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Because you are causing suffering to a sentient being in your food choices. You don't live in a bubble your decisions affect others around you.
How is eating a sentient being causing it suffering? Most predators don't torture their prey to death. Some depraved humans do that, perhaps, but it's not really part of the natural order of things, and human butchers and hunters try to kill the game animals very quickly.
The best example of suffering that I can think of is when an animal has been wounded by a predator but not killed, then flees and bleeds out over the next few minutes or maybe an hour or two if it's a large animal. I did see a horrible example on youtube of African lions eating a young elephant while it was literally still alive.
But I think these are the exceptions. Predators have no advantage in a long, drawn-out killing; the sounds attract competitors, and of course it delays the moment when they can feed, which is pointless. A big cat, a hyena, or a dog is not going to say, "I'm gonna make you suffer!" They're going to kill the prey as quickly as possible and get to feeding.
I think you're confusing suffering with fear of death, two different things. Of course any animal above a microorganism is programmed to fear death; it's a fundamental instinct burned into every creature's DNA since the beginning of life.
But when you're chewing on an animal, it's not suffering. True, you (or the people you paid to kill and butcher it) have shortened its lifespan and deprived it of months or years of continued existence. It's not clear that makes any difference to an animal. It either dies today or it dies next week or next year. Animals don't think, "I can't die, because I have many projects left to complete, dreams to realize, people to meet, etc." Animals live in the now. They just think, "I'm hungry, gotta eat. Gotta drink. Gotta poop. Gotta rut. Gotta sleep. I smell a lion -- gotta run!!!"
Humans do conflate death and suffering because we have rich imaginations and we assume death is a painful and unpleasant place. In fact, death is the end of suffering. I'm not saying we should prefer death to suffering (another philosophical issue); I'm just pointing out that your assumptions are not consistent.
1) All things equal, it is wrong to cause suffering to sentient beings unless it is necessary to do so.
2) Meat production causes suffering to sentient beings.
3) Meat production isn't necessary. (Scientific fact)
4) Therefore, meat production causes suffering sentient beings when it isn't necessary to do so. (2+3)
5) Therefore, meat production is wrong. (1+4)
Rejecting premise one leads to a very sick world where it is okay to torture intelligent animals for the sake of fun, I very much doubt anyone in this thread believes that is okay, so therefore, it would be logical to accept premise one.
It is pretty much undeniable that cows and pigs are sentient and it is obvious that meat production causes them to suffer, so premise two checks out.
If you really love logic, you should take time to better understand it. Your argument fails because the third premise (meat production isn't necessary) is simply a restatement of your conclusion. This fallacy was pointed out to you much, much earlier in this thread. That poster even linked to an explanation of begging the question for you.
I appreciate that this is clearly a very emotional issue for you, but please don't pretend that you have made an argument based on logic when all you've done is appeal to emotion.
I see nobody has acknowledged my previous post, and I think it's the answer to the question. The reason it's unethical to initiate force/violence against humans is because they have the ability to reason, meaning force is unnecessary except in self-defense. Animals cannot be reasoned with, so that rule cannot apply to them.
Technically, there's nothing unethical about eating anything. The question shouldn't be "is eating animals unethical?" But rather, "is it unethical to kill an animal for food?" if that clears things up a bit.
So no, I don't believe it is unethical to kill other animals for food. I understand why some don't want to kill an animal, but I don't think it's immoral.
I see nobody has acknowledged my previous post, and I think it's the answer to the question. The reason it's unethical to initiate force/violence against humans is because they have the ability to reason, meaning force is unnecessary except in self-defense. Animals cannot be reasoned with, so that rule cannot apply to them.
Why does an ability to reason somehow mean we shouldn't feel bad about killing something?
You're not seriously suggesting that it's us or them...
Fail. They are used interchangeably in his example.
Fail.
No they aren't.
Killing human beings is generally wrong, but can be necessary depending on the circumstances.
There are no circumstances forcing you to depend on meat to survive.
Killing human beings is generally wrong, but can be necessary depending on the circumstances.
There are no circumstances forcing you to depend on meat to survive.
Do you see the difference?
And what if you were put into a circumstance where your survival depended upon eating meat? Just out of curiosity, would that change the ethics?
Actually it's fine you don't eat meat, and it's also fine if you think you are morally superior because you don't eat meat. However, it is not OK for you people to pass laws to impose your moral codes onto us.
So live and let live. You eat what you want and I eat what I want but for whatever sake, leave us alone just like how I leave you alone!
By the way, vegetables are life forms too. How is that OK to destroy them for your pleasure?
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