DEUTSCHHelmut Bartussek
Eating meat is ethically justifiable if…
One’s rejection of meat consumption can well be justified by ethical arguments of personal conviction. However, ethical vegetarism does not sufficiently consider the nutritional requirements of children, sick and elderly persons and pregnant women. Furthermore it gives no answer to social and ecological problems following a comprehensive abstinence from meat. Hence, from an ethical viewpoint of consequentialism one can legitimately decide to eat meat. Christian ethics, on the basis of biblical testimony, does not imply a general interdiction of meat consumption. The presence of animals kept under caring and appropriate conditions and killed free of fear and pain can constitute a positive value in itself by increasing the pleasure experienced by sentient beings, admittedly an utopian goal. But ethics often calls on future understanding.
What about plants? There is no experimental evidence of the basic points of the theory of selection. “Survival of the fittest“ cannot really explain the majority of phenomena of life and the history of ideas. On the basis of an extended Christian view, I outline the moral obligation to responsibly handle and manage all creatures. For plants that means: 1. Consistently following “classical” methods of plant breeding on an organic basis. 2. Ban on genetic engineering. 3. Research into the phenomenon of empathic relationships between people and plants. 4. Research into and promotion of a positive allelopathic phytosociology as an expected contribution to plant’s “welfare“. More…
