A Challenge To Meat Eaters

Kid A · #1 by **Kid A** » Jul 16, 2010 8:38 pm

Hello there. At the end of last year i posted this thread on the Dawkins forum, and found that quite a few very interesting discussions emerged as a result of it. Unfortunately though, as time went on i found myself busier and busier, to the point where i had no time to post on it anymore, so had to leave it be. Now, i find myself with a little more time on my hands, so thought (that seen as the Dawkins forum has closed down, and this seems to be the closest thing to it) i may repost it again here, albeit with a few refinements. Here goes:

The idea of discussing the morality of what we eat, something that not so long ago would have seemed a rather laughable notion, has over recent decades become quite a reasonable concern for much of the modern world. Questions of ethics, environmentalism and economic concerns can all be tied in nowadays to the simple notion of eating a meal.

The use of animals for food, in particular the killing of them for meat is undoubtedly a central question in these debates, and one that most people here will probably have encountered or thought about at some point. It is generally accepted in today's society that most animals are deserving of at least some moral consideration, and a great deal many people do today choose to buy free-range or ethically-raised meat. However the question could be raised as to why this attitude shouldn't be pushed further. If eating ethically-raised meat is a concern, then is there any reason why we shouldn't extend this concern to meat, or perhaps even all animal products? It could even be stressed that there may be a number of non-animal products that may be still having an indirect effect on animals through various means, so should we include these for consideration too?

These are complicated questions, that i think have the danger to overwhelm us if taken on all at once. Because of this, i think a good starting point in the debate is perhaps the simple idea of eating meat. Most people here i imagine eat meat, and probably have a good deal of reasons why they think they are perfectly justified in doing so.

My desire here is to debate this topic one reason(or piece of logic) at a time. A common problem i find in these sorts of ethical debates is that an argument will be given, and contested, and will then often be defended with a completely different reason. To give an example:

PERSON A "Eating meat is okay because historically humans have always done so"
PERSON B "So are other thing like war, rape and murder justified because historically humans have always done them??"
PERSON A "No, because those things hurt humans, and humans are much more intelligent than animals, so we should care about them more. "

Person A's reply here may or may not be a good justification, but the fact of the matter is that it is a completely different justification to the initially piece of logic he gave. The first logic was that a historical tendency for something was a justification to continue doing it, which Person B's reply proved to be a morally troubling logic when applied to other things. Person A can challenge Person B's reply if he wants to, but if he can't fault it then he should admit that his initial logic was wrong. After this, he is quite free to make a different argument, which of course could be the 2nd reply (that human's superior intelligence grants them higher moral concern than animals), but what he can't do is respond to Person B's criticism of his first argument with this second argument, which really has nothing to do with the logic presented in the first.

Of course, there probably are certain kinds of arguments or pieces of logic, which may well by their nature have to include other pieces of logic to justify them. These are fine, and we will take them when we come to them, but all i ask of you is to try and make sure when you are defending your argument, that the argument you are using to defend your first argument is logically connected to it, and not just another point entirely.

So yeah, lets see how this goes. My challenge is this: "Give your reasons/justifications for eating meat ONE POINT AT A TIME, and i will try and test the logic of these reasons/justifications."

*i should add that, i am going away for the weekend, so unless i have more time later tonight, some of you may have to wait a few days for a response. I should also add that in the last thread the amount of replies was slightly overwhelming to the point where i couldn't possibly reply to everyone. I don't know if this will be the case here, but to have a good chance of getting a reply from me just try and keep to the basic rules of the challenge.

**As for one more thing, one other tangent that took up a lot of time on the previous thread was the number of replies speculating of the subjective nature of morality and asking questions about how we can ever morally justify anything. While i find this topic to be very interesting and will try and reply to these sort of points if i have the time, i do think they often distract from the central point of this thread slightly so these sorts of replies will not be my first priority.

Sityl · #2 by **Sityl** » Jul 16, 2010 8:43 pm

Humans thrive by manipulating and devouring their environment like a plague. It's usually not ethical, but it's effective if the goal is to increase the size of the species. Ironically, however, the tendancy towards rampant growth will actually be detrimental quite soon as the population of the species balloons out of control and ultimately results in mass starvation, disease, dehydration, and even potential extinction.

atrasicarius · #3 by **atrasicarius** » Jul 16, 2010 9:08 pm

Feel with your tongue at the corners of your mouth. Feel those little sharp teeth there? Know what those are for? That's right, eating meat. It's not just a cultural thing, it's biological. Humans are meat eating machines. The extra fat we get from eating meat is what allows us to maintain are huge brains. And it's not like we're the only things that eat meat. Creatures eating other creatures is just sort of the way the world works. And incidentally, humans are one of the only creatures that engages in war. Meat eating is much more natural than war is.

Seabass · #4 by **Seabass** » Jul 16, 2010 9:27 pm

I was hoping for a meat eating contest.

Yawn.....

Kid A · #5 by **Kid A** » Jul 16, 2010 10:38 pm

Okay atrasicarius, thanks for replying, but you have ignored the OP of the thread slightly and gone and given quite a few reasons and responses here. I know when given a challenge like this, it is tempting to justify your view with a whole bunch of arguments, but i created this thread precisely for the reason that i do want to look at each idea individually.

However, maybe i haven't quite outlined the principle well enough yet, so seen as there aren't many replies so far, i will reply to your post. However, what i am going to do is try and look at each argument you've given here, try and see what the basic logic of the argument seems to be, and then see of the logic makes sense or seems to hold to other examples.

Feel with your tongue at the corners of your mouth. Feel those little sharp teeth there? Know what those are for? That's right, eating meat. It's not just a cultural thing, it's biological. Humans are meat eating machines.

Okay, i'd categorise this argument as an appeal to our nature. What you're saying here is that we humans are not herbivores, we are omnivores. Biologically like most other apes, we have evolved to eat meat and vegetables. I agree with all of this.

I think this argument is flawed though in that i don't think appealing to nature is any sort of moral indicator. Why does the fact that something is natural make it moral or desirably?

Yes, we are omnivores, but what does that really mean? Does it mean we must eat meat or we will die? No it does not. It means we have been equipped with the means to eat meat as well as vegetables, and historically have survived on a diet of both. That is it. It does not point in any direction of what we should do, it just tells us what we can choose to do. Think about another example; at some point in our social evolution, humans developed the ability to lie. This fact could be used to make an argument in a similar manner to yours:

Feel with your hand at (a certain part) of your head. Feel that part of your brain? Know what it's for? That's right, lying. It's not just a cultural thing, it's biological. Humans are lying machines.

Now, leaving aside my obvious lack of knowledge on the physiology of the brain, do you see my point? In the same way as your meat example, humans biologically have the ability to lie and historically have often done so. However do you think that this fact could be used in any example to justify a human lying, or that it should have any real bearing morality at all? Say a husband wants to sneak out so he can cheat on his wife, so tells her a lie (that he is going to a friends house to play poker). Is this lie justified because of the fact that he is a 'lying machine'?

In my view it is not. A lie may well be moral or immoral depending on the case, but the fact that humans have the ability to lie and historically have often done so, does not seem any sort of factor to base ones judgement to me, the same with meat.

So, i would say the argument that humans are meat eating machine, otherwise known as the appeal to nature, is not any sort of justification for eating meat, and i think i have proven this with the above argument.

The extra fat we get from eating meat is what allows us to maintain are huge brains.

Okay, this i would call more an appeal to health. I don't think it requires a huge reply, as i think it's quite simple to refute. Firstly because i don't think it's true; anything you get from meat you can get from other sources, though obviously this is tricky in some cases, which we can debate if you want to. On the point you've made here though, i certainly don't think fat is particular unique to meat, and i would contest your claim that fat from meat is a significant factor in maintaining our brains, and would ask your to provide some sort of evidence for this claim.

And it's not like we're the only things that eat meat. Creatures eating other creatures is just sort of the way the world works.

Again, i would call this an appeal to nature, although in a slightly different form. If you want i can spell out directly why i think this is flawed, but i think it's the same basic principle as your first argument, so we'll see how that goes down first.

And incidentally, humans are one of the only creatures that engages in war. Meat eating is much more natural than war is.

Again, this is along the lines of an appeal to nature, but it does raise another interesting point on the same subject. You seem to be saying here that seen as eating meat is more natural than war (something i'd basically agree with) it is therefore preferable. I'd just like you think of a few other natural vs. unnatural things and see if you think the logic holds up:
dieing from diseases and injuries vs. using modern medicine to cure oneself
having sex with no protection vs. using condoms
killing someone who disagrees with your view vs. debating them formally on an internet forum

in the majority of these examples the 'natural' thing does by no means seem better then the 'unnatural' thing(though the last one is debatable), so what relevance does it really have in moral discussion?

Thanks for your replies again though, and hopefully you can have a better idea of where i'm coming from now and either accept the arguments i've given, or find some flaws in them.

amused · #6 by **amused** » Jul 16, 2010 11:09 pm

Eating meat is the moral thing to do because it is a concentrated form of protein. If we were to all switch to rice and beans, for example, to get the equivalent amount of protein, the volume of plant matter that is shipped from the farms to the cities would have to dramatically increase. Instead, that plant matter is converted to meat, which is highly concentrated protein in a smaller amount of weight and volume. Less shipping means less pollution.

Also, eating meat is a fast way to ingest protein so it wastes less of our time that can then be spent on much more productive endeavors. So it is more moral to eat meat in order to allow humanity to produce at a higher level.

Eating meat means less waste through the digestive system compared to all that roughage that comes with eating a lot of plant matter. Less waste means fewer flushes that wastes less water.

So the basic argument here is that meat is more efficient and that leads to a better environment which is the moral choice.

Eat more meat!

Sityl · #7 by **Sityl** » Jul 16, 2010 11:11 pm

amused wrote:Eating meat is the moral thing to do because it is a concentrated form of protein. If we were to all switch to rice and beans, for example, to get the equivalent amount of protein, the volume of plant matter that is shipped from the farms to the cities would have to dramatically increase. Instead, that plant matter is converted to meat, which is highly concentrated protein in a smaller amount of weight and volume. Less shipping means less pollution.

Also, eating meat is a fast way to ingest protein so it wastes less of our time that can then be spent on much more productive endeavors. So it is more moral to eat meat in order to allow humanity to produce at a higher level.

Eating meat means less waste through the digestive system compared to all that roughage that comes with eating a lot of plant matter. Less waste means fewer flushes that wastes less water.

So the basic argument here is that meat is more efficient and that leads to a better environment which is the moral choice.

Eat more meat!

I'd like to see your sources on that, because I was under the impression that meat takes 10 times more calories worth of grain to grow meat, whereas just eating the grain in the first place would provide the same calories with 1/10th the amount of grain.

Also, the biproducts of the conversion of grain into meat include a LARGE amount of global warming gases.

amused · #8 by **amused** » Jul 16, 2010 11:15 pm

I have no sources, just assertions.

But I suspect that 10 times number assumes that the meat is eaten at the slaughterhouse and doesn't take into account all the transportation costs from there. No sources for that either though.

(I'm playing devil's advocate here, just to goose things along.)

debunk · #9 by **debunk** » Jul 16, 2010 11:24 pm

Here's a challenge to all vegans/vegetarians/piscatarians: stop being whiney bitches.

Meat tastes good. That's all the justification I need. Yay steak!

<disclaimer>I've been drinking :cheers:

</disclaimer>

This message was brought to you by STEAK. Steak, it's the tasty meat you just can't beat.

atrasicarius · **#10** by **atrasicarius** » Jul 16, 2010 11:31 pm

debunk wrote:Here's a challenge to all vegans/vegetarians/piscatarians: stop being whiney bitches.

Meat tastes good. That's all the justification I need. Yay steak!

<disclaimer>I've been drinking </disclaimer>

This message was brought to you by STEAK. Steak, it's the tasty meat you just can't beat.

Although, I actually dont really like steak. How about some delicious bacon?

debunk · **#11** by **debunk** » Jul 16, 2010 11:34 pm

atrasicarius wrote:
debunk wrote:Here's a challenge to all vegans/vegetarians/piscatarians: stop being whiney bitches.

Meat tastes good. That's all the justification I need. Yay steak!

<disclaimer>I've been drinking </disclaimer>

This message was brought to you by STEAK. Steak, it's the tasty meat you just can't beat.

Although, I actually dont really like steak. How about some delicious bacon?

scruffy · **#12** by **scruffy** » Jul 16, 2010 11:36 pm

amused: Eating meat is the moral thing to do because it is a concentrated form of protein. If we were to all switch to rice and beans, for example, to get the equivalent amount of protein, the volume of plant matter that is shipped from the farms to the cities would have to dramatically increase. Instead, that plant matter is converted to meat, which is highly concentrated protein in a smaller amount of weight and volume. Less shipping means less pollution.

Here is an excerpt from Peter Singer's 'Animal Liberation':

Chapter 4, pg. 165 -
How much of the protein in his food does the calf use up, and how much is available for human beings? The answer is surprising. It takes twenty-one pounds of protein fed to a calf to produce a single pound of animal protein for humans. We get back less than 5 percent of what we put in. No wonder that Frances Moore Lappe has called this kind of farming "a protein factory in reverse"!

Now which did you say would require less shipping? And therefore improve the environment? :tongue:

At this point he goes on a 4-5 page rant giving example after example like these. I can put some more up if you'd like, they're all really interesting.

I'll give you his sources as well -

Frances Moore Lappe, Diet for a Small Planet (New York: Friends of the Earth/Ballantine, (1971)
The World Food Problem, a Report of the President's Science Advisory Committee (1967)
Feed Situation, February 1970, U.S. Department of Agriculture
National and State Livestock-Feed Relationships, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Statistical Bulletin No. 446, February 1970

____

Here's a challenge to all vegans/vegetarians/piscatarians: stop being whiney bitches.

Meat tastes good. That's all the justification I need. Yay steak!

You know why I like keeping slaves in my basement? Because they make my life so much easier! They're good at what they do and that's all the justification I need!

No, but in all seriousness, a steak sounds fucking delicious right about now.

<disclaimer>Vegetarian for less than a week</disclaimer>

amused · **#13** by **amused** » Jul 16, 2010 11:44 pm

Well, yeah. But that 21 pounds of protein is distributed through how many hundreds of pounds of grains and other feedstuff?

Gallstones · **#14** by **Gallstones** » Jul 17, 2010 12:00 am

num1cubfn wrote:
amused wrote:Eating meat is the moral thing to do because it is a concentrated form of protein. If we were to all switch to rice and beans, for example, to get the equivalent amount of protein, the volume of plant matter that is shipped from the farms to the cities would have to dramatically increase. Instead, that plant matter is converted to meat, which is highly concentrated protein in a smaller amount of weight and volume. Less shipping means less pollution.

Also, eating meat is a fast way to ingest protein so it wastes less of our time that can then be spent on much more productive endeavors. So it is more moral to eat meat in order to allow humanity to produce at a higher level.

Eating meat means less waste through the digestive system compared to all that roughage that comes with eating a lot of plant matter. Less waste means fewer flushes that wastes less water.

So the basic argument here is that meat is more efficient and that leads to a better environment which is the moral choice.

Eat more meat!

I'd like to see your sources on that, because I was under the impression that meat takes 10 times more calories worth of grain to grow meat, whereas just eating the grain in the first place would provide the same calories with 1/10th the amount of grain.

Also, the biproducts of the conversion of grain into meat include a LARGE amount of global warming gases.

No human is going to be able to utilize grass for protein. Ungulates do that quite well. No need to feed grain to cattle/sheep/goats/horses etc when they can get their nutrition from grass, and we can get our protein from them. The prairies and grasslands have been grazed by millions of ungulates for millenia.

Gallstones · **#15** by **Gallstones** » Jul 17, 2010 12:02 am

atrasicarius wrote:
debunk wrote:Here's a challenge to all vegans/vegetarians/piscatarians: stop being whiney bitches.

Meat tastes good. That's all the justification I need. Yay steak!

<disclaimer>I've been drinking </disclaimer>

This message was brought to you by STEAK. Steak, it's the tasty meat you just can't beat.

Although, I actually dont really like steak. How about some delicious bacon?

I have been hearing on the radio that love for bacon is in the DNA. Taco Bell says it's so and that's good enough for me.

scruffy · **#16** by **scruffy** » Jul 17, 2010 12:03 am

amused wrote:Well, yeah. But that 21 pounds of protein is distributed through how many hundreds of pounds of grains and other feedstuff?

Not sure. The amount of fossil fuels used in shipping meat product versus plant product is negligible when you take a look at the whole picture. Lets look at this from an 'energy usage' standpoint.

Corn grown in Mexico, for instance, produces 83 calories of food for each calorie of fossil fuel energy input. Agriculture in developed countries, however, relies on a large input of fossil fuel. The most energy efficient form of food production in the United States (oats, again) produces barely 2.5 food calories per calorie of fossil fuel energy...[snip]...Even these meager results, however, are a bonanza compared to United States animal production, every form of which costs more energy than it yields. The least inefficient - range land beef - uses more than 3 calories of fossil fuels for every one food calorie it yields; while the most inefficient - feedlot beef - takes 33 fuel calories for every one food calorie it produces.

Taken from the second of those list of sources I quoted last post.

In practically whatever way you put it, it just isn't efficient at all. Arguing against vegetarianism from an energy or 'green' stand-point is a losing battle IMO.

Sityl · **#17** by **Sityl** » Jul 17, 2010 12:04 am

Gallstones wrote:
num1cubfn wrote:
amused wrote:Eating meat is the moral thing to do because it is a concentrated form of protein. If we were to all switch to rice and beans, for example, to get the equivalent amount of protein, the volume of plant matter that is shipped from the farms to the cities would have to dramatically increase. Instead, that plant matter is converted to meat, which is highly concentrated protein in a smaller amount of weight and volume. Less shipping means less pollution.

Also, eating meat is a fast way to ingest protein so it wastes less of our time that can then be spent on much more productive endeavors. So it is more moral to eat meat in order to allow humanity to produce at a higher level.

Eating meat means less waste through the digestive system compared to all that roughage that comes with eating a lot of plant matter. Less waste means fewer flushes that wastes less water.

So the basic argument here is that meat is more efficient and that leads to a better environment which is the moral choice.

Eat more meat!

There may be more need, but in the US a lot of farmers feed their cattle corn because it fattens them up faster.

I'd like to see your sources on that, because I was under the impression that meat takes 10 times more calories worth of grain to grow meat, whereas just eating the grain in the first place would provide the same calories with 1/10th the amount of grain.

Also, the biproducts of the conversion of grain into meat include a LARGE amount of global warming gases.

No human is going to be able to utilize grass for protein. Ungulates do that quite well. No need to feed grain to cattle/sheep/goats/horses etc when they can get their nutrition from grass, and we can get our protein from them. The prairies and grasslands have been grazed by millions of ungulates for millenia.

Gallstones · **#18** by **Gallstones** » Jul 17, 2010 12:05 am

I wonder how many grams of plant matter it takes to produce a gram of protein in a grasshopper?

scruffy · **#19** by **scruffy** » Jul 17, 2010 12:09 am

Gallstones wrote:
num1cubfn wrote:
amused wrote:Eating meat is the moral thing to do because it is a concentrated form of protein. If we were to all switch to rice and beans, for example, to get the equivalent amount of protein, the volume of plant matter that is shipped from the farms to the cities would have to dramatically increase. Instead, that plant matter is converted to meat, which is highly concentrated protein in a smaller amount of weight and volume. Less shipping means less pollution.

Also, eating meat is a fast way to ingest protein so it wastes less of our time that can then be spent on much more productive endeavors. So it is more moral to eat meat in order to allow humanity to produce at a higher level.

Eating meat means less waste through the digestive system compared to all that roughage that comes with eating a lot of plant matter. Less waste means fewer flushes that wastes less water.

So the basic argument here is that meat is more efficient and that leads to a better environment which is the moral choice.

Eat more meat!

I'd like to see your sources on that, because I was under the impression that meat takes 10 times more calories worth of grain to grow meat, whereas just eating the grain in the first place would provide the same calories with 1/10th the amount of grain.

Also, the biproducts of the conversion of grain into meat include a LARGE amount of global warming gases.

No human is going to be able to utilize grass for protein. Ungulates do that quite well. No need to feed grain to cattle/sheep/goats/horses etc when they can get their nutrition from grass, and we can get our protein from them. The prairies and grasslands have been grazed by millions of ungulates for millenia.

You are 100% correct, and this is where I may part ways with the OP. One of my problems with our meat is that it is not taken from grass-eating animals. The animals are overwhelmingly being factory farmed and to do this in an economical manner, they need to be fed food that we humans ourselves are capable of eating (corn, sorghum, soybeans, etc.). This is to what my statistics I've been posting applies.

I would have no problem eating a nice juicy horse-steak if that horse truly grazed on grasses and was not forced to endure any unnecessary suffering to get to that point. :popcorn:

Gallstones: I wonder how many grams of plant matter it takes to produce a gram of protein in a grasshopper?

Who's against eating grasshoppers?

amused · **#20** by **amused** » Jul 17, 2010 12:13 am

jaredennisclark wrote:
Not sure. The amount of fossil fuels used in shipping meat product versus plant product is negligible when you take a look at the whole picture. Lets look at this from an 'energy usage' standpoint.

Corn grown in Mexico, for instance, produces 83 calories of food for each calorie of fossil fuel energy input. Agriculture in developed countries, however, relies on a large input of fossil fuel. The most energy efficient form of food production in the United States (oats, again) produces barely 2.5 food calories per calorie of fossil fuel energy...[snip]...Even these meager results, however, are a bonanza compared to United States animal production, every form of which costs more energy than it yields. The least inefficient - range land beef - uses more than 3 calories of fossil fuels for every one food calorie it yields; while the most inefficient - feedlot beef - takes 33 fuel calories for every one food calorie it produces.

Taken from the second of those list of sources I quoted last post.

In practically whatever way you put it, it just isn't efficient at all. Arguing against vegetarianism from an energy or 'green' stand-point is a losing battle IMO.

I'm not sure calories is a valid unit of measure here. It's protein that meat provides. We can get too many calories from just corn, to the point that corn based sweeteners are considered a cause of the obesity epidemic.