Image: Ryan Lane/iStockphoto
On the savanna a lioness will fell and shred her prey without empathy. Yet for we humans who can imagine that a cow might feel pain, pleasure and fear, enjoying animal flesh may have moral overtones. New research indicates that we have developed a mental tool to help us cope with the realities of our carnivorous nature: denial.
In a study that excluded vegetarians, psychologist Brock Bastian of the University of Queensland in Australia and his colleagues first asked participants to commit to eating either meat slices or apple wedges. Before eating, everyone wrote an essay describing the full life cycle of a butchered animal and then rated the mental faculties of a cow or a sheep. Participants who knew that they would have to eat meat later in the study made much more conservative assessments of the animal mind, on average, denying that it could think and feel enough to suffer. The study was published last October in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
“People engage in the denial of mind in animals to allow them to engage in the behavior of eating animals with less negative effect,” Bastian says. The researchers argue that although humans have the ability to imagine themselves in someone else’s shoes—or hooves—doing so is not always helpful. People living in carnivorous cultures may have developed this strategy of denial to better align their morals with their traditions so they may continue to consume meat without being consumed by guilt.
This article was published in print as "The Carnivore's Dilemma."
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Add CommentNow these folks need to perform this experiment among tribal folk who are traditional hunters, or in a rural agrarian society, where the people are aware of their interconnectedness of the ecosystem, and their place in that ecosystem as the apex predator. There is a cycle of life, and everything has a place in it, paying homage to the spirit of the animal who gives its life that you may continue to live does not require that you treat them as less intelligent than humans. Rather it requires that you recognize their sacrifice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a believer in the ethical treatment of animals. They should be well fed, humanely slaughtered, properly prepared, and enjoyed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen was the last time you saw an apple with a brain, moving along and interacting with its fellow creatures ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt should be obvious that we feel empathy towards the Animalia kingdom, not Plantae, not Bacteria or Fungi.
The only obvious thing is that we unfairly value things that remind us of ourselves. Thus some believe animal life to be more "worthy" than plant life because it acts more like us. What a joke. The only thing we shouldn't eat is other humans, and yes, I'm aware that's arbitrary too, but I like my arbitrary line better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe study was unscientific nonsense.
The closer an animal is to us genetically, the higher our degree of empathy for it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbacteria,plants<fish,reptiles<mammals<apes<humans
It's speciesism.
Most meals eaten by Americans are born in screams.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo all the straw-man arguments here about apples, vegetables etc., I have this to say: 1) everyone knows that plants have no nervous system, so there are no nervous faculties to deny from a plant. 2) Most fruits, flowers have evolved exactly for the purpose of being consumed. This is how the plant species spread their seeds, and get pollinated. 3) All early human cultures were very much aware of animal suffering, and always treated the animals with utmost respect. When animals had to be consumed, they considered that a "sacrifice" on the part of the animal, and offered prayers and asked for forgiveness. In that respect, modern people are far more barbarian than the early hunter gatherers were.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, once again, SA has seen fit to point out how little I care about the environment. I am in denial about the pain I cause animals. That SA and the social "scientists" they quote know this makes them by default morally superior to those of us who think we are merely enjoying a hamburger.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm an alcoholic and a drug addict, recovered, thank
you,so forgive me if I profess to know a little about denial. The article's argument assumes that if only one opened one's eyes to the pain and suffering of animals, we would all be more empathetic, and inclined to eat fruits and berries rather than cow flesh. But here is an entirely different explanation; I really don't care.
It isn't the case that I'm in denial, It is rather that the article attempts to elevate the animal to some station higher than it deserves. Should we be roaming the Savannah, for instance, interceding on behalf of the wildebeest, protecting it from the pride of lions? Is a predator's ignorance of its victim's suffering of greater value than my assumed denial of similar suffering?
Perhaps it is possible that pain and suffering is inherent in the world, or perhaps not. If not, then humanity has much to answer for. Might there be some political means by which humans could make reparations to the animal kingdom for all wrongs done to them through the eons?
But wait, I forget; animals don't have rights in any meaningful way. Non-human animals have purely subjective and necessarily disparate values placed on them by humans, who are the only animals with the intellect sufficient to do so.
So then this must be a question of values; I like steak tartar, while others think tartar is murder. fair enough, now go away. I don't deny the suffering of animals, I merely take exception to one's assumed right to pass judgement (or laws) based solely on THEIR values, their IDEA of what is morally superior.
GG: Just how many times have you read "Clan of the Cave Bear"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know how many animals think in terms of I, me, us, we or them..... I don't know if they are driven by desire, anger, greed, jealousy or acquisitiveness, but I have come to believe that some do. I do think at least some of them plan and plot against others of their own species and others. Some adapt and use tools.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was born many years ago in a small town rural part of the country. I did my share of farm work, shucking corn, bagging oats from a combine platform, gathering eggs, hand churning butter and plucking chickens. I'm an omnivore as were all my ancestors from the plains of Hungary to the mountains of Austria, Bavaria and cantons of Switzerland.
Less and less do I see sentient creatures as a food source, call it evolution or access to modern food sources, but I'm changing.
a Buddhist wrote it's because they don't scream as loud.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"On the savanna a lioness will fell and shred her prey without empathy."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow do you know that? I've watched innumerable film and video of lions doing exactly that and they always go for the quickest kill possible. They "know" they have to eat meat, and they "know" they have to kill to get it. Do they "know" that getting it over with quickly reduces suffering of the prey or are they just being efficient? Contrast with hyenas that take their time.
Please, don't selectively attribute human feelings and moral values to other species and vice versa.
Yes Grandpa, it's most assuredly you who have changed, because the animals haven't.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI had a tuna sandwich with romaine lettuce for lunch. The tuna came from a can. It is undeniable that cans can do fractions and tuna can do quadratic equations, and to get lettuce without a brain I'd have to go with iceberg, yet, whilst denying none of that, I felt as moral during and after as I did before.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat can I say, I must be a specio-sociopath.
"But here is an entirely different explanation; I really don't care."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat, and you proved the article's point concerning denial. That's so meta it's scary! Any Postmodern hand-waving you do to brush this fact away is just a fruitless struggle against the currents barreling against you.
The article wasn't trying to attack your meat eating in any way, it just PROVED that there was some difference in the behavior of people that knew they were about to eat different things.
Personally, I think this is a beneficial adaptation since any reservations about eating anything, especially something as nutritious as meat, would put a lot of negative selection pressure on the individual harboring these feelings. Basically, since even our closest ancestors are mostly vegetarian, anybody in the Homo genus that was grossed out by meat had a much lower probability of passing on their genes.
However, since most Americans eat too much meat anyway, it would help things out a lot if people gave more thought towards how much land, water, food, energy and other resources were used, as well as the sacrifices the animal they're eating made to provide their meat, before going overboard with their meat consumption. If these facts were more present in people's minds, wasting meat would also be less of a problem too.
As an apple doesn't have "mental faculties," you could be the poster child for this study. You're posting on Scientific American, by the way. Don't you know the physiological, biological difference between a sentient being and a piece of fruit? When people make claims about vegetation having feelings just like animals, it's proof positive of a kind of mental illness of society to deny that extremely profound difference. We take small children to strawberry farms and have no moral qualms about exposing them to that process of picking the fruit. But when do we ever take our children to slaughter houses for school field trips? I rest my case.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder how much of this plays a part in our interaction with other humans, especially in dehumanizing our enemies and, therefore, having less empathy for them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a side note: they have found that plants do respond and communicate like animals, just on a slower, more minimal scale. A tree that is under attack from insects emits a signal (pheromones?) that causes all the other trees in the area to begin to secrete insecticides.
It has also been shown that animals like fish do feel pain when they are hooked; it was even said that the endorphins their body produces to counter the pain of the hook is what makes them taste so good . . . . .
I just think that there is only so much that the brain can process, and if we had that much empathy for everything around us we'd be paralyzed and unable to function. Basic survival.
We are trying to find alien life what's to say we could recognize it. I'm just saying we should have some empathy for all life, no matter who much it is like us or not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) @LordDraqo, Absolute agreement
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2) "On the savanna a lioness will fell and shred her prey without empathy"
I wonder how that could be known
It's frustrating sometimes trudging through all of the idiotic things people say in Comments sections but entries like yours (amplefire) are what keep me reading. It's nice to know there are still decent, intelligent people out there. Thanks!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is with you people who try and equate a fruit or vegetable with a mammal in order to justify your "argument"? Denial doesn't get much more obvious than that.
Im a vegetarian but we often reasd too much anthropomorphism into e our own animal behavior. Nature just 'is'...no need to find reasoins to mitigate the action of meat eaters whether humans, cats, bears or whatever. Nature doesn't judge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Great, and you proved the article's point concerning denial. That's so meta it's scary! Any Postmodern hand-waving you do to brush this fact away is just a fruitless struggle against the currents barreling against you".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSault, take a pill. Take a giant postmodern-I-barely-know-what-the-f***k-I'm-talking-about-pill.
The definition of delusion is to believe something that is not real.
The definition of denial is to know the truth yet refuse to believe it.
I believe, with all my heart and soul, that all sentient beings have the capacity to feel physical pain. When my interests, when my survival depends on inflicting pain to animals however so be it. I am an omnivore. I am at the top of the food chain. I have visited a slaughter house. I have seen the movie "Food Incorporated."
When I am enjoying a steak, I don't give a rat's ass if it took the steer five minutes or five excruciating hours to expire. Is that clear enough for you? "I don't care" is not the same as denial.
And,once again, the thinly veiled nuance enshrouding the piece eludes you. What the article is telling me is that if I knew about all of the above, I wouldn't be so cruel and heartless as to have Elsie the cow or Bambi murdered and shredded for my personal enjoyment. Why, there must be something wrong with me...I got it! I'm in denial!
I am an omnivore. I like to eat meat. It is an efficient way of getting protein. I do not deny that other animals can think and feel pain (even fish, anglers!).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPain is a very early evolutionary development to warn an animal that something is wrong. I have seen a spider dance around in apparent pain when I accidentally pulled its leg off while trying to capture it & free it outside. I am under no illusions.
When I worked at a farm, I helped to kill and prepare chickens. I killed other animals to free them of the pain of injuries or impossible births. I felt every single death, even the ones that I would later share the bounty from. My one 'denial', fully conscious, was in refusing to care for the hogs. I didn't want to get to know them. I knew the goats by name and I could no more eat them (or any other goat meat from anywhere) than I could eat a human being. I love PORK! So I made sure I didn't visit the hogs for any reason, as I didn't want to lose the ability to eat what I consider "the other white meat".
Yes, the author is correct in that I consume pork in a state of denial, but it isn't because I consider pigs to be lesser beings. They are intelligent, responsive, emotional beings. I just like the way they taste.
timbo555 wrote: "When I am enjoying a steak, I don't give a rat's ass if it took the steer five minutes or five excruciating hours to expire. Is that clear enough for you?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, I see. Big, tough guy, are you? Pulling the wings off flies, and burning ants with a magnifying glass, are you? Okay, we concede that you don't squat to pee. You're king of the food chain. When you're having your heart attack in a few years, I hope you get the pain drugs available before you die. Just as I hope the hogs are rendered unconscious by the electric shock before slaughter, and the cattle are properly knocked out by the bolt gun. I've seen them get up and try to run on the kill floor before they are hung on the chain. If you'd seen it, I wonder if you'd still have such stubborn disrespect for the animals we eat? I'd suggest you read some of the work of Temple Grandin. But you, as a confirmed narcisist, are commited to the infallibility of yourself. So just get comfy, set out the glue traps, and enjoy the mouse's struggle.
I believe the same. The problem is the the Big Agriculture doesn't really have any ethics at all. They have no feeling at all about anything animal including most humans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShjsmni:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, I'm a Narcissist because I state the immutable fact that I (meaning humans in general) am at the top of the food chain and that I care little for the suffering of animals.
But you are so much better than me because you FEEL for the animals. You are so much more compassionate and morally superior to me because you have an almost pathological empathy for Bambi, to whom you no doubt ascribe all manner of non-existant human qualities. Thank God YOU'RE not a narcissist as well, that would be quite a muddle!
The article's conclusions aren't supported by the study. I cant read the whole article on here, but it appears to be saying that meat eaters are underestimating the animal's cognitive abilities and consciousness. However, I dont see any research that supports that conclusion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps the vegetarians are overestimating.. ?
More sensationalist journalism on SCIENTIFIC American. Who would have thought?
@GeekStatus: I don't think "underestimating" is the appropriate term for what the article is describing. They don't underestimate (which implies that they guess less that what it actually is), but they do not speak highly of their cognitive abilities. The article does not make a claim to an actual measured intelligence of the animal, only that people who knowingly were about to eat meat spoke less of their cognitive abilities than people who did not know they were about to eat meat. I think your impression of the article being sensationalized is only a result of your misunderstanding, which I would guess is a direct consequence of you becoming defensive when your basic habits are challenged when viewed through the lens of morality. Again, the article is not making a moral claim on anything, but the general subject matter has apparently made you uncomfortable because you eat meat. I think there ought to be studies investigating the emotionally-fueled exchange that's happening in this comments section.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@timbo555, I just want to argue against the "top of the food chain" argument that I hear from a lot of people who defend the carnivore diet. Ecological "food chains" are vastly more complex than a simple linear chain of animal dominance. For instance, we cannot eat poisonous snakes, fungi, plants, etc. However, there are animals whose main source of food comes from what we consider poisonous. These animals co-evolved antipoison metabolisms as the poisonous organisms were evolving more and more effective poisons (referred to colloquially as an arms-race). We have absolutely no role in this area of the food chain. Aside from poisons, there are sources of nutrients that our metabolism simply can't digest whereas other organisms are well-equipped to eat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat I'm getting at is the general conception of how an ecosystem works in terms of energy transfer is more complex than having just a top and a bottom, and describing our position as at the top of the food chain is a gross oversimplification and serves no real justification for what it's used to argue.
Root vegetables don't propogate in the same manner as those whose edible parts are above ground. How can we know if a carrot or turnip hurts when it's boiled?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.ajcn.org/content/78/3/660S.full.pdf
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the United States, more than 9 billion livestock are maintained to supply the animal protein consumed each year (11). This livestock population on average outweighs the US human population by about 5 times. Some livestock, such as poultry and hogs,consume only grains, whereas dairy cattle, beef cattle, and lambs consume both grains and forage. At present, the US livestock population
consumes more than 7 times as much grain as is consumed
directly by the entire American population (11). The amount of grains fed to US livestock is sufficient to feed about 840 million people who follow a plant-based diet (7). From the US livestock population, a total of about 8 million tons (metric) of animal protein
is produced annually. With an average distribution assumed,this protein is sufficient to supply about 77 g of animal protein daily per American. With the addition of about 35 g of available plant protein consumed per person, a total of 112 g of protein is available per capita in the United States per day (11). Note that
the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for adults per day is 56 g of protein from a mixed diet. Therefore, based on these data,each American consumes about twice the RDA for protein. Americans on average are eating too much and are consuming about 1000 kcal in excess per day per capita (12, 13). The protein consumed per day on the lacto-ovovegetarian diet is 89 g per day. This is significantly lower than the 112 g for the meat-based diet but still much higher than the RDA of 56 g per day.
Denial includes human suffering on the rest of the planet. Delectable vat grown meat of the near future will be much less land intensive. There's a 7000 sq. mile dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi where neither plant nor animal can grow because of the anoxic waters caused by feed lot runoff. When Erwin Shroedinger said, "Consciousness is a singular for which there is no plural", he necessarily made no distinction between human and animal consciousness. As the only 'persistent hunter' on the planet, our evolved ability to run any four-footed animal into heat exhaustion undoubtedly put the Sapiens in our Homo and its a good idea to keep up with that which brought us to the dance, but how many are up to that? Yeah, yeah, I hear you, more denial.
Us carnivores are a crafty lot. When I was a liberal I used to be consumed with guilt every time I flushed the toilet and saw six million innocent bacteria go to a horrible death, all so I could live a meaningless life compared to the tragedy about to engulf them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen I grew up and realized that this is the way it was supposed to be. Not everything is going to survive and if I had devoted myself to keeping those bacteria alive it would have had consequences for others, mainly my family and neighbors.
I suspect something like this may be true in the larger world as well but I'm afraid to go there. I know it will make me a reactionary if I do.
Exactly, it IS a matter of values: the value of the amount of suffering caused. You choose to inflict more (you say you really do not care); I choose less. Is your lack of care (your lowering of the status of the animals you consume) a position of denial?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEating meat is a most inefficient way to eat protein!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne month's supply of water for a meat eater would last well over one year's supply of plant food for a vegetarian, and the cows' methane production, stinking to the high heavens,contributes more to global warming than all the world's traffic CO2 output combined!
Denialists just bury their head in the sand, like children covering their eyes and thinking they are invisible!
The health problems of meat eaters, just like those of smokers, are being denied too, but the latest Harvard study warns of meat as life-shortening food./
The China Study has shown that animal protein intake higher than 10 % causes cancerous growth.
A propos being at the end of the food chain:
Yes, it means we are at the receiving end of the cow's lifetime of eating combined growth hormones, DDT, antibiotics... (not to mention the ongoing bovine encephalitis risk that may mask a lot of senile dementia.)
Latest brain research has shown that greasy hamburgers
cause brain deterioration within weeks in mice.
The DNA'RNA machine of mice and men runs on the same principles.
Blame Evolution for that! Or deny it!
Anyway,if you still like the taste of meat: Bon appetit!
"It isn't the case that I'm in denial, It is rather that the article attempts to elevate the animal to some station higher than it deserves."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this----------
So you're denying nonhumans are worthy of our empathy.
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"Should we be roaming the Savannah, for instance, interceding on behalf of the wildebeest, protecting it from the pride of lions? Is a predator's ignorance of its victim's suffering of greater value than my assumed denial of similar suffering?"
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I think the lion understands the wildebeest wants to live, but must he/she must kill in order to survive. Unlike natural predators, most humans do have a choice.
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"Non-human animals have purely subjective and necessarily disparate values placed on them by humans, who are the only animals with the intellect sufficient to do so."
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Nonhumans have their own purpose, and a personal interest in their well being. If they are social, this extends to members of their group. The lion, the wildebeest, the cow, the rat, and many other species can think, feel, and experience emotions.
Yes, and we're also prey to millions of bacteria, viruses, and parasites -- some have killed millions of us. They've even managed to develop resistance to the drugs we created.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Nature just 'is'...no need to find reasoins to mitigate the action of meat eaters whether humans, cats, bears or whatever. Nature doesn't judge."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this----------
But nature, of itself, doesn't have a concience, and it cannot be a moral guide. Unlike most humans who kill other animals gratuitously, killing in nature is almost always a matter of of survival.
"Basically, since even our closest ancestors are mostly vegetarian, anybody in the Homo genus that was grossed out by meat had a much lower probability of passing on their genes."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this---------
If you mean guilt, hunter-gatherers invented myths in order to convince themselves they weren't doing something wrong. One myth was that animals sacrificed their lives for them. In reality of course, the human animal killed them by brute force; but all in all, hunter-gatherers really didn't/don't eat much meat. And we spent eons scavenging from what was left by carnivores before we hunted. "Man the Hunter" is a myth. We're behavioral omnivores, but our anatomy is much closer to that of herbivores.
"Most meals eaten by Americans are born in screams."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this---------
Yes, but getting Americans to admit that will take time.
"they have found that plants do respond and communicate like animals, just on a slower, more minimal scale. A tree that is under attack from insects emits a signal (pheromones?) that causes all the other trees in the area to begin to secrete insecticides."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--------
That's a reaction to stimuli, which is very different from thinking, feeling, and experiencing emotions as farm animals do.
"I am an omnivore."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-------
Only behaviorally.
If you asking if vegetarians are overestimating the abilities and feelings of nonhuman animals, read the studies, and books such as written by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne could equally argue that vegans are "only behaviorally" so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow many stomachs do you have? How many different kinds of teeth do you have? Do you have a carnivore's short gut, or an herbivore's long one? Do you have an herbivore's sense of taste, or a carnivore's? Are your eyes on the sides of your head (no/limited depth perception), or in the front (depth perception)? Is perspiration your body's primary method of cooling?
Humans have one stomach, like carnivores, but we have both carnivore *and* herbivore teeth, guts, and senses of taste. Our eyes are placed like those of predators, and we can shed heat generated in chasing prey like no other predator can, by perspiration, allowing us to run down prey they can't.
Some groups of humans survive strictly on meat and fat for astonishingly long periods. Some survive strictly on plant matter similarly.
Some people can't handle certain animal foods, others certain plant foods (shellfish/lactose/gluten/nuts etc.)
Most of us are neither obligate carnivores or obligate herbivores. We have both options available.
I eat meat. I don't deny suffering in my meat's source. I acknowledge it and insist it be minimized as much as possible. I've worked in slaughterhouses.
I admit that it works both ways, you see...
Anything that wants to eat me is welcome to try, while I resist.
So far, only microbes and bloodsucking insects have had any success. Eventually the detritovores will get me, of course.
We should not feel obligated to live by any other species' implied "moral code", any more than we should expect them to live any of by ours, implicate or explicate.
Don't deny that other animals have moral codes. The idea that we alone are *capable* of having a moral code is a sort of elitism. All other social animals have their version of "sociology" (behavioral patterns with implicate ethical rules), or they couldn't *be* social animals.
Their rules may be very different from ours; many species will abandon newborns for one reason nor another, something most people consider abhorrent. Will you lecture every such "heartless" mother in the animal kingdom?
Percival, I said nature of itself does not have a conscience - not that other animals are incapable of having a moral code. And I argue that like us, they have a moral right to belong to themselves. The difference is most humans are not bound by the abject survival they must live by; most of us have choices that oblige our moral consideration in turn.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you doubt that human anatomy is far more similar to that of herbivores, see The Comparative Anatomy of Eating by Milton R. Mills. Of course, we can digest a variety of foods, but since we can be healthy, if not healthier, on a nutritious plant food diet, we can choose to opt out of the violent cycle that most humans still live by. I don't think a fondness for the taste of meat justifies the slaughter house.
If links are allowed,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Comparative Anatomy of Eating by Milton R. Mills, MD
http://www.whale.to/a/comp.html
A Publication of the James Buchanan Brady
Urological Institute Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
Volume V. Winter 2000
Evolution and Prostate Cancer
An Evolutionary Wrong Turn
http://urology.jhu.edu/newsletter/prostate_cancer511.php
What do you mean by "most humans are not bound by the abject survival they must live by"? I am an amateur connoisseur of "world food" AKA "peasant food". I particularly enjoy spiced Asian foods (give me stir-fried Mongolian chicken & rice over a Porterhouse & potato any day), but I draw lines at cat and dog dishes (I'm American). Monkey meat (AKA "bush meat") is too close to human for me; I think the other great ape species have demonstrated that they rate "human" rights.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople in other places draw other lines but that's their business; yes, it often irks me but I don't claim the moral authority to make decisions for them as you seem to want to. I get that they may not be able to satisfy their protein requirements otherwise, or choose to do things like reject GE grains that provide better overall nutrition than what they traditionally grow, on what look to me like superstitious grounds. They also see my rejection of their staples as silly and I can't rebut them because I don't live their lives.
I've read Mills, and many many other sources; I try not to cherry-pick to support my "fondness for the taste of meat". You choose to be a herbivore by choice, fine; go ahead as long as you are willing to tolerate my omnivorousness. I'd rather eat a few grams of meat than many grams of grains +legumes for a given amount of protein, and at 59 I have healthy kidneys, liver, heart, prostate etc., and no diabetes or obesity to show for my choices.
Ellie, I grieve that you seem to believe in the illusion that human violence can be eliminated by diet change; I think you have the causality backwards.
Sadly we seem to be more closely related to Pan troglodytes than to P. paniscus, at least behaviorally- I was raised on "make love not war" but it doesn't seem to be catching on. Realistically, I just don't think it's in us.
Animals don't give their lives to us or to hunter-gatherers in remote societies -- their lives are taken by brute force. The difference is hunter-gatherers have no choice. We do, but we sacrifice them to our fondness for the taste of meat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn response to Percival: "What do you mean by "most humans are not bound by the abject survival they must live by"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this------------
I mean that unlike our fellow humans who live in remote societies and who must eat meat in order to survive, most of us have a viable choice.
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"I think the other great ape species have demonstrated that they rate "human" rights."
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Because they resemble us? I think we need to look beyond our human arrogance to recognize that many other animals think, feel, and experience emotions.
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"People in other places draw other lines but that's their business; yes, it often irks me but I don't claim the moral authority to make decisions for them as you seem to want to."
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I don't claim to have authority over their lives, but like other social beings, both human and nonhuman, I can relate to the needs of, i.e., empathize with others. Empathy is the foundation of morality and the basis for judging what's right and wrong.
We're conveniently accustomed to ignoring, if not outright denying, the interests of other animals; yet their lives are as important to them as ours are to us. For their sake as well as ours, I think it's time we respect them.
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"You choose to be a herbivore by choice, fine; go ahead as long as you are willing to tolerate my omnivorousness."
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As I tell the meat-eating members of my family, while I love them all the same, I don't respect their choice.
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"Ellie, I grieve that you seem to believe in the illusion that human violence can be eliminated by diet change; I think you have the causality backwards."
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Percival, I don't think human violence can be totally eliminated by changing our diets, but we can certainly reject the unnecessary foods that demand violence against other living beings.
I agree regarding those situations, and you would possibly get the results that you hypothesize. But meat consumption seems to be a greater problem in developed countries, regarding crime, physical & mental health, ethical issues, pollution and anthropogenic climate change, sustainability, biodiversity etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe term humane slaughter is a misnomer, there is no such thing as slaughter without suffering.
In response to Timbo, comparing Homo sapiens in developed western nations to wild lions is unhelpful. Lions are obligate carnivores, they must eat meat to survive. We must not eat meat to survive, and the majority of studies show that we would be healthier if we cut meat from our diets (or significantly reduced consumption). I would also like to know how you assign deservedness of suffering to given species, you seem to state that they do not deserve consideration, without explaining as to why this is.
I think what is evident here is the defensiveness experienced by meat consumers when ethical issues surrounding their food consumption habits are raised. Perhaps it is simply that nobody likes to be told that they are wrong.
Well said. I concur.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you were raised in confinement by a captor, who kept you under control psychologically and physically, fed you etc. and if you escaped there were an army of captors everywhere waiting to capture you and return you to your captor...I don't think you would get away either.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegardless, vegetarians have longer life expectancies than meat eaters and being an omnivore says nothing for the ethics of meat consumption. This is a fallacy.
I agree, Noradrenergic, people don't like to be told they're wrong, but throughout history, that's exactly what's been necessary to end different forms of injustice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd? Didn't vegetarians assume all herbivores never fought at all? (One wonders why bulls have horns.)
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