A vegetarian who picks out meat - is that ethically wrong?!
So my question is....
which is more unethical?
eating a slaughtered animal or having had the animal die in vain?
How do you resond in these situations?
thanks a lot for your opinions?
Answers: A few of my friends have recently become vegetarians....they used to eat meat but decided they felt it was unethical. When we went out to eat the other day they ordered a dish and when it arrived there was meat in it. My friends casually picked out all the pork and put in on the side of the plate..
So my question is....
which is more unethical?
eating a slaughtered animal or having had the animal die in vain?
How do you resond in these situations?
thanks a lot for your opinions?
If it was me, I would have returned the dish, and made a complaint to the manager about the waiter not knowing the menu inside out. In this day and age, so many people have allergies to things, that that could have turned out pretty nasty. Of course, some eateries still think of veg*nism as a 'fad'. But, no, under no circumstances could / would I eat a meal if there had been any meat in it.
BUT - it is up to THEM what THEY do. We can only judge people by our own ethics, just us they can Judge us by theirs.
vegitarians who are vegitarian for any other reason than disliking the taste, or "health" are generally extremley illogical in their reasoning.
yes its unethical to kill an animal for no reason, but they dont see it that way. perhaps next time encourage them to ask for it to be made without pork in the first place.
other than that, i wouldnt waste your time. youll get nowhere.
THATS A REALLY GOOD QUESTION
i feel inclined to say that your friends are not really vegetarians, and nothing more than wannabe's, they are jumping on the bandwagon and feel the need to have a label that shows them in a cool light, however this just paints them in a bad light
a true vegetarian would not have ordered a dish with pork and leave it aside and consume the rest, IN THIS INSTANCE, its worse the animal died in vain, making them more unethical than a meat eater
hardly ambassadors for vegetarians are they?
haha wow they think that eating meat is unethical cuz of the way the animals are treated at the slaughter house and yet they still order food with meat on it. Its sad how they think they are doing something right, by not eating meat, but the animal is still getting killed! After a few days or weeks they are probably gonna go back to eating meat since they are not true commited vegetarians.
Your friend was behaving unethically. In that particular case it was a choice between eating the meat and throwing it away .
If they thought that they were ordering a dish without meat, it is the restaurant staff or the server that is guilty of wasting the meat.
Your friends did what they were supposed to and asked beforehand.
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If the meat has already been prepared, it has been wasted if they decide to serve it to vegetarians.
It makes no difference whether they ate it or not.
If they are your friends, why do you want to prove that they are doing something wrong?
Is eating the meat supposed to make you happy.
It won't reduce the suffering of animals it's already dead and can't be served to another customer now.
It depends on what they think is unethical. Do they think it is unethical to eat other living things? Are they against how animals are treated? If they think it is unethical to eat other living things then no, it isn't wrong of them to pick out the pork because they are just doing what they think is right, not eating meat. But if they are against how animals are treated just so people could eat meat, then it is wrong because it is hypocritical of them to eat something that has/had animal products in it. Next time, they should probably ask the server a few questions about the ingredients in the meal. The server might get annoyed but its a lot better than being a hypocrite. Just leave a big tip.
Big gap indeed... The fault is with the liar not the one lied to..
It would been more unethical if they sent the whole dish back and waste both meat and veggies..( and honestly, the restaurant would have just removed the pork like your friends did)
Really, I don't see anybody passing blame or making excuses except you. Seems like you are almost desperate to pin some unethical issue on your friends when all they did was order a food they thought was "safe", were lied to or misinformed, then in order not to waste, just set aside the foods they can't or won't eat. The restaurant through it's waiter is at fault. And saying so is not "passing blame" on anyone, it is merely stating a fact.
If your friends became Vegetarians for ethical reasons, then they are hypocrites if they ordered a dish that they knew ahead of time had meat in it because this contributes to the demand for meat that leads to more slaughter of innocent animals. Vegetarians should ask before they order a dish that might have meat in it so as to be true to their principles and to communicate their objection to the waiter regarding the slaughter of innocent animals. To be absolute purists about this, they should not even patronize a restaurant that serves meat dishes.
If they didn't expect the dish to have meat in it and then picked it out when it arrived, this would be less hypicritical but might be considered downright wasteful (which is a sin) because yes, that animal now died in vain. They should have saved the meat from that meal and gone and given it a proper burial, complete with prayer and all the appropriate burial rights.
If they became Vegetarians for their own health related reasons, they would not be hypocritical because they are merely picking out the meat from their food to protect their own digestive system from some of the deleterious effects of consuming meat (e.g. more cholesterol, fat, etc.). Some people who have been Vegetarians for a while have a reaction to eating meat, oftentimes feeling sluggish or even ill because their system has not been accustomed to digesting meat for some time and forces the digestive tract to work overtime and generate new enzymes to break down the meat.
Personally, I think a lot of Vegetarians can be absolute pains in the ****, particularly when they look down on you for eating meat as if you were some cannibal or enemy of the earth. Plants have feelings too, you know, which is why they react to being talked to and grow faster when the right kind of music is played around them. So that celery stalk is actually screaming "Ouch Ouch Ouch!" when those viscious Vegetarians are biting into them like the plant killers that they are. They should be ashamed of themselves for destroying one of God's creatures in such a cruel and brutal fashion! Tell them that the next time they go murdering a garden full of broccoli, carrots, peas and calliflower, all of whom have a right to occupy this earth in the pursuit of happiness just as much as any of us do. Harumph! (smiles)
Kudos to those vegetarians who can eat the meat that was accidentally given to them. I get sick at the smell and taste of meat, so I just can't get myself to eat it, I try to offer it to other people when that happens. If it's something so soaked in meat, I usually get it exchanged, I really can't eat it!
Especially pork, that stuff makes me really ill.
I don't think it's more ethical either way. Just one way, it's a waste, but should be given to someone else if you can't eat it. I know that's hypocritical, but if someone put something you don't like eating (maybe you don't like broccoli) on your plate, would you eat it? Most people wouldn't, and that's also a waste of food.
They shouldn't eat it--meat from an animal that was sad when it was alive is unhealthy. It didn't die "to be eaten" or "in vain", it died "to be eaten and make someone unhealthy" or "to still be killed but not make someone unhealthy".
Krister gives an excellent answer.
I think they should have told the waiter to take it back and either gotten something else (if they're brave after sending food back to the kitchen...LOL) or gone to another restaurant.
"meat from an animal that was sad when it was alive is unhealthy"---????
If the reason for going vegetarian is an ethical one, then purchasing meat (whether you eat it or not) is sort of defeating the purpose. They are still offering financial support to an industry they claim not to support.
Your question seems to imply that they should have eaten it so the animal didn't die in vain, but that's ridiculous. They didn't order the animal slaughtered - they didn't even order a dish with animal in it. They should eat something objectionable just because the waiter made a mistake? What they should have done is point out the error and send the dish back.