Conflating Killing and Eating

I operate under no moral obligation of vegetarianism; however, I am morally obliged to refrain from lending support and validity to nigh any practice of killing an animal for food. This distinction, while seemingly counterintuitive is predicated by the possibility of consuming meat, contra vegetarianism, without violating the moral status due to animals. While the respect of this moral status is often manifested by a moratorium on the consumption of meat, such abeyance is not a necessary condition thereof.

It is morally wrong to inflict death upon another sentient being to fulfill a flittingly unnecessary desire. The conditions under which most animals are kept and killed compound this moral obligation by the actualization of excessive cruelty. Even so, not all instances of eating meat begotten under such conditions are morally unacceptable. Actually, the very act of consumption is very rarely unacceptable. It would be fitting now to transition from the theoretical to the practical. To purchase meat is to financially support an industry that constantly violates the moral status of animals. The consumption of mean, once purchased, is not. If meat were accidentally introduced to a vegetarian dish at a restaurant, the customer would have no moral obligation to discard the food.

The consumption of meat is often de facto tantamount, morally, to purchasing the meat. However, within the narrow possible parameters of their separation, refraining from consuming meat is no more than symbolic, and is certainly no moral obligation.