[wcarron]

There's nothing immoral with eating things. Why would there be? The other posters' rabbit-fox example is a great point.

I also strongly reject the idea that we need 'our specialness' to 'justify eating things and how we treat them'. I don't need justification beyond: 'That thing is made of meat. I can eat meat. I'm going to kill it and eat it'. There is no moral crisis. Things die. Things get eaten.

Just 2 days ago, I caught 2 mice that had been living a nice life in my attic (because I was lazy for a few weeks). I drowned them in a bucket. Is there a moral crisis there? No. They were vermin, living where I decided they cannot (because I live in that space). There is no difference between that and a scorpion killing small spiders trying to spin webs in its burrow.

I also think you've touched on something: We created distinctions that 'separates us more and more from the rest of the world'. If what you say is true, then they're simply illusory. If humans are so like animals (indeed we simply are the apex animal), an attempt to force morality onto our natural impulses and diets is absurd. Therefore, killing and eating anything we can reasonbly digest is a natural behavior of the human animal. Returning to the rabbit-fox example... well, clearly you can see meat-moralilizing falls apart in a hurry.

[Stupulous]

This is a fascinating twist to me. Human exceptionalism is what lets us justify not eating other animals- if we're not special then there is no reason we should be held to a different standard. I have encountered many conversations with the opposite premise and it never occurred to me that it should be reversed. Thanks for the new perspective.

[wcarron]

Anytime.

Total aside, I think it's funny that many 'classic herbivores' like deer, horses, moose, etc, will absolutely eat other animals if the opportuntiy presents it. Vegetarians and vegans have chosen a dietary extreme that even the animals they strive to protect/save/whatever don't display.

[mbil]

'That thing is made of meat. I can eat meat. I'm going to kill it and eat it'

I am made of meat -- hopefully we don't cross paths!

[wcarron]

Post-breakfast you're good. I get peckish again around 4-5pm though, so watch out!

[dTal]

It sounds to me like you don't believe in morality in general at all. Assuming I'm wrong - what is morality to you?

[wcarron]

I wrote something else, but actually, upon 2nd thought, you are correct. I do think morality is an invention. A quote (one of my favorites) describes better than I can.

“Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man's vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgments ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.” -- Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

I am extremely thankful moral law was invented. I invented my own, just like everyone else has for thousands of years. Our individual Human morals generally have enough overlap to keep things working. But they aren't true "laws".