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This is kind of a straw man argument. I don't feel guilty at all eating a carrot I pulled out of the ground.
So we can all agree that it’s morally ok to eat a carrot, but not to eat a human. The difference is sentience. The hard part is where exactly to draw the line. Which side of the line is a cow on? A fish? A bug?
This guy thought about that question, if you wanted to see that perspective.
https://reducing-suffering.org/how-much-direct-suffering-is-caused-by-various-animal-foods/#Summary
Yeah, I see he’s thought it through and generated numbers, but it’s counter-intuitive to say we should give up fish for beef, or that milk causes more suffering than beef
no. it's not. the difference is that one of them is human.
I'm not a meat eater personally.
But I don't understand why people who like to eat meat don't eat human.
I think there are, or have been, some who do. It's seems cultural, and a bit of a luxury to be wasteful.
I don't think there's any socially agreed line between "good" and "bad".
I reckon people mostly do what their culture prefers or tolerates.
Different cultures have different ranges of acceptable behavior from different people fulfilling different roles within them . Most people are members of many sub-cultures going right down to small family groups , professional associations, work-teams, sports teams and so on. There'll be some sort of consequence for transgression, maybe verbal shaming, spitting in someone's beer, withheld services, exclusion from jobs, or expulsion from the group.
Sometimes people (in power) agree to put in laws and expend resources on enforcement instead of cultural norms; probably because the clashes within or between (sub)cultures and the inconsistent treatment of transgressions becomes too costly or disruptive.
That's when you get a "line" that says "wrong", once its been put into an enforced law. Even then the law, and enforcement, is always still a bit blurry. partial, and biassed so it's really just a formalisation of the process for administering the consequences of transgression.
i think it is possible to find things that look similar in other social animals too like, other apes, wild dogs, things with pecking orders , rats and so on. I wonder if there are even roles similar to " police" in some non-human cultures?
why should sentience matter?
We could certainly discuss that, but it appears to, regardless of whether there is a good reason.
I disagree that it matters in any obvious sense.
I don't believe this is a straw man argument, I never claim that they believe these conclusions. Quite the opposite, I am showing how their argument, not their conclusion, is not good. As I understand their argument, it is basically this:
(i) If something does not want to be killed, it is morally wrong to kill it. (ii) Animals do not want to be killed. Thus, it is morally wrong to kill animals.
I do not agree with (i), which I try to explain by reductio ad absurdum, arguing that if (i) is true it leads to obviously incorrect conclusions, thus (i) must be false.
The straw man argument comes from your point about combining plants and animals as food, and stating that they were both living. If you compare a cow to parsley, it is silly to say that we shouldn't eat parsley for the sake of it being a living organism. With cows in the same argument, they get dismissed since they're in the same group as plants.
Plants are the straw man in this case because it's easy to dismiss the argument that we shouldn't eat plants, for some reason. Animals are conscious creatures that experience suffering. Plants don't experience the same pain.
A straw man argument is when the other person believes A and you act like they in fact believe B, so you argue against B.
I am not claiming they believe it immoral to kill plants. Quite the opposite, I don't think anyone believes this in general. Therefore, it is not a straw man.
Not quite. From https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Strawman-Fallacy:
With this in mind:
You are misunderstanding my argument. I am not arguing against their conclusion, "it is morally wrong to kill animals", I am arguing against the validity of their argument, "If something does not want to be killed, it is morally wrong to kill it". Therefore, I am not restating their claim, I am saying that their argument leads to this absurd conclusion, thus it must be wrong. I have already explained this in a previous comment. You appear to be ignoring what I am writing.
I'd call it a non sequitur.
I don't feel guilty at all eating animals. Kind of a subjective point, no?
And others don't feel guilty for eating meat. Than you for recognizing that people have different feelings.
Carrots are incapable of feeling anything: they can't be affected in a morally relevant way. Animals have emotions, preferences, can experience suffering and can be deprived of positive/pleasurable experiences in their lives.
Obviously this isn't a sufficient justification for harming others. "I don't care about people with dark skin, please recognize that different people have different feelings." The fact that I don't care about the individuals I'm victimizing doesn't mean victimizing them is okay.
Isn't it funny how everyone becomes a subjectivist when trying to defend meat eating?