If animals are unconscious there is no motivation for saving them.
Therefore, in the case of animals having poor intelligence or limited "manifestation", the motivation for avoiding meat except for purposes of taste alone is sheer nepotism.
There is an exception, and that is if the animal has limited consciousness but an acute sense of pain.
In this case, we can simply ask, 'where is the justice'? Arguably such a pattern of existence would eventually disappear by genetic selection.
Condition 1: Animals are Unconscious, is not problematic It is Condition 2: Animals are Conscious, that we are contending with.
[Afterall, according to Plato, people are reincarnated as animals.
At least, when they have sinned.
Plato may have invented Christianity is another story].
How do we translate the consciousness of animals in terms of meat-eating? On one level, one would want there to be a reward system if animals had once been human, or one would want them to become human and have a better sense of life after they had been "punished".
So Condition 3: Animals will have or have once become human, is adequate for an argument that animals can be rewarded.
This is a solution in the worst case scenario, but may eventually seem adequate.
In one case [1] in which animals were not human, it is adequate for the animal to become human.
In case [2] humans have not been animals, so the scenario is inadequate for humans.
Condition 4: Animals will not ever and have not ever been human, is what the remainder of the argument is concerned with.
On one level, it raises the argument of the philosopher Nagel, who says that the experiences of animals such as like bats may be purely and substantially different from our ideas of how they experience the world.
In other words, we may not know how they do or do not cope with the situations they encounter.
It may be that animals are highly adapted to the punishments they endure in the meat industry.
We may not be fully aware of the extent of their "evolution" into that role.
And otherwise all we can do is blame Darwin for being a scapegoat.
Yet two additional possibilities emerge: Condition 5: Animals are fully adapted to being slaughtered in the meat industry.
This is possible, but unlikely.
Yet confusions emerge from the expression 'holy cow', and also the idea that a cow who is fully adapted would become immortal.
We will ignore the scenario where the cow is a god, so we will ignore the scenario where the cow is fully insensitive.
We will also ignore the case of 'holy cow'.
Condition 6: Animals are partially but not fully sensitive to explosive bolts, etc.
This seems to follow from a minimum of environmental adaptation to the repetitive conditions of poor treatment.
But it does little to resolve the moral issues of how to stop animals from suffering.
Philosophically, at this point it seems possible that it is impossible to eliminate the pain that animals endure, if they are actually killed.
Two options emerge: Condition 7: Animals could be given treatments to prevent painful experiences, even though they are killed.
Clearly this is a belief that animal consciousness should be destroyed without making the animal suffer.
Again, nepotists may argue that it is inhumane even to destroy animal consciousness, while to others that may look like an assumption, that animals were conscious in the first place.
It seems well argued that people don't want high-power sedatives in their meat products, so this argument fizzles.
It is not commercially viable.
Condition 8: Animal parts could be grown in a vat without the brain connectivity to gain consciousness, through a special biotechnological program.
This would allow for manipulation of genetic and health properties.
Techniques have even been developed to create muscle tone, which is necessary for making meat products.
This seems viable soon enough.
Pretty soon there may be new types of food products that blur the boundary between meat and vegetables, between genetic engineering and naturally healthy.
These products may even be cheap to grow and produce.
Surely the ability to grow animals in a vat offers a moral advantage against the foreseeable detractions against genetic engineering.
And in the future the blurring of boundaries may be a very significant benefit, which makes food seem, once as before, like one homogeneous substance which is delectable and non-rejectable.
If there are future moral developments in the nature of food, after meat is grown in vats, what is certain is that it is less likely to be a problem for consciousness, and more likely to involve fundamental changes in our very own bodies.
The potential of chemistry is untapped, but at least for now there is reassurance that there is some fundamental control over the quality-or, eek!-consciousness, in the things we eat.
Therefore, in the case of animals having poor intelligence or limited "manifestation", the motivation for avoiding meat except for purposes of taste alone is sheer nepotism.
There is an exception, and that is if the animal has limited consciousness but an acute sense of pain.
In this case, we can simply ask, 'where is the justice'? Arguably such a pattern of existence would eventually disappear by genetic selection.
Condition 1: Animals are Unconscious, is not problematic It is Condition 2: Animals are Conscious, that we are contending with.
[Afterall, according to Plato, people are reincarnated as animals.
At least, when they have sinned.
Plato may have invented Christianity is another story].
How do we translate the consciousness of animals in terms of meat-eating? On one level, one would want there to be a reward system if animals had once been human, or one would want them to become human and have a better sense of life after they had been "punished".
So Condition 3: Animals will have or have once become human, is adequate for an argument that animals can be rewarded.
This is a solution in the worst case scenario, but may eventually seem adequate.
In one case [1] in which animals were not human, it is adequate for the animal to become human.
In case [2] humans have not been animals, so the scenario is inadequate for humans.
Condition 4: Animals will not ever and have not ever been human, is what the remainder of the argument is concerned with.
On one level, it raises the argument of the philosopher Nagel, who says that the experiences of animals such as like bats may be purely and substantially different from our ideas of how they experience the world.
In other words, we may not know how they do or do not cope with the situations they encounter.
It may be that animals are highly adapted to the punishments they endure in the meat industry.
We may not be fully aware of the extent of their "evolution" into that role.
And otherwise all we can do is blame Darwin for being a scapegoat.
Yet two additional possibilities emerge: Condition 5: Animals are fully adapted to being slaughtered in the meat industry.
This is possible, but unlikely.
Yet confusions emerge from the expression 'holy cow', and also the idea that a cow who is fully adapted would become immortal.
We will ignore the scenario where the cow is a god, so we will ignore the scenario where the cow is fully insensitive.
We will also ignore the case of 'holy cow'.
Condition 6: Animals are partially but not fully sensitive to explosive bolts, etc.
This seems to follow from a minimum of environmental adaptation to the repetitive conditions of poor treatment.
But it does little to resolve the moral issues of how to stop animals from suffering.
Philosophically, at this point it seems possible that it is impossible to eliminate the pain that animals endure, if they are actually killed.
Two options emerge: Condition 7: Animals could be given treatments to prevent painful experiences, even though they are killed.
Clearly this is a belief that animal consciousness should be destroyed without making the animal suffer.
Again, nepotists may argue that it is inhumane even to destroy animal consciousness, while to others that may look like an assumption, that animals were conscious in the first place.
It seems well argued that people don't want high-power sedatives in their meat products, so this argument fizzles.
It is not commercially viable.
Condition 8: Animal parts could be grown in a vat without the brain connectivity to gain consciousness, through a special biotechnological program.
This would allow for manipulation of genetic and health properties.
Techniques have even been developed to create muscle tone, which is necessary for making meat products.
This seems viable soon enough.
Pretty soon there may be new types of food products that blur the boundary between meat and vegetables, between genetic engineering and naturally healthy.
These products may even be cheap to grow and produce.
Surely the ability to grow animals in a vat offers a moral advantage against the foreseeable detractions against genetic engineering.
And in the future the blurring of boundaries may be a very significant benefit, which makes food seem, once as before, like one homogeneous substance which is delectable and non-rejectable.
If there are future moral developments in the nature of food, after meat is grown in vats, what is certain is that it is less likely to be a problem for consciousness, and more likely to involve fundamental changes in our very own bodies.
The potential of chemistry is untapped, but at least for now there is reassurance that there is some fundamental control over the quality-or, eek!-consciousness, in the things we eat.
Source...