Vegetarians who eat fish (pescetarians) - how do you justify this?

I'm a vegetarian but I think fish are much less sentient, self-aware and able to suffer than other animals. I'd rather kill a fish than a cow.

Fish are healthier?

And I'd rather kill a cow than a human but that doesn't mean I have to do either. Why do other animals have a right to life but fish don't? Most animals that we eat like cows are incredibly stupid, I doubt they really have that much more self awareness than a fish. Plus fish still feel pain as far as I know. It seems quite arbitrary to have fish as the cut off point, why not include all animals that can feel pain?

I'm a vegetarian but I think fish are much less sentient, self-aware and able to suffer than other animals. I'd rather kill a fish than a cow.

And I'd rather kill a cow than a human but that doesn't mean I have to do either. Why do other animals have a right to life but fish don't? Most animals that we eat like cows are incredibly stupid, I doubt they really have that much more self awareness than a fish. Plus fish still feel pain as far as I know. It seems quite arbitrary to have fish as the cut off point, why not include all animals that can feel pain?

I don't get vegetarianism - full stop.

So, the animal doesn't get eaten by you.

It gets eaten by someone else.

Also, where's the line between animals being sentient beings and becoming a fruitarian - where fruit and vegetables are living things, so pulling them up is "murdering" them.

If people object to the conditions the animals live in - there are organisations such as P.E.T.A who campaign for animal rights etc. If an animal isn't mistreated before it's death, I don't see what's so "wrong" about carnivorism.

Plus, I agree, you cannot be a pescetarian and still maintain your argument that eating an animal is morally wrong, because they're sentient beings. A fish has just as much right to be alive as a cow. We're not talking of the difference between eating intelligent animals such as dolphins here - cows, chickens and fish are all fairly low on the IQ scale. Pigs, however, are apparently moderately intelligent.

I follow a pescetarian diet but I do it for health reasons. I have been thinking about cutting out all fish for a while now for ethical reasons and I was trying to think of justification for eating fish but not all other animals and I couldn't find any.

Because it's f*cking hypocritical, that's why.

I think it's quite easy to see where the line can be drawn. Fruit and vegetables don't have central nervous systems, they don't feel pain, they don't feel anything. They don't know who their 'children' are and they probably don't care. It's impossible to harm a fruit or vegetable.

A lot of animals kept for consumption aren't really kept in very good conditions for any of their lives because its expensive to give them good living conditions. Free range is okay but it's expensive. I went to an abattoir once and it actually traumatised me, it was horrible and the animals were really agitated. It was like they could sense what was coming, they were all just lined up waiting to be herded in and shot. It's that that puts me off eating meat. I actually wouldn't mind eating meat if I went along to a farm and someone just went out and picked a cow/chicken whatever and just killed it quickly.