Why would a human need to rationalize consuming meat?
Cuz it inflicts pain? So does all kinds of things, so what?

The fact is some do and choose the lifestyle that avoids meat and to extreme derogates of who are called Vegans.

I do not intend to cast judgment on either lifestyle but wish for a better understanding. For example impressionable people upon visiting abattoirs have a re-evaluation of their dietary habits and others don’t.

This is the aim of this thread the justification or lack of for either lifestyle choice.

I think it makes sense to avoid eating animals for the usual reasons offered. I am personally not a vegetarian but I was for a few years. My reason was I objected to the industrial slaughterhouses and the brutal system that eating meat en masse has generated. Not as concerned about a small community that raises animals and kills them as they need them. For me it seems to be partly ethical and partly aesthetic. But I lack commitment.

When I eat any meat product I give little thought to the moral and ethical consideration. For eating is such a routine habit that it overrides any sort of rationalisation I might have. At least at that point in time.

I dont see why either position/lifestyle needs to be justified.
If youre asking whether “emoti-intellectual capacity” is a justification for either position I would say no. I do not think that emoti-intellectual capacity is a metric for morality or ethics, either is pain.

Do you have a pet ? Let’s assume an unlikely scenario a post-apocalyptic world where eating your dog ensured your survival…would you do it ?

Do you have a pet ? Let’s assume an unlikely scenario a post-apocalyptic world where eating your dog ensured your survival…would you do it ? — Deus

And would the answer be different if you didn't need to eat it to survive, you just liked the way dog tastes?

If my taste preceded compassion towards the animal yes. Otherwise no

I do have a pet, and I would eat it to survive. I also have kids so they would get the dog burgers first, followed by dad burgers if it meant them surviving. Survival trumps morality for most people, for most things.

At what point does a human being rationalise it’s consumption ? — Deus

Similar to antinatalism, if you don't have to cause other animals pain unnecessarily, why do so? It would be a naturalistic fallacy to point to evolution of our big brains through meat consumption or the idea that other animals eat meat. We know we can survive without eating meat. We also have the capacity for choice, and thus ethics in the first place.

I do have a pet, and I would eat it to survive. I also have kids so they would get the dog burgers first, followed by dad burgers if it meant them surviving. Survival trumps morality for most people, for most things. — DingoJones

:fire:

I objected to the industrial slaughterhouses and the brutal system that eating meat en masse has generated. Not as concerned about a small community that raises animals and kills them as they need them — Tom Storm

:up:

I dont understand what the flame signifies.

if you don't have to cause other animals pain unnecessarily, why do so? — schopenhauer1

Why not do so?

(I guess) "illuminating!" or "insightful!"

if you don't have to cause other animals pain unnecessarily, why do so? — schopenhauer1


Why not do so? — Isaac

Perhaps do not do such because one can relate to having pain and dont want to inflict such harm upon another living being?

one can relate to having pain and dont want to inflict such harm upon another living being? — Seeker

And why ought we follow that particular feeling?

And why ought we follow that particular feeling? — Isaac

You would know why if such a feeling was present.

You would know why if such a feeling was present. — Seeker

Oh. And that reason would be a good reason?

The Debate on the Joy of Fish" (知魚之樂) : In this anecdote, Zhuang Zhou argued with his fellow philosopher Hui Shi whether they knew the fish in the pond were happy or not, and Zhuang Zhou made the famous observation that "You are not I. How do you know that I do not know that the fish are happy?" (Autumn Floods 秋水篇, Zhuangzi). — Wikipedia

We don't know whether animal sentience is comparable to human sentience. That, however, doesn't mean we can't make an educated guess.

Is sentience the deciding factor though? Should we follow Mill's footsteps and utilize nociception as the gold standard for judging ethical pragmata?

If I'm permitted to kill a chimpanzee, feast on its meat and a chimpanzee is only 0.01% different from us genetically, can a species 0.01% above us, DNA-wise, do the same to us? Perhaps there's some kind of threshold of intelligence beyond which predation is impermissible and we've defintely reached that point, perhaps progressed beyond it, oui mes amies?

Redundant quizzing does little in the face of resolution.

Oh. Well thanks.
The flaw with most ethical systems is the assumption that being moral is ones highest priority imo, when really for most people its more like 3rd or 4th down the list, hence most people do not consistently follow any system of ethics. Ethics gets hedged out by higher priorities

Survival can trump ethics anytime and in some extreme cases has lead to cannibalism.

This should not occur as it’s not really a dog eat dog world out but some make it so

Personally when it comes to my dog that I’ve bonded with if I was forced into this choice of eating the animal to survive I doubt I would do it. I’d rather die than cling on to life at such primitive existence.

As for a lamb, the question contains the same moral dilemma still though the humane murder of it would not play on my mind as much as that of killing a dog, a companion and loyal friend.

Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree with this justification.

Well you gave me an extreme scenario, so I answered in that context.
It seems to me your reason for not eating your dog is based on a revulsion of how it would make you feel to do so. Im not sure thats a moral basis of rejection. For the lamb, you have not these feelings, so there is no parallel justification.
Some people do have these feelings but they have no more right to suggest we treat animals the way they do than I have to tell them ignore their feelings and eat lamb cakes.

Other than existential survival, to have "higher priorities" other than ethics (i.e. cultivating optimal agency/well-being via conduct and relationships) seems to me a performative contradition.

Besides health concerns and the ethics of killing sentient animals for food, there is also reducing the impact on the environment including climate change, land usage and water consumption and others. Following is the intro to an article detailing reasons to become vegetarian.

If we really want to reduce the human impact on the environment, the simplest and cheapest thing anyone can do is to eat less meat. Behind most of the joints of beef or chicken on our plates is a phenomenally wasteful, land- and energy-hungry system of farming that devastates forests, pollutes oceans, rivers, seas and air, depends on oil and coal, and is significantly responsible for climate change. The way we breed animals is now recognised by the UN, scientists, economists and politicians as giving rise to many interlinked human and ecological problems, but with 1 billion people already not having enough to eat and 3 billion more mouths to feed within 50 years, the urgency to rethink our relationship with animals is extreme.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/18/vegetarianism-save-planet-environment

At what point does a human being rationalise it’s consumption ? — Deus

It's been said that the ego generates excuses and rationalizations for the desires of the id. By and large, people primarily eat meat because they like, or in your case "love", eating meat - not because it is reasonable to do so. For them, its rationalizations all the way down.

For the most part, those who eat meat have been conditioned by their parents and themselves to desire meat . They are capable of reconditioning themselves. Instead they mindlessly buy the excuses and rationalizations that percolate up from the ego.

I dont see the contradiction. Some things are more important to some people than “cultivating optimal agency/well-being via conduct and relationships”. I think you are trying to assert that ethic over all other priorities just as I described above. Its simply not the case for most people, they worry about ethics after a number of other things that come first. These priorities preclude moral judgements.

For the most part, those who eat meat have been conditioned by their parents and themselves to desire meat . They are capable of reconditioning themselves. Instead they mindlessly buy the excuses and rationalizations that percolate up from the ego. — ThinkOfOne

This is true, atleast for me it was, as I was 'exposed' to lots of meat for as long as I can remember.

I have to elaborate on that
I grew up in a district that was comprised of a cattle market, multiple slaughterhouses, lots of little stores, ragtag houses and multiple graveyards (general + catholic). My entire family worked at those slaughterhouses, without exception. Needless to say I grew up with meat, lots of it, from breakfast to dinner, just like the rest of the family. Yet I started to experience remorse about it and up until this very day am the only familymember at that. I must have consumed an incredible amount of meat during those years nevertheless, indeed conditioned to do so.

The truth of the matter is, I will always love the taste and the texture but I also love life and to love life is to love everything living, is to respect all living beings no matter size or appearance.

When one starts to experience oneself being (universally) cannibalistic of sorts (for lack of a more accurate description) rationality stops and emotional responses take over.

You've misread what I've written.

That's interesting. Like you, I grew up where a meal wasn't a meal without meat. It was the best part of a meal. For the most part, vegetable matter was something you ate only because you had to. "It's good for you".

About six months after I became a vegetarian, I remember going to the grocery store. As I was paying to check out, the woman behind me placed a large roast on the conveyor belt. I looked at the bone-in roast and thought "that's a slab of dead animal flesh". What I saw was bone with muscle and a layer of fat around it. It really surprised me. Prior to that I would have thought, "Nice looking roast". It would have looked like food to me. For a long time now, I have had absolutely no desire for meat, much less a "love" for it.

Oh. Please explain then.