"Dutch" <no.TakeThisOut@email.com> wrote in message news:<vs11obo8maco69.TakeThisOut@news.supernews.com>...
> "David Berkeley" <berko60.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote
> > "rick etter" <retterstop.TakeThisOut@bright.net> wrote
>
> [..]
> > > ====================
> > > No, if your were truely seeking to have the least impact you wouldn't
> rule
> > > out all meat categorically. That there are meats available that will
> cause
> > > less overall death and suffering than the veggies you buy from the
> market is
> > > not disbutable.
> > >
> >
> > But that is precisely what is being disputed, and not only be me.
>
> The point is not being seriously disputed by anyone. People *assume* that
> eating meat is more harmful to animals than eating plant-based foods because
> they have not considered the issue of collateral deaths.
>
> > before you could make such a claim, you'd have to design a model
> > encompassing the total impacts of the meats in question in each of the
> > settings they are raised and compare them with alternative protein
> > sources. I've looked for such things on the net, and elsewhere but
> > apart from a few very small localised studies, I see none.
>
> You don't need to go to that length to form a reasonable opinion. If a
> person kills a single large ungulate with a high powered rifle they may have
> 500 or more pounds of high quality protein. It's very unlikely, considering
> the effects of ploughing, planting, herbicides, pesticides, harvesting,
> processing, storage and transportation that a similiar amount of soy or
> other plant protein would be able to come anywhere close to that ratio.
What ratio? Ratios are relationships between two or more phenomena.
The question here is the relationship between the kg of protein and
the amount of animal suffering. Let us allow for the sake of argument
that a person humanely killing an animal (ie killing it in a way that
inflicts such minimum distress to the creature that it is unaware of
pain) inflicts close to zero suffering. One has to account in the
suffering all of the processes associated with animal management prior
to killing -- eg close confinement, in some cases docking, forced
repeat pregnancy, forced lactation, treatment for fly strike,
anti-biotics, branding, de-teating of cattle, transport etc. Your
example, I take it, was of a free-range grazing animal (eg a deer)
brought down by a hunter, but commercial meat is of animals reared on
farms, which are quite different in terms of their suffering profile.
Bearing in mind that many crops (eg alfalfa, lucerne etc) are produced
to raise animals for slaughter, any third party sensate victims are
suffering not as a result of raising crops, but ultimately of raising
animals.
I should add that it is not my assertion that growing crops is
"cruelty-free". Some crops are likely to result in the imposition of
substantial negative impacts on the well-being of sensate beings. If
people can point to such crops I'd be happy to avoid them as well. The
development of the sugar industry in Australia for example, was
largely possible as a consequence of the importation of Kanak
labourers from the Pacific Islands who were often kidnapped
"blackbirded" and forced to work in dreadful conditions. This would
certainly have fit my description of an unethical crop (though the
practice has long been abandoned). Later in order to defeat a
cane-based insect (a weevil I think, but I could be wrong) the
cane-toad was introduced from Ecuador. This was an example of what
happens when bad science makes the acquaintance of agriculture. The
impact of the cane toad has been devastating on local fauna, and the
weevil is one of the few things it doesn't eat.
Another consequence of animal raising in Australia has been the advent
of a whole new range of flies. Prior to European settlement, Australia
had some indigenous flies that were not in plague proportions. But the
introduction of cattle and sheep provided an astonishingly good medium
for their propagation and even worse, for the propagation of other fly
species introduced by the Europeans through maggot-infested pork
products. Now we're stuck with the "Aussie salute" every summer -- the
British laugh because we're really saluting their contribution to
Australian culture! More seriously though, these flies spread diseases
into other animal (exotic and indigenous) and their prevalence must be
accounted for in the overall costs of animal husbandry.
At
> the very least, a considerable amount of doubt is raised about the
> categorical approach employed by those who argue for veganism.
>
I'm not categorical, but what you are arguing sounds very much like
special pleading for the animal industry. It seems beyond all
reasonable demur that imprisoning and managing animals in a
commercially competitive environment necessarily entails inflicts much
suffering, both on the animals themselves and on the fauna that depend
on the habitats destroyed as a consequence. In Australia, some of
these "fauna" included local indigenous people. (I use this word
because that is how the early settlers say the indigenes, not because
I endorse seeing them as lower-order animals.)
> It makes far more sense in my opinion to include such ideas in your overall
> view, rather than to remain dogmatic in your opinion of the consumption of
> meat. Most vegans do remain dogmatic about this, because I suppose, well,
> they're *vegans*, and conceding such a point, even though it makes sense,
> would mean abandoning the label, which most wear with great pride. I use
> pride in the biblical sense, meaning a sin.
Well I have no particular pride in it -- though I am driven by a
desire to behave ethically, and to the extent that that entails
non-participation in flesh consumption, I am more comfortable.
Many adherents of Christianity believe it sufficient witness to have
faith, but believe their actions are irrelevant. This becomes their
pride, or shibboleth. "I'm saved because I believe". That would never
do for me. I expect to be judged by other humans on what I do and
strive to do right -- which for me involves working to ensure as far
as possible that nobody lives less well than I.
I think it doubtful that non-human animals have the same needs as us.
Even the higher order animals (other primates for example) are
unlikely to have the same physical and psychological needs as humans.
So when I use the word "rights" what I am discussing are those things
that can be reasonably applicable to each species. Human happiness is
a very much more complex thing than the happiness of a sheep or ox or
a pig. Accordingly, I believe for example humans have a greater and
prior claim on the Earth's resources than do sheep or oxen or pigs. It
seems unlikely that sheep will be distressed about death interrupting
their career plans! Yet I can also accept that even a sheep can feel
pain and fear, perhaps bond with fellow sheep and feel the pain of
separation. It seems to me that there is an ethical burden upon all of
us not to impose that which we recognise as suffering on others unless
there are absolutely compelling reasons for doing so -- eg the action
mitigates more suffering than doing nothing or something else.
And since we cannot know with any confidence how a sheep or ox or pig
or indeed any non-human feels we must err, if we are to err at all, on
the side of caution in making assumptions about what is and is not
"suffering" by assuming that what we would find painful, an animal
would also and the closer the animal is to us taxonomically, the more
similarities there should be with the treatment of other humans. Sheep
and cattle and pigs are mammals and deserve a higher standard of
treatment than we generally accord them.
Ultimately, I think the concepts we are discussing are somewhat
subjective, and not really amenable to the kind of specification that
legislation would require. A better approach is, I think, a cultural
one. While minimum standards could and should be legislated, standards
of treatment overall should arise out of a consensus, informed by
discussions such as the one we are having now.
Berko
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