Are you going for Poe here?
I think you called it.
I believe that each person has the right to arbitrarily draw their own line as to what animals ( if any) they wish to eat.
Being the same species, or the same race, is an arbitrary line too.
There are non-arbitrary lines that work perfectly well for some people- lines of moral relevance, like intelligence. You just reject these lines for personal reasons.
Most people here can see them- meat eater and vegetarian alike- why can't you?
Whether you choose to draw another line which is arbitrary rather than accepting one deduced from capacity to think and suffer (moral relevance) or not is up to you. Denying that distinction is all kinds of woo though.
The best practice is to simply let folks draw their own lines, no one is going to make you eat any animal you don't want to, and your free to express your disgust at those who do, in any legal form you wish, personally i can't think of a better method of resolving the issue than this.
No, it isn't. That's just the practice you prefer. Can I assume you're some kind of Ayn Rand Objectivist, Satanist, or libertarian?
That's not best practice at all- that's called chaos.
When one neighbor morally offends another (who loves and owns cats), by skinning live cats in the yard for giggles, he's going to get it- and in a non-legal way.
Even in the U.S. there are restrictions on "free speech" that take that form, and moral offense is even more likely to provoke action than verbal offense.
It makes practical social sense to ban extreme deviation from social morals- particularly crimes that are certainly *not* victimless, whether or not that victim is in the social contract, because other people care about it.
It's why slavery and infanticide are outlawed, and it's why women have rights- despite all of these individuals being, or having been, disenfranchized from the social contract at one point.
If you're advocating a society based strictly on social contract, you should at least understand what you're actually advocating. I assure you, it is not a society you would want to live in.
Does humane equal better though is the question.
The poster was talking about morally better. And yes, it does. That's not the question at all.
Even humane is highly subjective, within this context, vegetarians draw the line at food with a face, well if we just stopped eating anything, the other species would be better off, so those who practice suicide must be damn near saints.
Others called you on this BS.
First: Vegetarians do not draw the line at "food with a face". Do a little research.
Second: Our extinction is not necessarily morally favorable- we are living things too. Mutual existence- a win-win situation- and the least suffering is the key. A hypothetical moral ideal might see our intelligent species taking the position of caretakers of the Earth.
Third: What you need is a basic awareness of game theory. Even if you were right on the former points, everything you've said is nonsense.
A good moral system is a practical moral system, which is viable and competitive in the memetic environment.
If you understand evolution, think of morality as species competing for dominance. If you understand memes and virology, you'll be able to actually understand the situation. A propagating force that kills off its hosts (whether that force is good or bad) is not fit. Something that is otherwise good, but not fit for survival and allows much worse things to out-compete it is not actually good. What is good- what is the best- is the most moral system which can propagate and establish itself.
The fact that someone chooses to take advantage of a luxury we have, does not make them a better or worse person, simply a person who is making a different choice.
Sorry, but the ignorance of this comment surpasses all of the rest.
That is EXACTLY what makes it a moral choice- that we can easily stop eating other animals (for example) is what validates the vegetarians' argument that we're being immoral when we chose to eat them anyway.
Need for survival yields an excuse, or even justification, which being lacking in the modern context provides a purely moral choice that the vast majority of humanity are now capable of making for the first time in history.
There's nothing that says we should be moral, or shouldn't be- that is a choice- as well as is the degree to which we choose to be moral. We're probably not waiting for divine reward or punishment. The fact that it is a choice is what makes it relevant.
There were vegans and vegetarians since the time of the Buddha, at least (he wasn't one, but they are documented as being around at the time).
That's a complicated issue. Vegetarians actually existed long before that; some early Buddhists (as this new cult) were criticized for eating meat by the Vedic authorities. It was actually a pretty damaging mark on Buddhism at the time.
Gautama generally advocated vegetarianism or what amounted to something similar (though less logically consistent) to freeganism.
His personal choice to eat meat sometimes, failing that advice, is arguably a clear indication that he wasn't a Buddha (or failed to overcome his physical urges and become one)- so saying the Buddha ate meat is a bit oxymoronic (it seems more like an indication that a Buddha never existed- unless maybe Epicurus was one- but that doesn't matter; the notion can be a hypothetical ideal and goal for those pursuing the path of the bodhisattva).
Mahayana sutras cleared up those inconsistencies to create a more internally consistent philosophy later on (forgery or not, I don't think it matters- the point is the consistency of the teachings). Buddhism is about process, so whether Gautama was a Buddha or not, isn't as relevant as- say- whether or not Yeshua existed and was Christ to Christianity (which is about a specific revelatory soteriology that relies on authenticity of authority).
Sorry, that was a little longer than I intended it to be. Just for general informational purposes- I certainly don't want to start a religious debate.
I have made the arbitrary choice of not punching children in the face. But we should all just stick with our own personal choices and not bother other people who like that.
The obvious problem is morality, as opposed to mere taste.
Ha! Yes, thank you. Well said.
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