Ask Lemmy

Depends on your morals.

A vegetarian diet isn't much more ethical than an omnivore diet, anyway. Veganism has a much better argument.

Overall, most humans agree that it is morally wrong to make other creatures suffer. Eating meat, or dairy, definitely leads to animal suffering (it actual leads to human suffering too).

If it's possible and you're capable to do it, then I think it's a moral choice.

If it's a matter of survival, health or inaccess to a variety of food, I don't think it really is a choice one should have to make on grounds of morality.

Is it morally wrong to ask a bait question on a public forum?

Yeah I think so probably. The animal product industry seems pretty messed up. Very un-cool what we do to them. Inefficient too but that's another argument.

Yeah, the most ethical diet is plant based.

Why do you ask it?

No.

Is it not morally wrong to drink the milk of an animal that was forcibly impregnated and whose child was murdered for said milk? Why stop at vegetarianism?

Depends on your morals. For mine it is.

Morals are subjective, I don't consider myself the arbiter of truth and I also reject theistic positive claims stating otherwise such as objective morals or free will. Personally I know I can survive without eating animals, so I'd rather not be indirectly involved in the killing of other animals where it is reasonably possible and I don't consider humans more important/superior to any other animals, generally.

I think you could get a lot of people to even admit to valuing very old trees over a lot of people too so even some plants are worth leaving alone, according to some of us. Like Red Wood giants in Cali, for example. All the land cleared of wildlife to grow food for billions of humans is disturbing stuff at least to me as well. The planet is actually kinda... small. I've come to realise. I fully reject humanity's unearned superiority complex.

I acknowledge it's hard/impossible to be absolute in the vegetarian ideal given all the ramifications of industrial overpopulation and just casually participating in the society I was born into. Best I can do on this suffering planet, that I never consented to being born to live temporarily upon pointlessly, is to minimize (elimination is unrealistic) the suffering my life inflicts on others.

In other words, I don't owe anyone jack shit, not even Mommy Dearest. Yet I still stand by this moral position. Although I'd argue this is just who I am and always was. The justications put into words and labels applied came later. You'll notice I didn't condemn meat eating in this comment and that's quite deliberate. You are not me. I just explain my position when asked and it's up to others to adopt it or not.

probably not.

Yes

Being vegetarian or omnivorous isn't very different, morally, as producing milk still requires killing calves. I think the better comparison would be with veganism

morals are anecdotes that define your personal integrity. morals are arguable at best and carry little to no merit outside of personal experience.

I believe you mean ethical.

ethically, no, it's not wrong. mostly because the animals we consume are bred and raised specifically to eat. however, the treatment of those animals in corporate factory farms is unethical, and so makes the consumption of the products from those establishments unethical.

It's a difficult question, so I hope some people who have interesting things to say about it will turn up here. All I can contribute is this link: Ancient Arguments For Vegetarianism