From: Greg Jordan (jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 30 2003 - 10:52:02 MDT
On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, gts wrote:
> If I accepted your premise that we should be empathetic toward wild animals
> then the first thing I would do is round them all up and put them on a farm,
> where they could die quickly at the hands of farmers instead of suffering
> long agonizing deaths as they are attacked and ripped apart and sometimes
> eaten alive by predators.
Note that my point about empathy is for your own benefit, not on behalf
of some mystical moral imperative. Also, is slaughtering wild animals for
livestock the most empathetic behavior you could imagine toward them? It
might be a movement in the right direction (albeit impractical), but
flawed on at least one end. I don't necessarily have a better plan of
action for wild animals - although I note that not all of them are
violently predated. My vegetarianism is usually explained in reference to
domesticated animals, most of whom would be kept regardless of whether or
not they were killed for food (cows for milk, chickens for eggs).
> Humans are thrown into the world as natural omnivores. If I have any moral
> duty as it pertains to diet then it is to feed myself and my loved ones
> according to the design of nature.
Nature has no design :) I certainly wouldn't bother someone who ate meat
in order to survive (I don't even bother meat-eaters at all in real life,
unless they tilt at vegetarians). But most people I know don't need to eat
meat to survive. They eat far beyond survival needs, artifically-processed
food that is promoted by the culture. It's all a massive exercise in lack
of thoughtfulness. On the other hand, you do seem to have been very
thoughtful about your diet, but vegetarians like me include an aesthetic
dimension yours is lacking. (Your aesthetic emphasizes following Nature,
which I have critiqued to pieces in my own thinking... Nature isn't
leading us anywhere, except to certain death and suffering...)
gej
resourcesoftheworld.org
jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu
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