Animals >=< human lives?

I'm pretty sure we're not even in a disagreement on this specific topic lol.

Humans can survive without killing something.

 

Have you ever tried to eat 3 meals of apples and cheese? Really blocks up the bowels....

 

Oh I'm a total meat eater. I just don't think anyone here has used sound arguments for justifying the eating of meat.

We can agree that humans can live without killing something, we can also agree that it's not necessarily the highest quality of life we can attain.

 

Reasons to eat meat:

1. Convenience:
Meat has an amazing amount of energy by weight and by volume, much more than pretty much anything else. As such, it is ridiculously more easy to carry a lunch including meat as opposed to one without, if you were to compare the two by total caloric value.

2. Health:
Our bodies were designed to eat meat. That said, humans evolved as opportunists, so however much you're eating is probably too much. The human body craves meat because of it's health benefits and energy value, but when it's in plentiful supply people have a tendency to go overboard.

3. Taste:
For reasons outlined above, meat tastes great! Almost everybody on the planet likes one form of meat or another


Really 1 and 3 are more side-effects, but 2 is the actual compelling argument, and I believe it has been made several times. The general counterargument I see against this goes something like: "But vegetarians have lower rates of heart disease, cancer, etc.". I propose that this is due to confounding: you're comparing a group of very health-conscious people against the average population. Of course they're going to be more healthy in general, but not necessarily because of their eating habits. Also, I would like to point out that a lot of the supposed health risks that come from meat are actually from eating things like hotdogs, and salami. Those are terrible for you.

Sorry Vegans: Here's How Meat-Eating Made Us Human

 

same I've been to places where it is horrid what they do to those animals.

 

Survival of the fittest is the name for a natural process that's a part of how life evolves; it's not a description of how people should act.

That's simply untrue. Dogs are sentient beings; dogs are capable of sensory experience and they have desires, thoughts, feelings, and such.

The food chain, like survival of the fittest, is just a description of how things are in nature; it doesn't necessarily reflect how we should act.

Again, just because something is a certain way in nature doesn't automatically make it the right way to act.

I actually agree with your conclusion that human lives matter more, but for different reasons than what you've said. I think that you were closest to making a sufficient argument with your second point, but it was a bit off. A lot of animals are sentient and because of this, I think that their lives do matter; however, being sentient doesn't mean that other animals are at the same mental level as humans. Animals aren't capable of rational thought like humans are, nor can they think about or value things to the extent that humans can. Humans have a much larger capacity for mental things, so while I think that the lives of non-human, sentient animals matter, it is to a lesser extent than the lives of humans do.

 

True, but if animals are sentient and we are all equals then why should we act any different? What makes humans so moral if our lives are no more important than a dog's

Actually, the only reason dogs act the way they do is because they have been around humans their whole lives. If you go out into the wild and meet a dog, it shows none of the traits that makes us consider them sentient. So we have basically trained our pets to have emotions, which means they are still acting on instinct and not objective reasoning.

Again, if we and animals all are on the same level why should we act any better? If all the carnivores in the wild come together and have a meeting about it, and deciding not to eat meat then I'm all in.

I am pretty sure sticking up for my family's, friends', acquaintances', and even enemies' lives is most definitely the right way to act...

Animals serve a purpose and yes I would be devastated if any more species died out, but to even put an animal's life on the same level of a human's makes me sick.

--- Double Post Merged, May 3, 2017, Original Post Date: May 3, 2017 ---

Maybe we are working off different definitions of sentient, but my dictionary says
Sentience
The ability to perceive or feel things, and then act objectively according to non-instinctual thought.

 

I didn't say that we are equals; I explicitly said the opposite.

Again, that's simply untrue. We haven't trained dogs to have emotions; we have trained dogs to have the emotions that we prefer. If you run into a wild dog, it won't have the domestic emotions and desires like our pets do, but it is still sentient and it still has emotions. Some emotions, like fear, are probably even stronger in wild dogs.

Acting on objective reasoning is not sentience.

Again, I explicitly said that I don't think that we're all equal.

While I have said that I agree that human lives are more important, something making you sick doesn't mean that it's automatically the wrong way to act.

Merriam-Webster defines "sentient" as: "able to feel, see, hear, smell, or taste. Responsive to or conscious of sense impressions. Aware. Finely sensitive in perception or feelings."

 

Depends on if I know either the animal or the person. If I have to choose between killing a random human and one of my kittens, I'd say the person. But if it is a random animal and one of my friends, I'd choose the animal.

 

With that definition then I do agree that they are sentient

 

While on the one hand, it may seem obvious that humans are more important because we make more significant strides for technology on earth, we would suffer without the help of animals. No matter how you slice it, if we trivialize the lives of animals then a ton of our vital needs won't be in check. It might seem like a bunch of mumbo jumbo, but animals provide alot of support for our food, water, and environment. Bees: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/bees.pdf
All in all, it isn't a question of who's lives are more important, but what do animals/humans do for life as a whole that keeps either one of us going?

 

Be careful about bees. In China, there was a shortage of bees so workers were hired in some parts to use brushes and bottles of pollen to pollinate flowers for fruit trees. The yield was greater then ever before.

 

An animal will never be able to reciprocate a social contract. A human can respect my right to life, liberty, property, etc. An animal won't.