A look at the morality of non-human animals.
The intro to honors class ha seemed to be hung up on this topic all semester. I feel like i've been taking an intro to PETA course. However, i know that there is merit in these questions, else we wouldn't be asking them.
Just the simple fact that we care so much about whether non-human animals are moral creatures shows us what kind of creatures we are. We are so concerned with whether the way we treat other animals is right or wrong and this shows us that we are moral, though possibly misguided, creatures. I don't know if non-human animals have morals. I would like to see the world through the eyes of a member of a different species for a day so then i would know. However, because this is impossible for me to do, i will just have to assume that animals could be either moral or non-moral and that either way, my choices will affect them. And so, i have decided that it would be wrong for me to mistreat these creatures... to just eat them. And thus comes th decision to refrain from eating meat unless i kill the animal myself - i am against slaughterhouses but people need the nourishment meat has to offer.
Norway
photo by Maciek Duczynski
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2 comments:
Most people do not need meat to survive, actually. Ask any of the vegetarians or vegans in the world. I agree with and admire your decision not to eat meat, but in the peculiar circumstances of the animal's life or death (as noted toward the end), perhaps it is more moral to allow the animal to live no matter who kills it, as it stands to lose literally everything from the exchange. If we cannot survive another way, killing animals is, of course, moral--we definitely have a right to survive. But the brunt of the argument rests on our being both moral agents and omnivorous--if we have other options (as we do), we should pursue them.
Sorry for the double post, vocabulary errors necessitated.
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