I don’t empathize with the suffering of all sentient beings, and don’t think that I should either. There are even some human beings who I don’t empathize with; serial killers, for instance.
I empathize with animals on an essentially arbitrary basis, according to what’s been taught to me by my culture. It also helps if the animals do something “nice” for me, and if the animal does something “mean” like biting me then I’ll dislike it. I don’t think that this is incorrect for me to do because I don’t think there are any moral justifications that run deeper than an individual’s values, arbitrary though they might be.
I do think that most human beings directly involved in slaughterhouses and similar things are damaged by their experiences, as this is what many former workers have reported. There’s something wired into our nature to react badly to the smells of blood and death, and we’re fairly imaginative beings so empathizing with the animals is probably somewhat inevitable if we work with them daily. Many other jobs damage their workers, though, so this is not a strong reason to be anti-meat.
I also agree with vegetarianism in the abstract as it’s clear that feeding plants to animals then eating animals is a less efficient process than eating plants directly. If more people were vegetarian in this way, we would either have cheaper food prices or less agriculture that damages ecosystems, and I think both of those are probably good things. (I am somewhat uncertain about cheap food prices, as developmental economics is apparently quite complicated—does anyone know more about this?)
On a somewhat related note, I’m of the opinion that animal rights activists and perhaps even some types of vegetarians should ally with hunters and promote hunting. Hunted animals live their entire lives in the wild and are presumably much happier than animals in cages. The more meat that is eaten from free animals, the less meat that is eaten from captive animals.
I don’t empathize with the suffering of all sentient beings, and don’t think that I should either. There are even some human beings who I don’t empathize with; serial killers, for instance.
I empathize with animals on an essentially arbitrary basis, according to what’s been taught to me by my culture. It also helps if the animals do something “nice” for me, and if the animal does something “mean” like biting me then I’ll dislike it. I don’t think that this is incorrect for me to do because I don’t think there are any moral justifications that run deeper than an individual’s values, arbitrary though they might be.
I do think that most human beings directly involved in slaughterhouses and similar things are damaged by their experiences, as this is what many former workers have reported. There’s something wired into our nature to react badly to the smells of blood and death, and we’re fairly imaginative beings so empathizing with the animals is probably somewhat inevitable if we work with them daily. Many other jobs damage their workers, though, so this is not a strong reason to be anti-meat.
I also agree with vegetarianism in the abstract as it’s clear that feeding plants to animals then eating animals is a less efficient process than eating plants directly. If more people were vegetarian in this way, we would either have cheaper food prices or less agriculture that damages ecosystems, and I think both of those are probably good things. (I am somewhat uncertain about cheap food prices, as developmental economics is apparently quite complicated—does anyone know more about this?)
On a somewhat related note, I’m of the opinion that animal rights activists and perhaps even some types of vegetarians should ally with hunters and promote hunting. Hunted animals live their entire lives in the wild and are presumably much happier than animals in cages. The more meat that is eaten from free animals, the less meat that is eaten from captive animals.