Conflicted meat-eaters deny that meat-animals have the capacity to suffer.

A new study from the University of Kent has provided direct evidence that people who wish to escape the ?meat paradox? i.e. simultaneously disliking hurting animals and enjoying eating meat, may do so by denying that the animal they ate had the capacity to suffer.

By engaging in denial, those participating in the study also reported a reduced range of animals to which they felt obligated to show moral concern. These ranged from dogs and chimps to snails and fish.

The study, the results of which are published in the August issue of Appetite, was conducted by Dr Steve Loughnan, Research Associate at the University?s School of Psychology, and colleagues in Australia.

Prior to their study, it was generally assumed that the only solutions to the meat paradox are for people to simply stop eating meat, a decision taken by many vegetarians, or the ongoing failure to recognise that animals are killed to produce meat (although few people live in true ignorance, some meat-eaters may live in a state of tacit denial, failing to equate beef with cow, pork with pig, or even chicken with chicken)

https://www.kent.ac.uk/news/stories/meat-eaters-study/2010

Well, I don't really like the idea that animals experience hideous lives locked in cages or other unnatural environments, then get mass slaughtered for my consumption, but... I like meat and eat it anyway... I would stop if they didn't taste so damned tasty

Few would deny that animal flesh (including human animal flesh) can be tasty but this is a weak justification for violating rights.

How do we respond to an appeal from a child molestor who says he/she has a taste for it?


rogY

See, the problem with animals is that they're made of meat!




Okay so let me ask you this. If not for eating, what are animals for?
Oh and also...in nature, animals eat other animals. Do you think they suffer more or less than the animals that we consume?

Humans are animals who are also made of meat. Meat is someone else's muscles and other body parts.

What do you mean, what are animals for? What are humans for?

No-one is disputing that some nonhuman animals eat other animals - many do not, btw.

It probably is the case that wild-caught nonhuman animals have suffered less than those in the use systems we organise.

The real issue is that we humans are moral agents who can look at the world and what we do from ethical perspectives. Since we do not have to eat animals or harm them in other ways, these become moral questions.

It shouldn't have anything to do with taste or notions of what they are "here for."

rogY

My comment that some animals eat other animals wasn't a stand alone statement, it was a lead in to the question of whether or not the animal that was being eaten suffers more or less than the ones that we consume.

Compare, for example, a free range chicken with a wild chicken (are there wild chickens? ). The free range chicken is guaranteed food, no struggle and is humanely killed by a person before being consumed. The wild chicken is caught by...let's say a wolf...punctured by sharp teeth and dragged off, still alive to be ripped to shreds while still partially conscious. Which one suffered more?

I'll concede that humans are also animals and just higher up on the food chain. I'm very well aware that some animals are not carnivorous...as are some humans. The fact is, some animals eat other animals. The only 'ethical' question here is how we treat them while they are alive.

Maybe more research should be conducted into which animals can suffer.

I understood your comment. We would probably have to look at your question on a case-by-case basis. It is certainly true that the use systems humans employ create untold suffering, even in "free-range" circumstances. Debeaking, catching, transporting, slaughter, are all points at which harm can and is caused.

From an animal rights p.o.v., all animal use is ruled out - but even from an animal welfare perspective, the notion of "free-range" is problematic as the more popular it becomes, the less likely it is in terms of resembling the storybook images we have of chickens scratching the earth in small farmyards and so on. Now "free-range" is being redefined to mean one big shed in which thousands of nonhuman individuals are confined.

Studies have shown that chicken prefer to forage for their food rather than have it simply provided to them. I think it is right that suffering may be caused when birds are caught by a carnivore - but our slaughter systems fail to properly stun nonhuman animals regularly - and that is probably even worse, having one's throat cut open while conscious and bleeding to death slowly. Being "ripped to pieces" is probably quicker.

When social scientists and others have looked at slaughter, they find that nonhuman are regularly dismembered while conscious - they thrash around and try to escape until finally dead.

Is it not the case that a chain goes round and round - and one part is at the "top" only momentarily?


rogY?

Such research has already been done - and continues. All mammals, birds, and fishes are regarded as beings who can suffer, which is why many countries have large amounts of animal welfare legislation to control how nonhuman animals are used.

The language of such legislation is about avoiding "unnecessary suffering."


rogY

I suppose that largely depends on your definition of 'momentarily'.

Just so I can remember exactly where you're coming from...do you think that all humans should become and remain vegans? If so, what is going to happen to all the domestic species that we have right now?

I'm not 100% certain, so I'm going to go look...I don't think there's any such thing as a wild chicken or wild cow so instead will they just become extinct or are we just going to introduce a basically alien species into the wild?

And how is this research being done? Aren't they 'capturing' and 'torturing' animals while hooking them up to instruments that can detect when something feels pain? How is that not cruel as well?

BTW, I've already found the answer about the wild chickens and cows. Apparently, they exist in Asia so they'd be alien in the US.

Yes, there are obviously issues in terms of how research is done. However, the discipline of cognitive ethology - https://www.humanecologyreview.org/pastissues/her131/bekoff.pdf
- studies nonhuman in their natural situations. In other experiments, nonhumans are placed in situations in which they can express their preferences - like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRYvDbY-2E8 which looks at instincts and learned behaviour in both nonhuman and human animals.


rogY

I'm pretty sure that there are wild chickens and cows...wild denotes something that can survive, and thrive in the wild by itself with no human contact...let ANY animal escape from human care, and if it survives it becomes "wild"...dogs, feral cats, pigs, horses,...in fact the famous longhorn steer was brought to N.A. by the Spaniards, herds got abandoned when the owners either moved or were killed by the Indians, and learned to fend by themselves. Later on, They were found and....you know the rest of the story.

I fully accept that "meat animals" (are there animals made of things that aren't meat?) have the ability to suffer.

I don't feel this is a paradox or that I'm conflicted. I still eat meat.

Wow...

Well, I don't like to see an animal suffer, and I'll admit I don't think about what kind of condition they are in before I get them, it's not because I want to kid myself about their suffering, I just don't want to think about it.

As far as reintroduction to the wild @someone else:
Most likely they would not be, but the mass production would be very lessened. We would not breed cows and chickens anymore, but maybe then become glorified pets of some sort.... great, we'd start breeding them like cats and dogs and create the sick "puppy mill" conditions for them.... they'd probably be better off getting slaughtered well, imho.

Anyway, I feel that we do need to have people who consume meat, just as there are animals who consume meat. There is a balance and just because we feel morally upset by the whole process, doesn't mean that it would be right to stop everyone from eating meat.