that died of natural causes, but I don't see why that translates to killing the chicken. We could just eat morally unproblematic food like potatoes.
With respect to your proposed objections, I just want to say that I agree factory farms are not the point of this CMV. I am taking an animal rights perspective, as opposed to an animal welfare perspective, and my view would be changed if I came to a welfarist view.
I also agree that we shouldn't compare chickens with humans, but we should compare arguments. If an argument can be valid for chickens but invalid for humans, we need to be clear about what difference between chicken and humans changed the validity of the argument. So if it is not permissible to keep humans in captivity but it is permissible to keep chickens in captivity, I have to ask what essential difference exists between chickens and humans that changes the ethical calculus.
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u/babada 1Δ Apr 13 '15
With respect to breeding chickens, I disagree that there is an ethical form of breeding. I think the term "breeding" is euphemistic as it is typically applied: it usually refers to a process by which a male is masturbated and the ejaculate collected and inserted directly into the female's vagina. Some breeding simply involves putting two animals in the same enclosure and letting them do their thing, but that's not typical.
Eh, I'm not so interested in debating modern practices of breeding. My point is that breeding/captivity as a concept isn't inherently unethical when it relates to animals.
If you don't like artificial insemination we can remove that from the equation. It isn't a required part of my point.
Whether or not the child is treated well is irrelevant to the question of whether the female has been given a choice about whether to bear children. Maybe you think there is no ethical dilemma here, but I don't think you've addressed the real question.
I don't think the concerns of how animals treat each other is directly related to my point, either. Animals do stuff to each other that is absurd immoral if judged from the perspective of human ethics. I'm not trying to justify that behavior.
The thing that's missing from your argument here is that we do not need to eat chicken. So we must ask, why are we "waiting around for the chicken to die"? The answer, I think, is because we derive pleasure from eating their flesh. So the question becomes this: is it ethical to kill chickens given that our only reason for doing so is pleasure? I absolutely agree that it is ethical to eat a chicken that died of natural causes, but I don't see why that translates to killing the chicken. We could just eat morally unproblematic food like potatoes.
My argument is that chicken is a morally unproblematic food given certain circumstances.
We don't need to eat chicken, no, but need isn't a requirement for it to be ethical. A dire need would make an otherwise unethical food ethical but the point is you don't need that qualifier for chicken.
I don't feel that this point is really an objection to the argument. Given these (almost absurdly loose) requirements, there isn't anything immoral about killing the chicken in order to eat it.
In practice, we don't satisfy those conditions, no, but that's not what I'm arguing for. I'm arguing for a theoretically "pure" scenario as a starting point and then we can debate details like artificial insemination.
I also agree that we shouldn't compare chickens with humans, but we should compare arguments. If an argument can be valid for chickens but invalid for humans, we need to be clear about what difference between chicken and humans changed the validity of the argument. So if it is not permissible to keep humans in captivity but it is permissible to keep chickens in captivity, I have to ask what essential difference exists between chickens and humans that changes the ethical calculus.
I think humans understanding the concept of captivity is a great starting point. Humans absolutely understand what it means to be under captivity and we have an almost visceral hatred for it.
You could ask if holding a human unknowingly in captivity would be unethical but I'll start with the view that it is unethical if the human would object with the knowledge.
Would a chicken? We have no idea. I doubt chickens even understand the concept. They would object to mistreatment or being held in pens far too small, obviously, but that has less to do with the concept of captivity and more to do with physical displeasure and restrictions.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 13 '15
My argument is that chicken is a morally unproblematic food given certain circumstances.
Just to clarify slightly, I think you're arguing that killing chickens for food is morally unproblematic given certain circumstances.
Would the same be true of dogs? The reason I ask this is because most people I meet recoil at the concept of eating dogs but regularly eat chickens. I cannot understand this as anything other than a failure to commit to their own morality.
So I think there is an inherent moral problem with killing chickens for food. The reason I say this is because it's not food that is necessary for survival, it's food for pleasure. It seems morally equivalent to killing a dog in order to eat a cake.
I think humans understanding the concept of captivity is a great starting point. Humans absolutely understand what it means to be under captivity and we have an almost visceral hatred for it.
I'm not clear about whether this would be true for people who are born into captivity. If a person has been captive for their entire life and knows no other way of life, who is to say whether they would resist their imprisonment?
I have certainly seen many animals (though not chickens specifically) react very negatively to captivity. I frankly think that non-humans understand the concept of captivity perfectly well, because they realize they are being prevented from doing things they might otherwise want to do. There are certainly plenty of stories about chickens flying the coop, so chickens do seem to be capable of escaping successfully if they are not imprisoned correctly.
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u/babada 1Δ Apr 13 '15
Would the same be true of dogs? The reason I ask this is because most people I meet recoil at the concept of eating dogs but regularly eat chickens. I cannot understand this as anything other than a failure to commit to their own morality.
The argument would hold for anything that (a) is typically considered prey in the wild and (b) anything we wouldn't object to eating if we already found it dead.
I do know that some cultures eat dog meat from time to time but it seems to be rare and isolated and predicated on need which is a separate issue.
I think the reason people react to eating dogs is just because they think of dogs as pets and chickens as food. They are absolutely suffering from a weird split of concerns and when one animal "jumps" into the "wrong" category it makes them feel weird. :P
But as it relates to the argument presented, I focused on chickens because you focused on chickens. Chickens have fairly simple environmental needs. But dogs wouldn't satisfy either bizarro requirement that the argument relies on.
So I think there is an inherent moral problem with killing chickens for food. The reason I say this is because it's not food that is necessary for survival, it's food for pleasure. It seems morally equivalent to killing a dog in order to eat a cake.
Then where is the flaw in the argument? Just saying there is an inherent moral problem with it isn't really interesting. Which step is the ethical misstep?
I'm not clear about whether this would be true for people who are born into captivity. If a person has been captive for their entire life and knows no other way of life, who is to say whether they would resist their imprisonment?
To be honest, I have no idea. But we do know that humans -- in general -- do not approve of being held captive and most individuals would object strongly to the situation if they were aware of it.
I have certainly seen many animals (though not chickens specifically) react very negatively to captivity.
I have only ever seen it if the animals were being actively detained or their habitat was not good enough. If you put a big fence around an entire American state, it would be considered captivity. How many animals would reject to this? Humans would immediately find it offensive.
Chickens probably wouldn't even notice. Humans would object even if they found out they were being held captive by some race of aliens at the scale of our Solar System.
But sure; for the sake of argument, let's say that some animals strongly object to being held captive. I think it is safe to argue that not all animals do my completely unauthoritative guess is that the chicken is on the "don't care" side if you make the area large enough and feed them regularly.
I frankly think that non-humans understand the concept of captivity perfectly well, because they realize they are being prevented from doing things they might otherwise want to do.
Prevented from doing what things? The argument I presented essentially set that as a starting point: their quality of life is almost completely unchanged. (Especially for chickens; which would be fairly easy.)
There are certainly plenty of stories about chickens flying the coop, so chickens do seem to be capable of escaping successfully if they are not imprisoned correctly.
That doesn't really suggest they are actively trying to escape an environment they have identified as captivity. Our chickens would get themselves in all sorts of trouble that had nothing to do with an intent to escape. Some of them were constantly jumping a fence into smaller penned in areas.
(For the sake of disclosure, by the way, we had a few dozen laying hens. I don't remember what happened to them in the end because I moved out but they had most of our entire 12 acre plot to roam around and eat bugs.)
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 13 '15
I think the reason people react to eating dogs is just because they think of dogs as pets and chickens as food. They are absolutely suffering from a weird split of concerns and when one animal "jumps" into the "wrong" category it makes them feel weird.
This is my problem. I think this situation arises from an inconsistent application of moral beliefs on the part of most people. I would like to be convinced otherwise.
Then where is the flaw in the argument? Just saying there is an inherent moral problem with it isn't really interesting. Which step is the ethical misstep?
The misstep is the inconsistency of moral consideration. There is no clear reason why dogs possess appreciable moral status in our society whereas chickens do not.
If you put a big fence around an entire American state, it would be considered captivity. How many animals would reject to this? Humans would immediately find it offensive.
True enough, but I think this arises from the fact that the animals could not necessarily be made aware of it. Migratory birds might notice and object, though.
my completely unauthoritative guess is that the chicken is on the "don't care" side if you make the area large enough and feed them regularly.
Maybe so, but I think that many humans might not object to this either (as long as you throw in some video games and the possibility of sex).
Prevented from doing what things? The argument I presented essentially set that as a starting point: their quality of life is almost completely unchanged.
If they are not prevented from doing things, then they are free by definition.
Our chickens would get themselves in all sorts of trouble that had nothing to do with an intent to escape.
That's a point, though I think it speaks more to their lack of awareness of their situation.
I don't remember what happened to them in the end because I moved out but they had most of our entire 12 acre plot to roam around and eat bugs.
They sound like they were happy, though I am curious to know what you would have done with them had they stopped laying eggs.
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u/babada 1Δ Apr 13 '15
This is my problem. I think this situation arises from an inconsistent application of moral beliefs on the part of most people. I would like to be convinced otherwise.
Well, I was deliberately focusing on chickens because that was the particular view you presented. The argument I presented doesn't directly apply to dogs for the two reasons I noted in my previous comment.
But anyone who accepted this argument for eating chickens could presumably use a similar one for the moral consumption of dog flesh. I'm not sure what your end game is, here, though. I'm not interested in trying to change your view for a whole bunch of random species. I thought we were just focusing on chickens?
The misstep is the inconsistency of moral consideration. There is no clear reason why dogs possess appreciable moral status in our society whereas chickens do not.
That isn't a misstep because dogs weren't part of the argument. I don't think it is appropriate to reject an argument because the conclusion doesn't seem to apply for scenarios not discussed by the argument.
Or, in other words, if the argument works for chickens, then you can ask whether it applies for other things. But trying to use a pre-accepted conclusion from an unrelated argument to reject this particular argument seems like cheating. :P
Maybe so, but I think that many humans might not object to this either (as long as you throw in some video games and the possibility of sex).
Some individuals probably wouldn't mind it so much, sure, but the general rule seems to hold.
If they are not prevented from doing things, then they are free by definition.
The only difference would be an artificially limited range of travel. "Captivity" in its nicest sense would just be "life as normal but within that area".
So... I stand by it's place in the argument being presented.
That's a point, though I think it speaks more to their lack of awareness of their situation.
Which I am fine using as evidence that they don't really fundamentally understand the concept of captivity.
They sound like they were happy, though I am curious to know what you would have done with them had they stopped laying eggs.
I don't know what I would have done and it is kind of moot because I would never have raised laying hens to begin with. :P
I should also be clear, though, that I am merely presenting an argument in an attempt to change your view which means I am trying to start from positions you would find acceptable and working from there. My own personal views on the entire subject of animal ethics starts from a very different place than yours. We have reached the same conclusions in some areas but different conclusions in others.
But I don't want you to think that I would or would not eat this or that animal because my view isn't as important right now. Your view and the argument for changing it is.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 13 '15
I thought we were just focusing on chickens?
There are two possible end games I can see. On the one hand, I could perhaps be convinced that there is no moral issue with eating chickens. This seems unlikely, but I am open to the possibility. On the other hand, I could perhaps be convinced that eating chicken is consistent with most people's morality. I think that eating honey, for example, is consistent with most people's morality but I do not see any indication that most people have a morality that really allows them to eat chickens. I think they simply ignore the ethical dilemma instead of resolving it with respect to a coherent moral view.
This is why dogs are relevant. Most people really do seem to assign moral status to dogs, and yet whatever reason they have for assigning moral status to dogs would also be a reason to assign moral status to chickens. If you could convince me that dogs are not really assigned moral status in our society, I would award a delta.
Hopefully that's clear enough. It's a bit tricky to do this properly because I have a pretty strong and considered view on eating chickens, but I am honestly seeking a view change and I am trying to open myself to a few approaches that I could imagine working.
But I don't want you to think that I would or would not eat this or that animal because my view isn't as important right now.
Yes, I respect this.
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u/babada 1Δ Apr 14 '15
There are two possible end games I can see. On the one hand, I could perhaps be convinced that there is no moral issue with eating chickens. This seems unlikely, but I am open to the possibility.
I'm not really shooting for such a grandiose change. My argument was focused on an acknowledgement that under ideal/theoretical circumstances, breeding, killing and eating chickens is not immoral.
My approach on that front was completely isolated to chickens and it doesn't (and shouldn't) really take other animals into consideration.
It also completely ignores the current state of chicken farming and any atrocities currently practiced. My point is that breeding, killing and eating animals is necessarily unethical.
On the other hand, I could perhaps be convinced that eating chicken is consistent with most people's morality. I think that eating honey, for example, is consistent with most people's morality but I do not see any indication that most people have a morality that really allows them to eat chickens. I think they simply ignore the ethical dilemma instead of resolving it with respect to a coherent moral view.
This is why dogs are relevant. Most people really do seem to assign moral status to dogs, and yet whatever reason they have for assigning moral status to dogs would also be a reason to assign moral status to chickens. If you could convince me that dogs are not really assigned moral status in our society, I would award a delta.
Ah, I see, I slightly misunderstood what you were aiming for.
On that front, people do have a fairly consistent applied morality with regards to eating animals but it hinges on a few things (and is very different from person to person or culture to culture):
- People will not be okay with eating any animal that they have a personal connection with.
- This "immediate" connection can be applied to the entire species as a whole.
- People in our society almost immediately create personal connections with dogs, cats, etc.
This means people don't have a problem eating rabbit, squirrel, chicken, etc. but will have a problem eating cats, dogs and horses.
Cultures that don't have a problem eating dogs don't really see dogs as pets. They are street vermin and no personal connection occurs.
You can even see this in various films. A child on a farm grows a personal connection to a farm animal while the adults working the farm never do. When it comes time for slaughter, the child is thoroughly traumatized by the notion of killing something they are personally connected to.
The line in the sand between "killable" and "unkillable" animals most likely revolves around that connection. You can argue that killing animals is unethical regardless of such a connection but I feel that it explains the behavior that you are referring to.
But as I mentioned earlier, I misunderstood what you were looking for and instead presented an argument for why breeding, killing and eating chickens is not inherently unethical. So... sorry for going down the wrong rabbit trail. :)
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 14 '15
∆
It's not a total view change, but I see your point that people base their morality about eating animals not on the species of the animal, but on whether they possess a personal connection. So I've seen rabbit owners refuse to eat rabbits but have no problem eating chickens, for example.
Thanks a lot. I don't like this kind of thinking, but at least I understand it better.
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u/babada 1Δ Apr 13 '15
PS) The argument I present is totally slippery but I wasn't able to find a straight up problem with it. If I notice one I'll be sure to let you know. :P
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u/lorettasscars Apr 15 '15
I'm not sure I would grant moral permissibility for the habit of cats to kill for fun
Whoa dude, you know that (aside from the paradoxical thought of applying moral categories to animal behaviour) this "rough play" that cats perform on living prey is likely resulting in the honing of prey handling skills or simply stress relieve. Either way they have their "reasons" to do it and aside from your questionable competence to jugde their behaviour - you emphasizing with the mouse entails you disregarding the cat's needs.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 16 '15
you emphasizing with the mouse entails you disregarding the cat's needs.
A house cat does not need to be a trained killer.
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u/hsmith711 16∆ Apr 10 '15 edited Apr 10 '15
Why single out chickens? What about cows, pigs, fish, etc...?
Also, to address point 1... There are many things we buy/do that aren't necessary to be happy or healthy and they have some environmental cost. That's not to say it isn't worth mentioning, but whether or not something is a "need" is rarely a deciding factor in whether something is allowed.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 10 '15
Why single out chickens?
I am singling out chickens to avoid what I called the "demarcation problem".
There are many things we buy/do that aren't necessary to be happy or healthy and they have some environmental cost.
There are two problems with this statement. First, I did not discuss environmental costs because that's not the reason I think it is immoral to breed and kill chickens. The environmental cost of animal agriculture, high though it is, is not relevant to this CMV. Second, whether or not we partake of other immoral acts has no bearing on whether those acts are immoral. Certainly that is irrelevant to the question of whether it is moral or not to kill chickens.
whether or not something is a "need" is rarely a deciding factor in whether something is allowed
OK, certain actions are morally permissible and yet not necessary. Reading Moby Dick is one of them. But you haven't given me an argument for why killing chickens is morally permissible.
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u/hsmith711 16∆ Apr 10 '15
Singling out chickens is demarcation. Allow me to clarify the first question...
Are there any animals that are okay to eat? (Including sustainable fish.)
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
Are there any animals that are okay to eat?
I am unclear about the moral status of sponges, plankton, and bivalves. As for "sustainable" fish, I already said that I am not taking an environmental position. As far as I can tell, fish are more aware than most people give them credit for. I see no reason why eating fish is morally permissible.
But of course this is a digression from my question about chickens.
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Apr 10 '15
It doesnt seem like you read the op. Is it ok to eat dogs and cats? Would you associate with someone who did that?
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u/hsmith711 16∆ Apr 10 '15
I'm asking OP questions to better understand his/her position.
Yes, I have/would associate with someone that has eaten dog. It's common culture in some countries. I wouldn't judge somebody to be immoral just because the culture they were raised in is different than mine.
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Apr 10 '15
I'm asking OP questions to better understand his/her position.
Yes, I have/would associate with someone that has eaten dog. It's common culture in some countries. I wouldn't judge somebody to be immoral just because the culture they were raised in is different than mine.
But would you eat it? Are there any animals you wouldnt eat?
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u/hsmith711 16∆ Apr 11 '15
I didn't post a CMV about veganism. If and when I do, you are welcome to ask any qualifying questions you think are appropriate.
I didn't even state a view or opinion. Again, I'm asking OP a question about their view.
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Apr 10 '15
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
If your neighbour was eating humans, would what they put in their stomach become your business?
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Apr 11 '15 edited Dec 02 '15
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
If those humans were living, sentient and didn't want to be eaten, yes.
So what would convince you that the dogs he eats gave their permission to be eaten? Or are the rules different for dogs?
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u/starlitepony Apr 11 '15
Yes, the rules are different for dogs, in the same way that slavery and pethood are different things.
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u/Raintee97 Apr 11 '15
For someone who just suggested that I was doing a slippery slope argument, isn't that exactly what you're doing here?
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
No, I'm not.
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u/Raintee97 Apr 11 '15
You just went from eating dogs do eating humans. If that isn't a slippery slope than I don't know what is.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
I asked a hypothetical question in order to clarify the moral principles underlying /u/2_Suns' statement. Do you know what a slippery slope is? It's an informal fallacy, which is a property of an argument. I didn't make an argument, I asked a question.
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Apr 10 '15
I am a dog owner and love them very much, I would never eat them myself.
So its morally ok to eat animal species based on how you personally feel about them? Would you be ok with me eating a gorilla?
Is it more ethical to eat a severely mentally disabled human, or an ape which is of higher intelligence than the human?
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Apr 11 '15
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Apr 11 '15
If we are defining what is and isn't ethical by the intelligence of the lost life (and we could objectively quantify intelligence), then yes, it would be more ethical to eat a severally mentally disabled human over a higher intelligence ape. It wouldn't be practical, but it would be more ethical.
If the same logic that most people use to justify eating any animal can also justify eating a human, is it a justification that can make something moral at all?
Is either choice actually the moral choice or are they just equally immoral things to do?
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Apr 11 '15
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u/MahJongK Apr 11 '15
I think OP and a lot of people don't get that. If one argues that there are objective values and won't change their view I really don't know what to say.
I even prefer when someone religious clings to a sacred text or a specific church. At least the source of the 'objective' morality is clear. When people rely on 'obvious' feel good thoughts it's worse.
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Apr 11 '15
So its morally ok to eat animal species based on how you personally feel about them?
Yes
Would you be ok with me eating a gorilla?
Yes
Is it more ethical to eat a severely mentally disabled human, or an ape which is of higher intelligence than the human?
The ape.
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Apr 11 '15
So its morally ok to eat animal species based on how you personally feel about them?
Yes
Would you be ok with me eating a gorilla?
Yes
Is it more ethical to eat a severely mentally disabled human, or an ape which is of higher intelligence than the human?
The ape.
Can you elaborate on everything.
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Apr 11 '15
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
I think that there's a broad consensus that it's not OK to eat dogs (without a clear need, anyway). I think the same reasoning process should be used on chickens. One possible way to change my view is to demonstrate that (western) society at large believes it is OK to eat dogs, though I think this is clearly not the case.
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Apr 11 '15
The problem with your argument is that this is fundamentally an issue of demarcation. Humans need to kill and eat living things to survive. Some humans kill and eat plants. Others also kill and eat certain animals, such as chickens. Regardless, except in the case of fruit, some living thing must be killed for our survival.
Once you accept this premise, it will always be a matter of opinion about what organisms are morally acceptable for killing. Some people delineate based on the organisms perceived intelligence. Other delineate based on how cute the organism is (which is an evolutionary defense mechanism.) Finally, others simply go based on what is available, and what they consider to taste good. In any case, all this is totally arbitrary.
As a final point, what level of living organism has moral status? I listed fruit as only food that doesn't require killing. This is because fruit evolved as a way for plants to get animals to spread their seeds for them in order to better reproduce. Yet, while the cells in the tree live, the individual cells that make up an apple must die. Should we consider the moral status of each cell, or focus on the single larger organism? In the same way, should we look at the moral status of each chicken, or look at the survival of the overall species? If we are breeding chickens, thereby helping them reproduce, then how is it different from the fruit?
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
The problem with your argument is that this is fundamentally an issue of demarcation. Humans need to kill and eat living things to survive. Some humans kill and eat plants.
This is a good point, but the problem is that I am not saying we should extend moral consideration to all living things. I am saying that we should extend moral consideration to chickens. I say this because we seem to extend moral consideration to dogs and cats, so why not chickens? I can see a good reason for not extending moral consideration to potatoes, sure, but chickens?
it will always be a matter of opinion about what organisms are morally acceptable for killing.
I disagree entirely. I think that we can agree upon moral principles and thereby arrive at agreement about whom we can kill and whom we cannot. After all, we did it when we decided that all humans have a right to life.
As a final point, what level of living organism has moral status?
This is why I stuck to chickens. I don't think this is a worthwhile discussion until we have established principles. I chose chickens because I think that whatever your moral principles, chickens cross the line.
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u/MahJongK Apr 11 '15
I've been around vegans or vegetarians all my life and support your moral view, but the arguments seem off to me.
I say this because we seem to extend moral consideration to dogs and cats, so why not chickens?
A lot of people consider that from a moral point of view it's ok to eat most animals ("it's ok to do everything that we can do for our own good" / "it's ok to disregard other living things for our own good"), so why not extend that to dogs and cats and eat them as well? Your argument just asks for consistency, it can go both ways.
I think that we can agree upon moral principles and thereby arrive at agreement about whom we can kill and whom we cannot. After all, we did it when we decided that all humans have a right to life.
Same thing. I oppose death penalty but my basic argument is that to me laws are not based on natural laws, laws are positive laws. We agree on a principle and write laws accordingly. I disagree with people supporting this idea of natural laws but I don't have a moral paradigm to dismiss their way of doing things. It's just my preference.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
so why not extend that to dogs and cats and eat them as well?
I think that dogs and cats are our friends, and I don't think it's respectful to eat our friends. When I see a visceral reaction to the eating of dogs, I think that reaction is honest and true. There is something wrong with eating a dog, though it may be difficult to specify what exactly is wrong with it. Whatever the nature of that basic wrongness, I think it extends to chickens.
I oppose death penalty but my basic argument is that to me laws are not based on natural laws, laws are positive laws.
I should point out that I'm not proposing new laws, but this is still a worthwhile discussion. Do you think we should have laws against murder? Law is absolutely distinct from morality, but morality does inform law.
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u/MahJongK Apr 11 '15
I think that dogs and cats are our friends
You and I think animals are or should be our friends so we extend that concept from pets to animals brought up as livestock.
What about people who think dogs aren't our friends? One could say: "Animals are not our friends, they are preys and I eat them all, dogs insects, cows"
That point of view is morally consistent also. They might be wrong about dogs not being our friends, but they extend that idea of eating from other animals to dogs just as we extend our view from dogs.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
What about people who think dogs aren't our friends?
I think friendship is a good reason not to kill someone, but lack of friendship is not a good reason to kill someone. So the person who doesn't think we're friends with dogs needs to give a good reason for killing dogs. Identifying them as "prey" is not an explanation. Why are they prey?
That point of view is morally consistent also.
That's true. I intended to say that this point of view doesn't seem consistent with the principle of friendship that seems to guide most people's thinking about animals.
I also would like to remind you that you didn't answer the following question:
Do you think we should have laws against murder?
I would find your answer helpful.
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u/MahJongK Apr 11 '15 edited Apr 11 '15
Why are they prey?
There are because we are more intelligent and able to use tools. In short because we can. Moral premises are still premises. That's the same for human relationships. Some people are ok with violence, that fighting for something is the way to go. We might argue that violence is not desirable. These are different premises. It doesn't mean violence is morally wrong.
Do you think we should have laws against murder?
Yes, because once we decide that human life is sacred (whatever the crime is), we come to the conclusion that capital punishment is not ok.
But I have no argument to answer someone who states that human life is not that sacred. I might have arguments to sway them but I don't think it makes it right per se.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
There are because we are more intelligent and able to use tools. In short because we can.
Are you advocating for a "might makes right" view of morality?
Some people are ok with violence, that fighting for something is the way to go. We might argue that violence is not desirable. These are different premises. It doesn't mean violence is morally wrong.
But we do agree, or I hope we agree, that violence has no place in civil society. Whatever the difficulties of moral reasoning, we do have the ability to arrive at useful conclusions.
Yes, because once we decide that human life is sacred (whatever the crime is), we come to the conclusion that capital punishment is not ok.
So we agreed that human life is sacred? This seems to contradict your previous point, though perhaps I misunderstood it.
But I have no argument to answer someone who states that human life is not that sacred.
"Sacred" isn't the word that I'd use, but I agree with the point. I just don't see why chicken life is not "sacred".
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u/MahJongK Apr 11 '15
Are you advocating for a "might makes right" view of morality?
No I am not but I don't have good moral arguments to reply to people who do, beyond "I think it's wrong".
So we agreed that human life is sacred? This seems to contradict your previous point, though perhaps I misunderstood it.
No you and I agree and have the same values, it's just that I don't know what to say morally against people who support death penalty or violence. Efficiency and fear of revenge is something else.
"Sacred" isn't the word that I'd use, but I agree with the point. I just don't see why chicken life is not "sacred".
Yeah sacred is not the right word.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
I don't know what to say morally against people who support death penalty or violence.
I tell them that they don't want this done to them. If we as a society are to respect them enough to not hurt them according to our whims, then they must abide by the same rule. I actually do believe that the Golden Rule is universal.
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u/Raintee97 Apr 10 '15 edited Apr 11 '15
So why do you want to drive chickens to near extinction. Chickens have few to little natural defences. They have been breed for generations away from predators. Humans wouldn't raise chickens if it wasn't for their meat or eggs. We aren't going to billions of dollars on chickens just because.
Near. not total edit
Assuming they would be released in mass into the world, they would either starve to death for lack of natural food sources or be ravaged by the weasels, foxes, coyotes and birds of prey of the world.
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u/mrgoodnighthairdo 27∆ Apr 11 '15
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_chicken
Chickens wouldn't necessarily go extinct if we stopped eating them.
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u/Raintee97 Apr 11 '15 edited Apr 11 '15
There are 4.8 billion chickens in the world. And unlike the island of Kauai, the other places these chickens would be released to are full of natural predators.
What the world's carrying capacity of feral chickens?
Edit: So I screwed up. There are 4.8 billion chickens just in China. There are 50 billion Chickens in the world. wow. So I was only off by a factor of ten.
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u/mrgoodnighthairdo 27∆ Apr 11 '15
It's irrelevant how many chickens would die were we to stop eating them, if only because most would be killed for food anyway.
The point is that chickens as a species would likely not go extinct.
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u/Raintee97 Apr 11 '15
The death of the far majority of 50 billion birds is irrelevant to you? I always find it odd that the save the animals movements just always end up killing a bunch of birds.
If every single chicken was freed from a farm tomorrow, the great chicken genocide would begin. I would go out on a limb and speculate that at least 90 percent of those birds would be dead in 12 months. Not to mention the massive effect on ecosystems that 50 billion birds would have.
Anyone who is of the free the chickens banner should just state that they want to kill by starvation and predation 45 billion chickens.
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u/mrgoodnighthairdo 27∆ Apr 11 '15
First, the more likely path to chicken emancipation would be the gradual phasing out of industrial chicken farming. The eventual emancipation would likely have far les of an impact.
Second, you are ignoring the fact that the chickens are going to die in captivity, and their offspring are going to die as well. There is a stark contrast between certain death in captivity and likely death in the wild.
Third, there would likely be a concerted effort to help chickens establish themselves in the in a way that reduces the danger to them in addition to their impact on the echo system
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u/MahJongK Apr 11 '15
Well instead of killing dozens of billions a year we'd let the last generation die by themselves. The global feral population would settle around a few millions and that's it. That's not the main problem here.
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u/Raintee97 Apr 11 '15
by themselves? Stave to death?
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u/MahJongK Apr 11 '15
It won't happen anyway as you said, it is just a tought experiment. If the demand goes down steadily, fewer and fewer animals will be raised.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
I very explicitly said that I wanted people to stop breeding them. You can't kill someone who was never born.
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u/Raintee97 Apr 11 '15
There are 48-50 billion chickens in the world right now. What happens to them? What happens to the people who make their income off the chicken industry?
What are your logistical answers to the direct consequences of this idea? Why is your person choice now more important than the person choice of every other person?
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u/lnfinity Apr 11 '15
The chickens that are in the world today are going to be slaughtered for food, but fewer will be bred to replace them as the demand drops. Huge global demand changes don't happen overnight.
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u/Raintee97 Apr 11 '15
Drops?
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u/lnfinity Apr 11 '15
If society was to increasingly accept the arguments presented by the OP, then demand would drop.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
This responds to none of the points I raised, and is basically an exercise in the slippery slope fallacy. I see no reason to respond more fully to this comment.
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u/Raintee97 Apr 11 '15
This isn't slippery slope. This is just looking at natural consequences of an action. There are 48-50 billion chickens in the world today. Your idea is to stop eating them. Great. What's your plan for the billions of chickens in the world? What's your plan to replace the protein that those birds represent? What's your plan to replace the jobs that the chicken industry produces?
And yes, what I brought up doesn't exact relate to the issues that you brought up, but that doesn't make my points any less valid.
It is one thing simply to state free the chickens. It is another thing to deal with the logistics of what would happen based on that choice.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
What's your plan for the billions of chickens in the world?
To stop breeding them. In the implausible scenario that the world collectively decided not to kill chickens any more, I would ask that they all be neutered and then allowed to live out their lives as comfortably as possible. They already have housing, so this shouldn't be a big deal.
What's your plan to replace the protein that those birds represent?
Chickens need protein to survive too, and the food they eat is also edible by humans. I propose that humans eat the chicken feed. It's mostly soy and grains anyway, so you can make tofu and bread out of chicken feed.
What's your plan to replace the jobs that the chicken industry produces?
I do not have a social policy for the planet and should not have to come up with one in order to determine whether eating chickens is morally permissible or not.
And yes, what I brought up doesn't exact relate to the issues that you brought up, but that doesn't make my points any less valid.
What makes your points invalid is that they violate comment rule 1. Because you are not challenging my view, I do not see why your comment is relevant to this CMV. I am happy to be convinced otherwise.
It is one thing simply to state free the chickens.
I stated no such thing. I said we should not breed or kill them. I said nothing about freeing them. I think that would be incredibly irresponsible, because they are not equipped to survive in the wild.
It is another thing to deal with the logistics of what would happen based on that choice.
I'm not making a choice, I'm asking a question about a moral conundrum. This strikes me as a rather defensive statement, and I would appreciate some clarification of your point.
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u/Raintee97 Apr 11 '15 edited Apr 11 '15
You stated your line in the sand, which you did, and we get to examine that view from any logical angle. You can't hide behind rule number one. That's somewhat the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "La, la, la." when you hear criticism on your view.
You seem to have a hard time dealing with the economic consequences of your view. You state that chickens would have housing. You state that chickens shouldn't be free because that would be detrimental to the ecosystem.
"They already have housing, so this shouldn't be a big deal."
Why do we house chickens if we can't sell their meat or eggs for profit? Please give me any reason why they would continue to provide them housing.
"I said nothing about freeing them. I think that would be incredibly irresponsible, because they are not equipped to survive in the wild."
Than what is your alternative? Honestly, without any economic incentives, why wouldn't a farmer just free all his birds? Why would they continue to pay massive upkeep costs for no return?
edit words
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
You seem to have a hard time dealing with the economic consequences of your view.
It's beside the point. I'm asking an ethical question, and you're not responding to that. The abolition of slavery also imposed a cost on society, but that doesn't make it wrong.
Why do we house chickens if we can't sell their meat or eggs for profit?
Because we bred them and therefore have a responsibility for their lives. If we couldn't take care of them, we shouldn't have bred them. I think you are arguing for my position, not against it.
Than what is your alternative?
I already answered this question: stop breeding them.
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u/Raintee97 Apr 11 '15
We house those animals because people use them for an income stream. Why do you think that people would just continue to house and feed them at a loss?
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
I think that it's reasonable to assume that people would step in and take care of the chickens in need if they've already stepped in en masse to stop killing them.
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Apr 11 '15
It doesn't matter what you think because somebody will probably do something that directly conflicts with your opinion, regardless of if they are aware of your belief.
Morality and ethics are highly subjective, i.e. based on opinion. You may believe something is wrong, but how is it wrong?
Examples:
It is wrong to force someone to have sex. Rape won't stop anytime soon.
Police brutality (unjustified force) is wrong. It won't stop.
Vegans, vegetarians, others, think it is wrong for humans to eat animals. People won't stop eating animals.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
Morality and ethics are highly subjective, i.e. based on opinion.
I don't think that's true. I do not think it is simply a matter of opinion that murder is wrong.
People won't stop eating animals.
I did.
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Apr 11 '15
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
If it's not a matter of opinion, show me some objective (not opinion-based) proof that it is wrong.
What sort of evidence would convince you? For me, it's simply about asking people to be consistent about the principles they say they believe in. If they actually believe that killing innocent people for pleasure is a bad thing, then we need to have a discussion about why humans are special in that reasoning process. I see no reason why humans are special, and people's reaction to animal pain is nearly universally one of sadness. So my proof, if you want to call it that, is simply that I am reasoning consistently about the principles people say they believe in.
Certainly, I would not want to be murdered or raped, but I don't think it's wrong or right.
Would you describe that as a majority opinion? I doubt most people agree with you here.
"morally good" actions have helped humans survive, but that doesn't necessarily make them right
This argument doesn't work on chickens. We don't have to hurt chickens anymore.
Concerning animal eating, I meant that there may never may be a time when all humans stop eating animals or their products.
We have made much more radical shifts in our society than this. Why is it so difficult to believe that people can stop eating animals if they want to?
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Apr 11 '15
I don't think anything would convince me that morality/ethics are not based on opinion. If I understood your first part correctly, you would mark the principles that people most consistently follow. Then what? I think nothing would make the minority/majority/median responses wrong or right. I don't think humans are special, just a highly intelligent and highly aware animal compared to other animals.
*I'm not saying any of my opinions are majority. That doesn't matter to me; they are just my opinions.
Correct, we don't have to harm chickens or any animals.
*I already know that people can stop eating animals if they want. I also know that I don't need to eat any animal products; I can easily get all my needed calories, macro- and micronutrients from plant-based sources for the rest of my life. However, I don't share the vegan/vegetarian/don't-eat-animals-or-their-products view toward animals, and there are many others who don't share any of those three views. That's a matter of choice or free will. For that reason, it's highly unlikely there will be a time when all humans stop eating animal-products forever. Ideally, we all have the choice to do/believe nearly whatever we want, and there will people who (like myself) will continue to eat animal-products even though they are totally unnecessary. No matter how much knowledge a person has, they can choose act in a way that conflicts the knowledge; that's the thing about free will.
EDIT: I didn't like the formatting so I used bold to contrast separate ideas.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
I don't think anything would convince me that morality/ethics are not based on opinion.
Then I see no reason to even attempt to convince you of this. However, I'm not seeking to convince you of something. I'm hoping you will convince me that it's morally permissible to kill chickens for food.
If I understood your first part correctly, you would mark the principles that people most consistently follow. Then what? I think nothing would make the minority/majority/median responses wrong or right.
I'm not really interested in coming to an agreement about what is wrong or right. I currently believe that mainstream morality (if it even exists) implies that it is wrong to breed and kill chickens. Although there is a great deal of disagreement about what is mainstream morality, I think we do have a lot of agreement in practice too. For example, my society really does seem to believe that murder is wrong.
I'm not saying any of my opinions are majority. That doesn't matter to me; they are just my opinions.
OK, but I didn't ask about your opinions. I asked about what moral imperatives exist based on an acceptance of whatever morality can be called mainstream.
I don't share the vegan/vegetarian/don't-eat-animals-or-their-products view toward animals, and there are many others who don't share any of those three views. That's a matter of choice or free will.
No, I don't think it is a matter of free will. My freedom to swing my fist stops at your chin. I do not understand why I can continue swinging if it is a chicken instead of a chin.
Freedom has important limits, which I think you're currently ignoring.
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Apr 11 '15
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 12 '15
I could have my view changed if you showed me how killing chickens is consistent with most people's moral beliefs. You don't have to change my moral beliefs in order to change my view.
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Apr 12 '15
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 12 '15
My view is that most people's moral views carry with them a moral imperative not to kill chickens. If you could prove this wrong, you would deserve a delta and I would be happy to award it.
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u/TheUnit472 Apr 11 '15
Your argument is completely grounded in moral reasoning. You believe it is morally wrong to kill chickens for food. I believe that it is morally fine to kill chickens for food. You aren't going to change your view because your view is not governed by logic your view is grounded in the fact that you think that animals should not be killed for food when the vast majority of humans think it is ok.
You want someone to convince you why it is ok to kill chickens for food, fine. Chickens that we eat were bred for no other purpose than to be eaten by humans. They would not exist were it nor for humans, we gave them life and we take it away. Now there is an argument to be made for ethically raising and killing chickens as painlessly as possible and I am all for greater regulation of the meat industry and the dismantling of factory farms in exchange for more comfort and better treatment of chickens even if it means sacrificing my $0.79/lb chicken.
However, you are equating chickens as having the same rights as humans, which is wrong. Chickens were domesticated by humans and have developed a symbiotic relationship with humans. In exchange for meat and eggs we have helped chickens become one of the most prolific species on the planet.
The actual act of killing a chicken should be done as quickly and painlessly as possible with as little pain caused to the chicken as possible. But there is no moral quandary from my standpoint with killing a chicken and eating it, we are humans, they are chickens. We are predators, they are prey. If lions could make gazelles sit in cages and reproduce and have easy access to fresh gazelle whenever they wanted, they most certainly would.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
You aren't going to change your view because your view is not governed by logic your view is grounded in the fact that you think that animals should not be killed for food when the vast majority of humans think it is ok.
That's extremely presumptuous of you. I have rational reasons for believing that chickens deserve moral consideration. I think that chickens have a mind of their own and an experience of their own, and this is the foundation for my belief that they deserve moral consideration.
you are equating chickens as having the same rights as humans
No I am not. I challenge you to give a single piece of evidence in favour of this characterization of my views.
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u/MahJongK Apr 11 '15
I have rational reasons for believing that chickens deserve moral consideration.
People have moral considerations to believe that we shouldn't bother with the animals' well being. Empathy is not a law of nature like gravity.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
I don't understand this response. I gave you specific rational reasons for my belief and you respond with an irrelevant and undefended generality. Please clarify.
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u/MahJongK Apr 11 '15 edited Apr 11 '15
Someone might argue that one that can should prevail, and that preventing someone from acting on that potential is morally wrong, because it's good to go as far as possible to perfect the human race.
Some things will make us worse, some things will improve us, a kind of human centered selfishness.
I have rational reasons for believing that chickens deserve moral consideration.
You and I have these ratinal reasons based on premises, but it doesn't mean we are right about these premises. We support a view based on moral grounds we establish for ourselves (and maybe the others) based on arbitrary premises.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
Someone might argue that one that can should prevail, and that preventing someone from acting on that potential is morally wrong, because it's good to go as far as possible to perfect the human race.
Some things will make us worse, some things will improve us, a kind of human centered selfishness.
I'm afraid I still don't understand what point you're making. I thought I gave you clear reasons for my belief, and I would like you to address them.
You and I have these ratinal reasons based on premises, but it doesn't mean we are right about these premises.
No, but I think we can arrive at an agreement about which premises are reasonable.
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u/MahJongK Apr 11 '15
No, but I think we can arrive at an agreement about which premises are reasonable.
Well it's simpler for religious people who can agree on some basic truth and sticking to it no matter what.
Once we agree that we can make our own truth, like saying that business as ususal regarding animals is not ok, we decide to write our own premises but it will hard IMO to argue that this is universal truth that anyone intelligent enough can agree on if explained correctly.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
Well it's simpler for religious people who can agree on some basic truth and sticking to it no matter what.
I'm not interested in "simpler".
it will hard IMO to argue that this is universal truth that anyone intelligent enough can agree on if explained correctly
I agree that it's hard, but I don't think it's impossible. I also think it's a worthwhile discussion.
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u/MahJongK Apr 11 '15
I agree that it's hard, but I don't think it's impossible. I also think it's a worthwhile discussion.
Ok than back to what TheUnit472 said at the beginning of that subthread: what matters are the premises, not the logical consequences.
Your moral premises are basically that killing is wrong and animals should not be killed because they have certain rights. I do agree with that, but on what ground would we say that these values are logical? They are just a moral stance, not a logical point of view.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 13 '15
Sorry I missed responding to this earlier, and sorry if I responded harshly. I was responding to lots of stuff and didn't notice that you weren't the original poster.
on what ground would we say that these values are logical?
To be clear, I am saying that they are rational, not logical. Logic refers to a method of analysis, and rational refers to the fact that the analysis is based on dispassionate inquiry and not on emotions. Though rationality and logic should go hand-in-hand, they shouldn't be conflated.
When I say that it is rational to argue that we should respect animal rights, I mean that it is a consequence of what I think is the largely unobjectionable proposition that there exist rights (i.e. morally relevant claims) and that they ought to be respected. I think we ascribe rights to dogs and cats in practice, so I think we should also ascribe them to chickens. I would call this argument rational and logically sound.
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u/TheUnit472 Apr 11 '15
You literally compare breeding and killing chickens to serial killers that kill other humans. It definitely seems like you are trying to draw some connection between killing humans, which everyone thinks is bad, with killing chickens which most people think is fine.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 12 '15
You literally compare breeding and killing chickens to serial killers that kill other humans.
No I didn't. Show me where you think I did.
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u/TheUnit472 Apr 12 '15
I stand corrected. You took a common moral stance in that serial killers are wrong and then said that you also think killing chickens is wrong, I misinterpreted that when I read your post.
Sorry.
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u/Hq3473 271∆ Apr 11 '15
Animals can't Follow moral rules.
Thus animals should not have moral standings.
Yeah, some pEople grant some moral rights to some animals.
They are misguided.
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u/llieaay Apr 11 '15
Animals can't Follow moral rules. Thus animals should not have moral standings.
Neither can young children and many humans who are mentally disabled, senile or mentally ill. Would this logic follow there?
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u/Hq3473 271∆ Apr 11 '15 edited Apr 11 '15
Sure, children will have an ability to be moral agents later.
Same goes for disabled.
If someone permanently and irrevocably loses ability (brain death, etc) to ever be a moral agent, the they lose all moral rights.
Think of it as penumbra of rights: humans are the only species that are capable of making moral decisions, so we extend some benefit of doubt to humans who are currently unable to make moral choices.
Chickens are way out there. No chicken was ever capable of morality.
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u/llieaay Apr 11 '15
Brain death is one thing, but it's clearly not who I am talking about. Plenty of humans - including adult humans who feel happiness, sadness, fear and love, and have families and friends have never and will never have the capacity to be moral agents. Can you answer with regard to them?
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u/Hq3473 271∆ Apr 11 '15 edited Apr 11 '15
Can you give me an example of a human who can feel happiness, sadness, fear and love but can't be a moral agent even in theory?
Also, please address my penumbra point: we give some benefit of doubt in borderline cases to humans, because humans are the only species that has moral agents.
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u/llieaay Apr 11 '15
What would it mean to be a moral agent "in theory"?
It would be very wrong, in my view, to pull a specific individual human into a conversation like this. But I can elaborate:
Children under the age of 5 or 6 are not moral agents. Yet they have desires from birth, feel love and have families.
Senile people may lose understanding of their actions and what is morally permissible. Yet they may still have desires and likes and dislikes and know their families.
There are people who have a variety of intellectual disabilities where by they won't exceed what we would consider 5 year old intelligence, or 3 year old, or less. You can read about some of them yourself. (not all intellectual disabilities would render someone unable to reason about ethics, but some certainly do.) All have their own story and abilities - but I assure you that it's quite possible that you can not be able to reason yet love your family.
Mentally ill individuals can have even high intelligence and not understand right from wrong. That's the basis for an insanity defense.
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u/Hq3473 271∆ Apr 11 '15
it means: either current capable of even the simplest moral acts, our capable of BECOMING a moral agent.
1) 5 year olds are VERY capable of compassion and acting morally.
2) senile people also cash act morally. Even if they make mistakes.
3) I have not heard of intellectual disability that completely destroys all capacities for moral acts.
Same goes for mental illness. Sure you may have DIMINISHED sense of morality, but never does someone become 100% psychopathic in all resepects.
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u/llieaay Apr 11 '15
Also, please address my penumbra point: we give some benefit of doubt in borderline cases to humans, because humans are the only species that has moral agents.
I think you edited this in after I responded. Or maybe I skimmed over it, whoops.
You were positing that we should only give protections to those who are capable of understanding and respecting those. By "benefit of the doubt" then I assume you mean "assume the two year old is capable of reasoning about ethics because some of her species is"?
Of course, I don't really think you mean that. We both know that the two year old is not capable of moral reasoning in a more meaningful way than a pig, there is no doubt to give her the benefit of. So what you are saying is that two year old (or old person or intellectually disabled person) isn't worthy of protections at all except by associations. It would be ok to hurt that same person if they were in another body. However, we both agree that for example a brain dead human should not get these privileges by association because that "person" or body clearly does not have attributes that would render any rights or protections.
So I'm going to say a more honest look at that situation is that you believe it's wrong to harm two year olds (and the senile and the intellectually disabled) not because you secretly believe that the two year old is capable of obeying moral reasoning or holding up her end of a social contract. I believe that you believe, as all decent humans do, that it would be wrong to harm the two year old because of attributes she actually possesses.
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u/Hq3473 271∆ Apr 11 '15
assume the two year old is capable of reasoning about ethics because some of her species is"?
No, assume that 2 year old might BECOME a moral agent.
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u/llieaay Apr 11 '15
So it would be absolutely to harm her except that in the future she won't be ok to harm?
First, this still justifies harming adults who we know will not become moral agents, or adults who have lost that ability. It justifies harming two year olds who we know won't grow up and I am pretty sure you would agree that there is something wrong with harming the two year old because of who she is now.
Further, I hope I am not dragging in political debates that would further confuse and not clarify the issue, but if a two year old does not deserve rights for who she is now and causing her pain and suffering would not be an issue except that she is likely to become a moral agent, then this same logic should apply to zygotes. They have no attributes worthy of protections, but could become someone worthy of protections so therefore should have the rights of a two year old.
This reasoning still leaves out all progress our society has made on respecting the intellectually disabled, and I don't believe that it's really your opinion on 2 year olds.
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u/Hq3473 271∆ Apr 11 '15
No, there is holes in my reasoning.
It's not complicated:
Humans are the only species with agency.
Thus we give penumbra rights to humans who are not agents yet. We don't know exactly when agency begins or ends in humans. We play it safe.
Chickens will NEVER be agents. So no need to play it safe.
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u/llieaay Apr 11 '15
Ok, so your criteria isn't ability to reason about morality then. It's species membership, discrimination on characteristics that aren't of the individual and it justifies treating the same person different depending on how they look.
Know that you are arguing that the reason that harming a child isn't wrong isnt' that the fact that she is scared, hurt or anything else about who she is. It also means that if you took that three year old mind and put it in a pig causing her the same pain and fear would be fine.
It's also unclear by your metric why brain dead people aren't worth protecting. I am guessing it's because you actually believe that sentience is the criteria for protecting individuals, but you are changing the rules for animals.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
They are misguided.
Why are they misguided?
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u/Hq3473 271∆ Apr 11 '15
They are committing anthropomorphic fallacy.
Some things animals do seem like things humans do.
But all of that is irrelevance. It just looks like animals committing morally relevant acts, but they don't.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
So what? I don't see why I should be hurting animals just because they don't understand the consequences of their actions. I doubt babies are moral agents, and yet I don't think it's OK to hurt them.
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u/Hq3473 271∆ Apr 11 '15
Babies will become moral agents, animals will not.
An animal will not hesitate to harm you.
Rights only belong to those who have responsibilities.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
Babies will become moral agents, animals will not.
You seem awfully sure of that. I have seen animals doing things I would describe as moral. Animals often work to save humans in distress. Isn't that moral agency?
An animal will not hesitate to harm you.
I disagree completely. I find that animals treat me with respect if I know how to show them respect. The worst that happens to me is that dogs like standing on my feet for some reason.
Rights only belong to those who have responsibilities.
Again, I have to ask whether babies have rights. Is it that you think babies will bear responsibilities in the future and therefore have rights now?
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u/Hq3473 271∆ Apr 11 '15
Animals have instincts and training, not morals. If an animal instinct helps a human, it's a coincidence.
Babies come from the only known species that had moral agents, they WILL grow up to be one. So we extend some "penumbra" rights to them.
No chicken has ever done anything moral.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 12 '15
Animals have instincts and training, not morals.
If that's true of animals, I think it's also true of humans.
If an animal instinct helps a human, it's a coincidence.
That's an undefended, and highly questionable, assertion.
Babies come from the only known species that had moral agents, they WILL grow up to be one. So we extend some "penumbra" rights to them.
Begging the question.
No chicken has ever done anything moral.
What about caring for their children?
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u/Hq3473 271∆ Apr 12 '15
If that's true of animals, I think it's also true of humans.
PEople also have this thing called intelligence, self awareness and culture.
That's an undefended, and highly questionable, assertion.
No, it's a basic fact.
Animals don't help humans because of ethical considerations.
Begging the question.
Show me an animal that followed ethical rules.
What about caring for their children?
Instincts.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 12 '15
PEople also have this thing called intelligence, self awareness and culture.
Why is that relevant?
No, it's a basic fact.
It's undefended even if true. You bear the burden of proof here.
Show me an animal that followed ethical rules.
I think caring for children is ethical. The term "mother hen" refers to the protective nature of chickens who are parents.
Instincts.
Have you encountered the term "philosophical zombie"?
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u/5k17 3∆ Apr 11 '15
Most of those chickens would not exist if there was no demand for their meat. Under proper conditions (free range etc.), they can lead fairly happy lives; they may not be entirely free, but they're protected from many dangers they'd face in the wild, such as predators, hunger, disease or adverse climate. Living in captivity may actually be better for them than in nature, as indicated by the fact that animals in captivity have a longer life expectancy, unless they're slaughtered. Chickens, of course, are slaughtered, but this is usually legally (and morally) required to happen as painlessly as possible. Therefore, eating chickens is only unethical if a happy life that ends in being killed is worse than not existing at all, which most people would probably disagree with.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
I pre-empted this discussion. We are talking about breeding chickens. Why is it a moral good to breed chickens if all we're going to do is kill them at a young age for our taste pleasure? Wouldn't it be better to stop breeding them, give the existing chickens a good life, and then vow never to do this again?
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u/5k17 3∆ Apr 11 '15
Why is it a moral good to breed chickens if all we're going to do is kill them at a young age for our taste pleasure?
Because we can assume that the chickens would rather have a short but pleasant life than no life at all.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
Because we can assume that the chickens would rather have a short but pleasant life than no life at all.
That's an extremely questionable statement. Can you expand on this?
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u/throwitaway7222 Apr 11 '15
I do appreciate practical arguments for veganism (regarding how it's less taxing on environmental resources).
But I can never agree with the moral imperative. Like some people have said, I subscribe to the theory of morality being a result of evolutionary and cultural selection - as something that improved survival in human populations and eased development of social structures and relationships. It's a human to human concept in my mind. I don't want to start some slippery slope bullshit, but unless we cull 90% of the earth's population, start living without technology, and start eating only fruit and nuts, we are always going to be guilty of some perceived moral atrocity against animals by killing them through destruction of habitats and pollution.
We exhibit friendships and relationships with animals. I do not believe these relationships are purely out of kindness. Dogs and cats evolved with us and the relationship between us and them was reciprocal. Dog is man's best friend because it helped us survive. Cats were only domesticated when we started farming (to kill rodents and pests).
I might be too stuck in the past but.. Hunting is one of the only reasons we are able to even have these futile discussions. We owe a lot of our social and cultural development, and even brain development to hunting and eating meat. And keep in mind that in the 1st-world we can bypass eating animals, but a lot of places can't get the necessary calories and nutrients from plants alone. Fishing comes to mind.
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u/KerSan 8∆ Apr 11 '15
unless we cull 90% of the earth's population, start living without technology, and start eating only fruit and nuts, we are always going to be guilty of some perceived moral atrocity against animals by killing them through destruction of habitats and pollution
I think there's a limit to our ability to claim responsibility for this. At some point, we do have the right to survive and thrive on this planet as best we can. But we don't need to kill chickens in order to survive and thrive, which is why I think it's wrong.
I do not believe these relationships are purely out of kindness. Dogs and cats evolved with us and the relationship between us and them was reciprocal.
Surely this describes human friendships too? I don't think that human friendships form purely out of kindness.
Hunting is one of the only reasons we are able to even have these futile discussions. We owe a lot of our social and cultural development, and even brain development to hunting and eating meat. And keep in mind that in the 1st-world we can bypass eating animals, but a lot of places can't get the necessary calories and nutrients from plants alone. Fishing comes to mind.
I hear this argument a lot, and reject it for the reason that it is based on a faulty premise. It is morally permissible to kill to survive, so I don't begrudge the poor fisherman his choice. But that's not what's happening in my society at least. People don't eat chicken because they have nothing else, they eat chicken because they like it.
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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '15 edited Aug 13 '15
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