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I think it depends on where you get your meat, eggs, and dairy.
A proper farm where the animals are kept safe, healthy, and happy for longer than they'd live in the wild, and in the case of meat killed quickly and painlessly? That could be considered morally okay.
Factory farms where they lead short, filthy miserable lives, constantly being bred to maximize milk production? Nah, that is not morally okay.
A vegetarian diet isn't much more ethical than an omnivore diet, anyway. Veganism has a much better argument.
If ethical = animal welfare, perhaps.
But when factoring in e.g. water consumption and CO2e per unit of food consumed, I would argue the average vegetarian diet to be significantly more ethical compared with the average omnivorous diet.
Obviously the type of animals involved, the way they are treated and killed, and religious views add more complexity to this case.
edit: the essence of my point is that this isn't a black and white matter.
I think that's a flawed argument. Cow milk production requires that cows get pregnant once a year, and the calves can't all become milk cows, too - thus, cow milk production cannot exist without cow meat production. And IIRC milk products still have a worse environmental impact than chicken meat.
TBH I'm not sure about the environmental impact of eggs vs meat. But animal welfare is generally the main reason why people keep to vegetarian or vegan diets, and chicken farming is not great in terms of animal welfare.
The bottom line is: 1 cow birth per year (or let's call it cow deaths, because that's what is most relevant here) yields around 10.000L of milk. Out of which around 1000kg of cheese can be produced, plus of course the meat of that calf.
Does that make it ethical? I don't think so. But I would say around 1.5-2x less unethical compared to eating meat, which is significant.
I read a book called "change of heart" by a vegan animal activist, which was all about research into what actually worked in terms of convincing people to reduce animal suffering. For him, it would be ideal if we reduced animal suffering to zero. But even encouraging someone to eat less meat (e.g. Meatless Mondays) reduced animal suffering, and was a win in his book. I kind of agree with that.
I thought you were talking about environmental impact? Both cow milk and cow meat have a worse environmental footprint than chicken meat.
My point is: ethics should not be confused with a single dimension of ethics. Whether something I'd ethical, depends on your beliefs.
Simultaneously, if animal welfare is all we optimize for, vegetarianism is a step forward. And indeed, so is pollotarianism when optimizing for just environmental impact. Perfect is the enemy of good.
For water consumption and CO2, avoid beef, milk and cheese. Chicken and eggs are no issue, they cause less harm in that regard than many plant products (like almonds).
If it's possible and you're capable to do it, then I think it's a moral choice.
If it's a matter of survival, health or inaccess to a variety of food, I don't think it really is a choice one should have to make on grounds of morality.
Overall, most humans agree that it is morally wrong to make other creatures suffer. Eating meat, or dairy, definitely leads to animal suffering (it actual leads to human suffering too).
No, I have a developed system of morality, quite strong. And eating meat doesn't contradict it.
For anyone curious the model is based on avoidance of cruelty. Cruelty is what makes people bad. If you do something with cruel intentions it doesn't matter what you destroy, a human, other animal, a plant or even a geological formation. If you do it with cruelty on mind you are a bad person.
But if your intentions are others, then there's nothing bad. You eat meat not because you want to be cruel towards an animal, but because you want to eat. Then it's ok.
It's all about avoiding cruel intentions on humans. Those are my morals at least. I follow them and judge anothers based on them.
if you are concerned with putting a stop to unnecessary suffering or climate destruction, vegetarianism accomplishes essentially nothing. veganism is a moral baseline, it is literally the least we can be doing.
Depends on your morals. For mine it is.
morals are anecdotes that define your personal integrity. morals are arguable at best and carry little to no merit outside of personal experience.
I believe you mean ethical.
ethically, no, it's not wrong. mostly because the animals we consume are bred and raised specifically to eat. however, the treatment of those animals in corporate factory farms is unethical, and so makes the consumption of the products from those establishments unethical.
No.
No. The nature of life consumptions of living things. I do believe however that it is preferable to eat from the least sentient of creatures as possible. You can even go further and eat things which does not kill things at all like fruitarians. This would be following the ethic of least harm. Its almost impossible for anyone living in the modern world to not be destroying it with their consumption. Most vegans for example would be doing more harm to me than say someone native to the americas before colonialism that ate meat.
probably not.
Yes
I would argue that no, it is not morally wrong per se to be non-vegetarian. Meat consumption is not morally wrong in general, it is just morally wrong in our society. We kill way too many animals to be sustainable and every animal you eat contributes to that. We harm climate and ecosystems to sustain our meat consumption. We hold animals captive and make them hurt and suffer. In this society you can not eat meat in a morally okay way.
It's a difficult question, so I hope some people who have interesting things to say about it will turn up here. All I can contribute is this link: Ancient Arguments For Vegetarianism
"eels that come when called"?
Where did this question originate? Why has it come up in your day to day conversation?.
Give us you opinion and I might be more inclined to share my opinion.
Or you could simply off your opinion based on the information as presented.
This seems like an attempt at trying to sidetrack the topic rather than providing an answer. Which is odd given that commenting here is opt in. It's not like someone directly approached you and asked the question.
Where did this question originate
Why
Why has it come up in your day to day conversation?.
It hasn't
Give us you opinion
Don't have one yet
What's the value of life? Is the life of an animal worth less than that of a human and a plant or mushroom worth less than an animal? IMO, they are all worth the same, human or haybale, cow or soybean.
No, if you are Vegan. Yes, if you eat animal products. The question is, do you care?
You are what you eat. Cows eat grass. Cows are machines that convert grass into more cows. Cows are essentially converted grass. Thus, if it’s ok to eat grass, it’s ok to eat cows. Checkmate.
