Doesn't that look tasty, eh?
Does it? I don't have a clue. I've never eaten bacon or anything bacon flavoured in my whole life. Nor, for that matter, any flesh taken from any creature but microscopic organisms or the errant kamikaze insect. Neither do I drink milk from said creatures, or consume their eggs, or drink their blood, or keep them as pets, or experiment on them, or perform sexual acts with them or enthusiastically wear them.
So when I say that I know many find bacon extremely tasty, know how far from that world I am. Sure, I've picked up a certain association between meat and "yum" from the way others express themselves, but my own nostrils and eyes can find nothing appealing, and should the worst ever occur then my taste buds and stomach would likely revolt.
I think it's fair enough to bring this up, and to explain the reasoning behind my position. I'm not primarily trying to convert anybody to my worldview, but merely to show that the case for and against the use of animals is not really the same game that many assume it is.
I was brought up a vegetarian, which I certainly don't object to, for I never had to become hooked on meat as a staple of my diet. The opportunity to change has freely come and gone, and my behaviour has progressed towards matching the logical conclusion of the arguments that supported my vegetarianism.
Let's assume no divine agency wills us to slaughter, consume, and use other living creatures. Let's also assume that other creatures need not be a part of our diets in order for us to live - I am alive and so are the others. It is not necessarily in our nature to feast on other creatures.
In the more developed world dietary options are pouring out of our ears. Most are hardly struggling to find food to eat, and starvation is rarely unavoidable. We don't have to eat other creatures. There are alternatives. We don't have to wear them. There are alternatives. We don't need to test on them. There are alternatives. And on and on...
I'm establishing the element of choice here, in order to dispel cowardly attempts to dodge responsibility for life choices. There are those who must use animals to survive - those in suffering areas of the world or those with certain medical conditions. They also have a choice, although a rather loaded one, between life and death. Most will choose life at the expense of other creatures and so would I.
But I'm not in that position. Leo Tolstoy once said "A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite." Aside from the usual tiresome correction needed to apply this quote to both directions on the gender scale, he is generally right. Most people around here choose to use animals out of self interest.
Now, there's nothing objectively wrong with that. There's nothing necessarily wrong with anything. I do not propose to give anybody information on morality, as that would be ridiculous. I don't believe there's anything wrong with the actual act of eating meat - human or otherwise.
But I choose not to. Humanity's dominant position on the planet does not oblige it to abuse its role as 'the fittest'. People harp on about lesser intelligence, or about less developed capacity to suffer. Sure, sure, but applied logically this would allow the killing and eating of all the stupid people, or mentally handicapped, or anybody afflicted with any degree of paralysis or nerve loss. Humans aren't in a different category, any more that some cultural group's favourite pets are in a different category to their pastoral herds.
As such I choose to withdraw from involvement in the mass killing of sentient creatures, in hunting them, in destroying and butchering them, in paying for this to be done. I choose not to participate in a system that manages entire populations of living thinking creatures reducing their lives as mere preludes to their executions. I also choose not to kill animals myself. I choose this because I can, and because it pleases me to do so.
There's a sliding scale, and people can rest where they like on it. Perhaps it might make them happy to choose not to cause suffering to animals forced into hellish cycles of milking or birthing by providing a market for milk and eggs by becoming a consumer of those items. Some might try not to wear bits of corpses, because they'd rather not. Some may decide to oppose the torture of animals in clinical trials, ostensibly excused as for the greater good but essentially profit guided. Others might reject the domestication of other creatures as our servile pets and dependants, as a source of amusement, and a luxury. Or the use of horses as beasts of burden, long since unnecessary. Some might avoid having any impact on other species that may in any way cause harm, distress, suffering or in any other way oppose upon them.
Not because it's 'wrong' or 'evil'. But because there is a choice, and people should examine their motives before they make it. Necessity is rare, even as many of these activities are inefficient and destructive. Does your own self interest swing it for you? Or are you just too lazy, or weak, to think about choosing any other path?
Perhaps we could grow meat in tubes. I'd eat that. Or operate only on a policy of strict opportunism: making use of the cadavers of those dead from natural causes. I could live with that. Or die with it - you're all free to snack on me afterwards. I wont mind a bit.
