So I had to endure a rather painful dinning experience last night at a sushi/Korean-BBQ restaurant. In addition to the sight of all of the sea animals, there were two BBQ pits right in the table where chicken, cow, and god knows what else were cooked. I was not in a happy place to say the least, whenever someone asked for chicken to be passed all I could think of were these wonderful birds I had recently read about and seen video of at peaceful prairie animal sanctuary…. it was the suck!
After eating (and thank god with some beer in me by that time) we were discussing things to do to induce sleep since I have been having some trouble falling asleep lately. Someone mentioned steamed *soy* milk and honey, and I told her that honey would not make it into my steamed milk. My supervisor asked why not honey, since the bees… well since… I’m sure what he was thinking honestly but I started to explain that the whole point is not to exploit animals, using them for your own means. He said that I had used the chef for my means. This is obviously ridiculous, since the chef has willfully given his service for money, he is not enslaved, and his interest in his own life is respected.
The next question/defense was that animals eat each other. I’m not sure why people see this as a defense because I’ve never heard anyone say, at any other point, that we should look to the behavior of other animals for our moral and ethical beliefs. Animals engage in all manner of activity that we would all agree is immoral, they commit acts of cannibalism, murder, and rape. Dogs are known to hump the legs of dinner guests, or lick their genitals in front of others. All of these acts are not condoned by most people and the fact that some animals partake in this kind of activity is not license for humans to call it morally acceptable behavior. Our morals are derived from our own sense of right and wrong, and deliberately causing the wanton suffering of other sentient beings is quite clearly wrong and not morally acceptable.
