On Apr 4, 3:12*pm, ImStillMags > wrote:
> By now, you’ve probably heard about the essay contest the NY Times is
> running. The prompt is “Tell us why it’s ethical to eat meat. * * *I'm
> posting a reply that fits my thoughts exactly. *I didn't write it,
> Mark Sisson did. *He's correct.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------*--
>
> Is eating meat ethical?
>
> I find it odd that in their prompt for the essay, the NY Times forbids
> entrants from mentioning conscientious carnivory, local versus
> organic, grass-fed versus factory-raised, or sustainable versus
> unsustainable. In other words, they expect us to simply explain “why
> it’s ethical to eat meat” without allowing for any of the
> considerations or external factors that might affect the “ethics” of
> meat-eating.
>
> How do I proceed, absent the ability to actually discuss the nuances?
> It’s a tough question, but I’ll try.
>
> “Ethical” implies that we have a choice. Both dietary choices –
> omnivory and herbivory – cause animals to die. We have to eat
> something, and whichever choice we make, animals will die. There’s no
> getting around that. If we’re going to ask whether or not meat-eating
> is ethical because it causes animals to die, we also have to ask
> whether or not other common consumptive practices that also cause
> animals to die are ethical:
>
> Is living in an apartment or a house built on the former homes of a
> dozen different species, several ant colonies, and the site of an
> indigenous people’s encampment from a hundred years ago ethical?
>
> Is wearing clothing made from conventionally grown cotton that
> required the use of chemical fertilizers whose runoff pollutes rivers,
> lakes, and oceans, thus hurting marine life ethical?
>
> Is eating pseudo-burgers made of soybeans that hail from monocrop
> farms whose owners razed the land on which they grow, killing families
> of groundhogs and field mice and trillions upon trillions of essential
> microbes that compose the topsoil ethical?
>
> Animals all die as a result of these practices. Anyone who makes it
> past their first year has blood on their hands. At least the meat-
> eater must face the unavoidable fact that he consumes dead animals
> directly. At least he deals with death head-on, shrink-wrapped though
> it may be. For once the plastic and styrofoam are removed, there it
> is, staring him in the face: a bloody piece of dead animal flesh that
> he is then going to put into his mouth, chew, swallow, and digest.
>
> Does that make him unethical? Only if anyone who eats anything whose
> production resulted in the death of animals is also unethical. One
> could even argue that since the meat-eater at least acknowledges the
> fact that an animal died for his meal, he’s the more honorable of the
> two.
>
> And indeed everyone has blood on their hands as a direct or indirect
> result of their choices, consumption habits, and dietary practices.
> Everyone steps on someone else’s toes or hooves or talons or cute
> little paws or flippers or probosci or roots for “selfish” reasons –
> even vegans. If meat-eaters are unethical by virtue of their meat-
> eating, so too is the vegetarian whose grain-based meals came from
> farmers whose tractors crush small mammals and whose cropland disrupts
> entire ecosystems. I don’t think either person’s actions are
> unethical, but I fail to see how someone could think the former was
> unethical without also taking issue with the latter. *If you’re going
> to indict eating meat because it kills animals, you also have to
> indict other dietary practices that also kill animals, like grain –
> even if those deaths are “unavoidable” or “accidental.” Sure, the
> farmer may not gleefully set out to murder field mice with his tractor
> (although the rodenticide used in grain elevators might raise a few
> eyebrows), but does it matter if the end result – a bunch of dead
> animals – is the same?
>
> I eagerly await next week’s “Is Vegetarianism Ethical?” essay contest.
> If you’re going to indict eating meat because it kills animals, you
> must also indict the other dietary practices that kill animals.
>
> http://www.marksdailyapple.com/is-ea...#axzz1r0b69Ac7

I'll tell you why eating meat is ethical. Because it tastes good.