laklak wrote:What about pest animals or invasive species, like feral hogs? They're a huge problem, particularly in the Southern states. There are no hunting seasons, limits, or gun/ammo regulations, if you can kill one you're encouraged to do so. Same is true of lionfish, they're decimating the native fish populations. Is it morally defensible to kill them? If you kill them, is it morally defensible to eat them? Apparently lionfish is quite tasty, and we all know how delicious pig meat is. Well, most of us do.

To quote Bill Maher again about Bernie-supporters who won't support Hillary because she isn't liberal enough:
"There are real enemies out there. Have you seen a republican debate? The zombies are in the mall. I'm telling you, this is gonna be the death of liberals, this nit-picky, intramural attacking of friends for insufficient purity- compulsively cleaning up [the] little corner of the room that’s already quite clean, while there are giant piles of shit everywhere else!”

Killing invasive species and pests is, I'm guessing, morally defensible to save ecosystems. But it's such as smaller issue than animal agriculture. How do you justify factory farming?

Have you seen the videos of what animal agriculture entails? Here's one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32IDVdgmzKA

SafeAsMilk wrote:I think Thommo and Ani covered it nicely. AV's list is anything but comprehensive.

What do you think of my responses?

SafeAsMilk wrote:As usual, political veganism assumes its conclusions and runs with them.

Not sure what 'political veganism' is, but there is no dogma in what we are saying. We are simply saying that it's immoral to abuse and kill animals when unnecessary. We're not saying all life is equal, we're not saying it's ALWAYS immoral to kill or hurt animals, and we're not saying that using animals is 'exploitation'.

We're primarily just saying that this is wrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32IDVdgmzKA
And that it's wrong to take the life of a sentient creature for the pleasure of eating meat.

ScholasticSpastic wrote:Expanding on this, how does veganism frown on keeping bees while demanding that we feed all the humans via vegetative agriculture which relies upon crops grown to much higher density than can be pollinated by wild bees? What are we going to do? We're either stuck "exploiting" the bees so we can eat, or we fucking starve.

A few things, while again pre-facing that I don't know much about beekeeping:

1) Veganism doesn't require a huge expansion of crops grown. In fact, if the world went vegan, we'd need to grown a lot less crops, because animals are fed crops their entire lives. You use much less crops by just eating plants directly.

2) It's not like we're exactly keeping the bees employed, right? What's stopping them from pollinating without beekeeping? Bees existed before humans.
*Again, I don't know much about beekeeping and if it may entail more pollination than just letting bees run (or fly?) wild, don't crucify me.

ScholasticSpastic wrote:

Thommo wrote:
I think many would agree that they have serious ethical concerns (if not in quite such brute, crude and sweeping terms) with the way animals are raised for food and that standards in the meat industry could stand improvement, but this is a far cry from the much stronger assertion that no form of meat eating (or indeed use of animal products) is morally permissible. One need not defend the very worst forms of animal treatment to think that free range cattle do not have entire lives of pure suffering (or indeed that they create only a few seconds of taste - it takes a damn long time to eat a whole cow).

Thommo and Spastic-

1) I don't understand. Before, it seemed like you were saying that animals shouldn't necessarily have ethical consideration at all. Now you're saying you have serious ethical concerns with the way the animals are raised... What? How is that consistent?

2) If you have serious ethical concerns with the way animals are raised for food, then perhaps you should boycott the meat industry until you approve of its standards. It doesn't really do much to pay lip service to the idea that the meat industry has ethical issues but then to not do anything about it.

3) I don't think anyone is saying that eating meat is always wrong. Perhaps you misunderstood. I don't think Alexander or I believe that any specific action is ALWAYS wrong in every context. Like we said, it's morally acceptable for people who are starving to eat meat, of course. The point is that in your situation, in which you don't need to eat meat to live a healthy life, it's not moral to contribute to the abusive animal agricultural industry which both treats animals cruelly and kills them unnecessarily.

scott1328 wrote:perhaps the entire solution to the "moral dilemmas" posed by the OP, is to genetically modify food organisms to be without the capability to suffer.

Ok, but that's not the situation we're in now, so it doesn't justify eating meat in its current state. Currently, eating meat from factory farms involves incredible suffering and unnecessary death of sentient beings.

Even if we modified organisms to be unable to suffer, though, it's still not right to take their lives away when they want to live. Animals aren't as morally valuable as humans, but they do have meaningful lives in their relationships with other animals.

Corneel wrote:The unofficial stance of Corneel is that "appropriately planned vegan diets" are a luxury for well-meaning people in the western world.

Perhaps, but so what? We're not trying to convince starving people in Africa to go vegan; we're trying to convince YOU, someone who is in the position to have a healthy vegan diet, to reduce your consumption of meat and potentially other animal products.

Corneel wrote:My experience in living over 10 years in developing countries has taught me that "appropriately planned diets" are already difficult enough to plan without excluding animal products.

Well, that just isn't true. In fact, meat and other animal products pose health problems (meat has ties to heart disease, certain meats have ties to cancers, dairy has ties to prostate cancer, etc.).

There's no reason to believe that eating a vegan diet is going to be difficult to do healthily. You just need to eat a lot of legumes and other veggies, along with taking a B-12 supplement. It's really not hard at all. We can try to help you with that if you want.

EquALLity wrote:1) I don't understand. Before, it seemed like you were saying that animals shouldn't necessarily have ethical consideration at all. Now you're saying you have serious ethical concerns with the way the animals are raised... What? How is that consistent?

Because the former is comment on a philosophical argument that was presented and the second is a statement of my own values. Saying that I have concerns about what I judge to be unnecessarily cruel treatment of animals in some circumstances is rather incidental to the problem that was being discussed. There's such a colossal difference between being a bit uncertain in my own life and uncomfortable with certain things and claiming to have a unified ethical system that allows me to prescribe behaviour for other people.

EquALLity wrote:2) If you have serious ethical concerns with the way animals are raised for food, then perhaps you should boycott the meat industry until you approve of its standards. It doesn't really do much to pay lip service to the idea that the meat industry has ethical issues but then to not do anything about it.

Indeed it doesn't. Perhaps we should conclude that my concerns aren't sufficient to motivate me to this level of response.

EquALLity wrote:3) I don't think anyone is saying that eating meat is always wrong.

The OP clearly claims to have disposed of all possible justifications for not just eating meat:

AlexanderVegan wrote:With all defenses of using animals for human convenience and pleasure falling into these 4 fallacious categories, why do people continue to eat meat and animal products?

but any form of reliance on animals. I was actually being generous relative to what was said.

If the OP didn't mean what he said, then he probably needs to update the argument to reflect what he actually thinks. To be fair, I'm not that bothered whether he believes it or not actually, I was just treating it as an argument and explaining some of the things that I think are fairly clearly faulty with it as a piece of reasoning. Also to be fair I'm not expecting you to mount any defence of that view and have no assumptions about exactly what your own thoughts are.

You are of course welcome to explain and expound on your views, I think lots of people would welcome your contribution!

Welcome to the forum!

EquALLity wrote:Killing invasive species and pests is, I'm guessing, morally defensible to save ecosystems. But it's such as smaller issue than animal agriculture. How do you justify factory farming?

Have you seen the videos of what animal agriculture entails? Here's one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32IDVdgmzKA

I don't justify it, and try to avoid it. It's horribly inhumane, and despite my carnivorous ways I'm quite the animal lover. I try to be as socially conscious a meat consumer as I can. When possible I buy locally sourced, free range meat, but it's not always easy to find. It's also hellishly expensive, which isn't really an issue for us as we've cut down on meat portions for health considerations. Same for seafood, I only buy locally sourced stuff, direct from the boats if I can get my ass down to the docks that early, but otherwise from one or two fishmongers. Again, very expensive, but much fresher and tastier.

I don't know where you live, but feral hogs are a real problem around here, it's not a trivial issue. They cause massive damages to crops, they destroy swamp habitats with their constant rooting, and attacks on humans are rising. You really don't want to get on the wrong end of a 400 pound razorback hog. Of course the feral hog problem is a direct result of meat eating, they wouldn't be here if Europeans hadn't introduced them. Hell, they brought over wild European boar and turned them loose on purpose, so they'd have something to hunt.

I am sympathetic to vegan and vegetarian sensibilities, in our rather extended and reconstituted family we have vegans, vegetarians, ovo-lacto-vegetarians, pescetarians, and one who won't eat mammals but noshes everything else. To each their own. We often have large gatherings at our house and I always do the cooking, I make sure there's plenty for everyone to eat. You have no idea how hard it is NOT to put smoked ham hocks in the greens.

igorfrankensteen wrote:what this is all about really, is the fact that someone has come up with, and is trying to build an entire propaganda enterprise, built around their having coined a NAME for their entirely made-up pseudo-religious feelings about eating meat, and more particularly, around their personal dislike of those who do?

Er, what?

1) This isn't about the person who came up with carnism, and there's no 'propaganda enterprise'. We're just using the word carnism because it is the only word that refers to the philosophy that tries to morally justify eating meat in the first world. 'Debunking Meat-eating' wouldn't be as correct, because we're not saying meat-eating is ALWAYS wrong.

2) This has nothing to do with religion, but if you want to talk about religion, I think that eating meat is very comparable to it. Like religion, eating meat is something people primarily do because that's how they were raised and they don't typically question it. And like people are often ignorant of what's in their 'Holy' books, people are often ignorant of what the meat industry entails.

3) It's not about our personal dislike for meat-eaters, that's ridiculous. I have friends who eat meat (funny that I have to say that). We don't hate meat-eaters, we're just trying to convince you guys to reduce your meat consumption.

igorfrankensteen wrote:Really? CARNISM?

...

igorfrankensteen wrote:And we aren't even allowed to voluntarily accept this insulting label?

You crack me up.

What is insulting about it? It just refers to the philosophy that eating meat is morally acceptable. That's it. Don't you agree with that philosophy?

igorfrankensteen wrote:I wonder if any race-based supremacist groups are currently working on a new "ism" label to use, to declare the existence of an entire group of humanity which DOESN'T base it's choices entirely on physiology, to be thus inherently immoral as well.

Right...

EquALLity wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:I think Thommo and Ani covered it nicely. AV's list is anything but comprehensive.

What do you think of my responses?

Honestly, I think you're wasting your time trying to make a moralistic argument over it. You say we don't need to have the same moral considerations between humans and other animals, yet you say that because we don't want to cause harm or kill humans we therefore wouldn't want to do that to animals for the same reason. It doesn't follow. I think AlexanderVegan has it right, the environmental impact argument is the strongest and most indisputable one of all, and if I saw more political vegans spending their time arguing that point rather than trying to pluck people's heartstrings (using good or bad arguments), I'd have a lot more respect for it.

SafeAsMilk wrote:As usual, political veganism assumes its conclusions and runs with them.

Not sure what 'political veganism' is, but there is no dogma in what we are saying. We are simply saying that it's immoral to abuse and kill animals when unnecessary.

But that is a dogma, and is what I'm referring to when I talk about political veganism -- using standardized arguments to convince people that they should be vegan. In my experience, most of these arguments are emotional rather than fact-based, and usually don't stand up to scrutiny. It could be the movement has become more thoughtful since I encountered it some 20 years ago, but I certainly don't see that in the OP.

The 'killing is wrong' gambit isn't anywhere near as solid as the environmental argument, you're left making presumptive moralistic arguments that don't work unless someone already agrees with you for the most part. I don't think you'll find many that would argue that abusing animals is moral, but killing them? I don't think you can justify this by comparing other animals with humans, there are social considerations to that particular moral besides the emotional ones.

We're not saying all life is equal, we're not saying it's ALWAYS immoral to kill or hurt animals, and we're not saying that using animals is 'exploitation'.

When is using animals not exploitation?

We're primarily just saying that this is wrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32IDVdgmzKA
And that it's wrong to take the life of a sentient creature for the pleasure of eating meat.

I agree that mistreatment of animals in factory farming is condemnable and should be changed. I don't think me not buying a steak this week changes that at all, it's just me making myself feel good about it. The attempt to connect the two arguments -- abuse of factory farming and eating meat for pleasure -- is one of my main gripes with political veganism. They're separate issues, and attempting to conflate them is a mistake.

Thommo wrote:Because the former is comment on a philosophical argument that was presented and the second is a statement of my own values. Saying that I have concerns about what I judge to be unnecessarily cruel treatment of animals in some circumstances is rather incidental to the problem that was being discussed. There's such a colossal difference between being a bit uncertain in my own life and uncomfortable with certain things and claiming to have a unified ethical system that allows me to prescribe behaviour for other people.

Ah, I see. So you don't think it's objectively true that it's immoral to torture animals when unnecessary? You believe morality is entirely subjective?

Thommo wrote:Indeed it doesn't. Perhaps we should conclude that my concerns aren't sufficient to motivate me to this level of response.

Well, the meat industry is pretty terrible. Did you see that video?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32IDVdgmzKA

How often do you eat meat? Perhaps you would consider reducing your meat consumption?

Thommo wrote:The OP clearly claims to have disposed of all possible justifications for not just eating meat:

I believe he misspoke based on what he's said on the other forum and because of his following statements. He probably meant that all meat consumption generally falls under those four categories.

He's basically right, he seems to have just made an over-generalization, because there are some people in the world who need meat to survive. We aren't those people, though, so I understand leaving that out.

Thommo wrote:To be fair, I'm not that bothered whether he believes it or not actually, I was just treating it as an argument and explaining some of the things that I think are fairly clearly faulty with it as a piece of reasoning.

Yep, I know. It was an argument, and this is a debate topic, so I'd expect you to debate what Alexander is saying. I just didn't realize what he said (I didn't actually read his intro post because I didn't think it was necessary). But again, I think he misspoke.

Thommo wrote:Also to be fair I'm not expecting you to mount any defence of that view and have no assumptions about exactly what your own thoughts are.

Great.

Thommo wrote:You are of course welcome to explain and expound on your views, I think lots of people would welcome your contribution!

Welcome to the forum!

Thank you!

Did you see my other response to one of your posts?

laklak wrote:I don't justify it, and try to avoid it. It's horribly inhumane, and despite my carnivorous ways I'm quite the animal lover. I try to be as socially conscious a meat consumer as I can. When possible I buy locally sourced, free range meat, but it's not always easy to find. It's also hellishly expensive, which isn't really an issue for us as we've cut down on meat portions for health considerations. Same for seafood, I only buy locally sourced stuff, direct from the boats if I can get my ass down to the docks that early, but otherwise from one or two fishmongers. Again, very expensive, but much fresher and tastier.

Oh, ok, that's great. Have you visited the farms to inspect how they treat the animals?

laklak wrote:I don't know where you live, but feral hogs are a real problem around here, it's not a trivial issue. They cause massive damages to crops, they destroy swamp habitats with their constant rooting, and attacks on humans are rising. You really don't want to get on the wrong end of a 400 pound razorback hog. Of course the feral hog problem is a direct result of meat eating, they wouldn't be here if Europeans hadn't introduced them. Hell, they brought over wild European boar and turned them loose on purpose, so they'd have something to hunt.

I see, haha. I'm in the northeast USA, and I don't think I've ever actually seen a feral hog.

Anyway, I didn't mean that the issue of invasive species is trivial, I meant that the moral concerns for the species are trivial in comparison to animal agriculture.

laklak wrote:I am sympathetic to vegan and vegetarian sensibilities, in our rather extended and reconstituted family we have vegans, vegetarians, ovo-lacto-vegetarians, pescetarians, and one who won't eat mammals but noshes everything else. To each their own. We often have large gatherings at our house and I always do the cooking, I make sure there's plenty for everyone to eat. You have no idea how hard it is NOT to put smoked ham hocks in the greens.

That's great.

EquALLity wrote:Ah, I see. So you don't think it's objectively true that it's immoral to torture animals when unnecessary? You believe morality is entirely subjective?

I don't think anything is objectively true. I am not committed to the belief that morality is entirely subjective either though. I'd certainly wonder what the qualifier "entirely" is intended to convey in such a sentence too.

EquALLity wrote:How often do you eat meat? Perhaps you would consider reducing your meat consumption?

I already have, as I say over a period of time of my own accord I may do further.

EquALLity wrote:

Thommo wrote:The OP clearly claims to have disposed of all possible justifications for not just eating meat:

I believe he misspoke based on what he's said on the other forum and because of his following statements. He probably meant that all meat consumption generally falls under those four categories.

He's basically right, he seems to have just made an over-generalization, because there are some people in the world who need meat to survive. We aren't those people, though, so I understand leaving that out.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You said he didn't say that at all. I'm glad you now agree that he did. But I want to be clear that we certainly don't agree that the only thing he's got wrong is that some people need meat to survive. I outlined a number of problems with what he said and I don't agree at all that those concerns have been adequately dealt with. I am extremely sceptical that we will come to agreement on this point.

SafeAsMilk wrote:Honestly, I think you're wasting your time trying to make a moralistic argument over it. You say we don't need to have the same moral considerations between humans and other animals, yet you say that because we don't want to cause harm or kill humans we therefore wouldn't want to do that to animals for the same reason. It doesn't follow.

I think you misunderstood my argument.

Like I said, I'm not equating eating animals and humans in the cannibalism example, I was pointing out the common factor in each that harming another sentient being is not ok to do for personal pleasure.

I'm not saying it's just as wrong to hurt a human as it is to hurt an animal, but they are wrong for the same reason- just to varying degrees.

Do you see what I'm saying?

SafeAsMilk wrote:I think AlexanderVegan has it right, the environmental impact argument is the strongest and most indisputable one of all, and if I saw more political vegans spending their time arguing that point rather than trying to pluck people's heartstrings (using good or bad arguments), I'd have a lot more respect for it.

Question: Do you believe morality is subjective?

If you do, you can't support the environmental argument either, because the reason why it's bad to harm the environment is because harming the planet hurts humans and non-human animals. Even if it's just about humans for you, if you believe morality is subjective, you can't justify giving objective moral regard to humans, and therefore the environmental argument is moot as well.

Also, it's not about 'plucking peoples' heartstrings'. This is NOT an emotional appeal.
We're not saying, "What about the poor cute cows?", we're saying that it's morally wrong to consume meat because of philosophical reasons.

By your logic, why isn't the environmental argument 'plucking peoples' heartstrings' as well? Even if the environment is only important to you because of humans impacted by it, why isn't saying we should have moral concerns for humans 'plucking peoples' heartstrings' as well?

Moral arguments aren't about emotions, they are about ethical reasoning.

Thommo wrote:

EquALLity wrote:3) I don't think anyone is saying that eating meat is always wrong.

The OP clearly claims to have disposed of all possible justifications for not just eating meat:

AlexanderVegan wrote:With all defenses of using animals for human convenience and pleasure falling into these 4 fallacious categories, why do people continue to eat meat and animal products?

but any form of reliance on animals. I was actually being generous relative to what was said.

If the OP didn't mean what he said, then he probably needs to update the argument to reflect what he actually thinks. To be fair, I'm not that bothered whether he believes it or not actually, I was just treating it as an argument and explaining some of the things that I think are fairly clearly faulty with it as a piece of reasoning.

Yeah that was a bit of an overstatement / over-generalization. People reading this forum will almost certainly only have excuses that fall into those 4 categories. There are some exceptions imaginable where people actually have a need of animal products, such as in the example of nomadic tribes. For the vast majority of people, and especially the people that read this forum, eating animal products is not a necessity and therefor is done for convenience, taste, habit, etc.

I responded to your other post, Thommo, about morality being founded on axioms of value. Perhaps you can point out the problems you feel have not been adequately dealt with.

Thommo wrote:I don't think anything is objectively true. I am not committed to the belief that morality is entirely subjective either though.

You don't think anything is objectively true, or anything is objectively morally true?
I see, I think I addressed that in my other response to you.

Thommo wrote:I'd certainly wonder what the qualifier "entirely" is intended to convey in such a sentence too.

Do you think morality is entirely subjective, as in that there are no moral truths at all. Like ISIS is not objectively an immoral group.

Thommo wrote:I already have, as I say over a period of time of my own accord I may do further.

Ah, I hope that you do. Is there anything stopping you?

Thommo wrote:Whoa, whoa, whoa. You said he didn't say that at all. I'm glad you now agree that he did.

Yes, I said that. I didn't mean to make it come across like I didn't say that.

I was merely pointing out that I think he misspoke when he said that.

Thommo wrote:But I want to be clear that we certainly don't agree that the only thing he's got wrong is that some people need meat to survive. I outlined a number of problems with what he said and I don't agree at all that those concerns have been adequately dealt with. I am extremely sceptical that we will come to agreement on this point.

I think I responded to that post you made, about the extents or moral regard and legal rights. Here it is: http://www.rationalskepticism.org/gener ... l#p2445311

AlexanderVegan wrote:Yeah that was a bit of an overstatement / over-generalization. People reading this forum will almost certainly only have excuses that fall into those 4 categories

People don't need excuses. I think this betrays a certain presumptiousness of thought.

People have reasons, reasons you may not like, or agree with, or may think you can decree fallacious, but as I said in the first place, that's not binding on anyone.

AlexanderVegan wrote:I responded to your other post, Thommo, about morality being founded on axioms of value. Perhaps you can point out the problems you feel have not been adequately dealt with.

I might, I'm not honestly sure it's worth the effort though. I don't think the assumptions you make need further highlighting and I don't think the fact that I am not willing to make those same assumptions (and thus am not bound by the conclusions) needs any further in depth analysis.

It's not like it's actually possible or meaningful to disprove nihilism (for example), which is instantly going to torpedo any possible basis for sweeping claims.

EquALLity wrote:

Thommo wrote:All the defences don't fall into those categories any more than all moral defences of any human behaviour fall into those categories. The putative debunking assumes things such as the extension of moral principles and obligations in a fairly simple and direct way from humans to animals as well as an assumption that a moral justification is required in the first place. These are things that even any "carnist" who agrees with the assessment that all their arguments are of that form is unlikely to concede.

In any consistent and non-arbitrary moral worldview, you must take into consideration the welfare of non-human animals.

Why?

EquALLity wrote: It is arbitrary to say that only humans require moral consideration just because they have human DNA.

Except that's not the reason.

EquALLity wrote:Why would that be? Why does having human DNA determine your moral value?

Why are you attacking straw-men instead of what your interlocturos actually posted?

EquALLity wrote:You don't think anything is objectively true, or anything is objectively morally true?
I see, I think I addressed that in my other response to you.

For the purposes of this discussion I meant "objectively morally true", yes. I worded it badly.

EquALLity wrote:Do you think morality is entirely subjective, as in that there are no moral truths at all. Like ISIS is not objectively an immoral group.

In the sense of moral objectivism, all I would say is that I make no commitment to the proposition that ISIS is an objectively immoral group. In terms of my own language I might well call them immoral, but whether that's really me expressing a preference or whatever is a different question. I doubt I'd lose much if I dropped moral language, or just used words like "hateful", "awful", "murderous" or "repulsive".

EquALLity wrote:Ah, I hope that you do. Is there anything stopping you?

I'd guess that it's that I don't really want to. That the concerns that I have do not provide a sufficient motivating factor to alter my behaviour to any greater extent than I have.

Thommo wrote:
I might, I'm not honestly sure it's worth the effort though. I don't think the assumptions you make need further highlighting and I don't think the fact that I am not willing to make those same assumptions (and thus am not bound by the conclusions) needs any further in depth analysis.

It's not like it's actually possible or meaningful to disprove nihilism (for example), which is instantly going to torpedo any possible basis for sweeping claims.

So can you answer the questions I ask you in post #53 then? What are the values you base extending moral value/consideration to humans on?

Are you a nihilist?