[lbo-talk] good morning my fellow ecosystems

[ravi]

On Apr 15, 2009, at 1:07 PM, Chris Doss wrote:
>
> I think it's silly. Bad things should be minimized. Causing pain and  
> suffering is bad. Killing animals causes pain and suffering.  
> Therefore...
>
> It's not exactly a complicated logical argument, or one with  
> controversial premises (unless you're one of those epistmological  
> jackasses who only believes in Cartesian doubt only when it comes to  
> a premise he doesn't want to accept).
>
> Why should the burden of proof be on the advocator of vegetarianism  
> anyway? It's not like meat-eating is a universal human practice.
>

To some extent it is. Very few purely vegetarian communities have  
existed in human history, AFAIK. However, as you imply, large numbers  
of human beings live a healthy vegetarian life (I would estimate a 100  
million or more, just in India), and the argument that meat is a  
necessity, generally speaking, does not seem to hold much water.

You are quite on target I think w.r.t the opportunistic use of  
Cartesian doubt. Ignoring the revealing attempts at humour here on the  
list, there are some serious arguments that have been offered against  
many of the positions of animal rights/welfare. A while ago I posted  
something from Bernard Williams here on LBO. I will try to find it  
again on the Internets.

	--ravi

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