'Meat paradox' and moral decision making

[Independent voter]

According to psychologists Brock Bastian and Steve Loughnan, who do research on the topic in Australia, the “meat paradox” is the “psychological conflict between people’s dietary preference for meat and their moral response to animal suffering”. They argue that “bringing harm to others is inconsistent with a view of oneself as a moral person. As such, meat consumption leads to negative effects for meat-eaters because they are confronted with a view of themselves that is unfavourable: how can I be a good person and also eat meat?”

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2019...ecision-making

When we say one thing but do another, or hold inconsistent beliefs, psychologists call it cognitive dissonance.

Do you believe that eating meat is cognitive dissonance?

[AcidicSyn]

There are many people (A small percentage of the global population is still alot of people) to which no, it would not be.

However, for the vast majority of people in the US? Definitely.

[Caerule]

If in daily life you make use of things that require actions from others that you deem immoral, then yeah, that is cognitive dissonance.

The ability to do that sort of thing is inherent in human nature. A large part of our brain is dedicated to bullshitting, so we can remain functional when faced with incomplete pictures, hardships, or when emotions or morals stand in our way. It's why we can take joy from successfully hunting an animal, and successfully saving an animal, even within the same person.

That's what it means to be human, and I doubt it gives people that much of a negative effect. We hold opposing views, needs, wants, desires and opinions all the time.

If you recognize the inconsistency and wish to act to remove it from your life, power to you. Not everyone can do so, as it requires big steps, and simply doing the normal thing and ignoring the contradictions is easier.

(I can't do it myself, though I am a big supporter of improving animal welfare and efforts to create lab-grown meat.)

[Freshouttajail]

Maybe for people who don't understand the concept of life. Eating meat is perfectly natural, it's part of the life cycle. The "bad feeling" some people get manifests itself when someone who doesn't understand the reality of life is manipulated into believing it's a bad thing to kill animals to eat them. It's not.

[Techno-Druid]

Maybe for people who don't understand the concept of life. Eating meat is perfectly natural, it's part of the life cycle. The "bad feeling" some people get manifests itself when someone who doesn't understand the reality of life is manipulated into believing it's a bad thing to kill animals to eat them. It's not.

The problem with that is that you could cite a variety of things as being natural; natural =\= good. Cancer and death are natural, but they are not even remotely preferential.

I personally think of this existential issue with solve itself with advancements in lab-grown meat and pseudo-meat. There's a strong environmental argument for why humans should reduce our meat consumption as well, which is what bothers me more.

[chazus]

"Moral Response" I think is a sort of false ideology.

If we had a 'moral response' for everything that demands one, we'd all have killed ourselves long ago out of grief, or something. There are horrible things going on all over the world. Constantly. Not a minute goes by that something horrible isn't happening. What should I do about that? Nothing, really. I do things that make a difference nearby, within my bounds. If I can't afford to donate a ton of money, I don't, If I don't have food or bandages or time to give to people, I don't.

Just the same, what am I supposed to do about meat? If I stop eating meat, will that make a difference? No. (And the whole 'but if everyone did that it would' is also a false statement).

At the end of the day, I don't have time, desire, or the demand, to worry about how animals are treated. Is it another horrible thing? Yes. Is there any merit to me worrying about that? Outside of self-flagellation, no.

[Caerule]

Maybe for people who don't understand the concept of life. Eating meat is perfectly natural, it's part of the life cycle. The "bad feeling" some people get manifests itself when someone who doesn't understand the reality of life is manipulated into believing it's a bad thing to kill animals to eat them. It's not.

Just because something is natural, doesn't make it immoral. Racism is natural. We've escaped the laws of nature to establish our own concepts of right or wrong. Those do not have to do anything with a system that randomly favors survival of the fittest. Human morality is a social construct lightly based on our genetic tendencies. That does not mean everything in nature is good. Just means it is natural. Most of what we do as Humans isn't natural anymore. I am writing to you on a machine on the other side of the globe, wearing synthetic materials, and all of it powered by fossil fuels.

Your moral system is permitted to be more complex than that of a lion.

[Freshouttajail]

The problem with that is that you could cite a variety of things as being natural; natural =\= good. Cancer and death are natural, but they are not even remotely preferential.

I personally think of this existential issue with solve itself with advancements in lab-grown meat and pseudo-meat. There's a strong environmental argument for why humans should reduce our meat consumption as well, which is what bothers me more.

Things don't need to be "good" to be morally acceptable. The environmental issues with the way we get our industrial meat is indeed a problem but that wasn't the question here. It was about the action of eating meant and the thought of animals who got hurt to give you this. The OP's subject could be said in relation to hunters who get their own meat and never participate in the environmental destruction caused by industrial meat production.

[Stormspark]

What about animals like cats? Cats HAVE to eat meat to survive, they are obligate carnivores and cannot survive without it.

[Alydael]

When we say one thing but do another, or hold inconsistent beliefs, psychologists call it cognitive dissonance.

Do you believe that eating meat is cognitive dissonance?

To eat meat the way we do it is immoral without a doubt. Raising animals to slaughter them en mass in a factory can not be described as "moral."

If you are doing it as a natural predator in the food web, it is about survival- then it would not be immoral. The way we mass produce and consume it is hardly a "survival issue."


I am an herbivore though so the hardcore carnivores might disagree.

[Jonnusthegreat]

I don't think this is even remotely a good argument. Things that are counter intuitive to your survival do not make you a bad person. There's even a phrase for it: "necessary evil." Killing people is wrong. But if you do it as a necessity to survive, it's not.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

What about animals like cats? Cats HAVE to eat meat to survive, they are obligate carnivores and cannot survive without it.

I don't think anyone was discussing cognitive dissonance in cats...mognative dissonance?

[Techno-Druid]

What about animals like cats? Cats HAVE to eat meat to survive, they are obligate carnivores and cannot survive without it.

Interestingly enough, there's actually a pet food startup that's trying to create vegan cat food (as in no animals being killed) using lab-grown meat from animals cats would hunt in their wild ranges like rodents.

[Snorkles]

The problem with that is that you could cite a variety of things as being natural; natural =\= good. Cancer and death are natural, but they are not even remotely preferential.

I personally think of this existential issue with solve itself with advancements in lab-grown meat and pseudo-meat. There's a strong environmental argument for why humans should reduce our meat consumption as well, which is what bothers me more.

Whether or not eating meat is natural is irrelevant to the debate anyway. The industrialization of meat production is undeniably not natural and is pretty much the main source of all the problems.

But ye, like you say, natural doesn't necessarily mean preferential and it's a bit of a cop out to use it as an argument really.

[Freshouttajail]

Just because something is natural, doesn't make it immoral. Racism is natural. We've escaped the laws of nature to establish our own concepts of right or wrong. Those do not have to do anything with a system that randomly favors survival of the fittest. Human morality is a social construct lightly based on our genetic tendencies. That does not mean everything in nature is good. Just means it is natural. Most of what we do as Humans isn't natural anymore. I am writing to you on a machine on the other side of the globe, wearing synthetic materials, and all of it powered by fossil fuels.

Your moral system is permitted to be more complex than that of a lion.

Clearly not from the other side of the globe, as you can see under my forum name, I'm in your backyard.

But really tho, a lot of what we do is more natural than you think. Just because computers don't grow on trees and we don't live in a cave doesn't mean it's not natural. Everything we invented comes from stuff that was found in nature and it all runs on electricity which exists because of nature as well.
Also when you really think about it, at what point would things become "not natural"? The first "knives" where sharpened rocks, at what point in the evolution of knife does it become not natural anymore and who decides that? Does something stop being natural the instant it's manipulated by men? So things would come from the nature and then become not natural because it goes through a process? To me, that doesn't hold any form of logic.

[Caerule]

Just the same, what am I supposed to do about meat? If I stop eating meat, will that make a difference? No. (And the whole 'but if everyone did that it would' is also a false statement).

Of course it would make a difference. Meat eaters consume about 7.000 animals in a lifetime. Choosing not to partake in the consumption, means thousands of animals less consumed. If you don't eat them, less animals will be bred, grown and killed for you in the bio-industry. That's a lot less suffering you could be causing if you made that choice. Thousands of animals is a difference. Not one that you may consider worth it. But certainly not so little you can claim there is "No." difference.

[Rendark]

If eating meat is wrong then i don't want to be right.

[Zuben]

Everyone have their vices, if not meat then something else. Trying to eliminate all of them is just a path to unhappiness, so compromise what you can. I've found balance works for me much better than leaning too strongly on one side.

[Nitros14]

So if it doesn't suffer it's okay to kill it?

Weird moral hoops to jump through.

I don't mind eating meat because animals themselves wouldn't think twice about eating meat if that was what their bodies were designed to be able to eat. Cats torture their food. I don't think any other omnivore has ever had a moral crisis about their diet.

[Charge me Doctor]

Being cruel to animals because you vent your own problems is one thing, being cruel to animals because you need meat is a completely different thing. There is no dissonance here. It's a really stupid argument to begin with either to market goods, or a poor attempt at getting some sort of weird moral high ground