Posted by Larry Hoover on March 3, 2005, at 22:53:31
In reply to Re: Animal Rights » alexandra_k, posted by Toph on March 3, 2005, at 21:32:41
> I really don't want to step between two heavyweights here,
Hear that, a_k? We is heavyweights. ;-)
> but there's two debates going on here simultaneously, the comparative nutritional value of the two diets and the moral argument.
I disagree, although I have subsequently taken my own argument on a (hopefully) informative tangent.
I rely on my disputation of this quotation from the very first post in this thread. One which requires an essential predicate assumption to be true, whereas I do not believe it to be true:
"For the great majority of human beings, especially in urban, industrialised societies, the most direct form of contact with members of other species is at meal-times: we eat them. In doing so we treat them purely as means to our ends. We regard their life and well-being as subordinate to our taste for a particular kind of dish. I say "taste" deliberately - this is purely a matter of pleasing our palate. There can be no defence of eating flesh in terms of satisfying nutritional needs, since it has been established beyond doubt that we could satisfy our need for protein and other essential nutrients far more efficiently with a diet that replaced animal flesh by soy beans, or products derived from soy beans, and other high-protein vegetable products."
I do not believe that it is "established beyond doubt". And all that flows from that assumption is as flawed as that fallacious predicate and foundational argument.
> I'm intrigued by the moral argument that you posit alex. Is it immoral for Eskimos who have virtually no access (before technology) to plant food to survive off mamalian whale meat?Oh how about cave-men who have imperfectly tried to adapt to diets based on monoculture grain farming, while retaining meat consumption to ensure adequate diet?
The Inuit have done very poorly when place on grain-based (so-called modern or western) foods, just for the record.
> It strikes me as similar to the question if someone has never heard of God can they gain entrance into heaven if entry is conditional on belief in God. Are primitive cultures that are unaware of agricultural technologies immoral because eating meat is the only food source they have learned to harvest?
And are modern societies more ethical if they falsely believe that meat is not an essential component of a healthy diet? Or do they instead worship at the altars of false deities?
I think the evidence I provided fairly strongly suggests that a vegetarian diet requires some supplements (certainly B12 and vitamin D, if not zinc, iron, selenium, long-chain omega-3s, calcium, and iodine) for long-term health. Is reliance on such a contrived (and I would argue unnatural, based on our evolutionary path) diet an essential sequela of adopting this posited ethical perspective?
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:461535
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050224/msgs/466264.html