The consumption of meat is ethically wrong

I’m going to summarise by re-arranging my arguments into the most coherent forms I can manage. I will sparingly quote my opponent when it is relevant because quoting every piece he wrote (even after I condensed) left me with over 2500 words. I also found that what I saw to be prevailing faults were being made frequently, so I can hopefully hit multiple birds with a stone by addressing them all with a few words. My main points are bold to avoid a hard-to-read wall-of-text. I found this argument was quite pervasive, so I’m going to address it before I go anywhere: “But the suffering it gets from this doesn't necessarily make the life not worth living.” “If no other species should have the inherent right to life, then there must be a justification in order for you to say it is unethical to kill another animal. You have yet to give one reason why animals should have the right to life. Only that they should not have to deal with suffering.” I’m not arguing that any life is necessary, I’m arguing that restrictions and suffering imposed on sentient, feeling creatures by creatures of a similar nature that can understand these impositions, is unethical. Suffering is bad, and my opponent tries to justify human inflicted suffering by saying that the happiness generated exceeds that of the suffering. We have an insatiable need to consume -- we are designed to be motivated, not satisfied. What I mean by this is that the state achieved through doing things is temporary, it is never enduring. That’s why people play sports over and over again, that once isn’t enough. That’s why people have sex over and over again. That’s the reason we do anything, to achieve that state once more. We think that by doing these things, that there will be some sort of ‘completedness’. However, you can never be complete – you will always want one more or one more instance of something. My opponent then argues that there is nothing wrong with this drive, this desire to be satisfied because this generates more happiness than suffering. This can be true in certain instances, but if we analyse what exactly generates this happiness, we realise that happiness is simply a ‘less bad’ state, rather than a good state. It’s as simple as this: life is depravation, and a ‘positive’ life will be seen as eliminating these depravations. Want a job? Go out and get one. Want a car? Go and buy one. Hungry? Eat. Depravation then fulfilment. As you can hopefully see, your life is a constant depravation. I ‘need’ or ‘want’ are essential lines of argument to your existence. However, we make these wants based on the situation at hand. Take this example: A sentient, feeling creature suffers 100 times a day instead of 200, with each suffering equalling any other. Relative to the situation, it appears that this is of net benefit. The creature is still suffering is she not? Sure, she is suffering less rather than more, but the creature is still suffering. In the event that your suffering cannot be reprieved, you will lower your standards to deal with sufferings that can be fulfilled. There is no “net benefit”, there is less suffering. With this in mind, the best you could ever do is remove every depravation. This is called a ‘zero-sum equation’ wherein there is still suffering, it’s just that every suffering is removed at best. Clearly, the equalling of this zero-sum equation is not realistic to the world, an example being sentient, feeling animals. If we make it a given that humans must eat meat, it will always come at the expense of imposition and sometimes suffering. This is what I argue is unethical, hence why the human need for meat is unethical regardless of whether it is pertinent to survival. Since it’s almost non-negotiable, in regards to ethics, that suffering is bad and that preventing suffering would be neutral, then I now need to show why the imposition is unethical. Keeping animals in cages, or even roaming on a specific field is unethical. It would also be like Joseph Fritzl keeping that girl in a basement for a good proportion of her life. He probably derived a lot of pleasure from that, and she probably didn’t suffer all that much because she didn’t know better. I hope you now see how the imposition is unethical, that it’s not just the suffering involved. We, as humans, are animals. We share sentience and the ability to feel with other animals. In this sense, there are no relevant distinctions, ethically, that would put us ahead of these animals. Sure, we are more intelligent, but if an animal is suffering, it is suffering. Yes, intelligence could help it avoid suffering, but if the suffering is occurring, the suffering is occurring. A similar line of argument would apply to imposition. In fact, because we can understand this occurrence of suffering, we should be ethically obliged to prevent it altogether. I think this is the core of my opponent’s argument to sustain life for happiness: “I hope I have made it clear that, although there is suffering in the world, there is also it's opposite. Happiness.” Happiness is not the opposite, it is simply a state of less suffering, less bad, less imposition etc. By becoming happy, you are essentially recognising that you are making your life less bad. Again, it’s a zero-sum equation. Furthermore, since you cannot rid yourself of every depravation, you then formulate a relativistic complex from which you can derive ‘reasonable’ wants. That’s why people living in squalor in India don’t have a problem, that this is the way life ‘is’. However, if you showed them life in the Western world, they would re-evaluate their standards based on that. They would begin to think: ‘this is horrible!’ Again, this is only relative to what they have seen. But consider this: life is inherently bad and it’s simply though this relativistic process that we rationalise ourselves to thinking that it is good. However, objective to this process, it is simply less bad, that happiness is a result of living in a less bad situation than what you are accustomed to. Remember how I wrote that humans are designed to be motivated and not satisfied? Yes, we will always want more, that happiness can only continue to be produced by having more. Once that occurrence has generated that happiness, this psychology will need the occurrence to be ‘more’ in order to generate more happiness because we are accustomed to the original occurrence. Do you see? Happiness is based purely on relativity, the reality is simply ‘less bad’. It’s clear from the comment section of not only this debate, but other areas where I have argued this, that I haven’t got a hope in hell to win this debate. From this, I have learned that people love to make relativistic arguments and attempt to shroud them as ethical. Also, speciesism is rampant among humans because of this relativistic tendency (or a belief in God) – at least I can now see where the problem lies. I urge you, as the reader, to simply try to understand where I am coming from; read my arguments closely because your inherent tendencies will try to steer you away from agreeing with me. Please, question these tendencies. Imagine if you were not participating in this game of life; you live as a non-human far away. What would you think of what humans do? I know what I am arguing will naturally seem bleak to you; I was once a good Christian girl whom would cringed at and despise people who came up with these ideas. Nevertheless, I can assure you, if you understand my rationale in this argument, you would see how the world revolves around irrational tendencies that are designed to motivate and never satisfy sentient, feeling creatures. Considering that human survival has no purpose or value, causes unethical imposition and causes suffering to some extent most of the time, the consumption of animals is ethically wrong. Anyway, I thank Valladarex for a chance to test this different line of argument.