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RE: a chat about luncheon

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Just realised I made a horrible mistake. I said that if veganism/vegetarianism doesn?t reduce suffering then we have *no* moral reason to do it. That?s a pretty wild claim ? that would seem to imply that the only thing that has moral value is the reduction of suffering, which would be to agree with the negative utilitarian, who is nuts. Because on the basis that everyone has some suffering in their lives, it would then be right to kill everyone, in order to reduce suffering.

What is bad about killing is that it shortens worthwhile life. So, I agree with you Nick that killing is not *necessarily* bad, but it is bad whenever it shortens a life which, on balance, will have been worth living.

Leather goods, etc ? well, I don?t think there is anything *necessarily* wrong with the chewing, swallowing and digesting of animal meat or the wearing of their skin, but if doing that causes the death of something, and/or supports institutionalised cruelty and killing, then I think there is something bad. It is the killing and suffering that is bad, not particularly what is done with the remains. So what is done ?once we?ve killed it? is only important as far as it allows the support of further suffering.

I agree that the problem of other minds totally screws up morality. We just have to make a few reasonable guesses. It doesn?t seem reasonable to think that the pain caused to a cow by breaking its leg is of a different order to the pain caused to a human by breaking its leg.

?nobody criticises a tiger for killing, or for that matter a family cat catching mice for fun.? 

I?d criticize a cat if I thought it would listen

Nick



From: Nick Dippie <nd603@soton.ac.uk>
To: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
Subject: RE: a chat about luncheon
Date: Tue,  3 Jan 2006 17:57:14 +0000

To reply to this message or start a new topic please email: BUPS-DIS@bups.org



nick day - i'll accept your arguments on diet, and meat being unhealthy too,
but if we are to eat a truly balanced diet then i still maintain meat is
necessary.its true that some people may be able to eat a purely vegan diet
and be entirely healthy but i'm not sure this is universal - either way,
from what i've read the science is far from conclusive on either side so
lets stick with the philosophy:

i've got 2 points to make i think. firstly, killing is not necessarily a bad
thing.for one, it saves the animal the suffering involved with old age, and
although i'm aware its a bit much to claim killing for food is mercy
killing, its not a straightforward case of death increasing their suffering
more than living longer.for all we know, they might go straight to paradise.
or be reincarnated as something better.

secondly is a point made by someone over the summer when we argued about
this - what about all the animals killed for leather and other goods? does
it make any difference to the moral status if we use the whole animal or
just the meat once we've killed it?on a utilitarian basis it would.

actually there is a third point. there is no way of removing suffering from
the world, but our calculations about levels of suffering seem a bit one
dimensional so far, though this is probably necessarily so. is all
suffering equal?does the relative sentience of an animal make it suffer
more or less? on this basis, arugably human pleasure is so much higher that
it compensates for a smaller amount of animal suffering, though that could
really be reversed.as wittgenstein's beetle in a box analogy proved, we
can't know for sure about other people's experiences of pain, let alone
animals.so i think what i'm trying to say is that it will probably all come
down to how we conceive of the human race, in terms of importance and
significance.

oh and one interesting side-effect of humans being animals - if that is all
we are, does it make any sense to talk of us in terms of having moral
obligations at all? nobody criticises a tiger for killing, or for that
matter a family cat catching mice for fun.

nick





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