Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 SMI; site sun.uucp Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!sunny From: sunny@sun.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) Newsgroups: net.veg Subject: Re: Moral Dillema (sic) Message-ID: <1590@sun.uucp> Date: Fri, 27-Jul-84 16:12:26 EDT Article-I.D.: sun.1590 Posted: Fri Jul 27 16:12:26 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jul-84 21:23:02 EDT References: <2909@decwrl.UUCP> Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Lines: 32 I always thought that the simple fact that it's healthier for you to not eat meats was good enough justification for vegetarian tendencies, without needing to justify it by the "I don't kill animals" approach. I'm perfectly serious in suggesting that there are just as equal moral questions involved in killing plants as there are in killing animals. I'm not trying to be destructive, but constructive, in suggesting that you ought to consider that plants have consciousness before you feel that you've solved all the moral dilemmas by eating only plants instead of plants plus animals. At what point is the life form you eat sufficiently primitive and removed from the human level that you can be morally absolved of killing what you eat? What foods are there to eat which are not killed plants or animals? Only ones which had otherwise died before you reclassify them from plant or animal to food. There has been some research which indicated that plants were sufficiently conscious as to know when you merely *intend* to do them harm, and react so violently to being injured or having other nearby plants killed or injured, that you could measure their response on a galvanometer. The researcher who measured this response once had another scientist visit his laboratory, and happened to still have one of his plants wired up, and the plant just totally freaked out when this other scientist came into the laboratory, and it turned out that the visiting scientist routinely incinerated plants in laboratory crucibles to assay their chemical composition. The plant knew! And when the scientist merely approached another plant and thought about harming it, the other plant went into another fit! Oh, you don't believe in PSI phenomena? Well, then you probably won't believe plants are capable of it either. Eat heartily. Enjoy. I do. I've accepted the harsh reality of the jungle. I don't fool myself into false superiority just because I'm a human compared to other life forms. {ucbvax|decvax|ihnp4}!sun!sunny(Sunny Kirsten of Sun Microsystems) -- {ucbvax|decvax|ihnp4}!sun!sunny(Sunny Kirsten of Sun Microsystems)