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Veganism has the unassailable moral high ground. Change my mind.

Among populations where eating meat and animal products in not made necessary by economic conditions, vegans are morally correct that animal suffering trumps your enjoyment of animal products.
FreeSpirit1 · 51-55, F
If you think being an omnivore isn't moral then there is no argument which would change your mind.
I do not feel immoral when I eat meat.
FreeSpirit1 · 51-55, F
@Pikachu The reason I say labeling meat eaters as immoral is a non starte is that label could be used for anything, if a group of people say vegans are immoral for killing and eating plants how would you counter that?
@FreeSpirit1

I would have a discussion about suffering.
FreeSpirit1 · 51-55, F
@Pikachu It's perceptions. If they say plants suffer when we pull them from the earth who are we to question it?
We would just shake our heads and eat our cabbage...same thing meat eaters do when they are called immoral.
QueenOfZaun · 26-30, F
I don’t think humans eating animals is less moral. Because we were designed to eat meat. Yes, meat is not always the healthiest food for us to eat and as time goes on, it is becoming less necessary because of the way our society is advancing. But for an insanely long period of human history, a vegan diet was not feasible to survive in this world. Have you ever seen the show Naked and Afraid?, a vegan girl was a contestant on there and in the face of starvation she had to break her vegan diet to survive.

My boyfriend wants to be vegan but can’t because vegan food is insanely expensive compared to normal groceries. He literally can’t afford it. So is he less moral for simply not being able to afford vegan food? This is where the moral parameters for measuring morality based on diet get a little redundant.

At the end of the day, food is food. I think if you intentionally waste food, that’s not moral. But judging people’s diets to be less moral or more moral then others is currently not a productive measure of morality. Looking at it reasonably and realistically, it will take us a very, very long time to stop systematically killing animals for food or other products. I hope that day comes eventually but you have to understand that the situation is far more complex then that. Mankind has been hunting animals probably ever since we could walk on two feet. The industrial revolution only happened just over a hundred years ago. We will likely reach a point in the future where we absolutely, indefensibly, do not need to eat animals anymore. But I don’t think vegan food or a vast amount of people are quite there yet. It’s going to be a hard habit to break. Anyway that’s my two cents.
@QueenOfZaun

[quote]That animal did not die for nothing. [/quote]

But i haven't said it died for nothing, i'm saying it died when it need not have died because that person did not [i]need[/i] to eat that animal, they [i]chose[/i] to eat that animal

[quote]You’re drawing a line in the sand on a spot where people don’t necessarily have the most personal control over.[/quote]

Yes but i'm also very explicitly not passing judgement on people who have no control over it.

[quote] I don’t think choosing meat over a vegan diet is more morally reprehensible then eating it and not having the option[/quote]

Well i think that's really the long and the short of it lol. We disagree.
I think we've probably reached the end of this conversation.
That said, if you'd like to write a final response then please do.
QueenOfZaun · 26-30, F
@Pikachu Nah. I’m good. I was getting pretty bored tbh
@QueenOfZaun

lol fair enough.
Thanks for the discussion though.
I always like to talk to someone with whom i can disagree and not have it devolve into a mud slinging match.🙂✌️
More like privileged virtue signaling. It also creates this bullshit narrative that veganism vs factory farms and abuse are a legit dychotomy.

I would also say in vegan circles you also see as much pseudoscience as in UFO and anti vax circles. In fact in many cases they overlap with anti vaxxers.
@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow

[quote]so that is a silly point to make.[/quote]

No. You said "[i]Whether it is necessary to eat meat is something that in this case is determined on an emotional level not medical or scientific basis[/i]."

If we're defining necessity as whether or not one can have a healthy diet on veganism then this paper defeats the notion that such a determination is an emotional one.

[quote]ue you are basically condemning anyone who doesn't have the luxury of making their diet political[/quote]

Nope.
I've made it very clear that i'm not condemning such people and insisting that i must doesn't change that.
@Pikachu No it doesn't because the people who wrote the paper and the people making the decisions are not the same group. So that is ridiculous to make that leap. And as I pointed out everything in that paper is just theory.




Again, that is just to make you feel better that you are adding that caveat. It doesn't change the facts. You can't make it a moral failing then move the goalposts afterwards.
@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow

lol well i reckon we're going to have to agree to disagree because at this point we're just going in circles.

Thanks for the discussion though. Very robust👍
Piper · 61-69, F
I can't really assail that view, in the way you've presented it. Most people who abstain from the consumption of meat and most or some animal 'products', do so in an attempt to do the [i]least[/i] harm.
There is nothing ethical or moral about the undeniable suffering of animals in factory farming. According to most available statistics, around 99% of animals consumed in the US are factory farmed.

Those who claim to and probably do "love animals" yet ridicule those who abstain from eating them just because of that, has always been difficult for me to really understand.
I'm going to say though, that trying to [i]guilt[/i] people is counter-productive. Not that I think you're doing that here, but I've seen that happen sometimes. Also, one of the main reasons many people claim as the reason for their hostility towards vegans and vegetarians? It's [b]because[/b] they think vegetarians or vegans feel that they're "morally superior".
@Piper

Yeah i think that's probably just a reaction to the uncomfortable fact that vegans [i]are[/i] morally superior in this case lol.
And let me make it clear that i personally am not a vegan. I'm a hypocrite.
I try wherever i can to limit my consumption of meat but i still eat it.
Piper · 61-69, F
I didn't think you were a vegan, @Pikachu. I consider myself a hypocrite in some ways about this subject, but only within myself. Although I've not personally consumed a bird or fellow mammal since the late 80's, I do not consider those who have and do [i]im[/i]moral...simply because of that.
@Piper

Well i don't think that if someone does some immoral things then they are necessarily an immoral person.
I'm sure a philosophy major can tear me a new one for that but that's what i think lol
BlueVeins · 22-25
What do you think about eating sessile bivalves (oysters & mussels)?
BlueVeins · 22-25
@Pikachu Wouldn't that imply that animals that aren't physiologically capable of suffering are exempt from that protection?
@BlueVeins

Well i'd point to pretty serious limitations on our ability to know if an animal can suffer.
Recent experiments on brain damaged humans have shown us that suffering is quite possible even when parts cortex which we would consider necessary for suffering are non-functional.
BlueVeins · 22-25
@Pikachu It's true that consciousness is moreso inferred and speculated about than ascertained with confidence in general, but I think the case for sessile bivalves being non-sentient is really strong. It's true that animals can be sentient with much simpler nervous systems, but the extent of the simplicity gap is pretty astounding. Clams, for example, only have six ganglia, four of which control opening and closing, whereas humans have several dozen in our spinal chord alone.

And then, you have the fact that it just doesn't make evolutionary sense for sessile bivalves to be sentient. Sessile bivalves can open and close their shells in response to changes in lighting (as they have very primordial light sensors) and impact and that's basically it. Insects, humans, dogs, fish, etc. are only sentient because it allows us to navigate complex environments, but sessile bivalves live a life comparable in complexity to those of plants and fungi.

Clams have been around since the Cambrian period, so even if clams were ever sentient, it seems inconceivable that they wouldn't increase their genetic fitness by ditching an energy-intensive capability that they don't/shouldn't need.

You could make an argument from moral caution, and that's fair, but I'd argue that given the level of risk that we're talking about, the harm done to pest insects in the course of plant agriculture is more serious. We know pretty much for a fact that fruit flies and similar bugs are sentient and they have to be killed to produce any plant food. Mussels (to my knowledge) can be farmed and harvested without any real pest control.

LMK what you think about it, I know it's a weird-ass argument.
BlueVeins · 22-25
The amount of mental gymnastics in the comments section here makes my damn day.
Doomflower · 36-40, M
Eh fair enough.

Though I will point out human suffering is involved in both meat and farming industries. I would argue that while vegans do have the high ground, it's like... not very high really. Maybe a few inches. It's just about practically impossible to live your life in a way that causes no suffering to other living beings.
Doomflower · 36-40, M
@BlueVeins I love clams and muscles. I feel like crabs and lobster are giant underwater bugs and like them too but I hate them being boiled alive.
BlueVeins · 22-25
@Doomflower Yeah, I kinda think the whole boiling alive thing is crazy 👀 and I'm pretty sure it's not all that risky to kill them humanely right before cooking them. But yeah, in my searching, I've found that mussels & clams are almost certainly not sentient and that it's therefore OK to cook them. 😌 So yeah, if you wanna help the animals, maybe incorporate more of those into your diet.
@BlueVeins

Yeah i think that's one ethical hurdle i will not have to jump because i'm just not going to eat those things lol
Modern commercial agriculture is also questionable as it destroys natural habitats for many kinds of animals. It may not be killing them deliberately, but it has a similar effect on the environment.

The issue with meat eating, at least for me, isn't killing animals per se, but raising them in dirty, overcrowded conditions where their entire existence from birth to death amounts to torture. Free-range setups combined with slaughterhouses modeled on Temple Grandin's designs, where the animals don't experience fear, are morally preferable.
@LeopoldBloom

I agree that more humane treatment and slaughter is preferable...but it's still an issue to me to take an animal's life so that i can have an enjoyable taste in my mouth.
revenant · F
I am human and I am made to eat meat. There is no morality involved.
@revenant

What do you mean by "above" and how would it morally justify inflicting suffering unnecessarily?
revenant · F
@Pikachu I certainly am not for animal torture and I do feel sorry for the animals when I see abattoirs. Actually seeing little chicks being ground up alive make cry. I really wish this would not happen.
@revenant

Yeah it's messed up
Elessar · 26-30, M
As @JohnRing said, it's a type of diet that involves either relying on a high amount of industrial/processed crap, or a (risky) DIY approach that will most likely result in an unbalanced and unhealthy diet, especially if without medical supervision and/or constant diagnostic monitoring. Its proponents focus only on the good aspects forgetting completely the reasons that make it extremely unpractical and unlikely to become anything more than a niche market, exclusively for wealthy/mid-class people living in wealthy countries.

If the goal is reducing/eliminating farming, we have a much better luck with synthetic meat provided that 1) it'll become much cheaper than now and 2) it can be grown into full muscles/organs than just a messy aggregation of cells that are at most suitable for making burgers.
@Elessar

Yeah synthetic meat is something i'm very excited about.
But is "it's harder to eat vegan" really a defeater of the moral argument in favour of veganism?
Elessar · 26-30, M
@Pikachu Well, forcing people to change their diet habits especially in a way that can possibly create problems (from physical, to social and even psychological), would raise ethical questions too.

Not forcing anyone (i.e. the situation we have now), results in extremely low adoption rates to have any observable impacts altogether on farming.

I don't think it works. Similarly to how prohibition didn't work for alcohol.
@Elessar

The practical enforcement or adoption of veganism seems to me to be a separate issue to the moral superiority of the position.

If one has the means to stop feeding off the suffering of animals then i can't see a moral argument not to.
JacksonBlue · 31-35, M
Ive been vegetarian and vegan for periods and currently eat meat. I agree. Vegans have the moral high ground.

My thing is ultimately, it doesnt make a difference. If everyone in the world turned vegan the world wouldnt miraculously heal or be a haven for animals.

The animals bred specifically for food will need to be dealt with by either releasing them into the wild which would see a lot of them die and the natural resources being wiped out which would kill the wild animals.

The environmental gains will be lost to the meat alternatives being set up and the animal preservation of the above scenario.

Eventually things could sort themselves out in the long run once the environment get back into the status quo. But there is so much uncertainty as to what would happen.

Maybe im just making excuses though. Either way i dont think the meat consumption stopping would be a magic bullet ethically or environmentally.

More power to any vegans who do it though cos it sucks.
@JacksonBlue

It's true that it's not a silver bullet for all the ills of the world and a sudden shift would present it's own challenges.
But as you say, still a more moral way to live.
The diet that has the least impact on ecosystems and the smallest number of sentient beings harmed is hunter-gathering because it is in dynamic balance with natural surplusses. One is literally picking fruit or nuts off trees, insects off plants, taking animals before their natural predators. The natural diet of the indigenous people here was mostly snails and acorns. Not its brought in on trucks.

Go off the hunting gathering cycle and one is perturbing the natural patterns of surplus. One majorly does that farming animals to great suffering to them and ecological disaster. But mass farming things like soy, wheat has a similar impact though smaller in scale. Kill alot of animals to keep the corn, alot to bring it in.

The problem is that the population density cant support hunting gathering. Especially given how we have fucked nature. All of our subsistence is in a nonequilibrium state now.
@CopperCicada

[quote]The problem is that the population density cant support hunting gathering.
[/quote]
Yeah i was gonna say lol
We've artificially expanded carrying capacity and unless we want to cull humanity we're going to have to make compromises with the environment.
@Pikachu Yea. The question is really how to be the least in disequilibrium. And I suspect that will have local variations. It probably makes sense to go dart an orca and eat it for a year than try to ship in vegan nuggets and salads to the Inuit. I don’t think it’s a clear cut as vegan/nonvegan. I suspect it is also individually specific.
@CopperCicada

lol now there's a thought.
JohnRing · 56-60, M
I’ve never heard the plan for what to do with livestock? Are they to be destroyed and not used? Taken care of? If we’re not using livestock animals for anything and they are stress on the environment, what is the moral thing to do with them?
JohnRing · 56-60, M
@Pikachu the movement has never addressed this as far as I know. I’m not just picking on you. But it’s offensive to me when anyone proclaims to be more moral than anyone else.
@JohnRing

Did you look very hard?

https://www.onegreenplanet.org/uncategorized/what-would-happen-to-all-the-animals-if-everyone-went-vegan/

You can certainly be offended but that doesn't make it wrong.
I mean so far (and correct me if i'm wrong) your only challenge to the moral superiority of veganism is "what would happen to livestock" and "you hadn't thought about that before"
This message was deleted by its author.
JohnRing · 56-60, M
It’s ushering in an era of highly process foods. Change my mind.
@JohnRing Cooking from scratch isn't an option for many people.
This message was deleted by its author.
Bushranger · 70-79, M
@SomeAreBoojums I'm not a vegan and I'm not saying that all domesticated animals should be set free, but I'd like to ask why they would suffer from slow starvation? Dogs, perhaps depending on the breed, but most of our farmed animals are herbivores. They would have other issues, but I can't see how starvation would be one of them.

I'm not trying to be critical or have a go at you, just interested in your thinking on this. Perhaps I'm missing something.
Burnley123 · 41-45, M
It's more that it has the environmentalist high ground. So if you wanna gloat some more, there is your ammo. 🤣

I like eating beef. Daisy doing loads of climate-changing farts before dying a painful death isn't gonna change that.

I'm just a terrible person.
@Burnley123


Yup there's definitely the environmental side to.

Well at leas you know lol
Burnley123 · 41-45, M
@Pikachu More hallowed by the ground you work upon and the humus you nibble.
sunrisehawk · 61-69, M
Interesting, the last time I checked, morals were not situational. How can it be moral in some economic situations and not others?
sunrisehawk · 61-69, M
@CopperCicada I disagree that right and wrong changes based upon the situation. I've never said that there weren't hard choices in life. And just for your information, if I want to tell some to fuck themselves, I will say in a very clear way.

Unlike the popular fashion, I can disagree with others without calling names or hating them.
SW-User
@sunrisehawk You are just renaming situational morals "hard choices."
@sunrisehawk

[quote]What you're saying in this post is nothing more than the manifestation of the opinion that you are better than others.[/quote]

I don't believe i ever claimed to be a vegan.

I Think CopperCicada has made a clear an argument as i would of how morality is indeed situational.
It sounds like you recognize that even if you refuse to acknowledge it.

If you like let's say that eating animals if you have no choice is still immoral but it is significantly more immoral to eat animals if you [i]do[/i] have the choice not to.
JoePourMan · 61-69, M
I agree with what St Paul wrote about this argument almost 2,000 years ago.

"Let not the one who eats meat despise the one who does not, and let not the one who does not eat meat judge the one who eats; for God has received both"
@JoePourMan

Nah
lol
Carla · 61-69, F
If animals are raised to live a comfortable life, eat naturally, roam relatively freely, and are put down with no stress(like witnessing other herd members put down), is it then immoral to eat those animals?

There are areas in this world where a year round, plant based diet is near to impossible. Indigenous peoples of Alaska and people living a self subsistence lifestyle must hunt for fat and protein to live.
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@Carla

I think you can make the argument that swatting mosquitoes is self defense.
Ants...honestly i just take them outside even though i know they get back in because i've marked them lol

[quote]But damn, I really love a good steak or piece of fresh fish[/quote]

And that's really the stumbling block for most people. We like it. It tastes good.
But we have to ask ourselves if that's a good enough reason to keep eating.
I mean, it's [i]not [/i]but we do it anyway. Myself included.
Carla · 61-69, F
@Pikachu a moral dilemma?
Bad4U · 22-25, F
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFBeeBSIH5Q]
@Bad4U
lol
texasdaddydom · 51-55, M
Life lives off life. I do believe in better practices in managing live stalk and humane farming.
@texasdaddydom

Well that's true. I can't see us ever getting away from eating plants.
I am really looking forward to synthetic meat though. That's gonna be a game changer.
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@SW-User

Yup.
But morals don’t taste as good a bacon.
@WanderingSavage

Can you make a moral argument for inflicting suffering so that you can enjoy a taste sensation?
@Pikachu my enjoyment of the bacon matters more to me then the dead animal.
@WanderingSavage

And do you feel that is a morally defensible position?
everything I eat is plant based. all come from the local meat packing plant
my mind has been changed by the truth, good to see it here.
FloorGenAdm · 51-55, M
You have digestive problems...own it!
Do you own a pet?
@Pinkstarburst

Yes i'm aware of that.
But if we're just using the whole animal to feed the carnivores then we need to slaughter fewer animals overall.
I understand your perspective but cannot agree with it being a universal morality issue. I’ve enjoyed our discussion though. Thanks!!
@Pinkstarburst

Me too🙂✌️
Burnley123 · 41-45, M
Crowder is such a moron.
AuRevoir · 36-40, M
But vegetables are living and growing plants.. 😷 which is like picking on the blind and crippled of all food products.. 😷
AuRevoir · 36-40, M
@Pikachu 😷 u monster..
@AuRevoir This is the thinking behind fruitarianism.
1490wayb · 56-60, M
fruits and vegetables are living creatures when picked, chopped, sliced and diced, baked. just like the chicken, cow, turkey, etc
@1490wayb

I think from there we'd have to get into a discussion about suffering.
1490wayb · 56-60, M
@Pikachu agreed, and mass production of anything damaging the environment vs homebgrown
i don't know, i'm not a god. how could i know?
This message was deleted by the author of the main post.
@JesseInTX

Yes, you like meat. Amazing insight.
If you're happy to leave it at being immoral then that's fine, we're in agreement.

 
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