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Underground eXperts United
Presents...
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[ Is Meat Murder? ] [ By The GNN ]
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IS MEAT MURDER?
by THE GNN/DualCrew-Shining/uXu
The coolest thing to do nowadays is not to drink whiskey, drive fast cars
and smoke sixty cigarettes every day. If you want to be a cool dude today,
your personal collection of ism's should include vegetarianism.
I find this rather interesting. It is not often it is considered hip to
be 'aware'. But then, are vegetarians aware? Are they really as intelligent
and open-minded as they believe? Not really. Let us take a closer look.
Vegetarians claim that it is wrong to eat animals. That is, it is wrong for
_humans_ to do it. Vegetarians seldom (even though there are some bizarre
exceptions) mean that other species may not consume their fellow creatures.
Even though there is an apparent inconsistency in the above (after all,
man is an animal too, so what is the difference?), it can be resolved. The
human race is, of course, an animal - but an animal that has a higher form
of consciousness and intelligence. 'Lower' animals are excused in their
behaviour because they do not know what is 'right' or 'wrong'. 'Ought'
implies 'can', and we cannot demand from a lion that 'he ought not eat
other animals' because the lion just cannot refrain from doing it.
So far, so good. The remaining question still needs an answer: why is it
the case that humans ought not eat other animals? Why is it wrong? We need
not uphold ourselves with the clique of vegetarians that base their opinions
upon the belief that there is a 'moral order' in the universe that forbids
us to behave in certain ways. Arguments based upon a transcendent 'moral
order' takes us nowhere; it only creates more questions, like 'if the moral
order is transcendent, how the hell did you get to know about it in the
first place?'
This is not to say that it is impossible that there is a 'moral order'
in the universe. It could very well be the case. But it could also very
well be the case that Elvis Presley is alive. We do not know - and it seems
utterly strange to bring forward normative prescriptions like 'we ought all
to listen to Blue Hawaii all day long' from mere guesses. Also, the moral
order could very well prescribe that we ought to slaughter and eat all
animals we see - including our neighbours, children, grandparents and why
not ourselves even? We do not know.
The argument from 'orders' is not mainly concentrated to vegetarians,
however. Some of those who oppose the view that we should not eat animals
also use this argument, but in a slightly different way. They claim that
it is 'natural' for humans to eat meat, and 'unnatural' (or 'not normal')
to not do it. As with the 'moral order', this argument is also clearly
dubious. Is it 'natural' for human to drive fast cars, drink whiskey or
listen to Elvis Presley? We do not know this either.
Let us therefore skip these lines of reasoning and turn to what we know,
or at least 'have very good reasons to believe is true'.
There are several arguments available why we should not eat animals. Some
speak in terms of health: the human race is not made for eating meat. We
are, they say, constructed for a diet of vegetables. I cannot find any good
support for this, since mankind has survived pretty good anyway even though
we have consumed meat. And this is certainly not an argument that is common
among the more hard-core supporters of vegetarians. They prefer to build
their line of thinking in moral terms - it is _morally wrong_ to eat
animals, no matter if it is conductive to our health or not.
Morality seeks to avoid what is bad (wrong), and seek what is good
(right). The morality vegetarians adhere to seems to be a form of hedonism.
'Pleasure' is good, 'pain' is bad. It is thus wrong, all things being equal,
to inflict pain in any living creature that is able to experience that kind
of sensation. Since hedonists calculate the net balance of pleasure over
pain in a large perspective, it can be right to inflict pain for the sake of
avoiding a greater future pain; but it is never right to do it without any
reason at all. Since humans can survive on a diet of water and vegetables,
there exists no reason for us to hurt, kill and prepare dinners out of cute
little animals.
Even though hedonism cannot all there is in morality, we can grant it a
certain status when it comes to the be or not to be of vegetarians. If it
can be shown that animals actually suffer from the way we treat them, that
would sure be a good argument for vegetarianism. The crucial question is
thus: can animals experience pain?
Prima facie, we are all inclined to give a positive answer to that
question. Since we are not able to communicate with animals (and ask them
if they are in pain), we build our conviction upon empirical examinations of
how animals behave under certain conditions. We all know that they seem
able to experience pain; after all, they scream when they are hurt, they
run when in danger and avoid things that might inflict pain.
But what is 'pain'? For humans, the answer is simple. It is something
that we directly experience as bad. But do animals experience is as bad?
Yes, of course they do - if they did not, they would not seek to avoid it,
it is said. But need this to be the case? If I programme a robot to avoid
people with blonde hair and blue eyes, it does not follow that this robot
experiences 'pain' whenever it is in my company. It may scream to make me
leave and it might try to run away to avoid me, but that does not imply that
it experiences any kind of emotion. The other way around works fine to: if I
programme it to stay close to people with blonde hair, this does not mean
that it feels 'pleasure' whenever it finds such a person.
Contrary to robots, however, animals are biological. And so are humans.
Therefore, it is easy to conclude that animals can experience the same kind
of 'pain' as we are able to feel. But this conclusion is not necessarily
correct. As said, humans posses a higher form of consciousness than animals.
We are able to reflect upon our own thinking and our own sensations. We
_know_ when we are in pain - we do not merely experience it. We know the
true meaning of the notions of 'pain', 'pleasure', 'desire', 'life' and
'death' (just perform some simple introspection and you will see). Since
animals do not know this, it would be quite strange to claim that they
'know' that 'pain is bad'. For us, 'pain' entails the concept of 'a raw
sensation of a bad feeling' which 'ought to be avoided'. For animals, 'pain'
does not entail any concept at all - simply because they are not constituted
to grasp any form of concept.
If animals were able to understand concepts, they would not act like they
do. They would act like humans in all aspects, less ruled by their primitive
drives - and clearly, this is something they do not do. Therefore, it seems
to me that animals are nothing more than biological robots, well-made
machines without concepts. To deny this would be to ascribe them more
consciousness than they actually have. (Recall, most vegetarians accept that
animals may eat each other. The reason for this was that animals are not
aware of certain concepts, in this case 'ought' and 'can' (and to understand
those concepts, one must also understand 'right, 'wrong' and 'good', 'bad').
So the veggie that accepts this premise must grant my conclusion some force
too.)
But from where comes the belief that animals are like us when it comes
to pain? Probably from a extrapolation that is not very well-reasoned. We
see that other creatures that are not like ourselves behave like we do when
they are in pain. From this we jump to the conclusion that they actually
experience pain in the same manner as we do; but, as I have tried to argue,
this is not obviously so. (In the future, some people will probably claim
that robots are able to feel pain too, just because they behave like we do
in alike situations.)
Please note that I do not claim that animals are unable to experience
pain at all. What I claim is that animals merely experience 'something' that
'ought to be avoided' (in the same sense as my robot when it sees me) not
'the raw sensation of that special feeling'. For animals, 'what ought to be
avoided' does not entail 'bad' - because the full meaning of 'bad' is
something they cannot understand (like my robot).
Yet another possible misunderstanding of the above must also be sorted
out. What I claim is not that animals experience the same sort of pain
as we do, with the exception that they do not know that pain is bad. What
I deny is that animals actually 'experience the same sort of pain as we do'.
Animals experience 'something' when they are in pain. But since animals
are unable to relate this 'something' to 'bad', this 'something' is nothing
more than one experience (even though I believe this term is rather
misleading) among others for them.
It should be mentioned that another form of argument for vegetarianism
might follow from the above. Since some people suffer when they see sausages
and hamburgers, we ought to refrain from eating animals. We should avoid
meat, not for the sake of the animals, but for the sake of a hedonistic
calculus concerning humans. This is a good argument (within its own
framework), but unfortunately it will not do. I see no reason for granting
irrational beliefs any status. I do not accept hedonism on the basis of its
narrow-minded justification. It is clearly not a satisfying form of
'morality' - it can be constructed to justify horrible and insane things,
and (as in this case) constructed to forbid almost anything, whether it is
rational or not.
It would be quite lame if I did not include a fine argumentum ad hominem
(just for the sake of stirring up some anger) in this text: Meat is not
murder. Meat is delicious. And yes, it is hip to drink whiskey, smoke sixty
cigarettes a day and drive fast cars.
It is not cool to be a vegetarian. It is ridiculous.
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