[nekokami]

Conversation has stayed pretty civil, so I'm going to take off my "moderator" hat and put my "participant" hat back on, unless someone objects.

Originally Posted by HarryT

That argument strikes me as pure sophistry, I'm afraid. You "value life", therefore you categorize anything whose life you do not value as "not alive"?

Doesn't a carrot have as much "right to life" as a chicken? You are claiming that one has a "right" to be alive, but the other does not? Both were brought into existance for the specific purpose of being eaten.

HarryT, I'm actually with you on most of this, but the bolded part seems like a bit of a leap to me. But if this is an evolutionist/creationist thing, I'll just back off and leave it alone.

Originally Posted by disney_mommy

I do not say the carrot is not alive because I do not value it. It is simply not alive.

Because the carrot is not alive, it can not have a "right to live."

I have to say, that's an odd definition of "alive." I can see debating whether or not a virus is alive, but a carrot is most definitely alive. (It may or may not be able to feel pain-- there really is some evidence that plants are more active than we have previously thought. Not what I think anyone here would call "sentient," though.)

Originally Posted by Laz116

It's after all only one aspect of a persons life. It means, that on this specific topic the actions of the vegetarian are morally better.... I don't really get why that is so controversial, we all make immoral decisions all the time from an utilitarian point of view.

This is a really good point, but a lot of people seem to take the position that no one has a right to have an opinion about anyone else's morality (except in areas where of course people have a right to such opinions). I suggested some ways that people in the past have tried to evaluate the morality of actions (utilitarianism, universalizability, etc.) and there were objections even to these abstract ways of looking at issues.

As a culture, we make decisions about the morality of other people all the time. We forbid murder, various kinds of theft, pedophilia, polygamy, etc. I am not directly equating eating meat with any of these. I'm just saying that cultures do make decisions about the morality of individual choices, based on a variety of criteria. The eating of meat is an area where there is less consensus than many other issues. Again, I don't try to convince anyone else not to eat meat, even my own kids. The reasons for which I became a vegetarian are based on moral considerations, but there are a lot of moral areas of life. If I were asked to evaluate the morality of someone else's life (which I generally don't do), choice of diet would only be one part.

Originally Posted by Lady Blue

On that same thought, wouldn't the same be true of the bear and the salmon? Would it not be the responsibility of the bear to take care of the salmon, instead of eating him, since the bear is higher on the food chain? Or does that food chain reasoning apply only to people?

Also, how do we know for sure that a carrot does not feel? It grows, therefore it is alive. But just because it doesn't have the same kind of brain and nervous system that we are familiar with, doesn't mean it doesn't feel and suffer. We used to think nothiing could live without sunlight too. We were wrong. We used to think the world was flat. We were wrong.

These are very good points. I think we don't expect the bear to take care of the salmon because bears lack the ability to plan to the extent required. On the other hand, bears are not generally capable of destroying the environment they normally live in, in part because of this lack of planning. Human beings are brainy enough to seriously hurt the ecosystem we all depend on. To me, that means we need to be more careful of what we do than bears need to be.

Regarding the feelings of carrots and other plants, there is evidence that plants respond to their environments and influence their surroundings, but not so much evidence that they predict or plan, so I suppose at minimum the carrot probably does not feel fear or dread on being harvested. But again, most vegetarians acknowledge that some plants are going to die no matter what-- but more plants will die, in addition to animals, if humans eat animals (because the animals have to eat plants first).

Interestingly, cattle don't actually need to eat grain or other human food sources. See Frances Moore Lappé's Diet for a Small Planet for a review of the historical decisions to start feeding grain to cattle after the "green revolution" created a grain surplus. Cows have multi-chambered stomachs so they can eat cellulose (grass) and turn it into protein.* The result is leaner and healthier for both the cattle and the human eaters. If I were going to eat beef (and I no longer care for the taste or smell, but I imagine that would change if I were starving), I'd feel better about eating free-range grass-fed cattle than pen-raised grain-fed cattle (who also get fed bits of sheep). There's nothing "natural" about the food chain humans have constructed around meat animals.

*Edit to add: when cows eat grass, it doesn't kill the grass. It does kill individual cells, but the plant as a whole generally survives, especially perennial varieties.