If Law has not convinced you, you need to either present a new argument that shows why it is morally OK to eat meat, or to show us where Law's main supporting arguments fail. Can you do this?
Most people, as Law acknowledges in his introduction, do regularly eat, and love to eat, meat. Presumably these billions of people do not think that they are acting immorally when they do so. But are they right? The great majority of people, including the slaves themselves, once believed that slavery was morally acceptable, and they were all wrong, as were the large majority who once believed that sexism and racism were both normal and nothing wrong, examples that Law uses to help clarify his ideas on speciesism. Are the great majority of us similarly in error on the issue of eating meat?
I enjoy meat and think that there is a weakness in Law's arguments. We did not read "Carving the Roast Beast" because I want to convert anyone to vegetarianism. We read it because it is a very good example of critical thinking in academic writing, and excellent preparation for our major academic writing assignment this term, which is to write a persuasive essay answering one of Hartmann's questions in Part 5 of "Medicine and Drugs: Addictive Substances". As Hartmann points out on page 226, whatever proposition we decide on for our main idea that answers one of her questions, there will be opposing arguments from those who disagree; and we need to predict and to address those arguments that oppose our proposition.
Of course, just because I disagree with Law is not a good reason for you to think he is wrong - after all, I might be wrong. If it is your opinion that eating meat is not morally wrong, you need a sound supporting reason for that, a supporting reason that is strong enough to counter Law's contradictory thesis.
So, is Law right or wrong? Why?
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I agree with Law that eating meat is morally wrong because animals are also living things with feeling. They do not want to be hurt or killed. However, I will continue eating meat even though it is not moral, but it is not illegal.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we should not eat meat because we are not "speciesism" is strongly reason like we are not racism and sexism. Although, I am not racism and sexism, I eat meat and eager to eat its. I think, it is not moral, it is human nature. We can choose what we want to eat until it is illegal (I agree with Wan).
ReplyDeleteI hope that someone replies to what seems to me the very worrying, even alarming, argument that Wan and Bass seem to be suggesting.
DeleteDo you agree with Law's ideas on human nature?
DeleteI agree with Law that eating meat is morally wrong because it's speciesism; however, who is the person that can tell us what is right or wrong? If eating meat is morally wrong, then what we can eat? why do vegetarians think that eating vegetable is morally right?
ReplyDeleteI like Four's questions, especially the last one. Who is going to give him an answer?
DeleteWhat sort of question is Four's: "however, who is the person that can tell us what is right or wrong? "
DeleteWhat reply does Four expect?
What reply can be given?
This is the same point I raised in my review comment 15 on your summary paragraphs, the comment that we want to look at in class.
first two questions of mine just want to lead to the last question that I want to say that even eating vegetable also is morally wrong because it is speciesism, so it's important that human need food to live, and what do they want to eat? it's up to personal desire.
DeleteI mean if eating were morally wrong, and eating vegetable were also wrong what we would ate next? then, we have no choice, and no one want to die because moral.
DeleteSo someone has to give Four a good reason to discriminate between animals and plants, one that is something more than prejudice.
DeleteCan anyone help us, or must we also give up eating vegetables?
Actually, I think this might also suggest a way into a more serious weakness in Law's argument.
I'm very hungry now, and I have some tasty looking broccoli and cauliflower gratin. I want to know it's OK to eat it. I would also like to be able to enjoy the roast chicken without thinking I'm committing some evil act.
Is Four's idea that "it's up to personal desire" enough?
DeleteIf my personal desire is to kill everyone who disagrees with me, does that make it morally OK to kill them?
Or if my personal desire is to eliminate all elephants because I think they eat too much, does that really make it OK for me to kill off all elephants?
Thank you Four for such useful ideas to work with, as I prepare for my very late lunch.
thank you Peter, in case of "their desire" I mean that just between animals and vegetables and absolutely rely on Laws or rules of each country
DeleteDo you mean that if something is legal, it's morally right?
DeleteAnd conversely, that if illegal, it is morally wrong?
I have in mind examples such as slavery, racism, and the like which have been until very recently and still are in some cases, legal in most countries. Or if the Thai government made it illegal to eat meat, would it then be morally wrong to eat meat?
I think that Law does give us relevant reason to treat plants differently to animals: animals, as he notes on page 125, are "living thing[s] capable of enjoying life," which plants are not.
DeleteA pig feels pain and pleasure, perhaps attachment and loss and other things. Plants respond to their environment as all living things do, but not because they have any feeling about it.
This seems to me a relevant reason to treat plants differently to animals, and to pretty much treat them as we wish.
But I also think you might be able to make Gemma-like move here to push me and perhaps your classmates to see just how far we are willing to take this line of reasoning.
One of my review comments on your summary paragraphs also hints at what I think is the weakness in Law's argument that it is morally wrong to eat meat.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with Law that we cannot eat meat because of morally wrong. If we agree with law, people all of the world must be vegetarians. How about Eskimos who live in Alaska, they have a few months in summer so how they plant in their summer for storing a lot of vegetable to eat over the year and this is 2013 not like 1000 BC that they can go anywhere to grow plants, there are no choices to eat meat but there are two choices between moral or being alive. If you were Eskimo, which choice would you choose ?
ReplyDeleteI think that Dui raises an excellent point. It is an opposing argument that Law and his supporters do need to address.
DeleteCan any Law supporter answer Dui's concern?
That and Dui's mention of 1,000 BC also reminds me of why I think that the First Precept of Buddhism does require that Buddhists not normally eat meat today, even though the Buddha might have allowed it in his time. What do you think?