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Is it morally wrong to be non-vegetarian?
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this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
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No, I have a developed system of morality, quite strong. And eating meat doesn't contradict it.
For anyone curious the model is based on avoidance of cruelty. Cruelty is what makes people bad. If you do something with cruel intentions it doesn't matter what you destroy, a human, other animal, a plant or even a geological formation. If you do it with cruelty on mind you are a bad person.
But if your intentions are others, then there's nothing bad. You eat meat not because you want to be cruel towards an animal, but because you want to eat. Then it's ok.
It's all about avoiding cruel intentions on humans. Those are my morals at least. I follow them and judge anothers based on them.
What is your definition of cruelty?
From Wikipedia: "Cruelty is the intentional infliction of suffering or the inaction towards another's suffering when a clear remedy is readily available."
Because eating meat requires cruelty per this definition IMO.
That definition is quite good, I would add that for cruelty to be cruelty the objective of your actions needs to be the cruelty.
Eating meat doesn't fall into that definition, fron my point of view.
You being alive causes a lot of suffering in the world, just because you are alive, you cannot live without doing harm to other living beings.
You draw you line on "I'm not cruel because I go out of my way not to eat meat". There are infinite lines you could draw before and after or in parallel. Someone could say "Ido not walk because I may step on some bug and that would make me cruel, and anyone who walks and thus step on bugs is cruel".
A clear remedy to avoid causing harm to absolutely any other living being is stopping being alive one self. I don't see much people following that route, and considering any living being as cruel would mean that that interpretation of what's cruelty is irrational and faulty. The intention for the suffering to exist is inherent in the cruelty. People need to enjoy that suffering in order to be cruel.
I do not enjoy damage to animals, it's just something inevitable when I eat them. Suffering is not my objective, not the objective of anyone who eats meat, I would assume. So no, they are not being cruel.
From my point of view, if the objective of your actions is not to cause suffering, even if your actions cause suffering, then you are not being cruel. Intention matters here.
From my perspective it is just unnecessary harm thus cruelty because you can live perfectly fine without eating or using anything provided by animals.
Veganism just wants you to reduce your harm to animals as much as is practically possible. Refusing to walk is not practical, not eating meat or dairy is very practical.
Take into account that one of the basis of my theory is that animals have no rights per se. When thinking about it it seemed illogical as it's impossible to police, control, or even tu conceive. How could you give rights to some invertebrate living 50 foot underground with a lifespans of 3 days that won't even see a human in that time?
My ideology thinks about humans. I'm human. Society is form by humans. Humans are the only rational being on earth. We can work with humans.
My definition of cruelty and why avoid it is not based on reduce harm to animals, I don't care about that. It's based on reduce harm on humans. That's why the intention and the enjoyment of causing suffering is the thing to avoid. Because that's what create "bad" humans, "cruel" humans. Humans that will hurt other humans. That's the only reason why I think that cruelty (towards anything, animal or not, even alive or not) is to be avoided. Just as a way to create a better society for humans.
As long as humans are "good" and not hurting other humans I don't really care if animals suffer. They are "lucky" that cruelty towards animals is proven to make humans worse. But just farming and managing livestock for human consumption has not been proven to do that, as there's not cruel intentions in it. Just intentions to feed ourselves.
That is where we fundamentally disagree.
That's not entirely true though: The Psychological Impact of Slaughterhouse Employment: A Systematic Literature Review
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358322559_Is_a_Plant-Based_Diet_Associated_with_Relationship_Aggression
Plant based diet has actually shown some relationship data with some forms of aggressiveness.
Study proposes normalize the data according to childhood trauma, but even then it would only show that plant based diet and omnivore diet have no differences.
And while there are also papers which relation eating meat qith aggressiveness. Most aggressiveness linked with diet is usually related to red meat consumption in excess. Not with all meat, neither with a balanced consumption of red meat.
Anyway, all those are barely noticeable. Not worth the benefits of people being able to chose their own diet.
As said the fundamental difference in philosophies, is the consideration of the existence of "animal rights" or not.
In a selfish tone, we concede all human, human rights because it's the path that leads to better live for one self. If you discriminate another human that human could have reasons to hurt you (legitimate reasons) It's proven that egalitarian societies work better. With animals this does not happen. Animal attitude towards humans is unchanged if we give them rights or not. It's not like a mosquito is going to stop bitting me because I consider it a first class citizen. Animal contribution towards my well-being will be the same, I eat them or not. From a practical point of view, giving animals rights achieve no goals neither for me or humanity as a whole. That's why I only concede humans rights, because giving human rights do make humans better, thus makes my life better.
this is great. have you read Why Kant Animals Have Rights? by Alex Howe
No, but it looks interesting I will add it to my reading list. Thanks!
how convenient!
What is your argument against slavery under this moral framework?
Glad you ask. The core of the moral framework are humans. Life should be good for humans. Why humans? Because I'm a human. And my moral framework should be universal, applicable by any other human on earth, because offering a morality that work good for every human is the only way to ensure that everyone can follow it and then have a good society. It doesn't apply to animals as animals themselves cannot adhere at any moral framework they don't have the ability to do so.
That being said the moral dogma look to ensure the behaviours that should ensure that human life is good. Slavery is bad for a human, so it's a bad thing. It's quite simple. A human suffering is just plain bad.
Why I mentioned cruelty before. Because in my moral framework animals have no rights, they couldn't they are not passive subjects of my morals. But the relationship between humans and animals (and plants and other elements is not inconsecuential in human-human relationships). Humans who are cruel inevitably cause pain in other humans, thus why cruelty is to be avoided. Including cruelty towards animals, planta or other elements. Humans have the right to live in a cruelty free world. That's why being cruel towards an animal, like causing the animal pain for no other reason that causing it pain, is bad, is cruel and creates a bad world for humans (in essence I'm not caring about the animal here, just about what world is being created for the humans). But if an animal gets killed just because it's a source of food, and cruelty had no part in the equation, then it's not bad, as that behavior doesn't create a bad world for humans to live in.