I just had a thought... being a lapsed vegetarian is pretty much the same as being a lapsed Catholic... you tell yourself you don't believe in it anymore, yet you still feel guilty...
I know that, in principal, I believe that, as humans, we don't need to eat meat, therefore we shouldn't, but I just love it so! Mainly chicken... although I had a lovely bit of bacon in a cheese muffin the other day...
~PEPS~
“You do not truly know someone until you fight them.â€
It's true that we don't need to eat meat, but that doesn't necessarily mean we *shouldn't*. If the animal is given a quick death, then I think it has some justification.
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I'll Show You TyrantsFuselitThe Prowl LogWoe's Woe
Ooh... well... hmm... not sure... If a death (of anything) is unnecessary, can it really be said to be justified?
(Goodfella's sweet chilli chicken pizzas are gorge, BTW...)
~PEPS~
“You do not truly know someone until you fight them.â€
Well, no death is 'necessary' per se. It's just that some death is within our control, and of that, some could be said to be necessary if we are to achieve certain goals. So killing animals is necessary if you want to eat meat. The question is really - is being able to eat meat worth it? I would say that if the animal doesn't have a chance to do much else in its life than it already has, and is going to die in a weak state, from old age, if left alone, then maybe it's worth it.
But it depends how much sentience you attach to animals. We don't kill humans when they get old because we recognise it as morally (if not practically) terrible to destroy life that is self-aware.
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I'll Show You TyrantsFuselitThe Prowl LogWoe's Woe
Ahh, the Self-Awareness issue! One could argue that is impossible to know that non-human animals (or trees or stones or pairs of socks) are not self-aware. But for that matter, how can we possibly know that any human personage apart from ourself is self-aware...??
"Je pense donc je suis"
~PEPS~
“You do not truly know someone until you fight them.â€
Yeah, I'm not saying it's a clean issue at all - there's a whole faction of scientists who argue that we'll never be able to define what makes us self-conscious. I think it's reasonable to suppose that we know other humans are though - because they express it.
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I'll Show You TyrantsFuselitThe Prowl LogWoe's Woe
I sometimes feel like a vampire.
Somehow eating meat feels like something died just to feed me.
Still, that pretty much true whatever you eat I suppose.
I reckon I could live on fish in Summer but it's not nearly as good as meat in Winter.
I did very well being veggie, mainly because I had some strong moral principles behind the decision. Then I went to devon cliffs holiday park in july, got drunk every day, realised that out of four on-site restaurants, there was one decent veggie dish. So I spent the week scoffing burger-king. I couldn't take the pain....
I'm justified, though, because the park was populated mainly by essex.
http://www.newbienudes.com/?ref=z884640
There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed -
Dennett
Personally I have no compunction about eating meat at all! If the issue is examined closely then yeah it's probably got morally dubious elements to it, but what everyday things do Humans do that AREN'T morally dubious? We use medicine to prolong our lives and mess with nature, burn fuel to keep warm and entertain ourselves, live in houses built where there used to be grass, seek out sexual experiences just for the hell of it... have I missed anything out? Eating meat is just another thing on the list. It's just something we do and have always done, and - whether morally justified or not - is simply part of Human nature. It's an atavistic thing and built into my very genes, so I'm not going to worry about it really. Lions dont worry about it after all - they just tuck in. Fair play to other people who do worry about it, but at the end of the day I think that it's just as valid to be a meat eater as to not be.
******
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I'm not veggie, (the other half is), but I have recently decided only to eat British, mainly due to finding out that many other countries rear their animals for slaughter in conditions that would be illegal over here. I wondered why in that case we were allowed to import the stuff and then thought about foreign policy in general and realised the plight of pigs abroad was pretty low down the list of priorities.
nobody
You may or may not have gathered that I’m a vegetarian in principle, but occasionally in practice. Sometimes I’ll go for several months without any meat (or fish), then the cravings will get me, I’ll allow myself a bit of chicken every couple of weeks, then I’ll tip over the edge and I’ll have a meat splurge. I try to have a balance in my life of Happiness Vs Social Consciousness, because as Jonesy said, what do humans do that isn’t, in some ways, “immoral� Vegetarianism is something of a bugbear for me, though… On moral grounds, I just find myself unable to justify not being veggie…
Back to the self-awareness point! Re Jack’s “I think it's reasonable to suppose that we know other humans are though - because they express itâ€â€¦ I fear that Descartes would disagree! Okay, maybe it’s reasonable to assume this, but certainly not logically necessary. What about AI? What about the robot who looks, sounds, seems in every perceivable way to be human, but you know that actually it (“he/sheâ€?) has just been programmed to be that way? Behaviour does not predicate consciousness…
Over to you…!
~PEPS~
“You do not truly know someone until you fight them.â€
One of my great joys is visiting a market where the produce is either still alive or only just killed. It reminds me that I am just another bozo among bozos on the bus of life traveling to that last great stop where I will take my place as a meal among meals in the food chain. It's an exercise in humility. It can also be colorful and rather interesting to watch.
For the record, plants are also alive, so the only way to avoid eating something that is, or was, alive is to eat sterilized dirt.
"You don't need the light of the Lord to read the handwriting on the wall." Copies of Warsaw Tales available through www.new-ink.org
>>> For the record, plants are also alive, so the only way to avoid eating something that is, or was, alive is to eat sterilized dirt.
Well yes, there is that. And on the basis of my "how can we tell who are what is self-aware?" argument, it's perfectly feasible that plants are highly intelligent, allbeit highly inactive (apparently) beings, who have just as much of a "right" to not be eaten as, say, sheep or ducks. See what a moral pickle I'm in?!
~PEPS~
“You do not truly know someone until you fight them.â€
It seems to me that most of this guilt is over the fact that we take advantage of things that dont have any say in the matter. Therefore maybe we should assauge all this guilt by giving the plants/animals something in return? Such as our recidivist prison population.
I think that if you get convicted for a fifth time you should be sacrificed in the name of guilt free eating. A coin will be tossed at the hearing, and if it comes down heads you get fed to animals, and if it comes down tails you get ground up for plant fertiliser. It seems the only fair solution really. We get to eat happily AND reduce the prison population at the same time. Sounds like a plan to me.
******
Please buy my book! You can get it here: http://www.lulu.com/content/350373
>>> For the record, plants are also alive, so the only way to avoid eating something that is, or was, alive is to eat sterilized dirt.
Ah, but then you are eating all the tiny corpses of all the things that you sterelised out of it.
You could live off milk, but I've a feeling that tends to be teeming with micro-organisms as well, not all of which will survive the trip through your gut. You're better off just drinking blood and eating unfertilised eggs. Although that does rather inconvenience an animal somwhere, and (assuming it's cow blood) you are eating grass by proxy.
Are mushrooms still allowed, I believe you can eat them after they've spored therefore avoiding the trap of eating something that may yet produce life (like fruit).
Perhaps you could survive off air and vitamin tablets.
We could eat ourselves... and then any microorganisms we accidentally ingest kind of belong to us anyway... don't they...?
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggghhhhh!!!
~PEPS~
“There is no spoon.â€
The All New Pepsoid the Second!
The All New Pepsoid the Second!
The All New Pepsoid the Second!
There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed -
Dennett
if you want to buy my book then you can get it here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/350373
Pretty please!
The All New Pepsoid the Second!
The All New Pepsoid the Second!
if you want to buy my book then you can get it here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/350373
Pretty please!
Juliet
The All New Pepsoid the Second!