I heard something to do with Nitrogen and …cow farts(?) I am really unsure of this and would like to learn more.

Answer -

4 Parts

  • Ethical reason for consuming animals
  • Methane produced by cows are a harmful greenhouse gas which is contributing to our current climate crisis
  • Health Reasons - there is convincing evidence that processed meats cause cancer
  • it takes a lot more calories of plant food to produce the calories we would consume from the meat.

Details about the answers are in the comments

  • @[email protected]English
    0•1 year ago

    If something can’t be harmed there no need to prevent harming it.

    i don’t really like your use of harm here to exclude everything but sentient beings, but as a term of art, for the purposes of this discussion, i will indulge you.

    why does it matter if something CAN be harmed? what creates a duty to NOT HARM something?

    • neuralnerd
      2•1 year ago

      what creates a duty to NOT HARM something?

      About all ethics is about reducing harm. If you don’t know that harming is bad I don’t think we can have a discussion.

      • @[email protected]English
        0•1 year ago

        deontological ethics are explicitly not about that. divine command theory is unconcerned with that. can you name an ethical system that does concern itself with that?

        • neuralnerd
          2•1 year ago

          deontological ethics are explicitly not about that.

          I guess it depends on the philosopher, but at least one includes “doing no harm” in the obligations[1]:

          Ross [20] modified Kant’s deontology, allowing a plurality of duty-based ethical principles, such as doing no harm, promise keeping, etc.

          can you name an ethical system that does concern itself with that?

          Probably all consequentialism and at least utilitarianism (harm decreases the global well being). Negative consequentialism is more specifically focused on reducing suffering/harm.

          • @[email protected]English
            1•1 year ago

            I’m not a consequentialist at all, and Ross is not using harm in the same sense as we are. even if he were, his is not a very common strain of ethics.

            your ethical theory seems to be on dubious footing to me.

            • neuralnerd
              1•1 year ago

              So in your ethical theory, harm doesn’t matter at all?

              You seem to follow some kind of deontology. There’s no obligation in your system to not cause unnecessary harm? I guess you have some obligation not to hurt your dog even if you like doing that. Isn’t that obligation related to the fact the dog would be harmed if you did?

              Maybe it’s just a difference between consequentialism and deontologism, but I was convinced deontologists generally had some rules that prevent unnecessary harm. They don’t?

              There’s at least Tom Regan who was a deontologist (at least in his book The Case for Animal Rights) and talks about harm:

              In Regan’s view, not to be used as a means entails the right to be treated with respect, which includes the right not to be harmed.

              • @[email protected]English
                1•1 year ago

                I take a view pretty close to kant: cruelty is wrong to practice on other creatures or on people, but for different reasons. it’s inherently wrong to be cruel to people, but being cruel to animals is only wrong In that it conditions you to practice cruelty, and you might subsiquently be cruel to people