8 ms·

What the 'meat paradox' reveals about moral decision making

• bad_user 8y ago
  The “meat paradox” only happens because people living in cities are disconnected from how their food is grown. People that lived on a farm, even for small periods of time when they were little, have no such issues.
  • solidsnack9000 8y ago
    Indeed, the article uses "meat-eating" as a gloss for eating animals raised in cruel conditions. The article at no point considers the possibility that moral conflict is an unavoidable part of life, even if there are things we can do to reduce it.
    • osacrum 8y ago
      Eating meat is not an unavoidable part of life.
    • AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      > the article uses "meat-eating" as a gloss for eating animals raised in cruel conditions Probably because that's how the vast majority of meat animals are raised.
  • strict9 8y ago
    This is exactly it. When my grandmother had fried chicken growing up it was a result of "going to the back yard and shooting it (the chicken) between the eyes, plucking its feathers off, and frying it in fatback." If today's fried chicken arrived on a plate the same way it did for my grandmother, I probably wouldn't have made the decision to eschew meat about 10 years ago.
    • war1025 8y ago
      I doubt you would shoot the chicken though, as that would basically blow its head off. More likely she would have just wrung its neck or chopped the head off. In modern small-scale processing, they put the chicken upside-down in a cone and slit the neck to let the chicken bleed out.
  • ozzyman700 8y ago
    If I understand correctly, this is the meat paradox: "the psychological conflict between people’s dietary preference for meat and their moral response to animal suffering" How does living on a farm remove this issue? Does something about living on a farm make you not feel conflict about wanting to eat meat and at the same time not wanting to kill sentient beings? I've never lived on a farm but I've seen pig and chicken slaughter in real life. Done by hand. I felt the same before as I did after, I feel that if I have the resources to choose to consume no sentient animal body parts, I have a moral obligation to not eat sentient animal body parts. Still, the ease of energy from meat compared to other foods makes me desire it, along with taste. This paradox is something that bugs me often.
    • RightMillennial 8y ago
      See, I grew up on a small farm. We raised chickens that my father would butcher. He'd string one up, slit its throat and it'd die instantly. After it was bled we'd pluck the feathers off and then cook it for supper. There wasn't anything particularly cruel about it, and I feel no moral qualms about eating chicken or any other meat for that matter. Maybe growing up on a farm taught me the reality of it which I see as normal.
      • ozzyman700 8y ago
        Feelings of parents actions being intrinsically "good" morally seem like they would factor in as well. Or at least, I feel like if I saw my father slaughter animals I would accept it more. I also completely understand that vegan lifestyles are very far removed from the requirements of homesteading or personal farming. It may be impossible to harvest a nutritionally dense enough food in the winter that isn't a living creature. As a person living where anytime of the year I can buy produce from around the world, I have more freedom to choose what I eat. I'm interested in your ability to not feel moral turmoil about killing sentient beings. Have you ever struggled with it? My issues around eating meat are based on the lack of necessity I feel towards it. I don't need to eat meat to survive, my choice to eat meat is a choice to support (in my opinion) murder. A predator has no choice but to hunt, an eagle cannot decide to stop eating prey and switch to plants, it seemingly lacks the ability for self reflection of it's actions. Your last sentence "Maybe growing up on a farm taught me the reality of it which I see as normal." The reality you explained of chickens being slaughtered in an instant way is still something I see as unnecessary.
  • benj111 8y ago
    I don't think it's the only reason. I have a hard time rationalising my meat eating, but then following through on that train of thought leads me to full on veganism, which is further than I want to go, so I don't. And I grew up in the country.
  • nick_ 8y ago
    But all farms are not even close to equal. Generally there are two categories of farms. There are small family-type farms where livestock live quite a good, cared-for life. Then there are enormous factory farms where an animals life is, in short, absolutely awful. The slight-of-hand moral reasoning I see all the time is that someone will use their mental picture of a small family farm to fill in for the reality that almost all of the meat/dairy/eggs they buy and eat came from a factory farm.
    • WalterSear 8y ago
      This is what people tell themselves to find an 'out' for eating meat.
• paulmd 8y ago
  The thing where we have different words for animals and their meats is an artifact of how England got invaded a lot in the middle ages and the invaders brought their languages with them. For example, "veal" is a Norman word, while "lamb" is Germanic. You can certainly argue that we use them as a euphemism today, but that's not actually how they originated at all.
  • benj111 8y ago
    Agreed.... But lamb isn't really a euphemism, it's a baby sheep.
    • QuercusMax 8y ago
      I assume they meant calf instead of lamb. (Calf is also a germanic word.)
      • benj111 8y ago
        Ah yes, as I recall the (Germanic) Saxons grew the cows but couldn't afford to eat them, so called them cows, the Normans were the ruling elite so only saw it on their plate, thus beef. https://curiosity.com/topics/the-norman-conquest-is-why-steak-is-beef-and-not-cow-curiosity/ https://curiosity.com/topics/the-norman-conquest-is-why-stea...
• ThJ 8y ago
  People have two layers. Behavioural psychology tends to pretend that the deeper layer; the one that comes out when you're depressed and shatters all your illusions; doesn't exist. People know. They just block it out and invent reasons. Rationalisation is a powerful tool. We couldn't survive without it.
• kbutler 8y ago
  Eating meat and being against animal cruelty is no paradox. At most it is a dilemma - "want to eat meat, don't want to hurt animals". The fact that many (most) people continue to eat meat means that people resolve the dilemma - they not be aware of the issue, consider it less significant, consider eating meat more important, etc. The distance from the details of animal husbandry probably helps a lot. If I had to personally kill and clean all my meat, I'd either stop eating it or I'd get a lot more comfortable with the process. Then again, I have relatives who raise farm animals and others who hunt - distance from the process is not required.
  • ozzyman700 8y ago
    I switched to meal replacement shakes for this reason. Right now I am drinking bottle soylent but I enjoyed powdered joylent for a while. Meat provides such easily prepareable calories, I can't say the same of vegan dishes that I know of, generally a lot more of a thing has to be eaten and multiple things. I enjoy spending 20-30 minutes total consuming food a day and not needing to spend time preparing food, cooking, and cleaning.
    • ArrayList 8y ago
      > Meat provides such easily prepareable calories Ever hear of tofu? A tofu scramble takes maybe 15 mins to make, and it's actually good for you [0] rather than causing cancer. [1] 0. http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=111 http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=111 1. https://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/ https://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/
      • ozzyman700 8y ago
        I have, I don't really like the lack of fibrous texture that meat has. I have had an Impossible Burger that would be a drop in meat replacement for me if it ever becomes available to buy uncooked.
        • ArrayList 8y ago
• humanrebar 8y ago
  Hot take, of course, but I think pro-choice ethical vegans and (very) pro-life meat eaters have a more interesting paradox. What interesting thing about a honey bee or fish deserves protection that isn't true of a fairly young human fetus? And, likewise, what's true of a young fetus that does not apply to a pig or octopus on the pro-life side? There are clearly religious answers to some of the paradox on all sides of things, but I'm sure not all of us find them convincing. EDIT: There is probably a more acute detachment/skin-in-the-game distinction to be made in this case, if we can suspend our politics for a moment, which might be asking a lot these days, perhaps.
  • drcube 8y ago
    If a fish were living inside your body, you'd have the right to expel it, too. That has nothing to do with the treatment fish deserve or don't deserve, and everything to do with human bodily autonomy.
    • humanrebar 8y ago
      I could see a libertarian principle, but most pro-choice people aren't exactly against seatbelt laws or opting out of national health services. So this is a principle, but generally a selectively applied one. Which was my point. EDIT: What part of this is getting downvotes? I'm honestly curious for a distinction here.
    • AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      Expel a fish? Sure. Expel a fish even if it kills the fish? Still, sure. Expel a human even if it kills the human? That's a tougher sell. And that's always been the problem. Yell as much as you want about "a woman's right to her own body", but there's something there besides her body, something that is 1) still genetically human, 2) genetically different from the mother, and 3) will die if expelled by the methods used. It's not just the woman's body. I think of it in terms of the Declaration of Independence: "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Well here, "life" is at war with "liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in a way where, whichever one wins, the other has to lose.
• osacrum 8y ago
  Our treatment of animals is on level with slavery or the holocaust. Denying this is usually backed by uncritical speciasism. The popular argument from cognition leads to issues with marginal cases that most are uncomfortable with. >The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?
• diminoten 8y ago
  The only reason we care about animal treatment is because we anthropomorphize them. Money corrects this inaccuracy.
  • hombre_fatal 8y ago
    That says a lot about you. But I'd say most of us don't want any living thing, including our dogs and cats, to be poorly treated. And humans fall under that umbrella as well. I wouldn't even treat your personal property poorly, and I don't need to attribute human qualities to your blender to do that.
    • diminoten 8y ago
      It says nothing at all about me because it's how everyone who eats meat operates... Harm for harm's same isn't what we're talking about. I may not beat my blender for fun but I'm never going to consider it's feelings because it has none.
      • hombre_fatal 8y ago
        Well, you didn't actually pitch a way in which people who eat meat operate. With a provocative one-liner like that, it's an exercise left to the reader. I'd challenge you to belabor it into a paragraph if you think you have a point, else it's too easy to dismiss any response as "you misunderstood me." For example, what are you referring to with the word "inaccuracy" in your statement? And how do meat-eaters operate?
        • diminoten 8y ago
          Anthropomorphizing something is to attribute to it emotions it does not have. Obviously that's an error, and meat eaters correctly operate without this false belief.
  • Vinnl 8y ago
    ...just like we anthropomorphise other humans. Sure, I believe animals are e.g. not capable of being terrorised by death threats, but I have just as much reason of believing many of them of being able to suffer pain just like humans can. Do you have reasons not to believe that?
• detcader 8y ago
  We see all kinds of moral decision making paradoxes: when men act against homosexuality and then later come out as always having been gay, when religious leaders abuse people sexually... I think morality is just fluid for most people, when we want to do something badly we will take on frameworks of atonement or utilitarianism ("I'll do this thing, but it's ok because of this separate thing cancelling it out") and it's often wrapped up in our own greater inner struggles, not some isolated psychological puzzle box that can be studied. Meat-eating is a worldwide culturally-reinforcing personal struggle of having compassion toward suffering of all things that can suffer. I think part of why pro-animal activists get so derided when they criticize people or behaviors, is because we know that they're trying to heal by force when people need to do it themselves.
  • krapp 8y ago
    >when men act against homosexuality and then later come out as always having been gay, when religious leaders abuse people sexually... Those aren't moral paradoxes, those are just people being hypocrites. The paradox, as such, is trying to reconcile the genocidal God of the Old Testament with the New Testament, and both with modern morality.
    • detcader 8y ago
      The BBC writer uses the phrase "forms of behaviour that conflict with deeply held moral principles" to assumably define moral decision making paradox. One could also add "being hypocrites" to make a sort of definition triangle containing all of these examples. Where's the differences?
      • krapp 8y ago
        The difference to me is whether the moral principles are deeply held, or merely pretense.
• ecshafer 8y ago
  There is also a possibility that there is no moral paradox. The article uses the idea that factory farms are animal torture as an axiom, it never argues for that case. Animals are killed quickly and painlessly for meat. I've seen animals killed for food, and have done it. Animal torture is abusing and giving animals pain purposefully, and often does not involve eating them. It is clearly different.
  • bootlooped 8y ago
    > Animals are killed quickly and painlessly for meat. I've watched enough undercover video of factory farms to know that is at least not true 100% of the time. Killing is also not the only possible moment for suffering, for example with gestation crates, battery cages, merely moving livestock around with electric prods and pokers, etc... Treating animals humanely costs money, and in a capitalist system there is always pressure to reduce costs. A recent documentary came out called Dominion which is about the most comprehensive criticism of factory farm conditions I have seen. It's almost entirely composed of undercover video. You can actually watch the whole thing online: https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch I sort of hate linking that, because it feels like diet-shilling, but the reason I do so is really pretty basic: I think there is a misconception and that there is video evidence that I think would correct that misconception. I could write everything out, but I think actually seeing the video is more effective. You don't have to commit to watching all of it, just watch a random 10-15 minutes.
• umvi 8y ago
  On a side note, I recently tried the "Impossible Burger" and was duly impressed with how delicious it was for a plant-based patty. I could tell it wasn't exactly beef, but if you had told me it was from some other bovine relative, I would have believed you.
  • bootlooped 8y ago
    That and the Beyond Burger are both pretty good. It would be nice if they weren't at least double the cost of beef though.
• paulmd 8y ago
  Plain and simple, people have the ability to ignore things that are unethical if they consider the benefits sufficiently important. If you are reading this, you are using a device that is the result of thousands of hours of actual chattel slave labor, conflict-producing minerals, assembled by workers in horrific conditions. And yet you use that iphone or thinkpad. Any person living in the first world is the beneficiary of an immense amount of human suffering and cruelty, period. There is no way to avoid it short of living a hermetic life in the woods. So why don't you do that? Because society is convenient and nice to live in. People eat meat because it's delicious. People buy factory-farmed meat because it's cheap and they can use the money they save on something else. People use smartphones and PCs because they're entertaining. It really doesn't seem like a deep question to me at all. As for why people who live on farms, specifically, would be more likely to eat meat... I suppose people probably become desensitized to it, the same as someone who works in Foxconn would become desensitized to what we would perceive as human suffering. I dunno, it doesn't really seem that complex an issue to me. Pete Singer is right, the ethical answer is to reduce our suffering footprint as much as we possibly can. But hedonism is so damned pleasurable, that people won't. If you can moderately reduce your suffering footprint in a sustainable fashion, like a diet, by something like veganism then go for it, but you also can't reduce it to zero.
  • mping 8y ago
    It seems you hit a nerve with some users here. I have to say I agree with what you said, it's really simple. If anybody asked "do you wanna contribute to suffering"? If you answer no then basically you should either go ahead and do it or turn a blind eye.
• mamon 8y ago
  I am against animal cruelty, except I don't consider killing animals for meat to be cruelty, it's just an animal fulfilling their life purpose. That's how virtually all wild animals die, by becoming a meal for some predator, so killing them by humans is no different. Then again, if someone would do some unnecessary torture on said animal, starving it, beating it up, then of course I would consider that cruelty and demanded punishment for that.
  • bootlooped 8y ago
    Declaring another living thing to have a life purpose that involves a harm to them and a benefit to you is probably not that defensible, at least not if you want to be objective about it. You've said "if someone would do some unnecessary torture on said animal"; since a person can be vegetarian or vegan, isn't it a reasonable argument to say that any pain inflicted on food animals is unnecessary?
  • Vinnl 8y ago
    When is torture unnecessary? For example, factory farmed chickens have their beaks cut off (and there are nerves in there - they're not like nails or hair). This allows you to keep more in a small space, because even those the stress causes them to start pecking at each other, they can't damage each other too much. And if you can keep more in a small space, they are cheaper, and we can eat more eggs. Thus, it benefits us in some way, but we would not suffer greatly if we had fewer/somewhat more expensive eggs. Is it then necessary?
• PeanutNore 8y ago
  For me, killing animals for meat isn't a problem. It's the way that they're treated before they're killed that bugs me about factory farms. I shot a deer about 6 weeks back and butchered it myself, and I don't feel any moral conflicts over it. Over those last 6 weeks, though, I've actually eaten far less meat. I haven't bought meat from the supermarket at all, and I've eaten it at restaurants just a handful of times. Most days I eat vegetables, lentils, eggs, beans, etc., and once or twice a week I put on the chef hat and make a fancy venison dish. In comparison, factory farmed meat just isn't all that interesting or appetizing to me anymore.
• Tomminn 8y ago
  On the flipside. Let's say you eat 300g of beef a day, every day. Let's say a full grown cow will give you 300kg of beef. In order to fuel this habit of pretty intense meat consumption, you have to kill a cow once every three years. I think for many people, this in itself doesn't strike them as that immoral, especially if the cow lives a pretty chill life. The harder one is that if you want to do the same with chickens, you've got to pop one once every 3 or 4 days. Given the fact they often live horrible lives, this seems beyond what most people can morally justify.