Monday 22 September 2008

Is Gemma right? Should we stop eating meat?

James asked me to post the questions about Stephen Law's dialogue on the Blog, so here they are. I guess James's idea was that this would be a good place to continue sharing our responses to the ideas that Law presents in "Carving the Roast Beast", and I agree that that is a good idea. We don't have a lot of time in class, and continuing the discussion here also allows us to practice writing for fluency. I look forward to your responses. 

The questions I asked you to discuss in groups this morning were:
  • What is Gemma’s main argument in the first section of Law's dialogue? 
    There is also a minor argument. What is that? 
    Which argument does Gemma mention first? Why? 
  • How do her parents respond to Gemma's main argument against eating animals? 
  • How strong do you think Gemma’s argument is? Do you agree with her? If not, what is the weakness in her argument?
  • How does the first section end? 
  • And what does Law do in the next section? (What is the title?)
  • And the next? (What is the title?)
  • What do you think of Gemma’s arguments so far? Do you agree with Gemma, or are her arguments wrong? 
As you finish reading the dialogue this evening, you might also like consider the same sorts of questions as you read. 
  • What opposing arguments do the members of Gemma's family present? 
  • How successfully does Gemma answer each of their opposing arguments? 
And finally, has Law convinced you? Is eating meat immoral? If you are not convinced, why not? What is your opposing argument that shows Gemma to be wrong? 

Please feel welcome to respond by posting comments sharing your ideas on any of the above questions, or anything else that occurred to you as you read the dialogue. 

14 comments:

  1. "I want to continue eating meat" is probably not a very strong, or safe, argument, although it might be what motivates you to give a more solid reason why Gemma is wrong in her thesis that eating meat is immoral.

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  2. To argue with those dialogue, firstly it may needed to define what moral is. I think Moral is set of belief for compromised living in our social. Moreover, social is another word that need to be defined. I think human social has many layers separated by each social differently. The inner one may cover only our family. The outer layer may cover to all organism. The moral of each social may be set to make their social life happy and be continuously improved.

    From the stone era, our social may cover our family;so, they didn't feel guilty to kill other people to be their food. Currently, it was already improved, human are more civilized. Hence, cannibalization is no longer accepted anymore. Even dog-eating person is rarely accepted.

    In the same social, people also has some different set of moral.However, It benefit the overall social if someone has the higher level of moral than average of his or her social. But the higher level in moral person shouldn't blame the other people in social because of their lower level in moral if those are not lower than the social accepted belief. Because, the higher moral may be not suitable for living in social at that time. Instead, higher moral people should try to gradually improve the social standard to be more harmonized not only compromised with other creatures.

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  3. I think what Gemma argue with their parents is what reasons to eat animal but not to eat mentally impaired human. This reason ,except just only the differences between human and animal ,must can logically apply in those two situation. And it seems like Gemma may win in this rational war.

    However, I think eating animal and eating mentally impaired human are not mutually exclusive. So one logical rule won't have to be applicable to both case to apply for only one event. It's quite more similar if the author change from impaired human to pet animal e.g. dog or cat.

    In my opinion, social bonds may be the strongest explanation why we kill or eat some but not all creatures. However, this bonds are continuously increasing while humans are civilizing their social. Some socials have broader bonds; Some have narrower bonds; The differences don't result from just only the different moral reason but also their other various condition such as economy ,environment or cultures.

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  4. As I read the dialogue, I think I feel the same way as her family does, feel like numb, no more word to say, no more word to argue. I must say Law really have strong reason. However, I don't think I will stop eating meat, as long as I can still buy them and don't have to kill them by my self. Eventhough it may be immoral for somebody, but I think this kind of thing, moral or immoral, depends on personal belief and depends on average belief of the whole society. As this time mostly in my society believe that it's not wrong to eat meat, I don't have some other reason why I have to eat and I will still eat them as long as I want to. Another thing, even it's immoral but I not very severe, I think. But again Law's reasons are very srong, as I was eating noodle with pork last evening, his reasons kept coming in to my head.

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  5. After I finished reading the dialogue, I wondered if what Gemma will going to be when she grow up. This girl is so smart that (it can be implied that) she win the debate between her and the rest of her family members in the topic "Eating meat is morally wrong". Besides, she is the only opposition for that topic. She gives many strong and reasonable arguments to support her idea. Although they are very good, I still continue eating meat. I'm sorry Gemma! I think her first argument about the discrimination between human and other creatures is the strongest one but I find it is hard to accept that. We all know that "killing" is not good but it is a part of natural law. In order to survive, sometimes we need to sacrifice. Paraphrasing from one her argument, animals should not be blamed of killing because they have no sense of right or wrong, but can we show that they do or don't have that sense? Nobody can. The common sense is not so common, isn't it? Moral and many rules have been created by human to govern our social to move on peacefully. To use them effectively, we must consider the purpose and also the following of actions. As far as the actions was done by good purpose and the bad result should effect as "less" person as possible, they are considered to be acceptable. In the future,I think Gemma will be a powerful and important people. However, she may cannot go that far because she would lake of nutrition. Some essential protein is found in meat and cannot be replaced by other kind of protein. So Gemma, please eat it!

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  6. In his dialogue, one of the modern philosophers that Law paraphrases and quotes is Peter Singer, and James's comments, especially his 2nd one above, remind me of another idea in Singer: that our circle of moral concern is, and should be, constantly increasing in scope, from ourselves, to our families, to our tribe, to our nation, to all human beings, and, according to Singer, to other animals that meet certain conditions (1981).
    Interestingly, Law, via Gemma, uses Singer's ideas differently to the way the Singer himself does in Animal Liberation, the book he quotes from on page 130. In that book, Singer argues strongly that it's the quality of life before death that makes eating meat so very immoral, not that the eating of animals for food is necessarily immoral (2002).

    In her comment above, Tuk says that the ideas presented in his discussion of speciesism are the strongest arguments against eating meat, but I', not sure that I agree. I think that if he had followed Singer's ideas, the argument there would have been stronger.

    references
    Singer, P. (2002). Animal Liberation. New York: ECCO

    Singer, P. (1981). The Expanding Circle. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

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  7. As well as thinking that there were strong ideas in the comments that Tuk and James have posted and made in class, I also found Pat's response (above) and Nat's (in class) to be thoughtful, clearly expressed and worth thinking about, but I want to think about them a bit more before I respond.
    But if anyone else feels like it, I'm sure that Pat and Nat will appreciate your response to their ideas.

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  8. When I finished to read the dialogue I was impressed by Gemma's argumentation and I think I would have reacted as her parents do. However that does not change my mind and I will still continue to eat meat and I'm going to try to explain why.

    To my mind, just the fact that we are currently wondering if eating meat is moral or not gives us the right to eat animals as we are able to think and to have our own opinion. But my argument has already been refuted by Gemma when she talks about brain-damaged people. To this I would answer that social bonds are to be considered as James said it is also immoral to eat your pet whereas it is an animal so we can't be accused of speciesism. In other words I think that there are social rules which are necessary to keep a good coherence in our society.
    In my opinion my argumentation has some fails but this is a very interesting question which need to be discussed.

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  9. I agree with Pat saying that Law realiy have strong reason. When I read a Gemma's opinion, I feel guilty. I thought that I'm not a person who study for Women's right.
    However, suddenly I have a question about it. Is animal moral? Can they keep social rule? It is right that animal has a emotion like people. But can they participate in human society? In ecosystem, snakes eat flogs for their meal and lions find deers to eat it. Is it immoral? Most people think that it is natural in ecosystem. It is a rule of a kingdom of animal. You may watch it in National Geograpy. I think that people don't have to be moral about eating meat. If we have to care all of lives on the earth, we must not eat rices. Because rice a life on the earth, even though they can't speak in language. And like animals they might have feelings.
    In my opinion, Keeping someone's right is related to human communities. In the class, Peter dealed with slavery system in Tai. Like slavery, racism, sexism is dissapearing as our community is developing with empathizing with differant community. And it makes human be more moral likes James saying. Wheather something is moral or immoral have to be dicussed only in human society.
    Animals are diffrent from human.

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  10. After reading dialog I am impressive Gemma’s argument with her parent. She has strong reason to support her argument. Although I like her reason, I don’t stop eating meat. I will give reason to explain. Firstly, I quite disagree with Gemma when she talked about related in society. At that part I agree with his parent. They tried to explain why people can eat meat but Gemma gave example to argue which I think it is not good enough. She just wanted to win by say something that no one can’t replied it. Secondly, it’s not important to stop eating meat. if you believe that animal was killed for cook, it’s maybe wrong because someone kill animal in term of sport or bring some part of them to decorate their homes. Finally, in case of turkey, there are some farmer looks after it for sell in Charismas festival same as many case such as pig, cow, chicken and something like that. If we stop eating meat, maybe we can help animal life but someone will don’t have work to make money. In brief, I think I still eat meat continuously because I like it and it is moral wrong to make some people don’t have work.

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  12. When I finished a dialogue, I thinks that Steven Law gives reasons why eating meat is morally wrong by persuading people; let them realize how important to life. If we shouldn't eat meat because of life, what about plants. Do plants have a life? why do you think eating plants is moral? If basic reasons is that they cannot talk to us, they don't feel anything when we cut(how do you know that plant doesn't feel anything?), it's acceptable to eat plant's life or we grow it up in order to eat, so vegetarians' reasons could be the same as people who eat meat. The same question is why vegetarians think it's acceptable to eat plants while they are lives. In addition, let imagine that if plants can talk to you like a movie, you will eat them too, won't you? Especially, who do the rules that people can eat plant with out morally wrong. Moreover, when I read Gemma argue only case of human and animals(human is an animal in general)but I don't see the reasons why eat vegetables is better or why it's moral to eat plants. Further more, I agree with James' comment that moral is a set of belief for compromised living in our social.
    different era different set of moral.

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  13. Does anyone study biology?
    I think that might be helpful in this discussion. (Where?)

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  14. In class ,when Peter said that using drug may be moral in Thailand because there are many people doing it right now. I quite disagree because i think although drug using is quite common in our society ,but almost all of people know that it morally wrong to do that even drug-using people. They just don't have enough self-control. But it's quite different from eating animal because at this time majority of our society have not yet believe that it's wrong to eat meat.

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