Why eating a steak is more ethical than eating a chicken

[Nearly Sane]

At least according to Dr Diana Fleischman



https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/a-new-way-of-thinking-about-animal-welfare-1.3226845

[Sebastian Toe]

At least according to Dr Diana Fleischman



https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/a-new-way-of-thinking-about-animal-welfare-1.3226845

I'm in a moral dilemma.
I like chicken fried steak! 

[Rhiannon]

As a vegetarian I'm aware that eating dairy and eggs isn't good. I eat a lot of vegan meals but it is a drop in the ocean, really. I guess my bottom line is that I don't want dead animals in my body.

If animal husbandry was as it should be we might not even be having this debate.

[Walter]

As a vegetarian I'm aware that eating dairy and eggs isn't good. I eat a lot of vegan meals but it is a drop in the ocean, really. I guess my bottom line is that I don't want dead animals in my body.

If animal husbandry was as it should be we might not even be having this debate.

BTW, how is your bottom line ?

[Walter]

At least according to Dr Diana Fleischman



https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/a-new-way-of-thinking-about-animal-welfare-1.3226845

I actually stopped reading the article after the end of the first sentence of the second paragraph !

[jeremyp]

a vegetarian who eats eggs every day could be causing a lot more suffering than a meat eater who only eats beef.

How is that? Eating eggs doesn't involve killing any chickens. As long as the chickens aren't kept in unnecessarily cruel conditions. shouldn't it be OK?

[Shaker]

How is that? Eating eggs doesn't involve killing any chickens.

1. Numbers. There are vastly more chickens than cows. (In fact I've heard it said that there are more chickens than humans).

2. Eating eggs does involve killing chickens - the vast majority of male chicks are simply surplus to requirements and are promptly killed, often in remarkably cruel ways:

http://tinyurl.com/y9b6gqet

As long as the chickens aren't kept in unnecessarily cruel conditions. shouldn't it be OK?

This argument always founders on the same rock: they are.

[jeremyp]

1. Numbers. There are vastly more chickens than cows. (In fact I've heard it said that there are more chickens than humans).

2. Eating eggs does involve killing chickens - the vast majority of male chicks are simply surplus to requirements and are promptly killed, often in remarkably cruel ways:

http://tinyurl.com/y9b6gqet

Do you have any evidence that a newly born male chick has any awareness of being treated cruelly?

This argument always founders on the same rock: they are.

That's a generalisation. Got any evidence that all chickens that lay eggs are treated inhumanely?

[Shaker]

Ah, the usual desperate defences 

[jeremyp]

Ah, the usual desperate defences 

I guess that means you are not going to answer my questions.

[Shaker]

I guess that means you are not going to answer my questions.

I took it as read as obvious that a male chick has a nervous system - perhaps you have evidence to the contrary?

[jeremyp]

I took it as read as obvious that a male chick has a nervous system - perhaps you have evidence to the contrary?

That doesn't answer the question. A cockroach has a nervous system and a rat and so does a twenty week old human foetus.

[Shaker]

That doesn't answer the question. A cockroach has a nervous system and a rat and so does a twenty week old human foetus.

Indeed they do. And with the exception of the foetus I assume them to experience pain and therefore to be moral patients.

Foetus excepted because the last evidence I saw (may be different now, but I'm not talking long ago) suggests that a foetus hasn't sufficient neural complexity to experience pain prior to about 22-23 weeks.

[jeremyp]

Indeed they do. And with the exception of the foetus I assume them to experience pain and therefore to be moral patients.

Foetus excepted because the last evidence I saw (may be different now, but I'm not talking long ago) suggests that a foetus hasn't sufficient neural complexity to experience pain prior to about 22-23 weeks.

how old was the human foetus in question? Was it twenty weeks?

What about the cockroach? What evidence do you have that it experiences pain?

What is the level of neural complexity that an organism must have to experience pain?

Is it OK to kill non humans if we do it painlessly?

[Shaker]

how old was the human foetus in question? Was it twenty weeks?

I refer you to the report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists published in March 2010:

"In March 2010, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists submitted a report, concluding that "Current research shows that the sensory structures are not developed or specialized enough to respond to pain in a fetus of less than 24 weeks", pg. 22.

The neural regions and pathways that are responsible for pain experience remain under debate but it is generally accepted that pain from physical trauma requires an intact pathway from the periphery, through the spinal cord, into the thalamus and on to regions of the cerebral cortex including the primary sensory cortex (S1), the insular cortex and the anterior cingulated cortex.3,4 Fetal pain is not possible before these necessary neural pathways and structures (figure 1) have developed. -pg. 3

The report specifically identified the anterior cingulate as the area of the cerebral cortexresponsible for pain processing. The anterior cingulate is part of the cerebral cortex, which begins to develop in the fetus at week 26."

There is a consensus among developmental neurobiologists that the establishment of thalamocortical connections (at weeks 22-34, reliably at 29) is a critical event with regard to fetal perception of pain, as they allow peripheral sensory information to arrive at the cortex.

Electroencephalography indicates that the capacity for functional pain perception in premature infants does not exist before 29 or 30 weeks; a 2005 meta-analysis states that withdrawal reflexes and changes in heart rates and hormone levels in response to invasive procedures are reflexes that do not indicate fetal pain.

What about the cockroach? What evidence do you have that it experiences pain?

None, but I operate on the benefit-of-the-doubt principle (much as we have to with other humans, come to that).

What is the level of neural complexity that an organism must have to experience pain?

I refer you to my first reply.

Is it OK to kill non humans if we do it painlessly?

Since I'm not an absolute pacifist, support assisted suicide and have no ultimate (as opposed to proximate) objection to capital punishment, then yes.

[jeremyp]

I refer you to the report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists published in March 2010:
None, but I operate on the benefit-of-the-doubt principle (much as we have to with other humans, come to that).
I refer you to my first reply.

So it is just as wrong in your opinion to kill a cockroach as it is to abort a 27 week old foetus.

Since I'm not an absolute pacifist, support assisted suicide and have no ultimate (as opposed to proximate) objection to capital punishment, then yes.

You misread my comment, I was talking about non humans. What I'm trying to establish is whether not is OK in your opinion, to kill a pig for bacon sandwiches as long as we do it painlessly and as long as no cruelty is inflicted upon them while alive.

[Shaker]

So it is just as wrong in your opinion to kill a cockroach as it is to abort a 27 week old foetus.

Can either be done without suffering?

You misread my comment

I did; I didn't see the 'non'.

I was talking about non humans.

Apologies: so you were.

What I'm trying to establish is whether not is OK in your opinion, to kill a pig for bacon sandwiches as long as we do it painlessly and as long as no cruelty is inflicted upon them while alive.

No, it is not.

Even in the fantasy scenario you propose, the whole enterprise is still predicated top to bottom on the speciesist idea of non-human animals as things - specifically, commodities to be exploited for the idle whims of humans.

[jeremyp]

Can either be done without suffering?

Just to clarify, are you equating suffering and pain?

Even in the fantasy scenario you propose, the whole enterprise is still predicated top to bottom on the speciesist idea of non-human animals as things - specifically, commodities to be exploited for the idle whims of humans.

Is there anything wrong with that? Pigs wouldn't exist at all without humans treating them as food stuffs.

[Shaker]

Just to clarify, are you equating suffering and pain?

Yes.

Is there anything wrong with that?

Yes.

Pigs wouldn't exist at all without humans treating them as food stuffs.

Absolutely true, and a better deal for the pigs all round, since (like most people) I don't consider any existence at all to be superior to none.

[jeremyp]

Yes.

And what is your justification for that? Do you have evidence that an organism that exhibits a defence reaction to a stimulus from being damaged actually experiences anything?

Yes.

What? And what evidence to you have?
 

Absolutely true, and a better deal for the pigs all round, since (like most people) I don't consider any existence at all to be superior to none.

You don't consider it better. Maybe the pig would.

[Walter]

Ah, the usual desperate defences 

here's my defence.........I don't really care! 

[Shaker]

And what is your justification for that? Do you have evidence that an organism that exhibits a defence reaction to a stimulus from being damaged actually experiences anything?

The word damaged is the giveaway here, I'd have thought. As I said before, given that we can only ever have direct and immediate access to the moment-by-moment contents of our own consciousness and nothing else you can apply this every bit equally to other humans. Everybody bar psychopaths does so.

The fact that you - with what degree of seriousness it's impossible to ascertain - attempt to argue in such a barrel-bottom-scraping manner, flirting with denial of just about everything we know of anatomy and physiology as well as evolutionary biology, zoology, ethology and plenty more -ologies beside, always says to me that a truly prickly defensive reaction has kicked in because vested interests are at stake.

You don't consider it better. Maybe the pig would.

Given the way pigs are habitually treated on a scale that almost defies comprehension, I'd say that that seems unlikely in the extreme. Evidence easily found - or supplied, if you're going to be more than usually tiresome.

[Shaker]

here's my defence.........I don't really care! 

I'd have taken that as read.

[Walter]

I'd have taken that as read.

yeah, blood red!

[Shaker]

Wrong meat but thanks for your ... contribution.