Meat Morality and Human/Animal/Alien Rights

Hi JUC, You didn't ask me, but I'm going to butt in anyway This question is one of those squicky ones which we're going to find ourselves thinking about once we finally get enough enlightenment together to stop killing each other over race, colour, creed or sexuality and other personal inclinations that aren't immediately (self-)destructive.(Science fiction) authors have touched on such things for more than a hundred years, and indeed it has coloured our perceptions (animals rights, the green movement). From selling organs as an alternative to prostitution, to renting out a womb for some other couple's sperm and egg, to donating eggs or sperm for a gay couple to supply the other half and have offspring, there's a lot of topics left to hammer out that, quite simply, morality will have to adapt to.There was the german cannibal who killed and ate a willing victim - and I believe there was a japanese one too, probably more - if you think about it (and Douglas Adams did), why should we think killing dumb beasts for food is right when we think that killing intelligent animals that can give their consent to it wrong?If you're a christian, and you get on the first warp-capable ship for alpha centauri and start plugging away at the natives and chowing down (after all, your god made the entire universe JUST for you, right?), why SHOULD you care if the natives are intelligent? they are by definition animals and NOT human, so they should have no innate rights.If we ignore the whole "where does morality come from" question, it gets a bit easier - the range must fall between "depriving another thinking, feeling creature of life is not right, under any circumstances" and "might makes right".I'm a helpless techno-utopian, so I firmly believe than when we CAN do away with farming animals for skin, bone, meat, organs and other biproducts, we SHOULD. We should move our heavy industry off of the Earth and let it be fallow, we should move our population off Earth or live with zero negative impact and we shouldn't eat anything with a nervous-system because we have the brains to do otherwise, and therefore the responsibility to do so. Bacteria and plants don't count. Vat-grown meat doesn't count. If we could grow cows without a brain, THAT wouldn't count.Until we can do that, we should hope that no "christian" aliens find us and decide that since we're not kanomits that we are animals and therefore are on the menu.Remember, it's a cook book! A COOK BOOK!

I don't think I can adequately defend either position, but it would seem to me that it should be legal for a sane person to decide to end their life (after all, it's their life and their actions - an intelligent animal can presumably be thought to have free will, so by what right should that free will be blocked?)As a consequence, I have to submit that it should be right for a sane person to choose to end their life for any reason, and seeing as their body becomes property upon their death, it should be right for the now-deceased to have their body willed to any person for any use, including consumption.I don't have to like the idea, I don't have to want to do it, but it's none of my business to intervene, so long as we're sure that there is no taint of threats, extortion or blackmail (I was going to include bribery, but hey, what's wrong with bribery?)I hold the rather oddly contradictory viewpoint that whilst might makes right, that you don't get to claim the moral highground if you DO push your viewpoint through with the barrel of a gun.We eat animals because they know no better - they cannot speak up. We decide for others who cannot speak up. We do unto others who cannot speak up. I object to bringing the word "morality" into it, because it is either utility or it is opinion, and in either case it is the decision of somebody in power, who will get their way by the threat of the weight of the civilization we live in, who decides - and our civilization's "morals" change rather frequently, ergo they are arbitrary and mutable.I don't go hunting, but my friends do, and I've pet the head of the cow that became stew the next day. I know a milk farmer or two as well. I'm not going to go without milk simply because thousands of calves are slaughtered to provide sustenance to the human race. I salute those who do (at least for the right reasons - PETA can suck a dick), but I equally know that if we ever rid ourselves of meat production, milk production, leather production and so on, that it will put whole huge swathes of the population out of work and end our access to traditional sources of a hell of a lot of materials.The burden my conscience carries might be lightened by the ending of the manufactured plight of the dairy cow, but it would then be burdened with making sure that the cow can survive naturally without our assistance (it couldn't, we've genetically engineered many breeds to be dependant on humans for so long) and actually have a better life as food for the wolves than as food for humans - we'd probably have to look after them AND the wolves! We'd have to find jobs for the truck drivers, the farmers, the skinners, the curers, the vets...I'm rambling, I know, but that's because it's not so simple as one may think. Changing the way we live would entail changing absolutely everything about our world, it will be as painful a change as getting off oil (which has taken us 30+ years and we're not much closer).Should we change? Yes, I think we should because it's possible to let nature takes it's course without us! - but I'm not going to lose any sleepless nights over the hamburger I had yesterday whilst I wait because it's obvious to me that I am an animal, built to eat meat, thrust into a world where the only real way our society can survive is through the wholesale objectification of other animals (including our own kind, it seems, though very, very rarely as a food source). All this bullshit about pictures causing riots whilst the murder of innocent women and children needs to stop. All the whining about food tubes being taken out needs to be dropped. All the distractions about what a women does with her own body needs to be forgotten - first.If aliens showed up, I'd certainly hope they didn't see us as two-legged cattle, but really, if they were powerful enough to get here in the first place, made life comfortable and easy for us, you can bet there'd be people popping up saying what a great idea it is, and you can bet we'd have a hell of a lot of trouble fighting them, and we'd probably lose, so you'd better hope they're already at where I think WE should be!

That's a really powerful question - like I was saying, we look after cows rather well. They get food, shelter, water, don't really suffer from diseases that would be crippling in the wild, are protected from predators and generally lead a good life for a being with very little wants ("grass!" "water!" "sex!") and their death is supposedly painless and quick. Be under no delusions that a "wild cow" would have a pretty harsh life, and that the domesticated cow probably would not survive trying to be one.If we could return cows (and pigs, goats, dogs, etc) to their "wild" state and then leave well enough alone, we'd see them dying of disease, dying of broken legs, being torn apart by predators (we'd need the wolves and bears back), starving to death, drowning and generally suffering in the day-to-day melee that is the natural world. I'd be happy with that, because "the wild state" is the default and my opinion of the wild state has no bearing on it's reality. I don't think it's possible to domesticate the entire planet (although we're giving it a damned good try, and hopefully realising before it's too late that it's futile) and live in some PETA wet dream that could never happen.Babysitting the entire planet is a ridiculous idea, but stopping all farming and just mass-slaughtering the unwanted animals would be a bigger crime in my book than continuing to use them with respect. I think a cow without a brain would basically be a meat vegetable. Having no wants, desires, thoughts or even urges of any kind rules out needing to empathise with it. We wouldn't have to care about the welfare of the meat because it's just meat. You would have to care about quality, but that's an entirely different problem. I think the simulacrum you're running in your brain breaks down at that point. You cannot compare non-existence with existence, you can't even sensibly ask the question. If you could call up one of the quadrillions of sperm and eggs that never made it, and somehow instantly get the resultant animal to speak, and say "are you glad you don't exist?" you'd not get a very coherent result...

I don't know if that's off topic, but lions commit patricide, fratricide, homicide and infanticide at least. We have the power to exterminate all lions that do this - but then there'd be no lions.We could drag a lion up before the court, but you'd have a hard time convincing the jury that the lion knew it was wrong or that lions fall under the jurisdiction of humans...A lion is, of course, amoral - and therefore his actions (or hers) cannot be labelled as "immoral". I find it bizarre when captive (wild) animals that kill their keepers are more or less put on trial for their actions, and there is talk of "destroying" the animal for it's natural actions in an unnatural setting.

Hi bluejay, Not a point I intended to discuss, really, and I may have missed the point of your message. If so I appologize, but it's a good question - are we to believe it possible for intelligent self-aware creatures to be amoral? Can that include ourselves? Could we rightfully apply our apparent morals to another species when we can't even universally agree on our own moral code?Killing is wrong, that's why people are put to death. Stealing is wrong, that's why people who do have their stuff confiscated... I think I could sort-of agree to either of those two things, but with a few caveats; I definitely agree we should avoid causing it, and should seek to prevent it where our actions may or do cause it, but we should not interfere with those who "cannot know any better" (i.e. "wild animals", non-sentients) - I don't see how we could dictate to the lion that he needs to become a vegetarian or how to make it so, nor how to tell the antelope that because the hyenas, lions, tigers, vultures, wolves, etc, are now vegetarians (magically, through the might of the deus ex machina) that he (and she) needs to limit their birth so to avoid over-population...in short, it's an impossible task and would be a neverending problem, and for what purpose other than stroking or own egos?Well-meaning but dumb tree-huggers in Britain wanted hunting of deer banned at one point, and the bloody creatures bred so well and so successfully that they kept getting hit by cars and causing accidents, because there were no natural predators, us Brits having killed off the wolf and the bear.I think it's within our power to change ourselves, and at some point we should - but to just euthanize the national herd of dairycows because we don't want to kill them anymore? Is that the "right" thing to do?

Hi Apothecus, I think we need to minimize the suffering where we can't eliminate it - it's certainly possible to treat animals like meat, and that's wrong. They think and they feel, they should be allowed to think and feel things that are good more than bad. That's why I would like to see the fate of the dairy cow dealt with at some point - but right now that's not possible with any good outcome (there's a reason we both call PETA whacko).I can't afford to keep a cow, nor could I keep one happy. I can't afford grass-fed cows that have hoof manicures every Tuesday, but I *can* do my best to make sure that the conditions - shitty as they may seem to a human with a human IQ and intellect - that a cow isn't lacking in what it wants - other cows, food, shelter and hopefully exercise, weather permitting. As you say, cows aren't human - but should be treated humanely. As our ability to do so increases, our fulfillment of that definition should increase. [qs]When considering the mass feedlots, I think where the disconnect lies is that we consign artificial emotions or desires to what we think cattle should prefer as to their "lot" in life. Anthropomorphism, if you like. Cattle would be "happier" relaxing in idyllic pastures, whiling the days away until getting the inevitable bolt in the head, yes?[qs] yes, and IMHO eventually that's what needs to happen if we continue to eat cows. I see morality as something from within, so I can only speak for myself and say that causing suffering, even in a creature to dumb to fully understand it's own existence, is wrong. To an extent, yes - without anthropomorphising, we can see stress hormones in cows, we can see flight-or-fight responses and we can tell that the animal is reacting with negative emotions to a situation. Whether the cow understands that or not is a moot point, WE do - but other than that, no. Since it's our actions creating the situation, WE bear the responsibility to say "meh, don't care" or "this is wrong". we had the BSE scare in the UK (and despite what you may think it's rife in the US too), so UK beef doesn't have all those tasty growth hormones, but that aside, I would say if the animal is healthier, it will taste better. Feedlot beef probably gets better nutrients than grass - and it's only tree-hugging ignorance that demands otherwise. If that's not true, or we don't know, we should find out - even if it's purely to say "this beef is better quality because the animal was healthier".