A Tailored Mandate

In response to Sean - full post here

Personally, I think that vegetarianism isn't imperative for everybody; I think the need for vegetarianism should be tailored to each individual person.

Fortunately, humans are generally omnivores (somewhat lousy ones, but that is nearly besides the point), and as such they are able to choose between animal  and vegetation sustenance; omnivorism is a matter of choice and opportunity rather than necessity. So, the majority of humans could likely maintain a vegetarian diet with few (if any) problems.  However, there are certainly some individuals who, for a variety of reasons, cannot get all the nutrients they need from plant-based sources alone. As such, they are well within their rights to continue eating animal meat.

To go along with this, I would also add that ethics about a sliding scale in many ways. Veganism, for instance, is perhaps more ethically ideal than vegetarianism, but some people lack the resources and have allergies, which prevents them from being full time vegans; still, they should opt to be as ethical as they can be. So, in the case of a person who can't be a vegetarian due to being unable to get all the nutrients they need from plant-based foods, that individual should try only to eat the animal(s) with lowest value and only do so around as often as they need to in order to get the proper nutrients.

I suppose, also, that I would slightly alter Rollin's conclusion before I agree to it. I would say that if we are to use animals out of necessity, it is morally incumbent upon us to make that they benefit as well, by at least living decent lives, not lives of misery, fear, and pain.