Eating meat is natural. ..... Yes, as a vegan I recognize this. But my saying so is not an admission of any kind, because it is not the valid argument in favor of eating meat that so many of my defensively-carnivorous opponents like to pretend it is.
When I say it's natural, I mean that it is one of the things our species has done to gain an advantage in a genetically competitive environment. Individuals who were able to take advantage of a pre-killed, unattended carcass to get a quick and costless dose of protein were more likely to pass on their genes. This and just happening upon prey seems likely to have been the primary, if not only methods our ancestors had for obtaining meat before tool use started. If you disagree, consider the oft-cited example of the last time you chased down an antelope and killed it with your teeth and nails. Physiologically, we are almost entirely built like other herbivores as opposed to omnivores. Our body plan hasn't changed that much since our pre-tool-use days. Other primates who are generally herbivorous have also been known to eat carrion and catch whatever unfortunate smaller vertebrate that wandered too close. Those individuals in our ancestry who learned to make their own carcasses (ie., hunt) furthered that advantage, especially since doing it that way reduced the chances of eating dangerously bacteria-rich (spoiled) meat. So yes, eating meat is natural.
But because something is natural, does that mean it is "good?" This is a misconception known as the naturalistic fallacy. Rape can be used to gain a genetic advantage. I don't think it's necessary to detail the obvious mechanism of that advantage. Rape is seen in non-human animals, and it is very possible, even probable, that it has been used successfully as a means of passing on genes by our own ancestors. Those who spread their genes by force are still spreading that genetic code which does continue to get copied. Like killing animals, rape is a natural way to take advantage of a situation to get your genes copied. Yet while rape is considered a serious crime by all "civilized" societies, the murder of animals is seen by most as inconsequential and even necessary. I hope the health of myself and my fellow veg*ans establishes the un-necessity of meat-eating, and good old reason can show that it is only as inconsequential as human suffering is. So the question comes up, why is it so widely acceptable when rape is not? I mean, the prevalent consensus so often seems to be that "if it's natural, it's alright." Why does this apply to meat but not to rape? It can be argued that at least in past times (or even now in some societies) there wasn't (or isn't) much difference. In societies where women were seen as the property of their husbands or fathers, rape was a crime on par with theft. It was "stealing" another man's goods to copulate with his wife, or with his daughter if she had not yet been bought by a husband. I strongly suspect that is why there is little differentiation between rape and adultery in so many biblical stories. In essence they were the same thing. Eating meat, like forcing a woman into sexual intercourse, was never a crime so long as the meat or the woman belonged to whoever was doing the killing or forcing. In such societies, raping someone else's woman would be similar to stealing someone else's livestock. This is one reason (of many) why the animal welfare movement is strongly related to feminism. Fortunately, thanks to the fact that we have made moral progress (which is based upon the choice not to cause suffering to others, it is not based on any arbitrary and backwards biblical mythologies... but I'll save that for another post) modern societies today feel that rape is wrong because it causes suffering. But so does killing animals for meat, especially in the agony-drenched factory farms from where most of our meat today comes.
This still doesn't answer the question, though, why the difference in our actions regarding one form of suffering compared to another? Because our meat lacks the ability to tell us that we are causing it to suffer. At least beyond the wordless cries that still are obvious exclamations of pain. Just as it may be easy for some people to turn a blind eye to the suffering of other humans, which most of us see as bad character, if not deplorable, it is still easy for nearly everyone in our society to turn a blind eye towards the suffering of non-human creatures. The only ones who would speak up for them are easily written-off as the fringe, and not to be taken seriously. It is easier for us to empathize with a member of our own species that can express themselves to us in terms we understand. Empathizing with animals requires taking another step: putting yourself in the place of a creature that has a mind fundamentally different than yours. Though not so different as to preclude their ability to suffer. Just because they can't copy memes like we do, most of those we murder for food are creatures who have no less capacity to experience pain, fear, or any other negative sensation which we all desperately try to avoid. It is no secret to our understanding of the nervous system that just because animals can't tell us with words that they are suffering does not mean that they aren't. It only makes it easier for us to pretend that they aren't. For feeling, for sensing, they've got the same damn apparatus we do. It's time... long past time to extend our sphere of compassion outwards from just ourselves, to not just our family, not just our tribe, not just our species, but to literally all things that are sentient. All things that can suffer. Only when we have done this can we truly consider ourselves moral beings with any kind of consistency.
And to allow for a quick tangent, here we also find another insidious and harmful result of religiosity. Religion puts absolute moral rules on things not based in reality, but on arbitrary ideas that can be manipulated and controlled by whoever or whatever is seen as having religious authority. Religion does not give us morals, it takes them out of our hands and replaces them with false morals that someone in power, someone with an agenda can use to their advantage.
The genes of our ancestors may have benefited their likelihood of getting copied via the promotion of rape, but that might not be the case anymore. Our environment has changed because we (or our memes?) have altered it by creating societies. I surmise that maybe since it is nearly universally agreed that rape is "bad," it is no longer very advantageous. This might be so only because our social structure does not allow it. Those who commit rape today are not necessarily more likely to pass on their genes, especially if they are caught and held accountable for their crimes, we hope to prevent them from ever doing such a thing again. (We may still be far from it now, but that is at least the goal we should strive for.) And in an age when we have greater control over our reproduction, this all but demolishes the genetic advantages of rape. Of course, by 'reproductive control' I mean the female right to an abortion; women having control over whether or not they want to allow the further development of a blastocyst inside themselves, including one conceived by rape. For many reasons, making abortion an inherent right of every woman is another positive movement in limiting the amount of suffering in the world, despite what people might tell you whose sense of morality has been skewed and mangled by mythology/religion. I think it is also safe to say that we now have reached a point along our path as a species where eating meat is not advantageous to gene-copying either. Protein is so plentiful, the problem of not getting enough of it is virtually nonexistent, rather our risk today seems to be getting too much. Or at the very least, too much of other stuff that tends to be found in high-protein foods. It has become apparent that vegetarians are healthier than their meat-eating counterparts in modern society. Of course, the healthier you are, the better able you are to pass on those genes, generally speaking.
There is no reason that the murder of animals for the purpose of pleasing our taste buds shouldn't be treated as a deep moral negative in modern society, like rape is, given that we can agree upon one thing: it is bad to cause suffering. It's not within the scope of this already meandering post to get into the definition of what "bad" is and whether or not it is entirely relative. But if you agree that rape is bad because it causes suffering, so too is torturing and killing animals for any reason beyond absolute necessity.
To refrain from killing and eating sentient life is both moral and genetic evolution.
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