I had to dig this up and comment. I've been going through your podcast from first to last so I got a lot more to go but I really enjoy them! Always gets me thinking but after the podcast is over I'm stuck buzzing about it with no one to talk about it with. So I'm going to shout into this little void and if I'm heard by you that's wonderful if not... oh wells. I think you bring up a lot of great points but let's refer to what morality is and what is right and wrong. I think generally we try to come up with a system of rules that helps a society prosper and grow. (Unfortunately I think we're getting into trouble with the growth aspect in society these days.) I also kind of want to bring up that idea you mentioned in a previous podcast that government should enforce the general will of the people. While this is a super complex topic if we delve into it if we can kind of take this idea and apply it to morality within a society perhaps we can define it at the least common denominator a group of people want to abide by so that they can live in general peace with eachother. If we can take this assumption once more, (I'm giving you so much ammunition to break this down but maybe you can HUMEor me for a bit) then let's try to apply this as something more tangible. In the current us society we tend to lean towards individualism. Through my own observations I like to sum it up as "we're allowed to do whatever we want as long as our actions do not cause a relative threshold of pain towards other human beings." (there's that moral hierachy again! ) What is this threshold of pain we speak of? it is somehow reached when enough people speak up that too much of this pain is being caused to too many people. Generally an action is only immoral, wrong, or illegal, if it caused harm to other humans. It's wrong to kill your neighbors chicken but not your own because it was their property not because that chicken had a right to live. It's wrong to torture animals because a person capable of doing that could be capable of doing it to huamns and thus it's threatening and wrong. Ultimately though we've reached a point where we've extended our empathy to that of certain animals. The cuter they are the more likely they are to have earned our empathy and through that we start to apply moral and governable rights to these animals. Dogs and cats seem to be the most prominent in that sense. So it is ok to kill animals to eat them? That is slowly changing through the general will of the people. More and more people are finding it mentally painful that we kill billions of beings just so that our species can eat them. We are moving closer to pushing the act into an area of wrongness in terms of humanity as a whole. Currently though I think due to the fact that the act of eating another being is not causing humanity enough discomfort and the positives of eating the being is for the individual is outweighing the discomforts that society may be caused by doing it it currently isn't an immoral act. (Oh right morality is relative! ) Sorry for the ramble but I had to got my thoughts into someone else mind... hopefully.
I'm surprised that no comments I've seen have challenged the definition of "morality" offered here. Just about any philosopher studying normativity (a metaethicist or aciologist for example) could easily point out the mistakes: what he's talking about is ethics broadly construed as "what is demanded by normativity/what you ought to do because of normative reasons". Most philosophers who study normativity would say that "morality" regards specifically "moral" normative reasons/value/fittingness/etc. They would say that there are different types of value (e.g. moral value, prudential value, aesthetic value, epistemic value, value simpliciter, etc.) and consequently different types of reasons (moral reasons, prudential, aesthetic, epistemic, etc.). And there are a host of other properties of morality that would also be brought up: its (supposed) objectivity, its overriding authority over other types of reasons, the nature of moral value as opposed to other types of value, considerations of moral virtue and character, etc. There are very few metaethical frameworks that I'm aware of which would classify "should I eat oatmeal or blueberry pancakes" as a moral question.
In a culture which does not need to kill animals, yes - it is immoral. Maybe back in the day, when we threw spears at one another it was a morally different topic. But we have advanced, and our advances change our morals.
we would actually be advancing if we were acknowledging precisely what emanets from what you stated: that a certain moral IS NOT as absolut as it is ALWAYS shown during the time it "reigns". Moral is just a result of customs of the time and it is no more than an institution: it is a result of fear of changing and of how reluctant we are to accept our ANIMAL nature.
@M DC the point is that IF we assume that we should give plants moral consideration, it still makes sense to mitigate animal product consumption as much as "reasonably" possible, because plants are part of the base of all food chains and because energy is lost each step up the food chain, you inadvertently end up using more plants as a meat eater/omnivore then as a vegan/person trying to minimize animals eaten. You can't avoid using plants under any scenario outside of starving yourself, so IF plants should be treated better, then you still should eat less or no animal products.
@@xenoblad it seems so silly to me when people say "plants are alive too".. seeing someone stomp a plant to death would be fine to show in a classroom, but seeing the same done to a pig would horrify most people.. because they they're similar enough to us, they bleed, they clearly show fear and paint .. seems so obvious they should not be tormented and slaughtered uncessarily
In the West we live in a culture that find eating meat morally acceptable, at least for now. But the practice is inching into the gray area as to what is acceptable. In theory, there could be a lot of gray areas. How about the use of insecticides or fly strips? How about abortion and capital punishment? How about those who buy $75,000 cars or $100 designer jeans, money that could go to buying polio vaccines for Africa? Can the person who is a vegan criticize the meat eater when he, the vegan is wearing $150 shoes?
Insecticide and fly strips is quite a distinct issue because we are fighting for our own survival and property. Insecticides are used to prevent insects from eating crops that humans would otherwise eat (or fed to animals that humans end up eating). Fly strips are used when the resident wants to keep his dwelling free of flies and the germs they spread. However, when we eat animals we are doing so for entertainment reasons (ie. cow body parts taste better than pasta, pig body parts are more entertaining to eat than lentils ...). The idea of protecting the food you need to stay alive from insects is not quite the same dilemma as choosing to eat oatmeal or pig body parts for breakfast. "the vegan is wearing $150 shoes" This is a red herring or ad hominem attack. These fallacies detract from the issue at hand. No human being will satisfy any ideal of perfection. However, we can still acknowledge that people have expertise or valid arguments despite being mere mortals with imperfections. For example, if you had a dossier on your dentist you would probably not approve of all the actions, habits ... that he or she has in their personal life. But, you can still decide that he or she is competent when it comes to troubleshooting and correcting issues with teeth. Likewise, it's best to think of the arguments for and against eating animals without examining whether animal eaters have imperfections (other than eating animals) and people who don't eat animals have imperfections. As far as the $75,000 car or $100 designer jeans goes, this is an issue that indicates most people have no idea that money isn't real. Firstly, most charities are corrupt and most of their funds go to administrative costs. Second, you'd have to divert labor resources from the automobile and jean industry to then allocate towards wiping out starvation or providing clean water in Africa. But, money doesn't work that way. Human problem solving capabilities and natural resources are real, but money is a mere abstraction. Human beings and agricultural resources are needed to wipe out starvation in Africa, but money is not needed. Saying that we don't have enough money to prevent thousands from starving in Africa every day would be like a carpenter saying that he has ran out of the inches needed to build a house. In the carpenter's case, his skill and the inches of wood are real, but inches in themselves don't exist and are simply (like money) used as a measuring device. And, if you look into how money is created and how it flows, you'll find that it is a flawed measuring system by design (ie. it is not designed, as we are led to believe, to measure relative values between property, goods, and services).
Although your criticisms or Heather's examples are valid, she was merely pointing out two things: 1) killing animals for food is not the only moral dilemma of our society, and 2) what is morally justifiable depends largely on cultural context.
I think this is the simplest case for veganism. 1) You probably already agree that torture and murder is wrong. 2) What makes torture and murder wrong is that there is a collection of matter capable of feeling pain. You wouldn't say digging in the ground is immoral because the Earth is not a conscious being capable of feeling pain. Hitting someone with a shovel though, clearly immoral provided they feel pain. 3) Animals are conscious beings capable of feeling pain. 4) It is immoral to kill or torture animals by any method which inflicts them with pain. 5) The way we eat meat (factory farming) typically involves the torture of animals and sometimes involves a brutal killing where pain is not minimized. 6) It is therefore, immoral to eat meat. Some ways you can make a case for meat eating under this system: a) eating animals after they've died due to natural causes, b) letting animals grow up with some modicum of freedom then instantly killing them so they are not aware of their own death (thus feeling no pain).
Right on! Seems so obvious to me its wrong for the same reasons. I hope it gets obvious to everyone soon (i think it already is to most ppl they just dont say it)
@@steakovercake3986 most of the data says its healthier to be vegan for your heart.. All of it sayd vegetarian is healthy.. In any rate, if rape was good for mens heath ITS THE VICTIMS BODY and you shouldnt have a right to exploit and inflict mortal pain and fear on another, especially sadistically. Hunting ans factory farming should be outlawed. www.nutritionsociety.org/papers/long-term-health-vegetarians-vegans
What is your point? Are we wild animals? Is it justified for a lion to kill the old cubs of a lioness he breeds with... Then should we also be justified to kill our step children?
@Paul Rodríguez 'God allowed us to kill and eat them' doesn't mean we SHOULD or need to. Also... thou shall not kill and “The righteous know the needs of their animals, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.” -Proverbs 12:10 “I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety.” -Hosea 2:18 “Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O Lord.” -Psalms 36:6 ... but you will justify industrlised mass cruelty.
@@seanpatrickrichards5593 I don't really subscribe to "good" and "bad" as moral destinctions. There's only what has a positive or negative result to society or the individual. Industrial farming may be unsustainable, but that's an issue of consumtion to scale.
Do farm animals experience pain and fear? YES. Is it necessary to kill and eat them to survive anymore? NO. Is it wrong to unnecessarily inflict pain and fear? YES.
@@christiancrane5072 It has everything to do with the argument. We who live in our modern civilisation have access to all the plant-based foods we could ever want to live a long and healthy life. This means that there is no reason for us anymore to kill animals for food. This means that killing animals for food is merely for the pleasure of taste, not for survival or health. That means killing animals nowadays is akin to kicking a dog for fun, ethically speaking. Sean is pointing out how we inflict pain and suffering on animals for no other reason that for us to feel good. That is why veganism is the only ethically option if you want to be morally consistent with your belief that you shouldn't harm animals for no reason.
@@LordOmnipraetor that is not true at all, we do not have enough produce to support a full american vegan diet, nor the infrastructure for it, also it is too expensive, it is way more expensive to eat organically and healthy.. you must've never been poor or have friends in extremely poor neighborhoods, they go someday without eating let alone trying to eat fully vegan or vegetarian. Also some people go vegan and vegetarian & it effected their health in ways they had to go back to eating meat same as some can't do carnivore diets, diets are way way more complicated then oh it's just a moral choice, nd are plants not alive??? I have the same remorse of chipping a tree as I would killing a deer for food, I love the idea of trees I love the ideas of deer more than the individual tree or deer, and I bet you I have a more in-depth relationship with the trees and the animals I use to keep my life propelling forwards then most, who live in ignorance as if the materials around them were produced without the death of some life..
@@LordOmnipraetor oh and inflicting unnecessary damage and pain? You do that all the time as a human, alllllll Therese timeeeeee on plants and animals alllllll around the world for your little monkey life.. microscopic to huge life forms you kill them nd inflict pain, sometimes by just living,
Great channel! This video is triggering for me and I disagree just as much as I agree on so much you have touched on in this video. I think to even compare eating a human being to eating an animal is misanthropic. I think human meat is void of any real value and the only way someone can morally justify eating it is if they had to, and if the person was already dead but not murdered by them? haha lol P.S I say I know this because I was vegan 8 years, I got very sick and there are a lot of ex vegans, I really enjoyed your video! I'm not hating! Loved it!!
@@samvandervelden8243 you do know that there are no such legal thing as a Vegan Dietitian don’t you? So, the dietitian I did speak too as well as the ones I read about all agreed that Veganism is not optimal for human health. I went to my DOCTOR and got blood work. I had anemia and adrenal fatigue and was hyperglycemic. I went to a holistic doctor and he gave me pamphlets from Weston A Price called “the dangers of the vegetarian diet” and “the truth about butter” and “The truth about milk and raw milk”
@@GoGetALife222 the largest organization of nutrition professionals the academy of nutrition and Dietetics released a peer reviewed statement saying that well planned vegan diets are nutritionally adequate and healthful for all stages of the life cycle. Black beans also have more iron than meat so it's very easy to not be anemic as a vegan
@@GoGetALife222 freaking WHO in their healthy diet guidelines recommends a plant-based diet (with only fish being one of the options of healthy fats, all the rest is plants). And there are literal generations of healthy vegans and vegetarians. I don't know how much more ignorant can one get
Just to play the devil’s advocate, here’s a question… Is killing of animals for consumption justifiable if you are in a third world country’s small village ?
@@YM-fw7lc Well I have + I am a vegetarian but just infront of my house there is a small hut, just slightly bigger than my room where 4 people live (very common in rural cities of India) and outside, there is some space where they have chicken’s going around which I believe is their main source of healthy food.
I say killing animals for food is justified. Why? Because we say so and doing so benefit us. Morality and rights are human constructs that can only be understood and applicable to humans. There is no reason to extend them to animals. Whatever form of compassion we choose to extend to them is not due to they innately deserve it, but simply out of our projection of ourselves to them. We imagine them to be like us when in reality there is no strong enough basis to make this claim. They are physically different from us, they behave differently than us, and they don't care about us.
Might makes right, eh? You say it is okay to murder sentient beings because "they are physically different from us, they behave differently and they don't care about us". This applies to children and mentally handicapped adults also... Why would someone have to be "like us" to not get endlessly bred and murdered? I say it is our gift of reason that allows us to see that unnecessary causing pain is wrong. It does not matter WHO experiences the pain.
Yea I don't see it as bad or good. It is a thing that happens. How it is performed is the main criteria for me. For thousands of years it has been done but in moderation on a general whole. People have to look thoroughly at the consequences of actions and see how it effects to totality of balance. Eat meat but don't drown the rivers in blood, eat veggies but don't strip the land of nutrients.
people killed, raped and enslaved other people for thousands of years, but we made life better.. and i'm pretty sure if Artificial Intelligence because stronger and smarter than us and decide to eat you and us, you'd see it as bad. They clearly experience pain and fear, you can watch their slaughter videos on youtube
Lol meat doesn't increase our chance of survival, quite the opposite 14.5% of greenhouse gasses comes from the animal agriculture industry. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation and habitat destruction. 80% of antibiotics are fed to lifestock which creates antibiotic resistant bacteria that are really dangerous for humans, there are already humans dying because of this. Animal agriculture highly increases our chances of having pandemics because virusses mutate in animals, 75% of pandemics actually come from animals. 1/3 of all fresh water goes to animal agriculture and more
@@samvandervelden8243 All complete hogwash lies that have been proven false time and time again. What is wrong with you fools? Eat as much meat as possible people . Do it with gusto and relish! Hopefully kill your animals yourselves too, which is super rewarding and fun!
@@samvandervelden8243 Lol. Why do I need to do that when an 8yo with Google skills can do it in 10 minutes. The thing that is most disturbing about your nonsense is that regenerative animal agriculture is one of the most promising methods to recapture carbon and rebuild healthy soils. Soil rebuilding is the most pressing problem humanity faces. And people like you threaten our very survival with your retrograde ideology. It's damn right criminal imo.
@@555Trout because you are incorrect. Regenerative agriculture is also not sustainable it requires a huge amount of land if the US would switch to grass fed then the whole land of the US wouldn't even be enough for that, that includes cities and houses 99% of US farms are also factory farms. The problem with grass fed is that animals take much longer to reach slaughter age, this means that there is more methane emitted, if we used the grass land for trees instead we would be able to capture way more co2 because trees contain way more carbon per/m2 than grass
Ugh. you spend most of the video offering up strawmen. The fact is nobody knows that animals are sentient. PETA thinks that it's immoral to eat oysters or lobsters, despite the fact that they lack brains (similar to Ingrid Newkirk). I eat meat because there is no good reason to think that animal experience is in any way similar to human experience, beyond our human anthropomorphic reflex. I'd also appeal to universal human knowledge of this. Even for vegans, they know animal life is completely worthless when it is being preyed upon by other animal life. But all of a sudden animals acquire sentience, value and souls if humans want to use them as food. 🙄 Seriously? We have innate knowledge they are just biological machines in the same way we know that mosquitoes are. Or the bacteria your body kills every day. I assume you don't think people should ponder about whether that is immoral any more than eating plants.
And I've seen this question begging before. You tacitly assumed that the mental state of livestock is comparable to that of humans in morally significant ways, avoiding the main area of contention.And again we just get another begging of the main question. Saw through this bs from ruclips.net/video/3HAMk_ZYO7g/видео.html
I don't agree that we have innate knowledge that this is true. I think that is evident in the fact that, while people may not have a problem with violent exploitation of animals as an abstract concept, most people would nevertheless feel bad, if they saw someone kick a dog. A lot of people, even people who do pay for meat, think things such as dog fighting or bullfighting where it is to some extent specifically the animal's distress that is the point are bad and ought to be outlawed. To say that vegans know animal life is "completely worthless" in a nature setting is also silly. Once again even people who do eat meat will empathise with and feel bad for animals being killed and eaten when shown on nature documentaries. What is relevant here is the scale, compared to especially factory farming, and also a recognition that intervening is not easy in nature. It is not that the moral worth of an animal's suffering is different in nature compared to farming. While I agree that discussions about when and where sentience and the capacity for suffering (which I believe is the morally relevant factor), is present, I don't agree that you can categorically say that all creatures apart from humans are not sentient. I think it is naive to think that on the evolutionary ladder, consciousness, whatever it is, would have developed so late. I agree that oysters and possibly also lobsters likely aren't sentient. But you are basing that argument on the fact that lobsters and oysters haven't got brains (lobsters do have a nervous system and can learn to anticipate and avoid pain, so I don't know if the lobster case is quite as clear cut). The animals that we farm by the billions for food do have brains, and so it seems weird to base your argument on these fringe cases of animals, that a lot of vegans and vegetarians do in fact eat.
@@augustinequinault9609 It depends on what you think is morally significant. If you look at animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses I think it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that they are in distress, which makes evolutionary sense. Pain and suffering exist as evolutionarily developed tools to help us not die and to pass on our genes. And if you look at the similarity between the sense organs and biology of farm animals and humans it seems strange to assume that there is no overlap whatsoever in the experience. Also, the fact that you talk about a comparable mental state suggests that you accept the notion that animals might be sentient?
@@MichaelMusson-en7be a vegan would most likely say that we ought to assume all living things as morally valuable and say that the burden of proof is on you. (I'm not a vegan, this is just the reasoning I have seen them use.) There are Deontological vegans aka Killing animals is bad because killing living things is bad. It's rule based ethical system. And there a consequentialist vegans that say killing animals for food is bad because of the negative material effects it has on animals. Arguing against deontological ethicis is hard because if someone is willing to accept an arbitrary rule as a moral axiom they are basically impossible to reason with. With a consequentialist you can atleast get some admissions. Like eating meat from a animal that has died for natural causes isn't morally bad. It's always also important to remember that: Is killing animals immoral? Is killing animals for food immoral and? Is eating meat immoral? Are different questions with possibly different answers.
We should not look for moral justification of anything. It is immoral that matters. It shifts the burden of prove to vegan supporters then. As a sentient life eater I'd say that I just don't see persuasive arguments why its immoral. There is no such item in my categorial imperative, as I inner feel it. Though the truth is that I have inner feel of sorry sometimes for these killed creatures. So its really present at my categorial imperative. This, and only this, may be moral justification to stop eat them. But far not everyone has such inner feeling.
Humans already defined it as immoral with "The Golden Rule", "Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you" and i'm very sure you would not want to be branded, castrated, slaughtered and eaten.
No, it is not for vegans to argue for why they don't want to harm animals. The burden lies on the one who wants to perform the act, not the one who wants to abstain from it. If you want to kill an animal then you have to make your case as to why it is necessary at all. Since we all know that living plant-based is healthy for all stages of life then there is no reason to kill and eat an animal. Then the question really becomes: what other reasons do you have to kill and eat an animal? Taste? Habit? money? Any excuse justifying an injustice where it is not neccesary for survival are ethically the same excuses used to justify other injustices in history, like slavery, genocide, patriarchy, etc.
@@LordOmnipraetor nicely sophisticated reverse of the "burden of prove" argument. So we can say "meat eaters are just doing what they want, while vegans should prove eating meat is the evil". Or we can say "vegans do not do this unnecessary stuff, so it's meat eaters should prove why they are doing this useless, unnecessary action". Well, my meat eater argument sounds like this. I like it, I like the taste, and meat gives us easier way to have healthy diet and energy. Though vegans can also have absolutely healthy diet and energy source, but with a greater effort. An I just don't feel any moral pain about it in the depth of my soul, so I consider it's morally ok. So after this it's vegan's burden of prove again, to persuade me that I'm doing bad.
I understand you wanting to get the point across, but yeah, wtf at some of your examples. You don't need to go that far. Really makes ya think twice about listening to the podcasts if wtf examples are going to be brought up. Understandable, you got the point across, but a bit too far.
I would love for someone to explain me why would eating animals be inmoral but eating plants not. And please, do not go on that painfully distorted road of "emapthy": I've heard it all before and, the more i hear about it, the more i see is the most disgusting side of our natural selfish. We think we are altruistic and we "empathize" with other people problems, but we just feel identified with problems that are "relatable" to our condition. We empathize with the weak, we empathize with our comunity. Nobody empathizes with pedofiles, with lions eating babies, with foreing presidents declaring war on us. Empathy IS selfishness disguised as altruism, that is why i label it as disgusting. So, no: nervous sistem is not a justification. Plants also feel, in their own way, and they have means to comunicate harm with plants of its enviroment. Many times, other plants help the harmed one to survive. It is just that, as mamals, we find it easier to empathize with animals than with plants. The thing is: to live, we need to eat. To eat we need to kill, wether we kill plants or animals. Our body is capable of digesting both. We can debate for a hundred years, some might claim it is moral to do this, some that is moral to do that. Meanwhile, we will be killing STUFF to eat it: at least, until we figure how to live of air and sun.
Plants don't have a nervous system. Plants don't have a brain. If you're a plant activist, go vegan, because for every pound of beef 16 pounds of plants are used.
The point about plants is that although they are alive, they haven't got brains or nervous systems and we assume that they aren't sentient, meaning they have no experience of being alive, and no conscious preference to stay alive or to not be eaten, which can be disrespected. We can't know that this is not true of animals or other humans as well, and we don't really know where sentience comes from, but it seems more likely that animals that do have brains and nervous systems are sentient and have a subjective experience of the world in the same way as humans do. Basically, there is something that it is like to be a cow. There is not something that it is like to be a wheat plant. Whether it is motivated by selfishness (I think all actions likely are) doesn't have to be morally relevant. To me, suffering is the morally relevant factor. Even if you don't accept that plants are not conscious, the amount of plants needed to produce the meat you chose to eat means that just sticking with the plants is still the better option.
@@nunomoto8865 Plants are living things and they have to be killed for us to consume them. The idea of them having a nervous system is irrelevant. They react to their environment and they live and function in communities.
@@juliusdalsgaardbertelsen2878 Lesser of two evils is not a justification for evil. If you believe it is wrong to kill to live then you contradict yourself by saying it is okay to kill a little bit to live. Classyfing life in a way that gives the right to life to animals but not plants is no different then classyfing it in a way to not give it to either. You are expressing preference, not moral fact.
Plants aren't sentient, as far as we not they dont have a conscious experience. At least not in a way that would be similar to our own. Animals perceive the world through there physical senses as we do and we know they feel pain as we do. But why does it matter? well yes thats enpathy. Try it some time it actually feels good to do good in this world. That's not to say your not an empathetic person and you may even extend that empathy to pets etc but why not live a non violent life, and if its not necessary to eat animals them why eat them? I like to vote with my dollar and not support such an industry. It may help you be and feel more virtuous, it will certainly make you healthier without all the carcinogens just for starters.
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I just want to randomly say . . . You can put blueberrys in oatmeal . . .
Can we make oatmeal pancakes and put blueberries on them?
I had to dig this up and comment. I've been going through your podcast from first to last so I got a lot more to go but I really enjoy them! Always gets me thinking but after the podcast is over I'm stuck buzzing about it with no one to talk about it with. So I'm going to shout into this little void and if I'm heard by you that's wonderful if not... oh wells.
I think you bring up a lot of great points but let's refer to what morality is and what is right and wrong. I think generally we try to come up with a system of rules that helps a society prosper and grow. (Unfortunately I think we're getting into trouble with the growth aspect in society these days.) I also kind of want to bring up that idea you mentioned in a previous podcast that government should enforce the general will of the people. While this is a super complex topic if we delve into it if we can kind of take this idea and apply it to morality within a society perhaps we can define it at the least common denominator a group of people want to abide by so that they can live in general peace with eachother. If we can take this assumption once more, (I'm giving you so much ammunition to break this down but maybe you can HUMEor me for a bit) then let's try to apply this as something more tangible.
In the current us society we tend to lean towards individualism. Through my own observations I like to sum it up as "we're allowed to do whatever we want as long as our actions do not cause a relative threshold of pain towards other human beings." (there's that moral hierachy again! ) What is this threshold of pain we speak of? it is somehow reached when enough people speak up that too much of this pain is being caused to too many people. Generally an action is only immoral, wrong, or illegal, if it caused harm to other humans. It's wrong to kill your neighbors chicken but not your own because it was their property not because that chicken had a right to live. It's wrong to torture animals because a person capable of doing that could be capable of doing it to huamns and thus it's threatening and wrong. Ultimately though we've reached a point where we've extended our empathy to that of certain animals. The cuter they are the more likely they are to have earned our empathy and through that we start to apply moral and governable rights to these animals. Dogs and cats seem to be the most prominent in that sense. So it is ok to kill animals to eat them? That is slowly changing through the general will of the people. More and more people are finding it mentally painful that we kill billions of beings just so that our species can eat them. We are moving closer to pushing the act into an area of wrongness in terms of humanity as a whole. Currently though I think due to the fact that the act of eating another being is not causing humanity enough discomfort and the positives of eating the being is for the individual is outweighing the discomforts that society may be caused by doing it it currently isn't an immoral act. (Oh right morality is relative! ) Sorry for the ramble but I had to got my thoughts into someone else mind... hopefully.
😂 I hear you.
I'm surprised that no comments I've seen have challenged the definition of "morality" offered here. Just about any philosopher studying normativity (a metaethicist or aciologist for example) could easily point out the mistakes: what he's talking about is ethics broadly construed as "what is demanded by normativity/what you ought to do because of normative reasons".
Most philosophers who study normativity would say that "morality" regards specifically "moral" normative reasons/value/fittingness/etc. They would say that there are different types of value (e.g. moral value, prudential value, aesthetic value, epistemic value, value simpliciter, etc.) and consequently different types of reasons (moral reasons, prudential, aesthetic, epistemic, etc.).
And there are a host of other properties of morality that would also be brought up: its (supposed) objectivity, its overriding authority over other types of reasons, the nature of moral value as opposed to other types of value, considerations of moral virtue and character, etc.
There are very few metaethical frameworks that I'm aware of which would classify "should I eat oatmeal or blueberry pancakes" as a moral question.
Oops, axiologist*** not aciologist
That's a great point...where did you learn philosophy??....I kinda wish to be like you.
The gist outlives the defininitions of it's components.
Great episode! 👍
Excellent episode! wuhuuuuuu! Thanks for making such podcasts! Please keep making them. You are simply awesome and lovely!
Vegan old propaganda.
NAH IT CAN'T END LIKE THAT
In a culture which does not need to kill animals, yes - it is immoral. Maybe back in the day, when we threw spears at one another it was a morally different topic. But we have advanced, and our advances change our morals.
we would actually be advancing if we were acknowledging precisely what emanets from what you stated: that a certain moral IS NOT as absolut as it is ALWAYS shown during the time it "reigns". Moral is just a result of customs of the time and it is no more than an institution: it is a result of fear of changing and of how reluctant we are to accept our ANIMAL nature.
If we do not acnowledge so, we are not advancing, we are just moving in circles.
Animals eat plants too so you would just be eating the matter they already consumed. Just eat the plants. No bloodshed.
Or heart disease.
@M DC the point is that IF we assume that we should give plants moral consideration, it still makes sense to mitigate animal product consumption as much as "reasonably" possible, because plants are part of the base of all food chains and because energy is lost each step up the food chain, you inadvertently end up using more plants as a meat eater/omnivore then as a vegan/person trying to minimize animals eaten.
You can't avoid using plants under any scenario outside of starving yourself, so IF plants should be treated better, then you still should eat less or no animal products.
@@xenoblad it seems so silly to me when people say "plants are alive too".. seeing someone stomp a plant to death would be fine to show in a classroom, but seeing the same done to a pig would horrify most people.. because they they're similar enough to us, they bleed, they clearly show fear and paint .. seems so obvious they should not be tormented and slaughtered uncessarily
In the West we live in a culture that find eating meat morally acceptable, at least for now. But the practice is inching into the gray area as to what is acceptable. In theory, there could be a lot of gray areas. How about the use of insecticides or fly strips? How about abortion and capital punishment? How about those who buy $75,000 cars or $100 designer jeans, money that could go to buying polio vaccines for Africa? Can the person who is a vegan criticize the meat eater when he, the vegan is wearing $150 shoes?
Insecticide and fly strips is quite a distinct issue because we are fighting for our own survival and property. Insecticides are used to prevent insects from eating crops that humans would otherwise eat (or fed to animals that humans end up eating). Fly strips are used when the resident wants to keep his dwelling free of flies and the germs they spread. However, when we eat animals we are doing so for entertainment reasons (ie. cow body parts taste better than pasta, pig body parts are more entertaining to eat than lentils ...). The idea of protecting the food you need to stay alive from insects is not quite the same dilemma as choosing to eat oatmeal or pig body parts for breakfast.
"the vegan is wearing $150 shoes"
This is a red herring or ad hominem attack. These fallacies detract from the issue at hand. No human being will satisfy any ideal of perfection. However, we can still acknowledge that people have expertise or valid arguments despite being mere mortals with imperfections. For example, if you had a dossier on your dentist you would probably not approve of all the actions, habits ... that he or she has in their personal life. But, you can still decide that he or she is competent when it comes to troubleshooting and correcting issues with teeth. Likewise, it's best to think of the arguments for and against eating animals without examining whether animal eaters have imperfections (other than eating animals) and people who don't eat animals have imperfections.
As far as the $75,000 car or $100 designer jeans goes, this is an issue that indicates most people have no idea that money isn't real. Firstly, most charities are corrupt and most of their funds go to administrative costs. Second, you'd have to divert labor resources from the automobile and jean industry to then allocate towards wiping out starvation or providing clean water in Africa. But, money doesn't work that way. Human problem solving capabilities and natural resources are real, but money is a mere abstraction. Human beings and agricultural resources are needed to wipe out starvation in Africa, but money is not needed. Saying that we don't have enough money to prevent thousands from starving in Africa every day would be like a carpenter saying that he has ran out of the inches needed to build a house. In the carpenter's case, his skill and the inches of wood are real, but inches in themselves don't exist and are simply (like money) used as a measuring device. And, if you look into how money is created and how it flows, you'll find that it is a flawed measuring system by design (ie. it is not designed, as we are led to believe, to measure relative values between property, goods, and services).
A cathedral of whataboutery.
Although your criticisms or Heather's examples are valid, she was merely pointing out two things: 1) killing animals for food is not the only moral dilemma of our society, and 2) what is morally justifiable depends largely on cultural context.
It's best to try very hard not to harm the innocent. (The cruel and evil are fair game ... and we all know when such a person crosses our path.)
Are you like redoing the old episodes sir? Not complaining but I remember an episode about the same subject. Love the show! Maybe a little too much.
I think this is the simplest case for veganism.
1) You probably already agree that torture and murder is wrong.
2) What makes torture and murder wrong is that there is a collection of matter capable of feeling pain. You wouldn't say digging in the ground is immoral because the Earth is not a conscious being capable of feeling pain. Hitting someone with a shovel though, clearly immoral provided they feel pain.
3) Animals are conscious beings capable of feeling pain.
4) It is immoral to kill or torture animals by any method which inflicts them with pain.
5) The way we eat meat (factory farming) typically involves the torture of animals and sometimes involves a brutal killing where pain is not minimized.
6) It is therefore, immoral to eat meat.
Some ways you can make a case for meat eating under this system: a) eating animals after they've died due to natural causes, b) letting animals grow up with some modicum of freedom then instantly killing them so they are not aware of their own death (thus feeling no pain).
Right on! Seems so obvious to me its wrong for the same reasons. I hope it gets obvious to everyone soon (i think it already is to most ppl they just dont say it)
Nah bro. Vegan diets are immoral. They are nutrient deficient for humans
@@steakovercake3986 So the task is to Make Vegan Diets better rather than killing animals.
@@steakovercake3986 most of the data says its healthier to be vegan for your heart.. All of it sayd vegetarian is healthy.. In any rate, if rape was good for mens heath ITS THE VICTIMS BODY and you shouldnt have a right to exploit and inflict mortal pain and fear on another, especially sadistically. Hunting ans factory farming should be outlawed.
www.nutritionsociety.org/papers/long-term-health-vegetarians-vegans
What about animals that eat other animals, should we kill off polar bears to save the seals?
*Natural Selection or ‘GOD’ or whatever…*
2024 and people still believe in God…lol
Is human bias morally justifiable?
Were people asking this question 100 years ago?
Consider the lobster
Is eating lab made meat justified ?
@@Cody-yy2dz i didn't knew about vegan meat. Thanks for informing.
Is killing a human or any other animal for food by wild animal justified? Yes.
What is your point? Are we wild animals? Is it justified for a lion to kill the old cubs of a lioness he breeds with... Then should we also be justified to kill our step children?
Is Killing Animals For Food Morally Justifiable? NO.
@M DC lol
@Paul Rodríguez why? How?
@Paul Rodríguez 'God allowed us to kill and eat them' doesn't mean we SHOULD or need to. Also... thou shall not kill and
“The righteous know the needs of their animals, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.” -Proverbs 12:10
“I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety.” -Hosea 2:18
“Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O Lord.” -Psalms 36:6
... but you will justify industrlised mass cruelty.
What if I was to say that it isn't morally justafiable, but I have no intention to stop nor does it weigh upon me.
then that's the definition of a "bad person"
@@seanpatrickrichards5593 I don't really subscribe to "good" and "bad" as moral destinctions. There's only what has a positive or negative result to society or the individual. Industrial farming may be unsustainable, but that's an issue of consumtion to scale.
Best part of this talk was the ending 👌
Do farm animals experience pain and fear? YES.
Is it necessary to kill and eat them to survive anymore? NO.
Is it wrong to unnecessarily inflict pain and fear? YES.
It's cute how you tried to disguise a value judgement as fact.
The second question had nothing to do with the others..
@@christiancrane5072 It has everything to do with the argument. We who live in our modern civilisation have access to all the plant-based foods we could ever want to live a long and healthy life. This means that there is no reason for us anymore to kill animals for food. This means that killing animals for food is merely for the pleasure of taste, not for survival or health. That means killing animals nowadays is akin to kicking a dog for fun, ethically speaking. Sean is pointing out how we inflict pain and suffering on animals for no other reason that for us to feel good. That is why veganism is the only ethically option if you want to be morally consistent with your belief that you shouldn't harm animals for no reason.
@@LordOmnipraetor that is not true at all, we do not have enough produce to support a full american vegan diet, nor the infrastructure for it, also it is too expensive, it is way more expensive to eat organically and healthy.. you must've never been poor or have friends in extremely poor neighborhoods, they go someday without eating let alone trying to eat fully vegan or vegetarian. Also some people go vegan and vegetarian & it effected their health in ways they had to go back to eating meat same as some can't do carnivore diets, diets are way way more complicated then oh it's just a moral choice, nd are plants not alive??? I have the same remorse of chipping a tree as I would killing a deer for food, I love the idea of trees I love the ideas of deer more than the individual tree or deer, and I bet you I have a more in-depth relationship with the trees and the animals I use to keep my life propelling forwards then most, who live in ignorance as if the materials around them were produced without the death of some life..
@@LordOmnipraetor oh and inflicting unnecessary damage and pain? You do that all the time as a human, alllllll Therese timeeeeee on plants and animals alllllll around the world for your little monkey life.. microscopic to huge life forms you kill them nd inflict pain, sometimes by just living,
Great channel!
This video is triggering for me and I disagree just as much as I agree on so much you have touched on in this video. I think to even compare eating a human being to eating an animal is misanthropic. I think human meat is void of any real value and the only way someone can morally justify eating it is if they had to, and if the person was already dead but not murdered by them? haha lol P.S I say I know this because I was vegan 8 years, I got very sick and there are a lot of ex vegans, I really enjoyed your video! I'm not hating! Loved it!!
Did you went to a dietitian to discover what the problem was?
@@samvandervelden8243 you do know that there are no such legal thing as a Vegan Dietitian don’t you? So, the dietitian I did speak too as well as the ones I read about all agreed that Veganism is not optimal for human health. I went to my DOCTOR and got blood work. I had anemia and adrenal fatigue and was hyperglycemic. I went to a holistic doctor and he gave me pamphlets from Weston A Price called “the dangers of the vegetarian diet” and “the truth about butter” and “The truth about milk and raw milk”
@@GoGetALife222 the largest organization of nutrition professionals the academy of nutrition and Dietetics released a peer reviewed statement saying that well planned vegan diets are nutritionally adequate and healthful for all stages of the life cycle. Black beans also have more iron than meat so it's very easy to not be anemic as a vegan
@@GoGetALife222 freaking WHO in their healthy diet guidelines recommends a plant-based diet (with only fish being one of the options of healthy fats, all the rest is plants). And there are literal generations of healthy vegans and vegetarians.
I don't know how much more ignorant can one get
This video is not exactly accurate in the way he evaluates it.
Just to play the devil’s advocate, here’s a question…
Is killing of animals for consumption justifiable if you are in a third world country’s small village ?
@@YM-fw7lc Well I have + I am a vegetarian but just infront of my house there is a small hut, just slightly bigger than my room where 4 people live (very common in rural cities of India) and outside, there is some space where they have chicken’s going around which I believe is their main source of healthy food.
In light of recent events, the comment on 17th century people being given a pass for being slave owners hasn't aged well.
I say killing animals for food is justified. Why? Because we say so and doing so benefit us. Morality and rights are human constructs that can only be understood and applicable to humans. There is no reason to extend them to animals. Whatever form of compassion we choose to extend to them is not due to they innately deserve it, but simply out of our projection of ourselves to them. We imagine them to be like us when in reality there is no strong enough basis to make this claim. They are physically different from us, they behave differently than us, and they don't care about us.
Might makes right, eh? You say it is okay to murder sentient beings because "they are physically different from us, they behave differently and they don't care about us". This applies to children and mentally handicapped adults also...
Why would someone have to be "like us" to not get endlessly bred and murdered? I say it is our gift of reason that allows us to see that unnecessary causing pain is wrong. It does not matter WHO experiences the pain.
Yea I don't see it as bad or good. It is a thing that happens. How it is performed is the main criteria for me. For thousands of years it has been done but in moderation on a general whole. People have to look thoroughly at the consequences of actions and see how it effects to totality of balance. Eat meat but don't drown the rivers in blood, eat veggies but don't strip the land of nutrients.
That's not a valid argument.
@@bernardohaubertdeoliveira3303 care to elaborate or actually say something of substance?
people killed, raped and enslaved other people for thousands of years, but we made life better.. and i'm pretty sure if Artificial Intelligence because stronger and smarter than us and decide to eat you and us, you'd see it as bad. They clearly experience pain and fear, you can watch their slaughter videos on youtube
It's immoral not to eat meat. Our highest morality is to increase our survivability maximally. Meat is the best food and it's not even close.
Lol meat doesn't increase our chance of survival, quite the opposite 14.5% of greenhouse gasses comes from the animal agriculture industry. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation and habitat destruction. 80% of antibiotics are fed to lifestock which creates antibiotic resistant bacteria that are really dangerous for humans, there are already humans dying because of this. Animal agriculture highly increases our chances of having pandemics because virusses mutate in animals, 75% of pandemics actually come from animals. 1/3 of all fresh water goes to animal agriculture and more
@@samvandervelden8243 All complete hogwash lies that have been proven false time and time again.
What is wrong with you fools?
Eat as much meat as possible people . Do it with gusto and relish!
Hopefully kill your animals yourselves too, which is super rewarding and fun!
@@555Trout alright give me your rebuttals show me the evidence that all I'm saying is wrong
@@samvandervelden8243 Lol. Why do I need to do that when an 8yo with Google skills can do it in 10 minutes.
The thing that is most disturbing about your nonsense is that regenerative animal agriculture is one of the most promising methods to recapture carbon and rebuild healthy soils. Soil rebuilding is the most pressing problem humanity faces. And people like you threaten our very survival with your retrograde ideology.
It's damn right criminal imo.
@@555Trout because you are incorrect. Regenerative agriculture is also not sustainable it requires a huge amount of land if the US would switch to grass fed then the whole land of the US wouldn't even be enough for that, that includes cities and houses 99% of US farms are also factory farms. The problem with grass fed is that animals take much longer to reach slaughter age, this means that there is more methane emitted, if we used the grass land for trees instead we would be able to capture way more co2 because trees contain way more carbon per/m2 than grass
Ugh. you spend most of the video offering up strawmen. The fact is nobody knows that animals are sentient. PETA thinks that it's immoral to eat oysters or lobsters, despite the fact that they lack brains (similar to Ingrid Newkirk). I eat meat because there is no good reason to think that animal experience is in any way similar to human experience, beyond our human anthropomorphic reflex.
I'd also appeal to universal human knowledge of this. Even for vegans, they know animal life is completely worthless when it is being preyed upon by other animal life. But all of a sudden animals acquire sentience, value and souls if humans want to use them as food. 🙄 Seriously? We have innate knowledge they are just biological machines in the same way we know that mosquitoes are. Or the bacteria your body kills every day. I assume you don't think people should ponder about whether that is immoral any more than eating plants.
And I've seen this question begging before. You tacitly assumed that the mental state of livestock is comparable to that of humans in morally significant ways, avoiding the main area of contention.And again we just get another begging of the main question. Saw through this bs from ruclips.net/video/3HAMk_ZYO7g/видео.html
I don't agree that we have innate knowledge that this is true. I think that is evident in the fact that, while people may not have a problem with violent exploitation of animals as an abstract concept, most people would nevertheless feel bad, if they saw someone kick a dog. A lot of people, even people who do pay for meat, think things such as dog fighting or bullfighting where it is to some extent specifically the animal's distress that is the point are bad and ought to be outlawed. To say that vegans know animal life is "completely worthless" in a nature setting is also silly. Once again even people who do eat meat will empathise with and feel bad for animals being killed and eaten when shown on nature documentaries. What is relevant here is the scale, compared to especially factory farming, and also a recognition that intervening is not easy in nature. It is not that the moral worth of an animal's suffering is different in nature compared to farming.
While I agree that discussions about when and where sentience and the capacity for suffering (which I believe is the morally relevant factor), is present, I don't agree that you can categorically say that all creatures apart from humans are not sentient. I think it is naive to think that on the evolutionary ladder, consciousness, whatever it is, would have developed so late. I agree that oysters and possibly also lobsters likely aren't sentient. But you are basing that argument on the fact that lobsters and oysters haven't got brains (lobsters do have a nervous system and can learn to anticipate and avoid pain, so I don't know if the lobster case is quite as clear cut). The animals that we farm by the billions for food do have brains, and so it seems weird to base your argument on these fringe cases of animals, that a lot of vegans and vegetarians do in fact eat.
@@augustinequinault9609 It depends on what you think is morally significant. If you look at animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses I think it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that they are in distress, which makes evolutionary sense. Pain and suffering exist as evolutionarily developed tools to help us not die and to pass on our genes. And if you look at the similarity between the sense organs and biology of farm animals and humans it seems strange to assume that there is no overlap whatsoever in the experience. Also, the fact that you talk about a comparable mental state suggests that you accept the notion that animals might be sentient?
This video is really stupid. Although I liked the others.
@@MichaelMusson-en7be a vegan would most likely say that we ought to assume all living things as morally valuable and say that the burden of proof is on you. (I'm not a vegan, this is just the reasoning I have seen them use.) There are Deontological vegans aka Killing animals is bad because killing living things is bad. It's rule based ethical system. And there a consequentialist vegans that say killing animals for food is bad because of the negative material effects it has on animals.
Arguing against deontological ethicis is hard because if someone is willing to accept an arbitrary rule as a moral axiom they are basically impossible to reason with. With a consequentialist you can atleast get some admissions. Like eating meat from a animal that has died for natural causes isn't morally bad.
It's always also important to remember that: Is killing animals immoral? Is killing animals for food immoral and? Is eating meat immoral? Are different questions with possibly different answers.
We should not look for moral justification of anything. It is immoral that matters. It shifts the burden of prove to vegan supporters then.
As a sentient life eater I'd say that I just don't see persuasive arguments why its immoral. There is no such item in my categorial imperative, as I inner feel it.
Though the truth is that I have inner feel of sorry sometimes for these killed creatures. So its really present at my categorial imperative. This, and only this, may be moral justification to stop eat them. But far not everyone has such inner feeling.
You got to be fucking kidding me.
Humans already defined it as immoral with "The Golden Rule", "Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you" and i'm very sure you would not want to be branded, castrated, slaughtered and eaten.
No, it is not for vegans to argue for why they don't want to harm animals. The burden lies on the one who wants to perform the act, not the one who wants to abstain from it. If you want to kill an animal then you have to make your case as to why it is necessary at all. Since we all know that living plant-based is healthy for all stages of life then there is no reason to kill and eat an animal. Then the question really becomes: what other reasons do you have to kill and eat an animal? Taste? Habit? money? Any excuse justifying an injustice where it is not neccesary for survival are ethically the same excuses used to justify other injustices in history, like slavery, genocide, patriarchy, etc.
@@LordOmnipraetor nicely sophisticated reverse of the "burden of prove" argument. So we can say "meat eaters are just doing what they want, while vegans should prove eating meat is the evil". Or we can say "vegans do not do this unnecessary stuff, so it's meat eaters should prove why they are doing this useless, unnecessary action".
Well, my meat eater argument sounds like this. I like it, I like the taste, and meat gives us easier way to have healthy diet and energy. Though vegans can also have absolutely healthy diet and energy source, but with a greater effort. An I just don't feel any moral pain about it in the depth of my soul, so I consider it's morally ok.
So after this it's vegan's burden of prove again, to persuade me that I'm doing bad.
I understand you wanting to get the point across, but yeah, wtf at some of your examples. You don't need to go that far. Really makes ya think twice about listening to the podcasts if wtf examples are going to be brought up. Understandable, you got the point across, but a bit too far.
I would love for someone to explain me why would eating animals be inmoral but eating plants not. And please, do not go on that painfully distorted road of "emapthy": I've heard it all before and, the more i hear about it, the more i see is the most disgusting side of our natural selfish. We think we are altruistic and we "empathize" with other people problems, but we just feel identified with problems that are "relatable" to our condition. We empathize with the weak, we empathize with our comunity. Nobody empathizes with pedofiles, with lions eating babies, with foreing presidents declaring war on us. Empathy IS selfishness disguised as altruism, that is why i label it as disgusting. So, no: nervous sistem is not a justification. Plants also feel, in their own way, and they have means to comunicate harm with plants of its enviroment. Many times, other plants help the harmed one to survive. It is just that, as mamals, we find it easier to empathize with animals than with plants.
The thing is: to live, we need to eat. To eat we need to kill, wether we kill plants or animals. Our body is capable of digesting both. We can debate for a hundred years, some might claim it is moral to do this, some that is moral to do that. Meanwhile, we will be killing STUFF to eat it: at least, until we figure how to live of air and sun.
Plants don't have a nervous system. Plants don't have a brain. If you're a plant activist, go vegan, because for every pound of beef 16 pounds of plants are used.
The point about plants is that although they are alive, they haven't got brains or nervous systems and we assume that they aren't sentient, meaning they have no experience of being alive, and no conscious preference to stay alive or to not be eaten, which can be disrespected. We can't know that this is not true of animals or other humans as well, and we don't really know where sentience comes from, but it seems more likely that animals that do have brains and nervous systems are sentient and have a subjective experience of the world in the same way as humans do. Basically, there is something that it is like to be a cow. There is not something that it is like to be a wheat plant.
Whether it is motivated by selfishness (I think all actions likely are) doesn't have to be morally relevant. To me, suffering is the morally relevant factor.
Even if you don't accept that plants are not conscious, the amount of plants needed to produce the meat you chose to eat means that just sticking with the plants is still the better option.
@@nunomoto8865 Plants are living things and they have to be killed for us to consume them. The idea of them having a nervous system is irrelevant. They react to their environment and they live and function in communities.
@@juliusdalsgaardbertelsen2878 Lesser of two evils is not a justification for evil. If you believe it is wrong to kill to live then you contradict yourself by saying it is okay to kill a little bit to live.
Classyfing life in a way that gives the right to life to animals but not plants is no different then classyfing it in a way to not give it to either. You are expressing preference, not moral fact.
Plants aren't sentient, as far as we not they dont have a conscious experience. At least not in a way that would be similar to our own. Animals perceive the world through there physical senses as we do and we know they feel pain as we do. But why does it matter? well yes thats enpathy. Try it some time it actually feels good to do good in this world.
That's not to say your not an empathetic person and you may even extend that empathy to pets etc but why not live a non violent life, and if its not necessary to eat animals them why eat them? I like to vote with my dollar and not support such an industry. It may help you be and feel more virtuous, it will certainly make you healthier without all the carcinogens just for starters.