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Bye bye MEAT! How will the post-meat future look?

How reluctant are you to give up your meat habit?

  • I’m already veggie or vegan as any right thinking person should be!

    Votes: 49 25.0%

  • I can take it or leave it, I won’t miss meat

    Votes: 31 15.8%

  • I’d give up meat if I could think what else to cook, but I can’t

    Votes: 7 3.6%

  • I’m reluctant to change, but I accept the need

    Votes: 34 17.3%

  • It’s unimaginable that I won’t have meat in most / all meals - I’ll probably starve

    Votes: 8 4.1%

  • Fuck the planet, I’ll be eating meat till I die or the planet explodes

    Votes: 6 3.1%

  • Poll fail, answer below

    Votes: 15 7.7%

  • Don’t believe the hype - meat will be available forever, nothing much will change

    Votes: 46 23.5%
  • Total voters
    196
Status
Not open for further replies.
Jeff Robinson said:
…you don’t seek to ground your pro-meat stance in any principles whatsoever, just what you feel is right. There are dangers in doing so for any topic. And there are many reasons to think we may be biased in our attitudes concerning animals in particular (e.g self-interest bias, social proof bias, status quo bias).

…The gut feeling we have about all sorts of things doesn’t exist in a vacuum - it’s the product of our environment, of our culture, and often reflects prevailing relations and structure of power in society. That's why its worth questioning how and why we feel the things we do and whether they're justified.
Click to expand...

On this topic:

Ugh. Here you are, just trying to eat your BLT in peace, and someone at your table starts going on about being a vegan. Your eyes roll as your blood pressure rises. You wish they would just shut up…

What is happening here? Why, rather than taking the moral concerns behind social reforms seriously, do we so often respond with this kind of petulant, knee-jerk defensiveness? It’s not that we don’t care about right and wrong. But cases like these can feel like a far cry from the sort of moral issues that we’re inclined to take seriously – you know, like murder and human rights. In fact, there seems to be an unspoken expectation that when we’re confronted with genuine, important arguments for moral change, they’ll be easy to recognise. Probably they’ll be accompanied by a flash of righteous anger, or a pang of compassion. And of course we will rise to the occasion. Annoyance and irritation, though, are often taken as a sign that the concerns aren’t that big of a deal, that the arguments are mere quibbles that can be safely dismissed. Call this the eyeroll heuristic: if it’s preachy and annoying, it’s OK to ignore it.

As philosophers who work on moral cognition, we think that the eyeroll heuristic is a serious obstacle to moral progress. Many genuinely good arguments for moral change will be initially experienced as annoying. Moreover, the emotional responses that people feel in these situations are not typically produced by psychological processes that are closely tracking argument structure or responding directly to moral reasons. Instead, they stem from psychological mechanisms that enable people to adapt to local norms – what’s called our norm psychology. While this aspect of the human mind is a critical part of our facility for navigating our social world on a day-to-day basis, it can also make us resistant to social change – even when that change is for the better.
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aeon.co

Why does moral progress feel preachy and annoying? | Aeon Essays

You might feel you can trust your gut to tell right from wrong, but the friction of social change shows that you can’t
aeon.co aeon.co
 
If you can't see parallels between that sort of "moral philosophy" and the religious texts, then you've got your head in the sand.

The author has decided that their moral position is unassailable and, therefore anybody that disagrees with them has a lesser morality than them and is a barrier to creating their version of a morally superior society.

Plenty of meat eaters (myself included) have considered the morality of their position, and lots (although doubtlessly a lesser number) have chosen to include a large swathe of peer reviewed science to inform that choice as well as personal experience.

For me, what the moral position above boils down to is seeing humans as a thing entirely apart from nature. This requires both a modern world that has undergone both technological and industrial revolutions and the freedom it has bequeathed on humans in developed nations to completely disconnect from the natural world, except in terms of leisure activities if, and when it suits them. This is the only way that you can arrive at this "carnivore, bad; herbivore, good" view of morality. If you want to eat anything, death of other creatures will be a net result of that, its just that if you are vegan, you've constructed a morality whereby the death of all the animals that it took to provide you with plant matter is lesser to you, usually along with the "lesser of two evils" cop out, although lots of those animals are no less intelligent than those consumed by meat eaters (eg rats) and are killed in the most horrific of manners.

The fact it is entirely possible to exist and not realise that lots of animals die for your plant foodstuffs, again is a disconnect only possible with a modern, developed world - and plenty of people have no idea about this (which may not include people on this thread).

The ego of the author of the above piece of writing must be absolutely gigantic.
 
Funky_monks said:
If you can't see parallels between that sort of "moral philosophy" and the religious texts, then you've got your head in the sand.

The author has decided that their moral position is unassailable and, therefore anybody that disagrees with them has a lesser morality than them and is a barrier to creating their version of a morally superior society.

Plenty of meat eaters (myself included) have considered the morality of their position, and lots (although doubtlessly a lesser number) have chosen to include a large swathe of peer reviewed science to inform that choice as well as personal experience.

For me, what the moral position above boils down to is seeing humans as a thing entirely apart from nature. This requires both a modern world that has undergone both technological and industrial revolutions and the freedom it has bequeathed on humans in developed nations to completely disconnect from the natural world, except in terms of leisure activities if, and when it suits them. This is the only way that you can arrive at this "carnivore, bad; herbivore, good" view of morality. If you want to eat anything, death of other creatures will be a net result of that, its just that if you are vegan, you've constructed a morality whereby the death of all the animals that it took to provide you with plant matter is lesser to you, usually along with the "lesser of two evils" cop out, although lots of those animals are no less intelligent than those consumed by meat eaters (eg rats) and are killed in the most horrific of manners.

The fact it is entirely possible to exist and not realise that lots of animals die for your plant foodstuffs, again is a disconnect only possible with a modern, developed world - and plenty of people have no idea about this (which may not include people on this thread).

The ego of the author of the above piece of writing must be absolutely gigantic.
Click to expand...
This maintains the status quo, not moral progress
 
I agree about the ego on display, particularly in the asserted equivalence to issues such as sexism, racism and homophobia. Ironic given the unexamined agism the author displays. Young people right, old people wrong.

Funny that. How philosophers calling out the unexamined lives of others so regularly have blind spots about themselves.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
I agree about the ego on display, particularly in the asserted equivalence to issues such as sexism, racism and homophobia. Ironic given the unexamined agism the author displays. Young people right, old people wrong.

Funny that. How philosophers calling out the unexamined lives of others so regularly have blind spots about themselves.
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That, and their morality is automatically superior to everyone elses' because they seem to think they've considered it and everyone else is just ignorant and not capable of logical thought.
 
Also ironic for a philosopher to make a basic error in logical reasoning. Norms change. These are some things that were once considered acceptable and no longer are. Here is the norm that I want changed. The evidence presented shows that it will also one day be considered unacceptable.

This requires cherry-picking norms that did change and ignoring norms that didn't change. For example, paedophile advocacy groups attempted to piggy-back on the gay rights movement in the 1970s. If anything, the norm changes they advocated are now considered even more beyond the pale than they were then.

(And yes, if you're going to compare meat-eating to racism, I'll compare vegan advocacy to paedophilia advocacy. I didn't escalate this discussion first.)
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Also ironic for a philosopher to make a basic error in logical reasoning. Norms change. These are some things that were once considered acceptable and no longer are. Here is the norm that I want changed. The evidence presented shows that it will also one day be considered unacceptable.

This requires cherry-picking norms that did change and ignoring norms that didn't change. For example, paedophile advocacy groups attempted to piggy-back on the gay rights movement in the 1970s. If anything, the norm changes they advocated are now considered even more beyond the pale than they were then.

(And yes, if you're going to compare meat-eating to racism, I'll compare vegan advocacy to paedophilia advocacy. I didn't escalate this discussion first.)
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But you’re escalating nonetheless. I think the desperation is apparent on the part of the flesh consumers here
 
bcuster said:
But you’re escalating nonetheless. I think the desperation is apparent on the part of the flesh consumers here
Click to expand...

Desperation? This coming form a self-righteous "non flesh consumer" that has such a moral compass, all the animals that die for their plant foodstuffs are acceptable "because they are vermin".

Deer are vermin here - its cool if I shoot them and leave them to rot then, yeah?


Also: I don't thin that referring to meat as "flesh" is quite the win that you think it is. I speak German meat is "fleisch", in Welsh is "Cig" - it's just an anomaly of English that "meat" has shifted from meaning food in general to animal body parts.
 
Funky_monks said:
If you want to eat anything, death of other creatures will be a net result of that, its just that if you are vegan, you've constructed a morality whereby the death of all the animals that it took to provide you with plant matter is lesser to you, usually along with the "lesser of two evils" cop out, although lots of those animals are no less intelligent than those consumed by meat eaters (eg rats) and are killed in the most horrific of manners.
Click to expand...

It’s not as if vegans haven’t considered this “appeal to futility” objection to veganism. Their responses include:

(1) most saliently, animal farming multiplies crop-related deaths because crops are needed to feed farmed animals too (including supplementary/winter feeding for ruminants);

(2) the moral difference between inadvertent animal deaths vs deliberate killing (this tracks distinctions people find salient in the human context - see e.g the doctrine of double effect, the ‘trolley problem’, laws of war relating to killing civilians)

(3) the moral difference between exploitative killing vs killing to protect crops (this tracks distinctions people find salient in the human context, e.g murder vs killing in self-defence )

(4) the fact that killing is a necessary feature of animal farming but only a contingent feature of crop farming (and one that can be reduced over time, which at least some evidence suggests is actually the case, though not as much as it would be in an animal-respecting world)

(5) the fact that animal farming not only involves killing animals but a whole host of other objectionable forms of exploitation including for example, the lifecycle of trauma and violence that is the dairy industry.

(6) vegans want to see farming methods improved to reduce the killing of field animals to the greatest extent possible, but to get the political will to do that we have to move to a world where animal life is valued. The meat industry is based on sending all its victims to industrial killing factories, it is premised on the systemic disregard for animal life so it’s removal is a vital precondition for valuing animal life more generally.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Also ironic for a philosopher to make a basic error in logical reasoning. Norms change. These are some things that were once considered acceptable and no longer are. Here is the norm that I want changed. The evidence presented shows that it will also one day be considered unacceptable.

This requires cherry-picking norms that did change and ignoring norms that didn't change. For example, paedophile advocacy groups attempted to piggy-back on the gay rights movement in the 1970s. If anything, the norm changes they advocated are now considered even more beyond the pale than they were then.

(And yes, if you're going to compare meat-eating to racism, I'll compare vegan advocacy to paedophilia advocacy. I didn't escalate this discussion first.)
Click to expand...

What’s ironic is that you’ve either misunderstood their argument or are deliberately misrepresenting it but your response has nonetheless illustrated the authors’ point quite well.
 
Jeff Robinson said:
It’s not as if vegans haven’t considered this “appeal to futility” objection to veganism. Their responses include:

(1) most saliently, animal farming multiplies crop-related deaths because crops are needed to feed farmed animals too (including supplementary/winter feeding for ruminants);

(2) the moral difference between inadvertent animal deaths vs deliberate killing (this tracks distinctions people find salient in the human context - see e.g the doctrine of double effect, the ‘trolley problem’, laws of war relating to killing civilians)

(3) the moral difference between exploitative killing vs killing to protect crops (this tracks distinctions people find salient in the human context, e.g murder vs killing in self-defence )

(4) the fact that killing is a necessary feature of animal farming but only a contingent feature of crop farming (and one that can be reduced over time, which at least some evidence suggests is actually the case, though not as much as it would be in an animal-respecting world)

(5) the fact that animal farming not only involves killing animals but a whole host of other objectionable forms of exploitation including for example, the lifecycle of trauma and violence that is the dairy industry.

(6) vegans want to see farming methods improved to reduce the killing of field animals to the greatest extent possible, but to get the political will to do that we have to move to a world where animal life is valued. The meat industry is based on sending all its victims to industrial killing factories, it is premised on the systemic disregard for animal life so it’s removal is a vital precondition for valuing animal life more generally.
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Mad that we've been through this so many times and you still appear not to understand farming.

(1) No they really aren't with the possible exception of hay/silage. Almost all ruminant feed is indigestible to humans. Its pig and poultry where the overlap is strongest.

(2) There's loads of deliberate killing in plant agriculture

And whilst this is a vegan morality - it is not higher or more superior to those who consider eating animals as food, because lots of animals do this. This is where the ego of the author (and yours) come into play. I've never said anybody who is vegan shouldn't be, but yet your religion considers me amoral and subhuman.
 
Jeff Robinson said:
What’s ironic is that you’ve either misunderstood their argument or are deliberately misrepresenting it but your response has nonetheless illustrated the authors’ point quite well.
Click to expand...
You appear not to have understood my point. Directing readers to various norms that have changed over time does not in and of itself provide evidence that this norm (whatever it may be; in this case, the norm that it's ok to eat meat) is going to change. That's a mistake in logic, not good for a wannabe philosopher. There are plenty of examples of people advocating a minority position that is against the norm whose desired change in norms has not happened. It's a non-argument. The whole of that piece is a non-argument really, with some unexamined ageism thrown in for good measure.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
You appear not to have understood my point. Directing readers to various norms that have changed over time does not in and of itself provide evidence that this norm (whatever it may be; in this case, the norm that it's ok to eat meat) is going to change. That's a mistake in logic, not good for a wannabe philosopher. There are plenty of examples of people advocating a minority position that is against the norm whose desired change in norms has not happened. It's a non-argument. The whole of that piece is a non-argument really, with some unexamined ageism thrown in for good measure.
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If it wasn't written by some social sciences undergrad/batchelors in their 20s, I'll eat my hat.
 
Jeff Robinson said:
It’s not as if vegans haven’t considered this “appeal to futility” objection to veganism. Their responses include:
Click to expand...
That should have read:
'Their excuses include the following whataboutery:'
Because that really is some top shelf whataboutery, and a whole lot of nonsense.
How is killing something to stop it eating your food morally superior to killing something to eat it? I'd argue that it's actually quite the opposite. At least we share the inedible (to us) bits of our food with the animals before eating them. while you prefer to just kill them, no questions asked. You probably don't even care that it might not have eaten your food. The fact that it was nearby was justification enough to kill it.
No matter how you try to sugar coat it, your lifestyle choice results in as many deaths as a meat eater's. That doesn't make you morally superior, it makes you a hypocrite.
 
Jeff Robinson said:
The meat industry is based on sending all its victims to industrial killing factories, it is premised on the systemic disregard for animal life
Click to expand...
'the meat industry' is premised on the growing of animals in order to kill and eat them. When you turn that into 'systemic disregard for animal life', you are adding your own layer of commentary. Not sure you're aware that you are doing this. You've dodged previous questions about Temple Grandin and her work on abbatoirs. Is she wrong? Is she deluded? If so, why and how?
 
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