If you care about animals, you should eat them
aeon.coThis was utter nonsense, almost to the level of insane rambling.
Last thing first, where is any argument that backs up the claim that animal rights people are not concerned with the pressure or happiness of the animal?
Wild animals left alone without encroaching human pressure or human-caused ecological stresses are presumably as happy as they might be designed to be.
Farmed animals with ample safe living areas might also be happy, but they only exist because we want to consume them in some ways. If we did not raise and ultimately use them, they would not be unhappy nor pained… they would not exist!
The closest thing to an argument that I can gather from this text is that because we have been raising and using animals, we should continue doing so as long as the animals are not greatly mistreated.
But it’s much easier to guarantee no negative effects or experiences by simply not doing the thing in the first place.
Anyway, New Zealand will eventually all be owned by ultra wealthy foreign nationals looking for a safe have to escape their ruined environments to. There will be no pastures for sheep.
- You can't determine what is a 'good life' for an animal. Scratch that, for someone else in general. It is incumbent upon the other to express what is good for them. You cannot determine, but you can deduce, yet there is little deduction to be had while the subject is incarcerated (limited options, how can you know this is what is wanted if the other options, i.e. free living, are not available?)
- You cannot say it is 'mutually beneficial' the same way you cannot determine what is 'good' for the animal. Most animals never have a choice or a way to express
Do whatever you want, but I hope no one pretends for a second they're 'doing good' beyond themselves for eating plants or animals. You are only 'being good' towards oneself in the form of sustaining your life, if that is your objective, your good. Some choose a noose instead
You don't need a pat on the back to sustain your life, nor this strange delusion that you're somehow making the world a better place by denying life to another thing, or deciding a life for another thing, unless you want to exercise a narcissism unparalleled
Factory farming is not a choice, it is required to satisfy the demand for meat. There is not enough arabale land for livestock, their feed, and for our own crops.
Until the author does some basic research, I refuse to humor their half-baked arguments.
This is why I eat dogs.
But not factory farming right?
> Of course, the animals we eat should have good lives, and so the worst kind of factory farming is not justified by this argument, since these animals have no quality of life.
Yes, this is one of the points that the article tries to make.
Here in Australia we see a lot of people parrot the argument against eating meat based on US factory farming, even though most* farming in Australia is a lot more "ethical". (There is of course a lot of examples of less than ethical farms - chicken farming for instance, as well as the live export sheep and beef market) - but on a whole our livestock is treated a lot better than in the US.
Ideally you'd want to be hunting and butchering your own food, but short of that there are more ethically sound options available than large scale production farming. I would assume in the States you can also find these kinds of options.
That's what the article says. I think there needs to be some allowance for making sure people are fed. I always buy free range eggs, and local farm raised meat when I can, and I do believe in paying for quality of life for animals. But I also know it's more expensive, and I would never think its OK to tell someone they couldn't eat meat because they can't afford humanely raised meat.
Like anything else, more progress and more increases in peoples standard of living is the best way to increase the standard of life for animals. We should be aiming for progress overall, certainly not trying to deny food to poor people.
Yes, the text says that a good quality of life for the animal is essential.