I do not understand why it’s better that animals never exist than that they exist in conditions better than they would if they happened to exist in the wild.
I have never supported buying blood diamonds. But most diamonds do not come from there, and diamond mining does support people; often better than they would be supported without the mining. It’s fine with me if your fiance buys your daughter a manmade diamond or no diamond at all. It’s none of my business what he does.
Your last statement is the one I have a problem with. You have not said what your source of knowledge is about poultry farms. But your opinion is obviously very negative about them. Perhaps you have been in integrator houses that are horrible. I don’t know. I have been in many big integrator houses and I grew up on a farm where we raised chickens “Old McDonald’s Farm” style. Commercial integrator houses are not cruel. Even processing is not cruel. I have been in poultry plants too, and have watched the process from start to finish. I have seen some of the films put out by some organizations; some linked by people on CAF, and the ones I have seen totally misrepresent what commercial poultry growing is like. The people who made the films I have seen really are trying to impose their moral or ethical beliefs on others by misrepresentation. I do not accuse you of that. But if one’s opposition to eating, say, chicken, is based on some of those phony films, and if one proselitizes people against eating chicken based on those mistaken understandings, then, in my opinion that is, indeed, at least a product of neo-Puritanical attempt to impose one’s moral values on another. Those who make those hoked-up films are definitely doing it. It is akin to those people who imposed the Volstead Act on the U.S. by making it seem that “demon rum” was universally immoral in its effects. It wasn’t, but the real motivation for the Volstead Act were the moral convictions of people who were against alcohol for those reasons. It was just one more exacerbation of a Puritanism that the U.S. seems to find difficult to fully shake. Sometimes, as with the Volstead Act, such people sometimes manage to write their peculiar moral convictions into law.
I have also seen it opined on CAF by some that cattle are typically raised in confinement. I have said before that very, very few are and, except in the case of some veal calves (and I don’t favor that) it’s economically absurd. I raise cattle. I live in an area where ranching is very big. I have traveled widely in other ranching areas. And I know it’s just not true.
So why do people say it is? Some, I am sure, repeat it out of ignorance. Some have their moral positions on eating beef (or any meat, usually) and misrepresent it in order to impose their ethical or religious beliefs on others by making it seem cruel (and thus immoral) when it’s neither.
Possibly I am overreacting to some of the posts in here. Can’t say which ones and I’m too tired to go back and check them all again. But I get the distinct feeling that some are trying to make Catholics believe meat-eating or fur-wearing are immoral, when the Church doesn’t teach anything of the sort. The premise some use to cause others to deviate from the Church actually teaches is to maintain that it’s cruel and abusive in practice and is immoral for that reason, in the same sort of way that setting kittens on fire for fun would be considered immoral by the Church. One would not be unreasonable in concluding that doing so could be rightly considered an imposition of moral idiosyncrasies.
