I think the primary reason which is probably true for 99% (or more) of the meat-eating population is – They were raised that way.

Children are very susceptible. If a mother or father feeds their child meat, then of course that child will eat it. They are naturally going to do exactly what their parents teach them to do (evolutionary speaking – this improves their survivability). Most of us, at least in the western world, were raised this way. Most people continue to eat meat into adulthood, because it is exactly what they have been trained to do throughout their entire life. Some people (very few) go against this training and decide to become vegetarian. In doing so however, they receive a lot of criticism from regular people. In general, people don’t like being told that something that they have always done is ‘wrong’ or ‘unethical’. For this reason, meat-eaters will defend the practice vehemently. Even if all the facts state the opposite, people will invent reasons (no matter how stupid) to maintain the status quo.

Now this post’s intention isn’t to defend meat-eaters, just to explain their behaviour. Although meat-eaters will usually state other reasons as to why they eat meat (e.g. it tastes good, high nutrients, top of the food chain, etc.) these are all just invented reasons to try to justify to themselves that it is perfectly okay. Actually, I can virtually guarantee that they never thought of any of these reasons before being questioned. It’s only after someone confronts them about their food choices that suddenly all these arguments come out. I doubt anyone gobbling down a steak every thought “Man, I’m at the top of the food chain, so that’s why I’m eating dead cow”. No, of course not. They do it because they have always done it and almost everyone – not only condoned it – but actively encouraged it.

I remember times when I was a child in Australia standing around a BBQ with my extended family and my uncle saying words to the effect of “Come on matey! Get a steak into ya’! You want to be big and strong don’t ya’?” – Now what child can possibly stand up against that?

But it’s not all doom and gloom for vegetarians. (very) Slowly, governments and health organistations are starting to realise that meat isn’t all that’s it cracked up to be. In the last 10 or more years, a lot of studies have been coming out talking about the bad effects of a diet high in meat (especially red and processed meats). Nearly all (if not all) health organisations have stated that people should increase their fruit and veg intake. Clearly they have realised that humans get far more of their nutrients from plant matter than meat. Here in Australia, the meat industry have been trying to fight this growing trend. They have been ‘advertising’ meat and dairy to be ‘necessary for a healthy diet’ using famous actors, scientists and doctors. Yes, many people fall for these so-called ‘ads’ and I often hear meat-eaters quoting them as their reference (although these are only commercials for big companies, they are often interpreted by their viewers as ‘scientific studies’ – exactly how the meat industry want them to be seen).

Anyway, I think the truth about human diet will eventually be revealed. I have noticed a lot of changes just in my short life of 30 years. As a slight analogy – it was only about 10-15 years ago where smoking was extremely common. Many people that I knew smoked and most of them refused to admit that it was an unhealthy habit. Back in those days, if I was in a bar and said to one of my friends “I bet you in the next few years, smoking will be banned in pubs and clubs”, they would have laughed at me. But now, at least in Australia, smoking is illegal in pretty much all pubs, clubs, restaurants, etc. This goes to show that things do change and they can change pretty quickly when the momentum starts to build.

So my final words to vegetarians – Continue what you’re doing. Promote vegeatrianism. Question meat-eaters when the opportunity arises. Get on the online forums and debate with the hard-line meat-eaters. Don’t give in to their silly logic. The more presence we show, the more the word will spread.

From a personal perspective, it was the online communities that eventually swayed me. I was never a hard-lined meat eater, but like most of them, I was prepared to defend my position. But after months of hearing all the vegetarian arguments, I eventually came round and had a moment of enlightenment. And since then, I have never turned back (despite family / doctors / friends telling me otherwise – yes, seriously!). Now they have all come around and realise that I’m not turning back, and some of them now even go out of their way to invite me over and cook me veg meals!! I think it’s their way of saying “We agree with you – but we’re a little scared to go that way ourselves because of all the crap we’ll receive from other people”.

Good luck to all of you and enjoy healthy and compassionate eating!

May I ask where you found this definition? If I may:

in·hu·mane [in-hyoo-meyn or, often, -yoo-]
–adjective
not humane; lacking humanity, kindness, compassion, etc.

hu·mane [hyoo-meyn or, often, yoo-]
–adjective
characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals, esp. for the suffering or distressed: humane treatment of horses.

Thanks. Look next time.

Springer5: I completely agree with everything you said, up to your discourse on amorality. At that point, although it made total sense, denial kicked in. I would hate to believe that the majority of people I know are sociopaths. I think a few gruesome videos and maybe this blog would convince a good few of them, but I think a lot of people lack the self-control to learn to avoid one of the primary elements of their diet. As a solo vegetarian minor in an omnivorous family, my first adventure into the veg world lasted less than a week. My second try was more successful: I’m creeping up to a year at this point, but I’ve always been able to do what’s good for me. I can’t help but think that some of the people who’ve posted on the omnivores’ side of this blog fit the profile of a sociopath pretty well, but there are always the ones who want to deny the fact that eating meat is immoral because they DON’T want to feel like they’re hurting anything. These are the people who invent references to God’s meat-eating habits and the shape of our canines, not to mention our higher intelligence level compared to that of other animals. The evidence is clear, people just don’t want to see it.

And it’s not even as though I feel the need to defend those who eat meat. I don’t think there’s anything to defend. I guess all I’m doing is trying for tolerance, and trying to retain my little faith in the human race. I don’t want to give up hope for the good of people as a whole. Keep in mind, this is from someone who has never had any criticism from meat-eaters. People respect my opinions, and I try to respect theirs.

Here is another good quote which you may heard before, and one which I think sums up the point we are all trying to make here…..

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” – Mahatma Gandhi

If as you say, you are no different from all the other animals, then why do expect to be treated differently from them when it suits you ?

You claim to be the same when it comes to justifying your meat craving, and yet you would be he first to object if someone decided to put you in a factory farm. “You can’t do that I am human , you’re violating my human rights”. I cannot legally kill you, I cannot legally own you etc, etc.

You want to be able to *behave* the same but be *treated* differently.

So you see that your own position is far less consitent, and more hypocritcal than the vegan.

First of all well done Ryan and everyone else involved for being so patient with those who seem determined to try to bury their own guilt about their indefensible immorality with respect to killing others purely for sensory pleasure.
We all know (along with most of them I suspect) that there is no morally defensible argument for eating other creatures, for anyone who is capable of moral judgement to begin with.
I also notice that the old chestnut ‘top of the food chain’ argument is still getting an ‘airing’ from time to time on this forum, so firstly let’s knock that one on the head once and for all.
It is a favourite argument of those who need to convince themselves as much as anyone else, that what they are doing is right. However, as most of us already know, all that argument says is that we have the *ability* to eat whatever we want (including meat of course), it has nothing to do with the actual issue of whether or not it is right. If country ‘a’ has nuclear weapons, and country ‘b’ does not, then that makes country ‘a’ the ‘top of the food chain’ amongst countries, in terms of military might, because it can militarily dominate country ‘b’ anytime it wants to, but of course dominating another country just because you *can* does not make it *right*; and the same concept applies in the case of all individuals.
Another example is that I am physically considerably stronger than my partner, so if I wanted to I could easily dominate and threaten her physically because I have superior physical strength. Using the ‘top of the food chain’ argument it could be said that it’s ok for me to beat her up every day (if it were to give me pleasure to do so, as it sadly does for some) because I am the stronger of the two of us, as nature made me. However, this would obviously be absurd for any morally minded individual, and completely unacceptable behaviour. The same applies to our relationship with every other individual, for the same reasons, not only our human partners or citizens of other countries as in the above examples.

Now that that rather stupid excuse for causing suffering has been put to rest, I have a question for anyone here who tries to live as best they can by an ethical code in terms of their lifestyle choices. I know this is off-topic, but I hope no one will mind, as this question has been bugging me for a while and I’d really like to hear the opionions of fellow vegans on the matter. My question is this…..

Someone pointed out earlier on in this thread that most, if not all, non-human animals cannot be expected to follow a moral code because they are not, to the best of our knowledge, capable of moral understanding. This excuses them from moral responsibility; you cannot be held responsible for something which you are simply not capable of understanding. To me this has always made perfect sense, and justifies the argument that humans should try to live by a moral code (firstly because they can, and secondly because when they do there is a greater net benefit for all of us), whereas non-humans cannot and therefore cannot realistically be expected to do so.
However, all due sarcasm put to one side for a moment, it occurred to me as I read some of the pro-meat eater’s comments here that there may also be humans who are simply not capable of understanding morality. The obviouse and most legitimate example would be somoene who was mentally disabled to a degree which left them at a mental capacity below that needed for moral decision making. Surely this would place them in the same situation as many non-humans, where they should be excused moral responsibility, and so should presumably be allowed to eat meat should they express a preference to do so.

Assuming we accept this premise my next question is how we decide what the cut-off point for this exemption among humans actually is. In many people it may not be as obvioiuse as in the above example of the disabled person. Some meat-eaters on this thread, without wishing to insult them in any way, may simply not be capable of making ethical decisions or understanding the moral issues which veganism tries to address. Admittedly most are in all probability simply immoral (i.e. they know the difference between right and wrong, but choose wrong because it is more convenient for them, and allows them to continue doing what they enjoy, regardless of the greater net suffering they cause). For those people there is no excuse. They are simply selfish.

However, what about those who may just be *amoral* as opposed to immoral ?
Some people out there may be just that , no more no less. Should we accept that these people should be allowed to eat meat on the same basis as we do non-humans (i.e. that they do not posess morality, and so cannot be held responsible for mindlessly following their physical desire to eat meat) ?
We mustn’t forget that moral capability and intellectual intelligence are not always correlated. There have for example been many highly intelligent murderers throughout history who, following psychological evaluation, have been pronounced sociopaths, having great intelligence but no moral understanding whatsoever.
Knowing that to be the case then, is there a potential argument for any one of the meat eating humans writing on this forum (and elsewhere), to eat meat with impunity regardless of their apparent intellect (or lack of it), provided they are genuinely amoral, and we know for a fact that many such people exist throughout human society as well as non-human.

Does anyone not agree with this line of thought ?
I’d appreciate any comments, eespecially from fellow vegans.

Thanks