Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Less_Client363 t1_itn39cv wrote

It's like whenever problematising meat eating is brought up on reddit (even on philosophy subs) the response is "why even have morals and ethics, we are just simple animals." The sheer amount of frankly thoughtless and unscrutinized arguments people bring forth to dismiss the issue is maddening.

6

Agreeable_Big_9620 t1_itpfbn6 wrote

And I will concede that. But the real question is how far should a moral code affect? A group? A species? or all the animals? or somewhere in between? These questions are completely and painfully subjective, and cause us to align the answer with our personal preference.

1

Less_Client363 t1_itpxgu1 wrote

There are several rules you can apply to scrutinize your own consumption. "the least amount of harm", for example. And/or the lower forms of life are more acceptable to eat or breed for slaughter (for example, a cow is less ok to eat than lice). Most use a combination. I think hunted animals can be fine since it's necessary to keep wildlife populations in control. Some might disagree and that's okay by me. But if you're at the level were a cow is just as problematic to eat as a carrot would be, then I dont think you've made an honest effort to think through your choices.

For example, imagine that people have the choice to buy clothes from sweatshops or from a factory where the workers have rights and decent pay. We can discuss the choice from a lot of angles: maybe the sweatshop is good for the economy, maybe the good factory makes it money by slave labour further down the production line. Maybe maybe maybe - totally fine and something worth discussing. But if you're stance is "I like the sweatshop I like the clothes and it's fine." Then you're not really, honestly, engaging with the question and you're just covering up the dissonance.

2

Agreeable_Big_9620 t1_itq647i wrote

We are on the same page, then. I don't we've had a single actual disagreement yet.

1