Scoffing too much meat and eggs is ‘just as bad as smoking’, claim scientists

[DotCommunist]

I smell vanguardist elitism...

thats probably eggfarts

 

[AnnaKarpik]

Eggbound? I thought that was when you couldn't leave your egg.

I thought is was something that happened to birds, ie they cannot lay the formed egg for some reason. It can end badly, best avoided.

 

[Santino]

Let's try not to turn this into a yolk thread, all white?

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Certainly billions. There are 50 billion chickens in the world.

I'm just trying to establish something that might be a baseline of minimal ethics. Vegan (certainly no dairy), no leather or wool, no obligate carnivore pets. There's probably more.

Demonstrating that principles - if taken to their logical conclusion - would be extremely onerous (if not impossible) does not indicate that those principles are wrong, merely that they are demanding.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Vegan cats. is one of those paredy things though yeah. People who inflict vegan diets on pet cats, they're just caricatures. I respect vegeterains and vegans choice. All that but they're just pale and week, have some bacon... etc. is teadious. But vegan cats... Fuck off.

I strongly suspect that a cat would supplement its diet with birds etc if the cat's pet fed it a vegan diet.

 

[DotCommunist]

don't albumention the war

 

[ViolentPanda]

I smell vanguardist elitism...

Go wash under your arms. The smell will fade.

 

[DotCommunist]

Go wash under your arms. The smell will fade.

Rightguardist elitism

 

[Santino]

Omelette you finish

 

[xenon]

I strongly suspect that a cat would supplement its diet with birds etc if the cat's pet fed it a vegan diet.

I think the sort to keep a vegan cat, wouldn't ever let it out. It might get the odd spider. But who cares about aracnids.

(Yeah I know some peple keep "flat" cats.)

 

[DotCommunist]

do they use a trouser press to squash them?

 

[Santino]

Stop carping on

 

[andysays]

I think the sort to keep a vegan cat, wouldn't ever let it out. It might get the odd spider. But who cares about aracnids.

(Yeah I know some peple keep "flat" cats.)

I think you could make a case for saying that keeping a cat indoors 24/7, not letting it hunt and express its other natural behaviours, and feeding it a vegan diet is actually less ethical than keeping animals for food in humane conditions and allowing them to do their natural animal thing before they're killed, but in deference to cesare I'll try not to derail the thread any further

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Demonstrating that principles - if taken to their logical conclusion - would be extremely onerous (if not impossible) does not indicate that those principles are wrong, merely that they are demanding.

It also suggests that absolutist arguments don't work here. What about those rabbits who want to eat the grain? Do we just let them and lose our crop, or do we kill them?

In the absence of a coherent absolutist position that involves no killing of animals at all, it then comes down to which killing you think is justified. The ethical line I draw on this is very different from yours, but it is no less ethical for that. I draw it at the point that says we ought to look after the animals as well as we can and give them decent lives before dispatching them as quickly and painlessly as possible.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

1) This is subjective in the case of "food animals" and implies that animals have similar "rights" to humans. That in itself is potentially a huge debate but of course meat-eaters and those who are comfortable with using animals as a resource would disagree with you. To me the concept of "animal rights" is a strange one. I believe that as humans we have an obligation not to cause undue suffering to the animals we use or take, but I don't believe that a cow or a sheep has any more "right to life" than a fly or a fish.

2) Agreed. But once we have elected to use animals as a resource, our commitment should be to minimise this, which many, many, meat eaters seek to do.

3) See 1.

4) This could be used as an argument for "ethically sourced" meat. In which case I'd agree with you.

5) Probably more relevant to the taking of human life than the killing of animals for food?

Fair play to you if you disagree with any of the above and have elected not to eat meat or benefit from the use of animals in any other ways. I just think that a blanket "killing is wrong" requires far more analysis than you provided initially.

Animal rights is for me no stranger a concept than human rights. Nor do I see why there is anything particularly strange about saying that fish, flies or cows have a right to life. I would agree with you that reducing animal suffering is an ethical imperative but I don't know what you mean by 'undue suffering'. For me the pleasures that humans enjoy from animal products are too trivial to justify the enormous amount of suffering we afflict on animals for that suffering to be justified.

 

[Spymaster]

In the absence of a coherent absolutist position that involves no killing of animals at all, it then comes down to which killing you think is justified. The ethical line I draw on this is very different from yours, but it is no less ethical for that. I draw it at the point that says we ought to look after the animals as well as we can and give them decent lives before dispatching them as quickly and painlessly as possible.

 

[8ball]

Animal rights is for me no stranger a concept than human rights. Nor do I see why there is anything particularly strange about saying that fish, flies or cows have a right to life.

Is every animal's right to life equal?

 

[ddraig]

It also suggests that absolutist arguments don't work here. What about those rabbits who want to eat the grain? Do we just let them and lose our crop, or do we kill them?

In the absence of a coherent absolutist position that involves no killing of animals at all, it then comes down to which killing you think is justified. The ethical line I draw on this is very different from yours, but it is no less ethical for that. I draw it at the point that says we ought to look after the animals as well as we can and give them decent lives before dispatching them as quickly and painlessly as possible.

if more living things with more feelings and crucially eyes are killed for your taste than need to be for your survival then it is less ethical

bite me/sue me/shoot me!

 

[8ball]

if more living things with more feelings and crucially eyes are killed for your taste than need to be for your survival then it is less ethical

bite me/sue me/shoot me!

Is the right to life proportional to the number of eyes an organism has?

 

[ddraig]

I think you could make a case for saying that keeping a cat indoors 24/7, not letting it hunt and express its other natural behaviours, and feeding it a vegan diet is actually less ethical than keeping animals for food in humane conditions and allowing them to do their natural animal thing before they're killed, but in deference to cesare I'll try not to derail the thread any further

and doing neither of those things is even more ethical by extension of your argument

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Is the right to life proportional to the number of eyes an organism has?

One spider = four humans.

 

[TruXta]

 

[littlebabyjesus]

if more living things with more feelings and crucially eyes are killed for your taste than need to be for your survival then it is less ethical

And the alternative? Is it better that it is never born? Why?

 

[ddraig]

Is the right to life proportional to the number of eyes an organism has?

is might right?

Is every animal's right to life equal?

as the dominant and better equipped animal, you/we get to choose which ones deserve to be spared and which go on your plates. doesn't make it 'right'

 

[ddraig]

like a record baby!

 

[Jeff Robinson]

It also suggests that absolutist arguments don't work here. What about those rabbits who want to eat the grain? Do we just let them and lose our crop, or do we kill them?

In the absence of a coherent absolutist position that involves no killing of animals at all, it then comes down to which killing you think is justified. The ethical line I draw on this is very different from yours, but it is no less ethical for that. I draw it at the point that says we ought to look after the animals as well as we can and give them decent lives before dispatching them as quickly and painlessly as possible.

I did stipulate that killing animals could be justified where it is necessary. What exactly that means is open to debate. But I think the same principle applies to humans. I think it's sometimes necessary to kill other humans in self-defence for example and it might even be necessary to kill innocent people. It would be unfair to say that the general principle of not killing other humans is flawed because its not an absolute principle. The same applies to animals.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Is every animal's right to life equal?

No.

 

[ddraig]

And the alternative? Is it better that it is never born? Why?

so you think it has been born so might as well kill it, at least it has had a bit of a life?

how about not mass producing animals for consumption and letting be more like, natural?

 

[8ball]

is might right?

Was the question too confusing?

 

[8ball]

No.

Do you go with something like the Peter Singer view of things?