Talk:Ethics of eating meat/Archive 2

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I have archived this rather long talk page. HighInBC 17:57, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with this health information?

The following has been removed due to the apparent inadequacy of the citation.

"

  • Studies have shown that vegetarian kids grow taller and have higher IQs than their classmates, and they are at a reduced risk for heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and other diseases in the long run.(Citation)
  • Vegetarians and vegans live, on average, six to 10 years longer than meat-eaters.(Citation)

"

The page that these claims cite gives its own reference to its sources, and therefore I fail to see what is necessarily lacking. Please elaborate on the issue.

I don't think the person who wrote that page knows much about nutrition: "Vegetarian foods provide us with all the nutrients that we need, minus the saturated fat, cholesterol, and contaminants found in meat and dairy products". Saturated fat and cholesterol are essential nutrients and found in vegetables, just less saturated fat and the healthy kind of cholesterol. There's plenty of info online about the health benefits of going vegetarian, I'm sure we can find better references. Also, this is a page about the ETHICS of eating meat. If a vegetarian diet is more healthy how does this make eating meat moral or immoral? --Calibas 21:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Correlation does not imply causation. Studies without extensive causal data are pseudoscience, and thus do not belong on Wikipedia. 74.242.99.231 22:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Reads like a story or essay

This article is not written in the style of an encyclopedia reference. Rather it is written in the style one would expect from a college student's essay assignment for class. I recognize that a great deal of work has been done to search for various viewpoints on the subject and to be as unbiased as possible in making mention of those viewpoints, but that doesn't keep the work from being an essay. Perhaps some of this information could be merged with another topic such as Vegetarianism, and other parts may just not be useful for an encyclopedic reference at all.OfficeGirl 01:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

The other articles are full which is why this subject split off into it's own article. The content is too large for a merge, so either this needs to be fixed or deleted.
I say we fix it. What specifically is wrong? How can the same content be layed out in a different style? HighInBC 00:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I think the major problem is that this is structured like a debate on the ethics of eating meat. Arguments are presented in favour and against, with rebuttals. Trouble is, debating is inherently POV - you can't argue a position without promoting a certain viewpoint. It's not saying "this is an overview of how society regards the ethics of eating meat;" it's saying "eating meat is unethical because... no, it's ethical because..." It's an argument masquerading as an article.
How to fix it? Try to recast it as an overview of how human society views the ethics of eating meat. Describe forms of vegetarianism and the reasons behind them. Describe why people eat meat, when they do, and the reasons why they believe it is not unethical. Perhaps touch on the various campaigns by groups on either side of the question (PETA, cattle ranchers, etc.) to promote their viewpoint.
The content that is in there can probably serve as a starting point, as long as it is referenced. (There's an awful lot of unsourced "some say... others think..." in this.)
I think a good first step would be to rework the lead. It starts "While many people have no ethical issues with eating meat, others object to the act of killing and eating an animal..." and then goes on to detail all sorts of reasons people have for not eating meat. If this article were entitled "Ethics of vegetarianism" that would be fine. However, if it going to be a balanced overview, the lead needs to be less weighted to one side of the argument. Eron 19:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
It was The ethics of vegetarianism, the title was changed because the idea that being vegetarian is unethical is uncommon, the article is about if eating meat is ethical. I don't really understand your last paragraph, why do you think it is slanted and in which way? HighInBC 20:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't infer from a title like "Ethics of vegetarianism" that vegetarianism is in some way, or by some people, considered unethical. Ethics is a neutral term relating to "the study of value or quality... concepts such as right, wrong, good, evil, and responsibility." I would expect an article on the ethics of eating meat to describe the moral arguments and various points of view on the subject, without taking a position one way or the other.
Regarding the lead, there is half a sentence stating that many people have no objections to the practice, and then the rest of the paragraph detailing reasons why they should or explaining the opposite view. From the start, it reads like an essay on why I shouldn't eat meat. It doesn't introduce the topic in a neutral fashion.
I know, I know, if I don't like it I can edit it. I may try, if I can find the time. But it is a hard thing to edit for neutrality - not because the case one way or the other is so strong, but just because it's hard to describe and explain moral positions without taking one.Eron 20:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I certainly agree with your point of view. This is what I have done with this article: Before, After. The difference is extensive. I have of course done much since. I certainly agree any attempt to make this article more neutral.

I think a complete rewrite to a different style would be good to. I would do it, but I did the last re-write, and one of your objections is the style I used. That is okay, I am not the best writer in the world, and welcome improvements to my contributions. HighInBC 21:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Does not give references for the importance of this topic, how it has affected actual events

The bulk of this article is a recounting of differing opinions in a debate-style format. (not encyclopedic) Have any of these theories changed the policies of any government entity, whether country-wide, state, province, local or municipal? Have any of these theories changed the behavior of any major, national or multi-national corporations? Have any of these theories inspired documented acts of vandalism, theft, interference with trade, boycotts or protests that were so dramatic that they forced businesses to stop functioning for a time? What about groups like PETA and the like and some of their controversial actions that have been covered in the news for many, many years-- some of those most certainly dealt with the issue of using animals for food, yes? I am not saying that this topic should be deleted, just that it really needs a LOT more work, and I think it would be more informative to people who never heard of the topic before if those who are knowledgable rolled up their sleeves and really worked on it! OfficeGirl 01:41, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

It does need alot more work. HighInBC 13:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

A Slanted Debate

It is clear to see that one or more persons have put in a great deal of time to really, really try to present opposing viewpoints as fairly as they could. I do not see any malicious intent here at all. But the vast majority of sources cited are pro-vegetarian, and the overall tone of the article still leans in the direction of attempting to persuade readers to the vegetarian viewpoint. More references from the non-vegetarian side would really help with that problem, as would cleaning up the language used to describe the vegetarian sources. OfficeGirl 01:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC) Ok. First of all it is completely wrong that the only reason to eat meat is for tradition and bias. And second of all, what does the earth being flat or round have to do with eating meat? Now, I want to start out by saying that the earth's population cannot be supported by just producing vegetables and other agrinomic plants. Why would I say this? Because farmers are already using all of the land that is tillable for grain and vegetble production. Unless you want to take out all of the rain forest, we cannot "expand the garden" and im sure you are against any genetic modified plants that would make it possible to produce more grain in a smaller amount of land. And no you cannot realisticly plant the side of a mountai. It just isn't possible. Now, unless you have any other options, we are left with eating meat. Farmers simply cannot produce for the world's population without producing meat. Trust me on this one, I am a college student who has done plenty of research in this area. Now i also want you to realize that most meat productions farms are not taking up space that could be used for growing crops. They are mostly found on rolling hills that are untillable and cannot be reasonably maintained because of erosion if we break the sod. Now, moving on. We need meat in our diets. Why do you think people in third world countries are starving? They can produce all the vegetables they want usually. What they don't have is meat. They starve from lack of protein. For example, if you want to consume the amount of protein that you would get from just 3 oz of red meat, you would have to consume three whole regular size cans of beans, or 3 pounds of sweet corn. Or try 8 pounds of potatos. We have to have protien in our diet to be healthy. And the best source is meat. Now for the ethics. I will start with poultry. I can tell you right now that egg laying hens are completely healthy and under no stress. How do i know this, because naturaly hens won't lay eggs if they are under any type of stress. So it is in the interest of the producer to make sure that his hens are happy so that they will lay eggs. simple as that. Second, there are laws that prevent the inhumane treatment of animals. Castration must be done with the least amount of stress possible. This means they do it at an early age when calves are going to experience less pain and less stress. And the slaughter of animals is humane as well. The way beef are killed ensures that the nervous system is completely destroyed so that they never feel pain through the whole process. if you have seen videos where they twich afterwards, that is muscle contractions that are just happening because the muscles don't know that they animal is dead, not because they are in agony. The blood still has oxygen going to the cells that is being transformed into energy and is being used up by cells. I hope that this entry told you a little about the animal industry and how meat is vital in this world to sustain our population also i hope you realize that animals are hardly ever treated poorly. True they aren't treated like you or any other human, but do they act like humans? NO! They don't need a whole house to live in. Animals are perfectly comfortable in smaller areas. You may not believe it, but steers sent to a confined feedlot operation are completely comfortable. There have been numerous test on their behaivior in such environments that prove that they are under minimal stress. Thank you for reading. I hope you learned something today and please tell your freinds that eating meat is ok. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.243.219.60 (talk) 06:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps references to credible arguments in favour of eating animals are hard to come by simply because no such arguments have ever been given. It seems to me absurd to try to give a "balanced" point of view on all subjects. What is the balanced point of view on the debate round Earth vs. flat Earth? The only real support for the practice of eating animals is tradition and bias. David Olivier 07:25, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm afraid policy on the neutral point of view doesn't support that: "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all." Given the large proportion of humanity that eats meat on a regular basis, I don't really think that support for meat-eating can be considered a "minority view" that doesn't merit balanced coverage. The very well-referenced entry on humans notes that "Humans are animals who can consume both plant and animal products. Most biologists agree humans are omnivorous.[22] A minority believes they are an anatomically carnivorous species, and have started using agriculture (non-animal based) foodstuffs only recently.[23] Another minority believes that anatomically, they are primarily herbivorous, many members of which have begun consuming food of animal origin.[24]" Eron 12:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't say that the view that it is ethical to eat animals shouldn't be covered. It is just that one cannot complain that the article is biased just because no credible arguments have been found supporting one side - as OfficeGirl seemed to be doing. If, as it seems, among the billions of animal-eaters the only arguments that can be found justifying their practice are "Ah well we've always done it", or some variation such as "humans are omnivorous", or perhaps "God said it was OK to eat animals", then it's not the fault of the article if nothing more credible is presented. In other words, it is not Wikipedia's task to invent arguments where there are none, or to make it appear that one side has credible arguments when it does not. David Olivier 13:26, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Odd, when I redid this article I did have trouble finding citing the pro veg arguement, as most references are not reliable sources and are heavily baised. The ones I found pro-meat seemed more scientific in generel.
Regardless, see a problem, fix it. You can look for more citations if the lack of them bothers you. As for being slanted, can you be specific? HighInBC 13:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
There is a slant in the scope. It seems a bit arbitrary to determine an animal worthy of protection from being killed as food based solely on whether some people perceive that animal as sentient (even with the sited source). An anti-vegan (note I didn't say "pro meat eating") point is that the only animals which are considered off the "eat" list are ones that we as human identify with, rather than some logical point of differentiation. Bottom line of this reasoning is that all life feeds off of other life to sustain itself, and it’s been that way for billions (not 2.5 million) of years. Bottom line of my comment here is that this article would be well served by adding more detail to the discussion as to why some animals are ok to eat and not others, as suggested by the scope.Fcsuper 06:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't see your point. There is an argument that being sentient is a necessary and sufficient condition for having interests (see Peter Singer's Animal Liberation). That is not about "identifying" with the animal. (Though of course it is impossible to "identify", i.e. put oneself in the paws of, a non-sentient entity.)
Perhaps your point is that sentience as such does not exist, and it is just a matter of "some people" perceiving you as sentient. Well, if that is your point, it is debateable, to say the least. I believe, for instance, that you are (probably) sentient, as a fact; not as just some (relativistically defined) "point of view" or "perception" of mine.
Anyway, that animal sentience is a fact (and not a relativistically defined "perception") is a basic tenet of the ethical argument against eating animals. Does that not satisfy your request for a "logical point of differentiation"? Again, you may well hold that sentience is not a fact, and perhaps include that point as an argument against ethically compulsory vegetarianism, but that doesn't make the article in itself "slanted".
As for the fact that the violence of predation has been going on for a long time (perhaps 700 million years, since it seems the first animals, presumably the first sentient creatures, appeared around then), that is one of the vacuous arguments I cited above. Well, perhaps it actually is the strongest "argument" that can be found in favour of eating animals...
David Olivier 11:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
The recognition of sentience is not factual. It has to do with the recognition of traits we associate with being humanlike. How do we know one way or another that the human experience itself is evidence of sentience? We only have a certain limited level of awareness ourselves, which can be significant in limiting out ability to recognize sentience in other life forms. Who's to say that the tubeworm is not the most sentient animal on the planet, but humans are unable to recognize it solely because we can't relate to its experience? This is why sentience may be considered an arbitrary point, making the scope slanted. ALSO, as mentioned elsewhere here, not all vegetarians use sentience as their qualifier. Which means, the scope is not just vegetarians slated, it's a particular group or person's POV, an not representative of pro-vegetarians everywhere. Different groups have different reasons for setting limitations on what foods they eat. No one hard and fast rule exists that covers all of those perspectives, nor are the perspectives fee from being debated (as you've assumed the "sentient" qualifier to be).Fcsuper 22:36, 10 November 2006 (UTC)


It tastes good, and it is good for me, my teeth are designed for it, we evolved doing it. I would not say that you have found the strongest arguement for eating animals. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 14:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Ah yes, I forgot, "it tastes good". That argument really carries the day in favour of eating animals!
Actually, it does. You are mocking an extremely valid point based on nothing more than emotion. Our tastes have evolved to prefer particular foods over others because of the value of those foods to our body's systems. For example, sugar doesn't taste good because its sweet. It tastes good because we've evolved a preference for sweetness due to the high energy value sweet foods tend to offer us. Other animals who have evolved on different diets don't necessarily have a preference for sweetness, but instead some other foods that best suit their biological makeup.Fcsuper 22:36, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Rape feels so good! (Er... for one of the two participants, let's say.) And none of us would be here if it haden't been for rape (statistically, at least one of your ancestors in the last ten or fifteen generations was born from rape); we evolved doing it.
Are there really no other arguments than those in favour of eating animals? If so, don't complain that this page may seem "biased"!
David Olivier 15:15, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Please do not twist my arguement into immoral acts using ideas that I never brought up. I notied you picked that arguement out of the several I provided. Also, I am sure the human race would have made it without rape. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
And I'm sure the human race would have (and still can) make it without eating meat. 68.42.113.38 05:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
My comparison was on two of your points: "it tastes good" and "we evolved doing it". If those arguments don't make rape moral, they don't make eating animals moral. You cannot just beg the question, saying that the comparison doesn't hold because rape is immoral and eating animals is not.
That the human race might have made it without rape is: 1. irrelevant and 2. in need of some support, to say the least! In any case, my point was that you wouldn't be here without rape (nor would anyone of us). So an argument such as "don't criticize X, because without X you wouldn't be here" is absurd. (I myself wouldn't be here without Hitler; does that mean I cannot criticize Hitler?)
As for your "my teeth are designed for it", it takes us back to the pre-Darwinian times where people thought that our bodies necessarily were "designed" for something.
David Olivier 16:43, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I think what I failed to get accross was that your rape comparison is off topic, I don't see the connection. Eating meat and rape are not related to each other in such a way that an ethical comparison can be made like that. If it is, then I don't see how. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 16:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
The ethical comparison is the one I stated: the arguments you give in support of eating animals can also be given in support of rape (and other forms of unethical conduct). David Olivier 17:15, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I am saying that stating that the arguements can be applied to rape does not mean anything in relation to my point. For this to mean anything both acts would have to be similair in ethical reprecussions. Different acts require different levels of justification. Saying something justifies stealing, does not mean the same justification can be applied to murder. You are applying unrealistic ethical porportions to my arguement. I was not argueing in favor of rape, but eating meat, so to apply my arguement to rape is a fallacy. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 17:21, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
OK. If you assume that raping a human and killing a non-human are of vastly different "ethical proportions", you have a point. It's just that that assumption is precisely what the debate about the ethics of eating meat is about. Those who oppose eating animals believe (at least, many do) that speciesism is wrong, and that those acts are of similar (if not identical) ethical importance. You cannot just answer that meat has been eaten for millions of years, and that it tastes good. To do so is flippant at the very least. David Olivier 21:37, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I certainly think that eating meat is vastly different in ethical porportions than raping a person, to the point that I don't even think it is worth mentioning. What's more I think the vast majority of people would agree with this point. Regardless, the arguement that eating meat natural is already in the article, as is a rebuttal similair to yours. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 22:05, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
David, give it up. The rape thaing is so far off topic that you might as well be talking about what life does in alternate universes or what people eat in heaven. You are sentinent enough to know the point is unrelated and only made to have an emotional impact, and you know we are sentinent enough to know that you know this.Fcsuper 22:36, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I certainly see Fcsuper's point. The article is titled "Ethics of eating meat," which would suggest a broad survey of the ethical aspects of this practice. The article itself, however, is simply a debate between the eat-meat / don't-eat-meat camps. I don't see a reflection of the broad spectrum of cultural and social attitudes. What about different types of vegetarianism? What about the fact that many meat-eaters still have cultural taboos against certain kinds of meat? What about religious practices that mandate a certain way of slaughtering animals and preparing and consuming their meat? This is potentially a huge topic that could range well beyond the humans-should-eat-meat-oh-no-they-shouldn't that is currently the bulk of the page. Eron 15:05, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I look forward to your planned expansion. It sounds like it will really add to the article. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:14, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Heh. I wouldn't call it a my 'planned expansion'. While I think the points I raised would be a valuable contribution, I'm not sure when I would be able to actual make the necessary rewrites. But I'll keep thinking about it. Eron 18:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Ahhhhh. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 18:59, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

All of the above illustrates my concerns with the article as it is currently laid out. The argument-rebuttal structure makes it look like a debate, which invites editors to take a position for or against when they make a contribution. I think it would look much more neutral if we just scrapped all the 'rebuttal' sections. Have an intro section presenting the fact that there are a number of ethical questions surrounding the consumption of meat, and that the most prominent one is whether its consumption is ethical at all. Then detail the arguments that people have made for one side. Then the other. Then describe a few of the other ethical questions: degrees of vegetarianism, and how people ethically justify their position on the line between carnivore and vegan; cultural and religious ethical views regarding what meat can and cannot be eaten and why, etc.

I'd dive right in and start by cutting the rebuttals myself, but that's major surgery on what is obviously a contentious article, so I'd like to know what others think first. Eron 23:17, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Just be sure to move all the information you remove to somewhere else(Unless it is uncited/against policy). HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 23:37, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
This article is still pretty far from being encyclopediatic. I don't know. It just seems out of place, per my previous comments; none of which has been addressed with edits to the article. Fcsuper 01:05, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

References

I cleaned up up all the references so they all use the same footnote method. That is the first step, the next step I will do is go through them all and make sure the article text is supported by the citation. I hope somebody who knows the various ref templates can unify the format further, I am not so familiar with those. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 18:16, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Arguments why eating meat is ethical

Under the Health section it says that studies have found soy and/or soy products to be carcinogenic, but in the rebuttal part it does not address this. Could someone research this and explain? Lue3378 01:00, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi, right beside that sentence is a footnote leading to this page [1]. I notice at the bottom they had links to rebuttals, so perhaps those rebuttal references can be used for our rebuttals. I will work on that later if nobody else does. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 14:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Also of note: What about the debated effects of soy protien, or rather of Phytoestrogens on Estrogen levels in the body. Wouldn't that be of interest to someone (Say, a bodybuilder) considering a soy diet? Should it be covered, or should a re-direct to the [this] be enough?--Amishexmachina 04:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
[2] Asian men and women have significantly lower cancer rates and consume much more soy that the west. Also of note, though it doesn't relate to this page, is that hormone replacement therapy is now thought to be one of the major factors in breast cancer. And something that does relate to this page is that saturated fat has been linked to high cancer rates, heart disease and various other health problems. --Calibas 02:39, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Something that deserves mention along with the carcinogenicity of soy foods is that of meat, especially when prepared in manners such as grilling. Some of this information can be found in the meat article. 68.42.113.38 05:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)


I would like some statistics on the percentage of individuals that worry/are concerned with the ethics of eating meat. I would also like a statistic individuals that are vegetarians because of the ethics of eating meat (as compared to those that do it for health reasons, etc.).

Also remember, soy beans have more toxins in than any other plant known... the energy (and hence carbon and pollutant) cost of processing it is immense. But sadly, if you want a balanced vegan diet for more than a tiny percentage of the population, soy is practically a necessity... Overall, grass reared meat is probably more environmentally friendly. Dlh-stablelights 19:59, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The meat industry is not stupid, they stand to lose billions if soy becomes too popular, so they hire scientists to research into soy to look for risks. These scientists know that if their research shows that soy is healthy they'll be out of the job. So, taking into account that even vitamins are unhealthy in large doses [3], they isolate certain chemicals from soy, feed them to rats and amazingly soy is suddenly deadly poisonous. Not even the FDA listens to these studies but for conservative talk show hosts this is the greatest thing in the world and so word starts to spread that soy isn't this miracle food but in fact has "more toxins in than any other plant known".

Soy isn't going to solve the worlds problems but moderate intake is obviously healthy (unless allergic). --Calibas 01:39, 28 July 2007 (UTC) Calibas, have you heard of Monsanto? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.73.165.8 (talk) 16:01, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Please take your poorly formatted discussion not relevant to the article to your personal talk pages. Thanks Bob98133 (talk) 16:18, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Question

I was reading this and a random thought popped into the ol' noggin. This debate always centers on the question of whether or not eating meat is ethical, yet it never touches on whether or not eating plants is. After all, plants are alive, and we do massacre billions, probably more - I don't have an exact figure on the death toll - every day. What makes the life of an animal that much more important than a plant? Forget speciesist(spelled?), its all kingdomist propaganda! jankyalias 1:30 20 November 2006 (UTC)

The simple answer to your question is, that is not the subject of the article. Just as an article on oranges does not talk alot about apples, the same goes here. I wonder if there are enough sources to demonstrate the notability of the controversy of eating vegetables? HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Jank, if you've noted my comments above on this discussion page, you may find that I'm in agreement with you. However, my concerns where stated in the context of considering assumptions made under the Scope section, not a general rebuttal of the Vegan POV. I agree with HighInBC not including your general point to the article. Fcsuper 01:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The simple answer is that plants lack a nervous system, but like HighInBC said, the question is irrelevant for this page. Deleuze 19:59, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Deleuze, studies have been done that show plants have the capability to react to specific events in their enviroment. If the point about nervous systems is brought up, this should also be noted (with sources, of course). Fcsuper 01:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Jank, I would argue that the capacity of most animals to suffer and the awareness they have of their condition separates them (in general) from plants, fungi, and other kingdoms of organisms. In addition, the effect one animal's death/suffering could potentially have upon another animal (as in relationships, although most animals don't experience these) is far greater than what the death of one plant could do to another plant. I liken this argument to humans; even in the absence of the ability to suffer and be aware (as in persons with Congential Analgia or who are in a persistent vegetative state), a person's death or mistreatment could very likely have a negative impact on other people. Also, the death or abuse of a non-human animal (such as a household pet) could prove devastating to those who were emotionally attatched to the animal. In both cases, the unnecessary negative effects of an animal's death/suffering not only upon the animal itself, but also upon others is a very significant argument against the actions necessary for eating meat. Plants generally fail to meet such qualifications, as plants are not conscious of pain or that of other plants anywhere near the extent to which animals are. Spinnick597 05:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Jank, If a plant can feel pain, we certainly have no evidence that this behavior has in any way aided its evolution. In animals, the capacity to feel pain is closely linked with the mechanisms which enable it to avoid/avert pain. An animal ancestor which recognized painful stimuli and moved away from them would then be able to go on and execute a successful mating strategy, whereas one which does not avoid pain would in many situations get itself killed. The plant which can feel pain has no behavior modification, no response it can enact to avoid a painful fate. With respect to its environment, it behaves exactly like a non-pain feeling plant and gains no evolutionary advantage. From this, and other evidence, we can infer that a plant probably does not have the ability to feel pain, as it would be useless. --Tobor0 (talk) 08:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Revision

I propose a major revision to the entire article. I think most of us dont realize that nearly every single person on this planet has some taboos about eating meat. Sure, nearly everybody eats chicken, but what about things like horses and dogs? And if eating meat is ethical, what's wrong with cannibalism? This could be a really great article but it needs a lot of work. I think it would be much easier to read if the article was divided into broader subjects such as:

Religious aspects

Health pros and cons

Evolutionary studies

Economic aspects

Morality

Much of the article, pros and cons, needs to be removed. Unless somebody argues otherwise I'm going to get rid of the Dennis Leary quote. It's clever but I'm afraid Leary is a commedian and not an evolutionary scientist. I'm also going to remove:

  • The "animal" in "animal liberation" and "animal rights" refers to all and only those beings that meet the interest requirement. The phrase "sentient being" or "sentient animal" is sometimes employed to make this reference (...). Thus the criterion for being an "animal", in this moral sense, is not the biological criterion that distinguishes fauna from flora. Nor are animal liberationists confused about this, since most of them readily acknowledge that very probably not all biological animals have interests and, consequently, cannot have moral rights.

I'm not really sure why this is in the scope section. And since animals without interests don't have moral rights (opinion) wouldn't that mean that animals with interests do have moral rights? This needs to be cleared up, I'm not sure what point it's trying to make. I'm going to wait until I get some feedback before I start doin any major editing. Namaste --Calibas 00:22, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The quote from dennis leary can be removed, I added it a long time ago, I agree now he is underqualified to make such a claim. The other poorly worded section only confuses me and I also endorse it's deletion. Regarding since animals without interests don't have moral rights (opinion) wouldn't that mean that animals with interests do have moral rights?, I don't think we have to worry about such things. As we are limited to opinions that are already published by reliable sources we don't have to make any such moral decisions ourselves. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 00:48, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Might we consider renaming this article or actually, I'm in favor of deleting it completely. It seems to be covering a social consideration on the topic, rather than a particular discrete topic of its own. For example, animal rights comments should go under an Animal Rights article, Vegetarianism remarks should be in a Vegetarianism article, and the evolution section should perhaps be a sub-article under evolution under a title like "Evolution of Carnivorism" or "Evolution of Omnivorism", etc, etc. I just see that "Ethics of eating meat" as it stands exists as a provocative patchwork of topics, and not as a notable article by its own right. Thoughts?
You say you want to rename it but you have not suggested a name. As for deleting the article, I disgree, but you are welcome to nominate it for AfD. I am not sure how the subject Ethics of eating meat is not notable. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 01:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Respectivefully, I just said how it is not. As the article stands, this is a patchwork of topics, not a topic by its own right. Point for point, the article is fairly well sourced. But the fact that the article is "point for point" makes it on the whole more social commentary than its own discrete topic. The fact the two main sections of this article are titled "Arguments for..." "Arguments against..." is a big clue to that. Even the current name is a bit awkward for a "neutral" article. It's not like that topic would appear in Encyclopedia Brittannica, even in the drawn out Macropedia portion (and even if it did, the article wouldn't resemble what's here now). The primary purpose of this article appears to promote Vegan/Vegatarian ideas, with mitigation brought up by those of opposing view. Well, those remarks should fall under their respective articles, not mashed together in a point-counterpoint discussion.Fcsuper 01:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
There has been some discussion further up the page of some of the very issues you raise. I agree (and have said myself before) that the point-counterpoint structure is problematic. But I think these are reasons to improve the article, and I believe those improvements are progressing, albeit slowly. I think Calibas made some very good suggestions a few entries back. Overall, I think there is a place in Wikipedia for a balanced exploration of the current thinking on the ethics of eating meat (or conversely, of being a vegetarian). People make the decision to do so, or not to do so, for a wide variety of reasons, and they place themselves on a wide range of positions along a spectrum starting at veganism and progressing to panda sandwiches. The article doesn't have to confine it self to a strict meat/no-meat argument. How do people decide that fish is okay, but not chicken? Or chicken, but not cow? Or cow, but not dog? Or... There's a lot of scope here. It's a complicated topic and I think getting to a great article will take time and consideration, but hey - there is no deadline. -Eron 01:47, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, ok. I am interested in what you come up with. :) It seems to me that this is part of the larger topic of whether or not to use animals to serve any humans needs whatsoever. Once I came to that realization, I started reconsiderating whether this article was even appropriate in any form. The more I look at this article, the more it seems unworkable. I've thought about how to improve it myself, but always come back to the point that this is not a topic like California where you can have a list of sourced facts, but it's more like "When to wear white clothes". There's no clear way to address it without getting bogged down in opinion. Even the use of the word "Ethics" can be highly subjective. As stated above, it would be better to put the facts that are included in this article in with the topics where they apply and leave it at that. IMO, that would serve best to make wiki neutral on the topic. If you look up vegatarianism, you'll see facts about that genre. Why have a separate article that repeats that information in the context of ethics over the general practice of meat eating? That's not factual or neutral. It's philosophical.Fcsuper 00:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Religious opposition

The section on the views of Christianity and Judaism regarding eating meat was deleted. As far as I can tell, there's nothing in the entry that was deleted that's a matter of interpretation. The Bible verses are direct quotes, for example. I could believe that there is dispute over the matter - because people can dispute over just about anything - but I'm not personally aware of any. I'd like to revert the section, and invite the person (or whoever!) who deleted it to either add text explaining the dispute, or to discuss it here if they really feel it's wrong. Waitak 03:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely. If there's some arguement over the meaning of the verses we should talk about it in the article, not simply remove the quotes. I'm going to revert it back. --Calibas 00:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Scope

I have added referenced data for global animal consumption. These figures are from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization; they are stated in metric tonnes rather than number of animals consumed, so I have removed the previous statement about 60 billion land animals per year eaten for food. (Which, if the UN FAO's figure of 220 million tonnes is correct, means each animal produced about seven pounds of meat. I'm thinking that 60 billion was a slight overstatement - even allowing for the fact that, globally, we eat many more chickens than cows.) I've also added an annual tonnage figure for fish and other aquatic life. I only skimmed through the first report I referenced, Livestock's long shadow, but I think it might be useful for putting some hard referenced facts to other claims in the article - particularly on the no-meat-thanks side of the ledger. - Eron Talk 01:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your research. However, your edit replaces a figure about the number of individual animals concerned by one about the weight of their flesh. That is much less relevant in ethical terms.
The 60 billion figure is, I believe, approximately correct - perhaps a slight overstatement, as you say, perhaps not. Yes, it would be better to source it. However, I propose to leave it in, with an "reference needed" tag, and put your figures about the tonnage of meat in a footnote. Also, I believe it is true that there exist no figures at all concerning the number of individual fish killed; the only statistics are in tonnes. That too should be indicated in a footnote.
David Olivier 07:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I am not sure that I agree that the absolute number of animals consumed is more significant, ethically, than the quantity of meat. That meat all comes from animals; if one takes a moral position against killing animals for their meat, then surely even one is too many. Two hundred and twenty million tonnes is a massive quantity - it's equivalent to something like the weight of three billion people. I do think that the number of animals is more significant from an advocacy point of view; it puts a human (er, scratch that, animal) face on the scale of consumption.
I am not opposed to including a number of animals, but there needs to be a source for it. Some earlier editor inserted 60 billion; where did that number come from? I could probably extrapolate from the FAO figures, which break down meat consumption into pork, poultry, and beef, by applying some average weight of meat per type of animal, but that would be heading into original research territory. - Eron Talk 15:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I was the one who put in the 60 billion figure. True, I don't have any source that says precisely that. However, if you put various figures together, you get to something like that. I don't think that just plain adding numbers counts as "original research"!

For starters, you have this page by CIWF that states that nearly 46 billion broiler chickens are reared annually in the world. That page doesn't itself give sources, but I think CIWF can count as trustworthy at least on such matters. Statistics for France for all animals can be found on the statistics site of the French agriculture ministry; counting all kinds of birds, small mammals (rabbits...), pigs, cows, etc. you get about 1.1 billion animals slaughtered every year in France (1/100th of world population). Again, that suggests something of the order of 60 billion worldwide. I had also found statistics for the US, but I dont remember the link (probably easy to find).

All in all, if no more precise sources are found, the wording of the sentence should probably be modified to recognize that the 60 billion figure is just an order of magnitude.

However, I feel that it is important to keep such an indication about numbers. I don't see what you mean when you say that the number is not significant. You can be opposed to the murder of humans, and believe that even one murder is too many, but still recognize that mass murder is not the same as one murder. That is what "scope" is about - giving an idea of the scope of the ethical problem. It is true that, depending on your ethical system, you may believe that killing some animals is ethically more serious than killing others; that killing a chimpanzee is worse than killing a mouse, for instance. So the ethical significance of numbers is not precise. It is more precise, however, than stating the number of pounds of meat, which, in itself, has no ethical significance whatever.

David Olivier 15:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I did not mean to suggest that the number of animals killed for meat was not ethically significant; I stated that I did not find it more significant than the volume of meat thus harvested. I can see from a figure like 220 million tonnes that we are not talking about a few chickens and cows - that obviously represents a vast quantity of living creatures.
I'm reluctant to include a global figure that is extrapolated. I agree that simple math shouldn't count as original research (and if it does, I'm guilty, having converted raw census population data to percentages in other articles). However, going from "France slaughters 1.1 billion animals" through "France is about 1% of the world's population" to get to "the world probably kills about 60 billion animals" requires a number of assumptions and approximations that go beyond simple math.
As I said, I'm not opposed to a well-referenced head count. Perhaps the article could state "Figures for the total number of animals slaughtered to harvest this quantity of meat are not compiled on a global basis. However, country-by-country figures give some sense of the scale. In France alone, approximately 1.1 billion animals are killed for food each year.(REF) The CIWF estimates that 46 billion broiler chickens are reared globally each year.(REF)"
That would give a picture of the overall scale, without straying from verifiable numbers. - Eron Talk 16:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Second on the preference for granular number references, without the extrapolation (seems like the kind of thing that should be a footnote). I also think that the number of animals killed, rather than mass of killed animals, is the more relevant figure for this article. Having both figures is even better, as they describe different things. It doesn't make sense to me that someone would want to say, 220 tons is a lot of chickens, as opposed to, "about X billion chickens, or approximately 220 tons" ... the latter contains more information, and caters to, I think, the majority of the interested population, which would find it easier not to do any sort of calculation if possible. Skandha101 03:23, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Source Rebuttals

Many of the rebuttals seem to attack straw men, and naturally, those are unsourced for the most part. I don't know if this is giving me a fair assessment of the ethics of vegetarianism, because the "Some would argue" and "Some have said" phrases seem kinda sketchy. Anyone agree with this? 146.151.23.123 01:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Farming plants harms animals

There's a huge problem with this section. First, it has nothing to do with the ethics of eating meat it simply states that our method of harvesting vegetables kills animals. According to Davis:

"Davis proposes a ruminant-pasture model of food production, which would replace all poultry, pig and lamb production with beef and dairy products. According to his calculations, such a model would result in the deaths of 300 million fewer animals annually (counting both field animals and cattle) than would a total vegan model. This difference, according to Davis, is mainly the result of fewer field animals killed in pasture and forage production than in the growing and harvest of grain, beans, and corn." [4]

That's IF we switch to ruminant-pasture. Nowhere is it said that everybody going vegan would kill less animals than our current model of food production. This is simply an arguement that a ruminant-pasture model would kill less animals than fully vegan one. Since we don't use a ruminant-pasture model, then wouldn't we kill less animals by going vegan? So there's an arguement for either going vegan or switching to a ruminant-pasture model. Still can't find anything about why it's right or wrong to eat meat. He does seem to imply that killing animals is wrong and we want to kill as few as possible. Secondly, his facts are questionable. Let's do the math: 1.8 billion animals killed from a fully vegan diet taking away the 300 million fewer killed annually according to his ruminant-pasture model leaves us with 1.5 billion animals, the total number that would be killed according to his model. 1.5 billion animals divided by 300 million people living in the US leaves us with 6 animals per person. So if we switch to ruminant-pasture farming and all eat 6 animals or less a year we'll kill less animals that if we all go vegan, according to his data. His agricultural model may make more sense than the one we have now but it doesn't mean it's right or wrong to eat meat. --Calibas 06:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Just stumbled across this page and find all the arguments fascinating. Anyway, the Davis argument seems relevant because it highlights potential problems with using the principle of least harm as a justification for not eating meat. Davis doesn't himself directly address whether it's right or wrong to eat meat, but if Singer and his philosophical basis is going to be mentioned, this argument would seem relevant.
I'm not sure what you're finding questionable. He's saying switching to a beef and dairy diet (utilizing the ruminant-pasture model) would minimize animal deaths. Six cows a year is a lot, and you would also have the dairy products. One steer can feed an average family for most of a year. link to calculate the meat on a cow I suppose the subtle point here is that in an ethical framework like in the minimize harm argument, a frog's death is equivalent to that of a cow. But killing one cow can feed a small family for a long time, while many frogs, etc., are killed in harvesting crops. --C S (Talk) 22:21, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
The part I find questionable is that his ruminant-pasture model is a purely hypothetical situation. As it currently stands we kill more animals for food than we do harvesting crops, so according to the least harm principle I should go vegetarian. Yes, a ruminant-pasture model would kill fewer animals, but that's not the way the world currently works.
I think the only part of his research that really applies to this page is the fact that our method of harvesting crops kills animals. --Calibas 02:46, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi again. Long time no see. Reading this again, I think you are missing a couple things. Lessening meat production would mean a corresponding increase in edible plant production. If we were to go completely vegetarian, Davis' research indicates we could conceivably be killing more animals than we are now. If your comment about "should go vegetarian" is based only on the current reality (rather than to encourage a future goal), it is not at all obvious that the number of animals killed for your vegetarian diet is less than the number of animals killed for someone who eats mainly a diet of beef and some plant. Of course it's hard to say, but it's hard to say either way. So it seems to me you want to believe that going vegetarian will harm fewer animals than say a beef diet, but it's not really a factual deduction like you are suggesting. --C S (talk) 22:00, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

yet another pro-meat argument

they do it to us all the time, so it is only fair that we do it too. (they probably find us yummy too, what with recidivist man-eaters). 5000 years ago, it is likely as many animals ate people as people ate animals. --ti 00:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Is that an ethical argument. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 01:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
could be construed as one on the lines of fairness and tit-for-tat and all that. --ti 01:17, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
This argument is essentially covered in Ethics_of_eating_meat#No_moral_responsibility.2C_no_rights, that section essentially says that since we do not expect animals to treat humans morally, they should not get any moral benefits either. Feel free to expand that section.--Hq3473 18:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
What about perpetuating the food chain? This has nothing to do with fairness or justice. It has to do with survival. Humans can choose to adopt different diets, but those who choose not to are simply following the natural order. Animals eat us all the time because they are driven to do so for survival. Taste is not the point either. --218.186.9.5 14:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Farming animals keeps them alive

Ahahaha. Is it me or is this section too funny. Large scale conversion to vegetarianism may put livestock "out of business" but wording it as "We eat them because we care for their survival" is just too funny. --Dodo bird 10:35, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget that cows cannot live in the wild, they are a purpose bred species that has no real place in nature. If we stop eating meat then who is going to pay to take care of them? HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Is that an ethical argument for eating meat? "Eating meat is ethical because if we stop eating meat, we have to spend a lot of money to keep the cows alive." Does it follow? Maybe you can word it to make more sense. It's similarly absurd if you argue from a species conservation point of view. "Eating meat is ethical because if we stop eating meat, the species die out?" It's so absurd that I wonder if any prominent non-nutcase pro meat person use this argument?
And we really should change "why eating meat is ethical" to "why eating meat is not unethical". They are not quite the same. --Dodo bird 17:16, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
But if we stop eating meat the species will die out. Practical concerns need to be taken into account in ethics. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 17:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Mode of death? Spontaneous internal combustion? If we stop eating meat, we won't have a commercial reason to breed them. But we will breed them for whatever reason that makes us (and you) not want them to die out.
I think the scope of the article goes beyond ethics of eating meat and we should farm out all the irrelevant information to related articles like Food, Meat, Veganism, Vegetarianism, Industrial agriculture, Taboo food and drink etc and make appropriate linkings. Alternatively we can find a more all encompassing article name like Animals as Food, add a bunch of info regarding animals as food(duh), borrowing from Food, Meat etc and having a section on ethical considerations. --Dodo bird 18:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Mode of death would be neglect, understand that domesticated animals are not capable of surviving without human help. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 18:29, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Neglect them, they die. Let's assume that is true. Does it follow that not eating meat leads to neglect and death for the meat species? --Dodo bird 18:55, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Umm, are you going to take care of the millions of cows the suddenly have no commercial value? Ya, if we don't eat the meat, they will probably have to be killed. The only reason they exist is for food, and without huge commercial support, the species cannot survive. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 18:57, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
The world is not going to turn vegetarian overnight. Supply change to meet demand. Demand dwindle, supply dwindle. But that is irrelevant. You answered yes by making the assumption that Man see no reason to keep them alive for research/biodiversity/our amusement etc, that Man will see no ethical issue in neglecting and letting them die after deciding that it is not ethical to eat meat. --Dodo bird 19:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
A few may survive for research/biodiversity/our amusement, but these species were created for food and are kept alive primarily for that purpose. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 20:29, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
So the species won't die out if we stop eating them. What happens to the "farming animals keeps them alive" argument then? --Dodo bird 21:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Just because an argument does not apply to a few animals in exceptional circumstances does not mean the argument is invalid, what about all the other animals not going to zoo's and research? HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 21:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
So the argument is about keeping alive not the species but individual animals? Lets assume they all die. Gasp. That wouldn't happen if everyone ate meat, would it?
Why don't we do this the easy way? Find a source for the argument or it goes. --Dodo bird 22:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Re: "But if we stop eating meat the species will die out." This is a different argument and article : The Ethics of Species Preservation. Species preservation is a different subject, possibly but not necessarily overlapping. It is entirely possible that someone could be concerned about the species dying out, and hate to eat/kill meat for food, and entirely possible as well to hate to eat/kill meat for food, and yet NOT care about species dying out. Skandha101 04:33, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Where all this arguments have come from?

Errr... guys... Where all this arguments have come from? What is the reason for them to be here? Personally, I think I can come up for much better arguments but as they are only mine I don't think they should be on Wikipedia (or should they?). If that's the case, then I'll gladly add some. --Taraborn 19:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

You are welcome to, if you cite them, you are also welcome to remove uncited information from the existing article. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 20:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh my...

Where is there proof of ANYTHING in here? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Migospia (talk • contribs) 01:54, 12 February 2007 (UTC).

The References section is how we verify the article. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 01:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Health Section

Whoever wrote the first line in the Health section didn't check the reference very carefully. It simply states that rats given extra choline have healthier brains. Choline is found in beef liver and egg yolk, but also in large amounts in soy, iceberg lettuce, peanuts and cauliflower.

The second line, about omega-3 fatty acids, fails to mention why some fish have such high levels of omega-3. It's because they eat plants high in omega-3. There's plenty of plants that have high levels of omega-3 fatty acids that humans have easy access to.

The B-12 section should be kept but it should mention that while you cant get B-12 from plants, you cant get it from animals either. B-12 only comes from bacteria. The brand of Kombucha I drink has bacteria colonies inside and, according to the FDA, has plenty of B-12. Plus, you can get B-12 from cheese, you dont need to eat meat.

The next part: "The belief that it is not healthy to abstain from meat, and that abstaining from meat during pregnancy could harm a child, could outweigh ethical consideration for animals." Duh. This really doesn't say anything and I'm curious as to who is making this arguement. This belief does outweigh the ethical consideration for many people who eat meat, but is the belief true?

Lastly, the part about soy. Even if soy was deadly poisonous, why would this make eating meat ethical? Cant I be a vegetarian and not eat soy?

Seems to me that this section is either an arguement for eating meat or a well balanced vegetarian diet. --Calibas 04:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Ecological Thermodynamics

I've edited this paragraph:

Biological thermodynamics demonstrates that regardless of the style of cultivation, animals being consumers in the ecological pyramid, are bound to transfer only around 10% of the nutrition and energy they consume to the next trophic level. The rest 90% energy is released into the ecosystem increasing its entropy, which has to be pumped out of the ecosystem to maintain internal order, or a condition of low entropy. To maintain order in any self-organizing dynamical system, like the Earth's ecosystem, energy must be expended to pump out disorder. Large-scale meat-eating generates a very large entropy overhead, and at the same time leaves the ecosystem with very little energy for pumping it out.

There is an important argument against meat-eating here, but this paragraph misses the point. The discussion of entropy is a red herring - the 90% of energy that isn't transfered directly up the ecological pyramid will find its way to microbes and the soil via decomposition. The paragraph implies that animals create some kind of entropy pollution, which is simply untrue. There is also a contradiction in the paragraph. First, it states that huge amounts of energy are released into ecosystems by animals, then it says that ecosystems are lacking in energy to deal with this.Rubisco 00:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

You are right. This point could be much better explained. Those additional plants and animals created by the meat industry are in addition to what the equilibrium state of the ecosystem supports. It doesn't matter whether the entropy is released into the system by microbial decomposition or human consumption. The fact that this potential for additional entropy is created by the meat industry is the problem. In its natural state, the ecosystem will not add to itself a zillion cows, pigs, hens, etc on such an intensive scale. Also, there is no contradiction regarding entropy being released by animals, and ecosystems lacking energy to pump out the additional entropy. If there is any confusion, this could be stated in more layman-like terms, but in terms of thermodynamics this is a completely sound argument. Of course, total energy of the universe is constant, and the energy we're getting from the sun is also more or less constant, but the point here is available or useful energy vs. entropy. You can read Gibbs free energy and Entropy and life to get a start into this topic. Even forests store solar energy, and trees too decompose, releasing entropy. But in a dynamical system like the ecosystem, stability crucially depends upon the time scales. If you replace a process with a frequency of 100 years (gradual storage of energy followed by gradual decay) with one with a frequency of few months (produce crops, feed animals, eat animals), control theory suggests that the dynamical system could easiliy become unstable. That's what this whole argument is about, and I'll try to explain it better in the article. deeptrivia (talk) 17:27, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I'd be most grateful if you could provide some references relating to this argument as it contradicts everything I know about thermodynamics. Thanks! Rubisco 18:27, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I would be able help better if you could point out some contradictions. Some references related to the relation between entropy, ecosystem stability, economic activity, etc, are: [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]. deeptrivia (talk) 22:54, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the links! They'll make interesting reading.Rubisco 01:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


Ok - this is clearer to me now. My background is in biochemical thermodynamics and it appears that what you're actually referring to is ecological entropy, which is different to the concept of entropy in formal thermodynamics. Ecological entropy is a measure of biodiversity - it's not really related to Gibbs Free Energy or any other thermodynamic measurments, although it does use some of the tools available in thermodynamics. Now that I'm clearer on the basis of the argument, I'm sure that between us we can rewrite this section. Rubisco 02:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Ethics of eating vegetables

There isn't an article on Ethics of eating vegetables, since they are life forms just like animals. People who value life and eat vegetables are ignoring that plants have lives too and don't want to be eaten. Wouldn't it be nice to create a kind of tablet in labs that contain all the energy and necessary nutrients one needs? In the future, people can just eat tablets to sustain themselves.--141.213.198.142 03:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

If you feel so strongly about it, why don't you go ahead and create that article? As long as you provide reliable sources, it should be fine... It would definitely be more useful than this kind of unhelpful comment. IronChris | (talk) 16:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the whole reason for fruit is so animals will eat them and scatter the seeds. So some plants actually DO want to be eaten. --Calibas 01:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Plants do NOT want to be eaten, just the fruits of some plants. Eating meat is like eating vegetables.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.213.198.142 (talk) 11:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC).
How do you know what a plant wants? As far as we know plants want to be eaten. With animals on the other hand, it's pretty obvious that they'd rather not be killed. Are you trying to make a valid arguement here or are you just calling vegetarians hypocrites? --Calibas 22:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
It's foolish if you believe any organism wants to be eaten. What's the point of living in that? Plants do not want to be killed just like their animal counterparts. The two are more alike than different. Saying eating meat is like eating vegetables is both a valid statement, and a rebuff towards those who believe one should not kill for their food. Plants are as much alive as anything else.--141.213.198.142 00:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Tapeworms would love for you to eat them. But seriously, desire (want) is a product of being conscious. Do you believe plants are conscious? There's evidence that animals are conscious but I've never heard anything about plants being conscious. Hence, plants have no wants, I was being facetious when I suggested they want to be eaten. If you want more ammo for your arguement, there's people called fruitarians that believe plants have rights. --Calibas 01:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I was not aware there was a significant movement questioning the ethics of eating vegetables that an article could be based off of. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 00:40, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, we have an article on the Flying Spaghetti Monster; I would not be surprised if we had one on the ethics of eating vegetables. The Jade Knight 01:39, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I immediately thought of Jainism, looked around, and saw that we do have a related article at Santhara. Dekimasuよ! 09:33, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
"Eating meat is like eating vegetables." I agree - the logic behind not eating animals because killing is wrong is simply not valid. If you eat a plant then you are still killing another living organism to sustain yourself. I think the only real difference is that plants are far enough away from humans on the evolutionary tree that people don't relate to them in the same way. It's an anthropocentric argument. I'm not an advocate for 'vegetable rights and peas' I just don't think that particular vegetarianism argument is valid. I think this point should at least be mentioned in the article, even if it's just a sentence or two. Gaz
Where does it say killing in general is wrong? All I see is the argument that killing animals is wrong because, unlike plants, they feel pain. --Calibas 02:25, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

That's a very valid argument. Kindly stay with me for a moment...

"In botany, a fruit is the ripened ovary—together with seeds—of a flowering plant. In many species, the fruit incorporates the ripened ovary and surrounding tissues. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants disseminate seeds", so that means plants and other animals (including us, humans) have an agreement (sth they call like Symbiosis?) that they create ovaries with seeds. We "need" ovary's energy etc and then in this way that plant gets its seeds (say its children) to different locations and thus propagate its species (the ultimate purpose of every, every living being?)- and that may not be too UNethical

But, what is the agreement with animals?

If we can answer this, I hope the dilemma can be solved to a considerable extent. It may appear that I am implicitly suggesting Vegetarianism. Pardon me, but that is not my objective here.

But, how much we ponder over it, and try to find a consistent understanding, it may lead away from Non-Vegetarianism

User:Calibas (just above) is right when they feel, "I think the only real difference is that plants are far enough away from humans on the evolutionary tree that people don't relate to them in the same way."

Animals suffer. It must be really painful.

(personal opinion) > Some things cannot change. But I personally choose not to kill (indirectly) an animal, a live animal, just for my taste. I choose to kill an animal, if I am lost in the forest and MY OWN SURVIVAL is in question...hmmm

I was a Non-Veg, but after being forwarded a YouTube video of cow slaughter, and then observing some others (it is painful. believe me, you can see in their eyes) I cried and firmly made up my mind never to have a factory worker kill someone, for the taste of the spices, that have been cooked with flesh. Kindly keep the discussion going.< --Nothing is free in this world 03:35, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Plants are able to heal, like humans and animals. they grow toward the sun, which is their life source. their roots stretch out to soak up water and nutrients. plants most certainly "want" to live. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.130.62.234 (talk) 16:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Nobody is arguing with you. Read the talk above and you will see that 1) this is the wrong page to be discussing the ethics of eating vegetables and 2)if you're keen on the idea, create such a page, with referencesBob98133 (talk) 16:35, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
She is drawing an analogy, so it's very much relevant. Read more carefully. --80.98.80.131 (talk) 13:24, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't follow you. Who is "she" and what is the analogy? Bob98133 (talk) 15:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Uncited statements

If no one objects, I'm going to come through in a while and delete all of the rebuttals that lack citations, or a "see [x]". The Jade Knight 01:43, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Thats fine by me. The way I see it, we are all part of the food chain, just on different levels of it. Do you think a lion or a shark would think twice about eating a human, in case it hurt our feelings? No, of course it wouldn't, we are just lunch, the same as a tasty bit of dead pig.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.15.9.155 (talk • contribs)

"Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views." I didn't know if I would be justified in removing your comment despite its irrelevance to this section, but, at the very least, it couldn't be allowed to stand unchallenged.Kyle Key 23:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

B12

"According to the US National Institutes of Health, refraining from eating meat leads to increased risk of developing Vitamin B-12 deficiencies." Can someone provide a reference for this statement? Everywhere I look on the NIH website says you're only at risk if you dont eat meat, dairy or eggs. [12][13][14] Here's an article on an NIH site claiming you can get B12 from fermented soy. [15] --Calibas 00:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The reference is actually the next cited reference (24). The Jade Knight 11:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Here's the text in particular: "Strict vegetarians and vegans are at greater risk of developing vitamin B12 deficiency than lacto-ovo vegetarians and nonvegetarians because natural food sources of vitamin B12 are limited to foods that come from animals [7]." The Jade Knight 11:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
That doesn't say "refraining from eating meat leads to increased risk of developing Vitamin B-12 deficiencies" that says you're only at risk if you dont eat meat, dairy or eggs. According to everything I can find on the NIH website, abstaining from meat doesn't lead to B12 deficiency. This article is about the ethics of eating meat. I can understand the arguement that it's ethical to eat meat because abstaining leads to vitamin deficiency, but, according to the NIH, this isn't the case with B12. I'm going to delete most of the section about B12 unless someone can provide a reference that you need to eat meat to have healthy levels of B12. The part about pregnant woman will be left in, but I think we should include the full results of that study: "In newborns and infants born to mothers with an adequate nutrition, there are consistent observations of low cobalamin, elevated tHcy and methylmalonic acid, and reduction of both metabolites by cobalamin supplementation. These data have raised the question whether cobalamin deficiency may be widespread and undetected in babies born to non-vegetarian women on a Westernized diet." --Calibas 21:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Definitions

One problem with this article is that the very discussions presented have been based on a vague and arbitrary set of terms. For instance, it is all very well to base arguments on sentience and on the definition of sentience as per a single book, but that undermines the scope of the article from the start. There are no reasons cited as to why this would be a valid starting point, or why one should exclude arguements based on anything else. Also terms such as pleasure and pain are inherently vague and open to interpretation. When an arguement is made based on the ability of a being to experience either, it is vital that a clear definition of pleasure or pain be adopted. consider my addition of the reference to JC Bose; he interpretted the violent electrochemical changes in plant physiology caused by physical mutilation as an experience of pain. There can be no 'proof' or 'disproof' of this experience, as it is entirely a matter of definition. we must be careful tat ethical arguements donot become arguements of definition. People should not use this article as a place to haggle over words. So when making an arguement state clearly the definitions that go with a particular belief, and for god's sake don't generalize those definitions as being supreme or the Chosen One or anything like that.Leopart 10:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Rebuttal for Animal Pain

I removed the first rebuttal because it made unfounded claims that were not reflected in the websites sited. It claimed that conclusive proof has been found that animals do feel pain. The articles sited explicitly stated that animal can experience nocioception but human pain also involved an emotional element which may or may not exist in animals. Rafiqr 03:37, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Major deletions

The largest problem with this article is the format. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia not a high school debate. We could combine it all together into a regular article but I doubt anybody wants to do all that work. Luckily, most of the page violates one of Wikipedia's basic policies, Wikipedia:No original research. Specifically, the part about no original analysis or synthesis of established facts. I'll go through every section and explain the problems.

  • Scope It's well referenced except for the main point of the section which is: "While some see no problems with this level of production and consumption of animals for food, others view it as one of the most pressing ethical issues facing humanity." Who is saying this? Without references we're gonna have to assume that this is the conclusion of the editor.
  • Eating meat is like eating vegetables Same as above, states one widely accepted fact then proceeds to draw conclusions based on that.
  • Eating meat is a natural behaviour "Some argue that because meat eating is a natural or traditional behaviour, in some cases necessary for survival, it is excluded from ethical consideration" Who argues this? Yes, the rest of the section is well referenced but has nothing to do with ethics without this main point.
  • Animals feel no pain This has a lot to do with the argument if animals are conscious or not. This is the strongest ethical argument for eating meat, which happens to be what this article is about, yet it's also one of the shortest. Doesn't exactly explain why it's ethical to kill something because it doesn't feel pain or isn't conscious but I'm willing to let that slide.
  • Saying sorry to animals justifies killing them The basic premise is also the title of this section. Who is arguing this point?
  • Overpopulation No ethical argument at all here.
  • Animals have no morals This connects to the argument about whether animals are conscious or not. No references, gonna have to assume it's orginal research.
  • Health Who's arguing that it's ethical to eat animals because these studies show it's healthier? It's implied but not expilictly stated, as an encyclodic article should be.
  • Necessity Who's arguing that necessity makes something ethical?
  • Farming plants harms animals This is basically a rebuttal to the least harm principle of Peter Singer and should be combined with that.
  • Farming animals keeps them alive References and it has to do with ethics, a rare thing in this article.
  • As humans, we should protect only human interests No references, gonna have to assume it's original research.

I'm out of time but I'll be back to take an axe to the rest of the article. I'll add {{Fact}} tags to the things I mentioned here and post the problems with the rest of the artictle. I'll wait about a week for discussion before I start deleting and shortly after that I'll get rid of the argument/rebuttal format. --Calibas 02:10, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

    • That's great Calibas, well done. I agree with all your proposed changes. Hopefully other people will too :) --Greenwoodtree 05:50, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Information lost before stubified

For reference, the page before it lost 90% of its content is here. Some of the info was good and should be re-added, but ONLY if references are sourced. Good luck to whomever takes on that little project... — Eric Herboso 03:39, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Reworking this page

Please do not revert this page to it's pre-stub status, it was nominated for deletion and the decision was to stubify. The old page reads like a high school debate. It's got good info sporadicly but much of it is original research. If you want to take the well referenced parts and put them into this article feel free but do not bring back the point-counterpoint format. --Calibas 22:59, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not letting this page go back to the screwed up mess it used to be! To the editors currently working on this page, provide references for the information you add or it's probably going to be deleted. I highly recommend reading WP:NOR and WP:RS, if you haven't read those you probably shouldn't be editing Wikipedia. --Calibas 23:45, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

This page is far too short

I came to this page because I was honestly curious about the ethical arguments for and against eating meat, but was surprised to see the article is barely more than a stub, most of which does not even discuss the ethics of the issue (the only relevant sentence is: "Reasons for objecting to the practice of killing may include a belief in animal rights, environmental ethics, or an aversion to inflicting pain or harm on other living creatures due to conscience."). I am sure a reliably sourced article can be written that would provide an in-depth analysis of why some people feel it is wrong to eat meat, and why others disagree. I hope someone will expand this article so it covers some of the actual ethical debates over this issue, rather than just saying 'some people do this. some people do that'. Terraxos 19:54, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

As an example of how this page should probably look, compare Existence of God, another article about a widely debated philosophical issue, which contains 'arguments for', 'arguments against' (both sourced), and an attempt at a conclusion. It's not perfect, but it seems like a reasonable standard to aim for. Terraxos 20:01, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
This article was made into a stub because of constant edit warring and original research posts, if someone feels like they can re-work the old page with NPOV and with no original research(particularly with no aggregation of published sources to make a new point) they can go ahead. The old version is here [16].--Hq3473 15:04, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the for and against format should be used on this page. I really only see a few arguments here. Mainly, is it right to cause animals pain? (Cause least harm, Animals have feelings and can suffer, Animals have a lower level of consciousness, Animal suffering is not required to getting meat) is it in humans best interest to eat meat? (Damage to the environment, Eating meat is a natural behaviour, Health) and is life sacred? (Sanctity of life). I think we should focus the article on these mains points as these are the underlying ethical questions. Otherwise people will keep adding topics like "Animals have feelings and can suffer" and "Animals have a lower level of consciousness" which are scientific topics, not an ethical ones. --Calibas 03:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Picture of Pork Knuckle

Is this picture really necessary? This encyclopedia is supposed to be neutral but it seems that the picture is there soley to disgust the viewer and make him/her sympathize with the cause. I agree with the poster a few sections above. This article seems to be more pro-vegan than neutral. I propose that the image be deleted as it seems to favor non-meat eating and is quite biased.--_ BaRiMzI _ 05:42, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I will second that. The picture definitely has too high a gross out factor to be really neutral, the "cows in the stockyard" picture that we had before was better. --Daniel J. Leivick 05:46, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Presuming the picture can be found, can the change be made or should we wait for more opinions?--_ BaRiMzI _ 05:50, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
What's wrong with that picture? It's a picture of what meat looks like fresh off the animal before they cut the skin off. Saying it's disgusting seems pro-vegetarian to me, like there's something inherently wrong with killing the animal. --Calibas 04:31, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Be that as it may, I eat meat. So the pro-vegetarian argument just doesn't work. Ironically enough, my argument for removing the image would be that it may sway those with weaker stomaches to choose to no longer eat meat.--_ BaRiMzI _ 01:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

This is an article on ethics

Much of this article has nothing to do with ethics. In fact, ethics is a branch of philosophy and only two philosophers are even mentioned. I'm going to delete the following sections unless someone fixes this problem:

Animals have feelings and can suffer - why is it wrong to eat meat because of this and who is arguing this point?

Damage to the environment - why is it wrong to eat meat because of this and who is arguing this point?

Eating meat is a natural behaviour - why is it right to eat meat because of this and who is arguing this point?

Animals have a lower level of consciousness - why is it right to eat meat because of this and who is arguing this point?

Health - why is it right to eat meat because of this and who is arguing this point?

Animal suffering is not required to getting meat - why is it right to eat meat because of this and who is arguing this point?

It may seem that I'm picking on the pro-meat arguments but none of those are ethical arguments. I haven't been able to find any recent philosophers that argue it's ethical to eat meat. As far as I can tell, the ethics are based on religious doctrine and Descartes idea that animals lack consciousness. This page has some good info [17]. Wikipedia is not a message board for editors to voice their opinions, so there may be heavy deletions soon. --Calibas 00:23, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was just surfing by and thought I'd add my half-pence, if I may -- in the spirit of possibly improving this article, but not wanting to cause any contention. (Since this article is way off course for me in my wee wiki-realm, I won't directly edit it myself.)
In regards to the first item, Animals have feelings and can suffer: Animal sentience is the cornerstone of both utilitarian (e.g., Peter Singer) and even rightists (e.g., Tom Regan) animal ethics. The basic pro-animal (or "pro-veg*an", etc.) stance is that non-human animals -- like human animals -- are capable of suffering and that, in regards to basic ethical judgments, the animal-human boundary does not matter (or at least does not matter as much as we think it does -- I vaguely recall that Regan explicitly extends the boundary to all mammals in "The Case for Animals Rights" and I even more vaguely recall somewhere Singer's drawing the line at crustaceans). Sooo, if someone is inclined to keep the first item in, I'd recommend they do some digging among these seminal pro-animal philosophers' works. Just my half-pence.
Sorry if I somehow missed the point and am just wasting wiki-bytes. Best wishes, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 02:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree that it's important to remember that the article is not about carnivorousness in general, or vegetarianism in general, but is specifically about the ethical issues around meat eating. Perhaps it would be better to retitle the article "Ethics of humans eating meat", since other animals presumably do not worry about the ethics of their meat consumption. Right now the article is still being used as a bit of a conversation pit - everyone seems to want to make a point on one side or the other. I am a meat-eater who has read Singer's arguments about how it is not ethical for humans to eat meat for any reason other than dire necessity, and I happen to believe that he is right, or at least I have never read a coherent counter-argument. The unpleasant truth is that I eat meat because I can get away with it. I don't know of any good arguments for why it's ethical for humans to eat meat the way we eat it at present, and if that happens to be the state of the debate then that's what the article should reflect. WP:NPOV does not mean that discredited pro-meat-eating arguments should be presented as though they haven't been discredited, but what we need is for someone who has a really good acquaintance with the literature on the subject to provide proper citations for who has made the arguments and who, if any, has made the counter-arguments. This is a case where it's not up to us to decide the issue. All we can do is summarise the current state of the controversy. Lexo (talk) 12:07, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Please include those information......

Braithwaite, V. A.; P. Boulcott. Pain perception, aversion and fear in fish http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=565752

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=565752

Since my fish information in the article has been deleted without any reason, I leave these fish sensitive contents with you guys

These links are not to articles about "Pain perception, aversion and fear in fish" but to articles about the relationship between fish consumption in humans and physical health, apparently. They are not relevant to this article. Maybe the links have changed. Lexo (talk) 12:10, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Environmental ethics and meat-eating

Environmental ethics forms a major part of discourse on ethics of meat eating due to (a) ecological implications of meat eating and (b) relevance of environmental ethics concepts like anthropocentrism and speciesism in the context of meat-eating. This article currently talks about ethics mostly from an animal rights perspective, and is therefore very seriously incomplete. deeptrivia (talk) 02:12, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Weasel wording

I cleaned up the opening paragraph a bit, per WP:WEASEL. I'll keep an eye out for other sections. 74.242.103.167 13:15, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality of opening image

Since the article is focused on ethics regarding the consumption of meat, I don't feel it's safe to include an image of burgers on a grill. This more or less gives the article a pro-stance toward the issue. I'm not really sure how the image is necessary at all. 74.242.103.167 13:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Well I'm not sure why we need an image at all except for purely aesthetic purposes, however I do think the picture is about as neutral as we are going to get. It is a picture of meat that is going to be eaten in an article about ethics of eating meat. It also is neither really appetizing nor a gross out image from a slaughter house. I don't see too big a problem an additional image of live cows at a stock yard or something would probably be ok in addition as long as it wasn't too gross. --Daniel J. Leivick 16:45, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I can't think of anything more neutral than showing what actually happens in a slaughterhouse. If people are offended by the truth it's their own fault (guilt?). Calibas 22:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Not true. One slaughterhouse is not representative of the way all animals are killed for consumption. Animals can be killed by hand on the farm, hunted, trapped etc. etc. The article is not called "the ethics of killing animals in a modern slaughterhouse", the article is called "the ethics of eating meat", thus trying to represent a complex issue with a picture of a much narrower event is not necessarily neutral. --Hq3473 04:04, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, slaughterhouses are only represent what, like 90% of the animals killed? You don't really think a significant number are "killed by hand on the farm, hunted, trapped etc. etc." do you?
If you read through the article you'll notice most of the arguments center around whether it's right or wrong to kill the animals. I think it's fairly obvious how to illustrate this neutrally. If you can find pictures of an animal "killed by hand on the farm, hunted, trapped etc." I wouldn't protest to showing that instead. I'd even be all for putting something like the image to the right at the top of the article. Calibas 05:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Certainly it is obvious that majority of argument against eating meat is that to get eat meat you need to kill an animal. Still that does not necessarily equate the issue of eating meet with the issue of modern slaughtering techniques. All i am saying is that a slaughterhouse image can be non-neutral. For example compare and contrast:
File:CattleRestrainedForSlaughter.jpg

Do you really think that both images are "neutral"? One seeks to romanticize hunting, another to condemn modern slaughter techniques. All I am suggesting that each picture should be discussed for neutrality before insertion into his article.--Hq3473 12:24, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

How does that picture condemn modern slaughterhouse techniques? That is the most humane technique they use, they actually strap the animal down before killing it, just like we do with humans. Neutral doesn't mean inoffensive, but I'm willing to compromise, your second picture has my vote. Calibas 03:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Move?

Perhaps this should be moved to something a bit broader, for example ethics of vegetarianism and veganism or something like that? Richard001 03:08, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The topics here (mostly) center on the ethics of eating meat, mostly on the fact we have to kill things to get their meat. The ethics of vegetarianism and veganism, relies on whether it's right/wrong to eat meat. I think we should keep it the way it is. Calibas 03:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
The ethics of eating meat and the ethics of vegetarianism are the same thing. The only extension would be talking about the ethics of veganism, which are themselves only an extension of the economic/environmental aspects of vegetarianism. Ethics and right/wrong are the same thing, and if this article only focuses on the killing of things it should change its title to something more narrow, not that it should be so narrow in the first place. Thus, I see no reason not to move this. Richard001 (talk) 08:04, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Simply having ethical concerns over eating meat doesn't make you a vegetarian, so the two aren't the same thing. While they overlap, the ethics of eating meat and the ethics of vegetarianism are different topics. Objections to the way animals are treated can be a reason for becoming vegetarian but doesn't necessarily have anything to do with vegetarianism. The demand for humanely treated meat is evidence of this. The main issue with the ethics of eating meat is that you have to kill a living animal to get the meat you're eating. This is the point almost every ethical argument revolves around, so it's mentioned quite often. If you wanted to move the arguments to ethics of killing animals, I wouldn't complain. Calibas (talk) 03:04, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
An article about the ethics of vegetarianism would be about the debate over whether or not it is ethical to not eat meat. This article is about the debate over whether or not it is ethical to eat meat. I don't think it should be moved, although I do think that this article is on a somewhat hotter topic. Lexo (talk) 12:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

"Don't model your actions of animals"

"Vegetarians and vegans usually respond to the first argument that many natural behaviors of animals would be appalling if exhibited by humans, for example, rape, intra-species killing (what we call murder), and cannibalism."

I'd like to see a source or study that shows that animals rape and murder (for reasons other then defence or food).

The whole section which this quote comes from is really biased imho (apart from the last paragraph) this needs some serious fixing. Gelsamel 09:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

First, this is a valid argument. It's countering the previous sentence which says "meat eating is a natural behavior (other animals eat meat)". It simply points out that it's normal for some animals to kill/rape/eat their own species. Most humans frown upon these types of behaviors, even if they are for, as you said, defense or food.
Second, the sources for this argument violate WP:RS, feel free to remove it. Calibas 00:01, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
This rebuttal is a reductive fallacy. Obviously there is an acceptable mid ground of nature vs. morality that this argument ignores. Nobody is condoning rape or murder here - as well as torturing or unnecessary suffering of animals, so drop it. Human beings are omnivores and while you can take a philosophical stance on your diet you cannot rationally argue that it is inhumane to eat meat. Predation is very much a part of the human experience and without it we certainly would not be where we are today. Human beings are animals and to imply that our nature is "unnatural" is absurd, just as it is to imply that a bird building a nest is absurd. In our modern world it is possible to have a totally vegan diet but that decision should be a personal one not a legislative one. The argument from human nature never implied that we should model our behavior after animals, only that people should be honest about what we really are - omnivores.--24.15.235.157 (talk) 17:54, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Though humans don't generally want to agree with this rape is very common and in some cases part of our nature. Rape is horrible however. But when it comes to animals there's a big picture that people generally forget or don't realize. The majority of female animals do not feel sexual pleasure and rape in the animal kingdom really is different then what it is in humanity.Aml51z (talk) 20:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I read an account once (I think it was in Eugene Marais) of a human woman being sexually assaulted by a baboon. The thing is that categories like "rape" and "murder" are not applicable to animals because they imply legality/illegality - rape is having sex with someone without that person's legal consent and murder is killing someone without having the legal authority to do so. Animals don't have legal codes of their own, so when animals (as sometimes happens) kill more animals than they can eat, or sexually assault other animals of the same species (for reasons to do with intra-group hierarchy), you can't call it "murder" or "rape". Animals sometimes have other motives than just defence or hunger. Lexo (talk) 12:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Humans - meat or not?

I think that talking about humans as meat is a bit distracting in this article, but I also think that a mention, as in the most recent version, is appropriate, particularly since it is included in a list of animals that some people don't eat. Maybe it should have a wiki-link to canibalism?Bob98133 13:29, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's distracting and seriously bothers some people (I've lost count of how many times it's been removed) but it's essential for an article on the ethics of eating meat. I included it to show that nearly everyone has taboos about eating meat. I've been thinking about adding a brief section summarizing the ethics surrounding cannibalism with a link to the main cannibalism article but haven't gotten around to it yet. Calibas 23:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Personally i've removed it once as i do think it's distracting and comparing a carnivore/omnivore diet with canibalism is very POV and mearly tries to promote a reaction by association.
The vast majority of animals will not hunt/kill members of their own species for food, as species rather then individual survival is what shapes behaviour. I think it's obvious that aversion to canibalism goes much more deeply then simply a "social" tabu and it should be discussed in a different article altogether.
This article and the opening paragraph talks about *animal* meat, and while technically we're animals, when talking about animal welfare, animal rights, etc.. it obviously refers to species other then us.
I'll rewrite it to separate human from animal discussion clearly.--Helixdq 19:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
You got me, one of my reasons for including it for the shock value. Many people are very bothered when reminded they're made out of the same kind of flesh as their hamburgers. Still, my main motive was to widen people's perspectives. By your admission it's distracting which probably means there's some strong ethical issues so we should probably include it somewhere.
The main problem is the word animal. I believe in evolution so to me this includes humans, for you I guess it doesn't. Maybe we should clear this up in the introduction since if we include humans then damn near everybody has cultural taboos about eating animals. Calibas 00:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I respect your opinion, but wikipedia is not the place to promote ideeas and make points, and the language should be as neutral as people holding different strong opinions can manage to make it. I didn't delete the human reference i just separated it and feel free to expand on it if you think it's needed, although i think it's better if we have a link to the canibalism article and maybe work on the ethics involved there.
I too belive in evolution but i think that it's clear that the term animal in common language is very often used to mean non-human animal (as in Animal rights, Animal welfare, etc..). It's common for words to have context-sensitive meaning, i don't think there is any contradiction.--Helixdq 10:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Photo suggestions

  • for section "Treatment of Animals", because the shiny metal cages do not represent ALL the animals
  • Remember this is not an article on "Ethics of treating animals badly", this is an article on "Ethics of eating meat." Treatment of animals is only of tangential importance. Thus the picture should not appeal to people's emotion by saying: "Animals are treated badly -- therefore meat should not be eaten", the real question here is why should not humans eat animals that are treated well?--Hq3473 22:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I think the current pictures are poignant and "NPOV", let's try to prevent an edit war. Calibas 05:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Food for thought

Two simple scenarios that tend to be ignored:

- as stated a couple of sections earlier, most species used for the production of meat only exist because they were artificially selected for that purpose (same with milk and eggs -- dairy cows tend to produce more milk than they could naturally utilise and may even suffer if left un-milked). These species are mostly incapable of surviving in the wild because they've been domesticated for centuries or even millenia. Not only would the species probably die out, the individuals that are alive to die in the meat production wouldn't be alive without the meat industry needing them -- this poses an interesting (and I do mean, interesting) consideration about cost and benefit for the individual (what is the proportion of the suffering the individual experiences in its life in comparison to its gain of being alive in the first place -- this doubles as a consideration for abortion decisions).

- what if meat production wouldn't require the killing of actual animals? Imagine a cow that would quickly recover severed flesh, was born and raised in a laboratory (i.e. no impact on relatives) and is incapable of experiencing pain (genetic manipulation to deactivate the specific nervous subsystems). Or if that grosses you out too much, let's remove the sentience from the equation and imagine a lump of bovine flesh that grows (like a cancer), supplied by a laboratory rather than a sentient creature's body -- i.e. what about artificially produced flesh (much like artificially produced skin): how do we argue against that?

Lastly, and this is more of a transitional argument, we could even take into consideration the universal cost and benefit of meat production. Certainly humans benefit from eating meat (certain nutrients can not be found in the local fauna in the appropriate doses -- let's ignore artificial supplements here for sanity's sake) and animals suffer from being killed or having a close relative/mate/acquaintance killed. But what is the equilibrium if we take into consideration the overall benefits and costs (read: suffering)? I'm pretty sure we would arrive at some point above total zero -- no sane person would argue, taking our anatomy and genetic history into consideration, that we used to eat meat in the past and obviously gained enough benefits from it to justify developing specialised organs and teeth for the purpose (or less specialised herbivore gear), so the problem (in terms of health) is most likely not that we eat meat, but the amount of meat we eat (a hunter/gather community would most likely not rely on meat as the main resource, but it would do well utilising it whenever possible).

i.e. it's not that we weren't built to eat meat, we probably just eat way too much and too little vegetables. Just as we were never meant to eat candy all day, although we are fond of sugary sweetness for obvious health benefits (ripe fruit being sweet and all that).

But back to the main points -- what are the ethical arguments against meat if animal breeding/killing were taken out of the equation? And how much ethical wrong would the killing cause if the lifetime enjoyment of animals used in the meat production were improved and the killing were made less uncomfortable? -- 62.143.101.71 (talk) 11:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Why does this page exist?

Um... Why does this page exist? This page is patently not about "the ethics of eating meat", but is rather a page dedicated to giving adamant vegetarians and omnivores a place to square off. Is the debate between vegetarians and others so heated that eating meat must now be justified? Likewise, considering that humans have been eating meat throughout our existence and only in the past 6000 years developed an agricultural diet, shouldn't the title of the article be focused on the ethics or reasons why individuals engage in a vegetarian diet? This entire topic seems absolutely ridiculous. 164.67.226.47 12:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I quite agree, this isn't an encyclopedia article - it reads like the transcript from a debate.Rubisco 13:58, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I think very few of the editors even both to read the talk page, why bother when all the arguing is done on the main page? 2/3rds of the article is original research and though ethics is a branch of philosophy, I can only find one philosopher mentioned in the article, Peter Singer. I think we should delete about 80% of the article and get rid of the whole point/counterpoint formatt. --Calibas 01:44, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


Yes, I think the format has to be changed, but I don't quite agree with your suggestion, 164.67.226.47 - the topic should remain two-sided; we are not absolutely certain about our history, and for some the eating of meat is questionable; for others vegetarianism - it's a controversial topic. I wonder how best to change the format/make it more concise without making the article one-sided?

--Greenwoodtree 00:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I've suggested this before but haven't bothered to take the time to put it all together. Just make it like most other wikipedia articles, have a section on health, religious views, etc. and combine everything together. There's not very much information here that isn't either original research or editor's opinions so most of it can be deleted. One of the big problems is making this page "balanced" as there's not much about the ethics of eating meat other than the writings of people like Peter Singer. Feel free to take an axe to the page, I don't think there's an editor here that likes the page the way it is. --Calibas 23:54, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I've added a "consider for deletion" template so everyone can consider. Is this OK? --Greenwoodtree 08:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Though the page is in rough shape we shouldn't delete the whole thing, just most of it. --Calibas 00:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I concur. In the past, I avocated the deletion of this article and the moving any specific topics to the appropriate wiki article. It's not an encyclopediatic article or topic. This is a philosophical point and not a factual topic by its own right. It just isn't a factual discussion, even with sources, because those sources were being used to make a point (original research). Fcsuper 19:41, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree completely. If the sources show actual arguments made by philosophers on both sides of the issue, then this page may serve as a guide to the arguments for and against this philosophical position. That is NOT original research. As it was written previously, it was OR, but as soon as it is rewritten with sources, it will not be.
Keep in mind that putting that information on any other page would take up significant space, and would need to be moved to its own page eventually. And it is encyclopedic, the same way a description of the arguments for any philosophical position would be. It deserves its own page. — Eric Herboso 19:52, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Eric, even Britanica doesn't have topics for discussion. It presents facts in article format. If there are differing viewpoints, then it breaks those out into separate titled sections. But it does not discuss the topic! This "ethics of eating meat" is a discussion of a topic! It is not a finite topic by its own right. The topic is Human Carnivorism, not the ethics of such. If the desire by this community is to make this article topic Human Carnivorism, I will be in favor of that. Of course, that would fall under Human Diet, and not be its own article. Either way, the current topic is a discussion of ethics, it is certainly not an encyclopedic topic. It's akin to original research, no matter how many POV's covered or sources are sited. Using sources to conduct original reseach does not remove the fact that it is still original reseach. For example, if someone is trying to pump a NASDAQ stock on TV, they can site a million sources to show why their stock is great, but in the end of the day, its still simple pumping of just another stock. What's going on with "ethics of meat eating" is that it is a viewpoint on a topic being pumped (doesn't matter if that view is taking the pro or con) Fcsuper 20:25, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

obviously, this page hits home with the editor's. I'm not quite sure which way, but I'm grateful nonetheless for this page and the first page. There's enough to get you thinking, at least, and to show that the topic is not quite finished yet. I think the philosopher's thought are most relevant, and perhaps other theological perspectives, but this topic comes from them for them. -Caramelizeme —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.235.38.47 (talk) 02:32, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Opening line?

While a great majority of people have no ethical objections to eating certain types of animal meat, some object to the act of killing and eating an animal and/or the agricultural practices surrounding the production of meat.

I disagree with that statement. Every person I know who eats meat, myself included, have an ethical objection to it. There's no excuse for eating meat, not even dietary. It's a culturally imposed thing from fifty years of meat industry brainwashing. I think it'd be safer to say that people with lower educations may not have ethical objections, yet people with average or above average educations and intelligence appreciate the situation more thoroughly and understand it's not a viable long term food source, especially with it's impact on global warming.

As a meat eater, I downright object to the concept that 'a great majority of people' have no ethical objections and think that's selling meat eaters short as ignorant, heartless idiots. We're just caught in a paradox. Jachin (talk) 11:07, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Most meat-eaters don't have ethical concerns about eating meat. They may object to how animals are treated in slaughterhouses but that doesn't mean they have ethical concerns about actually eating meat, at least of animals of much lower consciousness than humans. Bobisbob (talk) 20:43, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Most meat-eaters do have ethical concerns about eating meat. Jews and Muslims believe eating pork is against the will of God and Muslims only eat meat killed in God's name. Most Hindus refrain from eating beef while Buddhists refrained from eating meat killed specifically for them. Here in the U.S. horse and dog meat is taboo and how many people eat rat meat, or raw meat? This article is on the ethics of eating meat and, as I hope I've proven to you, the majority of people have some ethical objections to animal meat. This is obviously a very touchy subject, evidence of numerous ethical issues. Calibas (talk) 06:19, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that out, however the opening does say that most meat-eaters have no ethical concerns about eating certain types of animal meat. Also, I am pretty sure people don't eat rat meat because of the rat's reputation as being a dirty animal not because they think it's immoral to eat rat meat. I don't know about horses and dogs though, I guess you have a point. Bobisbob (talk) 16:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the perfect way to say this would be this: "While XX%(Insert relevant statistic) of the world population eat a least some types of animal meat, some object to the act of killing and eating of all animals and the agricultural practices surrounding the production of meat." This ways we stick to the facts. BTW can anyone get a statistic on world meat eaters v. vegetarians? --Hq3473 (talk) 18:53, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
That wouldn't work for this article either. We should stick to keeping it about ethics. To say something like that implies that people who eat meat dont have ethical concerns about it, like they said in above comments. Okiefromokla's sockpuppet/talk 03:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I removed it for the time being until something better can be entered. It was just a ridiculous thing to say. Okiefromokla's sockpuppet/talk 01:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Good source here...

This article is very narrow and in sore need of work, so take a look at this: [18] - it's a peta website but it cites sources, which we can use. And there are a lot of them. I stumbled across it and it can provide much information about objections to eating meat that stem from enviornmental, economical, and moral issues regarding the mental and emotional abilities of animals (all documented, as we don't want pure peta rantings). It diserves some serious picking apart so we can actually have some well sourced information. Just one example: according to the website, "A major 2006 report by the United Nations ... said raising animals for food is one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." The actual report, written by the Livestock, Enviornment, and Development Initiative is actually an effort "supported" by the United Nations, the European Union, and several other U.S and world government organizations, but the peta website quoted correctly:[19] (big file, high bandwidth necessary) Okiefromokla's sockpuppet/talk 03:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Treatment of Animals

What has this section has to do with Ethics of eating meat? Taken at face value the argument is: "we should not eat meat because animals are treated badly" so doe sit follow that "if animals are treated well it is OK to eat meat?" The argument seems to be pointed at "ethic of treating animals" NOT at Ethics of eating meat. I suggest removing the whole section.--Hq3473 (talk) 20:44, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

This is one of the key points of the ethics of eating meat, as mentioned in the introduction. Meat comes from animals (obviously) so the treatment of the animals factors into the ethics of eating meat. In fact, the treatment of animals is one of the biggest pro-vegetarian arguments, removing it would be gutting this article. I don't think theres a single ethic that stands alone, simply because this article relies on another ethic doesn't mean there's something wrong with it. Calibas (talk) 01:02, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
In that case we need to add to that section the claim from introduction that:"Some people eat only the flesh of animals who have not been mistreated", but with sources.--Hq3473 (talk) 14:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

An anarchoprimitivist's point of view

I can certainly see why vegetarians would be opposed to raising animals on farms just for the purpose of being slaughtered and shipped to stores to be bought and eaten. But I wonder what they would think upon meeting somebody who does not depend on the market system for food, but rather attains all of his food by the power of his own abilities; A person who must hunt and trap animals for survival but has great respect for the animals he kills. This person uses every part of the animal, the meat, skin, bones, not a thing is wasted. It would be impossible for him to be a vegetarian, as no one ecosystem on earth has enough variety of vegetation to support a healthy human being (a male anyway.) would a vegetarian or vegan view this as wrong? on the other hand, these vegetarians and vegans depend on technology for their survival. If they didn't have the boats and trucks that bring over exotic fruits and vegetables, they would die. If they didn't have the years of scientifc research into the nutritional value of the world's vegetation, they would not be able to maintain the carefully monitered diet that keeps them alive. I get very tired of vegetarians talking about how "natural" their diet is. I think they should go into the woods and see how long they can live off of the plants they can find. Vegetarians are not seperate from the rest of the masses of humanity that are destroying the earth with their dependance on technology. It is ridiculous to think that something the entirety of humanity has been doing since the beginning of time is unnatural. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.130.62.234 (talk) 16:45, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

If you have references for any part of your comments, for example that male humans require more meat than female humans, that would be welcome in the appropriate article, whatever that might be. Otherwise, this page is not to discuss your views, but rather to discuss the article. It might be a good idea to register as an editor if you plan to edit wiki.Bob98133 (talk) 16:54, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

"It is ridiculous to think that something the entirety of humanity has been doing since the beginning of time is unnatural." It certianly would be, but this is supposed to be about the ethics of meat not if it is natural or not. they are not the same thing! [[20]] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.134.168.114 (talk) 21:16, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

The point about hunting and eating all of the parts is a good point. However, there is a reference to Peter Singer who says that if you can avoid killing then you should. I believe the ethics of eating meat is a decent article as the introduction states that some people do not eat meat because of moral reason, health, or the conditions in which the animal had to live through. This means some current vegetatarians wouldnt eat meat in the forest because they are against killing, and some would because there isn't mass cruelty and slaughter. This distinction is made in the article and thus passes for neutrality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.3.141.9 (talk) 18:38, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Images of meat in the article

Although I am speaking as a vegetarian here, I think the images of raw meat, etc. in the article are at best distracting. I don't see what including pictures of dead animals has to contribute to an article about an ethical debate that is inclined to draw readers who are *against* eating meat and who consequently wouldn't like to see those images. If I come to read an article about an ethical issue, I don't expect to have to try to exclude the images from my view because I find them disgusting. This makes the article far less readable, while contributing absolutely nothing to its value or aesthetics. Before other people jump at me for simply pushing my own viewpoint about the images being unappealing, I would like to say that the images are detrimental to the article not because I personally dislike them, but because they're not neutral. If you include an image that could potentially offend or put off one party that participates in the argument, you're to some extent limiting the ability of the article to be edited to correct for mischaracterization of pro-veg views, which in my opinion constitutes bias. In short: putting images that are redundant into an article not dealing with a specific viewpoint (opposed to e.g. graphs of resource consumption of different agricultural techniques) that succeed in putting off one party to the argument are inherently biased and should be removed. - Space Dracula (talk) 02:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree pictures are wholly unnecessary in this article. For example the article Ethics contains no pictures and it is doing just fine. Since it is impossible to picture an abstract term like "ethics" much less "ethics of eating meat" the pictures do not add value at best and appeal to emotion at worst.--Hq3473 (talk) 01:22, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Since there has been no opposition to the suggestion i will be removing all pictures shortly.--Hq3473 (talk) 16:47, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
So, the article on Jesus shouldn't have pictures, because I find religious depictions disgusting? Or what about woman that uses a picture of a naked woman? There exist people who find the image disgusting, and thus they would be put off from reading that article? More so, homosexuality has pictures of images of men, and/or women in sexual provocative poses with members of their own sex. I know a large number of conservative people, who would find that fundamentally disgusting. Even more disturbing and perhaps over even this article, The Holocaust has pictures of children abused in Auschwitz. Your argument is specious, and is driven by a desire to present only one view, or at least a cleaned up version that doesn't deal with the gorey details of meat. Some of us humans eat meat, and we kill them, and we cook them, and we take pictures of them. To not represent meat in this article by pictures is stupid... as is excluding pictures of what the animals look like alive. The target audience for this article is the fair, and neutral observer to the argument, not people who just want to come here and rant about how eating meat is wrong. --Puellanivis (talk) 22:15, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Your examples are misleading, We can extrapolate or guess what Jesus looked like, we KNOW what women look like, we even know how homosexuality manifests itself. Thus those articles warrant pictures. This article on the other hand is about ABSTRACT concept of ethics. If this article was about simply Eating meat i would not object. However I do not believe that a concept of ETHICS can be illustrated. As i said before articles like Medical_ethics, Engineering ethics and Cyberethics do just fine without pictures of euthanasia machines, collapsed bridges, and evil hackers. Put another way there is an inherent value in including a naked woman picture in woman article, because it serves to illustrates and educate. There is no value in including good looking meat picture or grizzly slaughterhouse picture here because they fail to illustrate "ethics" and instead seek to persuade, which is NOT a goal of Wikipedia.--Hq3473 (talk) 04:18, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
You're making two separate arguments and switching back and forth between them. One of them is that the pictures are biased, the other is that an abstract concept like ethics doesn't merit any pictures. First, pictures can't be biased, bias only happens within people's minds. The photo of the cow about to be slaughtered may excite emotion in people but this is due to what already lies inside of the viewer, not some inherent bias of the picture. In fact, the picture shows a method touted be the industry as an example of how humane slaughterhouses have become. As to representing abstract concepts with pictures, it's obvious that you can't, but the fact remains that these abstract concepts have practical roots and real world applications. The major argument against eating meat revolves around the treatment of the animals, a very non-abstract concept. Why shouldn't we illustrate something that has so much to do with the article? --Calibas (talk) 18:51, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
OK, I concede that picture of slaughter technique is appropriate in Treatment section, because it illustrates the issue that was raised. However, I still fail to see value in picture of different kinds of meat and in the picture of a cow in a field. What specifically do those images illustrate?--Hq3473 (talk) 22:08, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
"it illustrates the issue that was raised". Uh... the issue that's being raised in the entire article is "meat". Showing various pieces of meat is applicable to the argument. The other ethics that you refer to talk about generalized ethics... Cyberethics: privacy control, intrusion, etc. Multiple topics of ethics, not just one single topic. Same with the other two. This is a singular discussion of ethics about a singular topic: meat. And what does meat look like? Like THIS. The phrasing underneath the picture can totally be altered, "should this picture be considered revolting?" etc. And your objections still do not address that The Holocaust article has pictures of children children in a death camp. This isn't just about the ethics surrounding meat... this is an article specifically about the topic of "what meat is ethical to eat?" With answers between "none" to "all of it". Let me ask... do you think the Cyberethics article would be better with a picture of a computer on it? I think it would, and that's an even more abstract ethical category than "meat". --Puellanivis (talk) 03:17, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I think people are missing something obvious here. The article is not meat. So picture of meat is kind of pointless. A picture of someone eating meat is a different story, and may in fact be entirely relevant. It may be very appropriate, in fact, to have a picture, say, of one person eating meat (wearing an NRA hat and holding a rifle too maybe) and another person looking angry and disgusted and pointing a finger (holding a sign maybe). Thought bubbles may add to the informative nature of the picture also. --C S (talk) 22:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

May I suggest : [21], it is as relevant as anything.--Hq3473 (talk) 22:44, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I can't even tell definitively if it's meat the individual is eating. --Puellanivis (talk) 16:12, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
First... Meat is a food. The meat pictured in the article is meat intended for consumption. The same ethic objections to meat as a food apply to meat as a fertilizer etc. And odd question of why it focuses on "eating meat" rather than simply the wider topic of the ethics of meat. Vegans believe that meat should always be left as animals. I don't think they even approve of eating an animal after it has died of natural causes(?) or ... anything but natural rotting, and if they approve of embalming for humans, why not embalm all animals, and preserve their meat on their body, than let nature run its course as it would with humans if we didn't stop it. Even vegancats.com notes that male cats (an obligate carnivore) cannot live suitably without meat... but rather that it should be striven to reduce their meat consumption as much as possible. So, obviously, they understand the ethics of denying one animal a food which it absolutely requires, and letting that animal live. This article deals much more with "meat" as a concept, and the ethics behind it, rather than simply "should we eat meat?" Ethically, my stance is, "the meat served to me is already dead. The animal died so that I could have meat, it would be immoral for me not to respect the sacrifice of that animal and not eat all of that meat. Letting an animal's meat go to waste simply because it's meat is wrong. Whether I choose to eat their meat or not, the animal still died." Since this article explores the manufacture of meat, and the consequences of having meat as a food, it should deal with meat period... not just eating it. --Puellanivis (talk) 16:11, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
You might want to try reading the article you're discussing. Your summary of why vegans abstain from meat is bizarre and not representative of any vegan that I've ever met. Please familiarize yourself with the subject at least a tiny bit before engaging in a debate on the talk page. (Full disclosure - I'm vegan). Djk3 (talk) 23:58, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Can you produce any reliable authoritative sources (vegancats.com hardly qualifies) that show that there is any kind of ethical concern with animals eating meat? If not then I will continue to assume that only ethical problem is with HUMANS EATING meat, not with meat in general. Honestly, if humans were to stop eating meat, would there remain any other ethical problem with eating meat?--Hq3473 (talk) 16:42, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
The ethics of meat include humans FEEDING meet to other animals. Not with animals eating meat in nature. But pets, and other animals that rely upon humans for their food. If humans provide them meat, then one is contributing to the slaughter of animals simply to feed another animal in an unnatural way. If we had a million head of cattle killed and tilled into the ground for fertilizer then yeah... you don't think people would object to that on an ethical ground? --Puellanivis (talk) 16:52, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Authoritative sources please, or this your Original research?.--Hq3473 (talk) 04:51, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
OR is allowed in Talk Pages... it's mainspace articles that it's now allowed in --Puellanivis (talk) 06:38, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
I know, yet if we were to make decisions on what to include in article space it would be improper to do so based on contentions unsupported by authoritative sources. Right now the article states that "human consumption of meat" is an ethical concern, the article states nothing about "animals eating meat" being an ethical concern, thus we should make decisions based on that definition of the problem, unless you can present sources indicating otherwise.--Hq3473 (talk) 21:41, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Is the production of meat products for our animals any different than producing it for human consumption? The chickens in my cats' food likely suffered the exact same way that it would have if it had ended up on my plate, rather than in their dry pellets. I'll agree with you that the article talks about humans and only humans eating meat... however the more generalized issue is human mass-production of meat. Few can argue that hunting in a sporting manner for food is reasonably ethical... Now, mass hunting, or hunting simply for sport... that has a problem. But we don't do that for commercial meat anymore... we don't often even treat our animals with respect anymore. Meat is meat, once the animal is dead, it is food... it's how you treat the animal before killing it, and while killing it that makes this such an ethically divided issue. --Puellanivis (talk) 20:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
Sources please.--Hq3473 (talk) 14:17, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
Puellanivis - I don't disagree with what you are saying, however, your view is a bit narrower than this article should be. There are many who do not eat meat for ethical reasons that have nothing to do with animal treatment. The reasons may be religious, a respect for life, or simply because they think animals are dirty and don't want to eat them. It is an interesting question if one chooses not to eat meat for ethical reasons, then chooses to feed similarly sourced meat to a companion animal, however, this is relatively not related to the topic, since it is the ethics of humans eating meat, not the ethics of humans feeding meat to other animals. I agree that they can be related, but are not necessarily related. Bob98133 (talk) 14:49, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
*nods* yeah, I concede your points. In some ways though "a respect for life" falls under "treatment of animals"... the idea that killing an animal is fundamentally mistreatment of that animal. As for religious reasons, and that (some/all) animals are "dirty" is a good point. As well. I agree the scope of my statements are more narrow, and broader than this article is intended to handle. However, I must stand firm that presenting a depiction of meat intended for human consumption, as the picture actually is, is an accurate and appropriate picture for the article. --Puellanivis (talk) 23:56, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm OK with an image of meat or not. It's not going to make or break the article, and it's so hard to find a picture of ethics! Bob98133 (talk) 14:29, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
Image:Tofu-beijingchina.jpg or Image:Comendo.jpg would seem appropriate - as an alternative and for the lead. Pictures make the page more interesting. Wikipedia:IMAGE#Image_choice_and_placement suggests that either, or both, would be appropriate as an example for humans. WLU (talk) 18:52, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure... using the tofu one, that's not actually meat... and thus irrelevant to the ethics discussed. Comendo actually isn't a bad one, considering that it shows a hamburger, well known to contain meat, half-eaten and in the actual process of eating it. However, it's still a little blurry, and the meat is only a very small part of the image. I would imagine, showing someone cutting up a steak to be eaten would be a pretty good choice though. From your link to WP:IMAGE, "Intangible concepts can be illustrated, for example a cat with its claws out portrays aggression, while a roadside beggar juxtaposed with a Mercedes Benz shows inequality." I would say that depicting meat intended for consumption by humans is as appropriate an image as the indicated examples. --Puellanivis (talk) 17:27, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
Tofu would be OK were there a section on "alternatives to meat eating" but you're right, that's not really ethics. Could go in the "animals killed by harvesting section" with a caption of "Tofu, a vegetarian alternative to meat, requires harvesting" or somesuch. I really don't think it's that big a deal. The current pics seem fine to me, the only advantage to the Comendo one is that someone's actually eating. It seems a bit literal-minded to suggest that it's superior to the big ol' slab of meat. WLU (talk) 18:10, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, totally *applause* I like that idea. :) You're absolutely right, that tofu could be used in the article to demonstrate something that could be an alternative. :) --Puellanivis (talk) 18:20, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
Tofu ftw! I totally agree. Let's do it! Quintus314 (talk) 01:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Puellanivis's earlier comment "The animal died so that I could have meat": I only note in passing that this statement has exactly the same form as the one that Noam Chomsky spotted on a statue: "Here lies an Indian woman, a Wampanoag, whose family and tribe gave of themselves and their land that this great nation might be born and grow." (Quoted in Manufacturing Consent.) The respective agents of both the animal's death and the Wampanoag woman's death go unmentioned, as does the extent to which each of them gave their consent. (Full disclosure: I'm a meat-eater who knows of no ethical justification for my meat-eating.) Lexo (talk) 12:33, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

First of all, this article, since it's an Encyclopedia article, is an informative one, not a persuasive one (and that's coming from a vegetarian). Secondly, I TOTALLY agree with you. Like, 100%. We don't need meat in an article about arguements for meat. Quintus314 (talk) 01:07, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality

I have to say that this page is not written from a standpoint of neutrality. I know that most of the editors on here are likely vegan/vegetarian, so it is understandable that the neutrality has shifted, but I would urge additional editors to step up and make some changes to bring more balance to this article. From the get-go this article sets about proving that it is unethical to eat meat, and there needs to be ammendments, not necessarily pro-carnivore views.205.200.1.246 (talk) 22:14, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

This article is about the ethics of following behavior of the majority of people. I believe that there is the assumption that some people have an ethical objection to eating meat. It is currently accepted ethics that meat be eaten, so I don't see a POV conflict here. Are you thinking that content should be added that eating meat is an ethical activity? If so, cite some sources. If the article has shifted, please cite how and how to correct that shift. Without that information, I disagree that there is an neutrality issue with this article. Bob98133 (talk) 13:38, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the first poster here and disagree with Bob98133. This article has serious, repeated NPOV issues, with various sections biased towards each side of the debate. It should be rewritten by someone who frankly doesn't give a damn either way about consumption of meat. I'm making two changed based on factual accuracy. Firstly, in the opening line, I'm rewording "most societies" to "many societies" (Look up the definition of most). Secondly, the sentence "Anthropocentrism, or human-centredness, is believed by some to be the central problematic concept in environmental philosophy, where it is used to draw attention to a systematic bias in traditional Western attitudes to the non-human world [12]" is decidedly not NPOV. Even if the wording were changed to "alleged systemic bias," the phrasing of the sentence advocates a certain viewpoint. I'm changing this to "The concept of anthropocentrism, or human-centeredness, alleges that unequal treatment of humans and animals constitutes a form of bias" and I'm removing the extraneous citation that supposedly justifies that sentence. I'm also correcting the spelling of "anthrocentrism" to "anthropocentrism" immediately below. I'm still really not comfortable with this article and think it needs further review. ThomYorke64 (talk) 20:45, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
If this article were truly neutral it would address the ethical aspects of eating all types of meat. There's certain types of meat that nearly every single person on this Planet is opposed to eating. In fact, I'm sure every society in the world has some sort of meat related taboo. That sort of stuff should be focused upon more and the reasons behind religions banning certain types of meat. While the vegetarian POV should be touched upon, that's only a small part of the whole ethics of eating meat and shouldn't be nearly the whole article. The stuff that really has to do with ethics is only touched upon. Questions like "why is it okay to eat a horse, but not a dog?" should be asked, though there might be some trouble with finding sources. --Calibas (talk) 19:45, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
Calibas - I hadn't considered the types of ethical aspects that you bring up, but I think that they would be a good addition to the article. I'm not sure that the types of taboos that you mention are ethical choices rather than cultural ones, but if you can find refs please add the info. Bob98133 (talk) 13:48, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Seeing as how our ethics usually arise from our culture, I don't see how it would matter. I'll keep an eye out for sources, though I don't have as much time to edit Wikipedia as I used to. --Calibas (talk) 23:41, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
I added a personal reason against eating meat to the "pain" section of the article. As a personal reason however I don't have any sources for it. If anyone can find a source, that would be great; if nobody can find a source, feel free to remove it. Banedon (talk) 08:05, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
I sourced the argument above. The section should be much improved now. Banedon (talk) 02:20, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I added a new section on the ethics of eating oysters, which I noticed while reading the oysters page. On doing some Googling there's a whole ton of usable articles out there as well, but it'd take me a long time to write them into the article. Banedon (talk) 06:23, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem with this article's neutrality is not so much the content, but the slanted phraseology. For example, in the section "The Ethics of Killing for Food," the phrase "some opponents of ethical vegetarianism..." is obviously slanted in such a way as to portray people who believe that eating meat is acceptable as "opponents," and more specifically opponents of something that is "ethical." It would be more neutral to say something like "some proponents of eating meat..." In fact, even the title of the section "The Ethics of Killing for Food" exhibits a subtle bias with its stark reference to "killing." The title could simply be "The Ethics of Eating Meat," although I'm afraid that a title like that might sanitize meat-eating too much and thus slant in the opposite direction. In any event, it's quite possible that the authors of this article, most of whom are probably ethical vegetarians or vegans, did not intend to slant the wording like this but simply wrote the article, intending to for it to be neutral, and their biases came out subconsciously. In any event, this article should be cleaned up to ensure neutral phrasing of ideas. Incidentally, I sympathize with the ethical arguments made by vegetarians and vegans regarding the treatment of animals, but I think that these points should be brought out in the article in a neutral, unbiased fashion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pgordon2 (talk • contribs) 20:51, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm. I'm a vegetarian and reading through this, this is exremly biased. It reads more like a propaganda article than an informative encyclopaedic article. As a Sikh we have quite a pragmatic view of food and vegetarianism and meat. We leave the choice to individual conscience. Our teachers stated that "Fools wrangle over meat and flesh" i.e. people will continually argue about this and there is no one right or wrong answer. For example, the greenest lifestyle one could possibly have is that of the hunter gather. Both mass meat production and mass farming of vegetables is harmful to the environment. I agree on the above comment on the slant of the words. Thanks SH 07:46, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
I must say that I read article and I suggest it to be renamed to Why to become vegetarian? Second thing I think religion part is written by person who does know little about Christians or is Christophobe and on purpose didn't mention anything about fasting. I am going to correct this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.198.132.151 (talk) 17:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree this article is NOT neutral and is promoting veganism. Here are the following problems I have detailed by each section:

Ethics of killing for food: Has nothing on killing or processing of animal products for agricultural purpose (ie. deforestation and habitat destruction for monoculture in crops such as soy and banana, killing of agricultural pest (ie. birds, slugs, rodents), and production of fertilizers (ie. fish emulsion, bone meal, blood-meal)

Treatment of animals: Mentions nothing on free range farming nor integrated agroforestry farming methods

Animal consciousness under Pain: It mentions nothing about eating genetically engineered meats nor does it mentioned eating animals without nerves such as (bivalves (excluding oysters which should be added here), sea urchins, Jellyfish, or arthropods.

Ethical vegetarianism: mentions nothing about honey nor the captive cultivation of bees and worms for their bi-products.

Environmental argument: Only mentions monoculture and its statistics, nothing about site specific production of food in unfarmable land where limited crops can be grown which can be grazed by cattle or areas that are less accessible by transportation such as artic tundra areas where meat is primarily consumed (ie. Tibet, some parts of Alaska). Also nothing about hunting for food (and controlling invasive edible species) efficiencies of alternative practices (biogas digesters for power using animal waste,integrated hydroponic systems, Florida stone crab claw harvesting), and plowing fields using animals in 3rd world countries.

Also nothing addressing economic cost/benefits of production of meat substitutes (ie soy based meats, vegetarian bacon, vitamins) and a section needs to be made on Health Responsibility/Irresponsibility that addresses Vitamin deficiency (B12, Iron, D), Cases of baby deaths from careless malnutrition, and cat blindness and deaths from being fed non AAFCO certified vegan cat food. --Cs california (talk) 11:11, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Davis' Argument

Such a weak point shouldn't be nearly so long as it is. Plus the enormous changes to food production and diet that would be required should be stressed first. Also, the 1.2 billion animals killed is utter fantasy as every acre of available farmland wouldn't be needed if people switched to a vegetarian diet. In fact, I think we'd be using less farmland as an enormous amount of the food grown on farms goes to feeding cattle.

And if that's not enough, this is an article on ethics and I don't see any of that in Davis' argument. --Calibas (talk) 20:33, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Calibas. This is a minor point and the existing text is highly POV. Bob98133 (talk) 21:03, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
I absolutely disagree. If one of the most common arguments for ethical vegetarianism (that it reduces harm to/the death of animals) is a fallacy, then that's an important point. Steven Walling 21:50, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Steven - I would agree with you, but I think that Davis' research is what Wiki would consider OR. He makes all sorts of assumptions that he doesn't support. I think that this is worthy of a mention, but I think that it would be better to find a review of Davis' research for balance. Not just some org or newspaper reporting about it, but a reliable scientific review analyzing his conclusions, if Matheny and Laney refs aren't sufficient for this. Bob98133 (talk) 14:26, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
If it did that it would be an important point. Unfortunately his argument is a horrendous one and requires an enormous change in diet for just about everybody. If something very unlikely were to occur, then, 'maybe', eating meat would reduce harm to animals. I'm sorry, but that really really doesn't deserve the amount of focus this article gives it. It only deserves a brief mention in reference to the "least harm" stuff. The article does need a little more on why eating meat is ethical, but if we can't find legit sources, a piss-poor argument shouldn't be inflated to make up for it. That, and it's still an article on ethics and Davis' references to any ethical aspects are extremely brief. --Calibas (talk) 21:09, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I had a go at reducing this to something more appropriate. I don't see that including Tom Regan's arguments and whether or not they agree with Davis is necessary. I have stated Davis position and indicated that it is not universally accepted. Going to refs explains the points that I removed. I hope present version solves WP:UNDUE situation. Please discuss if you think more of this material should be included. Thanks. Bob98133 (talk) 22:36, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with the decision to reduce the material on Davis and the debate around his work. If you read Davis's paper and the rebuttals this page linked to, you will see that the reasons cited above to cut the Davis material are not on target.

For example, it is not true that his argument depends on massive changes to the agricultural industry to make its point: the references to national statistics were simply a way of illustrating his point. Someone who agreed with his argument could act on that belief now by eating some grass feed beef and no other meat.

It is also the case that he is clearly making an explicitly ethical argument, just as advocates of not eating meat do. Davis's argument is based on the principle of least harm, which he borrow from moral philosopher Tom Regan, and which is a moral principle.

An entry mentioning Davis also does not violate Wikipedia's policy regarding original research (OR). The policy applies to what Wikipedians write ourselves. It is not a policy against citing previously published research.

I sense that some of the opposition to a longer section on Davis is because people disagree with his argument. As it happens I am a vegetarian and I share the view that his argument is mistaken. But it deserves a longer section, for two reasons.

One is influence. Davis has been cited in cover stories in Time, The New York TImes Magazine, a book by influential author Michael Pollan, and many, many discussions on the Internet. His argument has also generated rebuttals in academic journals by two critics who thought it was important enough to respond to. An argument that meets those conditions deserves more than passing mention.

The second reason it warrants inclusion is that the section was not about Davis, but the *debate* around Davis. One of the rebuttals linked to (Lamey) basically turned his argument around, and said that if Davis's moral assumptions are correct, he has actually strengthened the argument for vegetarianism. So even if one disagrees with Davis's original conclusions, there is still a case to be made for the longer section, as Davis has set of a larger debate that is independent of his recommendations re diet.

For all of these reasons, I am going to restore the longer section on the debate around Davis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Porphyry Jones (talk • contribs) 08:23, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I am reverting your edits to the earlier version which was inserted after discussion. You did not have consensus to make this change based on the talk above. In fact, it appears that you are the only editor so far in this discussion who favors the pointlessly long version of this obviously OR. Waiting 2 weeks after a discussion to revert agreed-upon material doesn't make much sense.
As to your points, who mentions Davis or how many google hits he has are of no relevance. If his work is flawed it is worthwhile to show the debate, but it is WP:UNDUE to devote so much space to such a flawed argument. Please try to get consensus for your changes prior to reverting. Thanks Bob98133 (talk) 12:33, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello Bob. As I read the previous discussion, you and another editor thought it was too long and there was a third, Steven W., who thought it should be longer. I am with Steven so it is two votes on either side, so I did not think I was doing anything untoward. Based on the above, there seems just as much support for my position as for yours.

Regarding your comments,if by OR you are referring to Wikipedia's policy against original research, the longer version does not violate this policy, as you will see if you review the policy in question. Again, it is a policy against you or I introducing material not already published elsewhere.

You also mention the undue emphasis policy. This is why I mentioned all the places Davis has been cited. There is a live debate going on about his work, and this page could be helpful to people who have been following it. But right now the entry is so short, it is hard to even get a sense of who has said what on either side.

You mention that Davis's argument is flawed, and I agree. But note that the criteria for an argument being mentioned on Wikipedia is not based on its truth. Also, the entry as I had it did not endorse Davis argument. It said he had put his argument forward and mentioned the rebuttals to it, pointing interested readers to further sources. That would be of service to people interested in this topic. Right now this section is too brief to be of much use to anyone. Even if you felt the previous version was too long, right now it is so short to be informative.Porphyry Jones (talk) 15:00, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello again. If you read the Lamey paper linked to you might get a sense of why someone sympathetic to vegetarianism would want this material to be included. Davis has misunderstood the ramifications of his own argument. If people come here and read the long version, or at least one longer than what is there now, they will be more likely to see that than if this material is missing.Porphyry Jones (talk) 15:03, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The previous version of this article has about 25% of the article devoted to Davis. That is what I mean by WP:UNDUE. if you can successfully argue that 25% of an article about ethics of eating meat should be about a poorly researched and widely discredited theory, please do so. Otherwise, this should be shorted (or the rest of the article considerably lengthened) to reduce the impact of this. Please indent your posts using :'s at the beginning. Thanks Bob98133 (talk) 15:51, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
Please explain how editor Wallings comment says anything about this section being longer. It seems to me that he is saying that it should be included, not the focus of the article. Bob98133 (talk) 15:53, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
If the reason for having such a short section is that Davis's argument is "poorly researched and widely discredited," then that is not a good rationale for deleted the longer section. The main reason is that we are not having a discussion about a section on Davis, but on the *debate* around Davis. I am not saying we should have a section saying Davis's argument is true. What we should have is a section saying he has made this argument, many people have taken it seriously, even if they disagree with his conclusions, and the debate is still going on.
The second problem with the decision to shorten the section is that the supposed flaws attributed to Davis were based on misunderstandings. None of the criticisms mentioned on this discussion page actually apply to Davis's theory, as will be clear if you read his paper or the papers responding to him. It is worrisome to see editing decisions being made by editors who, for whatever reason, have not read the sources in question.
Finally--and this is my main point--not all of the considerations cited by Davis are flawed. While I certainly agree that his conclusion that we should eat free-range beef is mistaken, he has drawn attention to important issues ethical vegetarians care about. They include the issue of animals killed in crop harvesting and the fact that the average cow provides 200 times more meat than the average chicken, 1200 lbs vs 6 lbs, which some vegetarian critics of Davis take to suggest that eating chicken is even worse than beef, as it kills more animals overall.
These kind of points are made in the Lamey paper responding to Davis. As it happens I have been tracking the number of downloads it gets and after the longer section was added it got over 100 downloads. When the Davis section was cut the downloads trickled to almost nothing. This suggests to me that the shorter section does a disservice to people interested in the ethics of eating meat.
Regarding the length, I think it is an exaggeration to say the old section was 25% of the whole page. Even if it was, the right response might well be to lengthen the rest rather than cut this section. Alternatively, I could trim the longer Davis section slightly. But as it stands it is too brief to be informative.Porphyry Jones (talk) 06:18, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
Editor Wallings took issue with the claim that Davis's argument was a minor point and instead said it was important. If the topic is important it deserves more space.Porphyry Jones (talk) 06:23, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
I did a word count. It was 25% of the article. Bob98133 (talk) 13:36, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
1) I did a word count also. The longer Davis material runs to about 500 words. When it is added the entire entry runs to 2,330 words. That makes 21.45%. If overall ratio is a concern I suggest expanding other parts of the entry rather than treating this one in such a cursory way.
2) As I mentioned before, none of the criticisms mentioned on this discussion page really apply to Davis's theory, and the overall debate touches on issues of interest to large numbers of people, not just Davis or people who agree with his conclusions.
3) The Wikipedia guidelines state "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public." I have already mentioned many reliable sources that have discussed Davis and see there are a bunch more on Google Scholar and elsewhere.
For all of these reasons, I propose to make the section longer again. If you still have some concerns I can try to trim it a bit or make clearer that the issues in play have been taken to support, rather than undermine, the case for a meatless diet.Porphyry Jones (talk) 11:56, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
Davis' argument is specious and the many references to it generally refute it. If you feel that this is the most important point in the entire article, then indeed it should be almost 25% of the article. If you wish to expand it, go for it. I don't care whether the section supports or condemns a vegetarian diet, I'd just like it to reflect reality rather than absurdity. You have been discarding half of the editors opinions about the importance of this material, so I don't believe there is much point participating in the discussion. Thanks. Bob98133 (talk) 13:38, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Hey Porphyry Jones, if you've read and understand Davis' work feel free to rewrite the section. And please concentrate on the ethical argument that Davis is making, the previous version is rather lacking there.

You also said that Davis' argument doesn't depend upon massive changes to the agricultural industry. If that's the case, then the sources we have here completely misrepresent Davis. Here's Time magazine: "Applying (and upending) Regan's least-harm theory, Davis proposes a ruminant-pasture model of food production, which would replace poultry and pork production with beef, lamb and dairy products." That's an enormous change to the agricultural industry. You say you've read Davis' work, is Time magazine wrong here?

Then there's the very crux of Davis' argument, the number of animals actually killed. This number is nothing more than a guess. The whole thing isn't based upon any solid evidence. I think the only reason Davis received so much focus in this article (and in the media), isn't because he presents a good argument, it's because it's one of the only arguments on why eating meat is ethical. --Calibas (talk) 15:17, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


Hi,

I stumbled across this page last night and saw the Davis section. To me, I think the concept Davis introduced is one worthy of discussion if in fact there is evidence that a path other than vegetarianism/veganism would cause less harm & death and would continue to do so when implemented on a large-scale. However, I find Davis' paper offers no such evidence and is in fact severely flawed. Thus, when seeing what struck me as two sentences that seemed to offer a very weak rebuttal, I attempted to edit this section.

Granted, I've never edited a wiki page before and much to my surprise, though I thought I was only updating the section, I ended up updating the whole page. Fortunately, there was a big, red undo button for me to push!

After reverting the page back to its original state, I found this 'talk' about the Davis section and thought I'd add my two cents. Personally, I think what is currently on the page looks like Davis has a great argument and the counterpoints are weak enough that they aren't worth getting into. I understand the concept of not wanting to ramble on about Davis' paper since it is so very flawed. At the same time, for better or worse, his paper is brought up again and again. Thus I think, like it or not, it is a subject that arises on 'meat ethics' and needs to have something stronger than three sentences.

I didn't create this page, so I know my vote doesn't really count. But, if it did, I would vote to have more in that section. Though one could (I know I could) create a rather long list of issues with this paper - each of which alone would negate the conclusion, I think that Mathney's points are succinct enough that no one needs look any further. (One could include Lamey's points as done here(as well as other points made), but again, I think one needs to look no further than the math.)

That said, 'my'* version is below. If you'd like to use it (and then delete it from the talk section), feel free. Otherwise, if you'd simply like to delete it from the talk section, that's fine as well. *I have not personally verified the PhD candidate status of Mathney. This information came from here as did a portion of the text used Lolaabc (talk) 02:23, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Steven Davis, a professor of animal science at Oregon State University, argues that the least harm principle does not require giving up all meat. Davis states that a diet containing beef from 100% grass-fed ruminants such as cattle would kill fewer animals than a vegetarian diet when one takes into account animals killed by agriculture.[1]
Davis' analysis has been deemed flawed by many, including Gaverick Matheny, a Ph.D. candidate in agricultural economics at the University of Maryland, College Park. Matheny argues that Davis miscalculates the number of animal deaths based on land area rather than per consumer and based on the assumption that "crops only and crops with ruminant-pasture—using the same total amount of land, would feed identical numbers of people ... In fact, crop and ruminant systems produce different amounts of food per hectare". When the calculations are corrected to reflect this, Davis' paper instead shows that both vegetarians and vegans kill fewer animals than a Davis-style omnivore. "As such to obtain the 20 kilograms of protein per year recommended for adults, a vegan-vegetarian would kill 0.3 wild animals annually, a lacto-vegetarian would kill 0.39 wild animals, while a Davis-style omnivore would kill 1.5 wild animals."
Mathney also points out that Davis incorrectly equates "the harm done to animals … to the number of animals killed." and that vegetarianism "involves better treatment of animals, and likely allows a greater number of animals with lives worth living to exist."[2]

George Will Quote

I removed the enormous quote from George Will for a few different reasons. It never addressed the ethics of eating meat itself, only the ethical treatment of animals. It was far too long without really getting to any point. It was attributed to George Will, who's mostly just summing up a book by Matthew Scully. Here's an article Scully wrote on the subject [22] if someone wants to add that to the article (paraphrasing usually works better than long quotes). --Calibas (talk) 23:33, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Vegans as a propaganda exercise

Is there not some evidence to suggest that the promotion of a vegan lifestyle as more moral (eh?) more worthy (come again?) automaticly place it in the realm of the nursery of the religious?
Ethics if you could find a substance / wavefield /colour/ something you could measure with an Ethic-o-gram the one thing you would say about an Ethical Effect was it tends to counter that which is innate; in short anything ethical is sexual selection, which last time I looked was the consensus with what a religion is for
81.109.247.189 (talk) 00:15, 21 April 2011 (UTC)


None of what you just said is comprehensible. I'm not trying to be rude. I'm just flabbergasted.
Ethics is the idea of what's moral or right and wrong. It's not scientific, it's (hopefully) informed opinion. Religion has less to do with ethics than with what you think your God/Goddess/Gods want you to do. Don't get me wrong, I disagree with veganism (I'm gnawing on some beef jerky now), but it's definitely an ethical discussion.
My apologies to everyone if I'm just encouraging a prankster/crazy person. The Cap'n (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:59, 16 May 2011 (UTC).

The Plan pain discussion

Constantly deleting my point about plant pain is not benefiting this article. This topic has not be officially addressed in academic literature so obviously theres no source I can provide but as a 4th year medical student I think the scientific reasoning in my argument against a so called 'plant pain' hypothesis is solid and should be in the article. Certainly if you are going to delete that paragraph then delete the entire plant pain section because its completely a ludicrous argument. Destruction of plant cells causes pain because cells are living? This is a joke of biological pseudoscience likely written by someone with minimal education and understanding of the Biological and Medical sciences.

While your efforts are appreciated, Wikipedia cannot use a contributor's opinions and/or reasoning to verify text. It must be sourced per the policies and guidelines. --Ckatzchatspy 18:20, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Ok, where is the reference for the 'counter argument'? I see no reference. It is basically a contributor's opinion to the same degree my entry was. Removing the entire argument is the only fair thing if this is your stance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smodtactical (talk • contribs) 21:18, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Consequences for animals of Vegetarianism/veganism

Vegetarian/Vegan ethics are coherent enough if compared with other mainstream moral issues, probably even more logic than other more controversial. A provocative example: it makes more sense not to inflict pain to a cow than to refrain from mating with a fully developed 13-15 year old girl, and act which in most ancient society would be considered normal. Having said that I think the advocates of Vegetarian/Vegan lyfestyle should interrogate themsels on the consequences of their choices. I am not aware of any large mammal that is not a lifestock and is not in danger of extinction in Europe. Bears have for long been on the verge of disappearing from the alpes, Game in general is kept alive in reserves etcc. What should be of the millions of cows which we shall not eat? Think to what happened to horses when they ceased to be a mean of transport; I did took the effort to look for a reference Population of Horses 1880-2000 and take a 50%+ reduction as a conservative figure and consider that although not for food or transport horses still are a versatile source of "animal force" (in all its forms); a similar case could not be immagined for cows. Honestly I do not see any grassland in Europe suitable for sustaing any population of wild cattle and it can easily be seen that what applies to Europe applies to any named developed area in the world. So I think this article should also cover the moral issue of the dependance of livestock animals on meat eaters, not to consider the consequence of the implementation of moral ethics on the production of an immense variety of byproducts of animal farming (leather just to name one). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crispinoecrispiano (talk • contribs) 07:24, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

The 'nonexistence' argument could address many human activities: habitat destruction, domestic animal spay/neuter, the loss of herloom agricultural species (plant and animal) that are not seen as economically viable, etc... even human birth control and abortion. If it is discussed in an entry, it should probably be an entry of its own which is then crossreferenced where relevant. DaveinMPLS (talk) 06:21, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

A different take on the implications for animals of not eating them is the resultant impacts on their welfare. Not sure how to cite this - but in personal communications both PETA and Animal Sanctuary AR organisations have informed me that - should be be wildly successful in ending animal agriculture - it would then be acceptable for the non-domesticate ruminants (wild graziers) that replace grazing eco-system niches - it would be acceptable for them to die of predation, starvation, dehydration, and/or disease....this presents a logical inconsistency - or at least logical nuance challenging the veg*n world view.....but where I only have personal communications regarding this - not sure how to include it however critical it may be to the topic. Ideas? MythicMeats (talk) 08:27, 4 August 2012 (UTC)Mycobovine

Meat eating for other animals

Just out of curiosity, when people say that meat eating is wrong, immoral, unneccesary etc, are they simply talking about humans? Are there any reasons why other animals in the animal kingdom should not eat meat? Portillo (talk) 02:56, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

stern message to those against eating meat who are editing this article

I want animal activists to know that the lack of neutrality in this article does not allow me to seriously question my meat eating practices. Those who vandalize or spin this article, while their intentions may be honourable are greatly hurting their cause. If someone comes to this article, they are either already against eating meat or they are willing and open to question their practices. Personally, I hesitated before clicking on this link (it was a google search result that i wasn't looking for). I hesitated because I feared that reading something which would cause me to question my practices and maybe make me change my lifestyle would be hard for me to do (I am going through tough times with a lot of personal pressures). I clicked the link though because willful ignorance or shunning objective facts is not an excuse. I will revisit this wikipedia page in the future to see if it is in fact more neutral.

Someone could say that I could browse through all sorts of academic and medical journals and that the information is out there. I have tried doing this with other topics and it is fruitless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.101.88.10 (talk) 17:03, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Do you have some specific examples of non-neutral prose you can point out? Just saying that the article is flawed does not help us fix the problem. And as a side note, this article, like all other articles on Wikipedia, is not here to persuade anyone of anything. The article is here to give readers a general understanding of the topic. SQGibbon (talk) 17:53, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
I'd just like to second this missive by 79.101.88.10. Coming to this article and seeing it flooded with cleanup templates makes me think it's going to be les useful in contemplating my own actions. Editors of this article may want to have a look at Abortion (Talk:Abortion) to see how a controversial topic can be presented in a neutral and comprehensive way. Vectro (talk) 11:08, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi, thank you for answering me (I was the one feeling the article was biased. I am sorry I did not provide specific examples of this. Firstly, during my reading and minutes before posting the post that you answered, I changed the title of the first section from "Killing for food" to "Ethical views on eating meet". "Killing for food" is in the same vain as people who call themselves "pro-life" or "pro-choice" when it comes to abortion. Most people know that the way a question is worded can greatly effect someone's response and titling the subject "Killing for food" is prejudiced. Technically speaking plants have life and are killed but the bend of title is obvious. I feel like this was not an isolated situation of slant.

Finally, so many of the statements in the article are unsourced. I may be alone in this but I would get much more out of even an incomplete but well sourced article than the current one.

"Most ethical vegetarians argue that the same reasons exist against killing animals to eat as against killing humans to eat." Unfortunately, I cannot access the source but I find this a stretch. Has there really been polling on this? I would be shocked if most vegetarians hold the killing of an animal anywhere near as big an offense as the killing of a human if only for the fact that animals are not as intellectually developed. In the animal kingdom we see differing levels of consciousness, I at very least doubt that most ethical vegetarians would argue that the killing of the lesser intelligent animals at all on par with the killing of humans... and not in degrees of offense but I think the particular arguments would be quite different. The point overall is so nebulous because those arguments are not specified. A list of those arguments would certainly help. The closest thing I can find which relates to the morality of murder on wikipedia is this:

Popular atheist author and Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens remarked on the program Uncommon Knowledge:

"I think our knowledge of right and wrong is innate in us. Religion gets its morality from humans. We know that we can't get along if we permit perjury, theft, murder, rape, all societies at all times, well before the advent of monarchies and certainly, have forbidden it... Socrates called his daemon, it was an inner voice that stopped him when he was trying to take advantage of someone... Why don't we just assume that we do have some internal compass?"[8]

It is the only instance of murder in the secular morality article. The references to homicide are limited to the relationship between religious belief and homicide rates. In any point, this instance certainly is at contract with the sentence from the "ethics of eating meet" article. Ethical vegetarians I am pretty sure do not eat meat mainly because they want to "get along" with animals they have never met or because human society would crumble without these values/practices.

Moving along, the Benjamin Franklin quote if I'm not mistaken was from his autobiography and while it perhaps deserves a place within a 'History' section of this article or somewhere in a social views place in this article "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Animal_Rights" (read the trial of bill burns part, it is a touching story.) I don't think it belongs in the opening section of the article "Ethics of eating meat"

The last paragraph of this first section is enlightening but the overall nature of the section has a coherent and organized reasoning against eating meat while the reasons for eating meat are sparse and seem to be mostly in response to arguments against eating meet. Perhaps that is because the argument for eating meet is weak but is there really no advocate who is pro meat eating that could counter Singer? Instead of an answer/response format of this section perhaps two sub categories of arguments against and then arguments pro could be separate. Even if there would be a tiny bit of redundancy or reintroduction (when responding to a claim from the otherside) it would make the article much less subjective.


In the animal conciousness section there is the following sentence "Peter Singer maintains that many livestock animals are of sufficient sentience to deserve better treatment than they often receive (this, according to his ethical philosophy: personism)." I believe this sentence subtracts from the value of the article because 1. Unless he specifies the reason for the belief it has no basis in objective though. Yes, it may be arbitrary to say X amount of consciousness deserves Y level of rights. If the idea is just one subjective opinion (albeit of someone who focuses on this area) it should not be in this wikipedia article. Finally, the argument brings up the issues about human beings who do not or no longer have the capacity for higher reasoning. Does Singer believe they should have fewer rights than a chicken? 2. The article references a philosophy which he himself designed which again seems to have no objective basis.

This being said, the parts of the article that I didn't mention seem to be well written. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.86.50.81 (talk) 14:40, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Third opinion

Response to third opinion request:
For the most part, I think the article sounds better without Harnad's edits. For starters, "reasons" sounds more encyclopedic than "scruples", but more importantly, many of the additions seem like original research because they are syntheses not backed up by any sources ("In response, proponets of meat-eating..."; "Animals are incapable of making ethical choices..."; "Humans have a choice...")...wow, there were whole paragraphs added that have no sources whatsoever (and I'm a flexitarian myself). And as far as the non-neutral argument, well, linking to your own work is a pretty obvious way of showing so, Harnad. Erpert WHAT DO YOU WANT??? 18:58, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
  1. ^ "Should we all be vegetarians?"". July 2, 2002. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  2. ^ Gaverick Matheny (2003.). "Least harm: a defense of vegetarianism from Steven Davis's omnivorous proposal" (PDF). Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. 16 (5): 505–511. doi:10.1023/A:1026354906892. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)
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