What is one moral you have that most people don't agree with?
Example: I believe that IP is a direct contradiction of nature, sacrificing the advancement of humanity and the world for selfish gain, and therefore is sinful.
Edit: pls do not downvote the comments this is a constructive discussion
And I think the torture and abuse of non-human animals is fundamental to the treatment of human animals. When I see hegemony promoting the genocide of humans, it's obviously related to the complete devaluation of non-human life.
It's interesting to me in the reverse, because it's sort of how the food chain works, granted I do hate seeing the inhumane conditions in which a lot of animals for food are kept (if we were still cavemen it seems more ok than now because it'd be more of a fair match between us and our prey).
Also plants feel pain too (please also kill them humanely).
Anyone who has attended a single biology class on plants can tell that they can't feel anything. You need a brain and pain receptors, plants lack both. But such obvious lies are perpetuated so you can keep abusing animals guilt-free.
Is your belief based on an animal's capacity for consciousness? If so do you think all animals, regardless of their intelligence, deserve the right to not be eaten? Where would you draw the line?
This is a common philosophical counter question I hear. While completely valid in its core, it distracts from the real problem. Have you considered the fact that we need food to survive? I'd rather choose the food (based on current research that plants don't feel pain as animala do) that seems to cause the least harm.
Meat or animal products of any kind don't fulfill that criterium.
Then we have the fact that it contributes negatively to our planet and the production takes a huge toll on both plants AND humans alike. It simply isn't efficient in any way.
So this really isn't an argument worth discussing.
If you consider all this, there's really only one logical choice based on the morals we decide on as a society. Which is currently seriously hypocritical.
I'm not making a larger claim here, I'm just asking the vegetarians to explain the logic of their belief.
It sounds like now you're saying that you want to reduce pain rather than the killing of intelligent/conscious life.
In that case would you be OK with slaughterhouses if they treated the animals humanely and killed them as quickly as possible before they could feel significant pain?
No, I am against all killing and intentionally inflicting of pain. I don't mind you trying to poke holes in (my) logics at all by the way. Nothing in life is foolproof, otherwise philosophy wouldn't exist.
They're talking about level of consciousness when it's established that the entity in question has any consciousness at all. It doesn't mean considering those with no consciousness, like plants or rocks. (I don't agree with it though, levels are worth considering.)
I think the issue for me is less about not harming animals but more about the massive infrastructure of resource extraction, exploited labor force, and resource-intensive production that directly contributes to pollution and the undermining of low-income populations to subsidize vegan plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy. Vegans that support this industry arguably cause just as much harm to animals (including human workers and beasts of burden) as your average Texas Roadhouse customer.
You don't even need sources for this, use common sense. What's going to cause more harm and resource consumption - growing five times more grain to feed animals and then eat those animals, or simply eating the grains directly? Animal agriculture is responsible for mass deforestation, a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and species extinction. But no, it's the vegans "arguably causing just as much harm."
Wouldn't it be nice if people bothered looking up things before they talk about them?
I mean throwing up a study about how vegans in the UK produce less greenhouse gas emissions than high-meat eaters only proves that veganism is better at producing less pollution. I never argued that it's not.
But the study you referenced doesn't account for worker exploitation, inequity in food distribution, or trade asymmetries. I think plant-based diets are fine, but many vegan products occupy industries that still perpetuate monocropping and resource-intensive production lines that produce massive profits for executives while leaving farmers with the short end of the stick.
I don't have a bone to pick with vegans, I just think being vegan is a stop along the way to a healthy planet, not the destination. I'm striving to be as nuanced as I can when I offer my critique, which is essentially we need to start discussing why slaughtering animals is morally bad but exploiting workers and agriculture in third world countries isn't. Having a healthy planet and lifting people out of poverty shouldn't be mutually exclusive goals.
You talk about nuance, but then just ignore a major point I made? Any kind of exploitation only increases many times over for non-vegan products because of how inefficient they are. Animals don't just pop into existence. Not only that, slaughterhouse workers have it way, way worse. You can look about their trauma and miserable lives, many articles will come up upon a single search.
Moreover, your critique isn't even relevant to veganism, which just makes it disingenuous. It's an agricultural issue and vegans aren't responsible for the way it is with their tiny population. On the other hand, meat and other animal products are inherently morally bankrupt.
I urge you to double-check your supposedly nuanced critique because this has been discussed many times over and it doesn't look like you've looked it up.
So veganism isn't related to or affected by agriculture? The plight of farmworkers worldwide is invalid because it's not as traumatic as slaughterhouse workers? You keep trying to frame my argument as anti-veganism, but it's really not. At this point I can only consider that I've triggered you in some ridiculous way that has nothing to do with anything we're talking about
I'm only responding to your critique. You're strawmanning me, I never said their plight invalid - I explained why it's worse for animal products. I'm not trying to "frame" your argument as you claim, I responded to as it is objectively. Bring your counterpoints, not personal accusations.
You commented without any methodology at all, how do you expect to be taken seriously? It's not just "this" study either, every credible study on the matter shows quite clearly how disastrous animal agriculture is on the environment. Are you going to claim they all suffer from the same flawed methodology? Do you also believe that climate change is a hoax?
You contradicted without any evidence or reasoning. I reminded you that it's a pretty well-known fact, not something one study unexpectedly revealed, and asked how you would go about discrediting all the science. No personal accusation.
i'm certainly willing to read any study you can present. this study relies almost entirely on poore-nemecek 2018, which combined LCA data gathered with disparate methodologies, and did so against the guidance of the LCA studies themselves. it's garbage. it's not science. writing a study that relies so heavily on that study is also garbage.
this is a gish gallop. which study are you citing? the 22 year old study (reference number 78)? which of the dozens of references did you actually read?
Hmmm, I wonder why people dedicated to forcing 95% of the population into an unwanted lifestyle change ever receive pushback at all? I mean it's completely reasonable to radically alter the diet that has supported humanity since before talking was invented but I'm sure you have a ton of nifty ideas on how to make lentils almost taste like chicken
Quite a typical response because no one is forcing you to do or change anything. It's still very much a choice. Even if it actively negatively contributes to both animal welfare and the earth existence.
You can debate how far one should go in veganism, but I think it's hard to defend the stance that there should be NO change of course in the current (intensive) animal factory farming scene. There really are no winners and humans don't realize how the system also makes life worse for them in the long run.
You can deny it, and try to use strawmen reasoning to the debate, but realize it makes you seem uneducated on the matter.
That being said, you do you, I won't change your stance and you won't changeine. I simply gave my opinion in this thread.
We made an unspoken promise to the animals we domesticated: If you provide for me and my family, I will ensure your line never fades from this world
It is unethical to abandon that promise, and the extinction of a species may be the single greatest wrong mankind can commit.
If you compare the health of wild animals to domestically cared for animals, you will obviously see that domesticated animals are healthier and have greater opportunities for enrichment and happiness under human care.
Yes there are vile humans who torture and keep animals in miserable conditions, and they should pay consequences for their cruelties and greed
Don't you dare paint every farmer with that same corporate battery farm brush.
I am not here to change your stance, I'm here to mitigate the dangerous attitudes your poorly considered stance engenders in others.
We made an unspoken promise to the animals we domesticated: If you provide for me and my family, I will ensure your line never fades from this world
It is unethical to abandon that promise, and the extinction of a species may be the single greatest wrong mankind can commit.
Dozens of species go extinct every single day, in large parts due to deforestation for animal agriculture. Acting like keeping a handful of species we eat from extinction is somehow noble is silly by contrast. The concept of a species is a human construct in the first place, individual animals don't care that their species (which isn't even natural, we bred them like this) is kept going.
If you compare the health of wild animals to domestically cared for animals, you will obviously see that domesticated animals are healthier and have greater opportunities for enrichment and happiness under human care.
It's not about if those animals live under animal agriculture or in the wild. The animals in the wild already exist, the ones in captivity wouldn't exist at all, if we didn't breed them.
Yes there are vile humans who torture and keep animals in miserable conditions, and they should pay consequences for their cruelties and greed
Don’t you dare paint every farmer with that same corporate battery farm brush.
Most animal meat nowadays comes from factory farms. Worldwide it is roughly 90%, in the US it is 99%.
You might not literally have said so, but you replied with a very defensive stance about your situation, unsolicited. This implicitly made it about yourself.
You sound quite upset about this, but there's no need to. I am just an internet stranger.