This is the internet, healthy discussions don't exist
Not if you're going to be that way about it, it doesn't.
i have the suspicion that a more vegetarian diet maybe better for you as you get older but adopting one too young could be bad for you.
as for the morality, what is the life of prey?
I'm unsure about that. Well, apart from just vegetarianism, all data I've seen suggests that people who abstain from red meat, not just any meat but particularly red meat, live a longer life in general, with the exception of vegans who risk their health by not consuming eggs and milk and need many B12 supplements. For me, it wasn't a problem until I wanted to build muscle mass. I need a balanced high protein diet for that, which vegetarianism couldn't provide. I can maintain mass, and even grow, but it's not enough to build properly from any good muscle building routine.
As for your second question, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. If you mean "what special concern could a predator could have for the life of prey", I think this misses the point a bit. When thinking on such a thing I think the question is better phrased, "what considerations can a predator make in
choosing what it considers as prey
in the first place?" And depending on the answer to that, "what considerations
should a predator make when choosing it's prey?"
Now obviously, we are highly cognizant animals. We can rationalize, self-reflect, reason, and consider things from a more logical frame-work than the cognitive system of lesser animals give them ability to be able. Another thing to note is that we are also more capable animals in our ability to gain access to nutrients we need to survive; we're the best tool-makers of any species known on the planet - which goes to credit our cognitive ability again - so that, for the most part, many of us are in a position to pick and choose what nutrients we consume to survive.
For those that, unfortunately, live in low conditions that prevent them from making such choices, obviously this is not aimed at them, but generally, many of us have such freedom of ability to choose what we eat. If you want to eat pork, go out and buy some. If you don't like it, there are other foods to choose from, but you don't
have to eat pork. There's nothing necessary for the survival of most of us when it comes to consuming a particular food like pork, so if we eat it, it's probably because we just like pork. In explaining this, I hope I've made it clear that when it comes to food, most of us are in a position where we pick and choose based on what we would like to eat more so than what we need.
But pointing out what we
can eat because we like it does not show us whether we
should eat something
just for our love of it's sake. After all, there are many things many people would like to do in general, that we can reason it not being okay for them to do so; stealing, murder, etc. The question is then, can this apply to what we eat? And I think the answer becomes obvious upon contemplating it for but a moment; yes. One obvious answer that should come to mind is that, well, we aren't allowed to eat each other. Cannibalism is strictly not okay. Now why is that?
The first answer is obvious, well, the reason you are not allowed to eat someone is the same and follows from the same reason you are not allowed to attack, torture, and/or murder someone. You are harming them against their will. But this answer gives a very broad class of protection and serves to prove my point. When next I'll ask, well, can we harm animals against their will? The answer? Yes. It is a scientific fact that most animals indisputably feel pain and appreciate it enough to react to the cause of the pain. Whether that reaction be fight or flight is situational, but it goes to show that you can harm an animal against it's will. And if it's wrong to do something to someone
because it harms them against their will, then it stands to reason that it is also wrong to something to animals
because it harms them against their will.
Now even though that's my underlying point of why we should restrict our eating, maybe that's not the only objection. Perhaps next a person might reply that it is wrong to practice cannibalism because many creatures have a biological imperative not to eat their own kin. Or maybe we should be on the safe side and just mention humans for the purposes of this objection. Humans in particular, generally have a biological imperative not to eat their own kin. However, this reply doesn't succeed for me for two reasons. For starters, we know that some tribal societies of humans did practice cannibalism, usually in a ritual ceremony, but practiced it none the less. And the suggestion that humans generally have a biological imperative not to eat each other doesn't tell us whether it is okay for those that do to do so. After all, we generally have a biological imperative to mate with the opposite sex, but this general fact does not make it impermissible for LBGT people to engage in same-sex relationships. This ultimately goes to my second reply to this objection. That is, such an objection of condemning cannibalism due to biological imperatives commits the Naturalistic Fallacy. It makes no sense to suggest something as right or wrong strictly because it's natural. There are many things we are naturally prone to due to biological imperatives such as cheat, murder, rape, racially discriminate, and wage war over territories. But because these
things are natural does not mean we ought to indulge them. That we are rational agents with an ability to choose what we do and discipline ourselves above base, instinctual urges places a higher responsibility on our actions.
Which brings me to another possible objection. It could be said, well, animals eat each other all the time. Why shouldn't we? Or possibly; should we stop them from eating each other? This first reply is easily dismissed for reasons I summed up in the last paragraph, and should further easily be understood when we consider why even though babies, the mentally ill, and mentally handicapped persons do bad things, we do not follow their examples. Again, it all goes to having a higher level of control over our actions than those mentioned, which in turn gives us greater responsibility. Now this doesn't tell us whether we should control the actions of animals. We most certainly control those of babies, the mentally ill, and mentally handicapped when necessary. True, but I'm a Consequentialist. So we have to remember, this is so because, for those persons to live healthy lives, it is not necessary to worry about whether we can adjust their behavior. With many carnivores and omnivorse, this is not so. They can count among the unfortunate who do not have the option to even consider living a life of causing the least harm as possible. This is the path I choose, and the one I think, logically follows, is the best, and I think as a logical idea, it holds in all possible worlds where an agent can contemplate the case, "Is the life of more harm, overall, to every living creature better than one where there is the least harm possible to every living thing? If so, how does such a position folow from the meaning of the terms I've stated?"
Anyway, the idea that animals count amoung the unfortunate who have no choice in their actions, follows into the next objection against my position. And objection that gives both me and Peter Singer a headache, and one day we will likely be rolling in our graves because it will never go away no matter what anyone says. That is, animals are not as intelligent as humans in the necessary sense. Therefore, they do not count as creatures we need be wary about harming. Another form this argument can take is the spiritualist's argument that animals can be eaten because they have no soul, or the theist's argument of, well, God said it's okay to eat animals. These last two are easily rebutted as far as I can see. Ignoring the metaphysical objections, I think all arguments applied to the case of humans having/not having a soul apply to animals necessarily from the way they are constructed, and I also think appealing to Divine Command leaves one open to an objection in the form of Euthyphro's Dilemma and G. E. Moore's version of The Naturalistic Fallacy.
Onto whether animals are okay to eat because they have a lower intelligence. In one sense this argument works. After all, it is the higher cognitive capacities that allow creatures to appreciate harm and have a will in the first place. So in that sense, it is part of what I consider when I choose what is permissible for me to eat; and I hope it is for everyone else too because, should all things be equal but the exception I'll present in a moment, if you're in a situation where you ABSOLUTELY HAD to choose between the life of two people, one of whom could appreciate and feel pain to a far lesser extent than the other, again, with everything but that being equal, I would hope you'd choose to save the one who could appreciate and feel more. But for the intent of this objection, this doesn't go far enough to prove anyone's point that intellect itself, rather than the harm and will that come with a certain level of cognitive ability, serves as a barometer of whether it's okay to eat something. How is it okay to harm anyone because one was smarter than someone else? As Sojourner Truth said, "They talk about this thing in the head; what do they call it? ["Intellect"] That's it. What's that got to do with women's rights or Negroes' rights? If my little cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?"
And I think the last objection to my position which comes to mind is the objection of health. Humans should not eat other humans because it isn't healthy for them. Eating animals is. This is no objection. Red meat is unhealthy for humans for one. But that's not my point. Humans are allowed to consume many things unhealthy for them. Further, I think they should be allowed to. A person's body is their own. Whether it's alchohol, caffeine, hash brownies, or whatever unhealthy product, it should be their choice so long as it's not against their will. I can't think of a tenable reason justifying crazy food taxes or things like that soley based on the health of just the person consuming the product.
One clarification before I sum up. Though I said I'm a vegetarian, this is not accurate. I say this for brevity's sake, but in fact, there is one animal I eat that isn't a plant. Oysters, lacking a central nervous system, are an animal not too different from plants in how much they can appreciate pain. I eat those. So I'm not really a vegetarian. And I don't think any vegetarian can justify not eating oysters with the same arguments justifying not eating plants without commiting logical fallacies and making arbitrary distinctions.
In conclusion, any objection to the idea that we should restrict our diet away from almost all animals, I think, fails. More importantly, the initial objection of harm and will seems to be a strong case
for the protection of animals. I think further we can also empathize with animals. When we see dogs, cows, or sheep writhing in pain, we identify with them. We recognize that we just as easily could have been born as a bull, pig, dog(where in South Korea, and probably even in the despotic North, they actually eat them), etc. And recognizing this, we realize we would have enough of a cognitive ability to not want to be harmed against our will.
Thanks. I'm honored.
