In this overview it would be the flexitarian position without cheese or eggs.
Are there any philosophers of animal rights that come close to such a position? Maybe that suffering does matter but death does not. E.g. meat from game involves arguably less accumulated suffering than meat from livestock or milk from dairy cows.
And do you consider yourself to be one?
I've asked this question in many places and ive never gotten a satisfactory answer.
Theres plenty of online accounts that are pro ethical meat, often calling themselves ethical carnivores or ethical omnivores.
One thing that is remarkably absent from these accounts are pictures and videos of animal slaughter.
When they address how humane slaughter is they always explain how it's just and fair as the animal had a great life, how ethical and easy it is on the animal as its done correctly in a slaughter house, and that the workers there ensure the animal doesnt suffer. Further to this they explain most slaughter videos online are always the worst possible cases, that they do not accurately represent animal slaughter.
What I'm saying is, these and many other accounts consistently explain when done correctly, slaughter and culling of animals is humane, but these accounts only ever verbally say this, they never demonstrate what they regard as humane slaughter or culling.
My question is:
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if animal slaughter is fair, humane and just, why is it so hard to find humane slaughter footage on ethical omnivore accounts?
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if you believe much of the slaughter footage shown online is the worst possible cases found by vegans, wouldnt you be keen to show what you view as humane slaughter to show consumers it really isnt that bad?
People who claim the root of all issues vegans are concerned about is capitalism and colonialism. That indigenous people have been eating meat and animal products ethically and sustainably for centuries. That vegan organizations with black and white ideologies directly harms indigenous people, that veganism is just shifting unethical food production from animals to plants.
I think most vegans would argue that we do not expect people who are unable to go vegan to go vegan. That is why we do it. However, how do you argue that there is no way to ethically kill an animal without being racist? Is it possible to argue against an ideology and not the culture/ethnicity/race that practices it?
I am curious to what everyone's thoughts are. Please be respectful. I don't think environmental racism is something that is discussed very often in regards to veganism.
For example, dogs are omnivores and cats are carnivores. (There are many other pets that are meat eaters but these are the two most popular household pets.) Owning one as a pet you have two options: A) You feed the animal the diet it naturally needs for nutrients, but this diet consists of meat that is almost guaranteed to be unethically obtained (by average vegan standards for ethics). B) You put the animal on a vegan diet, but the animal is not properly nourished, therefore you are harming that animal. I hope to one day own a dog of my own because I love dogs so much, but I fear the ownership of one would force me to break my own ethics (Basically not sacrificing an animal’s health and wellbeing for my pleasure). Both options seem to be unethical to me and I was wondering what you guys’ thoughts were on the matter.
So like no shit that any kind of omni is a psychopath, we all already knew that. That being said, omnis that go out of their way to buy cage free eggs or like happy cow milk or whatever, absolutely blow my mind because, if possible, they will do the thing that they think is ethical, but if the slightest inconvenience comes up they just compromise on it.
"oh well, out of the ethical option, might as well just choose the suffering one." Insane.
That being said, again, clearly they're wrong that these options are ethical in the first place, but my point is that they already have this super low standard and are just willing to break it at the drop of a hat.
Vegan btw
All you, you know what to do now. Execute Order 66.
https://preview.redd.it/ydx2myd4qfj51.png?width=1354&format=png&auto=webp&s=db2ea9870720d8607e59628028afce65e1db67a0
There is no point in becoming vegan or vegetarian in effort to save animals lives. Suffering or even death of a farm animal are no different to those of a tomato, even if it is harder to emotionally compassionate to the latter, as it is easier for us to relate to animal feelings. You can not exist without ending other creatures life for food, and animal lives are not more important than plants or fungi in that regard.
Please note that does not account for switching diet for own health reasons.
EDIT: Yes, in my view I consider that plants can suffer even if they don't have the same mechanisms of perception animals do. Jellyfishes don't have a nervous system anywhere close to ours, yet it would still be unethical to cut one in pieces for amusement. Jellyfish would still perceive injury and its normal biological cycles would be hindered. Same goes for plants
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I have another post about this that highlighted a growing issue that will only get worse in time.
To summarize, we were a vegan/almost vegan family. Most of our extended family is vegan or vegetarian. Our child has a few medical issues that make a vegan or even plant-based diet not an option for her. This was very hard for both of us as we've had to rethink everything we thought about nutrition and ethics and rewrite almost every parenting decision and teaching we've ever made.
Medical issues: soy allergy and oral allergy syndrome. She has a fairly long list of trigger foods (below).
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Beans (mostly psychological as she remembers eating a (soy)bean and then starting to die)
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peaches
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tomatoes (unless cooked)
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oranges
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melon
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Broccoli (unless cooked)
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Bell pepper
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Spinach (general toddler thing)
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Soy
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Any mock meat
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And oranges, as we just found out yesterday.
For financial reasons, the best we can do is maybe but the organic animal products at Aldi, which is just paying for a label. We do occasionally give to animal sanctuaries though, but not supporting factory farming isn't an viable option.
I've gone back to an omnivorous diet around her to normalize it for her, but she will be growing up with one parent who consumes no animal products, and an extended family that consumes little to no animal products.
How do I justify this for her? She'll see that 99% of humans don't need animal products (and especially not meat) to live, and realize that I only eat them so she's not alone. She's always going to know very vividly what exactly she's eating. I can't exactly put the cat back in the bag now as she's already made some connection. I don't know what to tell her as I don't think she's old enough to fully understand her medical issues and WHY she can't just stop.
I've been able to mostly avoid it because she was too hungry to question what she was being fed (which makes me cry), and I gave a very surface lie that the animal wanted to be food. Yes, I know that's horrific but I'm coming up blank. We're taking in an older nephew on my side soon that grew up omni, which will make it easier since she'll see someone else eating meat as well, but that's not enough.
What would you do?
The recent 2020 PhilPapers Survey shows most philosophers think omnivorism, construed as the proposition that it is permissible to eat meat and use animal products under ordinary circumstances, is true.
If we narrow the demographic to ethicists, the margin between omnivores and vegans/vegetarians shrinks a bit, but omnivorism ultimately wins. It's also worthy to notice that even if veganism doesn't win, it still is six times more likely to be accepted by a philosopher rather than the average person.
What do you think is the explanation? IMO there are very good arguments for veganism (e.g. marginal cases) and the best counterarguments all require very weighty assumptions (e.g. Carruthers' argument from contractualism+philosophy of mind).
Are philosophers just unwilling to change their lives? I think this is a rather cynical (although honestly plausible) view.
Further, there are some very vocal defenders of veganism who weren't vegan themselves (e.g. Korsgaard was a vegetarian for forty years even while defending veganism from a Kantian standpoint). So maybe philosophers choose to live with cognitive dissonance rather than deceiving themselves, in which case the statistics remain unexplained. Or did I miss some extraordinary rebuttal of vegan points?
I've been having this thought, and I don't know if I'm going off the deep end with my veganism. But I'm starting to think that there's really no ethical difference between vegetarianism and eating meat. In either case animals are bred and killed for pleasure. Just because you're not eating the corpse doesn't mean death and suffering isn't a part of the process. I suppose vegetarians might contribute less to suffering by eating less animal products (though it seems like vegetarians substitute meat with a lot of eggs and diary). The more I learn about the egg and dairy industry the more I just don't see the difference.
Full disclosure: I was a vegetarian for about 3 years before I went vegan, so I totally understand how going veggie can be part of a transition to a vegan lifestyle.
"Ethical meat," sure sounds like an oxymoron...
https://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/food/what-diet-is-best-for-the-environment?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=livestrong.com
