The eating meat for pleasure aurgument is flawed.

No...? They're not sentient


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I eat meat for pleasure

A ****ing burger is wonderful

Survival of the fittest (species). Why do you find it hard that humans will be humans

I eat meat but this is an incredibly stupid argument. I can't stand it when people bring natural selection into utterly irrelevant cases. There are plenty of situations when humans go completely against "survival of the fittest" because we know it's the right thing to do - for someone talking about how "humans will be humans", I'm surprised that you haven't yet realised that humans are capable of going beyond basic instinct, going against nature for a higher aim. If you justify eating meat by talking about "survival of the fittest" then you should reject many of the excellent human inventions that completely defy "survival of the fittest" like the law, or the welfare state.

The vegetarian argument that eating meat is unethical makes absolute sense - unless you're an anarchist you believes in a society that should be completely free of law, I don't understand how you can reject that argument. It might not be enough to convince you to become vegetarian - you might not care about animal rights - but the argument is still perfectly valid. There are plenty of more pragmatic arguments for vegetarianism though, such as the major environmental impact of meat production.

1.I have been a victim of sexual assault and abuse. 2.If you think that that's comparable to someone eating meat, I don't even know what to say to you, because that's a pretty disgusting comparison imo, since 3.as stated above I personally do not see how humans and other animals are comparable, and 4.if we're going to have to agree to disagree there, then so be it. 5.To me, a difference of species is considerably different to a difference of ethnic background. I just don't see how you can even try to equate vile behaviour like rape and slavery towards members of one's own species to eating meat. 6.And you've still yet to tell me how you live a completely cruelty free life, never having eaten a crop from a field that wasn't cleared without killing a single small animal on it, 7. how you have never taken a drug tested on animals, 8.how you have never consumed anything containing milk from a dairy farm where male calves are killed as they aren't of use. 9. You can't go around making such broad condemnations yourself if you can't guarantee you have never, ever used or benefited from anything that harmed an animal - and I'm willing to bet you have, many times.

Right. Well we are animals. Animals, like us, are sentient. They seek to avoid pain and suffering.


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How do things like law and welfare state deny survival and well being for humans?

How does not eating meat deny survival and well being for humans? It's completely possible to survive and have a very good well being without meat.

It's also completely possible to survive if you stay in a single room and never venture outside of it for your whole life. What's your point

In order to persuade me eating meat is ok, you would need to put forward an argument that proves that there is nothing morally wrong with killing animals to eat them. Goes without saying really, Alvin.


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I know it's crazy, how on earth could someone consider comparing those two! It actually sickens me :/

I don't think sentience 9however you're defining that) = self aware, and the latter is my critieria. So i think you shouldn't kill octopuses because there's a chance they might be conscious. But I'd happily kill a sheep and eat it.

Oh boo hoo, humans have been eating animals since the ice age. Typical whining vegetarians.

1.if animals were known to suffer in exactly same way as people, you'd have a point. However, 2.inferring conscious experience from a nervous (ie stimulus-reaction) system is dubious at best.

And 3.lets assume that all animals can experience things, that an animals suffering is of the same nature and value of that of a person's is non trivial and requires argument.

Sentience is the ability to have interests. For example a sheep doesn't want to be killed or to feel pain. They actively avoid it. Plants don't, so they aren't sentient


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What about blind and deaf people, they're only partly sentient... so are they only partly important? Sentience has nothing to do with importance, it's about a form of life.

Just because plants don't have aspirations for when they grow up, it doesn't mean they don't exist.

Oh boo hoo, humans have been eating animals since the ice age. Typical whining vegetarians.

1. We don't know whether two humans suffer in the same way but since we all have central nervous systems (which are the cause of experiencing suffering) we assume we all suffer and we don't use possible differences in the way we suffer to kill each other for pleasure. Animal suffering is the same thing. Whether the suffering is exact or approximate has no bearing on the question of whether killing someone for pleasure is acceptable.

2. It might be dubious but it is better to assume that all humans have it (and not kill each other for pleasure - see slaves in ancient Rome) than to assume not all have it and allow killing of some humans for pleasure if you believe the human in question cannot experience suffering. This would allow people to kill brain damaged individuals and people in coma for pleasure. The same goes for assumptions of human suffering. It is better to err on the safe side.

3. You can make the same argument for the suffering and worth of the suffering of two humans. I believe this was the reasoning of slavers, wife beaters, rapists and European powers to justify the suffering they produced.