Such questions are strongly cultural. That means both location and time dependent.
Consider, for example, the prevalence of such activities as bull fighting, rodeos, and circus shows involving animals. There are many other examples of practices related to animals that are accepted as routine in s...
Ok, but I don't see culture as 'reasons', just unquestioned stuff. Questioning can never be wrong. I think a lot of this is simply falling off now. How many children have even seen a cow, vs 100 years ago? Many people will never in their lives go to a Rodeo (I haven't), ride a horse let alone care for one, sail a boat, drive a nail... Most of our 'culture' now didn't even exist 30 years ago. Animals might disappear from sheer loss of interest in them.
Sure. I grew up spending the whole summer each year in a small cabin on an island with electric stove and fridge, but no running water, heat, a/c, TV, telephone, roads, mail delivery or even a radio. And books, lots of books. Seeing thousands of stars at night, complete darkness and silence... The rest of the time: MoTown. My 'culture' is to question everything. I did own a horse, did sail a boat, did pull, straighten and drive nails with a crowbar.
@ScottRowe, so you spend your summers on an island retreat to get away from Detroit, had access to horses and boats, and - what? You think cows will stop existing because people can't be bothered to have their own animals? And apparently all culture is just that which has been unquestioned, and should fall away in the face of logic? That kind of logic was used to justify Indian Residential Schools, Manifest Destiny and colonization in general. Human thought is non-causative and logic doesn't work in that space that way.
@Nohbdy Yes, this is well said. I spent summers as a child the way my mother did, in the same cabin, minus the electricity. And her mother spent summers there as a teenager, helping the two older ladies who went there in the summer, but with a rowboat instead of a small powerboat. Detroit and many cities were not very healthy in the summers and lots of people got away, always and everywhere. But it gives lots of time and practice in questioning, and unquestioned things cannot be improved. Everything is valid for improvement, so questioning is always good. There are less horses now than 1900.
@ScottRowe There are fewer horses today simply because engines replace them. Once cheap artificial meat with identical taste becomes a reality, farms would switch to producing the artificial meat's components. The "question" of the artificial meat industry isn't whether it's okay to consume meat and thus farm, but whether there is a more profitable method to provide meat.
@ScottRowe I read this answer less as saying "people are morally justified in eating meat because of culture" and more as "people eat meat because of culture, regardless of whether / even though they may not they have a moral justification for this".
@NotThatGuy Ok. I'm not sure what to do with the phrase "moral justification". Morality is like a contract: no one thinks about it except when they think a wrong was done. So morality seems to be a definition of wrongs, which is one-sided, but maybe necessarily so. You can't define an infinite number of things. If something is wrong, just say it's wrong, done. If you are wrong in saying it's wrong, well, shame on you.
@Martheen Making it cheaper to produce things solves a host of wrongs. If horses were cheaper, we would all ride. As it is, they are pretty unaffordable. Years ago I was concerned about my coworkers and the future of the company I worked for. A wiser person told me that the best way to solve that is for the company to "be wildly successful." And that's evolution.
@ScottRowe You lost me completely. You said "I don't see culture as 'reasons'", which I addressed. Ethical vegans ARE saying that eating meat is wrong, but that isn't all this question is about. And moral frameworks exist, and plenty of people agree on moral values, so it's not all that one-sided. "You can't define an infinite number of things" can be used to dismiss any reflection of morality - not a great argument. There is only thing in question here: eating meat (and there are not that many moral questions in public discussion either, with veganism being one of the biggest ones).
Cultures evolve over time, so this isn't a complete answer. I can't speak for other countries, but if you were to compare public policy, charity work and general public opinion on the issue of animal cruelty in the UK over recent decades and centuries, you'd find a strong trend in one direction, but less so on the issue of eating meat.
@BillOnne Sure, but the rest of the answer (e.g. "Why do we do this particular thing? Because it is traditional. Because we have done it for a long time. Because we have all the support structure to do it. (Farms, stores, training in food prep, and so on.) Because people are accustomed to doing it that way") is predicated on stasis.
It would be absurd, for instance, to say that British public revulsion to hunting is based on "tradition" or "custom", given fox hunting is actually traditional. Clearly there are reasons and material or political forces that have been at play here.
@eclipz905 I am not sure what is a good grounding for a moral argument. Mostly, people just seem to have reactions, either against something, or supporting it as commonplace and expected. Some reactions are baked in but can be worn down by repeated exposure. Many 'tradition' reactions seem beyond the reach of any counterargument. People don't appear to be very rational, and morality looks to be their least rational area.
@ScottRowe, Humans are only rational with effort. Emotion is not rational, culture does not fall away when inspected, morality is a human construct, and it has non-linear, non-causative dependencies external to any 'is X moral' question. Human euthanasia, the death penalty, death caused during self-defense, and of course, the question of the consumption of meat - all great and terrible because there is no unifying answer, and culturally, many are concerned that something, somewhere is judging our morality and keeping score. That's culture for you.
@Nohbdy Good comments. I suppose the non-dual answer would be, if it feels bad, don't do it. -- "Therefore let your testimony be: yea, yea, nay, nay, for more than this comes of evil." (Jesus)
This. Ever seen the unbelieving looks when you tell someone you're vegetarian? Ever heard the "but people must eat meat to stay healthy"? Truth is, you can live quite a healthy life without eating animals (provided you take your B12), but those people have seen their parents eat meat, their teachers eat meat, their peers eat meat, and everyone say's it's a good thing. And they've grown to like the taste. They only learned about the source of their meat long after the habit was established. When they had something to loose. Who's going to question that? Yeah, those vegetarians again...
@eclipz905 Moral Relativism and Appeal to Tradition may fall apart when exposed to some scrutiny, but the vast majority of people never apply any scrutiny to any moral view they've grown accustomed to. So, while it's not a good idea to try to defend eating meat based on tradition, the correct answer to why people are eating meat is because they've been taught by their parents to do so. And because they've internalized the BS about meat eating being a necessity that people tend to tell their kids when they find out where all that delicious meat is actually coming from.
Discussion on answer by BillOnne: Why…
Discussion on answer by BillOnne: Why…