Quote:
Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate
There are many healthy vegetarians, so saying that you have to eat meat to be healthy doesn't seem to be true. Therefore, again, it comes down to you eat meat because you like the taste. Again, you ENJOY the taste. Most people could be just as healthy on a vegetarian diet, but don't out of choice of what makes them happy.
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But by not eating any meat you create a situation where some animals wouldnt exist. Cows and Pigs and Chickens arent pets they are food. So if there was no market for these animals they would cease to exist. So in my opinion the question comes down to suffering. Are animals essentially tortured for the weeks or year until they become food or are animals treated well have a reasonable life or at least a life better than not existing and then become food. From a utilitarian view does the net benifit of their life outweigh the suffering at the end. A key point to remember is they dont know whats going to happen to them so their is no dreading the day they head to the kill floor. We have to be careful not to assign human characteristics to them.
From an evolutionary stand point the cow, chicken and pig are incredibly successful at passing on their genetic mataterial. Their partnership with man as a food source has led to greater numbers of them then would be possible naturally. So as a vegetarian promoting that everyone could be a vegetarian are you comfortable that the end result of everyone being vegan is the extinction of the cow, chicken, goat, and pigs that are raised for meat.
I am a big fan of Pollans discussion in the omnivores dilemma on vegtarianism and the ethics of eating meat.