Good Anti-Vegan arguments?

[Korto]

Finally, if you believe it's murder to kill a member of a different species, then that's what you believe. Fine. But that's an ethical belief, and not one that's universally shared. The legal definition of murder is the killing of a human by another human.

That is what I´ve been saying since my first post in this thread. Hence, there are no good arguments against vegans. If you believe that it is ethically wrong to kill animals the logical conclusion is to refrain from eating meat.
Someone might find that a silly belief but that is not a good argument.

It means any argument is a waste of time on both sides unless you enjoy arguing, as if you can't agree on whether or not killing animals is unethical (in and of itself, ignoring method, wastefulness, etc), then there's nowhere to go.

So you don´t like intelligence as a measure for value. Well, obviously other people like it. Now, who is going to judge who is correct?

I'm sorry, you must be in the wrong room. We're talking ethics here, there is no correct / incorrect. Mathematics is down the hall.

I'm a utilitarian. Unless there's a need (preventing equivalent suffering, and I'd grade based on level of awareness) I don't believe that it is ethical to cause any suffering.

I'm not a utilitarian. I don't believe lives can be added and subtracted. One life is worth a million, a million lives is worth one.

That's a bad thing.

We've crippled these species. Without us, they wouldn't survive. We've made them entirely dependent on us.

That's a neutral thing. There's many creatures whose existence depends upon another creature. Coral and algae, legumes and Rhizobia, us and our own gut bacteria, mitochondrion and nearly all eukaryotes.

---

If I were to give you a wonderful apartment with fabulous meals and an unending supply of willing sexual partners but, at a time of my choosing, you were taken into a room and shot in the back of the head without warning and I then cooked and ate your flesh. At what point would that be considered wrong?

If I wasn't killed, would I live forever?

To answer your literal question; at the point you're committing (legal definition) murder and cannibalism. To answer your intended question; if you were a different species, I see nothing wrong, from your viewpoint, in what you've done. Been quite nice about it, actually. From my viewpoint, I have no intention of cooperating with the last part of your plan.

[AniThyng]

To answer your literal question; at the point you're committing (legal definition) murder and cannibalism. To answer your intended question; if you were a different species, I see nothing wrong, from your viewpoint, in what you've done. Been quite nice about it, actually. From my viewpoint, I have no intention of cooperating with the last part of your plan.

Did you basicially just say you would be fine with humans doing this to, I dunno, dolphins or chimpanzees?

[hongi]

That's a neutral thing. There's many creatures whose existence depends upon another creature. Coral and algae, legumes and Rhizobia, us and our own gut bacteria, mitochondrion and nearly all eukaryotes.

Of course our existence depends on the existence (or death) of others, and that's true for all beings, no being is an island.

But that misses the point of my criticism, which is that we've made, quite literally, these animals dependent on us: there is nothing about their existence that is 'thanks to us'. Thanks and gratitude has no place in there. We've made them to be dependent on us, it isn't as if they were originally dependent on us, so they have nothing to thank us for. Instead they have everything to blame us for for their current way of existing.

If they need us to survive, it's because we made them to need us to survive, and we did all this for our benefit, not theirs.

[hongi]

Yeah. I don't accept that measurement. It seems somewhat self-serving to define intelligence as the standard for measuring worth, since we're the most intelligent species on the planet.
I imagine from an outside perspective, none of us are worth jack shit. The universe doesn't give a fuck.
From a personal perspective, the most important life on the planet, the existence of most "worth", is your own. That insect is the most important creature on the planet, to itself. No other viewpoint matters.

Many Buddhists are vegetarians because they don't want to cause suffering to other beings. The measure of what they consider beings is the capacity to suffer. Traditionally, that means including not killing insects. Not only for eating, but for any other purposes.

From a religious perspective, intelligence has nothing to do with it. Worms and humans are equal in the eyes of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas.

I completely reject your idea that from a personal perspective, the most important life on the planet, the existence of most worth, is my own. As a religious person, and a vegetarian, the existence of other beings are just as important - if not more so - than my own.

[Korto]

To answer your literal question; at the point you're committing (legal definition) murder and cannibalism. To answer your intended question; if you were a different species, I see nothing wrong, from your viewpoint, in what you've done. Been quite nice about it, actually. From my viewpoint, I have no intention of cooperating with the last part of your plan.

Did you basicially just say you would be fine with humans doing this to, I dunno, dolphins or chimpanzees?

No! No! Not dolphins! Dolphins are such special little snowflakes!
Read the question I was answering again. I basically said there was nothing wrong with doing this to humans (specifically in the question, myself), assuming the predator wasn't human. I also said the victim is not beholden to cooperate.

If they need us to survive, it's because we made them to need us to survive, and we did all this for our benefit, not theirs

And they've done very well out of it. But blame, gratitude, they don't apply. It just is.

I completely reject your idea that from a personal perspective, the most important life on the planet, the existence of most worth, is my own. As a religious person, and a vegetarian, the existence of other beings are just as important - if not more so - than my own.

I find this interesting. Why do you feel you are less important than other people? Of equal importance, I can understand, but why do you feel of lesser importance?
Is it a vegetarian thing?

[FireNexus]

You talk about splitting hairs and then you pull this convoluted reasoning out of your ear? Sorry asshole, nice try. It's not only Oxford that lists pain above loss, but it's also Merriam Webster, Cambridge, Macmillon, Collins, and practically every other fucking dictionary out there. So unless you can provide a link to Oxford's dictionary specifically stating they sort it by date and not common usage, then you will concede this point or be outed as a liar.

The point, fuckface, is that all three of those words are in the same definition. I did not use the third definition down, but considered the third word in a very inclusive definition. The other definitions were simply to hammer home that my categorization of painless death as suffering is not trying to stretch the definition. Hardship can be suffering, and deprivation of things needed for life (like a brain stem) is a pretty extreme form of hardship. The reason you keep on this point isn't because I'm being obtuse, but because to concede displays yet another weakness in the justifications you have so far provided.

As far as evidence of the definition ordering claim (which is not relevant to our argument, since your claim was that my definition was limited or self-serving, and the third word in a definition sentence listing three words hardly counts as such) Oxford doesn't seem to specify on their website that I'm able to find right now, but the Brittanica entry backs me up. If you find that source unacceptable, prove me wrong, but you're seriously reaching if you think you're going to look less stupid by pointing me out as a liar on this unrelated side insult.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... ionary-OED

you know damn well what the differences are, you're just being too fucking obtuse to actually consider them. Any reason that could potentially be used to increase the justification of eating meat is offhand discarded by you because if eating meat is "not necessary" then anything else is automatically irrelevant without consideration. So stop asking if you're just going to ignore the answer.

.

Killing for sport or sadism is bad to you. You want me to admit that the pleasure you gain from eating the meat is somehow more morally valid a reason to kill than the pleasure you would get from sadistic or bloodthirsty thrill, but you have not demonstrated why. You say you have, but reread what you've written. Every time it relies on an assumption that the distinction is self-evident, an appeal to nature or an appeal to a need for people other than yourself to eat meat. That you gain nutrients as well as pleasure is incidental, because you could have gotten the nutrients elsewhere. You killed the animal to enjoy the consequences of its death and you got nutrients as a bonus. Sadism, sport or dinner are killing an animal specifically for your own pleasure. i don't damn well know the difference, because your logic in claiming one has been routinely flawed or inconsistent.

No it does not. I will concede that you are correct about coal vs gas in some markets but overall my point stands. If eating meat was cheaper than veggies, a good amount of moral outrage would simply vanish because at that point the economic benefits are taken into consideration.

The comparison is apt because gas is cheaper than coal and has fewer negative consequences environmentally. And even if it wasn't I was trying to make a hypothetical point, in fact asking you to take the premises as given so that they would compare directly to the premises you've accepted in the actual argument to illustrate the point. But you decided to nitpick because of the oversimplification I indicated I was aware of, and even then you were fucking wrong about it, like you've been very confidently totally fucking wrong more than once in this exchange.

And what is that level? At what point is it no longer immoral to kill for food if it's unnecessary for immediate survival? Any living thing with a brain? Anything with a testable IQ over a certain level? Anything with a spinal cord? Anything in the animal kingdom?

This is not relevant to the point because before it became clear to you that it was a losing position, you made clear that killing animals is wrong unless it serves a Good Purpose then arbitrarily defined eating their flesh as a Good Purpose despite the fact that it is broadly the same in motivation and consequences as the Bad Purposes you specified absent a necessity to do it.

I'm done after this, because your flawed logic and intellectual dishonesty is getting irritating. So, let's sum things up:

1. You have accepted it's wrong to kill animals for a Bad Purpose, though you did try to backpedal and cast doubt on the moral status of animal killing later.

2. You've defined sport hunting and sadistic killing as Bad Purposes.

3. I've drawn similarities between those Bad Purposes and the act of killing specifically to get flesh for food, which you say is a Good Purpose. The key similarity was that the only reason you would undertake any of those actions (in absence of a need to consume animal flesh for survival, a need you have tacitly admitted does not affect you, and which would not apply to the average modern first world person I've been under the assumption this argument generally applies to) would be to gain pleasure from them or their consequences.

4. There are side benefits to your health and well-being from each, but those aren't the primary motivators, since those benefits can generally be gotten as easily from alternative means.

5. You have claimed I know the difference between these Bad Purposes and the Good Purpose, but your attempts to illucidate these differences have relied on fallacious arguments including appeals to nature, appeals to tradition and false equivalencies, as well as outright failure of reading comprehension or English fluency.

So, you can claim I know what you haven't demonstrated all day. You can engage in your histrionic accusations of dishonesty as much as you like, also. I'd say I've made a clear argument that your moral position on the subject is inconsistent with your moral position on similar subjects. If you had started from the position "killing animals isn't wrong" rather than "killing animals for meat (but not sport or sadism) is ok because it's natural and people who aren't me have and continue to require it for life" you may look like less of a hysterical retard. But you didn't, so you don't. Good day!

[Borgholio]

As far as evidence of the definition ordering claim (which is not relevant to our argument, since your claim was that my definition was limited or self-serving, and the third word in a definition sentence listing three words hardly counts as such) Oxford doesn't seem to specify on their website that I'm able to find right now, but the Brittanica entry backs me up. If you find that source unacceptable, prove me wrong, but you're seriously reaching if you think you're going to look less stupid by pointing me out as a liar on this unrelated side insult.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... ionary-OED

Well done. You couldn't find the source material so you had to find a totally unrelated third party as reference (that isn't even supported on OED's own website, for crying out loud). Once again you demonstrate that you have to stretch and grasp at straws to make your definition or opinion fit the facts. This is totally related to our original discussion as this is what you have been doing for the last page and a half. You find one definition that fits your worldview and cling to that without bothering to consider any alternative viewpoints. You don't care that 6 major dictionaries list the definition against yours, you find the one that is ONLY supported by a third party and point to it and say SEE! I was right! All those other definitions are wrong because I found this one barely-supported exception to the rule! Taking this to your anti-meat argument, you say that killing for meat is wrong even though killing an eating an animal is putting it to good use, as opposed to just killing for sport or sadism. You totally ignore the fully practical and reasonable results of killing an animal and just jump to the conclusion that killing for a gruesome trophy and killing to make a nutritious stew are exactly the same thing.

See at least "I" am willing to admit that the circumstances of the death DO factor in to whether the death was moral or ethical. Same as if shooting some random guy in the back of the head at Walmart is murder, shooting him as he attempted to break into your house is perfectly acceptable. They're both deaths, they both involve killing a living creature, but the circumstances make all the difference between murder and justifiable homicide, moral and immoral.

That you gain nutrients as well as pleasure is incidental, because you could have gotten the nutrients elsewhere.

Like hell it is. Why don't you go eat some lab-created nutrient cocktail instead of killing plants and all the insects, rodents, and small wildlife that go along with a harvest. All the millions of insects killed by spraying pesticides? If it's all about the nutrients, then why do you want to eat plants when a simple harvest involves killing potentially thousands of tiny creatures...you could get the nutrients elsewhere, right? RIGHT? Fucking hypocrite.

This is not relevant to the point

Oh bullshit. Don't try to dodge answering the question you sleazy fuck. You clearly value animal life the same as human life. That is the core of all your arguments and now you will answer why. Why are animal lives the same as human lives? What is the reason? What about comparing other animals lower on the food chain than we are. Is the death of a cow worse than the death of a locust or are they all the same? Is the death of a plant more acceptable than the death of a chicken? Why?

Answer the fucking question.

[AniThyng]

To answer your literal question; at the point you're committing (legal definition) murder and cannibalism. To answer your intended question; if you were a different species, I see nothing wrong, from your viewpoint, in what you've done. Been quite nice about it, actually. From my viewpoint, I have no intention of cooperating with the last part of your plan.

Did you basicially just say you would be fine with humans doing this to, I dunno, dolphins or chimpanzees?

No! No! Not dolphins! Dolphins are such special little snowflakes!
Read the question I was answering again. I basically said there was nothing wrong with doing this to humans (specifically in the question, myself), assuming the predator wasn't human. I also said the victim is not beholden to cooperate.

Right, so there's also nothing wrong with us doing this to another species, yes, from our viewpoint? But for some curious reason we are fine with pigs and cows but not dogs or whales* or whatever.

*I mean, okay, so whales going extinct. DO you seriously expect me to believe that were we able to farm whales like they were cows it would be okay?

@Borgholio - I don't find your argument that killing to eat meat is inherently more moral than killing for sport to be particularly compelling given you seem to have also spent time telling us that death is okay because after you die you're dead and don't suffer anyway, barring whatever happened in the process of dying.

Is it so hard to just accept that it's actually can be immoral to have to kill animals so that we can eat meat far in excess of our basic dietery requirements for the taste, and just let it go and accept we do a lot of immoral things for our own self-interest anyway? The "but we need meat to live" argument is a nonstarter because the average person today has ready access to far more meat than is necessary for basic survival and often partakes of meat purely for enjoyment of the taste.

[Borgholio]

you seem to have also spent time telling us that death is okay because after you die you're dead and don't suffer anyway

I didn't say that. I said you can't suffer when you're dead, I didn't say death is inherently okay. What I DID say is that death for a practical reason is better than death for no reason.

Is it so hard to just accept that it's actually can be immoral to have to kill animals so that we can eat meat far in excess of our basic dietery requirements for the taste, and just let it go and accept we do a lot of immoral things for our own self-interest anyway?

Sure I don't have any problem accepting that some people think it's immoral. My problem is that Firenexus refuses to explain WHY he thinks it's immoral. If he just said "I believe killing animals is immoral because they have brains but killing plants is ok because they don't", then that would pretty much be the end of it. He would have clearly defined a point at which he's comfortable killing something (plant vs animal, brain vs no brain). Then it would simply be a matter of personal comfort which cannot be debated as every individual has their own comfort levels.

The "but we need meat to live" argument is a nonstarter because the average person today has ready access to far more meat than is necessary for basic survival and often partakes of meat purely for enjoyment of the taste.

I agree. I never said we need meat to live, despite what Firenexus has claimed. I said we need to eat to live and eating meat for that purpose is not inherently immoral. I personally would not go so far as to say that we should stop eating meat entirely, but we can certainly cut down a great deal and keep better care of our food animals than we currently do.

*Edited to clarify statement

[AniThyng]

you seem to have also spent time telling us that death is okay because after you die you're dead and don't suffer anyway

I didn't say that. I said you can't suffer when you're dead, I didn't say death is inherently okay. What I DID say is that death for a practical reason is better than death for no reason.

Is it so hard to just accept that it's actually can be immoral to have to kill animals so that we can eat meat far in excess of our basic dietery requirements for the taste, and just let it go and accept we do a lot of immoral things for our own self-interest anyway?

Sure I don't have any problem accepting that some people think it's immoral. My problem is that Firenexus refuses to explain WHY he thinks it's immoral. If he just said "I believe killing animals is immoral because they have brains but killing plants is ok because they don't", then that would pretty much be the end of it. He would have clearly defined a point at which he's comfortable killing something (plant vs animal, brain vs no brain). Then it would simply be a matter of personal comfort which cannot be debated as every individual has their own comfort levels.

The "but we need meat to live" argument is a nonstarter because the average person today has ready access to far more meat than is necessary for basic survival and often partakes of meat purely for enjoyment of the taste.

I agree. I never said we need meat to live, despite what Firenexus has claimed. I said we need to eat to live and eating meat for that purpose is not inherently immoral. I personally would not go so far as to say that we should stop eating meat entirely, but we can certainly cut down a great deal and keep better care of our food animals than we currently do.

*Edited to clarify statement

Pretty sure he did - "So killing something with a will and desire to live does not count as causing suffering? Because if the animal is given any concept of your intentions, it would certainly act very unhappy about it."

I mean then yes we go on this whole thing about how it's still better to have the most pampered livestock and just sorta instakill it, but that really really puts the burden on us meat eaters much more so than it does on the vegans.

SUre, we can also continue and ask but what about the will of plants to live, because they clearly actually do have a will and desire to live as well, and I'm sure it's a perfectly valid counterargument, but accepting that seems along the vein of "well that's that then, guess everything goes".

[Borgholio]

I mean then yes we go on this whole thing about how it's still better to have the most pampered livestock and just sorta instakill it, but that really really puts the burden on us meat eaters much more so than it does on the vegans.

Is that a bad thing? I mean if we choose to eat meat and accept an additional burden for that luxury, is that not a fair trade? If vegans don't want to have to deal with the morality of it then...well...that's why they're vegans.

SUre, we can also continue and ask but what about the will of plants to live, because they clearly actually do have a will and desire to live as well, and I'm sure it's a perfectly valid counterargument, but accepting that seems along the vein of "well that's that then, guess everything goes".

And that's the problem I have with his arguments. He's not defining a clear-cut point at which something is or is not moral to eat. Having a vague definition such as "a will to live" means that he can argue that anything you eat is immoral...or not, as the case may be. If he said, "Animals are deserving of protection because they have brains. Anything with a brain is a higher form of life and should be protected. Anything lower is fit to be consumed as a resource.", then the only question at that point is whether or not a creature has a brain. However...I have a vegan co-worker who thinks eating fish is ok because they're a lower form of life than pigs or cows. So she wouldn't agree with the "brain" argument.

So when discussing the morality of whether an organism can be morally used as food or not, it helps to have a clear dividing line such as "brain" or "heartbeat" or something like that. Saying "will to live" is just as vague as "self aware", because how would one measure or quantify such things?

[FireNexus]

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... ionary-OED

Well done. You couldn't find the source material so you had to find a totally unrelated third party as reference (that isn't even supported on OED's own website, for crying out loud).

Again, I'm done with going in circles regarding the main argument. But fine, I went through the (surprisingly large, for what it is) trouble to get the information from Oxford's website. Where it is supported. I swear that if you were trying to be completely, comically fucking wrong about any disputed factual claim you make, you couldn't do better than you have here.

4. Definition and definition note

The definition shows the meaning of the word. Definitions can be descriptive or explanatory (describing or explaining the meaning of a word), structural (explaining a word’s structure in a grammatical or syntactic sense), or can consist solely of a cross-reference to another related item within the dictionary. Some words have many different meanings, which are ordered systematically to illustrate the word’s development over time.

http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/gui ... f-the-oed/

It supports my claim, and while it is unclear enough that multiple variations of a Google search on the subject came up only with definitions of "order" and "arrange", it's clear enough that my original assertion is proven correct.

I want to say that I have given you no evidence to believe that I would dishonestly make factual claims. The accusation of lying about facts that are not even part of the main argument is offensive. If you had left it at attacking my intelligence, the merits/intellectual honesty of my argument or of my characterizations of your argument, that would be fine. I've been on SDN a long time and I'm a big boy. But you assaulted my integrity, and you continued the assault after I provided a generally reliable source. You seemed to have the same problem with googling it because it turned out to actually be on Oxford's website and you (obviously) didn't have a counter source beyond your experience with other dictionaries.

Tensions regarding the argument aside, I take exception to being accused of such an easy to debunk lie, especially after sourcing the claim. For that, and for absolutely nothing else said here, I would like an apology.

[Borgholio]

http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/gui ... f-the-oed/

It supports my claim, and while it is unclear enough that multiple variations of a Google search on the subject came up only with definitions of "order" and "arrange", it's clear enough that my original assertion is proven correct.

Thank you for that link, I stand corrected and concede that point.

[FireNexus]

http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/gui ... f-the-oed/

It supports my claim, and while it is unclear enough that multiple variations of a Google search on the subject came up only with definitions of "order" and "arrange", it's clear enough that my original assertion is proven correct.

Thank you for that link, I stand corrected and concede that point.

Good enough. I did slip down the steps submitting that last post. I hope you don't mind me holding you responsible for what looks like it'll be a couple of nasty bruises.

[Borgholio]

Despite our argument, I would not want to wish actual physical harm to you. I sincerely hope you're not hurt too bad.

[FireNexus]

Nah, I'm fine. Just sore arms from catching myself. I was just messing with you.

[Korto]

Right, so there's also nothing wrong with us doing this to another species, yes, from our viewpoint? But for some curious reason we are fine with pigs and cows but not dogs or whales* or whatever.

*I mean, okay, so whales going extinct. DO you seriously expect me to believe that were we able to farm whales like they were cows it would be okay?

I'm assuming your argument here is that people as a whole refuse to eat the more intelligent animal, but do eat the less intelligent ones (otherwise, I have no idea where you're going with this).
In which case, I'm confused by your including that we don't eat dogs, but do eat pigs, as according to many, pigs are more intelligent than dogs. The reason we don't eat dogs, to my mind, is because we identify with them so much in their role as family pet, that to eat them feels like cannibalism.
The dog thing also shows just how cultural the eat/don't eat list can be, as other cultures around the world have no trouble eating dog. Or cat for that matter. Or horse.

PS. To answer your question, correct. There would be nothing unethical about us doing that to another species. Yes. If we were able to farm whales like cows, it would be OK. Although it'd be incredibly easier to leave them to free-range, and harvest a small, sustainable number.

[salm]

It means any argument is a waste of time on both sides unless you enjoy arguing, as if you can't agree on whether or not killing animals is unethical (in and of itself, ignoring method, wastefulness, etc), then there's nowhere to go.

That is what it boils down to, though. I mean you say that you don´t accept the value by intelligence measurement because it seems self-serving due to us being the most intelligent species. So, what if it is not self-serving and somebody genuinely cares about other species? How will he prove this to you? Is it even possible or will you just dismiss it as self-serving?
If you simply dismiss it there is no basis for a discussion. If you accept that somebody does use this measurement out of genuine reasons the argument against eating animals follow logically.

I am not sure what the outside perspecitve has to do with this. Animals are part of our world. Just because they are outside of our species doesn´t mean they necessarily need to be excluded from our ethics.

Your arguement that the most important life on the planet is your own from you own perspective isn´t true either. There are plenty of examples where people and animals scrifice their own life for others. In the case of a persons or animals offspring or partner this is even the rule as opposed to the exception.

Now, even if it was true that you are the most important life to yourself it doesn´t matter at all. I mean, even if other lives are less important to you doesn´t mean that other lives are necessarily irrelevant. It is entirely possible to find animal lives less important than your own life but more important than the own need to eat meat. Therefore, if your own life doesn´t require the consumption of meat not eating meat is the logical consequence.
Do you shoot your neigbor if he is bugging you with loud music at 3 in the morning? I mean, you are, after all, the most important person in you life and killing the neigbor would get rid of the annoyance. You don´t because you value his life and find his life a lot more important than the inconvenience of being kept awake at ungodly times.

I don´t understand why ethics should stop at the border of you own species. It seems rather arbitrary.

[salm]

This is the very problem of the argument here - people are stretching morality to levels that most people don't. Usually, there is no way to solve that problem, for both arguments do hold merit.

Still, my point is that this is a dilemma of ethics applied too broad. Still, nobody could explain why we should expand a social construct that governs the general behavior between humans (Morality/Ethics) onto animals. If they were to be included into that system, shouldn't we also hold them to the same standards? After all, we also make (as in, force them to comply, or locking them away to keep other people safe) people with mental disabilities adhere to moral standards, even though they may not understand those, like our pets would. So why don't we force dogs and cats to eat enriched vegan food? Or lock all cats into houses at all time, because they cannot be trusted to not randomly kill animals? Most vegans I know defend the right of their kitty to go hunting vehemently, declaring it animal cruelty to not let them out.

People who find it unethical to kill animals obviously don´t think it is a social construct solely for humans. They want to minimize suffering.
Now, if there is a non harmful way to feed pets with veggies I´m sure people will do that. I know a couple of people who feed their cats only with meat from "happy cows" and don´t buy cat food from meat factory animals. It´s pretty expensive and it shows that the mindset of feeding your pet as ethical as possible does exist. I am not sure how easy or inexpensive it is to feed your animals with a completely vegetarian diet.
But I do agree with you that people who are strictly vegan or vegetarian but don´t extend this to their pets diet where possible are indeed hypocritical.

Equality - another thing that is considered vital for an ethical system. As long as it's ok for any living thing to eat meat, it's ok for everyone to do so. There is no need to hold someone to an ultra-high standard for no reason, while that standard is continously violated all around him thousand times every second .

I disagree. Equality is not necessary. Children aren´t equal. Foreigners aren´t equal. There are plenty of groups who have less rights than others. This doesn´t mean they are not protected by the ethical system at all. Hell, even now, animals have rights. They have little rights but even now you can´t bind your dog to a tree and pour acid onto it.
It is normal for ethical systems to weigh the advantages and disadvanteges for different kinds of entities within this system against each other. And if one thing that is an advantage for one entity (meat = tasty) is too much of a disadvantage for a different entity (death) the samll advantage is worth less than the large disadvantage.
Now, if for other species it might be more important to eat meat, so the ethics system allow them to kill other animals.

Now, with mentally handicaped we do not hold them to the same standard as mentally fit people. We might lock them away, but that is for practical reasons. You don´t even have to be mentally ill to recieve no or less punishment for things that might land you in prison otherwise. You just have to be drunk enough. "Schuldunfähigkeit" or the insanity plea are common practices all over the world.
This isn´t confined to legal matters. If you get shitfaced and do stupid stuff people are often a lot less likely to hold it against you than if you do the same thing sober. Obviously this can vary and some people might find it even worse but still.
If some dude who has the mental capacity of a 5 year touches a womans ass most people would probably try to keep him from doing it but wouldn´t consider him an evil groper like they´d consider a normal guy who fully understood what he was doing. We grant the mentally handicaped guy some leeway because we know that he doesn´t understand what the fuck he´s doing. But we don´t exclude him from the ethical system. If somebody gropes the mentally handicaped guy we find it to be hideous crime. The ethical system protects the handicaped guy just like it protects other people.
The same logic applies to animals. We don´t hold them responsible for killing other animals because they don´t have the mental abilities to understand what they´re doing. But we can still protect them from bad things.

[Korto]

It means any argument is a waste of time on both sides unless you enjoy arguing, as if you can't agree on whether or not killing animals is unethical (in and of itself, ignoring method, wastefulness, etc), then there's nowhere to go.

That is what it boils down to, though. I mean you say that you don´t accept the value by intelligence measurement because it seems self-serving due to us being the most intelligent species. So, what if it is not self-serving and somebody genuinely cares about other species? How will he prove this to you? Is it even possible or will you just dismiss it as self-serving?
If you simply dismiss it there is no basis for a discussion. If you accept that somebody does use this measurement out of genuine reasons the argument against eating animals follow logically.

So, they care about other animals depending upon that animal's intelligence? They care more about chimpanzees than dogs, more about dogs than cats, etc? Do they also apply this to humans? They care more about smart people than stupid people?

I am not sure what the outside perspecitve has to do with this. Animals are part of our world. Just because they are outside of our species doesn´t mean they necessarily need to be excluded from our ethics.

We are not unique in having ethics. Many, probably all, social animals have a system of ethics; chimpanzee, wolf, meerkat, even god-damned chickens. It wouldn't surprise me if solitary animals had a system of ethics, too. Human ethics was evolved to fit the human niche, as part of our survival strategy. It is paternalistic hubris reminiscent of the "white man's burden" to believe our system of ethics, evolved for our situation, should be foisted upon other species which already have their own.

Your arguement that the most important life on the planet is your own from you own perspective isn´t true either. There are plenty of examples where people and animals scrifice their own life for others. In the case of a persons or animals offspring or partner this is even the rule as opposed to the exception.

And that is their choice, not one that should be 'required' of them by some outside rules. But you're talking special cases here, with competing priorities. Lets consider this hypothetical, an alteration of the "Fat Man" question:
There's a forked train track, and because Jack is an idiot, he's standing on it. There's a train barreling down towards him, but there's a switch to change it onto the other fork. On that other fork is another person, a stranger (also an idiot). Leave the switch where it is, and die; change it, and the other person dies.
I believe it is not unethical to switch that train. Harsh, but not unethical. It may be praiseworthy if he doesn't, if he takes that bullet, but it's not wrong if he chooses to live at the other's expense. I also believe that's the choice most living things on this planet would make.
Any individual's life, no matter the species or intellect, is worth the entire universe to that individual, because when he dies, that's what he loses.

Now, even if it was true that you are the most important life to yourself it doesn´t matter at all. I mean, even if other lives are less important to you doesn´t mean that other lives are necessarily irrelevant. It is entirely possible to find animal lives less important than your own life but more important than the own need to eat meat. Therefore, if your own life doesn´t require the consumption of meat not eating meat is the logical consequence.
Do you shoot your neigbor if he is bugging you with loud music at 3 in the morning? I mean, you are, after all, the most important person in you life and killing the neigbor would get rid of the annoyance. You don´t because you value his life and find his life a lot more important than the inconvenience of being kept awake at ungodly times.

I don´t understand why ethics should stop at the border of you own species. It seems rather arbitrary.

The problem with having a human in your example is that humans are covered by human ethics. It's part of the "social contract" that we don't just go around killing people for petty annoyances. If instead we changed it to some wild animal howling in the middle of the night keeping you awake and then ask... Is it unethical to kill that animal (assuming it's not an endangered species)?
I say it's not. Harsh, yes. I hope someone first tried to give it a bit of a hint, but not unethical.
And it's technically incorrect to say human ethics don't apply to other species. It's just that the way they apply changes. Since it's human ethics, and they're not human. I believe you made the point to LaCroix that a country's law applies differently to citizens than to foreigners?

You are of course correct that if you valued some other individual's life more than you valued their meat, you would logically refrain from eating meat. The point is, I don't, and I do not feel I am ethically required to.

The same logic applies to animals. We don´t hold them responsible for killing other animals because they don´t have the mental abilities to understand what they´re doing.

I find this sentence quite patronising, as it seems to implicitly assume that the only reason other species don't follow our ethics is because they're not intelligent enough to understand that their ethics are wrong and ours are right.

[AniThyng]

Yes? Many many people would not consider it acceptable to eat the more intelligent primates...

[LaCroix]

The same logic applies to animals. We don´t hold them responsible for killing other animals because they don´t have the mental abilities to understand what they´re doing.

I find this sentence quite patronising, as it seems to implicitly assume that the only reason other species don't follow our ethics is because they're not intelligent enough to understand that their ethics are wrong and ours are right.

I'm replying to Salm here, for simplicity' sake, because it ties into my point.

This very statement is where I feel the vegan argument is flawed.

If we have a mentally disabled human who hangs around in the park and keeps killing and eating say, songbirds (not endangered species, but average run of the mill tits and sparrows and whatnot, for the sake of argument), we would lock that person up in order to keep him from doing so, with the explicit reason that he's lacking the mental abilities to understand what he's doing.

But for an animal, say, a cat, it's ok to let it continue killing said birds, because it's lacking the mental abilities to understand what they are doing.
Thus, for the animal, it's somehow ethical to kill something and eat it, but for the human doing EXACTLY the same, we'll call it unethical.

Killing animals to eat them(while other, non-meat food options are present) is EITHER ethical or not, there cannot be an exception about who is doing it. If it is unethical, than we have the same duty to lock up cats or other predators as we would have to lock up the mentally disabled human. If it's not unethical per se, than there is nothing wrong with eating meat.

And in extension of the vegan logic, it would also be the ethical choice to feed cats vegan food made to fit their nutritional needs, instead. Same for the mentally disabled human.

[Elheru Aran]

Yes? Many many people would not consider it acceptable to eat the more intelligent primates...

Just out of curiosity, how much of that is because they're more intelligent than other animals, and how much of it is simply "eww, I don't want to eat monkey"?

[salm]

So, they care about other animals depending upon that animal's intelligence? They care more about chimpanzees than dogs, more about dogs than cats, etc? Do they also apply this to humans? They care more about smart people than stupid people?

Umm.... why not? I guess if something has crossed a certain threshold the value is high enough to not make a difference. Furthermore, just because you consider more intelligence more valuable doesn´t exclude you from giving your own species a special bonus value. This doesn´t have to be black and white. I´d say most people do this.
Don´t most people care more about dophins and apes than about rats and frogs?
And then thre probably are people who do not elevate humans over animals just for the sake of being human. Personally I do, but nowhere is it written that it isn´t possible.

We are not unique in having ethics. Many, probably all, social animals have a system of ethics; chimpanzee, wolf, meerkat, even god-damned chickens. It wouldn't surprise me if solitary animals had a system of ethics, too. Human ethics was evolved to fit the human niche, as part of our survival strategy. It is paternalistic hubris reminiscent of the "white man's burden" to believe our system of ethics, evolved for our situation, should be foisted upon other species which already have their own.

That isn´t really relevant. Just because other species or even individuals have different ethics doesn´t mean that one has to exclude these entities from ones own ethics. You don´t exclude other humans from your ethics just because they might have different sets of morals. Excludign others because of different morals is a trait often found among religious fundamentalists, though, but not usually among the folk that likes to call itself enlightened.

Arguing with how these ethics evolved is nothing more than the naturalistic fallacy again.

And that is their choice, not one that should be 'required' of them by some outside rules.

Obviously. Just like ethics are allways "their choice". That is exactly what I was saying but you wanted to send me from ethics class to math calss for that argument.
Furthermore, and I´ve been saying this the whole time in this thread, I wonder where all these vegans who want to "require" you to live by their rules are. I have never encountered one of these "radical" vegans. Vegans usually don´t bother you with their ethics in my experience. I´m sure you can find some if you look real hard but in every day life I don´t encounter them at all and as mentioned before I know plenty of vegans, vegetarians other people with strange food habbits.

But you're talking special cases here, with competing priorities. Lets consider this hypothetical, an alteration of the "Fat Man" question:
There's a forked train track, and because Jack is an idiot, he's standing on it. There's a train barreling down towards him, but there's a switch to change it onto the other fork. On that other fork is another person, a stranger (also an idiot). Leave the switch where it is, and die; change it, and the other person dies.
I believe it is not unethical to switch that train. Harsh, but not unethical. It may be praiseworthy if he doesn't, if he takes that bullet, but it's not wrong if he chooses to live at the other's expense. I also believe that's the choice most living things on this planet would make.
Any individual's life, no matter the species or intellect, is worth the entire universe to that individual, because when he dies, that's what he loses.

This example is deeply flawed and if anything is an argument for vegans.
There is no choice between eating meat or dying for humans. Your example would be correct if you either pull the switch and the other idiot dies or you don´t pull the switch and the idiot lives but you miss the next episode of Game of Thrones. Most people would not pull the switch because they don´t value GoT as much as an idiot. A lot of people probably wouldn´t pull the switch even if it was a dog or a pig instead of an idiot.
If you are an animal and your life does depend on meat then it is of course ok to pull the switch. I don´t think many would argue against that.

The problem with having a human in your example is that humans are covered by human ethics. It's part of the "social contract" that we don't just go around killing people for petty annoyances. If instead we changed it to some wild animal howling in the middle of the night keeping you awake and then ask... Is it unethical to kill that animal (assuming it's not an endangered species)?
I say it's not. Harsh, yes. I hope someone first tried to give it a bit of a hint, but not unethical.
And it's technically incorrect to say human ethics don't apply to other species. It's just that the way they apply changes. Since it's human ethics, and they're not human. I believe you made the point to LaCroix that a country's law applies differently to citizens than to foreigners?

You are of course correct that if you valued some other individual's life more than you valued their meat, you would logically refrain from eating meat. The point is, I don't, and I do not feel I am ethically required to.

So, we´re back to the beginning of our exchange where individuals choose their own set of morals and there´s nothing you can do about it. I see, this is discussion is useless after all.
Look, the social contract is what we make it up to be. It isn´t some sort of intrinsic thing. It is what society defines it to be by whatever means it has. If society was made up of more vegans not killing animals would be part of the social contract. Just like it in fact is in parts of India for example.

I find this sentence quite patronising, as it seems to implicitly assume that the only reason other species don't follow our ethics is because they're not intelligent enough to understand that their ethics are wrong and ours are right.

No, this doesn´t assume this at all. Some humans follow different ethics than other humans even though they understand the other humans ethics just fine and vice versa.
You are arguing now as if there was one single human ethics system (your own) for some reason.
Even if it were patronising, which it isn´t, how can it be important to you? You don´t care about killing animals so why would you care if something is patronising towards them?

[salm]

I'm replying to Salm here, for simplicity' sake, because it ties into my point.

This very statement is where I feel the vegan argument is flawed.

If we have a mentally disabled human who hangs around in the park and keeps killing and eating say, songbirds (not endangered species, but average run of the mill tits and sparrows and whatnot, for the sake of argument), we would lock that person up in order to keep him from doing so, with the explicit reason that he's lacking the mental abilities to understand what he's doing.

But for an animal, say, a cat, it's ok to let it continue killing said birds, because it's lacking the mental abilities to understand what they are doing.
Thus, for the animal, it's somehow ethical to kill something and eat it, but for the human doing EXACTLY the same, we'll call it unethical.

First are you sure we´d lock the guy up? It usually takes quite a bit to lock somebody up.
And of course you can argue if it is justified to lock somebody up for killing birds. If you come to the conclusion that a humans freedom is worth more than the life of birds you can not logically lock him up. Unless of course you see a pattern in this behaviour and are afraid of the guy moving on to killing people.
Then you have a good reason for locking him up. There are multiple reasons for locking people up after all.
And I think that is the main reason why our society would lock up a mentally unfit person who is killing birds on a regular basis. Society is scared.
It would not follow to lock up a cat for the same reasons because it isn´t as dangerous as a human.

Killing animals to eat them(while other, non-meat food options are present) is EITHER ethical or not, there cannot be an exception about who is doing it. If it is unethical, than we have the same duty to lock up cats or other predators as we would have to lock up the mentally disabled human. If it's not unethical per se, than there is nothing wrong with eating meat.

I disagree. I think it is circumstancial when it is legitimate to kill animals just like most things are circumstancial. It is more complex than either this or that.

And in extension of the vegan logic, it would also be the ethical choice to feed cats vegan food made to fit their nutritional needs, instead. Same for the mentally disabled human.

I agree, like mentioned a post or so above. Vegans who don´t feed their pets as humanely as possible are hypocritical.