As well as discussing his use of sources, another question worth some final comments is whether we agree with Stephen Law's main idea that meat eating is immoral, that we should not be eating steak, foie gras, tasty pork leg and the like (2003). In
his paragraph on Wednesday, Tum suggested one opposing argument, citing a source for it, that Law does not consider (Wongkitikumjone & Filicietti, 2010). In that paragraph Tum also cites evidence for the controversial nature of the question, with approximately 67% against the opinion supported by Stephen Law.
I like Tum's idea, which is exactly what academic writing is about: presenting, opposing and supporting ideas with reasons and evidence. If we are to continuing eating meat and thinking of ourselves as behaving morally, it is necessary to answer Law's well argued opinion by showing that he is wrong. There are a number of ways this could be done, with Tum's paragraph providing examples of couple of those approaches.
- If you continue to disagree with Stephen Law, what is your reason? Why do you think that he is wrong?
- If you agree with Law, you might like to respond to those who still think that eating meat is morally OK.
Law, S. (2003). Carving the roast beast. In The Xmas Files (p.124 – 140). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
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Wongkitikumjone, S. & Filicietti, P. (2010, June 25). Tum's paragraph on Stephen Law's "Carving the Roast Beast". Retrieved June 26, 2010 from http://docs.google.com/View?id=dm6nf6d_17dt8rtjxc
Law, S. (2003). Carving the roast beast. In The Xmas Files (p.124 – 140). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Oops. I just noticed that this reference list entry was not in its correct alphabetical position; L definitely comes before W in the alphabet. (Corrected June 27, 6:27 PM).
I think it is morally OK to eat meat and people also can choose to be vegetarian. From my point of view, considering in each of supporting topics in essay, it looks reasonable for me. However, Law does not mention about how connect or associate among each others, or does not consider two or more topics together. On the other hand, I would say it is not a big picture. What I meant, sometimes, when we do something, we normally consider more than one factor. For example, dog Blackie in Wilson’s family, if Wilson’s family was speciesism and dog was not intelligent enough, they would definitely eat it, but they do not because the dog is a part of their social bonding. Other example, the person who is mentally impaired from accident and is not relative or known with Wilson’s Family, they could not eat mentally impaired person as well because they are the same species. Furthermore, what Law scope only focus on philosophy point of view, but we step back by looking from different field point of view such as Darwin’s Natural Selection theory which can summarize to “individuals best adapted to their environments are more likely survive and reproduce”, then if eating meat is morally wrong, the question will be why human is still existed. After all, I think eating meat is not definitely morally wrong or right, and it does not matter eating meat or not in Wilson’s family, but it is good to see all members in family have a dinner together.
ReplyDeleteBook, (@ June 27, 2010 5:23 PM)
ReplyDeleteIt's a thoughtful response. I'm looking forward to seeing how your classmates respond to your varied ideas.
I think P Book’s ideas are interesting. It is true that Stephen Law might need to consider more than one factor to answer whether eating meat is immorally wrong. Nevertheless, there are many exit ways for people who think that eating meat is immorally wrong even if we combine many justifications together. For instance, for P Book’s example about dog Blackie in Wilson’s family, people who think that eating meat is immorally wrong will use the objection in the “Potential” part that “given the right sort of environment and several million years, pigs might well evolve to be as smart as us”. Therefore, those people will still say that eating meat is immorally wrong.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there might be some combination of justifications that can eliminate all objections. I also preparing my new idea to show that eating meat is not immorally wrong and I hope that it would work.
In addition, although eating meat is immorally wrong, I am happy to accept my sin to eat meat. :P
ReplyDeleteyeahh Pat, that's right. Just eat'em up. Who's care for moral issue. ;)
ReplyDeleteI disagree that eating meat is morally wrong because people have their intrinsic desire to eat meat. Similar to intrinsic motivation theory, intrinsic desire is something that comes from inside individual and motivate people to satisfy the specific desire. Therefore, even if there are millions of people around the world can live without meat; other millions of people will not live happily without eating meat. For instance, without eating meat, I will feel unsatisfied, uneasy, and anxiety because my intrinsic desire tell me to eat meat to satisfy my desire.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, some people would have internal and external factors that can control their intrinsic desire. Vegetarian is one of the great examples. Some people can eat only vegetable because of several internal factors, such as demand to fit and firm, against their beliefs that eating meat is immoral, and other reasons. Furthermore, external factors that can control people’s intrinsic desire would be family, culture, religion, and other factors. However, it does not mean that all people can control their intrinsic desire and it is not morally wrong for unable to control the desire to eat meat. It like tigers cannot control its desire to eat us if we stand in front of them.
In addition, some of my friends also help me to act as people who think eating meat is wrong and they ask me two interesting question, which show below with my answer for those question.
1. Does it mean that it is not morally wrong to eat other humans if you cannot control your intrinsic desire?
Ans: We can see there are some groups of people that cannot control their desire to eat human, which could be called Cannibalism. According to Thaigoodview.com (เรื่องของเผ่ากินคน, 2008), some cannibalism still exist in the real world, which rarely see in some jungles, such as Congo jungle. We cannot say that they are morally wrong because of different in culture, so we are lucky that our families, cultures, and other factors help us to control our desire, otherwise we might eat each other in class. : P
2. Does it also means that people who cannot control their desire to kill other people is not morally wrong?
Ans: That sounds out of scope. Currently, we focus on intrinsic desire to eat meat, so the desire to kill other people is not relevance. Moreover, those desires are totally difference. Unlike desire to eat meat, desire to kill other people are morally wrong because the purpose is not to eat but to enjoy kill or other reasons.
I hope my explanation is clear. Please feel free to comments or provide some objections for me to answer to improve my ideas. (Totally sick (have a cold) >> wish that I can go to the class next day)
References
เรื่องของเผ่ากินคน [The story of Cannibalism]. (2008, April 24). Thaigoodview.com. Retrieved June 27, 2010 from http://thaigoodview.com/node/741
So, human is not different from a tiger because we live what our instinct tells us what to do, right ? And for those who can't and can control their desires, are they both humans ?
ReplyDeleteAfter reading my peers’ comments mentioned that human have will or soul not depend on how intelligent has but animals have instinct, lots of ideas pervaded in my head to support idea that “eating meet is not morally wrong”.First, I ask myself frankly that if it is wrong, why are animal here?Animals are only our labors, our companions and our food, that’s all. Making it more tangible, natural order categorizes human as superiority processing right to eat weaker and other creatures as natural prey so, human being are just another part of the predator and prey relationship. For example, animals will not give a second thought in eating a human if it is necessary to survive. Second, if we eat for survive, we will be morally wrong or not. In winter place, human cannot survive by only eating vegetables, they need animal for making themselves warm. The two reasons mention above fit to “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” if we cannot pass the physiological state (first basic human needs), morality will never be an aspect we care. Another undeniable reason is that Buddhism does not classify eating meat as immorality except 10 things that Buddhist people must not eat, human, elephant, horse, snake, dog, lion, 3 type of tigers and bear, which can rise a reasonable objection that why we can eat meat not human.
ReplyDelete"So, human is not different from a tiger because we live what our instinct tells us what to do, right ? And for those who can't and can control their desires, are they both humans ?"
ReplyDeleteAns: Again, this question is out of scope. We should not forget that we are another form of animal, however it does not mean "tiger" is human. We would use some justifications, such as social bond, in Law's essay. Anyway, I will search for defination of human for me when I have a free time na. 5555
instint is not about eating everything we met. Instint is about how to survive in this world. For example, have you ever seen tiger that eat tiger together? for me, no!!! Thay're not eating the same kind of animal, and we also.
ReplyDeleteThe issue about humen who eat human. I believe that it's occured because the only factor, "CURIOSIRY". Because we're human, the most smartest animal in this planet. We're full of curiosity. We always want to know n' try what we havn't done before. And, such humen eat humen together because they want to try, and they have a wrong believe which is not happened with animals. They did not follow their instint, indeed. So, in this case, it's not relate to animal's instint anymore.
"instint is not about eating everything we met. Instint is about how to survive in this world. For example, have you ever seen tiger that eat tiger together? for me, no!!! Thay're not eating the same kind of animal, and we also.
ReplyDeleteThe issue about humen who eat human. I believe that it's occured because the only factor, "CURIOSIRY". Because we're human, the most smartest animal in this planet. We're full of curiosity. We always want to know n' try what we havn't done before. And, such humen eat humen together because they want to try, and they have a wrong believe which is not happened with animals. They did not follow their instint, indeed. So, in this case, it's not relate to animal's instint anymore."
Ans: I am not sure whether "instinct" is too strong. I was trying to say like internal demand inside people. Anyway, I certainly sure that "instinct" is not only about how to survive. According to Compact Oxford English Dictionary (2008), "instinct" can mean a powerful motivation or an innate capability. Therefore, we do not only have instinct for survival but also for tact, diplomacy, love and others. That is, I am trying to focus on internal demand to eat meat (not to survive).
In addition, we can not conclude that cannibal people eat human because of "curiosiry" alone. Even if curiosiry is only the factor, it could be another factor or internal demand inside them.
Thx
Tum
Addionally, I did not use "instinct" but I use the word "intrinsic" eiei.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I believe in Karma, I do not agree with Law that eating meat is always wrong. Like somebody said before, the need for survival is one of the reasons that make it acceptable to kill to eat. If you think of the place where the Eskimo live, you will see that it is not possible to grow any crop and even it is possible, it is still hard to survive in the area where the temperature is below zero Celsius without eating animal fat to keep your body warm. Similarly, the country where water is a scarce resource will not be able to grow crops to feed all population. In some situation, I wondered how the farmer with five children would survive, if all of their crops were destroyed by flooding. Nevertheless,I strongly believe that the killing animal including killing for eating could be wrong, if one’s state of mind at that moment is full of greed, craving, and hatred .
ReplyDeleteAs Tarn notes, several people have mentioned the need to eat meat for survival (@ June 29, 2010 9:18 AM), but I don't think that is the sort of situation the Law has in mind. At the beginning of his essay, he clearly lets us know that he is going to talk about "mass slaughter ... merely to satisfy our preference" (p.124). Further, in the section "Health and design", he does not deny that some people in some situation might need meat; for example, as Taey suggests, there might not always be enough vegetable alternatives available (@ June 28, 2010 12:24 AM). However, this is not the normal situation, it certainly not our situation, and I don't think that it's a situation that Law intends his main idea to cover; on the contrary, he is concerned with the normal situation for his readers, for people like us, for whom there is no need to eat meat for health or survival. I suspect that he would agree that eating meat, even people, is morally accceptable if it is necessary, but for us, it is not necessary for survival or even health. We can go to any Tops supermarket and buy plenty of non-meat protein rich foods.
ReplyDeleteAnd the "personal preference" that I quoted from Law at the start of this comment also reminds me of Pat's "intrinsic desire" (@ June 27, 2010 10:24 PM). Is any desire, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, a good enough reason to make something morally acceptable?
I like Pat's idea of intrinsic desire because it does seem to me to focus us very much on the question that Law asks us to consider, and to which he gives a very different answer to Pat. Is an intrinsic desire (personal preference), which we certainly have, a good enough reason to justify eating meat of doing anything else? I have a lot of intrinsic desires, so is it morally OK for me to act on all of them simply because they are intrinsic desires?
Taey and Tarn have also touched on Buddhist beliefs and teachings about meat eating meat (@ June 28, 2010 12:24 AM & @ June 29, 2010 9:18 AM).
ReplyDeleteFirst, I think that Law's objection to relying on the Bible must also apply to Buddhist teaching in deciding whether something is morally right or not (p.136 - 137).
Second, I think that since the person who causes the death of an animal is the one who pays for the meat in a shop or market, that doing so violates the first precept of Buddhism, which tells Buddhists not to kill. If customers were not paying them to kill animals to eat, butchers would have no desire or reason to kill the animals, so the cause of the killing is teh person who buys meat, not the butcher, who is only a tool used by the shopper; similarly, when a gangster uses a gun to kill an enemy, it is the gangster who is the cause and who has the intention that results in the killing, the gun is merely a tool used, and has no intrinsic (nice word from Pat) desire to kill. Butchers have no intrinsic desire to kill, but are merely acting as tools for customers who buy meat to satisfy their personal preferences. Hence, it seems to me that paying for meat violates the first precept of Buddhism, and that good Buddhists would therefore be vegetarian where that is possible (but not where eating meat is necessary for health or survival).
And in case you are wondering, I am aware that at least part of this comment is likely to be controversial; it is certainly not the interpretation of Buddhist teaching that prevails in Thailand. Please feel welcome to argue against my ideas if you disagree with me.
As Peter comments that Law is concerned with the normal situation for his readers, it notice me one question in my mind. I mean the completely main idea would be it is morally wrong to eat meat in normal situation, so it makes me to ask myself why we eat meat in normal situation, and the answer will be another clue that we can morally acceptable eating meat or not. First answer that I can think of is my parent feed me the meat and I have no choice, refuse, or think about immorality, so it sounds like traditional culture which can infer that it is morally OK to eat meat. Second, of course, the taste of meat is really good and better than vegetarian food. If bad, people would not continually eat meat. And this grows your “intrinsic desire” up. Last, it is advertising in any media including word of mouth which is really attractive. Anyway, whatever the reasons are, many people are still eating meat, so I think it is morally OK. And yes, so far any desire, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, will be a good enough reason to make something morally acceptable if it is belong to most people in society. In addition to this, in case of people who say no, I would ask question back about morally acceptable in my reasons why we eat meat. (e.g. Is it morally acceptable feeding meat to a kid?)
ReplyDeleteBook (@ June 29, 2010 10:41 PM),
ReplyDeleteI think that your clearly expressed main idea about what makes something morally right or wrong is a common one, perhaps even very common today.
I wonder what your classmates think of it?
Do they agree or disagree?
How might Law respond?
I do think it is morally wrong to eat meat although I am a meat eater.For the main idea from Law, as you know, that "speciesism" seem to answer all the question that why most of us still feel pleasure to eat meat where as it is not to justify that is it immoral or moral to kill and eat the animals?
ReplyDeleteAfter reading a lot of comments I agree with almost every comments above however I still have questions in my mind.
I try to add another point of views to depict what I think, maybe it will not make senses for making a good discussion as academic do. - -"
First, some of my memories recall me to one of the famous children literature, Charlotte's web, I remember that while I read that book, I wished the little piglet, Wibur, was not slaughtered. Although, this story is a friendship between the spider to help the piglet's life,from the author's experience he also want to safe the pig's life and this inspired him to compose the story. According to some part of the biography of E.B. White, an author, as a farmer who raised the pig to make bacon, he always feel sad for the pigs to this fact of life, become a dying pig. It is not possible to say for all the farmers, the butchers or other animal killers that they will have the same feeling as E.B. White, but it indicates that even the farmer still have some guilty or sorry for killing one's life as a food so why don't we have that kind of feeling to use them as a tool? If you have you may feel it is morally wrong to eat animal.
Second, I believe in "karma", that one's life is the result from what they do. To make it be more clear, it is no doubt that a large number of livestock is raised to satisfy the inside desire of human beings to consume as much as they need. A short-live of chicken, for instance, are raised in a closed plant and very hygienic area that we overcome the starvation problems from the overpopulation or over consumption. How the farmers do to produce that amount of number in short time. By using chemistry, hormone or etc., to push them grow up as fast as it could which also affect on human's health who consume them and be get sick from cancer or new kind of diseases. My point is, if we realise that it is morally wrong to eat meat, we would eat it in properly way. That's why, we would have a good health to live long by cuting many's life to further our's life.
Book,
ReplyDeleteI like your latest idea, but personally I don't think the word morally okey to eat meat is okey to me. Let me ask your some question about politics,:) Like, is it morally wrong to commit corruption if that corruption make the country progress? I hope your answer would not be morally okey, if it is, I don't wonder that what kind of problem our country is facing.
That's my idea, I think I prefer "morally acceptable" that it make more sense for me.^ ^
And another question that you posted, Is it morally acceptable feeding meat to a kid?
I'm not answering this question but I have someting in my mind. If you still remember, we grew up with many cartoons that a lot of animals can talk and evan do anything like human. My question is, is it strange while we feed the kid with pork, but a lot of Piglet's dolls are all over the bedroom?
Ps. Piglet is one of characters from Winnie the Pooh.
Nid, I’m here to answer your question about politics (:-P). I’m pretty sure that corruption is completely wrong and not acceptable. When you said that corruption makes the country progress, I’m not sure do you mean increasing in materialism or not, and I believe that it would be only short term, not long term. In addition, I do believe in “karma” as well which I can recently see the result of corruption what happening is in Thailand. Second answer about lovely Piglet doll, I do not feel strange at all and it sounds you support morally acceptable eating meat, because if people felt guilty, then they would not have the dolls in the bedroom. Anyway, I also have a question from your example showing how sad it is when the farmer has to kill their own pig, but why they are continually doing that again and again. Why do not they quit? Just doubt.
ReplyDeleteNid's comment (@ June 30, 2010 1:05 AM) suggests why I think that Book's statement of a commonly held belief about moral right and wrong is not only very dangerous but completely wrong.
ReplyDeleteI hope that Nid comes back to support her opposition to Book and many others, whose idea is similar to a point that Pu made earlier, and with which several people agreed. (I can't remember if Nid agreed with Pu then or not, but she does not agree now.)
Book's idea, which was earlier suggested by Pu, which seemed popular with the class, and that I think both dangerous and completely wrong is that it "will be a good enough reason to make something morally acceptable if it is belong to most people in society" (@ June 29, 2010 10:41 PM).
ReplyDeleteI liked Book's clear statement of what I think is a too common belief, that what makes beliefs or behaviour morally right or wrong is how popular they are in some society, so that, for example, if people in one culture think that eating meat or slavery is morally right then those things really are morally right, and other's should not complain or criticise the people for eating meat or keeping slaves, both of which must be morally acceptable because they are normal for that culture.
I think this is wrong for a couple of reasons. First, it just seems counter-intuitive: when we say that Hitler's Germany was wrong to torture and murder millions of Jews, we really do mean that it was wrong, and even if a majority of Germans approved (as they did), that would not make it right, rather, it would mean that the entire nation was morally wrong. And that leads to a larger problem: we do sometimes want to say that a whole group, not just an individual, is behaving immorally, for example, that societies who treat women as the personal property of men are doing something wrong and should change. If whatever was culturally accepted was also morally right, then anyone who wanted change would be morally wrong since they would be going against the social norm. For example, when King Chulalongkorn ended slavery in Thailand, the social norm at the time was that slavery was acceptable, which would mean that slavery was a morally good and right thing according to teh theory Book has suggested, and that by going against it, King Chulalongkorn was doing somethign immoral, and that sounds seriously wrong to me.
I think the confusion is between something being widely, even universally, accepted in society, and moral right and wrong. The two are not the same, they can be in conflict, and as the examples above show, what is accepted by a society and what is morally right often is in conflict.
More generally, the only way you can logically claim that one culture should not (moral language) judge or condemn another cultures customs and traditions as being wrong is to have universal standard, since the very idea that culture x must not condemn culture y presumes that there is some higher moral standard that is not simply a common cultural belief. The belief that moral right and wrong is determined by social popularity is self-contradictory. Most people in any society can be, often have been, and often are, wrong on moral questions as much as on matters of fact.
So that it happens to be very common in some society does not make slavery right, cannot make killing Jews morally acceptable, and cannot be a strong argument that eating meat is morally OK.
I absolutely do agree with Peter’s explanation which is completely wrong to “judge or condemn another cultures customs and traditions as being wrong” (@ July 1, 2010 2:48 PM). However, I would like to add more some information that I may not explain very well, and it makes Peter thought that I do not agree with Peter’s clarification. First of all, in my comments, I always comment it is morally OK to eat meat, but it does not mean it is morally right which different meaning from my point of view is. What I meant, morally OK equals to morally acceptable (Nid already noticed me @ June 30, 2010 1:05 AM), which is my number one serious mistake. Second, what I explain “will be a good enough reason to make something morally acceptable if it is belong to most people in society”; I mean it is morally acceptable in normal situation which is second mistaken. And I think “killing Jews” (@ July 1, 2010 2:48 PM) is not normal situation, so it is not including my acceptation what I explained. Third, again, I do not think that when most people in society accept something, it does not mean “less people” has to agree or change their mind like people can respect various religions or think different, but live together. Forth, from my point of view, moral acceptation can change to moral wrong as people always change, which it is exactly same Peter’s example about slavery (@ July 1, 2010 2:48 PM). I also think that if technology was enormously better enough to produce meat from chemical, I would definitely say it morally wrong to eat meat. Last, as I mentioned about big picture in earlier comment (@ June 27, 2010 5:23 PM), to use only most people’s belief is not only factor that we should consider. Finally, hopefully, I wish I would do clearly understanding Peter’s idea about my idea, because what extra information that I added will be nothing.
ReplyDeleteBook,
ReplyDeleteFirst, thank you for the thoughtful reply and for treating my ideas seriously and with respect. I hope I've done the same for yours - I certainly took them seriously.
I agree that it's important to respect other people, but I don't think that that means we should accept their beliefs or behaviour when it is morally wrong.
Slavery was always wrong, and anyone could have said that.
Killing Jews was in fact considered normal and right in Germany, and the Germans were wrong.
If Stephen Law is right, then people who eat meat at acting immorally. (I think Law is wrong, but not because most people in any society disagree with him.) If Law is right, then the majority are wrong. If the majority is right, then Law is wrong. And saying that someone is wrong, even morally wrong, and that they should change their behaviour and way of thinking does not mean you don't respect them. I think the opposite: it's because you respect them as persons that you want them to be better. Pretending that all views were equally correct or moral would mean that all views were equally worthless, that none really mattered but were mere personal preferences, and that sounds disrespectful to me since it treats every view as having zero importance.
I think Book's reply to my ideas is excellent. It's exactly the sort of think that academics and all thinking human beings do when that engage in discussions that treat ideas as though they really do matter, and that is treating them with respect, even if you argue that they are completely wrong.
Book,
ReplyDeleteFrom your reply @June 30, 2010 7:20 AM, (sorry that I come very late to oppose your idea, but now it seem ended? ... as Peter said he hope that I would come to do it )
I think my example was not good enough to be my objection. It's right that you said corruption is totally wrong, let look at a little bit wider, our bureaucracy system, it's not deniable that we do have corruption problem among our state officers system, almost every rank and every level. It's a never ending problem and seem like no one can solve it. When you want to ask a permission to do something if your qualification is not fit for that, what do you do? There are 2 options, first pay a bit money and you get permission as soon as possible or then, you have to wait and ....... Many of Thai people would choose the first option which is wrong, both moral and principle, so why do we still do that? Maybe because many people do that's why we do by lacking of awareness and recognition. And we all do that in the normal situation. ;)