Miles Jackson wrote:
>This moral stand is interesting to me because I don't really get it.
>If inflicting harm on living things is wrong (e.g., beheading a chicken
>and eating it is cruel), where do you draw the line? Why is eating
>broccoli okay? Why are the white blood cells in your body engulfing
>foreign viruses okay? I'm not being facetious, I just don't get the
>argument: all life involves stuff eating stuff; it's even less avoidable
>than participating in a capitalist economy!
-Yeah. I once met a radical vegetarian who was trying to wean her -dozen cats from meat. She wasn't having much success. Why would it be -ok for them, ethically speaking, and not for us?
I'm not a vegetarian, but these comments just seem bizarrely ignorant of the most obviously available vegetarian arguments out there.
Why is killing a chicken worse than an ameoba?
Because we give greater weight to killing a being who has the ability to feel pain and understand the worth of its own life. To the extent that a being is more "human like", we value not killing it just like we value not killing a fellow human being.
And why is it okay for cats or other animals to eat meat?
Because they don't understand the moral choice not to eat meat.
I actually find basic vegetarian arguments compelling -- but then there are a lot of moral self-sacrifice arguments that are compelling that I don't live by. But I can understand them.
nathan