Saturday, April 22, 2006

Vewgitarianism

Rik applies Pascal's wager to whether we should eat animals

(1) If we continue to eat meat when it’s a live option that this might be immoral and it turns out, in fact, to be the case, then we have committed a serious moral wrong.

(2) If, on the other hand, we decide to stop eating meat and it turns out to be morally permissible then the worst harm we have committed is to deprive ourselves of a particular gustatory pleasure.

(3) If we continue to eat meat and it is morally permissible then nothing of ethical significance rests on this result, and likewise,

(4) If we refrain from eating meat when continuing would be unethical, then we have simply acted as we ought to.


So should we all become vegetarians?
In the comments questions areise like
A) Is it appropriate to consider the question to be "eating animals" vs "not eating animals" and not any other combination (e.g. "eating blades of grass" and not eating them
B) Is the question one where we should suspend judgment?
C) Will we ever know if something is immoral or not, and if we wont then was it truly immoral for us to do it?

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