[Avodah] anti-meat rhetoric "according to Judaism"

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 04:25:06PM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: Whether they are or are not "aware of their own mental state" seems
: irrelevant to me. They can and do feel pain, don't they?

But they don't feel themselves feeling pain. There is no "I" as in
"I am in pain". There are chemical and neurological events, yes, but
not suffering as we think of the concept.

:> You are setting a threshold based on the notion that there is real
:> suffering going on that carries a moral burden to avoid. Who said?

: Are you saying that there's no real suffering going on?

Exactly, because an animal doesn't have a ruach, and therefore there is
no one to suffer. There is stimulus and response, with no awareness or
bechirah in between. IOW, I am saying that Skinner and all the other
Radical Behaviorists were totally off in explaining the human metzi'us,
but their kind of analysis does yeild a complete description of animals.

(WADR to Roo the cockerpoo (cockerspaniel poodle mix) and Cream the cat,
my kids' pets who I'm mentioning just to show that I don't actually
hate animals. Hey, I even wrote "who" when the above means I should have
written "which"!)

This is just philosophical back-explanation anyway.

Bottom line is that I'm extending the Ramban's explanation of shiluach
haqen being about training people, rather than "al qan tzippor yagiu
Rachamekha" to TBC as well. I'm happier doing that thinking there is
no tzaar as we understand the word, but I think the lack of reason to
distinguish between what the Ramban said there and TBC is sufficient
to make my point.

: I suspect that people are talking past each other because we're not
: being clear on the nature of the alleged Tzaar Baalei Chayim...

I don't think we're talking past each other. We simply have a difference
of opinion about the definition of mitigating need. Nor does it revolve
around the nature of animal suffering -- I just raised my disbelief of
that subject to explain why I'm okay with the din requiring so little
justification to permit causing pain to animals.

FWIW, in terms of developing ehrlachkeit, as I tried to show from the
story about Rebbe's toothache, it's a good lifnim mishuras hadin not to
eat pate de fois gras or white veal -- even if I didn't think the way
either is done is too likely to produce tereifos anyway.

But that's Hilkhos Dei'os, not a letter-of-the-law TBC issue.

And I feel we can't really make a strong argument about factory-raised
animals being actual iqar-hadin assur if so many of the acharonim we
rely upon actually did eat fattened geese.

Tangent:

Is there a strong connection between the Hil' Dei'os obligation not
to stick to shuras hadin without ever setting "stretch goals" and the
concept of tosefes Shabbos / Yom Tov / Shemittah?

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Zion will be redeemed through justice,
micha at aishdas.org        and her returnees, through righteousness.
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