Comments timbmiller has made

Murdering plants

The key to this murder question, I think, is minimizing suffering. We know for sure that mammals suffer, and some can suffer very deeply. Though it is less well documented, other animals clearly suffer too. Ever watched a fly caught in a spider's web as the spider approaches? Can plants suffer? It's possible that they can. We simply don't know, and may never know. They do definitely react to stressors. Let's assume the worst case, that they can suffer. If we wish to minimize suffering, and feel it's wrong to commit suicide by starvation, then eating plants is clearly a better solution than eating animals because animals are fed plants to fatten them up for the murder - uh, kill. So when we eat an animal, we are responsible not only for the suffering of the animal but for the suffering of the plants killed to fatten the animal. Also, way more plant stuff has to be fed to animals to net a much smaller amount of animal stuff out at the end of the process. So eating animals kills not just plants too as a byproduct, but way more plants than would be needed to feed vegetarians. So the best way to minimize suffering, as well as to preserve the environment, is to go vegan, even if plants are able to suffer. And if you can't go vegan all the way, cut the amount of animal products you do eat to the bone (apologize for carnivorous metaphor).On Can you 'murder' a chicken? posted 3 years, 2 months ago 25 Responses