Vegan vs. Carnivore Debate on Ethics (Gone wild)

[Jannes]

1 hour ago, UnbornTao said:

Is a crocodile eating a grandma ethical?  

A croc doesnt have ethics. It's almost like asking if a rock made an unethical decision falling on someones head. 

[Scholar]

11 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

I think both sides can be hypocritical.

Some of the vegans will act like they're morally superior. Well how many insects do they kill a year by just walking? Shouldn't they abstain from walking anywhere, in order to minimize the amount of harm they cause?

That's a silly strawman. Veganism fundamentally is about our relation to animals, not about harm reduction or minimization.

It's about whether or not we can view animals as objects, commodify and enslave them. People in China still die of lung cancer so you can have your computer, so by extention you are causing some of that harm.

 

The question is, does that justify using chinese people as slaves in your own country, objectify them, use their skin as clothes and their meat as food, and rape chinese women so that we can have chinese-milk.

 

This isn't a question about utilitiarianism or harm reduction, but about what we deem as justifiable once we recognize the humanity or individuation of certain groups. As long as we will treat animals as objects, none of the deeper issues that relate to animals can be resolved. The same applied to humans.

 

 

In the end, a slavor could have said "Those abolitionists are hypocrites! They think we can't use black people as slaves but look, they are happy to use animals as slaves!".

Sure, technically you can say they are hypocrites, but that doesn't mean that the slavor and abolitionist are on the same level in regards to moral development. Usually when I hear people talk about moral superiority in regards to vegans it's carnists who accuse them of such, even though they themselves give off a vibe of moral superiority by claiming the vegans are so wrong and ignorant for being so radical.

Edited May 22 by Scholar

[integral]

Double standards are a necessary part of human survival.

Injustice is a necessary part of human survival.

Pain and suffering is a necessary part of human survival.

When the landscape changes so that we could use completely different strategies to survive then we will no longer need the above necessities.

Edited May 22 by integral

[Scholar]

7 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

As I've pointed out, the same is true for carnivores though. Most people find the idea of eating human meat disgusting, so they do understand that meat isn't always "just meat". It's a question of where the individual (and subsequently the culture) sets their bar for what is and what isn't acceptable. The epitome of veganism would be to starve yourself to death because consuming anything could be considered unethical, the epitome of the carnivore mindset would be to eat just whatever with no restrictions whatsoever. There was a story here in Germany, where a man was arrested because he met up with someone that had a "fetish" regarding wanting to be eaten. Well he ate him okay?  It sent waves through the country, people were shocked, disgusted and outraged. It surprises me to see that people have such a difficult time buying that some people might feel a similar way (though probably not to the same degree) about the mass consumption of animals.

You are not grasping my points.

By the extention of your logic, advocating for the abolition of slavery in the end is just a question of where the indiviual sets their bar for what is and what isn't acceptable. The epitome of social justice would be to starve yourself to death because consuming anything wouldbe considered unethical.

 

You are again, not really looking at veganism for what it is. It's not as radical of a principle as you think. It's not about abolishing all unethical consumption, but specifically about the objectification of animals and how we relate to them.

We understand as a society that we still cause harm to humans throughout our actions, but we draw the line at objectification. We would view people who wear hair from child slaves who get bred for their amazing hair as fundamentally repulsive, or who drink milk from dairy-humans who are kepts as slaves, raped and eventually slaughtered.

It's not about the harm, but about how you relate to the objectification you participate in.

Edited May 22 by Scholar

[Jannes]

34 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

The no meat will advocate for animal rights and brutality but have no problems swatting a fly, stepping on ants or spraying a roach. Only some animals, not all. Some cultures eat roaches as a delicacy, so roaches are edible.

 

19 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

I think both sides can be hypocritical.

Some of the vegans will act like they're morally superior. Well how many insects do they kill a year by just walking? Shouldn't they abstain from walking anywhere, in order to minimize the amount of harm they cause? Would I be superior than them if I did that, or would they call me crazy? In fact, why not kill yourself? Isn't that the only true way to reduce the toll your individual existence has on this planet?

Of course you can't avoid doing some harm but you can do your best. 

 

[Nemra]

4 minutes ago, Jannes said:

Would you say that killing and eating a human for example is indifferent from eating an apple? This sounds like impractical spiritual masturbation.

Eating one's own species is different from eating others. It would be spiritual masturbation if you, as a human, told others to survive by eating anything other than meat because you don't like it. You're actually valuing animals more than other edible things, which I'm not saying is wrong. I'm valuing human life because I want to survive. As long as I survive, it doesn't matter what I eat—meat or plants. Maybe I would eat a human in extreme circumstances; I don't know, but that's the least I want.

[Jannes]

@Nemra Is survival your only criteria? 

[Scholar]

2 minutes ago, Nemra said:

Eating one's own species is different from eating others. It would be spiritual masturbation if you, as a human, told others to survive by eating anything other than meat because you don't like it. You're actually valuing animals more than other edible things, which I'm not saying is wrong. I'm valuing human life because I want to survive. As long as I survive, it doesn't matter what I eat—meat or plants. Maybe I would eat a human in extreme circumstances; I don't know, but that's the least I want.

If you were an immortal all powerful being, does this mean you'd be fine with killing and eating humans?

[Nemra]

@Jannes

No. I'm saying that all of us care about the survival of our own species first, whether you're vegan or something else. I'm not saying that we should create unnecessary suffering for animals. I love animals.

@Scholar

If my survival depends on eating humans, then I'll eat them. But as a human, I'll try to escape from them.

[Scholar]

1 minute ago, Nemra said:

@Jannes

No. I'm saying that all of us care about the survival of our own species first, whether you're vegan or something else. I'm not saying that we should create unnecessary suffering for animals. I love animals.

@Scholar

If my survival depends on eating humans, then I'll eat them. But as a human, I'll try to escape from them.

The question is, would you think it to be acceptable to kill and eat the humans if you could eat vegetables instead?

[Nemra]

@Scholar

Why would I eat vegetables instead of humans?

Why is eating vegetables acceptable?

[Scholar]

26 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

I agree. I did the straw man in order to play devils advocate. I myself am not vegan, but a vegetarian, so I understand that different people have different reasons for why they don't eat meat (or animal products in general). I was just using this specific variety of vegan to make a broader point about the fact, that you could always take morals further (into both directions, which is why I brought up eating human meat as a straw man for the carnivores). The point I was making is that the bar for what is considered "okay" is very vague.

A better real world example might be "fruitarians" who only eat fruits from the ground. Even a lot of vegans will say these people to have gone "too far", but that strikes me as arbitrary, as arbitrary as carnivores saying the same about vegans. So no matter where you stand, there will always be people left and right of you. It's obviously not a binary, there are more dimensions to this than that. I'm trying to keep it rather simple though.

Yes, the basic dynamics is:
People view moral consistency as the only tool to compell people to do something they do not really want to, by showing they are contradicting their own values and showing the reductios of their logic to them.

 

But as you say, where we draw the line for what is acceptable and not in the end is arbitrary in the sense that, we could go much further than we are currently demanding to go, and future humans probably will have those expectations as baseline.

The danger with this kind of self-awareness, and the misapplication of notions of hypocrisy, is that at any given point in time you can create a slippery slope which would put such a high burden on a given individual that they no longer would feel compelled to actually abide my the moral standard. We humans can only adopt so much responsibility for our actions at a time, too much and we cannot maintain the responsibility. More responsibility necessitates more selflessness. Expansion of identity has to happen gradually.

If a tribal person for example expanded their identity to complete universality, they might have significantly hampered the survival of their own tribe, maybe even acted in contradiction to it. We can see this with vegans who view it as permissible to kill carnists, as long as the consequences would be positive.

This type of alientation, from a rapid expansion of identity that outpaces current society, can be counter-productive and slow moral evolution.

 

This is why, in the end, it requires a change of the internal state of the mind of any given person, such that they don't feel compelled to adhere to a moral norm because of notions of ethical consistency, but rather because they genuinely desire to act that way. In essence, they have to recognize their own subjectivity and learn to express it fully.

In some ways ignorance is bliss, because if you are tricked that the step you are making is the morally necessary step, and therefore compell yourself to do so, you might make that step because of how responsible you will feel for your action. If you were to recognize the full scope of your ultimate expression of subjectivity, and the responsibilities it entails, you might not feel responsible to actually adopt any of those, because of how arbitrary it will feel.

 

23 minutes ago, Nemra said:

@Scholar

Why would I eat vegetables instead of humans?

Why is eating vegetables acceptable?

You should contemplate the difference between cutting up a live cucumber into pieces and cutting up a live infant into pieces.

 

 

18 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

The point is that you're not so different from your opposition. A vegan is further from the extremes of veganism than they are from a carnivore. A carnivore is further form the extremes of meat consumption than they are from a vegan. It's really about shining a light on the fact that both sides make similar assumptions about other people. Vegans will look at fruitarians in the same way carnivores will look at vegans. Carnivores will look at cannibalism as disgusting, but not understand how vegans could think that about eating cows.

A vegan who views veganism as a philosophy of harm reduction*

There is a reason why I view veganism as a movement of ceasing the objectification and commodification of animals. It has to be a clearly defined and actualizable practice, similar to the abolition of slavery.

 

In that sense, a carnists is closer to a slave-keeper than a vegan is to a carnist.

 

I agree that in many ways the way of life of a Jain is a fuller expression of our subjectivity than a vegans life is. The function of hypocrisy (the ignorance towards ones own selfishness) is a function of moral evolution as it happens in systems that mainly motivate individuals through moral compulsion rather than things like expansion of compassion and love. As I described above, self-awareness is a dangerous thing in this sense, as it can hamper the progression of individuals and render moral compulsion mute, which in a system that does not cultivate love, compassion and growth in individuals can lead to significant negative consequences.

Edited May 22 by Scholar

[Nemra]

14 minutes ago, Scholar said:

You should contemplate the difference between cutting up a live cucumber into pieces and cutting up a live infant into pieces.

As I said, as a human, I don't want to eat my own species, especially infants. Actually, you are projecting human qualities onto animals. I also do that. I can empathize with animals and also eat them.

You should contemplate why you're not sensitive to eating a cucumber.

Edited May 22 by Nemra

[Scholar]

2 minutes ago, Nemra said:

As I said, as a human, I don't want to eat my own species, especially infants. Actually, you are projecting human qualities onto animals. I also do that. I can empathize with animals and eat them.

You should contemplate why you're not sensitive to eating a cucumber.

I was asking in the frame of you being an immortal all powerful being. I'm not projecting any qualities on animals, I was asking you a question about humans.

 

I'm not sensitive towards eating a cucumber because there is no reason to believe a cucumber is individuated, it is incapable of independent experience. Beyond that, it is incapable of suffering and other aspects of subjectivity that I value.

[Nemra]

@Scholar

As an immortal, all-powerful being, why wouldn't I eat an, as you say, individuated being?

[Scholar]

7 minutes ago, Nemra said:

@Scholar

As an immortal, all-powerful being, why wouldn't I eat an, as you say, individuated being?

That's a question you would have to ask yourself.

I wouldn't do it because to me there would be no point in inflicting suffering onto another being in that context, and I don't wish to inflict suffering onto things which I have extended my identity towards.

 

@DefinitelyNotARobot

Yes I basically agree, it's hard to say in the end what will yield results though.

[Jannes]

1 hour ago, Nemra said:

@Jannes

No. I'm saying that all of us care about the survival of our own species first, whether you're vegan or something else. I'm not saying that we should create unnecessary suffering for animals. I love animals.

Thats new. Why do you eat them then?

[Nemra]

@Jannes

It's not like I eat them every day or week. Sometimes, I don't eat them for a month.

Anyway, because they are delicious. And I eat them with my salad.

11 minutes ago, Scholar said:

I wouldn't do it because to me there would be no point in inflicting suffering onto another being in that context, and I don't wish to inflict suffering onto things which I have extended my identity towards.

I understand. I'm not some crazy meat eater. I love everything, from meat to vegetables. Why don't you extend your identity even further?

Maybe I'll be a vegan or something else in the future. Who knows.

[Scholar]

2 minutes ago, Nemra said:

I understand. I'm not some crazy meat eater. I love everything, from meat to vegetables. Why don't you extend your identity even further?

Maybe I'll be a vegan or something else in the future. Who knows.

Loving a rock doesn't mean you will be concerned about it breaking apart, because there is no individuated substance to the rock. When I see a family member of mine suffering, I don't care about them as an object, but as an experiencing individual, who wants to avoid suffering.

In simple terms, my end necessarily is the full expression of my subjectivity, as is the the case with the subjectivity of any other being. A rocks full expression of itself is always itself, no matter what the rock looks like. The same applies to plants.

So, an expansion of identity to rocks will not make me concerned about their well-being, because rocks don't have well being, they don't have subjectivity, nor do plants. But animals and humans do, and so, for the flourishing of their being, which is their subjectivity, I seek to aid them in the expression of their subjectivity as that is part of the expression of my own subjectivity.

 

 

[Yimpa]

I personally have a ton of food allergies, so going vegan for me is a pass. Would limit my food option too much.