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Agreeable_Big_9620 t1_itmolxx wrote

I Have always had a certain lack of clarity with vegetarianism and veganism, even though my own mother is one. I wouldn't call Lions imoral, for example. I suppose that you could argue that as we are on top of and can subvert the global ecosystem, we have a special requirement to not create unnecessary suffering for those poor animals with a disadvantage in cognition. It seem that we have a species wide vanity that we are separate from nature, not apart from it.

But of course, I'm ignoring the whole point of this post. This is probably the objectively wisest and most moral choice for a whole host of reasons. But as this technology develops, we cannot just ignore the argument that can be rooted in the question: "why do we even care?"

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Dejan05 t1_itms5ul wrote

>I wouldn't call lions immoral

And neither would anyone else, unlike us they aren't moral agents and even if they were they require hunting for survival unlike us

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Agreeable_Big_9620 t1_itq647i wrote

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

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verniza t1_itnu0iv wrote

We could do it for our own sake- to have less depressing jobs, and generally avoid technologies of entrapment, butchery etc

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