Vegetarianism

Since I seem to be on an ethics kick the last few posts, I guess I will talk a little about a few more difficult problems (I say difficult since it should be plain there is no simple answer and each person must do what they think best given the details of the situation at hand).

Whether or not to kill animals for food?  Ah, I would say killing a sentient animal for some other reason, such as for its pelt, is very problematic and can readily be discouraged, but food is more complicated.

In an ideal world it might be possible to raise animals for the purpose of slaughter, but to treat them otherwise much better than they would have in nature.  They would live longer than they do in nature and not incur the constant threat of predation, disease, and hunger.  I suppose -- but we don't treat animals that way.  Their comfort enters the picture only if it effects cost and quality.  We also often slaughter them young.  About the only time the humanitarians have any influence, it seems, is at the time of slaughter, where at least in many countries laws exist to make sure it is done painlessly and without terrorizing the beast (which is only observed casually, I have to say).  Islam is particularly horrid about this, and one of the reasons the religion repells me.

If one has a farm and can control the care of the animal, and then does the killing oneself, quickly, I guess this would be okay, if marginal, but how many of us can do that?

There are, of course, other reasons for avoiding meat, the most important probably being our own health -- and there is a moral question here as we have a moral obligation to take care of our own health and that of those dependent on us.  I think the case against meat is overstated by extremists here, as the meat available on the market is not healthy grass fed and finished meat, without hormones and so on.  However, with some attention to what one is buying these problems can be greatly mitigated (and in that case becomes a matter of only being moderate in our meat eating).  Besides, much the same problems exist with vegetarian fare as well, and there are nutrients a strict vegetarian is lilkely to end up defecient in.

It can be argued that some animals are better than others if one is going to break the rule of no killing animals.  It has to do with degree of sentience, and this is a hard one as we don't really know what "sentience" is or where it comes from, but it is pretty obvious that some animals operate entirely by reflex instincts while others experience the world and have emotions.  There seems to be no particular problem with killing an eating non-sentient life.  "Life" is not a magical property, it is just what we observe as organisms meeting whatever criterion one has for life, and it is not necessary to say one never kills bacteria or even insects.

In fact, I am persuaded by the evidence of the neurologists that sentience appeared with the pre-mammalian reptiles (way back before the dinosaurs) and was present in varying degrees in the dinosaurs, and hence is nowadays limited to mammals and birds.  There is of course no certainty in this, but one is safe to say any sentience found in other organisms (except maybe squid and octpuses) is so limited as to be disregardable.

We have an important ethical command to not harm other people emotionally, even when we are "in the right." For this reason let me close with the observation that if one is offered meat as a guest, one should consume it without comment.  Not hurting another or questioning their standards or judging them prevails over our responsibility to less sentient beings.