The systems by which we produce meat are intentional. Just because the people who set them up and benefit from them don't care doesn't mean these farms can exist outside morality.
Inflicting pain on an animal to save its life is directly related to your point. Raising animals in objectively painful and squalid conditions so they can be slaughtered is not at all the same.
You are equating saving the life of a human to the torture and slaughtering of an animals. They are not analogous
I am pointing out a dichotomy. I am appealing to your sense of logic. Why do you feel emotionally attached to dogs? Are they smarter than cows? Do they feel more or less? Is being cruel to a dog worse than being cruel to another animal?
By your logic, dog meat farms are fine -- amoral. The cruelty does not matter because it's inherent.
So you are arguing that because a ruthless and uncaring system is responsible for creating massive suffering, it doesn't matter? It's awfully convenient that we don't have to care about cruelty when it's inherent in the system. People created these systems. We have the capacity to reduce the suffering. Why wouldn't you want that?
If dogs were raised in these conditions, people would be outraged (see korea, china, puppy mills, etc.) It's a bit hypocritical, don't you think?
Animal agriculture is necessarily cruel. It is efficient. By your logic, this cruelty is negative. It sounds like we are very close to agreeing, frankly
Would you kick a dog in the street? Shoot a cat with a bb gun? These are things that happen with frequency, but I wouldn't do because I think that causing pain to another animal, senselessly, is a bad thing.
Would you raise a chicken in complete darkness for its whole life? Would you raise a cow in a suffocatingly small pen among its excrement? Impregnate a cow constantly and steal its babies away for meat so you can continue to milk it until it dies? Animals feel pain. They communicate, they suffer, they mourn.
If you can supply an argument that causing suffering of innocent animals is good/doesn't matter, I'm all ears.
This seems to reinforce my point. Surely 75% of production is not simply wastage otherwise. This is even ignoring the fact that I provided a source showing that deforestation by soy is far less problematic than it used to be.
We have agency over our actions and the ability to reduce the negative impacts we have on the world. We are unique in this ability, and we should exercise it
You can't appreciate a philosophical argument on a philosophical issue? I suppose that can be valid. It seems to me you don't want to consider the ideas I have raised in good faith
Can you supply a convincing argument for suffering? We are fully capable of living with much, much less meat production. Why should we continue to inflict pain on things which can experience it? It seems manifest to me
This was the case, and is certainly problematic. Take it a step further -- who or what is consuming that soy? Animal agriculture, by and large. Therefore this is an argument for veganism, or at least reducing consumption.
I like to give people questions to ponder and explore. I think my arguments are very clear from the questions I have raised. Suffering of conscious beings is a negative thing. Particularly the egregious conditions in which we raise our "meat". This isn't even considering the horrible conditions that humans suffer working in and around the meat industry.
This is a strawman. No one is arguing buying beans fixes deforestation. However, if less meat is produced (ie less animals are raised for slaughter), then less deforestation will come as a result of the meat industry. If legume farming was destroying the rainforest, I'd have a problem with that too
Do you think that animals have consciousness? Do they feel pain, fear? Is it moral for you to inflict pain and fear on a conscious being? What about 1,000,000 of those beings? Would you butcher a toddler for meat? What about an animal with similar (or more) depth of emotion and cognition than that? Is it okay because they are other species? What about the deforestation caused by animal agriculture? What about the impact on climate change? I think there are many valid moral arguments that you are outright dismissing with a mere hand wave. I hope you give it some more thought
Sure, but the average person does not know or care about the distinction. It's much easier to explain this way. I'll see if I can incorporate this terminology instead next time though
To willingly inflict unnecessary suffering on sentient beings is cruelty. This is a semantic argument that ignores reality