Vegetarian: Arguments For and Against Vegetarianism

[quadraginta]

If you are equating the ethics of including meat in a diet with rape and murder,

I am not.

If you are not then you are certainly giving that appearance. If you are doing it intentionally you are being disingenuous. If you are not then you need to work on your presentation, because it is creating an impression which you did not intend, and distracts from whatever point you are trying to make.

My statement remains true. That is the sort of rhetoric which gives rational vegetarians a bad name. Whether you believe it, said it without believing it, or said it without meaning it is utterly irrelevant.

and you don't understand why people have trouble engaging in rational conversation on the subject with you, then there is really no hope of communication.

Fanaticism cannot be reasoned with. This is the sort of extremism that gives sane vegetarians a bad name.

I am not a vegetarian.

That's very nice to know. Thank you for sharing. I'm not certain why you volunteered that information. Nothing in my post made the assertion that you are.

 

[yy2bggggs]

I am not a terribly ethical person?

And neither is your feeble old neighbor?

That I can agree with, even though to a much lesser degree than you seem to be suggesting.

I'm not suggesting any degree. I'm suggesting that they are a factor.

I am much less of a good person than I could and quite possibly should be.

So is anyone who is wasting time actually being happy rather than devoting their lives to right all wrongs in the universe? And again by "anyone", I don't mean you, or me, but your feeble old neighbor. Kick reciprocity up another notch.

And I do think that for most people it would easily be possible to change to a vegetarian diet.

Okay, then this is what you should argue. In such a case, you're actually considering the cost and deeming it mild. But you also need to establish sustainability. Merely going with "it's possible" doesn't cut it.

Imagine you'd develop a deadly allergy against meat tomorrow - I am certain you would find it quite possible to adjust.

This is dancing on the edge of being an ad hominem logical fallacy. But as it turns out, I'm a terrible example anyway. For me, even describing such a scenario as possible to adjust is going too far. It would actually be quite easy for me to give up meat tomorrow--even trivial. At worst it would be a minor inconvenience. But the fact that this would be easy for me isn't relevant. I'm a particular person, with specific dietary needs, and I have the means to make this happen.

Keep in mind I'm a pescetarian, and I don't eat a large amount of fish.

I see that most people - me included - don't want to adjust. but that alone really isn't a factor when deciding what is ethical.

Perhaps, but again, this has nothing to do with whether or not burden and sustainability should be a factor.

 

[Dogdoctor]

Some thoughts on vegetarianism. There is no vegetarian source of vitamin B12 as far as I know. Perhaps some vegetarians get some from eating bugs in their vegetables. Or their diets have to be fortified with chemically created B12 or animal source B12. Some rely on milk or eggs which require keeping chickens and cattle which can also be eaten for meat.

Concering vegetarian cat food it may exist but that doesn't mean it's good for cats.

 

[Ambrosia]

B12 is grown via bacteria rather than created chemically IIRC. We are now at a stage where we could technically never eat animals if we chose to but would that be good for the animals?

There are all kinds of domesticated farm animals that would not even exist were we not to farm them for milk, wool, meat etc Is it better for an animal to not even exist, or to live a shortish life and end up slaughtered for our use?

Better to have lived and lost, than never to have lived at all.

What if we decide that rearing sheep for wool is OK, what do we do with sheep that die, throw them away and waste a resource?

 

[yy2bggggs]

Some thoughts on vegetarianism. There is no vegetarian source of vitamin B12 as far as I know.
...
Some rely on milk or eggs which require keeping chickens and cattle

Uhm... isn't this a contradiction? Perhaps you mean vegan sources of B12, not vegetarian sources. I can understand being loose with language, but the OP clearly defined vegetarianism.

which can also be eaten for meat.

Sure. But I'm not sure why that's relevant in itself.

 

[Dogdoctor]

Uhm... isn't this a contradiction? Perhaps you mean vegan sources of B12, not vegetarian sources. I can understand being loose with language, but the OP clearly defined vegetarianism.

Sure. But I'm not sure why that's relevant in itself.

There is no useful plant sources of B12 (or bacterial or fungal)

 

[six7s]

What if we decide that rearing sheep for wool is OK, what do we do with sheep that die, throw them away and waste a resource?

You mean other than using the by-products for felt/carpet/rugs, glues/adhesives, fertilizers, explosives, solvents, oils, lanolin, lubricants, soap, floor wax, gelatin, horn/bone buttons/handles, bone china, collagen, dog food (as meat and biscuits), leather (and tallow for tanning), violin and tennis racquet strings, etc?

 

[arthwollipot]

And anyway, who'd want to eat a sheep that died of old age?

Just like beef and dairy cattle, we've bred sheep for wool and sheep for meat.

 

[Ambrosia]

There is no useful plant sources of B12 (or bacterial or fungal)

outside of a laboratory the root source of B12 is bacterial.

You mean other than using the by-products for felt/carpet/rugs, glues/adhesives, fertilizers, explosives, solvents, oils, lanolin, lubricants, soap, floor wax, gelatin, horn/bone buttons/handles, bone china, collagen, dog food (as meat and biscuits), leather (and tallow for tanning), violin and tennis racquet strings, etc?

Most of the uses in your list have been replaced with synthetic alternatives for economic reasons. Though the only item in your list that uses the actual meat, is animal food. Why would it be OK for animals to eat animals, but not humans to eat animals in this scenario?

And anyway, who'd want to eat a sheep that died of old age?

ME!

mmmmmmmm tasty sheep. Provided the animal does not contain some disease that could be potentially harmful of course.

Older aged meat is full of flavour and there are many ways of cooking it slowly that get rid of the bad points (toughness) and accentuate the good points (flavour) You wouldn't want to eat the rack having roasted it rare, it'd be like chewing leather, but you might want a nice warm bowl of Irish stew or some Bath Chaps.

Much of the peasant food like Irish stew, or pretty much all of French cuisine is based upon using just about every part of every useable animal in your cooking pot, animals farmed for some other purpose that died of "old age" were not excluded from that.

 

[Exzyleph]

There is no useful plant sources of B12 (or bacterial or fungal)

The actual source of B12 is bacteria and no animal can itself produce the vitamin, except by symbiosis with such bacteria. As it turns out, the industrial production of B12 is carried out through fermentation of such bacteria, which seems to me to be a perfectly legitimate source of such vitamins for vegetarians and vegans.

 

[Exzyleph]

If you are equating the ethics of including meat in a diet with rape and murder, and you don't understand why people have trouble engaging in rational conversation on the subject with you, then there is really no hope of communication.

Even if the examples were inflammatory, it seems to me that the question is legitimate. If it is a valid ethical principle to weigh in the pleasures derived from an act, as well as the cost of prohibiting that act, in one case, then surely it must also be valid to consider the same in other cases. Otherwise it just looks like an ad hoc justification that has no general validity.

But if you take a step back, then this is simply a utilitarian cost/benefit calculation, where it is perfectly reasonable to weigh in all benefits and negative consequences of an act, as well as of prohibiting that act. And that is the case both with regards to meat eating, as well as the examples Rasmus gave.

 

[Aitch]

On the subject of feeding pets a vegetarian diet...

There's just been a woman on Gardeners' Question Time^WP*, asking whether she could feed her Venus Flytrap^WP a vegetarian diet. Apparently, you can**.

* Radio 4 UK panel programme. About gardening. Obviously.
** Obligatory silly answer given: "Yes, if you can find a vegetarian small enough".

 

[TimCallahan]

I'm curious. If, using genetic engineering, we could grow a non-sentient life form, say a colonial protozoan, in vats that would produce what is essentially beef, would either vegans or ovo-lacto-vegetarians eat it?

 

[Exzyleph]

I'm curious. If, using genetic engineering, we could grow a non-sentient life form, say a colonial protozoan, in vats that would produce what is essentially beef, would either vegans or ovo-lacto-vegetarians eat it?

I would think that the answer is "it depends". There are a lot of different reasons as to why people are vegetarians, and so the answer will vary from person to person. For people who are vegetarians for ethical reasons, and who draw the line at sentience when determining which organisms demand ethical consideration, then what you propose would probably be acceptable.

But I cannot say if such a product would be acceptable to people who simply dislike meat, or for those who based their diets on health concerns, or who base their diet on ecological concerns, or who based their diet on religious concerns, etc.

Furthermore, in my experience quite a number of vegetarians are opposed to genetic engineering and other things considered "unnatural", so your hypothetical product may be rejected on those grounds also.

 

[JWideman]

OR you can just eat meat anyway while still pretending you're better than the rest of us.

 

[six7s]

OR you can just eat meat anyway while still pretending you're better than the rest of us.

OR you can come out of the closet and stop pretending that you're better than the rest of us

Larry Groce - Junk Food Junkie​