Background and context
Most men and women eat meat, although some (mostly in rich countries) eat much more than others. Almost all of this meat is the flesh of domesticated livestock - animals born and raised on farms to be killed and sold for their meat. People who make a choice never to eat meat are vegetarians, although there are different views about what this can mean. Some vegetarians eat fish if it has been caught in the wild, many will not eat flesh of any sort. Some people are vegans, choosing not to eat any animal product, include eggs and dairy (milk) foods such as cheese, butter and yoghurt. Vegans and many vegetarians also refuse to wear leather or fur because it comes from animals.Courtesy - Debatepedia.org
Proposition:
1. Pranay
2. Ninad - Opening
3. Rajat
4. Shashwat
5. Rushabh
Opposition:
1. Ishan
2. Tarun - Opening
3. Mohit
4. Sushant
5. Ravi
Opening - Ninad Kulkarni
This House: 10 rational people
Disallow: discourage
Non veg: Slaughter of livestock for food
1. Survival of the fittest does not apply: Animals killed for pleasure and entertainment. The argument that our dominance over land, air and water allows us to eat inferior beings is false. Eating animals is in no way essential to our survival. We do it for sport and hence abuse our position as guardians of the weak.
2. Species discrimination: Most animals are physically much superior to humans. Just because animals are intellectually inferior to us does not allow us to eat them. If that logic is extended then we should go ahead and eat intellectually inferior human beings too. For eg. A human baby is less intelligent then a chimpanzee. Yet chimp meat is a delicacy in some countries but the act of eating babies is nauseating and barbaric. Why the hypocrisy?
3. Barbaric and cruel treatment: The practice of breeding animals for slaughter is all the more disgusting. All the more these animals are often mistreated and genetically tampered with to make good food. This cheats them of the basic respect a living being deserves.
4. To make my point clearer let us consider that a race of machines/aliens much superior to humans decides to breed us for food and entertainment. I am sure all of us find this to be outrageously unjust. Then why is non vegetarianism any different?
5. Environmental pollution: Deforestation takes place to make space for cattle farms. Fishing is largely indiscriminate and disturbs the ocean’s eco system. This misplaced notion of dominance has led to several problems in the environment.
6. Health concerns: Food borne diseases. Swine Flu, Bird Flu, and a variety of diseases are borne by animals. There are significant health benefits to 'going veggie'; a vegetarian diet contains high quantities of fibre, vitamins, and minerals, and is low in fat. The risk of contracting many forms of cancer is increased by eating meat. Eating meat also increases the risk of heart disease - vegetables contain no cholesterol, which can build up to cause blocked arteries in meat-eaters. A vegetarian diet reduces the risk of serious diseases and, because it is low in fat, also helps to prevent you becoming overweight. There are plenty of vegetarian sources of protein, such as beans and bean curd; and spinach is one of the best sources of iron.
Opposition Opening - Tarun Mathur
Let me give you a few constructive arguments, which I will follow up with rebuttals. A brief introduction to our stance first: Man is biologically omnivorous. Man has been eating non-vegetarian food, sometimes for survival – in cases where there was no other alternative, sometimes as a luxury, sometimes just because he wanted to. The fact that this has continued doesn’t mean that it should continue further, but certainly emphasizes man’s liking to meat. At the outset, let me also concede that in today’s world man doesn’t need non-vegetarian food for survival – to simplify the debate. It may be apt to just term meat as a luxury, which most can afford. Before I move on to my constructives, I have an inherent problem with your definition of vegetarianism. If, according to you, only slaughter is bad, then consider this. Let’s say I have the technology to chop off both limbs of a chicken only to be genetically reproduced later. This should be okay, by your logic. If it is, I assume that your only issue is the killing of animals.
My first constructive deals with the right to choice and how the government is trying to manipulate it in this case. How the government has the power to intrude into a person’s everyday nutritional intake, I fail to understand. Neither will not eating non-vegetarian food benefit the State or society in any particular way, nor will eating non-vegetarian food cause any harm. If that is the case, morality remains the only argument to coerce me to change my diet. At this point of time, let me clearly demarcate between individual and collective morality. Collective morality deals with issues that affect every person – killing an innocent man, for example. Taking the life of a human baby and eating it is immoral to every person in society. That’s why we don’t do it. This stand on morality doesn’t change from person to person, assuming all are sane and rational. However, there are certain other issues – what one should or should not eat. There is a clear stand-off in moral positions on this argument, which simply suggests that it is an individual moral stance. There is no loss to society either way. Hence, the right to choice should, in fact, be guaranteed. State-run vegetarianism campaigns will either be fruitless, or take away the freedom of choice from an individual. So it is either a waste, or wrong.
My other constructive follows from my first. Having non-vegetarian food is sometimes a religious ritual. Serious repercussions regarding freedom of religion, apart from freedom of choice, follow if non-vegetarianism is discouraged in public media. Public campaigns may also lead to an identity crisis among the impressionable – having to make a choice between doing what the country demands and what the religion demands. The government has no right to put anyone in this position.
Coming to my rebuttals, one major point raised by the proposition is the abuse of power. If you say humans should not kill deer because deer are weaker (physically or intellectually – immaterial), by your logic, would you ban lions from killing deer? If you’re so concerned about animal welfare, why the hypocrisy? We believe non-vegetarianism is use of power, not abuse. Nature discriminates species, humans don’t. Humans have been given the intelligence to survive and not accept titles such as “Guardians of the weak”; tigers have been given claws, canine teeth and speed. Abuse comes when man pushes some species to extinction, disturbing ecological balance. Certainly, these issues must be dealt with, but not by generalizations of the order of wiping off non-vegetarianism. Similarly, about genetically modifying animals and force-feeding them, either one is okay with eating them or one isn’t. Same logic, freedom of choice. Print it on the packet, and let him decide. Or, shut down those facilities. Why wipe off non-vegetarianism?
Finally, about health concerns, there are equally dangerous problems with vegetarian food, if not worse. Fertilizers, pesticides and contaminated water are more carcinogenic than a life-time supply of Kentucky Fried Chicken. On the other hand, completely organic vegetables are extremely expensive and out of reach of the common man. Even if meat contains cholesterol and vegetables don’t, who are you to decide what my weight should be? As long as I contribute to society equally whether my weight is 60 or 90, how should it matter to you what I should or should not eat? Of course, spinach contains a lot of protein. So does fish. And I like fish, not spinach. Even if you’re my nutritionist, as long as I get my protein intake and I’m healthy, the rest should be immaterial.
Second Affirmative - Pranay Bhatia
Ladies and gentlemen, we on side prop believe this debate is about one simple question. In a world where there it is possible to survive comfortably as a vegetarian, is it permissible for the government to disallow the consumption of non-vegetarian food?
The burden that we take on is to show you that the answer to this question is yes. Why yes? Because it is wrong for humans to grossly mistreat, cause pain to, and kill animals, with no significant cause. Because there are significant macro-level problems with the non-vegetarian culture. Because the government can and in fact, should intervene in such a case. I will integrate most rebuttals into the constructive, and deal with the remaining opp points at the end.
I will be making four major constructives in this speech.
- It is wrong to cause pain to or kill animals
- Non-vegetarianism is inefficient and discriminatory to the world’s poor
- It is unsustainable and leads to the disruption of ecosystems extinction of species
- These issues are of sufficient concern to warrant the government to take action
Moving right on to the first point. Human morality is a phrase loaded with power, and making any absolute statements about what our morality should be and what morality justifies is dangerous. However some things are clear enough. We protect the most basic fundamental rights of human beings with ferocity. Why do we not do the same with animals?
The religious view is that God gave us ‘dominion’ over them, and hence the right to do what we want with them. That is laughable, and if we did have the right to do what we want, should we not feel morally obligated to not cause unnecessary pain to other sentient beings?
The other reason that may be given is that animals are inferior, because they lack rationality and language, and as such are worthy of less consideration than human beings, or even none. One, that is simply factually wrong. Science has shown us how chickens form social bonds and exhibit cognition that often exceeds even that of human babies, how cows form strong maternal bonds with their children, and how even fish communicate through body movements so intricate that we have still not deciphered how they do so. Two, even if they were inferior, that would justify harming new born babies and retarded adults as well. Three, are we as a species to take the attitude of a playground bully, free to harm anyone weaker for, well, fun?! Indeed, it stands to reason that the weakness of someone else is not a justification for mistreatment but rather a compelling reason to afford him greater protection.
Clearly then, the killing of other living beings, who feel, think, live, is morally wrong when done for no significant reason. This is not to say that animals have rights fully equal to those of humans. But surely, we must agree that their most basic rights should be respected to some degree.
Ladies and gentlemen, a vegetarian diet helps animals. Modern high-pressure agriculture commonly keeps cows, calves, pigs, chickens and other animals in extremely crowded stalls, cages, crates or sheds in which they are often unable to turn around or take even a single step in any direction for their entire lives. Deprived of veterinary care, exercise, sunlight and the feel of grass beneath their feet, these living, breathing, thinking, feeling beings, whose senses are so similar to ours, suffer and die at a rate of millions per day just so that we can eat meat. When we eat, we have a choice between adding to the level of violence in the world or respecting animals and eating vegetarian instead.
Moving on, eating meat harms the environment.
Raising animals for food is grossly inefficient because, while animals eat large quantities of grain, they produce only small amounts of meat, dairy products or eggs in return. According to Worldwatch Institute, “The politics of meat consumption are increasingly heated, since meat production is an inefficient use of grain – the grain is used more efficiently when consumed directly by humans. Continued growth in meat output is dependent on feeding grains to animals, creating competition for grain between affluent meat-eaters and the world’s poor”. In other words, it is discriminatory in the worst possible way – by keeping the poor in hunger.
Moreover, it is unsustainable. Human beings are much too powerful for their own good. Non-vegetarianism has an extremely high propensity to disrupt established ecosystems and lead to the disappearance of species. In the past 50 years, the fishing industry has exterminated 90 per cent of large fish populations, and today, 13 of the world’s 17 major fisheries are depleted or in serious decline. All so that you can have that delicious tuna starter dish. Unless our environmental impact as a species is significantly reduced, we will change nature so fast that we ourselves will struggle to adapt. Sustainability must be a major concern for the government and its entire people.
Finally to the fourth and final point,
A government may make laws and curtail certain non-fundamental privileges of a citizen for any one of two reasons – one, if it is clearly wrong and causing significant distress to someone else so as to outrage the conscience of society – two, if there are significant repercussions to society as a whole, that must be addresses by the only body that has been given the right to do so by society.
Here, we have both.
It is clearly wrong for animals to suffer and most of society would agree. In such a case, a responsible government must stop this needless pain, even if it is unpopular among a set of people. The ‘right to eat meat for pleasure by causing others unbelievable agony’ was never one of the bedrocks of our society. Opp here talks about the ‘right to choice’ and how the government must respect individual morality and ‘religious freedoms’. If that were so, Sati would still be prevalent, and I would be permitted to torture goats for fun.
Egg farmers use hot blades to cut off chicks’ beaks just hours after the birds hatch. The procedure, which requires cutting through tender tissue similar to the flesh under human fingernails, is so painful that many chicks die of shock. Some die of starvation when eating becomes too painful. I’m sorry but your right to choice, your religion and your morality have no place in this situation in any humane society. The government must not pander to the most base morality that exists in society.
Not only this, but given the large-scale repercussions that non-vegetarianism has been shown to have on the environment and ecosystems, on food availability for the poor, on the survival of species, it would be gross neglect on the part of an elected body in charge of citizen’s welfare to not take the proposed step.
Opp says that man has been historically omnivorous. Yes, we have also been historically barbarian, historically discriminatory to women, and historically we have urinated and defacated in the open. Well, even now occasionally. The point remains that situations change, moral codes evolve, and it would be nice if we could move towards a civilized society. When there is no longer any reason to kill animals in such large numbers in such pathetic conditions, save taste, then the time has come to stop it.
Opp asks if we would ‘stop one animal from killing the other’. No, because animals kill for sustenance. No, because to intervene would be ecologically unsustainable. Animals must kill to survive; they have no choice in the matter. We do.
Second Negative - Mohit Sharma
Ladies and Gentlemen, why do we eat non vegetarian food? Because it is tasty, affordable, available and because we need to eat in order to survive. Of course, we can survive on vegetarian food as well. Let’s examine the basic ideology presented by the proposition. Cutting away all the rhetoric, the proposition wants to make you vegetarian because animals are creatures who can feel pain and we do not need to kill them to survive, and this should affect our “morality”. So any creature which feels pain and which we do not need to kill in order to survive must not be killed. If you’d remember from your school text books, an Indian scientist called Jagdish Chandra Bose successfully demonstrated to the world how plants respond to stimuli, have a life, live, die, feel, like any other creature. That in fact they have a system analogous to the animal nervous system and they can feel pain. But no, the government appeals to your “morality” to discount that because they aren’t sentient beings “like us”. They don’t have two eyes, a face and motional abilities. I could very well argue that we could protect all plants and kill animals instead. What’d be the difference? But let this be seen as mere posturing on our part.
I want you to observe, very carefully, how the proposition has put forth a slew of opinions and imposed upon you an artificial morality. They’ve led you to believe that you eat Tandoori Chicken because it gives you a sense, nee, air of dominance over all other life forms. That you eat it because you find discrimination amongst species okay. Never, I’m sure, did you feel, that we are giving them less consideration because they are not equal to us. That we never said it will give you an idea how the proposition is proposing stupid arguments on our parts and rebutting those.
We are giving them less consideration, yes. Why less consideration? Because we do not have a duty towards them, nothing of the sort of “Guardians of the Weak”. We as the opposition don’t consider ourselves superior to everyone else and do not believe that we have any assigned duty to guarantee everyone else rights. We cannot and will not play God. We have a duty towards our own species, yes. Our ultimate aim is to survive and propagate ourselves.
Are we giving them less consideration just because they are “inferior” to us? No, certainly not. And if consideration is your only point, where is your consideration for plants? For all we know, the govt. tomorrow would ban rice and wheat because their farming involves killing off plants and we can survive on fruits in their absence. Nonsense.
We argue for a basic right to choice. Because we have a power to make that choice. What constitutes an abuse of that power? If we carelessly drive a species to extinction. What about the fisheries the government talks about? Yes, that is a problem, and the government should legislate to save these fisheries. How? By earmarking no fishing areas, labelling their packs with something like Save-the-fish, taxing fish products. Let the people decide, rather than being a communist patriarchial prototype.
To ban something(say X), you need two things:
a) X is harmful to the society or its individuals
b) X is immoral to our collective morality
Clearly, eating meat is not harmful to the society or its individuals. You don’t want to eat meat, don’t. Someone else’s consumption of meat doesn’t harm you in any way. Nor does it harm him. Of course, this is speaking realistically, not stretching the case to dizzying extremes where we’ll keep on eating meat even if its an immediate danger to our existence. Even assuming that is plain stupid.
Now for the question of morality. What are morals? There are certain things you label as right or wrong because they are not in accordance with the principles of the society. How could eating non-vegetarian food be immoral? Because killing and eating something which can live and feel and respond is immoral. But, plants can live and feel and respond. But we kill plants to survive(agriculture). So, no, this principle is hypocritical. But we grow these plants on our own, we water them, add fertilisers to them and modify them as per our own needs when required. High yield rice. Boll resistant cotton. Which of society’s principles then stops us from “growing” animals? They say genetically modified animals are unacceptable. What do we do for plants? Quite a few countries label them. Why not let the consumer make the choice in the animal case as well?
They say animals are kept in crowded stalls in slaughterhouses where they can’t move. Plants are made fat and plump on all sorts of pesticides and fertilisers. Alternative? Organic foods, for those who can afford it. Why can’t the government make a similar provision in the case of animals as well?
Quite a few members of society believe that smoking and drinking is bad. Is it immoral? Yes, for some people, for whatever reasons. Are they harmful, yes. Studies have conclusively shown us so. But does the government ban smoking and drinking? No, it tells you that these are bad and lets you make an informed choice.
A point was raised by the govt. about non-vegetarians eating up poor people’s share as well. By that stretch of logic, stop growing strawberries, you could use that land to grow wheat. Ban bottled drinks, it comes from the poor man’s source of water. One litre of beer takes up four and a half litres of water. Clearly in line for a ban as well. The point is, there are certain “luxurious” vegetarian foods which make you eat up the poor man’s share as well. You ban non veg food. What happens? The veg rich will put their dollar votes in other equally luxurious foods which will take up the poor man’s share again. The problem you point out is not going to be solved by banning non-veg foods.
So, the case against non vegetarianism falls flat on morality, sustainability and harm caused to humans. What else does the proposition have?
Third Affirmative - Shashwat Gandhi
I’ll start this debate with the most amusing and appalling justification of the meat eaters here –‘even plants feel pain.’ This shows how easily the opposition distorts facts to win over arguments. J.C. Bose didn’t prove that plants have a nervous system. He just claimed that the nature of impulses transmitted when a stimulus occurred were electric in nature, not purely chemical as it was earlier believed. But still, it is a common knowledge that their response to stimuli is purely a result of physiological changes or stress and not emotional ones. Plants have no emotions! So plants cannot ‘feel’ pain, in the same sense that the word is used for animals. The opposition is merely stating Bose’s philosophical beliefs. The entire rebuttal of second speech on morality was based on the assumption that plants feel which is ridiculous in itself; still I have spared time researching on it. And since we now know that plants don’t feel all the analogies of animals to plants, like justifications for cultivating animals and killing them just like plants, fall flat.
Now just in case, even if some weird plant which “feels” pain appears on the planet, still the non-vegetarians would be killing over 10 times more plants to feed their pigs and cows and in addition slaughter mercilessly the animals which they have bred unnaturally under pathetic torturous conditions. So does that sound, more moral or more sustainable? That brings me conveniently to my only yet most important constructive thought for the day.
The Constructive:
Why the current food and farming systems are unsustainable?
1) We are feeding more farm animals than people!
Today, the growing human population - already in excess of 6 billion - shares the planet and its resources at any one time with nearly 1 billion pigs, 1.3 billion cattle, 1.8 billion sheep and goats and 15.4 billion chickens! Consumption of dairy produce, eggs and seafood has also increased rapidly.
Ladies and Gentlemen, food shortage is a reality. So we have to increase our capacity to feed the worlds population. Animal products diminish the possibility of doing so. The attached graph shows how inefficient meat is to supply the body building proteins. It’s a simple logic. Vegetarians get energy directly from plants whereas non-vegetarians get it from animals who feed on plants and most of the plant energy is used for their life processes and less than 10% is passed on to the non-vegetarians. So non vegetarian food is over 10 times less efficient, implying that if we continue these food habits, it will lead to a world food deficit OVER 10 times faster! As you can see from the graph, protein from Soya is over 16 times more efficient than beef made from cows who feed on Soya.
“If present trends of meat-eating continue, then by 2050 the world’s livestock will be consuming as much as 4 billion people do: an increase equivalent to the total world population of around 1970, when many were doubting whether such human numbers could be fed at all.” says Colin Tudge, zoologist, author of ‘So Shall We Reap’ (Penguin 2003)
Source: USDA; FAO/WHO/UNICEF Protein Advisory Group.
2) Environmental impact!
The unsustainably large livestock population has a devastating environmental effect. Livestock contributes to 10% of all greenhouse gases including 25% of the most potent methane. All thanks to so many of these animals and so much of their crap! Their waste is estimated at 13 billion tones per annum! These combined with the excessive use of fertilizers to grow their own feed, causes high levels of ammonia and nitrate pollution of land, water and air.
Few eloquent examples of the devastating effects have been the rainforest destruction of south and
3) Welfare of farm animals!
One of the major arguments of the opposition was man is naturally omnivorous so respecting nature he should be given a free choice. But respecting nature is exactly what the non vegetarian hasn’t done! The increasing consumption of meat has lead to a ‘factory farming’ system which in itself insults nature by overcrowding the animals and restricting their natural habitat. The animals have suffered and developed various endemic health issues like leg deformities and heart problems.
Intensively farmed pigs.
The rebuttals:
Mohit, I think you grossly misunderstood Pranay’s point on non veggies eating up poor people share. He literally meant -‘eating up’. Not in any other sense. More meat consumed will lead faster to a definite food scarcity like I showed above, thus prices of all foods will soar and the poor man will not be able to have his share, which would be easily available had there been no meat eaters. You can’t bring me the same analogy with strawberries. Strawberry, with the amount it is in cultivation, isn’t leading to any scarcity of food. By the way, soft drinks use several times lesser water than meat of the same weight takes to be produced. Anyway, the point isn’t that, the point is that if non vegetarian food items are economically or environmentally unsustainable, then it is in good mind to discourage or even ban its use. CFC using appliances have been banned because they were harmful to the environment and therefore to us. So also, meat consumption as it stands today is unsustainable since it is so wasteful of resources that it is leading to a world food deficit and is environmentally hazardous.
Also this issue is not like smoking where the smoker can decide his fate. Your choice cannot be left to you here. The system of food decides the fate of the coming generations not just your own. I very much agree with the opposition that we are here to ‘live and propagate.’ We are not here to play God but just to save our selves from the wrath of nature and keep living. This basic purpose of life itself will become tough for our future generations if we are to deplete food capacity by wasting it to feed farm animals which we ourselves create just to slaughter them. For that it is necessary to have a sustainable food habit.
I think the opposition followed a curious strategy of simply justifying all things done for animals by saying they are done with plants. There was a point arisen about selective breeding of plants being done to increase yield and thus justifying the selective breeding of animals. I would look upon the selective breeding of plants as an indicator of food shortage and a necessary evil to feed so many farm animals and also the world’s population in accordance with our ‘live and propagate’ principle. Selective breeding of animals is an evil which the unsustainable non vegetarian food habits have led to. It is an avoidable unnecessary evil disrupting ecosystems by creating imbalance in nature.
The opposition blamed the government for the crowded conditions in the factory farming system but agreed that it is unnatural. It is impossible to have a land for the over 20 billion animals that could even compare with their natural habitat. The point here being that it is already wasteful on natural resources to have those animals in the first place, and then the opposition expects the government to waste more land resources for the animals! What do the non-veggies want to do? To create a show of how much they care for animal rights till the day they are brutally murdered and that too with the government’s money!
Also rebutting what the opposition had suggested, just framing policies like- ‘No fishing in endangered areas’, isn’t a sustainable solution. It is like ‘Since USA is much polluted let me go and pollute
The Conclusion:
Towards the end, let me tell you when you should ban something. You should ban anything if it is unsustainable practice which may lead to devastating effects. Non-vegetarian food consumption has lead to a food and farming system which is so unsustainable that it is going to lead to a world food deficit over 10 times faster than otherwise and also it is environmentally hazardous creating land, water and air pollution. Why do we unnecessary want to push this catastrophe on us when it has been proved that vegetarian food already provides a complete and nourishing diet? Just for a little more taste?
Ladies and Gentlemen, the entire case of the opposition is based on the assumption that non-vegetarian food does no harm to the society and so it shouldn’t be banned. Both the opposition speakers suggest to you that the society suffers no loss when non-vegetarian food is allowed in consumption just as today but I have proved to you that that cannot be further from the truth. Since the current farming and food practices cannot be sustainable, we as 10 rational men should look out for a sustainable solution which definitely involves banning non vegetarian food.
"although some (mostly in rich countries) eat much more than others."
ReplyDeleteAlthough this might be true today, it has not always been so. When civiliaztions were developing, people in the so called "poor" countries(such as Europe, or the southeast asian countires) did not have much food to eat. I am talking about several thousand years ago. Hence they were forced to eat hatever they could get, which included meat. An extreme example would be Malaysia and neighbouring countries where people ate even snakes and insects. Another example would be the tribals of India. They eat insects too. (my mom had some tribal ant pickle once, and she said it was delicious).
But the relatively prosperous regions of the time, such as India, could afford to adopt fads such as vegetarianism. The eating habits of those times got assimilated in the culture, and are the eating habits today, the difference being that the poor countries then are the rich countries now.
Another example that supports my theory is that now that USA is rich, people have started going vegetarian and started adopting these fads.
I don't know if this is relevant to the debate, but I wanted to say it and so it's here....
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteApparently, slaughter of animals for leather bags, gucchi stillettos but that apart.....But honestly, the govt exists for my benefit. If this (non-veg) harms me then by all means do something about. Else, don;t even bother. Now i don't see the harm to me untill the last point.
ReplyDeleterohan
um forgot "is okay" after the stillettos
ReplyDelete@Rohan: The government's job is to ensure the well-being of ALL, not just YOU. If humans have come to rule the planet, a morally-conscious government should take care to assure a minimum of rights to all species. From a moral point-of-view, the animals' right to survival should be a responsibility of the government. The prime argument is that of compassion to other inhabitants of the planet. As has been pointed out, put yourself in their shoes--how would we like to be bred and eaten for pleasure if a superior race were to come and dominate us?
ReplyDelete--Ankur
About the point of collective morality: Imagine this scenario. A rogue company introduces a new product which is actually human meat, dsiguising it as something else. It so happens that it turns out to be very tasteful and nutritious, thus it becomes extremely popular and an integral part of people's diet. Some time later, the true nature of this food is revealed. In its defence, the company says that they use only hopelessly disabled people abandoned by their families, or extremely old people who are about to die anyway, or terrible criminals on death row. Moreover, they use humane methods of killing these people.
ReplyDeleteWe can see what will follow. The set of people who have become quite dependent on this food will find their idea of morality gradually shifting. A lot of 'moral' arguments will follow: The human population could use some cropping, these people are useless to the society and the race, the food is not doing any harm to me, and is not only supremely nutritious but amazingly delicious!
A while ago, these people would deem the killing of humans in any way as a heinous crime. Should the country rephrase its laws, so as to allow the killing of some people ad hoc?
The perception of morality by a 'people' (any subset of human civilization) can get obfuscated because of biases. A government should form what would serve as an 'objective' perception of morality, which must be founded on the assurance of minimum rights to all, animals or human.
--Ankur
About the point of it being okay to chop the limbs of some creatures if they can be regenerated.
ReplyDeleteThe argument is not specifically against killing of creatures, but against 'hurting' them. If in fact you can produce creatures whose limbs can be chopped off and regrown without causing them physical and emotional pain, it is fair by all means. Suppose these creatures feel no pain when hacked, and they don't mind the absense of a limb or two until they grow back, but even if it needs you to keep these creatures confined (while they prefer freedom), then there is some reason to say it's not correct. That's the moral argument.
The offshoot of this argument could be used to argue very effectively AGAINST vegetarianism, and I'm surprised no one's done so. Basically, we all know that plants are living beings too and it has been established that they can feel pain (they don't scream, yet you can observe it on a crescograph). We don't know if it is anything similar to our perception of pain (for all you know, plants may be masochistic in nature!), but we can extrapolate and say that any living being has a right to live. In essence, vegetarians are also killing creatures. So why the moral pretence? "But if we weren't to eat any plants, we should die of starvation!" panics the hiterto equanimous moral vegetarian.
Indeed, this weakens greatly the moral argument. What can be said from this point on is that it should be the endeavour of humans as a sentient and sapient creature to try and inflict the least harm to other living creatures for the sake of their existence. Plants lack a central nervous system so killing them is a lesser crime than killing animals (but a crime nevertheless), and in many cases the agricultural process doesn't kill a plant (they regenerate, not unlike the creatures conceived above). So, it's akin to running cars on petrol knowing that it's bad for the environment (because we must), but using catalytic converters to mitigate the damage done to the environment (because we can).
--Ankur
@Ankur: Interesting example we'll come to it toward the end.
ReplyDeleteTalking about the governments responsibility, its primary concern should be its people. If the whole basis of the proposition's argument is compassions then fine, all i ask is direct it to me first. Given that there is already shortage of food, and now the govt restricts supply of half of all that is edible then that is in downright violation of its fundemental premise.
Rohan
The sad part is the argument of conflicts with religious beliefs that an imposition of vegetarianism would necessarily entail. This is merely an example of the general case (which constitutes a separate and much larger debate) where an old belief (to which people's sentiments are strongly attached) happens to be inconsistent with contemporary beliefs and expectations. What do you do in such cases? Well, a soft government finds a compromise for the present with the hope that things might change in the future. So birth-control is never enforced though the country is reeling and dying under the burden of overpopulation, and the temple on the road continues to stand even though it takes (the worshipper and the atheist alike) an hour to travel half a mile.
ReplyDeleteAgain, we are trying to say that if the world produce of food is insufficient, it becomes okay to kill animals. If some day animals won't be sufficient, it will become okay to kill men too. The morality argument stands for itself, other constraints aside. If something is forcing you to abandon morality, fine, cross the bridge. Let's just try not to drag morality along too.
ReplyDelete--Ankur
@Rohan: The Opp has already accepted that meat is luxury only. Hence the argument of food shortage goes out of the window. Secondly I dont understand why the Govt is being dragged into this. We are just a group of rational people and are debating on principle.
ReplyDeleteThe whole argument of "the government being for me" is misplaced. The govt should take care of your basic necessities, but if your luxuries involve doing immoral things to the environment then you would not expect the government to back you.
Will someone please give a citation for "Some vegetarians will eat fish if it's caught in the wild"? As far as I know, it is considered as an error for any fish-eaters to call themselves vegetarian (they are called Pescetarian), it's no more correct than callng the Earth the universe's centre.
ReplyDelete--Ankur
In case the government is not to be considered, then the debate reduces to "Is it okay to eat animals for food?". Hence, practical considerations, such as the violation of some people's religious sentiments, can also be defenestrated unless you want to make arguments which are in essence like "coz my mom told me".
ReplyDelete--Ankur
In response to Ankur's rebuttal on collective morality...
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid you didn't quite get the collective morality argument. Secondly, not fair. Before we moot the point of morality shifting in your hypothetical situation, morality will take several beating during its course. But the moot point is this. Let us extend the hypothesis one step further. If society (or a section of it) is okay with killing people at will (now its a fair analogy), and the company selling the product stamps on the packet that this is human flesh, why not let everyone decide themselves? Simply put, this is not a collective decision to make. It is an individualistic decision. That was my argument. Now if you say that because people find it delicious and nutritious, they will change their stance on killing people, I'm afraid I trust human sentiment and morality a little more than you, and I believe it is reasonable to do so. Overplaying the morality card is not such a good idea. You and I both know killing humans and animals is just not the same thing.
The rights to animals is another thing altogether. Same argument, you cannot guarantee rights to a deer. If we don't kill it, a lion will. Why the hypocrisy? Where does morality stand on this.
-Tarun
About the argument on religious beliefs, just because it's a cliched conflict of interest doesn't discount my argument of there being an intrinsic clash of freedom of choice and freedom of religion.
ReplyDelete-Tarun
@ankur
ReplyDeleteWhile I do get your hypothetical scenario of people adjusting their stands to convenience, I'm curious regarding what you call an 'objective morality'. What is morality afterall, if not a consensus. Who are you, or any government to decide whether something like cannibalism is right or not. It's an accepted practice in some tribes etc.
There is no ojbective morality, which is why laws are so hard to draft. Which is why systems of law like the US have rulings based on precedents - so as to remain dynamic, and evolving. Morality is what the majority agrees it to be at a given time, for a given set of people. And if people (though the cunning use of disguising human meat as normal meat and addicting people to it and then revealing its true nature) deem it 'moral', then 'moral' it is.
On another note, an interesting point made about banning nonvegetarianism conflicting with religion. The separation of religioin and state and the conflict therein are complicated. You have the traditional religious practices of say, the triple talaq divorces, rituals come to be associated with religion like sati etc. which have been subject to government intervention before. If something is deemed harmful, action is taken.
As for 'us being physically inferior but intellectually superior' not giving us the right to eat 'intellectually inferior' creatures - I do believe it was survival of the fitttes, on the whole. No separation. If a chimpanzee eats a baby, its sad and abhorrent, but the bottom line is - by and large something like that is not going to happen because we protect our babies, and dont let chimps near them, unless behind bars. Chimps, unfortunately don't have that option. If they were smart/strong enough to prevent their babies from being eaten, they would.
On a side note - why is there so much talk about eating babies and people on this topic? :O Maybe definition should have excluded humans from 'non veg' fare.
Rylan
Non-vegetarianism is a necessity in some regions. If a Eskimo or a person living in Siberia were to be a vegetarian he would have to eat ice and pine trees. Also if we were more humane in breeding of animals we would be doing a favour to them because the endangered species are the ones that do not form our diet. Hence the government(prop) should concentrate efforts on ensuring humane conditions during breeding rather than a blanket ban on nonvegetarian food.
ReplyDeleteThe issue of accepting non-vegeterianism or not comes down to the simple question: "Are human beings superior to other species?" And that is the morality based argument that everyone is talking about at will. So, let us dissect this morality(from the point of view of a human being):
ReplyDelete1) In case you do consider human beings superior, that itself justifies killing and eating other animals. It also renders comparisions made to babies and the entire assumption of the strong-weak argument completely baseless.
2) If you do not consider human beings superior them you may either consider all animals equal or you may consider human beings to occupy some other place in the hierarchy.
3) If you believe that all animals are equal then you should have no issues in each one fighting and winning over other purely on the basis of 'its' determination and perseverence. That justifies non-veg...ism.
4) If you believe humans occupy some place below the first in the hierarchy, then killing and eating animals is an act akin to the present day situation of a crocodile killing and eating a human being. In that case, humans kill the crocodile to defed themselves, so in your case, let the animals defend themselves.
Now, those of you who believe that you need to care for and fight for animal's rights and you consider yourself superior then 1) holds, putting your position in peril.
If you consider yourself an equal and still fight for the rights of animals, at what point of time did you decide to support an animal
instead of the equal human? At what point in the battle of humans vs animals did you decide to support animals? Why?
If you consider yourself inferior to animals and still decide to support their cause over the weaker human cause, you are showing sympathy by going against its major principle.
So, what was your argument again?
-Rahul Dash
I personally don't see how morality can even be a point here. Humans have to eat Period
ReplyDeleteTo say that you can't eat animals because they feel pain, well. what is pain? A response to stimuli. Why is the response to stimuli of an animal so much more saddening that the response to stimuli of a plant? Because it doesn't have a central nervous system?
Most non-vegetarians eat animals that have been bred primarily for the sake of eating. Just like plants that are grown primarily for the sake of comsumption.
As for eating humans, how is that even relevant? It is not justified biologically let alone legally to eat your own species!
There is no morality argument here. As as Rylan very aptly put it, 'moral' is what we define 'moral' to be.
I will go with Mr Dash's argument, although it is a bit rigorous and abstract. But I do not understand how morality is not a point. Mr Dash "dissected" morality in this case and showed that morality based argument fails as far as the present debate is concerned. But morality is definitely an important point.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if MR Dash would like to comment, can you be more clearer as to what you mean when you say: "If you consider yourself an equal and still fight for the rights of animals, at what point of time did you decide to support an animal instead of the equal human? At what point in the battle of humans vs animals did you decide to support animals? Why?"
-Sanjeev
Okay. firstly, Rahul Dash's first point is flawed. If you consider humans to be superior (intellectually or physically) it does not justify killing them. As a superior being, it is only 'humane' to protect weaker animals. Do not compare yourself to a lion who eats a deer because he is physically superior. In 'today's' world, which we consider to be civilized, we do not live like animals. We do not live in a jungle and do not consider killing living beings that are inferior to us entirely moral. So if you do bring in the morality argument, it stands.
ReplyDeleteBut I still believe, morality as an argument here, is irrelevant. The morality that you talk about is biased against some living beings (plants) just because you feel, you need to eat something !!
Guys, did no one so far realize that Pamela Anderson posing nude for PETA will NOT happen if nonvegetarianism is banned?
ReplyDeleteOk, first and foremost, it would be wonderful if people stop posting anonymously. Although there is nothing wrong in hiding your identity, it becomes difficult to reply.
ReplyDeleteSo, @last but one anonymous(see ?) : When you accept human beings as intellectually and physically superior to animals and then say that the "humane" stance is to be "civilized" and show mercy, you are framing your morality from a plane higher than humans or animals, maybe God. I was talking simply from the human point of view, as I had already mentioned. Morality and consciousness are to be argues from the same level onwards, it cannot hold if I talk as a human being and you, as God. I am probably splitting hair here, but that is what morality based arguments are, almost always.
Now @Sanjeev: I mean to say that as a human witness, if someone believes that humans and animals are fighting and he/she happens to see a human being killing and eating an animal, it should be a normal occurence of a fight among equals, where one has to lose. So at what point does that person start believing that the animals need support? My point is that unless the ecology is disturbed(for eg, extinction) the witness cannot make a statement saying that humans are at fault.
@Dash
ReplyDeleteI was never speaking from a plane higher than humans. I was speaking from a plane of morality that is created by humans for all of humanity to abide by. Today, sleeping with another man's wife is considered immoral. Legal and even biologically harmless, but nevertheless immoral. This rule, or better yet, norm, is based on today's interpretation of morality. Similarly, in today's civilized world, protecting someone weaker than you is considered 'the moral thing to do'.
Of course, the dilemma arises when you bring in scarcity of food. But assuming that vegetarian food is abundantly available and that eating meat is primarily a luxury, there is no debate on morality. The debate is on freedom. Who are you to force me to lead a moral life? If I want to commit adultery, thats none of your business. Similary, if I want to eat meat, you can go take a hike!
Just a few additional issues to throw in to the mix
ReplyDeleteThe increased carbon footprint of nonvegetarianism
"....it seems being a meat eater is worse for the environment than driving an SUV"
More links at
http://tinyurl.com/ltgevr and
http://tinyurl.com/yt5q4k
And am I the only one not able to paste text into the comments window thus forced to use tinyurl? :S
Also, @Dash superiority of a species does not equate to exploitation, as has been pointed out, the two happen quite independently of each other. We're not allowed to eat tigers, are we? (biodiversity being the reason here, but case in point).
Also, the definition had something to do with the 'slaughtering of livestock' could the framers of the definition please clarify what was meant by 'livestock'?
And lastly, personally, I'm not thrilled with labeling meat-eating as a luxury. Incest, bigamy, sodomy, prostitution are all 'luxuries' (in the spirit it was meant here, i think) that have been banned in some countries or the other.
And lastly, someone somewhere (could I be any vaguer) had questioned the government's involvement in this debate. Well - the banning has to be done by somebody, doesn't it?
In retrospect, perhaps that second last 'lastly' was not such a last 'lastly' after all.
ReplyDelete@Rylan : We are not allowed to eat tigers because they are on the verge of extinction. I mentioned that point clearly enough in my last comment.
ReplyDeleteAlso, from the point of view of a human being, if you consider yourself superior, then that itself is the basis of exploitation. I don't understand why everybody here is ok with considering humans as superior and then taking a godly stance of merciful morality. Arguments and morality change depending upon the skin you assume yourself to be in.
At the end of the day, what I gave was an argument, which may be completely flawed. But I sincerely feel that people have got the entire morality based argument quite messed up here. For once, saying morality based arguments do not apply in this case is ridiculous.
Well, now that the proposition has defined itself as the government, and is proposing to disallow meat consumption all together, many other points are raised.
ReplyDeleteOne, what about the millions of people employed in this industry? I believe the government's first duty is towards the people who elected it, and not livestock.
Two, as for livestock consuming grains that righteously belongs to the poor, well, you're not really solving that problem. Because a vegetarian diet does not by definition disallow dairy products and eggs.
Three, as for the extinction of animals, I don't know where you get your numbers from but this definitely cannot be true with respect to livestock or poultry. Some researchers have actually proven, that chickens will become extinct if humans stop breeding them. These species have, over time, been domesticated and now would not be able to survive in the wild. Natures law, "survival of the fittest" would eliminate them. So in a way, non-vegetarianism is actually keeping the species alive.
Lastly, on the point of it being harmful to humans, well, there are many other things that are harmful, cigarettes for example. All the government does today is warn the people about their harm. It does not ban them.
-Asgerali
"Similarly, protecting the weaker species is considered the moral thing to do"
ReplyDeleteThis is absurd. What do you mean by protecting the species? Preventing them from extinction or not killing them at all. There is a huge logical gap between what is moral and the right thing to do. Respecting one's religion is moral, responding to a friends phone call is the right thing to do.
-Tarun.
"It’s not so much about animal welfare and what they deserve. It’s much more about humanity and who we are."
ReplyDeleteDon't non-vegetarians have a stake in the definition of "who we are". Why not release this information, these statistics and the overplayed morality and then let them decide on their own. To that effect, you wish to impose your version on morality. That is a violation of freedom of choice. If you speak about Sati, it was never moral, it continued because it was enforced on women. No one enforces people to eat non-vegetarian.
"It would be nice if we could move towards a civilized society"
Certainly. Please let us choose. That is the civilized thing to do. Denying me the right to my choice of nutrition and hence the right to my body is, in turn, most barbaric and inhumane.
Killing a animal is the way of nature, if those animals(livestock) were in the wild there would some other predator killing it.How ever I agree that animals are raised in derogatory conditions. The solution is to make it mandatory to provide livestock certain basic facilities. The ban on non-veg is similar to banning employment because working conditions are harsh.
ReplyDeleteThose who claim that non-vegetarianism is discriminatory to poor please answer how would you feed the millions of fishermen(who are mostly poor) if you ban fishing. Land is limited so alternate sources of food must be maintained. We cant digest hay and grass but some animals can do it for us. Oceans which cover 70% of the earth will be useless if we stop fishing. So if we ban non-vegetarian food we may have starvation in some places. Now how humane is that.
-Saragh
On the point of morality, particularly, "the killing of animals for food", well I'd like to say that there is no meal in the world that is purely vegetarian.
ReplyDeleteFor all cultivated foods, you kill animals. You kill creatures when you plough (mind you not just insects, even rodents), you kill creatures when you pour insecticides and even when you harvest.
Moreover these insecticides not only kill the creatures they are meant to, but reach much higher in the food chain, killing higher animals too.
So technically, you are knowingly killing creatures for your food. So is it moral to kill insects and rodents (and sometimes even other birds) but not chickens and goats?
-Varzavand
Pardon me as this is a little late in the coming. I knew my use of the term 'objective morality' would invite the exact objection
ReplyDeleteraised by Rylan. I must now enunciate my idea at some length.
As is demonstrated by my example, the mentality of people can be easily affected and swayed. The greatest crime in the state can suddenly become admissible due to an odd chain of events. If groups of people would be free to do whatever they liked in the world, there would be utter anarchy. To prevent this, we have something called Law. The Law of the nation cannot be fickle like the masses. It must not follow in their flexibility, or the entire nation/race/species could get easily manipulated by the machinations of an influential few.
The Law of the nation is a practical manfestation of the 'objective morality' I speak of. There are obviously black, white and gray areas of morality. In present human perception Murder is Black, Charity is White, but a case where one person injures another in self-defence is Gray. Black and white are easy to judge, but the gray cases (the kind we debate over) test out the true meaning of law.
Basically law, or more fundamentally my 'objective morality', is founded on some maxims which are considered essentially and unexceptionably inviolable. Using several corollaries from a few such maxims a superstructure is formed, which is our book of laws. When we face a situation which does not fit any corollary, we go deeper and weigh the case on the balance of our most basic postulates.
Arguably the MOST fundamental single maxim of any civilized and rational race is that every creature has a right to survival (R2S). When there is a conflict between the R2S of one being and another, the maxim has nothing to say, and it becomes the case of 'Survival of the Fittest' (SOTF). Do note that the word fittest here comes to possess a very broad meaning--having a friend with a shotgun makes a crippled old man fitter than a lion.
I illustrate the objective nature of this set of maxims by putting it into almost mathematically precise form:
Civilized (=sympathetic, scrupulous) + Rational (Intelligent enough to make and follow laws) => R2S. Only in case of R2S conflict, SOTF.
This MUST always be. Try any situation that comes under these heads, and you will find the law holding good. Murder is violation of R2S, so it's a crime. But when you kill a person in self defence, R2S gives way to SOTF, therefore the law shows you clemency. When a person lives near permafrost where no vegetation grows, his killing seals for food is admissible. If Lions were civilized and rational and could digest grass, then they would be expected to follow R2S and not kill deer.
Now, in general, humans killing animals for food is clearly violation of R2S, and since there is no conflict, SOTF should not apply.
Non-vegetarianism hereby is an indication that we are not civilized and rational like we purpose to be. If you want to have the choice to NOT be civilized and rational, then you are asking for anarchy. It is no different from asking leave to murder and steal. The law cannot grant you this.
--Ankur
A completely parallel example of the rather far-fetched situation I described is Germany under Hitler. He convinced people to believe (with logic that makes sense) that it was fine to kill off Jews and incapacious people for the benefit of the country. He had popular support, and the Law followed the people. While a lot of what they said before seemed justified, the end results of the holocaust were regretted by those who were knee-deep in it themselves. They still had their arguments. At Nuremberg when those who pronounced judgment in Hitler's days were themselves tried, these justifications (which are akin to arguments favouring human meat in my example) were not found sound. While the acts seemed to benefit the nation (like the several purported advantages of eating human meat), the actions were at odds with the fundamental identity of a civilized rational Nation.
ReplyDeletePS: This does NOT prove that vegetarianism is any better than non-vegetarianism. It is only intended to negate the justification of an act because it is 'the choice of certain people', by asserting that the law is not the function of people's moods.
With this accepted, it is still possible to accuse vegetarianism as not being blameless, as the R2S of plants is violated. The argument in favour of vegetarianism is based on invoking SOTF saying "we must eat something!" and making the presumption that plant-life is 'lesser' than animal life. The presumption does not have solid grounds, and is partly biased because of a certain 'favouritism' --the closer a species is to our own, the more we sympathize with it.
Moreover, there is the point posted above, which says that the process of obtaining vegetarian food ultimately kills a great number of living animals too, whereby the morality argument (R2S) finds as much to blame vegetarianism as to non-v.
--Ankur
--Ankur
Sorry for my intrusion, but I have an interesting twist to this discussion to share.
ReplyDeleteIn a hypothetical situation in the future, if Chemistry Labs were in a position to synthesize pills that fulfill all our dietary allowances, (i.e. vitamins, proteins, minerals and all other nutrients we require to live a healthy life) and another pill on top of that that curbs hunger; would that be the end to consuming vegetables in the name of R2S?
Also, the fact that humans are biologically equipped to consume meat (just a tad tougher to digest, yes; but possible) - vegetarianism is definitely a compromise in the name of morality and R2S and SOTF etc. (Worry not, I'm still Prop.)
The point I want to make is this:
As we perhaps dig deeper into the subject, I reckon being higher organisms; (in light also of the Opposition having conceded to eating meat as a luxury and not a necessity), there will always be a grey area as to how we can / should optimize between luxuries and necessities. By the pill analogy, should we stop eating vegetables too? If we discover that driving on the roads kill insects; should we stop driving and start walking all the time? We have to draw the line somewhere.
Rajat
Opp still hasn't answered a basic question ...
ReplyDeleteOn what grounds do they treat animals as worthy of such negligible protection? So far the only answer coming from that side is 'they are not human'. The question remains, what are those important characteristics that humans possess and animals lack, that make them unworthy of protection?
After all, equality is a moral idea, not a statement of fact. Racism was justified on many differences between humans, but nowadays we see those differences as unimportant to the most basic idea of dignity of living.
@asger
ReplyDelete"One, what about the millions of people employed in this industry?"
If Torture Inc. had a worldwide chain of tavrens where people paid to be entertained by watching animals tortured, would the govt. permit that to save some jobs?
Plus, frankly, this point is pretty irrelevant to the principle of the topic. There might be a short interim of flux, but eventually those million jobs will get redistributed in other areas.
"Two, as for livestock consuming grains that righteously belongs to the poor, well, you're not really solving that problem. Because a vegetarian diet does not by definition disallow dairy products and eggs."
Firstly, animals bred for meat are treated very differently from animals reared for dairy products and eggs, and this reflects in the amount of grain they are fed also.
Regardless, we are substantially reducing the problem. Let the best not come in the way of the good.
"Three, as for the extinction of animals"
The point I was trying to make was slightly different and I think, rather deep. Humans have an effect on nature that is hugely disproportionate. We should make every effort to refrain from messing up ecosystems, specially when it's done for no important reason. Demand for non-veg food has caused the extinction/grave reduction in number of many species. Wrt to lifestock and poultry, maybe what you say is true, and having domesticated them, maybe we do have some obligation to protect them, but that does not justify the further killing of so many other species.
Four - "there are many other things that are harmful, cigarettes for example. All the government does today is warn the people about their harm."
Cigarettes are largely a personal choice that affect only you - and where they affect others, the govt can and does regulate. If non-veg was only somewhat bad for your personal health, then true, the govt could not use that reason to ban it. However non-veg. has many other 'externalities' as pointed out in prop2, and these do justify the ban.
Maybe slightly unrelated, but I'm curious nevertheless - why is it for some people here that we can kill species down to the verge of extinction, yet once that point is reached, we must protect them?
ReplyDelete@Pranay
ReplyDeleteThe only reason I'd want to stop some animal from getting extinct is so that my children can see it and appreciate nature's diversity. As for the present debate, we've restricted ourselves to livestock, which really makes the point of extinction a digression at best.
As for your point about animals being worthy of protection, the point is that it is not our job to protect them. Humans, as a species, exist for themselves. As do all other species. We protect them when we see benefit in it.(By no means is this the opp stand, atleast not verbatim..as it is the debate in the comments section is slightly off the actual one :))
"However non-veg. has many other 'externalities' as pointed out in prop2"
ReplyDeleteThe arguments given to discount the analogy with cigarettes are flawed. Cigarettes are a personal choice, true, but they largely affect those around you. Scientific evidence shows that exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes disease, disability, and death. However, watching somebody eat non vegetarian food has no effect whatsoever except the mental stress of watching a peron tear off the flesh of an animal off the bone, which I guess everyone will agree is a lesser evil than Cancer.
Also, when talking about externalities, if the prop wishes to point to the hunger in the world which is caused by the trickle down of eating meat, I would say that in no way are smoking and drinking bereft of these "externalities". The land being used for the cultivation of tobacco can be used to grow wheat. The Barley being used to make beer can be converted to edible malt. Grapes(wine) can similarly be consumed by human beings.
I would now like to state the reasons that the government does not ban smoking and drinking, and would argue that the same reasons apply for not banning consumption of meat.
First of all, a significant proportion of the population is employed in tobacco, alcohol and allied industries. I agree that if banned, the same workforce could be employed in other economic sectors, but it will take time, and in the meanwhile, there shall be a turmoil in the economy, which is simply unacceptable. Similarly a significant proportion of the population is engaged in the meat industry, and banning these industries would affect these people.
Secondly, the government feels that the citizens are responsible for their actions, and the Government is not an autocratic communist regime that believes in making each and every desicion for its citizens. The government does however tell the citizens about the harms of smoking, and after knowing that they still want to smoke, it is their choice, and they are embracing the pleasure as well as the harms of smoking. Hence even in case of meat, the government's duty is restricted to informing it's citizens about the advantages of vegetarian diets. In fact some western countries have adopted a "Go Veggie" campaign as well, to encourage people to have more vegetables in their diet. However no country has, or ever should ban meat altogether
The third reason and a very controversial one is the fact that the Government simply can not afford to ban tobacco products, for the reason that they account for a very large share of the tax revenue, and the tobacco lobbies are very strong politically. In fact this is the reason why marijuana is banned, but cigarettes are not, in spite of it being proved that marijuana is less harmful to health. Same will be the case with consumption of meat. In no way does this point counter the moral argument (though the above two do), it does point out the enormity of the task and how difficult the implementation of such a ban would be.
Couple of questions to opp ... POIs of a sort I guess.
ReplyDeleteCan i torture my dog and trust that the govt will not interfere?
Does the opp believe that breeding conditions in factory farms should be regulated?
@ravi...tobacco with the area it is under cultivation isn't creating any food shortage. Same for your other arguments. For non-veg it has been observably very inefficient unlike any plant you talk about, consumed in a bulk quantity with cattle eating food of about 4 billion people...it is but sane to agree that it is unsustainable
ReplyDeletepassive smoking from cigarattes can be avoided in several ways other than banning, but the food scarcity due to inefficiecy and unsustainability of nonveg cant be avoided other than by disallowing such food habits.
the governments duty is to inform the citizens in any case. In case of cigarettes and alcohol, it lets them make a choice cause it affects only them. Here it affects the entire world as a whole. Now when something as hazardously capable of depleting food as nonveg is being eaten, government sure can ban it.
P.S. my post has been mailed to rajat. Hell put it up shortly
People, slight appeal. Please keep your arguments as concise as possible while commenting. Reserve the rhetoric for the speech. Padhne mein pain hota hai :(
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cgadvisory.com/images/img_overview_income_graph2.gif
ReplyDeleteThe above is the graph I am referring to in the speech.Till the error is rectified, check the above.
"I would look upon the selective breeding of plants as.....a necessary evil" and " Selective breeding of animals....is an avoidable unnecessary evil "
ReplyDeleteHow is one necessary and the other unnecessary, when both in fact address the same problem: food shortage.
I have a question.
ReplyDeleteCigarettes might not have been the perfect example for items affecting the world (though in case of the employment point, it still stands)
But what about pertroleum? It harms the whole world. There are alternative sources of energy available. Why aren't we banning that?
You can argue that the world is not prepared for a shift as we don't have enough infrastructure. Well, apart from India, as far as I know, every other country is largely non-vegetarian (and non-veg does not mean carnivore!! we eat vegetables too!!) So how do you propose to make the shift?? Billions of people are eating meat, do you have enough vegetables for all of them?
Also, one personal attack. (I don't generally do this but I just can't resist)
Have you tasted Soybeans? If you like them, you deserve to be a cow!! They taste pathetic!! I would rather eat the beef!! :D:D:D
@pranay
ReplyDelete"If Torture Inc. had a worldwide chain of tavrens where people paid to be entertained by watching animals tortured, would the govt. permit that to save some jobs?"
Well, if Torture Inc. is employing millions of people all over the world, contributing billions to the world economy and has over 5 billion customers who pay to watch the animals being tortured, sure, the government should not or rather cannot ban it.
@Asgerali: Where would you stop in your disregard for ethics and righteousness? ('morality' is getting hackneyed) If it suits us let's do it?
ReplyDeleteA species/race/nation should stand up for what it believes is right, even in the face of practical difficulties. You'd probably find the holocaust right too, I suppose? Don't point out the fact that humans are different from animals, or I will redirect you to my old example where the difference suddenly vanishes in the face of selfish gain.
--Ankur
@ravi...i have already answered that question havent I? selective breeding itself is unnatural and breeding of animals is unnecessary coz they arent needed in the first place! So if animal breeding is stopped this alone may be able to solve world food problem..
ReplyDelete@asgerali...U mustve read in class 10 economics that we just not need econimic development, we need sustainable economic development...so even if the nonveg industry brings millions for a short time, if it is unsustainable in the long run, it has to be stopped...
and here it can be stopped. If only one tenth of the area used to cultivate fodder is available to vegetable cultivation, then the world population has vegetable that wud suffice! So it is very much feasible.
Just leave ur orthodoxy of taste away, and if u dont like soya try corn, try channa...
The proposition in the third affirmative accepts that the response to stimuli in the case of plants is electrical, chemical, physiological but not emotional. All I want to know is, what other kind of reaction (nuclear, magnetic, electro-weak, endothermic, exothermic?) is necessary to make the response to a stimulus "emotional". Aren't human and animal emotions essentially chemical reactions and electrical responses in the brain as well?
ReplyDeleteThe proposition also claimed that non-vegetarian food is an inefficient source of body building proteins. Just read what Gopichand has to say about Saina Nehwal turning non-vegetarian in today's TOI.
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIM/2009/06/22&PageLabel=24&EntityId=Ar02402&ViewMode=HTML&GZ=T
By referring to this article, I am not trying to claim that non-vegetarian food is healthier than vegetarian food. All I am trying to say is that you need to look at a host of other factors before asking someone to switch over from non-vegetarianism to vegetarianism on nutritional basis.
@Ashish....u grossly misunderstood...firstly to feel emotion, u need a central nervous system which the plants lack in the first place. What was mentioned is that the respnse to stimuli of plants which one mistakes to be a result of emotion is actually a resuly of physiological stress!!!There is no emotion involved. If plants respond to their stem being cut, it is because of purely physiological change and the method in which this change is conveyed is electrical impulses in many cases. Whereas in animals, this physiological change will bring about a emotional respnse from the central nervous system.
ReplyDeleteTrue what u say ---emotions are chemical reactons in the BRAIN...and I guess we have enough brains to know that plants dont have one...
Once again u mistake the meaning of efficiency. Actually unfortunately the graph didnt appear. But I provided the link in my comments. See second comment above from here.
It is efficiency per acre of land resource. I agree that non veg food in small amount gives more protein, but the amount of land required to create even that small amount is horrendously wasteful!!
By the way, heres a list of famous vegetarian sport personalities...tell sania nehwal to improve her tennis skills...rest takes care of itself...
ReplyDelete* " B J Armstrong (US Basketball star)
* " Al Beckles (body builder)
* " Sorya Bonali (ice skater)
* " Les Brown (veteran runner)
* " Peter Burwash (tennis)
* " Andreas Cahling (body builder)
* " Chris Campbell (1980 world champion wrestler)
* " Joanna Conway (ice skater)
* " Sylvia Cranston (triathlete)
* " Sally Eastall (Marathon runner - UK No 2, vegan)
* " Di Edwards (runner, Olympic semi-finalist)
* " Cory Everson (bodybuilder, Ms Olympia 6 times)
* Chris Evert.
* " Katie Fitzgibbon (marathon runner)
* " Clare Francis (sailer)
* " Louis Freitas (body builder)
* " Carol Gould (marathon runner)
* " Sammy Green (runner)
* " Sally Hibberd (British Women's Mountain Bike Champion)
* " Sharon Hounsell (Miss Wales Bodybuilding Champion)
* " Desmond Howard (formerly w/Washington Redskins, now w/Jacksonville Jaguars) Source: PETA mailer
* " Roger Hughes (Welsh National Ski Champion)
* " David Johnson (BAA coach)
* " Kathy Johnson (Olympic Gymnast)
* " Alan Jones (British ski jumper)
* Scott Jurek ( Marathoner) (Vegan)
* " Jack LaLaine (Fitness guru) (vegan)
* " Tony LaRussa (Coach of Oakland Athletics) Source: PETA, Animals Agenda, Animals Voice, Veg Times, others
* " Judy Leden (British, European & World Hang Gliding champion)
* " Marv Levey (Buffalo Bills Coach)
* " Carl Lewis (sprinter - vegan)
* Scott Jurek Marathoner - vegan
* " Jutta Müller (multiple Windsurfing World Cup Champion) Source: Flutlicht 95/6/18 on Südwest 3 (German TV program)
* " Jack Maitland (triathlete and fell runner)
* " Kirsty McDermott (runner)
* " Lindford McFarquar (body builder)
* " Robert Millar (cyclist)
* " Monika Montsho (weightlifter, 2 x runnerup GB Championships 60kg, NW woman weightlifter of the year 1991)
* " Edwin Moses
* " Paavo Nurmi
* " Dave Scott (five time winner of the Ironman Triathlon) (vegan) "The New Laurel's Kitchen" cookbook
* " Jonathon Speelman (chess)
* " Lucy Stephens (triathlete - vegan)
* " Kirsty Wade (runner)
Famous? You sure? :P
ReplyDeleteTheir titles are in the brackets, what has sania nehwal done...lol
ReplyDeleteAgainst non vegetarianism:
ReplyDeleteAs has been said above its economically inefficient to use animals for food, and leads to a faster consumption of resources. It's true we are fundamentally omnivores, and have a right to eat animals in a stable food web, but the deal is that its not a stable food web... our population is exploding, and we are consuming animals not only for food, but for shoes, sofas, medical research etc. Some of these uses are pretty critical (eg. in research) so maybe its fair to give up our right on eating animals, since we dont exactly NEED them to survive, and it would help restore a bit of ecological balance. Ethics and religious beliefs could be considered important factors (and btw, @mohit sharma: having sensations and having them coupled to reflex responses is one thing, having the distinct feeling of pain is quite another, and you require a complex brain for that, which to the best of my knowledge plants do not have. at the most, plants have a way of perceiving stimuli that cause pain in animals (not in plants), and have those stimuli coupled to certain responses), but most important is crude necessity, the necessity of survival, the most basic of instincts, and vegetarianism is an important step towards enhancing human survival.
Kalyani
enhancing survival in long term, i mean.
ReplyDeletekalyani
i guess i just did a lot of repetition, without going properly through the whole debate. Apologies!
ReplyDeletekalyani