Would it be wrong to eat a cow that had been specially bred to WANT to be eaten? (a la Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy)

Is it equally wrong to hurt a cow and human, if the pain experienced by each is equal?

Is it ok to kill ants for fun.

Can anyone defend using animals as food? All I see are pro-vegetarian responses. We shouldn't hurt animals etc etc...they are alive. Plants are alive. As are bacteria. Why is eating bacteria and plants condoned? Having helped raise chickens I am not inclined to think they are more intelligent than your average root vegetable. And I was thinking. I recently got offered a job that several fairly desperate people I know needed. Needed badly. They need to support families and children. Yet I got the job. I earned it. Should I step aside and let one of my less qualified colleagues have the job. Should I spare them the pain and discomfort of being jobless and searching? If I shouldn't eat animals, because it causes them pain, then shouldn't I not take this job because it causes a human being pain? Is there not a limit to this line of thinking. By virtue of being mariginally attractive, I "won" a competition for a mans attention. He was subsequently my boyfriend and I loved him. However, the runner up...

As a vegetarian, when I consider the prospect of having a child I must ask myself whether to bring her up on the same diet as mine. I have met people who resentfully continue to be vegetarians because their parents brought them up that way and they could never ingest meat properly. Is it fair for parents to treat a child in this way and would you answer that question differently if the majority of adults, but not children, had freely chosen to be vegetarians and were now asking themselves the same question?

Do animals have morals and ethics? Otherwise, are ethics natural or is it something humans made up?

Hello philosophers, there is a vast philosophical literature that defends animal rights and vegetarianism, but the opposite camp doesn't seem to have produced much. What is the equivalent of Singer's "Animal Liberation" in the "meat eating" camp? Or is this a dead subject among philosophers, where those who care write books about the defense of animals, while those who don't simply go ahead and eat their steaks? Thanks in advance for your valuable insight.

There is much written on veganism and vegetarianism and the morality of eating animals. The human animal is an omnivore; eating is basic to survival; our dentition and digestive tracts are adapted for meat as well as plants. This is our condition. There is an answer excusing peoples from agriculturally poor countries (and I would add the Inuit) yet, lacking suitable abattoirs, their trapping and/or killing of animals would be seen as cruel by our delicate western standards. If this is morally acceptable, what is "unacceptable suffering"? To whom is is unacceptable and what changes that it becomes acceptable? A vegan questioner suggested her omnivorous friend should witness the killing of an animal if he wished to eat meat. If he did and continued eating meat, would he then be exculpated? If so, where is the morality? Why should the vegan's morality be superior to the omnivore's? Should the vegan witness the grinding poverty and backbreaking work of 3rd world child agricultural labourers before eating...

In a hypothetical situation I am a vegan talking to a meat eater who buys his meat from a supermarket and has no interest in where it came from. I say that I don't think people have the right to eat meat unless they are willing to learn about what it takes to provide that meat, witness it first hand or even produce it for themselves. He says that he doesn't want to know where it came from and is quite happy for someone else to do the dirty work if they are happy to and does not feel at all guilty. Is he morally wrong and do I have a valid argument?

I consider myself a compassionate person. Probably too compassionate, though. I have a hard time doing ANYTHING that causes death or harm to any other creature, even if it's as insignifigant as a bug, especially if it's something that is just 100% for my own pleasure, or satisfaction. Please forgive me because I know that this probably seems crazy, but this really is a problem for me. I've discussed this with other people and they have pointed out the fact that human beings seem to have a superior place in the world, and that bugs are just a part of an eco-system where they generally eat other insects, and or are food for other creatures. Even though I understand this, I find it impossible to do anything that causes them death or harm, especially things that are unimportant. For example, I have not cut my backyard all year because I know it will negatively affect the insects living there. I want to do it, but since it is only for my satisfaction I can't bring myself to do it. This is just...