Vegetarianism

[Dodo25]

I don't know what I think about this idea. I think it comes down to where you find the value in being alive. I do have a big problem with animals being battery farmed but I don't see that eating meat is necessarily wrong. I feel quite happy eating free range meat...in fact I think it may be better than not eating meat at all. Nobody will notice if I become a vegetairian but if I pay twice as much money for an ethically farmed chicken I am sure it will register somewhere.

[my emphasis]

That's exactly what it comes down to. Additionally, there's the question whether our treatment of animals being 'somewhat better' than nature's is 'enough'. (And we'd be talking about nice farms here, factory farms are clearly worse than nature's average.)

I think the argument you introduced doesn't hold up. Nature is indeed cruel, but that doesn't give us the right to mimic it.
In Saudi Arabia, all religions except Islam are severely discriminated against. Does that mean other countries should/can ban Islam? Obviously not, because by repeating the mistakes of others, we'd be giving up the edge that allows us to call it a 'mistake' in the first place. We know better, so we should do better.

Now to the 'value of being alive'. This is a far-reaching question, but I think the answer is obvious when you think it through. I don't see any reason why 'life' should have intrinsic value. Maybe 'happy life / happiness' has it, but even that's highly questionable. If we accept that 'happy life' is ethically desirable, we would have to try our very best to fill the whole universe with happy sentient beings (and, if necessary, even sacrifice some pre-existing happiness for more beings). Parents would be obliged to have as many children as possible if they're wealthy enough to raise them happily. Intuitionally, that doesn't seem right.

I think 'creating life' is a morally neutral process, the interests of a sentient being can only come into play once it actually exists. So we're not doing the animals a favor by having them in masses, because if they didn't exist, they couldn't care.

Dennett is probably right about the sheep, but only in a limited way. If 'sheep consciousness' only lives 'in the moment' and doesn't care about future plans, then they might as well have gone extinct, ethically it wouldn't make a (direct) difference. This may sound counterintuitive, but the conclusion rests on solid assumptions (preference utilitarianism, see 'Practical Ethics' by Peter Singer for an introduction). Anyway, cows, pigs and chicken have it, on average, much worse than sheep, so the 'better than the state of nature' reasoning doesn't apply there.

Off topic:
The Dennett quote is awesome in regard to religion. I wish I had read 'Breaking the Spell' instead of 'God Delusion' (I love Dennett's books; Dawkins is great too but he's better with biology), but since I've had my fair share of religion debates, I'd probably be bored by the unavoidable redundancy that comes with reading several books on the same topic.

[...] What does matter is that when people try to take the stance that they're "educating" us, especially on issues of morality (implying that we are the ones who are immoral), we'll take the opposite stance and do it in as blatantly and excessively as possible. In short, if you keep preaching about eating meat, people are going to get annoyed and eat MORE meat, and it will be your fault that more animals died (which I assume is the opposite reaction to what you want). This isn't just true of vegetarianism, it's the way things are with almost everything. I first became an atheist because of evangelists (you've got to admit that they're annoying, and when was the last time that Jehovah's Witnesses actually converted someone?). You'd be better off shutting up about how morally superior you are. If you want people to listen to your point, you've got to think of a less heavy-handed way to do so.

I see your point. Maybe I'm naive, but I'm somewhat optimistic regarding the strength of reason. Admittably, from all the countless discussions I've had with religious people, I only changed the minds of four (that I know of, and three of them were already starting to doubt certain things they'd been told); and regarding vegetarianism, I've only managed to make some people a little bit more aware of the issue (i.e. they'd try to eat a bit less and look better where they buy from), but still, I'm trying (: After all, I myself became, against my primordial meat-loving desires, convinced that the choice was either vegetarianism or hypocricy, all this by mere arguments. Also, I don't like the word 'preaching' because it implies dogma. I don't see myself as having all the answers, I'm just providing input for dialouge. I'm very confident about my views, but I have changed them regarding some issues in the past, so they might change again in the future if I ever encounter convincing arguments against them. But yeah, maybe being less 'aggressive' works better. Actually, I'm less 'aggressive' about the issues in real-life, there I'm more 'polite'. Here it's all about hard facts and arguments, mere text, no emotions (:

[Paulclem]

[my emphasis]

Now to the 'value of being alive'. This is a far-reaching question, but I think the answer is obvious when you think it through. I don't see any reason why 'life' should have intrinsic value. Maybe 'happy life / happiness' has it, but even that's highly questionable. If we accept that 'happy life' is ethically desirable, we would have to try our very best to fill the whole universe with happy sentient beings (and, if necessary, even sacrifice some pre-existing happiness for more beings). Parents would be obliged to have as many children as possible if they're wealthy enough to raise them happily. Intuitionally, that doesn't seem right.

The Buddhist view on this concerns suffering. I don't want to railroad the discussion into Buddhism, but it does provide a consistent worldview on this topic. The view is that all sentient beings strive to achieve happiness. Some good points were made earlier about farmed animals having food, shelter and medicine, which won't necessarily happen in the wild. Herd animals may benefit from this, though it is not clear cut.

As for filling the universe with happy beings, the Buddhist worldview sees this as impossible, as we exist in a state of constat suffering. Besides this, resources are scarce and you could suffer due to the lack. Who is happier - poverty stricken kids in large families in the third world or limited children in a progressive economy?

[faithosaurus]

I never mention it unless I need to inform someone about it. I think many are challenged by it. You do get a couple of responses though. The embarrassed "well I only eat white meat and a bit of beef" type response, as if to say "I'm not all bad". Or you get the confident and sniffy put down of the Beau Brummel type mentioned earlier. This last sometimes seems an over compensation, and there's really nothing to say to it. It's usually followed by scornful comments varying in degree depending upon whether the speaker is an "alpha male bloke man", or just an ordinary person.

In my opnion soap box vegetarianism is as annoying as Beau Brummel's. It can only be down to personal choice - whatever that may be - at the moment. I certainly don't like embarrassing people or having them feel they have to justify themselves, when our eating habits are often just the result of culture and personal environment. Haranguing people doesn't produce converts to anything - which you'd lke to tell the preachers in town often. (I don't know what it's like in other places, but British public preaching often has an embarrassed edge to it. Perhaps it's the British character - but I digress).

This is partially why I don't tell people about it. Usually the only time it comes up is when I go out to dinner with people and they want to know why I don't get the meat entrées. One such time was just a week ago, when I chose a salad since every other item was with meat. The reactions were not pleasant.

[Paulclem]

This is partially why I don't tell people about it. Usually the only time it comes up is when I go out to dinner with people and they want to know why I don't get the meat entrées. One such time was just a week ago, when I chose a salad since every other item was with meat. The reactions were not pleasant.

Unfortunately the majority are meat eaters, and so they can gang up on you. You're an easy target, but then again, who's folowing the herd?

[Propter W.]

I don't consider it morally wrong to kill an animal in order to feed myself. I do consider the meat industry to be morally wrong. So I make sure I know where my meat comes from. I'm very strict about this.

I believe a healthy diet is a balanced one with lots of vegetables and fruit and small amounts of meat. I believe a balanced diet is a lot healthier than a vegetarian diet.

I like the fact that I can have a natural, nutritious healthy diet composed solely of local produce and meat without having to take supplements. That's something none of my vegetarian friends can do. And they do admit this.

It would be a lot better if people in general ate less meat and even insert a few "veggie days" in their week, though.

[Paulclem]

It's my understanding that there are fewer cancers associated with a veggie diet. On a more mundane level, I never get the stomach troubles of the kind that are associated with meat. Nor does the family.

[billl]

I like the fact that I can have a natural, nutritious healthy diet composed solely of local produce and meat without having to take supplements. That's something none of my vegetarian friends can do. And they do admit this.

I don't see why a vegetarian would need supplements (if that's what is being suggested--it might not be...). I don't use them. Vegans apparently need supplements, but a vegetarian that eats dairy products and/or eggs shouldn't need them at all.

That being said, it sounds like you have a good thing going on, Propter--I certainly don't mean to disparage the main thrust of your post (that being your approach to nutrition.)

[Ecurb]

Who cares about what Christians say about the issue? Christianity is most likely wrong.

I think this is a misguided approach. The logical error is:

P1: Christianity is based on historical errors (such as, "God exists").
P2: Christian ethics are the result of such errors.

Therefore: Christian ethics are "most likely wrong".

However, the conclusion may very well be in error. Whether or not the Christian ethos is based on factual or historical errors, Christian ethics have a few things going for them: 1) They have stood the test of time (nearly 2000 years); 2) They have been thoroughly investigated by the leading intellectuals of many centuries; 3) They are inextricably connected to standard, Western ethics (and most of us are Westerners).

In addition, the above conclusion does not follow from the premises. The ancients believed the sun revolved around the earth. They were wrong. Nonetheless, they could predict when the sun would rise, or when the winter solstice would occur. Although their premises were incorrect, their conclusions about when the days would start growing longer were accurate. It would have been incorrect to say, “Who cares what ancient astronomers said about when the solstice would occur – they were most likely wrong.”

My point is that one cannot assume that because there is no God, it is now OK to refrain from loving one’s neighbor as oneself, or that it is now OK to kill, steal, and covet one’s neighbor’s wife. Basic Christian ethics remain the essence of modern, atheistic, liberal ethics. When we believe that modern, scientific US can ignore the wisdom of the past because it was based on precepts we no longer accept, we do so at our peril (as a century of Marxism may suggest). All ethics are culturally constituted, and “dialogic”. Westerners cannot (and do not) invent new ethics in a vacuum.

By the way, I've been reading some Mikhail Bakhtin recently (hence my use of "dialogic" in the above post). Here's a Wikipedia explanation:

The term 'dialogic', however, does not just apply to literature. For Bakhtin, all language - indeed, all thought - appeared dialogic. This means that everything anybody ever says always exists in response to things that have been said before and in anticipation of things that will be said in response. We never, in other words, speak in a vacuum. As a result, all language (and the ideas which language contains and communicates) is dynamic, relational and engaged in a process of endless redescriptions of the world. That said, Bakhtin also emphasized certain uses of language that maximized the dialogic nature of words, and other uses that attempted to limit or restric their polyvocality. At one extreme is novelistic discourse, particularly that of a Dostoevsky (or Mark Twain) in which various registers and languages are allowed to interact and respond to each other. At the other extreme would be the military order (or 1984 newspeak) which attempts to minimize all orientations of the work toward the past or the future, and which prompts no response but obedience.

[Propter W.]

I don't see why a vegetarian would need supplements (if that's what is being suggested--it might not be...). I don't use them. Vegans apparently need supplements, but a vegetarian that eats dairy products and/or eggs shouldn't need them at all.

That being said, it sounds like you have a good thing going on, Propter--I certainly don't mean to disparage the main thrust of your post (that being your approach to nutrition.)

One of my best friends has to take supplements mainly due to iron deficiency, as did my ex-girlfriend. Most other vegetarians I know don't take supplements but eat all kinds of foodstuffs that contain vital minerals, proteins... The bulk of this food is not produced locally, however. That's why I said I can find everything my body and mind need locally whereas my veggie friends can't.

I like to think I have a good thing going on too

It's my understanding that there are fewer cancers associated with a veggie diet. On a more mundane level, I never get the stomach troubles of the kind that are associated with meat. Nor does the family.

No doubt that's true. But these studies usually focus on the typical meat eater. And the typical meat eater eats too much meat. I'm talking about a balanced diet. Generally I eat red meat two or three times a week and my portions don't exceed 150g.

I've never had stomach troubles at all. I'm not talking about scientific studies, by the way, I'm talking about my own experience.

I tried a vegetarian diet twice. Both times it had the same result: I felt weaker, I had less energy, I was tired, got head aches and felt lifeless. When I started to eat meat again I felt better almost instantly. It didn't take three days before my skin had a healthier, livelier hue and my energy levels were completely replenished. I simply felt a thousand times better and healthier. The second time I was a little bit more careful, but to no avail, I stayed weak, tired and listless.

I then decided to simply stop buying mass produced meat. My opposition to the meat industry is the only reason why I'd consider a vegetarian diet anyway, so I've found a way around it. The chicken I eat walked and lived freely in my back yard, as did the sheep. I took care of these animals (together with my father and a friend of the family). We also have our own pigs (not in our backyard). We get our other meat from a local ecological farmer. This meat is not your average store bought meat. It's actually a lot healthier. The pork, mutton and chicken is actually a lot tastier too.

[Dodo25]

I think this is a misguided approach. The logical error is:

P1: Christianity is based on historical errors (such as, "God exists").
P2: Christian ethics are the result of such errors.

Therefore: Christian ethics are "most likely wrong".

However, the conclusion may very well be in error. Whether or not the Christian ethos is based on factual or historical errors, Christian ethics have a few things going for them: 1) They have stood the test of time (nearly 2000 years); 2) They have been thoroughly investigated by the leading intellectuals of many centuries; 3) They are inextricably connected to standard, Western ethics (and most of us are Westerners).

D'uh, so Christianity AND Christian ethics are most likely wrong, I'd of course agree with that.

1) Do you seriously believe that counts as an argument? People thought the earth was flat for probably over 40'000 years.

2) Intellectuals who believed in a God that gives dogmatic laws. If they can't think for themselves, then what use are they? (To be fair, some recognized that it can't be that simple. They saw that if 'the good' is good only because God chose it, he might as well have chosen that torture is good. If not, it exists indepently of God, so he's not needed for ethics. Still, those intellectuals were too influenced by the Bible to come up with great results.)

3) That's wrong, an unfortunately common misconception. People like to talk of 'Christian Values', but what they actually mean (mostly anyway) is values from the Enlightenment, which had specifically been eked out against Christian dogma. Women's rights, non-discrimination of homosexuals, freedom to have a private, guilt-free sex life, freedom of religion (one of the ten commandments is 'thou shalt not worship other gods'), freedom of speech (no blasphemy laws), no slavery (that one might be ambiguous, but the Bible did NOT specifically condemn it), I could go on! Western culture is based on SECULAR VALUES.

In addition, the above conclusion does not follow from the premises. The ancients believed the sun revolved around the earth. They were wrong. Nonetheless, they could predict when the sun would rise, or when the winter solstice would occur. Although their premises were incorrect, their conclusions about when the days would start growing longer were accurate. It would have been incorrect to say, “Who cares what ancient astronomers said about when the solstice would occur – they were most likely wrong.”.

I see your point, but the question is whether these predictions are dependent solely on the 'sung going round the earth' theory. They weren't because they weren't calculating the sun's movement at all, they simply noticed patterns.

My point is that one cannot assume that because there is no God, it is now OK to refrain from loving one’s neighbor as oneself, or that it is now OK to kill, steal, and covet one’s neighbor’s wife. Basic Christian ethics remain the essence of modern, atheistic, liberal ethics. When we believe that modern, scientific US can ignore the wisdom of the past because it was based on precepts we no longer accept, we do so at our peril (as a century of Marxism may suggest). All ethics are culturally constituted, and “dialogic”. Westerners cannot (and do not) invent new ethics in a vacuum.

Who actually loves one's neighbor as oneself? No one. And is it really that useful? Not really. And we don't need God to tell us that killing is wrong (and ironically, apparently god often ASKED people to kill for him, so what about that part?). Morality is 'dialogic', because society changes slowly. Christians today have, on average, hugely different moral beliefs than Christians 1000 years ago, yet the Bible is still the same! But that doesn't mean 'ethics' has to go that slow, dialogic way too. Kant, Mill, Rawls, they all proposed quite new ethical systems. Either way, don't act as if Western culture is based on 'Christian values', that's just absurd. Buddhists aren't Christians, but they don't kill each other all the time! Now isn't that surprising.

[Ecurb]

Obviously, there is a "dialogic" interaction betwen Christianity and Western values that has been going on for nearly two millenia. You think that you can reason your way to a superior set of ethics. I don't buy it. Ethics don't devolop in a vacuum -- they develop over the centuries; they are subject to evolutionary pressures (values that are overtly harmful to human societies, for example, are probably selected against and do not sruvive). That's why the test of time is a reasonable and important factor in developing an ethos.

I'll grant that we may not "need a God" to tell us what is right and wrong. However, all I suggested is that we refrain from throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It does not follow from the belief that there is no God that the moral precepts of the Bible (or the moral precepts of the Enlightenment, or of Liberal 19th century thinking) should be ignored. As Bakhtin might say, all moral precepts are relational, and exist in response to those that have gone before, and in anticipation of those to come.

[Paulclem]

No doubt that's true. But these studies usually focus on the typical meat eater. And the typical meat eater eats too much meat. I'm talking about a balanced diet. Generally I eat red meat two or three times a week and my portions don't exceed 150g.

I've never had stomach troubles at all. I'm not talking about scientific studies, by the way, I'm talking about my own experience.

I tried a vegetarian diet twice. Both times it had the same result: I felt weaker, I had less energy, I was tired, got head aches and felt lifeless. When I started to eat meat again I felt better almost instantly. It didn't take three days before my skin had a healthier, livelier hue and my energy levels were completely replenished. I simply felt a thousand times better and healthier. The second time I was a little bit more careful, but to no avail, I stayed weak, tired and listless.

I then decided to simply stop buying mass produced meat. My opposition to the meat industry is the only reason why I'd consider a vegetarian diet anyway, so I've found a way around it. The chicken I eat walked and lived freely in my back yard, as did the sheep. I took care of these animals (together with my father and a friend of the family). We also have our own pigs (not in our backyard). We get our other meat from a local ecological farmer. This meat is not your average store bought meat. It's actually a lot healthier. The pork, mutton and chicken is actually a lot tastier too.

Which is why it is difficult to be dogmatic about vegetarianism and meat eating due to individual needs. Having said that. I'm not sure what you mean about a typical meat eater - of course it is typical - usual in other words. More usual to have health related problems, and amount is an individual thing too.

[Ecurb]

A quick note: I haven't read Feyerabend's book "The Tyranny of Science", but it looks interesting:

http://politybooks.com/book.asp?ref=9780745651897

[Dodo25]

You think that you can reason your way to a superior set of ethics. I don't buy it. Ethics don't devolop in a vacuum -- they develop over the centuries; they are subject to evolutionary pressures (values that are overtly harmful to human societies, for example, are probably selected against and do not sruvive). That's why the test of time is a reasonable and important factor in developing an ethos.

Evolutionary pressures? That's absurd, evolution favors power and oppression. Germany with its ethics did great in the beginning of the second world war. Values aren't overthrown because they're bad to human societies. They're overthrown because people realize they're bad for certain human beings.

I think you're confusing the practical with 'in principle ethics'. In order for a whole society to be following 'one code of morality', it has to be practically feasible. Even if Christianity was in principle right about sex being evil except for procreation purposes in married couples, this code of morality would not work for a society -- at least if we don't modify human nature.

Perfect utilitarianism can never be the official code of a society, because it would demand too many sacrifices (veganism, no luxury). But it is still useful as an ideal to aspire to, much like Jesus was useful for that.

My point is that objectively, there has to be one way to behave which produces the most happiness / preference fulfillment, and the goal of ethics would be to find that way. And why use dialogue if one can think it through with armchair reasoning?

A quick note: I haven't read Feyerabend's book "The Tyranny of Science", but it looks interesting:

http://politybooks.com/book.asp?ref=9780745651897

You already support such a position, it would be more interesting for you to read something you DISagree with. I strongly suggest you pick up 'Practical Ethics' at some point.

[Ecurb]

Since I don't know what Feyerabend's position is in "Tyranny of Science", I can't say that I support it. I do know that Feyerabend is probably the most respected philosopher of science since Kuhn (Feyerabend died in 1994, and this last book was published posthumously).

Evolutionary pressures, dodo, are more complicated than you seem to think. Nazi Germany did OK, for a few years -- which is the blink of an eye. Surely their ethics were selected against, not for, by evolutionary pressures. Even Communism (which outlasted Naziism in part by winning WW2), another system that worshiped the State, appears to be short-lived.

My point is that objectively, there has to be one way to behave which produces the most happiness / preference fulfillment, and the goal of ethics would be to find that way. And why use dialogue if one can think it through with armchair reasoning?

First, since happiness and preference fulfillment are diological (in other words, since they are often based on the fulfillment of culturally constituted goals, and occur, for humans, only within the context of an ongoing cultural discourse) there does not HAVE to be one way to behave which produces the most happiness. Different ways to behave produce the most happiness for different cultures, different people, etc. Second, I don't think that "preference fulfillment" is (or should be) the goal of humankind. That's why Singer doesn't interest me all that much (although, perhaps, at your urging I'll look into him if I can drag myself away from my Russian Literature critiques, which I’m reading because I just started dating a Russian Literature Professor-- my only excuse for boring everyone by overusing the word “diologic”). If religion is the opiate of the masses, perhaps religion produces the most happiness? Are delusions that add to happiness or preference fulfillment preferable to the truth that does not? (I don't doubt that Singer addresses these questions, since they're obvious, but I don't know how he answers them.)