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February 6, 2007
I'm not a
vegetarian. Or rather,
I'm the A semi-coherent article in
It seems to world's "The Nation" by Daniel Lazare
me that wimpiest raises me from my slumbers.
there are vegetarian.
many Title: "My Beef With
arguments I skip eating Vegetarianism",
for eating meat half of the a review of "Bloodless Maybe
*less* meat time because I Revolution" by Tristram I have
that make just don't think Stuart. things
a lot of it's that to say
sense. fascinating. DANIELS_BEEF not yet
said.
Health-oriented,
Financial, Can't
Environmental/Political... have
that,
None of these strike me can we?
as very good arguments High meat diets may
for eating *zero* meat. often be bad news
health-wise, but
there are some
The one argument that light-meat cuisines
gets you to zero, with a good record Meat may indeed
is the notion that for longevity. be a waste of
the division between resources (you
animals and humans can feed more
should be abandoned. people with the
grain you feed
Animal rights should cattle than with
be the same as human the cattle), but
rights. that just means
The usual rhetoric we should treat
involves drawing an it appropriately
analogy with the as a "luxury"
history of racism. item.
Once black people
were not regarded Dropping the
as fully human, now (hidden)
that attitude is political
anathema. subsidies of
the cattle
So, regarding anything industry
as not being fully would be all
human is tantamount to the good.
to racism.
We could
Anything? stop giving
Worms, rocks, them a free
toasters? ride on
Spinach? public
George Bush? property for
example.
Another common Conservatives
philosophy: animals weep at the
can experience pain, thought of a
and therefore are "commons":
equivalents of human Perhaps notably: the So, why not
beings. word "sentient" once take aim at
meant the ability to the cowboys?
(That is, when the feel.
philosophy is not (But this is
the protection of A generation of an argument
all things cute science fiction about *how*
and fuzzy.) writers (Larry meat-animals
Niven and co) should be
have managed to raised, not
Myself, I'm the convince that it *whether*
kind of guy who means the they should
thinks that the ability to think. be raised.)
central aspect of
humanity is our It's a nearly
intelligence. useless word
now, because
Of course, I would it's hard to
say that, since I know which
often claim that I way it's being
myself am intelligent, used. I've seen it
except for the suggested
occasional note of (Unless you're (wikipedia)
false (?) modesty. someone who that there was
likes to a confusion of
People who had explicitly "sentience" and
trouble passing define "sapience". This
calculus might terminology.) sounds plausible.
very well feel
nervous about that
standard, but I
myself am not
interested in
withholding the
human franchise A problem with the word
from them. "intelligence": we worry
a lot about fine-grained
differences in our daily
lives, so if you appear
to be saying that only
the "intelligent" deserve
protection from
slaughter, that's a
reason to be concerned.
Those tiny
differences
aren't what I'm
thinking about,
The idea that of course.
"all life is
sacred" doesn't Einstein and Brittany
work of course. are both roughly on
the same level.
Isn't broccoli
alive? There's a need to
"play it safe", to
pick a boundary
that respects any
case that might
possibly deserve
respect.
You sometimes hear the (I was tempted
idea that our bodies to make another
are poorly adapted to George Bush joke
meat eating, because here, but
the vegetarian enough...)
capability is older.
I actually don't know,
but I suspect that this You could find a
is wrong: we've been particular example
omnivores for an awfully of a "retarded"
long time now. human being that
would not seem so
Certainly there are some human to us;
animals that need to eat but there isn't
meat, that evolved to eat any pressing
almost solely meat. need to tune up
the definition
The notion that we (or that precisely.
perhaps, just some of us?)
need to eat some small TOUGH_CASES
quantity of it isn't that
absurd either. Many "retarded" people
definitely do register
as human, and you don't
want to risk excluding
them with some clumsy
Note: it could be attempt at defining the
this is case where I boundary.
know the answer I
want already in
advance, and I'm
choosing a set of
principles to give
the right answer.
Typical, isn't it?
It occurs to me that
the ideal meat-animal
would be bred with
an ugly coat, a bad
smell, and a nasty
temperament, to avoid (Once again, it
provoking any sympathy. takes effort to
avoid making a
George Bush joke.)
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