I hope you won't mistake me, I am not advocating for mass farming and slaughter practices. But I do believe there is little harm in hunting or free-pasturing animals for byproducts and meat. All forms of food have nutritional advantages and disadvantages, and people should be free to choose the sustenance that suits them best for reasons of economics, health, and preference.
I don't know, also, that there is a meaningful difference between murdering something and enslaving it, in this context. To commit violence against something is to limit its freedom, as is slavery. So the wolf limits the freedom of the moose, and the moose limits the freedom of the willow.
It could be argued that we enslave plants by farming, or that some species of ant enslave fungus. Another example of more intelligent/organized life forms owning less intelligent forms. Again, I don't know that awareness excludes us from participating in this "natural" order.
I don't know the answers on this one. It seems to me that awareness IS the principle difference between creatures vegans give leave to murder and creatures they don't give leave to murder. And I still don't know that it matters. I'll keep thinking on it.
The answer lies in the Golden Rule. If we wouldn't want a higher race of beings to enslave, rear, and hunt humans for food, it would be hypocritical of us to treat the animals with the same token of cruelty. We understand that the Golden Rule applies to us, but not the animals.
The non-aggression principle states that it is wrong to initiate violence against non-aggressors. If an animal, such as a cow, hasn't violated your natural rights, why choose to kill and eat it? Is that not a violation of the non-aggression principle? Why hunt, when none of us would want to be hunted by a higher race of beings?
Plants are not sentient beings and have no concept of freedom, fear, pain or suffering. They have no central nervous system, no sexual organs, no heart, no brain etc. If it's not possible to rape a plant, how can one murder a plant?
I appreciate you taking the time to read and comment. This is one of the most controversial and taboo topics there is.
I don’t think the matter of sentience is as cut-and-dried as many think, though.
http://goodnature.nathab.com/research-shows-plants-are-sentient-will-we-act-accordingly/
Plants are incredibly sophisticated organisms (photosynthesis is no joke), but they are not conscious in the way us humans and animals are.
Of course it is not the same, but that is the same argument being used to defend animals here, is it not? A dog or a fish is not conscious in the same way as I am, either.
What separates us from the animal kingdom is our intellect and reason. With that said, neither are justifications to slaughter animals. There are many humans (the disabled) who are lower in intelligence than animals, yet their decreased capacity for self-awareness and self-expression is not a justification for murder.
"The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"
Right, and I am playing devil’s advocate here. If plants have their own kind of sentience, then how do we know they cannot suffer. Just because the suffering may be of a nature we cannot understand, we can assume they do not? This doesn’t seem very scientific to me.I agree with you for the most part. I just disagree that we know 100% that plants do not suffer. In many ways their sentience is very advanced.
Humans are creatures of cooperation. The NAP protects us against other beings (humans) which are capable of doing us harm. It serves us individually, and because it serves us individually, it serves us as a species.
Treating a bear as you would rather be treated is not a recipe for cooperation. The bear will still maul you. Treating a cow as you would rather be treated is not a recipe for cooperation, either. The cow will succumb to the food chain elsewhere.
Our intellect is not justification for slaughtering animals; ease of survival and enjoyment of existence is. Murdering a disabled person will not, in the society you and I live in, result in ease of existence or enjoyment thereof because, most likely, it'll upset someone who will want to do us harm.
Consciousness and suffering exist on a sliding scale, and it is likely that all life forms experience both in some capacity. If the difference between the suffering of a plant and the suffering of an animal is how well I perceive it, that's a pretty lame distinction to base my dietary choices on.
(Still not advocating for mass production animal farming; that's some wasteful nonsense.)