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From: VeggieVidz
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  • I havent missed the point of the video, I promise, but don't you think Singer's wife was a bit out of his league back in the day? She was hot!

  • 1. Humans Exploiting animals should be banned

    2. If Humans consuming animals is not moral, then why should it be moral for other species to do so? well because they need to do so to survive.

    3. But then again in the future we could have the technology to increase intelligence, so if we can do that we can enable other species to live a life in which eating meat is no longer necessary.

    In conclusion it seems maybe all species been part of society and the end of the food chain is the moral truth.

  • I'd love to see a talk between Peter Singer, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking and Michio Kaku. That would be epic.

  • Peter singer condones sex between animal and humans. As it "does not always involve cruelty" and can be "mutually satisfying".

  • There aren't many people who more perfectly embody the word 'douchebag' than that interviewer.

  • Peter Singer is sitting on a leather couch

  • the dude doing the interviews such an asshole haha

  • Heard of his views on abortion? not so noble and great I would say..

  • @jeremyg64 He approaches that subject with the same logic and rigour as any other. His views on it are completely consistent with any other true free thinker....Would I be right in thinking that you are a religious person?

  • @comanchio1976 No I think I would consider myself more agnostic/deist, so please don't consider me close minded or anything else connotative to religious haha, well no philosophers views are really consistent with anothers in my opinion, but there's just something about Singer's belief of the 30 day person concept that just don't strike me as noble.

  • @jeremyg64 Well you may not think they are "noble", but his view on abortion is consistent with his utilitarian philosophy.

  • @Drgamedood well ofcourse his views are going to be consistent with his philosophy, the nobility thing was something that someone else said before, which i thought was a generalisation due to his points here.

  • @sohkbz

    That would be "Walking in the Air"; you've probably heard it from "The Snowman". I'd say it's the most beautiful piece of music I've ever heard.

  • He's so moral. Noble man!

  • Please can anyone tell me what's the melancholy but beautiful music played at the backdrop starting : 5:34?

    It sound so familiar but I have trouble remembering the name of the song.

    Thanks

  • It really bothers me that people dont give much of a thought to what's behind their burger, hot dogs, steak. (but I also agree that I don't like to be preachy about it all...but if Im asked, I always explain why Im veg...)

  • this guy is more moral than any of the prophets of the monotheistic religions. i mean look at the way religious people get things done, "if ya do this 'n' that then allah be blessin' ya". Peter Singer provides a coherent argument for human beings to be morally responsible and live an ethical life.

  • @halflifeproductionz yeah, the prophets of monotheistic religions all advocated euthanasia and fucking animals. oh wait..

  • @agents1986 no prophets encouraged slavery, death for faith!

    peter singer never said we should all fuck animals, his saying it should be alrite if an individual would like to do so. its very rare someone would want to fuck an animal.

  • peter singer advocates zoophilia, since its permissibility is a logical consequence of preference utilitarian philosophy.

  • @agents1986

    What's wrong with it?

  • @RPFS2008 you sicken me.

  • @agents1986

    Why?

  • @agents1986 If you care to know what Singer really thinks about zoophilia then watch "William Crawley Meets Peter Singer (part 3)", starting at 1:18. If after watching that you still think he advocates it then you might look up the definition of the verb "to advocate". If you then still think he advocates it then you might tell me which of his assertions in that interview is equivalent to "recommending openly" or to "supporting" zoophilia. (Webster's: to advocate=to support, to recommend openly)

  • @iflyboats,

    Uh, what are you talking about? He gives 25% of his income to Oxfam and UNICEF as well as donating to animal right charities and promoting awareness of animal rights and world poverty, and his utilitarian philosophy promotes the greatest good for as many as possible. You've practically just described someone who is the complete opposite of Peter Singer.

  • @iflyboats Some interesting character interpretation here.

    Please share from which statements or information did you come to such conclusions?

  • @iflyboats you're an idiot

  • What do you think about that therapst Ginger Peterson and what she said about meat consumption and cognitive dissonance?

  • He's like an old version of Jemaine Clement from 'Flight of the Conchords'

  • Well cheating wouldn't make me a vegan, would it? There's vegan and not vegan. I also don't take supplements, unless you count fortified vitamins in food.

  • Two years on a vegan diet will kill you, just FYI. It is scientifically proven.

  • @amazieng

    Funny, I've been vegan for 2 years.

  • @Ry4n Strictly vegan? Have you been taking supplements? or cheating and eating eggs, drinking milk, or eating anything with animal byproducts?

  • @amazieng

    If the soil was not depleted of nutrients and minerals, like cobalt, the bacteria that would normally be in your gut would produce vitamin B12. But modern farming, with the important need to wash your food now, along with anti-biotics deprive the bacteria of cobalt or kill the bacteria. Vitamin D can be produced by the sun. Big deal, in much larger quantities than the suggesting serving of the supplement.

  • And, supplementation of these two vitamins are required because of soil being destroyed to feed livestock, and all the other inputs and outputs of livestock raising. Plus a work environment that places humans in side during peak solar hours.

    Meat eater can still have a B12 deficiency, and have low levels of D3 that lead to disease.

  • @motina10 well, thank you for that interesting information, but how does that make sense? How are you saying that it is better to be vegan in this day and age? If we can't get the nutrients we need from vegan foods, then what is the point? Health comes first. I'm not promoting mistreatment of animals; but I am saying we are being silly when we try to live without the nutrients from animal byproducts. Eggs and milk provide important nutrients that are difficult to get without them.

  • @amazieng Why is it wrong to take supplements. Meats eaters still need to take the same supplements as a vegan since they can have the same deficiencies in B12 and D3. So what it the point of being a meat eater? It makes sense to be a vegan because it is far more economical and ecologically sound (it should be noted that the two are related despite the disassociation of the neo-liberals) than meat. Big deal about supplementation.

    Eggs milk do not contain nutrients that other sources do not.

  • @motina10 "Meat eaters" as you have so named them, do not need to take the same supplements as vegans and vegetarians. Your body collects B12 over a period of time and it takes a few years for it to run out when you've stopped obtaining it through your food. Vegans have virtually no intake of B12, and so they are at risk more than non vegans.

  • @amazieng Umm... so what else would you call some one who eats meat? We... are talking about diets here. What would I call people who eat meat? Motorists?!?!

    Would nutritional yeast be a supplement even though it is used as a cheese alternative in vegan dishes, usually as Parmesan cheese alternative.

    It is impossible, even on a strict vegan diet, to become deficient, because of bacterial sources of B12 from the person’s bowel, contaminated vegetable foods, and the environment.

  • @motina10 No, because your body does run out of b12.

    People need to stop restricting themselves from foods with nutrients, and start eating what their body tells them to eat.

  • @amazieng

    Are bodies are really bad at telling us what to eat, it still leads to malnutrition if you just listened to your body. Vegans without supplementation are no more at risk than non-vegans at getting a B12 deficiency.

    If B12 deficiency occurs higher in vegans, it is only because they get it check more regularly. It is the last leg to stand on for the pro-meat eating culture. But this just creates a false sense of security for those who eat meat.

  • @motina10 Our bodies are NOT bad at telling us what to eat. We just tend to be bad at listening to what it tells us it needs. Not to mention, we should know general nutrition.

    I do not say that being Vegan or Vegetarian is wrong or evil or anything else like that; I only say that it isn't prudent. Unless you believe that it is WRONG to eat meat or other animal products, we are at no moral disagreement here.

    I only argue that restricting yourself from meat does less than restricting sugar or...

  • @amazieng

    Both meat and sugar lower your blood pH levels, in a typical "western" diet that also involve caffeine intake, there is very little to rebalanced the blood pH aside from taking alkaline minerals from your own bones that lead to osteoporosis. But both come with a wide variety of their own health issues. Just sticking to the supplement argument is a weak one for justifying eating meat.

    People take supplementation no matter what their diet is.

  • @motina10 So you do believe that eating meat is morally wrong?

  • @motina10 ...hydrogenated oils, Citric acid, High Fructose Corn Syrup (when I said sugar I did not mean the kind you get from fruit,) and the like.

  • @motina10 And you could call someone who eats meat an "omnivore", or something that doesn't try to imply that we either eat only meat or eat it in order to be cruel to animals.

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  • @amazieng

    Omnivore do not need to eat meat in order to be omnivores. Insects are not meat, eggs are not meat and milk is not meat. Vegans are still anatomically omnivores on the herbivore side of the spectrum, even if they do not eat insects milk and egg, unlike their veggie counterparts.

    Meat eaters are those who eat meat. By saying that I m not restricting their diet to just meat. Calling them carnivores would constrict their diet to eating meat.

  • @amazieng Meat eaters actually do need to take supplements. I think pretty much every nutritional text I've ever read emphasises the need for using supplements.

  • @brentoneccles I think that a person has taken a step in the wrong direction with his nutrition if he needs supplements. For what reason would an omnivore (a more appropriate name for meat eaters) need supplements when he is able to eat anything he might need? All the nutrition we need can be found in food, and it's better to take it that way. If we are having trouble getting the nutrition we need, we need to stop being picky and start eating what gives us proper nutrition.

  • @amazieng That's actually not true. Our methods of production, which are highly standardised, mean it's near-impossible for ANYONE to get all their nutrients from food alone - because of our "food situation" it's necessary to supplement.

  • @brentoneccles I'm not against better food production. I can see how we do need better ways of obtaining what we eat. I am all for a more organic way of buying and eating food; if we could obtain food from farmers not trying to mass produce everything in a way callous to the health of plants, animals, and people, then we would be a lot better off in the food situation.

    However, the food situation does not mean cutting out certain foods is better. In fact, it means we most CANNOT even afford it.

  • @amazieng well I'm personally not a vegetarian, so I can't say I disagree with you on that point.

    I would say that supplements are important for everyone, but especially vegetarians.

  • @amazieng haha idiot...please don't abuse the term 'scientifically proven'...remember what it actually means.

  • @SamCocknose You can laugh at ME all you want, but I'm firstly only quoting what I've heard, and secondly just going to laugh at everyone who seems to think that eating eggs or drinking milk hurts animals.

  • @ oOoPIANOoOo Could you expand please?

  • Just so everyone knows... Singer supports the farming of children to harvest their organs for the sick on mass scale. Just as long as the children are killed 'humanely'. Yeah Go Hitler... I mean Singer!

  • battery eggs....yeah and they never sell the little buggers with the battery's either

  • Peter Singer is NOT a philosopher

  • @zarakas2000 this man is a monster for his hate towards persons with disabilities

  • @zarakas2000 no he isn't he however is a monster for his hate towards persons with disabilities

  • I am incredibly thankful for the work that Peter Singer has done for the sake of animal welfare. What I don't understand, and to my mind Singer nowhere addresses this, is the idea that something has to be similar to us in intelligence in order to receive our compassion. I don't think that animals are as mentally capable as human beings are. But it is precisely BECAUSE of this fact that we must have compassion towards them.

  • ...Not that Singer anywhere ASSERTS the idea that in order for a thing to be considered in ethical terms, it must be similar to humans in it's intellectual ability. But in basing his argument at the level of this popular assumption, he leaves it completely unchallenged. I think the whole idea that a creature's intellect or ability or status in some ontological hierarchy is the necessary grounds for determining whether we ought to treat them with compassion is a mistake....

  • How irritating that the interviewer seems to know of no other way to react to moral statements than with laughter.

  • If I saw Peter Singer in person, I would probably began tearing up. His presence would be overwhelming. Such a great man.

  • @ayesha080 He isn't a true vegan or animal rights activist. He clearly only believes in it to the extent of being socially acceptable. Look, if he REALLY cared, that leather couch would at least bug him enough for him to insist on sitting somewhere else.

  • Ethics is not to be taken lightly and his "ethics for dummies" has no legitimate place in a serious debate about ethics. Peter Singer is more often used as an example of how wrong you can go with consequentialism.

  • Peter Singer is a great man. He is exposing the cruelty forced upon the voice less. If more people were like Singer we would live in a better world, not only for animals, but for humans alike

  • @CarlMinez No, we would live in a tyranny of irrationality. A inhumane society caught in the turmoil of its own broken moral compass. Society would crumble before our eyes. Resulting in all your precious animals being hunted to extinction during the ensuing global famine. Peter Singer shows us how crazy consequentialism is when its taken to its logical extreme. The reaction of any sane person should be: "ah, that´s why it doesn´t work", but a lot of people can´t seem to get the message.

  • @FatmanFlump

    Im open to all opinions but i dont quite see your point. Singer is obviously morally orientated. He speaks of animal liberation and ending the world poverty. What greater endeavor is there than that of sharing and protecting those who do not have the means to protect themselves?

    You will have to specify just how you think that Peter singers arguments might harm our society.

  • @CarlMinez His moral foundation is his own extreme take on an already rather undesireable school of ethics: consequentialism. It focuses on happiness and displeasure as the basis of morals. That is a dead end. One of its results in the case of Singer is his removal of the ethical differentiation between humans and animals. This leads him astray in many cases. The problem is not that he puts animals too highly, as such, it is that he downgrades human beings in a way that is ultimately sinister.

  • @FatmanFlump

    I see what you mean. But consequentialism and utilitarianism are, though in many ways similar, two different perspectives. And they are both quite logical from an objective perspective.

    The main idea is to downgrade humans, simply because the belief that humans are superior animals has lead to animals being treated the way they are, slaughtered in masses and mistreated ethically.

  • @FatmanFlump

    So what Singer is trying to tell the world is mainly that speciesism is just as terrible as racism and sexism, and it comes with the same results. And thus he encourage people to take another form of responsibility, a personal responsibility. So if you truly believe in the good in man then surely you believe that one of the abilities we should acknowledge the most if our ability to reason and act responsibly. We are not treating mother earth, eachother or animals responsibly.

  • @FatmanFlump

    Now I dont know whether you are religious but old religious values has proven to have negative consequences when they affect politics. Today it still affects us human beings in many ways and the ethics we live by. In Shintoism and Hinduism (and the like) there is a fundamental respect for mother earth and the believe that we owe her our lives and our civilization. And thus we should be submissive to her alone. This ancient theology is what we should base our current ethics on.

  • @CarlMinez Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism, they are not separate as such. There is great wisdom to be found in eastern philosophy but that in itself is not a good basis for ethics. Animals do have value in ethics, but it is relative. Whereas humans have absolute value. We all want to avoid the unnecessary suffering of animals, but equating them with humans is a dead end. And equating "Speciesism" with racism and sexism just blurs the other two.

  • @FatmanFlump

    "Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism"

    Yes, but people tend to confuse the two. I thought you were one of them.

    "Animals do have value in ethics, but it is relative. Whereas humans have absolute value."

    That if anything is relative. As humans we can only value life through our own, emotional, subjective perspective. Thats why we are convinced that the life of a human is always more important than that of an animal. But that doesnt make it so.

  • @FatmanFlump

    And when the idea of humans being superior to animals, and the life of a human being more important, creates the nightmarish society we have today then there is very little you can say to defend that mentality. Id say revalue for scratch, introduce some utilitarianism. The last thing you would have to worry about is humans valuing the life of animals more than fellow humans.

  • @CarlMinez Whats the point? If morals does not spring out of consequentialism one should look elsewhere. Anything else is just mindgames, not philosophy. Another point, your own critique of human abilities for valuing life shows that these shortcomings are surmountable, thus it is invalid.

  • @FatmanFlump

    So picture a society in which everyone is convinced that the life of an animal is important too, and that animals just like humans should not be subjected to unnecessary suffering. It would be the end of the terrible meat industry, the end of dog fighting, whale slaughtering. To me this sounds like a by far more health society than that we live in now.

  • @CarlMinez It is Peter Singers basic moral assumption, that morals is determined by the consequences or utility of the action, that leads him barking up the wrong tree. When he proposes euthanasia on handicapped babies, that should make us all back up a bit. Something is missing. A sign that something is wrong is found in his exceptions to his own way of thinking. What guides these exceptions? True morals perhaps? A philosophical position must be able to stand on its own feet, and his doesn´t.

  • @FatmanFlump

    You need not to teach me of the believes of Peter Singer as ive followed and admired the man my entire life. And though his opinions are not entirely similar to mine I agree with his view of animal and human equality.

    Moral is a subjective term that is too often being used in the wrong context. Thesedays the only logical approach is paradoxically mathematical. But dont worry. A philosophical ground is not the same as a political ground, but it can inspire political reforms.

  • @CarlMinez I do not feel obligated by the fact that some consequentialists have chosen to seperate morals so stringently from ethics, but it does serve to illustrate to what degree their "ethical" proposals have any normative value.

  • @FatmanFlump

    So even though Peter singer is likely to inspire people he will never be able to create a society in which animals are considered equal to humans. I dont know what consequences you may see in that scenario but i can assure you its not likely.

    What I hope, however, is that future generations will value animal life better than we do today. Sexism has resulted in the oppression of women, racism results in genocide and speciesism results in slaughter houses. Its comparable.

  • @CarlMinez I too look forward to a world where animals are treated properly, but this should be done through the prism of a sound ethical foundation, not cost-benefit analysis.

  • Why do people listen to Peter Singer?

  • If you really think there's a man in the sky keeping score something is wrong with you.

  • The seat of the cancer is more or less irrelevant. Blasphemer Hitchens must stop consuming alcohol, tobacco, red meat & cane sugar (esp. corn sweeteners). He must take pro-pancreatic enzymes, and most importantly: Laetrile (perhaps intravenously-administered). Malignant cells are errant trophoblasts (healing cells/new-life cells/pre-embryonic cells). The healing process can only be checked with Amygdalin; the molecularity of which is hydrogen cyanide, benzaldahyde and glucose (sugar).

  • @procommenter this man thinks having sex with animals is normal

  • @pick8lock No, actually, he has expressly stated it's not natural to have interspecial sex.

    If you'd read any of his works, you'd know that what he's said is that it doesn't always constitute cruelty to the animal involved.

  • Obscurantist/plagiarist/histor­ical revisionist Christopher (bearer of Christ) Hitchens, Obama, Dawkins & others support the eugenic policies of the modern-day Western World: carbon taxes (which will double the price of grain); abortion (infanticide/genocide); endless warfare (as Orwell had warned us of in "1984"); confiscatory taxation; Z.P.G. (Zero Population Growth); "atheism"/Darwinism (the denigration of personhood/self-sovereignty) & internationalism (planetary government).

  • @procommenter

    I have the number of an exceptionally good psychiatrist. Just drop me a PM.

  • @PhilosopherSY

    Have you ever used a telephone?

  • I just love how all the people speaking up and saying we shouldn't just go around murdering infants are getting downthumbed.

    Have we sunk this low?

  • I do too. Care to actually raise an intellectual objection?

  • What the fuck?

  • Guess not...

  • @Nulono who cares? Its population control. i doubt that infant has any awareness of the world around it, unlike pretty much all animals.

  • @IAmTheCthulhu Population control justifies homicide?

  • @Nulono To a degree. People like tarry shivo and infants under a year old, yes. I'd much rather just do a forced abortion though. A little more humane. Don't complain about that because we both know abortion isn't wrong, its just merely saying I don't want this child or I'm not ready.

  • @IAmTheCthulhu There's a difference between saying you aren't ready for a child and killing that child.

  • @IAmTheCthulhu As for "infants under a year old" having no rights, you, sir, boggle my mind.

  • @IAmTheCthulhu Really, killing a baby 11 months after birth? I just threw up in my mouth a little.

  • Singer's great, not denying his influence on the movement I support, but he needs to ditch his bankrupt theory of utilitarianism. You cannot attribute rights to anything that is treated as a means to an end.

  • I have to admit, after reading the works of Regan and more importantly, Gary Francione, I find it hard to agree with Singer's views.

  • peter singer is The Philosopher of our time, read his work for those of you who are interested> I guarantee that it will have some sort of impact on you guys on your morality.

  • his views are very interesting..

  • Humans are animals. Giving rights to humans is giving rights to animals.

    There are some things that make humans unique. Sentience and the ability to feel pain are not likely among them.

  • @GregGirardin exactly, tigers should have the right to vote

  • who's ok with killing humans???

  • Singer. He supports infanticide.

  • if u mean abortion there's a huge difference. a fetus is completely dependent on its mother, similar to a parasite. killing a baby that is completely seperate and independent is entirely different

  • @msav111 No, I mean infanticide. Singer supports killing babies up to a month after birth.

    But why does being dependent upon another person make you less valuable. Also, your claim is simply false after viability, which is dependent upon a society's medical technology.

  • @Nulono He doesn't support infanticide, you don't understanding his reasoning if you claim that. His intention is to make us aware that there is no way of rationally (or by using religion) to decide on topics like abortion. They are simply outside of the sphere of the universal, and falls into the category of the REAL (in the Hegelian sense of the word). To put it more simply, his claim, a Hegelian claim I think, is that we have to look at the real world, and understand our morals from there.

  • @deterdetsamma2 Singer is of the view that a parental decision to commit infanticide in the case of disordered offspring is consistent with utilitarianism. In that respect, I think he's correct, and I'll explain why.

  • According to utilitarianism, the degree to which a subject ought to receive ethical consideration is proportional to its capacity to suffer, in addition to the extent to which others suffer in response to its suffering. Singer throws in personhood as well. According to these criteria, a chimpanzee merits greater ethical consideration than a disordered and unwanted human infant.

  • Coupled with this, one could also argue that permitting a severely disordered infant to persist would increase the net quantity of suffering, as it's probable that the infant would go on to lead a painful and depraved existence, and should therefore be terminated.

  • @gunman806 Close, but not quite right. Singer thinks that an animal is only harmed by being killed if it has some awareness of its own existence and has a desire to continue existing. It is not wrong to euthanize a dog languishing in a shelter, nor is it wrong to kill an infant. It is wrong to kill a chimpanzee, however, because it meets the criteria listed above, and therefore is harmed by the termination of its existence. But causing pain to a baby is just as bad as causing pain to a chimp.

  • @gunman806 Hmm, so his views are of a utilitarian point of view. I thought he was mostly demonstrating that morals are non-universal. Does he build his theories on Rawls?

  • @deterdetsamma2 I believe Jeremy Bentham is his principal source of influence, at least in the ethical domain. Singer is staunchly universalist and advocates for consistency in applying one's ethical system.

  • I'm pro-choice but something boggles me. We were all at one time a fetus, that makes me wonder if my parents ever considered abortion? We're all glad we didn't get aborted so how can we be so noncalant on the matter when it comes to other fetuses? Somebody enlighten me, please? I'm so torn on the subject. I would love anybody's input/opinion, Thanks!

  • First ask yourself what is a fetus? If it human does it deserve rights? In some states if you kill a pregnent woment you are also responsible for the death of the fetus, even though abortion maybe legal in such state. We are regressing to a time when aborting will be extended to outside the womb such as infanticide for population control or that this will be "evolved" and therefore excepted for population control.

  • I don't think he ever said that they have moral worth...he said that we shouldn't kill them because we are capable of compassion and can prevent suffering.

  • Fetuses and infants don't apply moral values either.

  • In a sadistic experiment upon hungry monkeys, they were fed only if they pulled a chain that delivered a painful electric shock to another monkey, otherwise they starve.

    87% of the monkeys chose to go hungry rather than to inflict pain on another monkey. One went without food for 2 weeks. Monkeys who had been shocked in previous experiments themselves were even less willing to pull the chain and subject others to such torment.

    Animals are just like us. Well, like most of us, that is.

  • If monkeys could talk, I wonder what they'd say about humans...

  • @CDLver google the Milgram experiment and you will see humans are the exact opposite. It's been done numerous times and consistently 70% of humans will shock a person to death for no reward, just because they were told to. 

  • @fallon75, I've seen the experiment -- it was fascinating. Humans are the most ruthless of all animals!

  • @CDLver a few may be ruthless but the majority of the subjects feel empathy and guilt but allow themselves to be controled by any person with a tiny bit of authority. there are a few clips of it on youtube of people near tears but still "following orders"

  • @CDLver

    Can you please tell us what this study was called, or who did it? It would be very useful in an upcoming project of mine.

  • @FitterHappier1, Masserman, J, Wechkins S, Terris W. 1964 'Altruistic' behavior in rhesus monkeys. American Journal of Psychiatry vol. 121: 584-585

    1964 Study Jules Masserman

  • @FitterHappier1, Research the sadistic studies of Harry Harlow's "Pit Of Despair" rhesus monkey studies if you really want a chill up your spine! This sicko conducted 'monkey love' experiments on baby monkeys where he forced them into horrific situations of starvation or the affection of a surrogate mother.

  • And what of the intellectually disabled humans who are unable to honor any moral contracts? What about humans who are physically unable to act in accord with moral contracts.

    I'm not so sure that animals aren't rational. They seem quite rational within their own paradigms.

  • "ANIMALS HAVE NO MORAL WORTH BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT RATIONAL CREATURES!"

    What a predictably irrational statement.

  • u think we're rational? we blow ourselves up and go to wars and allow the rich to govern us, etc etc... animals don't do that

  • there is no god rtardo..

  • hmm, well, not everyone would agree with u on that... dont know about me tho, im just saying, people who beleive in god, dont eat meat cause they're gods creatures, not cause they physically cant or anything. far out.

  • God made us capable of eating meat, at best. I'm an atheist but there's nothing that mandates us to eat meat according to the Bible. In fact many Christians advocate veganism. If we take an altruistic, reasoned approach without prejudices, we naturally arrive at the simple conclusion that we shouldn't kill beings for pleasure. Animals for meat and other food/material products are simply for pleasure and that's indefensible when weighed against a life of slavery, torture, terror, and death.

  • what? thats not really my point...

  • meat causes heart disease, clogged arteries, and oxidative stress. god made us omnivores? We've hunted countless animals to extinction and now expend more primary foods to feed animals we consume in leiu of eating that food itself, while destroying the planet... god doesn't exist hun, wake up

  • Haha, it offends me that you think i believe in God, i can assure you i am a reasoned Atheist, lol. I know exactly what you mean, i was just saying it is not a 'reasoned' argument to say you dont eat becuase god made animals - IF you believe in God. which i don't, i apologise for the horrible misconception.

  • it was more of a counter to "god made us omnivores" rather than to the existence of a diety itself.

  • watch?v=9hDyMWXL7x8

    an indepth look into peter singers ideology on animal cruelty

  • I am curious how some of you guys (meat eaters) would feel if all of the sudden an extremely advanced race of "people" or aliens came to earth and started making us reproduce at unnatural rates to harvest our flesh and use our bodies for cosmetics. You would certainly be upset, but if your argument(s) (almost any of them) were to be universal (hold true no matter the conditions apply) then this would have to be acceptable behavior. This may sound ridiculous but try to extract the bit of truth.

  • I eat meat! I agree with you though, the methods of obtaining it by our species are cruel. I go fishing/hunting mostly when i want meat..One question to some of you guys (veggies) why do you dislike hunters? Its far more natural (if done correctly) than buying meat, one creature can last several meals etc. I understand we can live without it, but our species has relied heavily upon it since its origins. The land required to grow food for a vegetarion world could damage some habitats also

  • i personally do not mind hunters that much. I still feel like it is cruel, but I belong to a gun club. I go fishing a lot and have gone hunting.Most hunters and outdoors-men in general protect the environment a lot. They frequently spearhead tasks that contribute to a diverse and healthy animal population. If they did not then they would have to quickly find a new hobby.

  • I've thought the same thing; its in fact not ridiculous. If there was a superior race that thought we'd be tasty then it would have to be acceptable for them to eat us.

  • well that would be an unlikely scenario. They would see us as a dominant species and acknowlege our role on earth. maybe we could even share our tastiest animals with them. I doubt we would be any good compared to some of the things we eat

  • A similar scenario was present in Star Trek, and the members aboard the Enterprise find themselves the subjects of a psychological experiment. I dont recall the episode, but the message was the same; Lincoln once wrote, "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master."

  • i am not on top of the food chain to be eating vegables. i love the tast of meat.

    I support people eating tasty animals. it a natural behavior. animals eat other animals!

  • that's fine, but as the philosopher states during the interview, it's not the food chain that's being considered; what's being considered is the treatment of other animals as food. Natural carnivores, for example, hunt their food using whatever adaptions they've accumulated over the generations; humans harvest pigs, cows, chickens, and various other animals for meat, dairy, clothing, cosmetics, etc. Humans hardly need this meat, then; rather, they stock it because they're- we're- greedy.

  • True. Some animals eat other animals and so do other animals lick their own asses after eating! I don't see humans do the same.

  • If he were brighter, he'd be vegan.

  • I would say the same thing but a book I am reading is making me think otherwise. The arguments made are basically:animals not being eaten by us may get overpopulated, like deer, in this case it would be ethical for other beings to hunt them and would give the animal a free life, a quick death and a reasonable chance to escape much like in the case of what would happen to an animal under attack from a a "typical" predator. I am still debating this in my head but, maybe its wrong too.

  • Well as far as "animal liberation" goes, you can't raise animals ethically while they're enslaved.

  • I agree. There is also the issue of land use if everybody were vegans. The book claims it would take more fuels and pesticides. I don't think that it could possibly be more costly the vegan way but who can really tell?

  • Well the animals aren't going to be breed if people were vegan. They would if they're vegetarians. For the animals and the environment, veganism is the best choice. Singer, of all people, should know that.