> Oppression is IMMORAL. This, for me, is where meat-eating becomes an
> ethical issue.
This is very similar to the point I was trying to make (which sent Jim
and me off on our lively string) when I said that disrespect was worse
than killing. Most of the time when we in the west kill, it is an
oppressive, disrespectful act. Does this imply that killing is a moral
wrong? No. We are omnivores. Most "natural" human populations
(hunter-gatherer societies) include meat in the diet. Ronnie is right
that it is USUALLY a small part of the diet, but the fact remains that it
is there. What is also there is, in many cases, rules about what is ok
and what is not when killing. In other words, there is usually a moral
code which speaks to the issues of respect and/or oppression, without
passing judgement on killing per se.
Since, in our society, killing is almost always inextricably linked with
disrespect and oppression it is not surprising that our initial reaction
to the question of the morality of killing is to say that it is the
ultimate wrong. However, as I said before, I think that this is the wrong
issue to address. I think it is much more important (and effective) to
focus on respect and oppression as the issues.
Jon.
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mon Feb 6 17:10:35 MST 1995
6 Feb 95 19:15:50 GMT-5
From: "Brian A. Luke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: University of Dayton
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 1995 19:15:25 EST
Subject: omnivores and killing
> Most of the time when we in the west kill, it is an
> oppressive, disrespectful act. Does this imply that killing is a moral
> wrong? No. We are omnivores. Most "natural" human populations
> (hunter-gatherer societies) include meat in the diet.
Even if some meat-eating is natural this implies nothing about
killing, since meat can be "gathered" (scavenged) from the bodies of
already dead animals. And as I understand it, there is no consensus
at this point amongst anthropologists about whether early omnivorous
humans were hunters or scavengers. It could be that while our
physiology is adapted to consuming small quantities of flesh, our
psychology is not at all adapted for killing large mammals. Compare
the guilt reactions of humans killing large mammals with the total
enjoyment of the killer cat. Only humans (ie., men) apologize to
their prey.
Brian
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mon Feb 6 17:22:23 MST 1995
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 95 16:30:00 PST
From: Lisa Corsetti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: We're off the point
Hi People,
Aren't we a bit off the original point? The original point was that
a diet containing meat takes much more of a toll on the environment
than a plant based diet. There was no mention whatsoever of ethics.
Ethics can be argued forever. It's like religion. The plain truth
is that eating a low on the food chain plant based diet is *much*
*much* kinder to our planet and to our own well being.
Lisa
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The earth does not belong to us.
We belong to the earth.
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