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Comment by ahelwer | Hacker News Reader

Nice. If you care at all about moral justifications for your own actions, eating meat is an extremely difficult position to defend. It even falls on the wrong side of the Kantian perfect/imperfect duty divide, since the default really is not eating meat, so eating meat is a positive action which must be justified. I think it's a great example of philosophy pointing out the absurdity of a (very) widely-practiced phenomenon.

Of course, there's always the perpetual ethical get-out-of-jail-free card of doubting the existence of any finite set of values (articulated in our imprecise, incomplete, informal language) which could inform all our actions in this staggeringly-complex world, plus the impossibility-in-principle of living consistent with those values ;)

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How does that argument extend to animals that eat other animals? And why is the default defined as not eating meat?

The common justification for this is the comparative anatomy argument that we're primates and primates don't eat meat. These same people have had their heads in the sand for the last 30 years, because it's been found that primates do quite commonly eat meat.

Definitely not. The common justification for this is that we, as the most intelligent species on the planet, have developed a moral conscience. As such, it is unconscionable that we support the literal mass murder and ill-treatment of billions of animals each year when there are alternatives that require no suffering and no death.

Parent Poster said:

    > the default

You're talking about something else completely. There is no default morality. If morality is a choice to make then it is not a default behavior. I'm responding to the question asked while you're propping your moral choice above the observed natural behavior of other species. I didn't even begin to discuss the morality of eating meat.

>it is unconscionable that we support the literal mass murder and ill-treatment of billions of animals each year when there are alternatives that require no suffering and no death.

There are ways to put down animals which require no suffering.

And no, there are no alternatives to death. Plants are living things too. Why is it okay to murder a plant but not an animal?

https://mercyforanimals.org/heres-why-youre-wrong-when-you-s...

We usually divide the world into moral agents (pretty much just humans) and non-moral-agents.

The default is not eating meat because the default is not eating anything. Humans must take a positive action to eat something.

Generally perfect duties in the Kantian sense take the form of "thou shalt-nots", so a positive action you shouldn't take, like killing a random stranger or some such. This is contrasted with imperfect duties, which are things that are merely virtuous to do - like using your time & resources to help the less-fortunate, for example.

>The default is not eating meat because the default is not eating anything.

That's default for rocks and such, but not living things, whose existence requires by default the death of other living things

I'm a solitarian. I use photosynthesis.

Couldn't this be extended to plant life as well?

It could, and indeed there are people who hold this belief. They are called "Fruititarians" and only eat things which can be taken from the plant without killing or harming it, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitarianism

I don't personally subscribe to this.

> Humans must take a positive action to eat something.

If you're going to talk about morality and agency, it is not a positive choice to eat anything. It's acting out of necessity to survive. Choosing not to eat is self-destruction and there is absolutely nothing about that that's a moral choice. In fact, it's generally accepted to be immoral[1]. This is why we force feed people on hunger strikes and why suicide is illegal. Modern/western written law is based on natural law.

"Breatharianism" is pure stupidity/insanity and anyone who undertakes such practice can (and will) literally go die.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI25easQs2k

Yes, per Sartre killing oneself is a course of action available to us at (almost) any moment, which must be justified against by any supposed moral system. This is pretty standard.

We aren't talking about what the law dictates, we're talking about how some moral system might inform our actions. Two very different things, although of course the relationship between them is fascinating in its own right.

Eating isn't a choice. Please don't deflect from the criticism of your claim.

Downvote me all you like Andrew, but I'm going to call you out for espousing ideas that can literally kill people.

I can't downvote you, HN doesn't allow you to downvote people who reply to you.

I'll leave you with this quote of yours to consider:

> Choosing not to eat is self-destruction and there is absolutely nothing about that that's a moral choice. In fact, it's generally accepted to be immoral.

If something is immoral, there must have been a moral choice made to engage in the immoral activity. "Moral choice" here is a technical term which means the choice itself has moral weight, not that the choice is moral.

Apparently lions, tigers and bears aren't aware of the Kantian perfect/imperfect duty divide.

Oh my.

I don't know that I fully agree with the parent's logic (despite the fact that I actually am a vegetarian), but I think the rationale to his argument is that humans are able to survive without meat (unlike cats, lions, or tigers), and we also have the ability to realize that we are able to avoid meat. Cats, bears, and tigers really don't have the mental faculties to know good or bad, or right and wrong, but we do (at least to some extent). If that's the case, shouldn't we avoid killing wherever possible?

Again, not sure I completely agree with the line of reasoning, but I at least see the point.

Non vegetarians everywhere demonstrably don't have the ability or "mental faculties" to see that eating meat is wrong, any more than lions and tigers and bears do.

It's like someone saying everyone has the ability to accept God or Jesus. No, we don't. And it's a touchy subject, because zealots tend to next infer that someone isn't fully human if they don't share fundamental beliefs or axioms.

Again, not saying that I fully agree, I'm just trying to explain the perspective.

The default really is not eating anything. Just fast, and fast, and fast, and die.

Obviously those animals are unethical. But once Orca evolve enough to really grok Kant they should come around and die off.

Animals don't raise other animals on cruel factory farms.

Ants farm aphids.

Re: why not "animals that eat other animals," the burden of proof here is with meat-eaters (those against killing people at least). There's a special status we afford to ourselves as humans, so why do we so easily accept the privileges of it, but raise objections when it comes with additional moral responsibilities?

As for the default, I think a simple way to put it is, "you don't have to eat meat."

Should it?

If I argue that it’s immoral to not vaccinate your children, am I failing in not arguing that wild deer should vaccinate their children?

Okay, I'll make a go of it: Which insect-eating-insect relationships are morally justified in the context of farming, and why? Are ladybugs morally superior for their crop-protecting abilities or morally inferior for their consumption of peaceful herbivores?

This is along the same lines as asking a vegan cat-owner what they feed their cat. I know that it's trite, but it's worth pondering.

Edit: 1hr without a reply. Wasn't that difficult.

> If you care at all about moral justifications for your own actions, eating meat is an extremely difficult position to defend.

Let's do it gradually, first move to eating beef: less killed lives per lb of meat. From another hand if we reduce demand, those chickens will not even been born..

Oh man, the moral status of possible future entities is like a singularity of very weird conclusions. I would avoid it.

Then why do you concern yourself so much with past entities?

And this ladies and gentlemen is why vegans have a reputation for being annoying.

Haha, even as an occasional meat eater I liked this comment. If this sort of comment is annoying, maybe time to inquire into the defensiveness. Maybe you have too much "skin" in the game?

It's not defensive to be annoyed by people claiming moral superiority.

The annoyance is fascinating to me, because I grew up eating meat and also felt such annoyance. It's an interesting thread to pull if you're into knowing thyself - why do I feel especially aggravated on this topic? Might lead you somewhere.

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