Vegetarians/vegans...what would you do?!


Question:

Vegetarians/vegans...what would you do?

first off, i myslef am vegan, not some random smart a** trying to condemn the lifestyle. but the question is this: if someone came up to you and handed you a plate of fried chicken and told you you can either eat it or he'll kill another chicken, what would you do? and just to make it interesting, what if he was going to kill 10 chickens or some humans if you didn't eat the chicken?


Answers:
The fried chicken is already dead. Whether or not you eat it, it won't bring the chicken back to life. But if you don't eat it, another chicken (or 10) would die. Sure we can say "i didn't kill those chickens, so its not really my fault. i'll stay pure by not eating the fried chicken." But isn't that just a selfish attitude? You are choosing your own purity over the lives of the chickens. We are responsible for things that we choose to do as well as things that we choose not to do. If you can see that not eating the already dead chicken will cause 10 more to be killed, and you do not eat the chicken, you are responsible.

I think that anybody that says they would not eat the chicken is really just denying their responsiblity in the situation and selfishly choosing their own peace of mind over the lives of the chickens.

Source(s):
i'm a philosophy major and love ethics questions like this. :)

drop him where he stands, im a vegeterian too

that's a standard philosophical question in different variations .. .

basically, i would stay a vegan, and if he killed one or several other chickens or humans, that's really his karma . . .and responsibility.

If you didn't eat the chicken it would have been killed in vain, and *more* chickens and possibly humans would die as a result.

Who would let that happen? apart from her ^^

i'd walk away.

killing animals is nothing i want 2 b part of.
i'd turn my back and walk away.
meat means murder.
a man killing chickens is not something i'd stick around and watch!

Not eat it.
You can't trade 1 life for others.

i would eat the chicken then for him t kill another chicken or human even if i am a vegitarian

I doubt the killing of chickens would be an issue for me.. Now if a human was to be killed DAMN right I'd eat the chicken. The rest I'd leave in God's hands.

My (vegetarian) diet has little, if anything, to do with keeping animals alive. I'd ask him to pass the wedge fries and ignore the chicken, fried and otherwise.

I don't think you're going to get many people choosing chicken lives over people's, though.

This could be a philosophical question, but this question is often asked to humans about humans during war. Trade in your life, for the life of your fellow conspirators/race/religon. As a philosophical vegan, I see no moral distinction between any of Earth's living creatures. They all deserve to live on this planet. One is no better than another in the big picture. When a question is asked dealing with animals, I ask it the same question dealing with humans. How easily we, as humans, can dismiss animals with rights to live a life worth living, but then again we do the same with humans. If we can not care about the rights of humans, we have a long ways to go to care about the rights of animals. Sigh. . . . .

I wouldn’t eat it. First of all how many pet chickens do you know? I'm willing to bet probably not any. Any chicken is America is most likely on it's way to a slaughterhouse in the near future. You eating chicken is not truly going to save anything.

These hypothetical questions are all well and good, but when it comes to our everyday dealings with animals this, "burning house scenario” does not really apply. If I had to choose between saving a human and a animal and I did not know either, I would save the person. We Identify with our own species first and foremost when there are no qualifiers involved (mainly whether you know the person or the animal or not). Just because in this case I would most likely save the human does not mean that I condone animal use for human ends. I'm a Vegan who believes in abolition of animal ownership plan and simple. However even subscribing to a worldview that some may call "radical", I don't think it's wrong to prefer a human over an animal in a TRUE emergency situation.

The problem is our day-to-day interactions with animals are not emergences, quite the opposite in almost all cases. Think about this; fishing, hunting, trapping, fur wearing, and meat consumption all have one main thing in common, They center around pleasure. none of the activities listed above are a necessity for any but a very, very small percentage of the western worlds population. With a change in the political, and economic structure of the world it would be necessary for exactly zero people to partake in the above list of things.

My guess would be he was probaly going to kill the chickens anyway, regardless if you ate the dead one, I mean they are his chickens right? So what was he planning to do with them in the first place. :)




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