Vegatarianism approached from a Utilitarianist approach

Susicia

I recently wrote an essay for University on the topic of Does Utilitarianism apply to animals, I spent so much time/effort etc... researching it and accidentidly convinced myself even more that I have made the right choice to be vegatarian for the last 5 years I decided to contribute(hopefully!) to the world and post it online...

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Should Utilitariansim apply to animals and should people eat meat?

I'm going to try to approach this from an logical viewpoint and argue my point of view instead of simply replying with "yes, and you're an absolute moran if you don't think so too". Staying logical when dealing with a topic I feel so passionatley about, it's hard not get emotionally involved.

Should animals be included in Utilitarianism?

I am a dog.

I was born, I bark, eat, breathe and dream. I will show you perpetual love even if you hurt me

I have teeth that could easily crush the bones in your hand, but I choose not to bite you.

If you hurt me, I feel pain, I whimber and yelp, I will run away, I wil tremble with fear.

I personally believe this is reason to consider an animal with an equal right to Rights as a person and that there also is no specific moral reason to award more weight to a person then a dog but there is moral reasons to award equel value to all living things that feel, breathe and live. If human and animal suffering is equal, then it follows that choosing one over the other cannot be morally justifie,

However... as a utilitarisnm approach I would now like to simply compare where the most happiness is created in eating meat/not eating meat.

Happiness Experienced from Eating Meat...

1. By raising an animal for food, the farmer is happy because he makes money.HAPPINESS.

2. The Person consuming the food is happy. In a poll in 2009, 92 percent of people say they are not vegatarian. http://www.vegsoc.org/info/statveg.html HAPPINESS. -

Pain Experienced from Eating Meat...

1. By raising the animal for food, the farmer must live with the knowledge he has been involved in continous slaughter of animals. I have no figures on this but can reasonably assum that there must be "some" farmers who regret eating meat and do so only as there only possible method of supporting themselfes and there family. They still must feel regret. Regret = pain.

2. Of all the people I have met in my life, I can say that I have met <10 people who have explicitly said they enjoy eating meat and have absolutley no regrets about eating meat. Most people in the 1000's that I have met have told me that they regret eating meat for ethical beliefs and would like to stop but they believe they would simply miss it too much or vegatarianism would be too hard to commit to. With the exception of "literally" <10 people, people who still eat meat but wish to stop = Pain.

3. The animal has his life taken away in quite often curel conditions before his life would terminate naturally. On average 56 billion animals are slaughtered for food/year.56billion... Pain. -

4. Medical research has shown that animals who have been pumped with hormones can affect people who consume meat in sometimes an incredibly negative way, ie. cancer. Meat eaters experience a 40% of prostate cancer, 20% in colon cancer. These people affected by cancer are "definitley" not happy. http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20050111/red-meat-eaters-risk-colon-cancer -PAIN

5. a poll of 1000 people was taken and resulted in 32 percent stating they would consider not eating meat. http://www.vegsoc.org/info/statveg.html Pain

6. In another poll of 2251 people, 51% people said they went vegatarian for ethical reasons. It is reasonable then to conclude of 3200 people eating meat, at least 1600 people would consider becoming vegatarian and feel remorse about eating meat in there life. Regret? = Pain.

7. Higher meat consumption in the world creates problems for the poor, as the share of farmland devoted to feed cultivation expands, reducing production of food not grown for animals - reducing food for humans and reducing proffits for the non-animal related farmer=Pain

8. More animals in the world result in a greater need for animal feed. Around 80 percent of the world’s 150 million malnourished children live in countries with food surpluses, much of which is used as feed for animals who become the food of affluent people. http://www.all-creatures.org/discuss/loaves.html 120million children alone? = Pain

9. According the the WorldWatch Institute livestock contribute 18% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. "no one" in the world feels happiness with more greenhouses gasses. =Pain.

I could continue on and on.

Sheer arguing by numbers between eating meat and not eating meat in terms of the number of arguments and the number of people who's pleasure/pain is directly affected, I believe argues that under the Utilitarian view, we should not eat meat.

Mentalmiss

Well Done. I hope that you can spread the message.

sofa kingcool

"Animals differ from humans in degree and not in kind."

I think you should look up Tom Regan. He is the nest philosopher of animal rights ive ever come across of..his ideas are based on facts and no meat eater could argue against his statements.


You SERIOUSLY have to watch this..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADhNch30Img

I know you will appreciate it

kraggy

Also, Peter Singer. Probably the most famous philsopher in terms of animal rights over the years.

Youtube his interviews. And read his book Animal Liberation. Great read.

Emerald Lass

Peter singer is generally just a really great logical thinker not just on animal rights issues. We studied him in uni in our logical thinking module of Philosophy. The way he puts forward his arguments are so logical, it throws out that whole 'emotional' element of the veggie argument - much better I've found for getting people to listen to you. If they think you are an emotional animal rights hippy they just switch off, but when your arguments are put forward in a more logical format they hit home better.

well done on your essay but ther is just one thing I found strange:

2. Of all the people I have met in my life, I can say that I have met <10 people who have explicitly said they enjoy eating meat and have absolutley no regrets about eating meat. Most people in the 1000's that I have met have told me that they regret eating meat for ethical beliefs and would like to stop but they believe they would simply miss it too much or vegatarianism would be too hard to commit to. With the exception of "literally" <10 people, people who still eat meat but wish to stop = Pain.

this is not my experience. Generally whilst most people have no problem with me being veggie, likewise they have no issue with themselves EATING meat. In fact the biggest problem I see is that most people do not even give any thought to where their food comes from, and don't even actively consider that fact that animals died to provide that food. It is the total apathy and lack of consideration that causes the problem. the majority of meat eaters I know would not sayt hat they wisht hey didn't eat it, and they simply have not given and ethical issues consideration - they simply don't really care. They eat based on the pleasure principle - they like eating meat so they do, simple. And lets be honest, if people really did feel ethical and moral issues about eating meat, wouldn't they stop? The fact is they don't see a problem with it, thats why they do it. They don't eat dog, cos thats unethical. If they felt eating a cow was equally unethical they wouldn't do it. The fact is they have no issue with eating certain animals and feel no remorse for doing so.

Perhaps they just say this to placate you because they know you are veggie and want to seem sympathetic to you?

Mentalmiss

Emerald Lass wrote: »

this is not my experience. Generally whilst most people have no problem with me being veggie, likewise they have no issue with themselves EATING meat. In fact the biggest problem I see is that most people do not even give any thought to where their food comes from, and don't even actively consider that fact that animals died to provide that food. It is the total apathy and lack of consideration that causes the problem. the majority of meat eaters I know would not sayt hat they wisht hey didn't eat it, and they simply have not given and ethical issues consideration - they simply don't really care. They eat based on the pleasure principle - they like eating meat so they do, simple. And lets be honest, if people really did feel ethical and moral issues about eating meat, wouldn't they stop? The fact is they don't see a problem with it, thats why they do it. They don't eat dog, cos thats unethical. If they felt eating a cow was equally unethical they wouldn't do it. The fact is they have no issue with eating certain animals and feel no remorse for doing so.

Perhaps they just say this to placate you because they know you are veggie and want to seem sympathetic to you?

I would go further than that and say that most believe that this is why animals are here.
I have heard things like "if we did not eat them there would not be any cows"

Susicia

well, personally I feel bad that things I buy arn't always fairtrade, I don't always recycle everything I use when to an extent it would be possible that I could,

I asked someone I lived with who is a hardy meat eater and accepts my veggie'ism ways but does not believe in them in the slightest. As I was writing that essay I realised I couldn't understand from a meat eaters point of view at all why they ate meat so I asked him to sit down and be as honest as he could. After a few reassurances that I wouldn't start any argument with him over it and a couple of "im sorry but this is just the way I feel" he stated that even though he "feels bad that an animal has to die for him to eat it, it wouldn't stop him as it's so tasty". This phrase rang true with another housemate in the room who hadn't been able to put his thoughts into one construct of a reason as to why he ate meat.

Basically, I stand firm that they both feel pain (pain being the Kantiasm ethicall equivalant of not feeling happy and suffereing of any sort) and this seems to be the constant among meat eaters that I've encountered.

After 5 years of being Veggie, I completley agree with "if they think you're a hippy, they tune it out". The stereotype of that preachy veggie? I personally have never, "ever" met a vegatarian who has tried to 'convert', 'preach' or in any other way act like that stereotypical image we all have to work against. When someone meets me and finds i'm a veggie, they're commen response of "don't try to get me to stop eating meat now" or "i know what you veggies are like" comment is met with a calm (most of the time!) response of "have you ever met a vegatarian who has ever behaved in that way"....

As statistics show, in generall, vegatariansism is on the rise, especially among young people, and no matter what- that makes me happy :-)
= Happyness.

Mentalmiss

These days I would be more inclined to use the "saving the earth" argument in a discussion on the merits of being veggie. I tell them that rearing meat for human consumption causes as much greenhouse gasses as transport and that a lot more people can be fed from an acre of veg than an acre of meat.

Emerald Lass

Mentalmiss wrote: »

These days I would be more inclined to use the "saving the earth" argument in a discussion on the merits of being veggie. I tell them that rearing meat for human consumption causes as much greenhouse gasses as transport and that a lot more people can be fed from an acre of veg than an acre of meat.

the funny thing is when I became veggie over 16 years ago, this argument was met with as much 'hippy-tree-hugger' derision as the animal rights/health ethic arguments. But thankfully, now people are starting to become more ecologically aware. Maybe, in about another 20 years people may start to warm to the other arguments? heres hoping.

Oh and one reason which NEVER gets argued with is 'being veggie is cheaper'! lol its a fact that the average vegetable costs less kilo for kilo than meat! and in todays economic crisis that can only be a good thing!

Generally when people ask 'why' I'm veggie I tend to tailor the answer to the audience, guessing which one they are less likely to question, cos I just can't be arsed being confronted or made to justify my life choices. While I have no problem chatting about it to people with a genuine interest, I hate having to justify my behaviours - behaviours which hurt no one! sometimes I think it is just rude or ignorant the way some people feel they are entitled to ask 'why?' and expect you to justify yourself, and get all uppity if they feel you have not adequately explained yourself! so irritating! I mean if I said I don't like potatoes, would you say 'why' in a manner that implies I am a weirdo, and then make me justify my potato free diet? not at all! some people really are daft buggers. aren't they? but I don't rise to it - they would love that! lol

When asked 'why don't you eat meat?' I sometimes reply 'Cos I don't want to' and refuse to elaborate when I know they are the sorts of people just dying to pick holes in your choices. The more they ask the more I reply 'cos I don't want to' or 'I just don't' or 'I don't like it' - the easy way out sometimes