oaf@mit-vax.UUCP (Oded Feingold) (08/13/86)
>2) if moral concern for the welfare of animals is your REAL reason for >following a vegetarian diet, then you should seriously reconsider the lacto- >portion of your regime. Milk comes from cows who produce it in order to feed >their offspring. [Doug Dyment] ------------------------------ Today's milk cattle are bred (and fed, and maybe drugged) to pro- duce titanic quantities of milk, with minimal relationship to calving cycles. The moral argument against milk in the diet should not rest on whether you're depriving the calf. A more promising concern is the unhappy life the cow leads. (I can't really define "moral," so I won't sustain a question on my correctness in using the term.) We have created monsters, dependent on us to empty their udders, incapable of living on their own. The same goes for chickens, mass-producing eggs whether or not they're fertile. These animals are merely protein factories, until they stop lactating or laying. Then they're just protein, in the commercial view. I have no good idea how to treat such a question, and would wel- come suggestions. -- Oded Feingold MIT AI Lab 545 Tech Square Cambridge, Mass. 02139 {allegra|ihnp4!mit-eddie}!mit-vax!oaf OAF@OZ.AI.MIT.EDU 617-253-8598
raghu@ut-sally.UUCP (Raghu Ramakrishnan) (08/15/86)
In article <497@mit-vax.UUCP> oaf@mit-vax.UUCP (Oded Feingold) writes: > Today's milk cattle are bred (and fed, and maybe drugged) to pro- >duce titanic quantities of milk, with minimal relationship to calving >cycles. The moral argument against milk in the diet should not rest >on whether you're depriving the calf. A more promising concern is the >unhappy life the cow leads. (I can't really define "moral," so I >won't sustain a question on my correctness in using the term.) > > I have no good idea how to treat such a question, and would wel- >come suggestions. I am a vegetarian (lacto-ovo, to be precise). The reason is simply that having been a vegetarian all my life ('cos my family was), I'm unable to bring myself to eat meat. Curiously enough, I can see no reason why killing animals for food is wrong 'morally'. (I share Oded's unfamiliarity with - and distaste for - this word. It usually represents the collective prejudices of a group of people, with little or no ethical basis.) Fish eat worms. Big fish eat small fish. And fishermen eat stupid fish. The point is that there seems to be an ecological food chain. I do not understand how morality enters this. I do consider some things to be unjustifiable. Unnecessary cruelty is one. Wasteful killing (in fact, waste, period) is another. But I see nothing wrong in killing for food, per se. raghu