It's currently the cultural norm to eat the flesh of other animals. Cultural norms often change, particularly as morality progresses due to the triumph of reason over dogmatism, emotion and greed. As the moral philosopher Peter Singer put it, we've witnessed an expanding circle of moral concern: from giving weight solely to the interests of people close to us and similar to us to taking into account the interests of people of different races, sexes and sexual orientations, as well as people far away from us in different countries.
Now, the next step is to equally consider the interests of nonhuman animals and all sentient beings. We already consider the interests of some nonhuman animals at certain points in time: people are outraged when dogs and cats have cruelty inflicted upon them, for instance. Yet, as a society, we have not fully rejected speciesism: the irrational discrimination against members of other species solely because they are not a member of the species
Homo sapiens. We continue to slaughter 58 billion animals each year, most of whom are kept in appalling conditions, transported under great deals of stress on long journeys and then slaughtered, slaugher which, even in countries with the strictest welfare regulations, goes wrong, and therefore inflicts suffering, in a significant proportion of cases.
What you have witnessed is most likely the acknowledgement that unnecessary suffering is wrong, regardless of the species of the victim. Jeremy Bentham, the founder of modern utilitarianism, lived in the 1700s, but was far ahead of his time. He was an advocate for, abolishing slavery, abolishing the death penalty, women's rights, and abolishing physical punishment inflicted on children. The two examples that best demonstrate his insightfulness, however, was his advocacy for gay rights and animal rights. As he wrote:
The shift to vegetarianism may also be the result of acknowledging that the huge environmental damage caused by the meat industry cannot be justified (see the documentary, Cowspiracy, on Netflix for an excellent illustration of this). According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the meat industry
is responsible for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and this is a conservative estimate. For reference, the entire transportation sector
is responsible for 15% of emissions - that's all the cars, planes, buses, trains and boats. This has led the UN Environment Program
to state:
"Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products."The people you know may also be aware that 40% of the world's grain is fed to nonhuman animals reared for meat, and that if it were kept for humans instead, we'd have enough to feed around 1 billion people. Furthermore, the meat industry is one of the main sources of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
So, given all of this, and combined with the fact that vegetarian and vegan diets are just as healthy, if not more so, than diets containing animal products in them, it's unsurprising that the moral arc bends towards vegetarianism. As the American Dietetic Association
have stated:
Interesting assertion, but studies have
found that, the higher the IQ, the more likely it is the person will be a vegetarian.
Making a logically fallacious
appeal to nature makes no sense, actually. Just because something is natural, doesn't mean it's right.