Defending killing and eating animals is morally wrong

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New Mysterianism
 
Reply Mon 4 May, 2009 10:54 am
@Ultracrepidarian,
Quote:

I agree. I would like to ask though if you've thought about what would happen if everyone did adhere to these positions? Would you just chalk it up to being the lesser of two evils?


Could you elaborate a bit? I'm unclear as to what you mean by the lesser of two evils. Thank you.

Quote:

Wait, I remember. My response is, "Yes, killing causes harm. So what?"


It's unclear from your responses whether you actually accept or deny premise (1). This information would be helpful in furthering our discussion. Assuming that you don't accept premise (1), I doubt there is anything further I could say that could instill in you the realization that things like rape, torture, and murder violate interests by inflicting serious harms. So do you really have an indifferent attitude towards things like rape, torture, and murder? If so, I guess we'll have to cut our discussion short.
 
Ultracrepidarian
 
Reply Mon 4 May, 2009 10:55 am
@Ultracrepidarian,
I'm embarrassed that I have to agree that killing animals is harmful to animals.
That is my objection to the Original Post, YumClock. It is embarrassing.
 
thysin
 
Reply Mon 4 May, 2009 10:57 am
@New Mysterianism,
If we suddenly stopped killing animals for food, and I'm including hunted wild animals as well as stock animals, what would you propose we do with them? Most of them wouldn't be profitable in any other way so would you expect us to keep feeding them until they die of old age? I say this because if we did just let em all go and loose they would starve to death and die, so we would have knowingly caused their death, no? I'll ignore the impact on the ecosystem for now and just point that fact out.
 
Ultracrepidarian
 
Reply Mon 4 May, 2009 11:06 am
@New Mysterianism,
New Mysterianism wrote:
It's unclear from your responses whether you actually accept or deny premise (1). This information would be helpful in furthering our discussion. Assuming that you don't accept premise (1), I doubt there is anything further I could say that could instill in you the realization that things like rape, torture, and murder violate interests by inflicting serious harms. So do you really have an indifferent attitude towards things like rape, torture, and murder? If so, I guess we'll have to cut our discussion short.


Wow. Just wow. No, I do not accept that harming animals is wrong. If I don't then you doubt if there is anything further you could say to instill in me the realization that things like rape, torture, and murder violate interests by inflicting serious harms. Do I really have an indifferent attitude towards rape, torture, and murder? Gee, what powers of persuasion. No, I don't accept that harming animals is wrong and I agree; there is no point in continuing this "conversation".

---------- Post added at 12:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:06 PM ----------

No, that's nonsense. I'm not about to stop arguing because you said that if I don't accept your first premise, you doubted you could bring me round to having an unfavorable opinion of rape and torture.

Harming animals is not wrong. I eat animals because I require food for life and meat is food. That does not logically lead to rape and torture. Now, this conversation is not merely embarrassing. It is downright insulting.
 
New Mysterianism
 
Reply Mon 4 May, 2009 11:32 am
@Ultracrepidarian,
Quote:

If we suddenly stopped killing animals for food, and I'm including hunted wild animals as well as stock animals, what would you propose we do with them? Most of them wouldn't be profitable in any other way so would you expect us to keep feeding them until they die of old age? I say this because if we did just let em all go and loose they would starve to death and die, so we would have knowingly caused their death, no? I'll ignore the impact on the ecosystem for now and just point that fact out.


(assuming that we recognize the interests of animals)The fact that we are in some sense responsbile for the existence of domesticated farm animals does not give us the right to continue treating them as resources. So yes, we could as stewards continue to care for those who are still alive as their and let them die out peacefully. It should be noted, however, that one of the purported justifications for human slavery in the United States was that many of those who were enslaved would not have existed in the first place had it not been for the institution of slavery. The original slaves who were brought to the US were forced to procreate and their children were considered property. Although such an argument appears ludicrous to us now, it demonstrates that we cannot assume the legitimacy of the institution of property--of humans or animals--and then ask whether it is acceptable to treat property as property. The answer will be predetermined.

To suggest that we should continue using domesticated farm animals as resources because allowing them to go free and die out would be wrong is logically and morally indistinguishable from the same kind of reasoning which sought to justify perpetuating the institution of slavery by appealing to the idea that liberated slaves might never find jobs, starve, and die.
 
hue-man
 
Reply Mon 4 May, 2009 11:34 am
@New Mysterianism,
New Mysterianism;61247[SIZE=85 wrote:
] So? It is actually quite irrelevant whether nonhuman animals can themselves devise the rights or interests or values we understand. A severely retarded human being might not have the ability to understand value, or interest, or right, but that does not mean that we should not accord him or her the protection of at least the basic right not to be treated as a resource manufactured for our use. We don't abuse seriously mentally impaired humans, so why abuse other species? [/size]


Actually, it is relevant whether or not non-personal animals have the ability for moral reasoning and comprehension of ethical standards. This involves the meta-ethic of universality and impartiality. It would be partial and non-universal to say that humans should not kill animals for food and yet we cannot expect animals to do the same. A bleeding heart is no excuse for irrationality and impractical ethical standards. I never said that we should allow for non-personal organisms to be abused. Didn't I say that I was against the torture (or abuse) of animals? We already have laws that protect animals from torture and cruelty, but I suppose that isn't enough for you.

Quote:
Well, that's a promising start.
Get off the high horse.

Quote:
Typically your local GNC outlet store. By the way, I'm arguing for vegetarianism, not veganism. That said, vegetarianism generally fulfills all human nutritional requirements, as I stated earlier.
That's not what I meant when I asked you where we get the vitamins and minerals from in supplements. What I meant was that the vitamins and minerals in supplements come from somewhere. Where do the vitamins and minerals come from before we put them into supplements?

If you truly believe in your moral argument then you should have a vegan diet in order to avoid eating all animal products.
 
New Mysterianism
 
Reply Mon 4 May, 2009 11:39 am
@New Mysterianism,
Quote:

Harming animals is not wrong.


Just to clarify then, do you mean all animals, or all nonhuman animals?

If your response is the latter, could you expand on what the morally significant differences are between human and nonhuman species that makes harming humans wrong but harming nonhumans not wrong? Thank you.
 
GoshisDead
 
Reply Mon 4 May, 2009 11:47 am
@New Mysterianism,
New Mysterianism wrote:
Just to clarify then, do you mean all animals, or all nonhuman animals?

If your response is the latter, could you expand on what the morally significant differences are between human and nonhuman species that makes harming humans wrong but harming nonhumans not wrong? Thank you.


Lead the debate much? In your original argument it said nothing about including Humans in set with Animals. Most of us infered that you would include animals and humans as a set from experience with vegetarians, however if you are about to use the ( we are not any better than animals because we are also animals) tug on emotions, you should have clarified it beforehand. Not all participants in this debate will necissarily assume that they are animals upon entering this debate.
 
New Mysterianism
 
Reply Mon 4 May, 2009 11:52 am
@GoshisDead,
That's why I'm asking for his clarification...so I don't make any assumptions.
 
thysin
 
Reply Mon 4 May, 2009 12:04 pm
@New Mysterianism,
Quote:
(assuming that we recognize the interests of animals)The fact that we are in some sense responsbile for the existence of domesticated farm animals does not give us the right to continue treating them as resources. So yes, we could as stewards continue to care for those who are still alive as their and let them die out peacefully.


I don't treat animals as resources. Why should I have to pay for a bunch of animals that I'm not responsible for so they can lead happy lives? Wouldn't that money be better used going to Africa or some other impoverished region of the world? We can't even feed every mouth on the planet right now and you're suggesting to continue feeding a bunch of animals just to make sure we aren't causing their deaths? Wonder how many human deaths in turn could have been prevented if we had fed them instead of the animals...

Quote:
It should be noted, however, that one of the purported justifications for human slavery in the United States was that many of those who were enslaved would not have existed in the first place had it not been for the institution of slavery. The original slaves who were brought to the US were forced to procreate and their children were considered property. Although such an argument appears ludicrous to us now, it demonstrates that we cannot assume the legitimacy of the institution of property--of humans or animals--and then ask whether it is acceptable to treat property as property. The answer will be predetermined.

To suggest that we should continue using domesticated farm animals as resources because allowing them to go free and die out would be wrong is logically and morally indistinguishable from the same kind of reasoning which sought to justify perpetuating the institution of slavery by appealing to the idea that liberated slaves might never find jobs, starve, and die.


I wasn't expecting this response, honestly. I would first like to point out that, I agree with your premise, but I am playing devil's advocate and you have effectively avoided confronting my point by chalking it up as an ignorant, bigoted defense. Now that we have that cleared up, are you going give a reasonable response to the fact that if we DID continue feeding them to let them die naturally we would be ignoring hundreds of thousands of humans and letting them die because we need to keep feeding these animals?

The difference between sentiment and being sentimental is the following: Sentiment is when a driver swerves out of the way to avoid hitting a rabbit on the road. Being sentimental is when the same driver, when swerving away from the rabbit, hits a pedestrian - Frank Herbert
 
Ultracrepidarian
 
Reply Mon 4 May, 2009 01:30 pm
@New Mysterianism,
What does it matter? I dispute that harming animals is wrong.

What does it matter, since in either set there are animals that it is not wrong to harm.

What does it matter since even harming humans in the case of punishment for law breaking is reason to say that harming humans is not wrong.

What does it matter that I wonder why it wrong to harm insects?

What does any of it matter since you stated in your OP that you are not interested in defending your first premise. Have you changed your mind?

If you are interested in how I reason that harming non-human animals is different from harming humans - specifically how killing one for food is not the same as killing/raping/murdering/torturing the other (as you seem to think there is no difference) - then I am interested in explaining it.

But what is the point of that, if you won't explain how you reason that harming all animals (human, non-human, insect to boot) is wrong? This dispute comes first logically.

Long story short, why should I present my logical argument why humans are not to be harmed and eaten, yet other animals are. It would be nice to establish whether any animals at all should be harmed and eaten first, if possible. You deny that they should but are uninterested in defending your side of the argument. Unless you have changed your mind. Have you?

If you have, I should like to hear your defense of your first premise, so that there would a proper foundation for any further debate on the issue of the morality of harming animals and the distinctions between kinds of animals, the means by, and the ends to which we harm them.

God, this is tedious and totally unnecessary, but it will have been worth it if somehow you see that there is really nothing to discuss but the first premise and no amount of bullet points, Latin phrases, circular logic, or being prompted to suggest that someone is indifferent to rape, murder and torture and perhaps their part in the conversation is over when it was merely unclear to you whether or not I was coming along and assuming the first premise. The first premise, as I have said what feels like countless times before, is the entirety of this so-called argument. There.
 
New Mysterianism
 
Reply Mon 4 May, 2009 11:10 pm
@thysin,
Thysin:

Quote:

I don't treat animals as resources. Why should I have to pay for a bunch of animals that I'm not responsible for so they can lead happy lives? Wouldn't that money be better used going to Africa or some other impoverished region of the world? We can't even feed every mouth on the planet right now and you're suggesting to continue feeding a bunch of animals just to make sure we aren't causing their deaths? Wonder how many human deaths in turn could have been prevented if we had fed them instead of the animals...

I wasn't expecting this response, honestly. I would first like to point out that, I agree with your premise, but I am playing devil's advocate and you have effectively avoided confronting my point by chalking it up as an ignorant, bigoted defense. Now that we have that cleared up, are you going give a reasonable response to the fact that if we DID continue feeding them to let them die naturally we would be ignoring hundreds of thousands of humans and letting them die because we need to keep feeding these animals?


The irony in your response stems from a common misconception, Thysin. The abolition of the meat industry actually would help alleviate world hunger, help eradicate livestock diseases harmful to humans, and help improve the environment. How? Let's suppose that we did abolish the meat industry by sustaining one last generation of livestock. What would improve?

The meat industry harms our environment by polluting the air, water, and atmosphere with harmful antibiotics, growth hormones and nitrates, depletes resources, emits greenhouse gases, and dramatically decreasing the quality and functionality of land. Furthermore, the pesticides necessary to sustain the meat industry pollute any sources of water near agricultural land and decrease the habitat quality for the organisms that live there, both human and nonhuman. In terms of fossil fuel usage, plant agriculture is thirty times as efficient as animal agriculture. The amount of crop yield the meat industry squanders on feeding livestock in order to satisfy our dietary preferences could very well feed the world, or something close to it. If land were redistributed, and if the grain used to feed livestock in the United States for a year was instead grown for people, it could sustain millions. Instead of growing nearly all crops to feed livestock, agricultural land could be used to feed starving people. The hungry will have drinking water too, since two-thousand gallons alone are needed to produce a single steak.

So the meat industry is not only wasteful and destructive, but completely unnecessary given the alternative presented by a vegetarian lifestyle. "Meat-eating humanitarians" have a choice to make. Do they abolish the meat industry (or refuse to support it), let the last livestock generation die out, and free up an abundance of resources that could alleviate world hunger? Or do they refuse to sacrifice their dietary preferences?

---------- Post added at 01:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:10 AM ----------

Ultracrepidarian:

Quote:
What does it matter, since in either set there are animals that it is not wrong to harm.
What does it matter since even harming humans in the case of punishment for law breaking is reason to say that harming humans is not wrong.


The fact that there are certain cases where the wrongness of harming humans or nonhumans can be overidden is precisely why I have inserted the prima facie clause in premise (1). One example I gave was self-defense. The fact that I may have to inflict harm on another in self-defense is no reason to assume that harming humans or nonhumans is therefore always permissible--it's an overidding exception to the rule.

Quote:
If you are interested in how I reason that harming non-human animals is different from harming humans - specifically how killing one for food is not the same as killing/raping/murdering/torturing the other (as you seem to think there is no difference) - then I am interested in explaining it.


I'm very interested in having you expand on this; in particular, i'd like to know what the morally significant differences are between human and nonhuman species that makes harming humans wrong and harming nonhumans not wrong, on your account.

Quote:

But what is the point of that, if you won't explain how you reason that harming all animals (human, non-human, insect to boot) is wrong? This dispute comes first logically.
If you have, I should like to hear your defense of your first premise, so that there would a proper foundation for any further debate on the issue of the morality of harming animals and the distinctions between kinds of animals, the means by, and the ends to which we harm them.


Causing harm to sentient beings, both human and nonhuman, is prima facie morally wrong because doing so violates their basic welfare interest in not being harmed, period. In other words, sentient beings on the whole desire an existence that is generally free of severe pains, torture, rape, sickness, slavery, emotional instability, being eaten, and the like. This is the only defense I can give for premise (1).
 
thysin
 
Reply Tue 5 May, 2009 12:43 am
@New Mysterianism,
Quote:

The irony in your response, thysin, is that the abolition of the meat industry actually would help alleviate world hunger, help eradicate livestock diseases harmful to humans, and help improve the environment. Let's suppose that we did abolish the meat industry by sustaining one last generation of livestock. What would improve?

The meat industry harms our environment by polluting the air, water, and atmosphere with harmful antibiotics, growth hormones and nitrates, depletes resources, emits greenhouse gases, and dramatically decreasing the quality and functionality of land. Furthermore, the pesticides necessary to sustain the meat industry pollute any sources of water near agricultural land and decrease the habitat quality for the organisms that live there, both human and nonhuman. In terms of fossil fuel usage, plant agriculture is thirty times as efficient as animal agriculture. The amount of crop yield the meat industry squanders on feeding livestock in order to satisfy our dietary preferences could very well feed the world, or something close to it. If land were redistributed, and if the grain used to feed livestock in the United States for a year was instead grown for people, it could sustain millions. Instead of growing nearly all crops to feed livestock, agricultural land could be used to feed starving people. The hungry will have drinking water too, since two-thousand gallons alone are needed to produce a single steak.

So, the meat industry is not only wasteful and destructive, but completely unnecessary. "Meat-eating humanitarians" have a choice to make. Do they abolish the meat industry (or refuse to support it), let the last livestock generation die out, and free up an abundance of resources that could alleviate world hunger? Or do they refuse to sacrifice their dietary preferences?


You're still evading the choice that would have to be made initially.

1. Society as we have now: We continue eating animals

2. Abolish meat industry: Let the livestock we currently have that now has no purpose starve and die and then build on a better future on a non-animal agriculture.

3. Abolish meat industry: Feed the live-stock animals until they die natural deaths(and don't let them breed, which I'm sure they wouldn't like, so you're killing their chance for survival as a species but that's a point I'll leave alone). In turn you're withholding food from starving people in impoverished nations and inevitably leading to some of their number dying.

If you have other options go ahead and show us(the one you described conveniently left out some key parts), but until then you can choose from those three and no others, since your thought process is so convoluted I figure that's the only way to actually progress in this "debate"...and I use that term loosely.
 
New Mysterianism
 
Reply Tue 5 May, 2009 01:11 am
@thysin,
Quote:

3. Abolish meat industry: Feed the live-stock animals until they die natural deaths(and don't let them breed, which I'm sure they wouldn't like, so you're killing their chance for survival as a species but that's a point I'll leave alone). In turn you're withholding food from starving people in impoverished nations and inevitably leading to some of their number dying.


The response to this "problem" seems too obvious to warrant serious discussion, but you seem intent on creating conflict where none really exists.

So let me get your reasoning straight: it is preferable that we allow the meat-industry to persist indefinitely and forever deny starving humans excess crops because even though we could abolish the meat-industry now and feed starving humans within a single generation, doing so would result in livestock dying out peacefully, in which case it is better that livestock continue to be systematically bred and slaughtered as resources to suit our dietary preferences? Therefore, world hunger persists.

I am absolutely dumbfounded.
 
thysin
 
Reply Tue 5 May, 2009 03:10 am
@New Mysterianism,
New Mysterianism wrote:
The response to this "problem" seems too obvious to warrant serious discussion, but you seem intent on creating conflict where none really exists.

So let me get your reasoning straight: it is preferable that we allow the meat-industry to persist indefinitely and forever deny starving humans excess crops because even though we could abolish the meat-industry now and feed starving humans within a single generation, doing so would result in livestock dying out peacefully, in which case it is better that livestock continue to be systematically bred and slaughtered as resources to suit our dietary preferences? Therefore, world hunger persists.

I am absolutely dumbfounded.


Wow. Ok, let me say this one more time. I completely agree that it is morally wrong to harm animals. For this argument I am not taking a position on what we should do, I am showing a problem with your(and my own) position. If you abolished the livestock industry you would solve a problem, that's obvious. But the point is that in the transition away from livestock there would be a group that we would have to conciously ignore to allow the other to live. If we stopped livestock farming...they're still there...we have to spend money to feed them until they die naturally, in the meantime we could have been using that money/food to feed starving people elsewhere. What do you think about that situation, is this one where we can just let our morals slip for a second?

I hope you get it now, if not I suppose I'll try again Smile
 
New Mysterianism
 
Reply Tue 5 May, 2009 03:45 am
@thysin,
Quote:
If we stopped livestock farming...they're still there...we have to spend money to feed them until they die naturally, in the meantime we could have been using that money/food to feed starving people elsewhere. What do you think about that situation, is this one where we can just let our morals slip for a second?


The meat-industry is wasting resources now by breeding and slaughtering livestock when those resources could be redistributed in ways which improve human welfare. Our dietary preferences are creating a market demand for an industry which mitigates the possibility for this redistribution. So understand that it is not a question of whether we should let our morals slip, since they're currently slipping. Thus, to answer your question, yes, I think it would be morally laudable to unravel ourselves from the moral slippage we're currently in by abolishing the meat-industry and in a single generation begin alleviating world hunger.
 
thysin
 
Reply Tue 5 May, 2009 03:48 am
@New Mysterianism,
What about the people or animals that starve and die in the transition?

The only way I can see this as being feasible is if it's a gradual, societal, shift in thinking. It may be hastened by economics or other factors but this isn't something that can safely be done overnight. So instead of harassing people for eating meat, come up with something that's better than meat. If we continue to do that, heralding the good points on meat substitutes and such, then eventually society will convert to that way of thinking, for the most part probably.
 
New Mysterianism
 
Reply Tue 5 May, 2009 04:05 am
@thysin,
Quote:
What about the people or animals that starve and die in the transition?


Are you not reading my responses carefully or are you deliberately attempting to create confusion where there really is none?

Humans and nonhumans are dying now. Do you really mean to suggest that we should avoid the transition towards improving human welfare because the transition, however temporary, will need to run its course before it can begin helping people who are already suffering and who will, as a matter of course, continue to suffer in the long-term unless we resolve ourselves to helping them at all?

Do you not understand that we are currently in the moral slippage you are so concerned about, and that concerted steps need to be taken before we can unravel ourselves from that moral slippage? I don't understand the reasoning which suggests that we should not take steps to improve human welfare in the long-term because such a transition will involve a short-term moral slippage that is already the status quo!
 
Khethil
 
Reply Tue 5 May, 2009 04:05 am
@New Mysterianism,
I've given this topic a lot of thought and research as of late so I very much want to make some clarifications on this issue that I think are important. For those of you with Prime-Time-Commercial Attention Spans, please skip to the next post, I'll not do it injustice by limiting its implications to a 30-second sound byte.

New Mysterianism: My suggestions to your arguments are just that: suggestions to your arguments. I'm not refuting them - only fleshing out issues that come to mind from reading. I understand your explanations and appreciate them, but highly suggest you re-examine points 2, 4 and 7 from my post. If you truly want to refine your stated position - in that format - you'll want my advice as someone who's a happy omnivore and an honest advocate of reason.

But as I mentioned above, I've been doing a lot of thinking on this issue. My position is always open to refinement; as I think all ours should be. I'd like to share some perceptions and thoughts on the issue for everyone's edification and/or food-for-thought:[INDENT]If[INDENT](doing harm is bad) AND
(eating meat requires harm to be done and isn't necessary)
[/INDENT]THEN eating meat is bad.
[/INDENT]Yep, absolutely - I'm not sure I know of anyone who can legitimately dispute this. So why isn't this just universally accepted? If it is really this simple, this clear, why isn't everyone a vegetarian? The vast majority of the earth's civilization have been or currently are are omnivores. Are we all that blind and lame? So why have so many judged it ok to eat animal flesh? I think the answer lies in degrees. Please read these two absurd examples - their moral 'urgency' is no where NEAR our subject but help to explain this inconsistency:

  • I use toilet tissue. (1) I don't need to in order to live. (2) The production resources consumed in its production and waste management are harmful to the environment. Using paper towels is therefore wrong; this isn't sarcastic, it's quite sound reasoning.


  • While my wife and I were chatting the other day on the front lawn, absent mindedly (1) I picked a weed and tossed it aside. I killed without good cause; (2) I honestly believe extinguishing any life - without good cause - is wrong. This isn't sarcastic, its conclusion quite follows the conditions presented.

Where's the disconnect here? Why do we do things we know are wrong? Are we that callous? The answer lies - I think - in the worth and relative value we attribute to perceived moral imperatives. We've discussed living the authentic life, we've also discussed our ethical inconsistencies and the conclusion I've come to is this: We only alter our behavior on those issues that have immediate emotional impact.

  • The last person I corresponded with on this issue drew the "It's OK to Eat"-line at "eyes". They said that it was morally wrong to eat anything that had eyes.


  • You, New Mysterianism draw your line at vertebrate sentience


  • Most of the Veg*ns I've met are OK with Fish, yet land-dweller are hands-off for munching.

The point: Each person has assigned a relative worth that is inline with their emotional attachment. This doesn't invalidate the stance - it only speaks to its relative nature based on individually-assigned values. My relative valuation of life is on a scale wherein the most simple, unfeeling and unaware lifeforms are at one end and the sapient, self-aware human is on the other.

Lowest Ethical Consideration.....[INDENT]0. I'll kill threatening bacteria with a smile on my face
1. I'll pick grass without a 2nd thought
2. I'll step on an ant without giving it any thought
3. I'll eat cow, pig or lamb if I feel like it
4. I won't eat human flesh unless it's Life or Death not to
[/INDENT]Highest Ethical Consideration

So yes: New Mysterianism has a valid (albeit rough-hewn) argument. Unfortunately, human beings don't live completely authentic lives; none of us do. We all assign relative importance to the maxims we follow or discard. Human behavior isn't consistent or predictable. If it were, and we did, not only would we all be vegetarians... we'd also never use toilet tissue.
 
thysin
 
Reply Tue 5 May, 2009 04:22 am
@New Mysterianism,
New Mysterianism wrote:
Are you not reading my responses carefully or are you deliberately attempting to create confusion where there really is none?

Humans and nonhumans are dying now. Do you really mean to suggest that we should avoid the transition towards improving human welfare because the transition, however temporary, will need to run its course before it can begin helping people who are already suffering and who will, as a matter of course, continue to suffer in the long-term unless we resolve ourselves to helping them at all?

Do you not understand that we are currently in the moral slippage you are so concerned about, and that concerted steps need to be taken before we can unravel ourselves from that moral slippage? I don't understand the reasoning which suggests that we should not take steps to improve human welfare in the long-term because such a transition will involve a short-term moral slippage that is already the status quo!


I'm just pointing out you would, at some point during your transition, be doing the same thing we are doing now, and by your own argument, morally wrong. If you didn't read the quote I posted before I suggest you re-read it. If you think it's morally wrong to kill animals and eat them, don't do it...but don't force it on the next guy because that's just going to lead to another morally bankrupt decision and start the cycle all over again. So don't go PETA, you'd just be a terrorist then;)
 
 

 
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