[KSteffensen]

Why is there an ethical problem in slaughtering an animal for meat if that animal has been raised in good conditions and the actual killing happens with a minimum of pain and fear for the animal?

I get why foie gras is problematic, but I don't see the problem in a leg of lamb.

[JCharante]

Have you seen the movie "The Island"? A organ supplier fakes a post apocalypse for the humans living in the bunkers. They still live a nice life and when they need organs they hold a lottery to see who gets to go to the surface where they've built a resort on an island as they supposedly repopulate.

These humans live fairly happy lives and were bred (cloned) to be harvested for the organs. Would you oppose the real world implementation of this system? The people could even not find out what happens to them, they could be gassed during the transit.

It really stems down to whether you think it's okay to kill living beings. I don't care too much for life forms smaller than 1cm and that's one of my biases, but I don't think it's okay to kill living beings larger than 1cm.

You could say that we are humans and those are non-human animals, therefore it's okay. I'm not a fan of this line of thinking because that is how caste systems work in societies that exploit different groups of people. They're of a lower caste so it's okay to treat them like dirt. They're of a different skin color so it's okay to treat them bad. It's okay to kill them.

If we discovered aliens, what would have to be different about them to make it not okay to raise them to be killed for our tastebud enjoyment? The ability to do calculus? Plenty of people can't do calculus. The ability to speak? We're still trying to learn how certain whales communicate or how crows seem to have a memory for previous bad actors /abusers in studies. We don't eat handicapped people nor people with severe mental problems. If it's not okay to farm humans, what about our predecessors? We have a common ancestor with other life forms on earth, so where do we draw the line? Bipedalism?

[KSteffensen]

I would not be ok with such a dystopia.

However I don't think there's a clear line to be drawn. Why do most people object to eating dog or cat while they have no problem with pork? Pigs are about as intelligent as dogs (and can also learn to recognize individual humans).

Extrapolating that line of thought there is also no fundamental difference between eating plants and animals, but most people argue that it's morally wrong to kill animals for meat but ok to eat plants.

[boston_clone]

> Why do most people object to eating dog or cat while they have no problem with pork?

Cognitive dissonance, plain and simple. This was explained in the Wikipedia article I linked above.

[saghm]

> You could say that we are humans and those are non-human animals, therefore it's okay. I'm not a fan of this line of thinking because that is how caste systems work in societies that exploit different groups of people. They're of a lower caste so it's okay to treat them like dirt. They're of a different skin color so it's okay to treat them bad. It's okay to kill them.

I don't find this a super compelling reason not to eat meat because humans being a separate class than other animals is essentially a precondition to arguing that eating meat is immoral since plenty of other animals also eat meat. Applying a higher moral standard to humans compared to other animals is only reasonable if there is some sort of intrinsic intellectual capacity that we have but they lack. Once you open that door, there are still arguments to be made that eating meat is immoral, but the issue is much less clear cut, and I don't think it requires cognitive dissonance to come down on the other side.

[boston_clone]

> Why is there an ethical problem in slaughtering

In short, I think killing another living being that experiences suffering is wrong.

There needs to be at least a base agreement on some ethics before diving into an ethical debate, and if you don't see a problem with needlessly killing animals, then this exchange will be worthless.

Extend the reasoning of how we know it's wrong to raise and kill a human for our own consumption to animals, and we arrive at veganism. Please see my second citation in the parent comment for a better overview.

[KSteffensen]

The Wikipedia article describes the various psychological mechanisms people use to avoid thinking about the fact that something they are doing involves something else getting killed. It does not provide arguments for why killing an animal for it's meat (or hide or other resource) is wrong.

A counterpoint to your 'raising humans for consumption' point which is equally extreme but in the opposite direction. How do you know plants do not feel suffering? After all studies show plants can sense surroundings and communicate with other plants even of other species.

[boston_clone]

It is commonly understood that plants do not have the same mechanisms to experience a range of emotions (pain, happiness, sadness, etc.) as fish, birds, and other animals do.

Further, if we want to abstract away from a mechanistic understanding and focus purely on a reduction of suffering, then veganism should be your goal. Most crop production is simply for animal feed. Eliminating animals from our diets would dramatically decrease the amount of plants we destroy.

[KSteffensen]

>It is commonly understood that plants do not have the same mechanisms to experience a range of emotions (pain, happiness, sadness, etc.) as fish, birds, and other animals do.

Isn't this another form of the Meat Paradox, though? Plants have been shown to have moment to moment awareness of their surroundings, can communicate with each other and will turn away from unfavourable conditions. How can you definitively say that plants don't feel pain?

[delecti]

Even if plants feel suffering, fewer plants die from eating them directly than would if we had to pass their calories through an intermediary animal. It's closer to equivalent for chickens, but it's about an order of magnitude for cows.

[KSteffensen]

If you grant that eating a plant causes suffering to that plant I don't see why the order of magnitude of the suffering or number of entities made to suffer matters.

Is it acceptable to inflict suffering on other beings to alleviate your own suffering or hunger?

[delecti]

> I don't see why the order of magnitude of the suffering or number of entities made to suffer matters

I absolutely disagree. Minimizing suffering is good. Less suffering is better than more suffering. The specifics of implementing it are obviously complicated, but if you don't agree that minimizing suffering is a good thing, at least in theory, then I don't know if we have any moral common ground.

> Is it acceptable to inflict suffering on other beings to alleviate your own suffering or hunger?

I assert that I have a right to attempt to continue my existence. Given that, and the above, I think it follows necessarily that it's better to cause less suffering in that pursuit, if possible (and it is).

Also, all of this is only entertaining the possibility that plants can suffer for the purpose of discussion. I think it's entirely obvious that they cannot experience suffering.

[will4274]

> In short, I think killing another living being that experiences suffering is wrong.

It fails Kant's categorical imperative. Animals aren't going to believe that eating meat is wrong - and if we tried to prevent animals from eating meat, we'd kill a lot of them - not to mention it'd just be ridiculous. There's simply no way to include animals in universal law and maintain reciprocity. It's an internally inconsistent ethical philosophy, and obviously so.

That's to say - people make fun of ethical vegans for the same reason they make fun of libertarians - clear gaps in the philosophy they refuse to acknowledge.

[delecti]

I don't agree that morals need to be reciprocated to be valid. It's not internally inconsistent to say I think it's immoral to kill things beings even if they wouldn't grant me or others the same.

[will4274]

Libertarians don't agree that the inability to protect the environment makes their philosophy invalid either. The fact is though, most people look for reciprocatity in their moral philosophy.

It's not that every individual has to agree not to kill you. It's that we have to agree that punishment is appropriate for killers. Getting specific - it's incoherent to say it's immoral for humans to kill rabbits but moral for foxes to kill rabbits. To have a consistent moral philosophy, you have to either punish the foxes and try to prevent them from killing the rabbits, or you have to admit that killing rabbits isn't _really_ a problem.

[delecti]

I'm not arguing that it's moral for foxes to kill rabbits. I'm arguing that the presence of immoral actors does not negate the arguments in favor of morality. Foxes aren't immoral, they're amoral. It's wrong for me to kill people even if natural disasters do. I can't have a moral discussion with a fox.

[will4274]

It still doesn't follow. It's wrong to kill because of the harm killing causes. Whether the killing is done my an immoral or amoral agent doesn't change the effect. If you really believe dead rabbits is a bad result, you ought be spending your time preventing the amoral agents from causing that bad result.

Consider an infant - an infant is basically an amoral agent - it doesn't understand killing. If a infant kills somebody with a gun, we don't say "oh well, he doesn't understand killing" - we say "why the heck did that baby have a gun? Where are his parents?" We expect moral agents to prevent amoral agents from causing harm. So why aren't you trying to prevent the foxes from killing the rabbits?

[phonypc]

If foxes are amoral agents, why is it immoral to kill them?

[boston_clone]

I don't think that's an accurate representation of Kant's viewpoints; please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative#Cruelty...

It's been many years since my collegiate philosophy course that focused on ethics in society - largely using Peter Singer's works as focal points of discussion - but could you try and reframe your idea? It doesn't seem like reciprocity has much bearing on this topic.