And exhale.

[reddragdiva]

It's been a quiet day's recovery from recovery. arkady went home early afternoon and redcountess and I have been coming down from Christmas since. Reheated roast for lunch, shockingly nice £1.12 Asda pizza for dinner. Christmas pics!

This has been a particularly enjoyable Christmas, even with redcountess ill.

• Allowing that Maddox is an arsehole and proud, his piece on the suffering caused by vegetarianism caught my notice. Presumably one cow is more photogenic than a thousand rodents.

• Assuage that guilty conscience: Citizen's Self-Arrest Form.

• I thank sushidog for the word "louche." The condition I have aspired to all my life.

Comments

[owdbetts.livejournal.com]

Allowing that Maddox is an arsehole and proud, his piece on the suffering caused by vegetarianism caught my notice. Presumably one cow is more photogenic than a thousand rodents.

I've never understood the desire of (a minority of) meat eaters to try and convince vegetarians that there's something wrong with not eating meat. Maybe it's because deep down they're uncomfortable with the idea of killing animals for food, and so anyone raising the subject of vegetarianism makes them uneasy?

Assuage that guilty conscience: Citizen's Self-Arrest Form.

The scary thing is that the rest of the site looks convincingly genuine. A police force with a sense of humour?

-roy

[reddragdiva]

"I've never understood the desire of (a minority of) meat eaters to try and convince vegetarians that there's something wrong with not eating meat."

I'm not a subscriber to that myself. I'm just surprised that I've never, ever seen the subject of the obvious carnage caused by combine harvesting of vegetables brought up elsewhere. I wouldn't link the article except it has references.

"A police force with a sense of humour?"

In Georgia, no less!

[owdbetts.livejournal.com]

I'm just surprised that I've never, ever seen the subject of the obvious carnage caused by combine harvesting of vegetables brought up elsewhere.

I agree, and it troubles me that I don't really have a good answer (though it's not going to make me go out and eat a steak tomorrow :) One problem though with the analysis in the linked paper is the metric of harm (number of animals killed). It takes no account of other forms of harm, such as the suffering caused to animals during their life on a factory farm. (I've met several ethical vegetarians who have no objection to killing animals per se, and would happily eat meat if it was farmed more humanely, so this argument would have no sway with them.)

It also makes no attempt to apply weights to different animals, which would IMHO be necessary if we were to take Maddox's lead and extend the analysis to insects killed by insecticide. (This of course would make the analysis rather subjective, but that's hardly surprising; questions like this don't generally have an objective qunatitive answer...)

To his credit, though, Maddox does link to the PETA response to his article.

[the_axel]

He (and the article talking about the Least Harm Principle) completely ignore is the number of animal deaths caused by producing food for meat animals.

Since it takes more vegetable product to create one calorie of meat than one calorie of vegetable, more animal deaths are the inevitable consequence of producing meat.

[owdbetts.livejournal.com]

That depends on whether the vegetable product is harvested using a combine harvester. It clearly doesn't apply to a cow grazing in a field, for instance.

Actually, having though about it, my big disagreement is that I don't regard utilitarianism as a valid starting point for a system of ethics, and therefore don't accept the Least Harm Principle.

Most people would regard killing an animal for fun as far less acceptable than killing an animal for food, and yet from the utilitarian viewpoint they're pretty much equivalent.

[the_axel]

Not strictly speaking true.
Cows (and other grazing animals) will attack little animals getting in the way of their food.

Admitedly, they will most likely miss, but they will succeed in scaring the animal away, so it won't have access to the food and will consequently starve. whereas, in a grain field, the mouse can munch contentedly all summer long.

Also, very few animals graze in fields year round [1], and those that do generally get dietary supplements that in turn have to be manufactured.

[1] Brazil or Texas might have a suitable climate for year round grazing.

[ejde.livejournal.com]

Allowing that Maddox is an arsehole and proud, his piece on the suffering caused by vegetarianism caught my notice.

Oh bless...what is it with this idea some folk have that all veggies consider everyone else to be meat-eating bastards, straying from the righteous path of beans and pulses? Although it is quite entertaining when I meet one of these folks IRL and they get soooo upset that I don't rise to the bait they continually try and throw at me.
Eat what you want, just don't try and pressure me into eating it if I choose not to.

[owdbetts.livejournal.com]

veggies consider everyone else to be meat-eating bastards

I do :-) I just carefully avoid expressing that view in public...

-roy

[ejde.livejournal.com]

Fair enough...it's just not my way.

[owdbetts.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I usually view people as misguided rather than bastards (unless they've done something to piss me off :)

I've seen your username on several friends lists. Are you EJ?

-roy

[ejde.livejournal.com]

shhh...no-one knows I'm here :)