I don't see how you can string together such a consistent argument and still be so incredibly wrong. Killing animals for food is not wrong and never was. Killing for the love of killing is wrong, but killing e.g. a pig is as moral as plucking an apple from a tree. You bring up a curious point about dogs - eating dogs is not usually practiced, though there are existing cultures who do it and we have records of past cultures who did it. Western society has decided that the dog is a beloved companion, but a person who did not grow up indoctrinated to think that way would have no qualms about eating one, save for the fact that you get a lot less meat out of one than what you put in, plus the fact it can probably serve you better alive. You can see a similar parallel in people's attitudes to eating rats - some may be revolted at eating such a dirty animal (similar to how some cultures feel about pigs), some would be aghast at eating a beloved pet (similar to how you feel about dogs), and some wouldn't really mind it.
At the end of the day, every living thing on this planet - every tree, every plant, every mushroom, every fish, every insect and every mammal dies and is eaten. I absolutely agree with you on the factory farms though - humanity should strive to not cause other creatures to suffer.
As you state, plucking an apple for food is morally fine - few would disagree, and anyone who does is likely to get quite hungry quite quickly. Meanwhile, killing people for food is obviously wrong, yes? Morally abhorrent, in fact!
But there's a spectrum between those two extremes. To set a boundary, you need to determine the reasons why one is acceptable and the other is not. Maybe you intuitively draw the line right next to the apple, eating plant life only - no fish, crustaceans, shellfish - or maybe you draw the line adjacent to humans, contentedly eating tool-using, communicative, emotional, social, familial, intelligent gorillas without feeling guilt.
But what makes it abhorrent to eat a person, and acceptable to eat a plant? As Bentham wrote, Singer quoted, and the article cites, I would agree that it has something to do with the animal's capacity to suffer. One might add positive capacities for joy, or broader ecosystem health needs, or other questions of relative utility for the victim and the farmer, but the point remains: A pig is a remarkably human-like animal. Not as intelligent or as emotional as a human, perhaps, but it's far closer to a human than that shrink-wrapped package of hot dogs in the grocery aisle might lead you to believe.
What qualities does a human have that a pig or dog does not? What metrics can you use to measure those qualities, and how do you set a threshold for where it becomes moral or immoral? Identify those, and you'll have a much more solid argument for why killing a pig is moral.
This conversation triggered memories of hunting for my first time as a teenager: I shot a beautiful doe with a black powder rifle using iron sights.
Observing the forest with my eyes and ears, waiting in still silence for hours in chemical and visual camouflage, lining up with its chest, making a slight sound to get it to pause... You feel a certain focused hunger as you gaze down the barrel, that you've never felt before. But the way it feels... It's something you know. Something that is deeply ingrained in you. The moment feels like forever, as you release a deadly projectile from your species' 'advanced technology'. Then, gutting it in the forest, dragging it out, hanging it up on the gambrel, cutting all the meat out, seasoning it, grilling it, and eating it...
Probably the most powerful, self-realizing, humbling, spiritual experience I have ever had. For the first time in my life, I actually felt like an animal! A real animal!
Did I have to kill that doe to survive? Absolutely not. I could have driven down the road to McDonalds and had a burger in my stomach in under 10 minutes.
Once I found the doe on the ground, I sat with it for a couple minutes in silence. I felt very thankful for it. "My God! I just killed this thing!" (I'm agnostic.) There is a certain realization - that we are all simultaneously frail, and immensely powerful. In that moment, you feel your place in the hierarchy.
I have a feeling that many among us today choose to actively fight this innate reality. People implicitly reject the concept that they are animals. They don't like the idea that they exist today because their ancestors killed things. Did things we now consider immoral. It can manifest in to a sort of self-hatred that is reflected on to others.
"Why do we even eat meat today? It's not necessary." Absolutely true! But to that, I say, because I enjoy it, and because I can. No other support is needed. My species has clearly evolved to enjoy consuming it, and to devise technology to acquire it. Become comfortable with what you are made of, animal spirits and all.
But above all, with great power, comes great responsibility. Hone your sense of morality, as we are in a position privileged to do so. Thanks for reading my rambling. :)
> Probably the most powerful, self-realizing, humbling, spiritual experience I have ever had.
I'm sorry, you felt it was self-realizing to kill an animal? What the hell? There's nothing sadder and messier and more harrowing than having to kill an animal and you actually found it a "spiritual experience" to kill one when you didn't even have to? What kind of culture do you come from? I can't think of anyone from the western world ("your species 'advanced technology'? Not a native hunter, then) that seriously thinks it's cool to kill.
I feel like this comment accuses me of fetishizing killing, and that disgusts me.
I had something long typed out, but it's just not worth it. When I (rarely) comment, I am usually reminded how debilitating it is. It's probably an indication that I should just stay silent, so I think I'll stick to that more.
I'll try though: People eat meat their whole lives, but never feel the act of killing and consuming first-hand. I find that rather sad, like they have lived their life never emotionally acknowledging this innate drive that enabled their existence. If anything, the act forces upon you greater respect and compassion for life and what it means to be an animal.
Hunting in my part of the US is very common, and over 160,000 deer were taken in my state last season. The deer population is doing well, and the act is well-regulated by government. I don't see anything wrong with killing for sustenance, even though it's no longer remotely necessary.
Yes, many people in industrialised societies have lost the connection to their food, not only the animals whose meat they eat but also the plants. But what does that have to do with killing an animal being "self-realizing"? What part of yourself are you "realizing" by killing an animal? You can't eat an animal without killing it, so you kill it and be swift about it and make it as painless as possible but to find the experience "spiritual"? That's ... just as lost as thinking that eating meat is wrong. It is a kind of thinking that comes from exactly the same place of disconnect with the world of animals and the need to kill them and eat them, even after you have raised them and cared for them from babies as veganism. It is the left hand of veganism. It is madness and derangement to derive pleasure from killing an animal and if you think there's any pleasure in that, you should go back to basics and learn to appreciate life all over again, is what I think.
Or, since you think the way you think about the connection of people with their food, maybe try to live on a farm for a few years and care for animals and then slaughter them, and see how "self-realizing" that feels, to kill a lamb that you stayed up all night to help give birth to, and nurtured and fed with your own hand. Try that! And tell me about the "spirituality" of killing something that feels like your own child.
Not as much as an animal, but we are learning that plants are far more sophisticated than we've traditionally given them credit for, and do have ways to detect damage (which we call "pain" in animals) and can even alert other plants to danger (which could be called "fear")
The common retort to this argument (“plants feel pain too”) is to imagine that you call the fire department because your home is burning down, and unfortunately your pet is still in the house. When the fire fighters arrive, you tell them hurriedly that your pet is inside and it needs to be saved. Without hesitation the firefighter plunged into the flames and emerges minutes later, but not holding your pet, but instead your aloe plant.
You exclaim in a panic, Why didn’t you save my pet!? To which the fire fighter says, Well plants feel pain too you know! And we’re learning a lot more about how advanced they are and how they communicate.
Do you really think you’d stand and their and consider, Hm that’s a good point, there is no relevant difference between my pet being saved and my plant?
No one who has ever made the argument that plants and animals deserves equal moral consideration due to this capacity to suffer has ever, ever meant it.
Whether or not the plant "feels pain" (and therefor whether or not it is morally wrong to do nothing while it dies in a fire) is immaterial here. People are more likely to build and maintain emotional attachments to their pets rather than their plants because their pets exhibit behaviors that are easier to identify and personify.
People want the fire fighters to prioritize saving whatever has the most value to them personally. That may happen to be house plants. Or perhaps photo albums. Or (likely most common) pets.
Okay then, let’s consider an alternate scenario then.
Let’s say that you’re a bystander at the fire, and you watch the firefighter rush into the flames. You walk up to your neighbor, whose house it is engulfed, and you ask, What are they going in for? Your puppy? to which your neighbor responds, Actually I have a really sentimental baseball glove that my dad gave me when I was a little kid. I couldn’t imagine losing the glove, but the puppy I could take or leave.
Would you understand the position, and agree that it’s better to safe the glove because it has more value to the neighbor? Or would you be appalled that your neighbor is opting to let a sentient animal burn to death in order to save a baseball glove? Albeit, a very sentimental one.
The better angle to take here would be to point out that taking an apple from an apple tree does not harm the tree. From the plant's point of view this is actually beneficial. It wants animals to take away its seeds. So this is more alike to taking milk from a cow.
Taking milk from a cow is in no way like picking an apple. Apples are intended to be eaten by any species that wants to, as a kind of quid pro quo for spreading the seeds. Cow milk is for baby cows only. Humans keep cows lactating by forcibly impregnating them, and then taking the resulting calf away. Much suffering is involved, physical and emotional.
> At the end of the day, every living thing on this planet - every tree, every plant, every mushroom, every fish, every insect and every mammal dies and is eaten.
Except humans. Humans cremate their corpses.
While we might get into a debate about whether some forms of life somewhere on Earth technically consume your scattered ashes, it's quite the distance from hitting you on the head until you die and then chewing on your flesh.
Some cultures (some nations) cremate their dead. Others bury them. Some bury them in the soil, where they are eaten by soil organisms, some bury them in the sea where they are eaten by fish and some bury them in the air, where they are consumed by scavenging birds:
Relatedly, animals still kill many humans every year:
> Philadelphia, February 28, 2018 -- A new study released in the latest issue of Wilderness & Environmental Medicine shows that animal encounters remain a considerable cause of human harm and death. Researchers analyzed fatalities in the United States from venomous and nonvenomous animals from 2008-2015. They found that while many deaths from animal encounters are potentially avoidable, mortality rates did not decrease from 2008-2015. The animals most commonly responsible for human fatalities are farm animals, insects (hornets, wasps, and bees), and dogs.
Though most of the humans killed this way are not even eaten, which is arguably a waste. One reason is that many of the killer animals are herbivores, particularly cows:
I prefer for my body to be eaten by other living things, big or small, and ideally in a way that doesn’t pollute the land and water too much (I accept the heavy metals and other toxins I have built up over the years will leech one way or another).
I have no problem separating the dead body from the previously-living being, and I hope more people can adopt this view. This doesn’t mean I will stop handling dead bodies respectfully, at least as far as I see it. When I kill a fly or an ant I own the act, matter-of-fact without performative solemnity, and put the body in the compost to fuel further life. When I ask the vet to kill my dog I will be sad as this family member dies in my hands, and eventually the dominant emotion will be love and joy at all the good times we had together.
I would assume based on your comment that you're already aware of these [0] but if not, consider reading up on "Towers of Silence". It may interest you.
Cremation is relatively recent in human history (oldest record dating to 17,000 years ago), the vast majority of which we buried our dead who then decomposed/were eaten.
At the end of the day, every living thing on this planet - every tree, every plant, every mushroom, every fish, every insect and every mammal dies and is eaten. I absolutely agree with you on the factory farms though - humanity should strive to not cause other creatures to suffer.