Debate:Eating meat is wrong

This is a Debate page. Feel free to add your own spin on the story. Please keep it civil! This debate was created by Tom Moore..

Proposition

The consumption of meat products is morally wrong because it causes enormous suffering to sentient creatures and is causing disastrous harm to our planet.

"Meat" for the purposes of this debate is defined as the body parts of animals. These animals include pigs, cows, chickens, and other land mammals. It shall also include fish and sea creatures such as shrimp or oysters. For the purposes of this debate (purely for the sake of scope), "eating meat" shall not include the consumption of cheese or eggs, the wearing of leather, or the use of other animal byproducts (such as the cow hooves that compose the glue holding the wood joists of your house together).

"Morally wrong" means that the practice goes against personal ethical considerations. These may vary from individual to individual, but in my case refer to a system of intellectually-derived moral guidelines that make use of the veil of ignorance and the principle of universality. The whole of my moral system being too difficult to expound to any useful length, I will instead only address individual objections to this characterization. For example, I cannot adequately answer the question, "What are your morals?", but I could answer the proposition, "It's not wrong because animals eat each other, so we might as well do so."

"Sentient" means the quality of being able to perceive pain or discomfort. It will be assumed that animals possess a lesser level of sentience than humans - in some way, their "hurt" doesn't mean as much as ours might - but that animals still do possess sentience and are capable of hurting or being miserable (not emotionally, but as a physical feeling) due to their treatment or living conditions.

Note: It is impossible to prove or disprove the proposition that animal suffering is somehow just different from human suffering and therefore doesn't matter. This seems to be something that is inherently impossible to know, and I would suggest that it is a belief that springs mostly from a desire to assuage human guilt and not from any real reasoning or evidence. This can be addressed, but I will scrutinize and challenge anything I consider to be magical thinking.

It will be assumed for this debate that global climate change is probably occurring and is a serious threat to the planet. You may disagree on this score, but such a disagreement is beyond the scope of this debate.

It will be assumed that ethical actions are desirable. You may be a nihilist, but such a disagreement is beyond the scope of this debate (but I will say that you are silly right now anyway).

It will be assumed that if you are providing a statistic, quote, or other objective fact that you have some way to prove it, and can provide it here. Many items are misleading, easily understood, or deserve strong scrutiny because of their source. You don't have to cite yourself as you go, but please know that it is very reasonable to expect such a request.

It will be assumed that "eating meat" is understood to more specifically refer to the production, storage, and waste associated with that practice. Lowering these associated factors is more moral, and if it were possible to eliminate them it would be only mildly wrong - it would amount to the curtailing of the natural life of the animal, which morality may be more questionable.

99% of the meat that is eaten today comes from factory farming and industrial fishing. The animals in factory farms live in terrible conditions and suffer enormously. Chickens have their beaks cut off to stop them from going insane and hurting each other. Injured cows are thrown into vast piles to slowly suffocate. Large fish are stabbed through the eye and allowed to drown thrashing in the air. Even meat that is labeled as "organic" or "farm-raised" or any other label is almost inevitably actually a product of factory farming or industrial fishing, thanks to unbelievably lax enforcement of unbelievably lax laws, and highly inconsistent practices from one country to another. From the start of their lives to the brutal end, the land animals that are eaten as food continually suffer pain and discomfort. They die in squawking, screaming, writhing masses by the billions. Their lives and deaths are heavily tax-subsidized in America (and presumably in other countries as well) to make it affordable to kill and eat them in such huge quantities with so little apparent expense to the end consumer.

To cause the massive suffering and death of sentient creatures, capable of perceiving that suffering and pain, is wrong.

Further, factory farming and fishing (or as I shall say, the "food industries") are far and away the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. They are responsible for more than 40% of all methane emissions and 62% of all nitrous dioxide emissions, not counting the incidental fraction of industrial and transportation emissions that are also ultimately devoted to food industries. Little CO2 is produced by the food industries directly, but when it is considered that methane produces eight times the greenhouse effect of CO2 (for example), it becomes apparent that the food industries are the worst perpetrator in the creation of global warming.

Further, the local damage done by the food industries staggers any attempt to summarize it. Massive pig farms flush tons of nitrous waste into the waters, which swell with algae and kill entire ecosystems. Out of 35 species of seahorses, 20 are endangered because of shrimp farming - a process wherein 26 pounds of seahorses and small crabs and a thousand other tiny creatures are killed and discarded for every single pound of shrimp produced.

Eating meat is wrong.--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 05:31, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Responses

Humans have canines, humans have a colon, humans have a stomach designed to handle meat. Morals do not come in to it - we are animals and the moral side only comes about due to our higher intellect and says nothing about our nutritional needs. Ace^McWicked 05:21, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

We can meat meet our nutritional needs without eating meet meat. TheoryOfPractice 05:30, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

If God didn't want us to eat animals, He wouldn't have made them out of meat. SoldierInGodsArmy 05:23, 10 November 2009

If God (heehee, how cute, you believe in God!) didn't want us to eat people, he wouldn't have made them out of meat, too. TheoryOfPractice 05:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

But that's cannibalism, which can be argued against solely on the fact that it spreads unique and sometimes deadly diseases and infections. SoldierInGodsArmy 05:38, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

so does eating meat--e coli, mad cow, that nasty bowel infection I got in Tanzania, any one of a number of bacteria that thrive on the effluvium produced through meat production...TheoryOfPractice 05:39, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Humans can eat meat. We can also not eat meat. Humans can rape. We can also not rape. I am suggesting that just like it is immoral to rape (something we can do and have done, and even morally sanctioned on occasion), it is immoral to eat meat (something we have done and can do and even morally sanctioned on occasion).--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 05:31, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Wow, you did not just compare eating meat to rape, I hope. I smell a Godwin coming soon. The Spikey Punk ^{I'm punking my punk!} 05:33, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I did, actually. In fact, it's pretty appropriate. Rape is prevalent throughout the animal kingdom and human history, so if we're going to be biological determinists, that means my Saturday nights are going to be busy.--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 05:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

T-minus 5 edits to Godwin! Gooniepunk2010 ^{Oi! Oi! Oi!} 05:37, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Repeatedly shrieking "Godwin" is exactly what the Nazis did. So if you keep doing it, you're just like Hitler.--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 05:40, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Tom is correct on both ethical and environmental grounds.--Bob^{Not Jim} 07:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Moral Compass

I knew the "moral compass" argument would come into it. Raping and Murder disrupt our social order, hence it is not wise. Eating animals does not disrupt our social order hence morals are irrelevant. Ace^McWicked 05:39, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Global warming--and meat production contributes to that--will disrupt our social order. So will masses of hungry people (producing grain to eat directly is a far more effective way of transforming land, sunshine and water into food than is producing grain to feed to animals to eat and then eating the animals.) TheoryOfPractice 13:56, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

That is true, if you think the social order is the sole factor for morality. But consider if you think it would be moral to torture a dog in your home. Most people - including you, I suspect - would say it is not moral to do that, for much the same reason other kinds of cruelty to animals are wrong.--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 05:43, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll say with a straight face that torturing a dog is wrong but killing and eating a dog is not. Morals are not involved. Ace^McWicked 05:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Why is torturing a dog wrong? It doesn't disrupt the social order. Clearly, something about intentional causing suffering to animals is wrong in your eyes. So why is it okay to do so on a massive scale?--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 05:48, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, actually torturing animals is disruptive to our social order. It signifies an abhorrent behaviour pattern Ace^McWicked 05:55, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

So you're saying that if it was commonly accepted, it would be okay? If everyone went home after work and strung up a dog on the rack, then cut it open for fun, would that be fine with you since it was no longer indicative of an abhorrent behavior pattern? Not to be melodramatic, but if group consensus and patterns of social acceptability determine moral correctness in such instances, then doesn't that mean such practices as human gladiatorial games in Rome would be moral?--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 06:08, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

To be frank, yes. Morals follow a largely societal pattern. But pyschopaths, in their earlier phases, torture animals. It is a sign of a defunct empathy sense which is harmful to a co-operative society. Ace^McWicked 06:14, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

(ui)I appreciate your frankness, Ace. I disagree in what I suppose is a fundamental way - I don't see how morality by consensus is right. But I guess that's beyond the scope of this debate. Luckily, though, my argument is two-pronged; even if it were okay to cause the suffering and death of animals, it is still wrong to harm the environment to the extent to which the food industry does.--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 06:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

So as stated below your quibble is the environmental impact? Think about it this way - would Humans have evolved as we have if we were not meat eaters? This is before there were any environmental impact but animals were killed in a savage manner. Ace^McWicked 06:23, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think I'm qualified to answer your question. I have seen it suggested that no, we would not have. It is also possible, though, that murder was also necessary for our evolution. Perhaps the systematic elimination of competing bands of other homo erectus was necessary for the evolution of the successful band. That doesn't make murder morally right now that we know better and can do otherwise, though.

I don't think anthropogenic global warming and the massive destruction to worldwide aquatic ecosystems, or the vast rivers of animal feces that contaminate large tracts of land, can be fairly characterized as "quibbles," by the way.--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 06:40, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Murder may well have been a requirement for our survival, but now we call it war. Again, it is not considered "immoral". Secondly the quibbles are not moral barriers to eating meat - only to its production. Ace^McWicked 07:31, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Serious response: Eat meat. Don't eat meat. Who cares! Just don't try to force your pro- or anti-meat decision on me. SoldierInGodsArmy 05:40, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Apathy is your right, of course.--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 05:44, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Harvesting

Let me ask you this, Tom: Is it okay that many animals are killed brutally by the machines that harvest your vegetables? Here's an article you may not like to swallow, but I find it quite intriguing. The Spikey Punk ^{I'm punking my punk!} 05:42, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I was aware of this, and no, it's not okay. Ideally, that problem would be reduced or eliminated.--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 05:44, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Reduced how? The Spikey Punk ^{I'm punking my punk!} 05:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know. I don't know enough about the process.--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 05:46, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Putting it into perspective, though, is the central question: If you know animals are being killed to harvest your vegan/vegetarian food anyways, then what makes eating meat so reprehensible? Especially when the corpses of the animals killed for, say, grain production, lay to waste anyways? AnarchoGoon ^{Swatting Assflys is how I earn my living} 05:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it is too bad that there are so many animals killed during grain production, but it should be remembered that (a) they are not intentionally killed, and so it is less wrong just like manslaughter is less wrong than murder (b) those animals do not live in terrible, human-imposed conditions and so they suffer rather less than a broiler chicken that goes from egg to blade in perpetual dusk, covered with feces, and crammed into a tiny space in a manner wholly contrary to their more favored conditions. Ideally, as I said, the problem of incidental death in vegetable production would be assuaged as well as meat-eating entirely being eliminated, but practically I must tackle one problem at a time. The intentional suffering and slaughter in the food industries is the more immediate problem, in other words.--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 05:56, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

(EC) From an entirely utilitarian perspective, there are less animals killed during harvesting then by abattoirs, therefore it is more moral. - π 05:57, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

How do you know less are killed when no studies have been done to count how many are? And, still, that means animals are killed so that Tom can have a salad. Gooniepunk2010 ^{Oi! Oi! Oi!} 06:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

(EC)Animals killed by harvesting + animals killed for meat > animals killed by harvesting. And I said a utilitarian perspective. - π 06:06, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

If you have a dollar to charity, how much of a dick would I have to be to suggest you were being a hypocrite because you didn't give two dollars, or two hundred? Each person's ability to balance practical living and moral living is their own call to make. I maintain, however, that eating meat is wrong. Perhaps you think I am therefore doing something wrong, but it is still wrong, is it not?--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 06:05, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Problems with your premise

The problem with your premise Tom is not that eating meat is wrong but the production, storage and waste combined with meat production is wrong. Not eating meat for the reasons you mention is a fine position to take however to say that having meat as part of healthy diet is morally wrong is ludicrous. I would like to continue but my roast chicken dinner is just out the oven. Ace^McWicked 05:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

That's a very good point, and I spoke inaccurately. More accurately, the production, storage, and waste of meat production is wrong. Were it possible to produce meat from animals that had not suffered or died, it would not be wrong. Eating meat in and of itself is not wrong. Practically speaking, however, the two ideas are inseparable unless you engage in the most careful practices. I will, however, alter my premises accordingly. Thank you.--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 05:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Case Study

Recently in NZ we had this case. A Samoan gent slaughtered and cooked his dog for the family BBQ. There was outrage from white NZer's however the practice is quite common in Samoa and the Samoan community did not consider it "morally wrong" to do so. So is it morally wrong to you Tom? Ace^McWicked 06:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, although much less so that roasting a chicken for the BBQ would be. The dog (presumably, anyway) suffered relatively little, and (presumably) the process did relatively little harm to the environment. In contrast, dog farms I have seen in Korea are brutal. As in so many things, it's a question of degree and scale.--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 06:21, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

So then it is relevative to your feelings on the matter? To some the idea of the dog is far worse. Ace^McWicked 06:26, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I know that many think that dogs shouldn't be eaten. The idea seems to stem from companion animals as a protected group; it seems as though people often think we shouldn't eat those animals that we are also friends with, like horses, cats, or dogs. I see no value or reason to this argument. To the contrary, I think that such feelings are actually discomfort from having the inconsistency of our views pointed out to us. Pigs are just as smart, affectionate, and fun to have around as dogs - in many cases, far more so. To me, the things that make the practice wrong are the suffering and environmental impact, and in the example you cite it seems as though both of those things are of a much lower degree. It's not just my "feelings," although of course my judgment is involved (as in all moral calls).--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia} 06:36, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Organic Meat

Whenever possible I eat organic meat because I'm concerned about some of the same issues as you: animal welfare being the prime example. When an animal is reared in good surroundings, fed a proper diet and allowed space to roam, is that still "wrong" in your belief? –SuspectedReplicant^{retire me} 07:28, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, at the risk of being accused of advertising, Londoners can do much worse than these people. I don't use them any more because it's difficult for them to deliver to my flat, but when I did the food was always good and delivered direct to your door. I don't believe they operate much outside the capital though. –SuspectedReplicant^{retire me} 07:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I play cricket with a guy who was a devout vegetarian for most of his life because of the original argument at the top (animals suffering because of intensive farming), but a few years ago he was watching something on telly like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall who was pointing out how local, small range farmers who bring up their chickens outdoor free range and organic were selling them for only a few pounds more at local farmers markets. He then realised that him not eating meat at all doesn't make a difference, because the industry gets pushed even further down the intensive farming route to make the process cheaper. So since then he has started eating meat again, but only locally sourced outdoor reared / free range meat from his local farmer's markets and farm shop. The idea is, the more people who support these farming methods, the more the demand will be driven away from intensive farming. Personally I thought that was one of the more intelligent vegetarian actions, rather than "Meat is bad, mmkay?" with lots of irritating preaching to people who don't live off soya, lentils, and quorn. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 08:46, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

If we take the environmental argument for vegetarianism then organic farming would reduce the impact - though it would still be significant. See this New Scientist article. There is also the question of efficiency and scalability. Most food is not produced organically because it's not the most efficient way to produce food. If all food were produced organically there would be a net reduction in the food produced by the planet. Finally, while an "organically reared" animal might have a happier life, its death would probably be as unpleasant as any other. Having said that I'm personally far more concerned about the environmental impacts then the ethical ones. But that's me being selfish.

Organic food is a great way to ensure that rich people have access to a better and less ethically-troubling diet than poor people. Until organic food is no longer a prohibitively expensive way for poor people to feed themselves, it's not really viable as anything but a status marker. TheoryOfPractice 14:05, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

What about carnivore animals?

Some vegans have pets and make them eat a vegan diet. Is that morally right? Would the OP find some vegans' ideal world, of all animals being herbivore, morally right? (hmm, reminds me of those "dinosaurs were herbivores before original sin" fundies). The fact is, that death and eating of meat are an essential part of nature - twist nature and I'll find you morally wrong. Editor at CP^{mały książe} 09:32, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

For me the major problem is the vast amount of methane produced by current farming methods. Carnivorous pets make little difference to this argument.--Bob^{Not Jim} 11:13, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

"eating of meat [is] an essential part of nature." Right, but what's required to give billions of people a meat-based diet is decidedly NOT a part of nature, and in fact is detrimental to nature. TheoryOfPractice 13:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Leather

I'm interested in why you exempt leather and other by-products from discussion here. Ok, the issue of egg-farming & dairy-farming is a little more complicated, although pretty closely related with meat-farming in most cases. But are you saying that it is moral to wear leather but not to eat meat? I don't understand how you can condemn a whole industry while condoning consumption of its secondary products. Wēāŝēīōīď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 13:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Eating meat is 100% correct, having so many people is wrong

There, I said it. ^{— Sincerely, Neveruse513 / Talk / Block} 14:02, 10 November 2009 (UTC)