So to be consistent with this rationalization, the mentally retarded do not have rights according to you. Interesting....
It's not a rationalization. What do you think a right is? What gives rise to their existence and necessity? What basis in observable nature is there for claiming them?
The mentally retarded have the same rights as any other human. To the extent that they are impaired, they may not be able to fully exercise those rights, but they have them nonetheless, particularly since, as Agent0028 said, they are capable of rational thought (far more so than a chimp, or a dolphin, or any other perceptual level/non-conceptual consciousness).
Plant protein is superior in it's non toxicity, but not in the ease at which large amounts can be obtained. Carnivorous animals have the shortest life spans, like lions and tigers. Those are the animals that prefer flesh the most, and those are the mammals that die the soonest.
Combining the right amino acids into animal protein requires more intelligence than many species have.
There is less waste, and fewer toxins produced inside the body. Plant protein doesn't cause high amounts of uric acid in the body, which leads to kidney stones. Plant protein is also a lot lower in the amino acid methionine, which is highly sulfur forming, and thus is highly acid forming, and causes osteoporosis.
The potential is there for illness, but as you pointed out, protein from meat is more easily accessed in useful quantities. There is a price to be paid for it, but the survival value of a small amount of meat as opposed to an equal amount of plant is significantly higher. The argument can be made that its long-term survival value is less, except that humans are not carnivores, and don't eat meat exclusively, which is why the negative potential for meat consumption is not realized in 100% of people who eat it. For the most part, those negative effects manifest in those who eat too much meat. You would be hard pressed to claim that eating meat is a death sentence that could be avoided (or abated) by only eating vegetables. Aside from the inferior quantities of protein (which provides energy as much as it does structure) available from plant sustenance, there is also the issue of phosphorus (required for the construction of cell walls) and of iron, both of which can be obtained far more efficiently by eating meat.
But, per my original point, evolution would never have utilized meat eating if it did not have a good reason for it. Longevity is not the only value that life affords, and it can be argued that it is not even one of the highest values.
If you would like to bioengineer the perfect foods, where only the most specialized amino acids, vitamins, and minerals are imparted to the organism consuming them, all the more power to you. I think we went over that one before though. Why waste time with plants at all when supplements can do a better job?
ALL animal life MUST eat plants to survive. That is unavoidable. because it is unavoidable, it logically follows that if animal life is going to survive, certain plants MUST be eaten. Animal life and plant life exist in a symbiotic relationship. Animal exhalation provides the carbon dioxide that plants need, and plants provide the oxygen that animals need. Animals provide excrement as fertilizer, which is food for plants. Plants then provide food for the animals. Incidentally, there are a lot of plants that can provide food value without killing the plant, like fruit. There are some people who believe that a fruitarian diet is the most ethical for this reason.
What is your big hang up with killing?
This isn't Eden.
Blackthornone said:
"The planet is an organism, the individual lives occupying it are cells in a larger collective entity, and aggregate benefits for the non-human portion of life on Earth are necessarily benefits for human life"
FIXED
The planet is a rock. It was once liquid, and now it is cooling. This is pure mechanical causation. It is not teleological. Do you know the difference? It is what separates biological action from non-biological action. Mechanical causation involves a prior event causing a future event. Teleological causation involves a future event (survival) causing present action; it is goal-directed, and is only present in living entities.
Every organism on this planet is an individual, discrete entity. Each one arose because the conditions for their survival were already present on the planet. Plants did not develop for the sake of animals, and animals did not devlop for the sake of plants. If either had an effect on the development of the other, it was a coincidence (fortuitous as it may have proven). Any one of them could be removed from their ecosystems and supported without their natural surroundings, and the potential is there for optimization beyond what the planet itself is capable of providing.
The existence of the Earth is not dependent upon any of it's parts, and the parts only need the Earth for the materials and conditions required to live (materials and conditions which can be manufactured, duplicated or acquired elsewhere).
Yes, people who jogging in a puma's territory are asking to be mauled.
People who go hiking and who aren't careful where they walk are asking for a snakebite. Do they DESERVE it? Ask the animal. After all, they are in the animal's territory. Animal's territory=animal's rules.
Yes, surfers who aren't careful ask to get shark bites. If they know there are sharks there, they are DEFINITELY asking to get bitten. Salt water is toxic to humans anyway. It belongs to the marine life. Human beings are guests in the ocean, and are not it's owners, unless you believe in the Sub Mariner....
The sharks are the owners? Supposing that the surfer has armed himself, and drops a .45 caliber armor piercing slug in the shark's brainpan when it makes its presence known. Who owns the sea now?
And is the surfer still asking for it? Or has he proven that it is not at all what he was asking for? Because when the surfer lives by the animal's rules, but bests the animal, can the animal really still claim it as his territory?
Do you think man ever had a right to leave the cave? Because at one point, the whole planet was the territory of dominant predators who were not human. Shouldn't we have contented ourselves with scrambling around to eke out simple vegetarian lives that never appropriated the ken of they who were here first? Shouldn't we have accepted the natural order of things, which designated us primarily as food? Who were we to make the planet safe for our own at the expense of those who were already thriving?
You seem to be saying that if man competes with animal and wins, then man must bear a moral stigma. But if man competes with animal and loses, then man still bears responsibility. You can't have it both ways without advocating a double standard, which is hypocritical as hell, and which invalidates the alleged logic of your position. It's a contradiction on its face.
Not just for whales either
