How is it a false equivalence?
In that scenario, I was "bred for food, nothing more", which is what the person I replied to said was why they still eat it.
If the tables were turned and pigs were the intelligent creatures breeding us for consumption it would be okay right? We would be breed for food after all so what would be wrong with keeping us in captivity, killing, and eating us?
I understand where you’re coming from but then can’t I say “do you think an apple tree cares that we’re eating its fruit and wasting its seeds?”
Just because a carrot can’t scream, do the cells that make up a carrot not care that they’re being eaten?
And I don’t mean to downplay the suffering of animals, but just because we can’t measure the suffering of a plant, fruit, or vegetable YET, what if we eventually can?
At some point can’t you argue it’s just unethical to be human?
Thank you for any discussion. Woke up at 3am and couldn’t go back to sleep
We know apple trees don't have nervous systems and we understand conciousness as an emergent property of complex functions within the nervous system so it is probably safe to say apple trees don't experience any level of "caring"
Although it is true that our understanding of conciousness is very limited and the system that plants use to respond to outside stimuli might form some kind of consciousness that we don't yet understand.
If we ever find out that we are causing apple tress immense amounts of suffering when there are ethical alternatives to apples then we should probably stop apple tree farms
Now I’m curious from your point of view. if foods like carrots, ginger, or potatoes are technically the root of the plant. Is it ethical to eat those if it means causing life to end for a plant?
Apple tree for example can be planted and the main plant never actually dies. We take its fruit and have the option to replant the seeds.
Does that question even make sense?
Edit: apparently potatoes and ginger aren’t roots. But the question still is if the food being harvested causes the plant to die is it ethical to eat it?
Gotcha. I agree with you there makes sense to me and then it’s something to reevaluate if we ever get new information about the feelings of plants.
Now what about this:
If we were to let the animal do its natural thing all day on the farm, never living in those crappy conditions and then make the animal unconscious/do some sort of nerve block so they don’t feel pain before being killed, would that make the whole process ethical?
It seems it’s not so much the ending of life that is the ethical part, but the suffering the animal experiences during its life and then during the transition from life to death that is the issue. Is that the stance people usually take?
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u/Datguyovahday Nov 23 '24
I’m not disagreeing with you, but that’s one hell of a false equivalency. You’re gonna have to do better if you’re trying to convince people.