I appreciate your passion and moral outrage, but I have to point out that your argument seems a bit short on facts. While strong emotions can drive a conversation, it's important to back them up with evidence and reasoning, which you do very well. That way, the discussion can be more constructive.
I care deeply about God's creatures, including the chickens I personally take care of and own. It's important to me that they are well-treated, and I believe it's possible to care for animals while also eating them.
Well maybe you should consult, rather than 500 word posts making a primary philosophical point, my many thousands of words written describing in great detail the mistreatment of animals in factory farms.
I agree with you on the evilness of modern factory farming. But not all meat eating is evil. All terrestrial life eats other life, or harms/kills other life through conflict and competition.
I am an animal LOVER, but IMO ethical hunting and homesteading for meat is not evil, and it’s actually one of the best ways to counter postmodern disillusionment and alienation.
One easy way to argue this - children seem less intelligent than adults (smaller brain etc.), but everyone remembers suffering/pain as a child. A stubbed toe to my memory didn't hurt less when I was a child.
Coming from a third world country, veganism is not a feasible diet for an average person here. I understand the moral problems but when most people are protein deficient and poor, I think it's morally justified to eat meat, at least dairy and eggs. When your country is rich enough that they can mass produce soy and soy based products on a large scale, yes it's reasonable to be a vegan
Yeah that's not how this works. Protein is immensely complicated given bioavailability, calories:protein ratio etc. Only soy is a reasonable source of complete plant protein. I'm from India, which probably has the highest plant eaters. But recent studies among us show that across the board, we are protein deficient. The general medical advice (I'm a doctor) is to eat more dairy and eggs.
And the other problem being most farmers in India are poor and have a system which includes husbandry with dairy. You cannot uproot that and replace it with "protein rich" plants, without harming the working and lower class. Like I said, once your population hits the minimum required nutrition, veganism becomes feasible
Brother are you, a first world living person, lecturing me, in a country where most people are malnutritioned and deficient in iron, calcium, B12? It's not cheaper to be vegan here. It runs into health problems. The average poor person survives only because they drink milk. Eggs are the cheapest source of protein here. You have no idea what it is to live in a country like this.
Beans + rice -> will give you all essential amino acids yes. But a caveat, it's not in the right proportions, not like meat or egg is. And is not as bioavailabile as meat is. Simple, you'd have to eat more beans and rice to compensate for that gap. But then you are increasing your calories, carbs, to reach your protein requirement. Now that's a problem when you're in a country where most people are insulin resistant and diabetic.
Running a farm is not just water+soil in and out. Most people "inherit" a farm. You have no idea about farming practises in India. Most feed is pasture and hay, waste products. Our cattle are not fatty like the US. And then there's the whole communal angle about ritual and caste superiority which is better less said.
All this being said, you can never, ever expect a poor person in India to go vegan. Even if whatever calculations work out that veganism is more efficient (barring working out how larger farms work by integrating husbandry into their farms), a poor person doesn't have the resources to make that change. Their immediate goal is to sustain themselves. Your logic only holds in a country like the west where everyone meets protein requirements way more than they need.
“If every time I ate a chicken sandwich, I caused other people to endure hours of experiences as unpleasant as the dentistry teeth-cleaning with the electric toothbrush, doing so would clearly be wrong.”
Unless it’s Hattie B’s Hot Chicken in Nashville, in which case sacrifices must sometimes be made.
This assumes that animals have a first person awareness as an individual experiencing suffering and that seems implausible to me. This does not mean there is no suffering, but it is not the same kind of suffering with the same kind of ontological status as the suffering experienced by a conscious self.
I don't mean all animals because of course humans are animals. The research on animal consciousness suggests that all of the animals that become our food are not self-aware.
To my knowledge that is not what the research suggests whatsoever. They even use pig brains as proxies for human brains in neurological studies due to how similar they are. Can you point to any mainstream research suggesting agriculturally exploited animals aren't conscious?
I don’t agree with you on either count—but I am a dental student, after all. I’m not cheering and hollering for the dentist, but I don’t mind going because I like how clean my teeth feel once the plaque is off. The dentist experience is uncomfortable, but so are many things we do as a part of live, and we go through it for a reason.
Also, the animal’s intelligence isn’t the matter, it’s the animals not having an immaterial soul and not being made in the Image and likeness of God. If we did not live in a fallen world, we would not be eating meat. But both of these things are the case, however, so eat meat we do.
Serious question: have you tried telling the dentist that you find the toothbrush immensely unpleasant, and asking them to do something else as an alternative, or skip that part of the cleaning? At least some dentists should be happy to do this.
Great post! Your point seems to be that intuitively our pain is not caused or influenced by our intelligence. I wonder if the two are correlated. Perhaps more complex brains equals more intelligence and more suffering.
My take away from this post is that we sometimes implicitly equate intelligence with ability to suffer. This does not necessarily follow. Even a possibility that it isn’t true is an argument against eating meat.
I appreciate your passion and moral outrage, but I have to point out that your argument seems a bit short on facts. While strong emotions can drive a conversation, it's important to back them up with evidence and reasoning, which you do very well. That way, the discussion can be more constructive.
I care deeply about God's creatures, including the chickens I personally take care of and own. It's important to me that they are well-treated, and I believe it's possible to care for animals while also eating them.
Shana tova!
Well maybe you should consult, rather than 500 word posts making a primary philosophical point, my many thousands of words written describing in great detail the mistreatment of animals in factory farms.
I'm on the record objecting to them consistently.
You're a faggot.
lmao
I agree with you on the evilness of modern factory farming. But not all meat eating is evil. All terrestrial life eats other life, or harms/kills other life through conflict and competition.
I am an animal LOVER, but IMO ethical hunting and homesteading for meat is not evil, and it’s actually one of the best ways to counter postmodern disillusionment and alienation.
I wrote a pice on the ethics of hunting: https://open.substack.com/pub/brandonmcmurtrie/p/is-hunting-wrong?r=1kxn90&utm_medium=ios
One easy way to argue this - children seem less intelligent than adults (smaller brain etc.), but everyone remembers suffering/pain as a child. A stubbed toe to my memory didn't hurt less when I was a child.
Coming from a third world country, veganism is not a feasible diet for an average person here. I understand the moral problems but when most people are protein deficient and poor, I think it's morally justified to eat meat, at least dairy and eggs. When your country is rich enough that they can mass produce soy and soy based products on a large scale, yes it's reasonable to be a vegan
Yeah that's not how this works. Protein is immensely complicated given bioavailability, calories:protein ratio etc. Only soy is a reasonable source of complete plant protein. I'm from India, which probably has the highest plant eaters. But recent studies among us show that across the board, we are protein deficient. The general medical advice (I'm a doctor) is to eat more dairy and eggs.
And the other problem being most farmers in India are poor and have a system which includes husbandry with dairy. You cannot uproot that and replace it with "protein rich" plants, without harming the working and lower class. Like I said, once your population hits the minimum required nutrition, veganism becomes feasible
Brother are you, a first world living person, lecturing me, in a country where most people are malnutritioned and deficient in iron, calcium, B12? It's not cheaper to be vegan here. It runs into health problems. The average poor person survives only because they drink milk. Eggs are the cheapest source of protein here. You have no idea what it is to live in a country like this.
Beans + rice -> will give you all essential amino acids yes. But a caveat, it's not in the right proportions, not like meat or egg is. And is not as bioavailabile as meat is. Simple, you'd have to eat more beans and rice to compensate for that gap. But then you are increasing your calories, carbs, to reach your protein requirement. Now that's a problem when you're in a country where most people are insulin resistant and diabetic.
Running a farm is not just water+soil in and out. Most people "inherit" a farm. You have no idea about farming practises in India. Most feed is pasture and hay, waste products. Our cattle are not fatty like the US. And then there's the whole communal angle about ritual and caste superiority which is better less said.
All this being said, you can never, ever expect a poor person in India to go vegan. Even if whatever calculations work out that veganism is more efficient (barring working out how larger farms work by integrating husbandry into their farms), a poor person doesn't have the resources to make that change. Their immediate goal is to sustain themselves. Your logic only holds in a country like the west where everyone meets protein requirements way more than they need.
Great article -- simple, clear, and to-the point. Your writing convinced me to stop eating meat and eggs a few months ago.
“If every time I ate a chicken sandwich, I caused other people to endure hours of experiences as unpleasant as the dentistry teeth-cleaning with the electric toothbrush, doing so would clearly be wrong.”
Unless it’s Hattie B’s Hot Chicken in Nashville, in which case sacrifices must sometimes be made.
I'm going to focus on how we humans relate to each other.
This assumes that animals have a first person awareness as an individual experiencing suffering and that seems implausible to me. This does not mean there is no suffering, but it is not the same kind of suffering with the same kind of ontological status as the suffering experienced by a conscious self.
Why do you find that implausible?
I don't mean all animals because of course humans are animals. The research on animal consciousness suggests that all of the animals that become our food are not self-aware.
To my knowledge that is not what the research suggests whatsoever. They even use pig brains as proxies for human brains in neurological studies due to how similar they are. Can you point to any mainstream research suggesting agriculturally exploited animals aren't conscious?
I don’t agree with you on either count—but I am a dental student, after all. I’m not cheering and hollering for the dentist, but I don’t mind going because I like how clean my teeth feel once the plaque is off. The dentist experience is uncomfortable, but so are many things we do as a part of live, and we go through it for a reason.
Also, the animal’s intelligence isn’t the matter, it’s the animals not having an immaterial soul and not being made in the Image and likeness of God. If we did not live in a fallen world, we would not be eating meat. But both of these things are the case, however, so eat meat we do.
Serious question: have you tried telling the dentist that you find the toothbrush immensely unpleasant, and asking them to do something else as an alternative, or skip that part of the cleaning? At least some dentists should be happy to do this.
Don't go to the dentist. Dentists are a scam.
You're told to go to the dentist every six months, but that advice was created by the dentist lobby and has no medical basis.
I haven't been to the dentist in 10 years and I'm totally fine.
"But the badness of intensely unpleasant states isn’t blunted by not being very smart."
Anatoly Karlin appears to argue otherwise based on brain neurons in this post of his:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/animals/
It's a very silly post.
How so?
Ozy Brennan makes a similar point here: https://thingofthings.substack.com/p/what-is-it-like-for-animals-to-suffer
Wow, looks like probably that post was floating somewhere in my subconscious, as our posts are very similar!
Great post! Your point seems to be that intuitively our pain is not caused or influenced by our intelligence. I wonder if the two are correlated. Perhaps more complex brains equals more intelligence and more suffering.
I agree that the two are correlated. But even if animals feel pain, say, 10% as intensely as humans, eating meat is extremely evil.
My take away from this post is that we sometimes implicitly equate intelligence with ability to suffer. This does not necessarily follow. Even a possibility that it isn’t true is an argument against eating meat.
Opportunity for the contemplation of Stoicism.
The suffering in reality can be so much more intense.