Vegan Forum

Doesn't duty to our own kind come first?

It is unfortunate that it is a part of human nature to have less compassion for those who are different from us than we do for our own kind. The question people have often asked themselves is what precisely is meant by the term "our own kind." Is it those who are of the same nationality? Is it those who are of the same race or religion? Is it those who are of the same tribe? Or is it those who are of the same species?

In my opinion, the species boundary is no less arbitrary than are any of these others. In fact, I would like to tell the story of a holocaust survivor who immigrated to the United States, and rented an apartment above a slaughter house. He said that what he saw in that slaughter house every day was precisely the reason he left Nazi Germany - indifference to the suffering of others simply because they are believed to be different from us.

Quote by Eugene Khutoryansky

The duty to eat healthily? The duty to eat foods that don't poison you if not cooked properly, or spread diseases like salmonella or BSE?

I don't believe that there is a conflict between our duty to animals and to ourselves.

There can be diseases spread through plants too. You just think you're soooo cool and different because you don't eat meat. Like it makes you better? It just makes you weirder.

I do not think that our duty should involve the torture of others. It is very selfish for anyone to rank themselves higher up than another creature and believe that they are the only ones who deserve the right to live. Just because certain animals might not be as strong as us, or have the thinking capacity that we do, does not mean that it is acceptable to use and abuse them, in my opinion. Imagine that, many years into the future, we are overruled by creatures from another planet. These creatures are superior to us in thinking capabilities and strength and feel that it is perfectly normal to feed themselves with our flesh because who are we to them? It doesn't really matter (to them) that we have emotions, a life, and a family. They don't care because, afterall, it is their duty to only be concerned about their well-being.

The human body does not require meat. If it did, many people, including myself, would be dead or severely sick by now. We have all that we need to get proper nutrition without causing abuse and torture. Why not take advantage of that and leave flesh onto the bones that it belongs to?

That's just the way that I see things.

There can be diseases spread through plants too. You just think you're soooo cool and different because you don't eat meat. Like it makes you better? It just makes you weirder.

Yeah, I'm sooo cool! When have I ever pretended to be better than anyone? You're the one who thinks they have a right to go around calling people weird

The only cases I know of diseases being spread through plants are of not preparing plants containing toxins correctly (e.g. not boiling kidney beans, or reheating rice), or of eating plant matter that has started to go very bad. Although some food poisoning can be avoided by being very hygeine aware and cooking everything thoroughly (e.g. salmonella, e-coli), you really do have to be very thorough. And BSE (mad cow disease) is a risk present in even cooked meat - many people my generation in the UK (including me) have to face the possibility of contracting new-variant Creutzfeldt Jakob's Disease as a direct result of being fed beef products as a child in the 80s. It is still unknown how many people will die as a result of intensive beef farming methods, because noone can predict how many people could contract it or when. The disease has a long incubation period (possibly decades), and some scientists are still predicting a major epidemic.

I believe we have duty not to cover up the inhumane farming conditions that promote these kinds of disease developing. And we certainly have a duty to not feed potentially infected food to our children in some lame political attempt to defend the farming industry.

Doing a duty to animals doesn't affect our duty to our own kind...