![Image](http://www.issues.cc/uploads/47221069942.jpg)
given the context, it was a dickish thing to do.
It's also factually inaccurate - white coat immature seals are currently banned from being hunted. We go after the spotty teenagers instead.
![Image](http://www.gan.ca/images/sealhunt_05/sealhunt_05_131.jpg)
but it got me thinking.
"What is the moral difference between clubbing seals and shooting cattle?"
![Image](http://lamar.colostate.edu/~grandin/gifs/headholder.with.shelf.jpg)
![Image](http://web.oie.int/eng/normes/mcode/cattle_2007.jpg)
Both methods of killing, if executed properly, should result in a clean fast death.
Seals are mostly killed for their skin. Byproducts such as meat and 'fish oil' are also sold but most of it goes to make luxury clothing.
Cattle are mostly killed for meat, with an important byproduct being their skin, which goes to make luxury clothing.
Neither is an endangered species, although cattle is a wholly artificial species, created by man for the sole purpose of living and dying at our whim.
One is a natural species, hunted for it's produce. This hunt is currently regulated to ensure sustainability. It provides an income in areas where unemployment is high, and other means of employment are scarce.
The other is a created species, capable of eating either grass or grain. The latter is frequently fed to North American cattle to ensure they fatten for slaughter quickly. Simply put, these cattle have greater buying power (via their consumers) then starving people in the poorer parts of the world.
But one is slaughtered mostly for it's hide. Surely that is more immoral? After all, starving Africans are an incidental byproduct of the meat manufacture process, not integral to cattle farming itself.
Comrades and the rest of the board, I suggest that meat itself is a luxury product. It is perfectly possible to live without meat, and massively easy to live with a reduced amount compared to the current North American consumption.
As i can hear you pragmatic utilitarians muttering at the back, eating a small amount of meat is cheaper then balanced vegetarianism, let alone veganism. To you I concede, with the minor caveat I am talking about cattle, and steak is not a traditionally cheap meat.
Assuming you wish to live a moral life, and further assuming you are against clubbing seals, will you still eat beef?