15 ms·

As long as animals are treated as commodities instead of sentient beings, yeah, nothing is going to be enough for vegans. Empathy is a great quality to cultiva

by dzolob 6y ago

As long as animals are treated as commodities instead of sentient beings, yeah, nothing is going to be enough for vegans. Empathy is a great quality to cultivate.

balabaster 6y ago
Empathy is great, but unfortunately it's not a fix. There's only so much empathy we can have for the environment around us without giving away everything and getting nothing in return. Having empathy for the needs of your fellow human beings is still empathy, even if it comes at the cost of empathy for animals. Empathy for animals at the cost of empathy for your fellow humans is no more a solution than the other way around. So empathy just doesn't fix everything.
- the_gastropod 6y ago
  That's a false dichotomy. Who's advocating for less empathy for humans?
  - overboard2 6y ago
    The people who want humans to live with as limited a footprint as possible, their standard of living be dammed
  - balabaster 6y ago
    Nobody's advocating less empathy for humans, what I'm suggesting is that according to spoon theory, there's only so much in a day you can give a shit about before you burn out [YMMV]. I'm suggesting that when you put all your empathy into caring for one thing at the cost of another, typically yourself, it's a hard path to walk. Empathy as a fix all, isn't. There needs to be balance between what's reasonable, feasible and practical, for our environment, for the eco-system and for us as humans. Empathy for sure is necessary, but it's only part of the solution, not the whole solution.
    - layoric 6y ago
      The spoon theory definitely applies as you change your behavior but once you’ve made new habits, it’s not the same. Spoons aren’t used up by category of empathy, if you heard detailed life stories of those dying of war or COVID it would be equally as taxing. I care about animal welfare and changed my habits to reflect that (when I felt I could, slowly over years) but like everyone, there is a line where there additional changes are “too much”. Eg, I’m not going to live without electricity or live purely offgrid, to me this is not practical and the positive impact that may have doesn’t outweigh the negative impact to my life. If you have a lot of pressures in your life, adding a diet change to that is not realistic. Pushing for meat alternatives in convenient places and making it easy for large groups of people to have small cognitive load (low cost of spoons) to go without meat for a meal is far more impactful than trying to convince everyone to go “full vegan or you are a monster”. If you have the time to consider your options and make a change to your habits that match your values, great, otherwise power to those trying to make those choices easier for everyone. Don’t let it weigh on you, take care of yourself and create space to make the changes you want to see in yourself.
- yboris 6y ago
  Typically, people who have a higher-than-average concern for the welfare of animals also have a higher-than-average concern for welfare of people. Compassion and empathy seems to grow for both, not be a trade-off. Compare an analogous concern to the one you raise: "what if caring about people of color comes at the cost of empathy for your fellow whites?"
  - balabaster 6y ago
    See my note below about spoon theory. I guess I could've been clearer that I meant not a total fix, it won't fix everything on it's own. I didn't mean that it's not part of the solution.
  - stirner 6y ago
    I walk past PETA’s west coast headquarters in Los Angeles every week, and they have inset windows behind a small ledge that’s raised from the street and protected from the weather [1]. They have the raised metal studs near the edge of the ledge, which are called “skateboard deterrents” [2], but given that the ledge is a couple inches high and unsuitable for any sort of grind trick, the purpose is clearly to prevent the homeless from sleeping on the ledge comfortably. My take on the vegan debate is that people who do it are making a good choice both practically and morally, and I wish I had the willpower to make it, and I also understand that PETA represents a very specific brand of veganism and animal welfare, but I always feel pretty sad when I see that PETA building and its unethical treatment of humans. [1] https://goo.gl/maps/iDZ2TZV4o12DiKtL8 https://goo.gl/maps/iDZ2TZV4o12DiKtL8 [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/how-cities-use-design-to-drive-homeless-people-away/373067/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/how-cit...
    - isthatsoup 6y ago
      do you shed a tear when you walk past a homeless shelter that serves meat, clothes their homeless in wool and doesn't have bird safety film on all the windows? Oh you don't. When it comes to supporting animal welfare, you have to be considered "perfect" for some reason.
zed88 6y ago
The moral dilemma that vegans/vegetarians face is at what size we consider them sentient. Does the same apply to the micro-organism that vegans consume everyday on their salad? Or they are simply not sentient enough because we can't see them with naked eyes?
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  Vegans don't face any such dilemma. The animal kingdom is quite clearly defined and vegans are pretty consistently defined as not consuming animals or animal products. If you wish to take a more extreme position that considers other forms of life (and almost nobody appears to), that's no longer just veganism: it's something more extreme.
  - kempbellt 6y ago
    > Vegans don't face any such dilemma. This is such hand-wavy bullshit. It's such a lazy response to OPs point... Are humans animals? If so, should we not consume the products that humans create, in order to achieve perfect veganism? And if people are not animals, and I'm feeling a bit hungry........? The computer or phone you used to post your comment is an animal product. Unless, yet again, we consider humans to be above animals, and therefore exempt from all the rules, and veganism is cannibalizing itself, philosophically. Absolutist veganism (which is a beautiful idealism) exists heavily in a state of cognitive dissonance.
    - the_gastropod 6y ago
      This is.... one of the more bizarre critiques of veganism I've ever seen. You familiar with the concept of consent?
    - netrus 6y ago
      That's such a strange way to argue. We use heuristics all the time. As I said elsewhere, the farmer is not a slave, that changes the equation. If all salads were made by slaves, beef might be the ethical superior choice. But it isn't. If you find someone who wants you do eat them: I guess that's fine? You cannot li ve 100% without harming animals - so it is cognitive dissonance to call for ending 95% of animal suffering (that, again, serves no good reason)?
slothtrop 6y ago
Demonstrated sentience/consciousness is on a gradient, from nil/very-low, to high. And somewhere in between, a gray area. - mussels/mollusks (zero sentience) - insects (very low demonstrated consciousness) - fish (low demonstrated consciousness) - chickens/reptiles (disputed level) - dogs, dolphins, primates, etc (high) You can't equivocate chicken sentience with human sentience. What you can do is suggest they have a high enough level of sentience to warrant that certain treatments be immoral. I think infliction of constant stress and suffering certainly would be immoral, however, raising chickens does not necessitate it. And moreover, the level of sentience is not so high that captivity in itself / exploitation be problematic. If that were true keeping domestic pets ought to be just as problematic. Animals suffer in the wild, that is a constant. They require vigilance over a) predators, b) constant search for food, c) other natural threats. In captivity, these issues don't exist. Notwithstanding the symbiotic evolution of chicken with humans, a chicken is arguably better off in a free-roam farm than in the wild. This is constantly ignored. The vegan solution is such that these animals basically cease to exist (i.e. are killed) because they are more dependent on humans than their ancestors. That's what letting them be "sentient" beings instead of commodities would mean.
- KevinAiken 6y ago
  Mollusks include Cephalopods like octopus and cuttlefish, which are on the higher side of the consciousness gradient.
  - slothtrop 6y ago
    Octopus have a pop culture reputation for being intelligent owing to lab maze experiments, but their intelligence isn't well known or defined. They have an average lifespan between 3-6 months to a few years depending on the species. "Until the 1970s, researchers tried to classify the intellectual abilities of different animals and rank them within a universal intelligence scale with humans at the top. That view crumbled as it became obvious that the abilities of different animals were tuned to the circumstances in which they live. Rats learn some things slowly and others very rapidly. Just one experience with a novel food that makes them ill will put them off that food for life, even if they only become sick many hours after eating it. It's a useful memory feat for an animal that survives by scavenging. Honey bees remember the location of a flower that is producing nectar after a single visit and with just a few trips will learn at what time of day the nectar flow is at its peak. Octopuses are not very social so we should not expect their intelligence to show itself in observational learning. [...] True, octopus have huge brains. But they look nothing like the brains of the vertebrates that are so adept at learning. [...] some critics suspect that their intelligence has been grossly exaggerated by anthropomorphising observers-"they watch my every move, therefore they must be curious". On the other hand, because cephalopod behaviour and brain structure are so foreign, others argue that their greatest cognitive feats are probably still being overlooked. " -- https://web.archive.org/web/20120407062518/http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/cephpod.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120407062518/http://www.fortun...
kempbellt 6y ago
This is a reducto ad absurdum takeaway, but I wonder if at some point will we consider the humans required to create said food, part of the "animals treated as commodities"? Unless humans are somehow exempt from the list, I don't see how this argument is feasible in the realistic sense. Humans are frequently treated as commodities, as any team over the size of 1 needs to delegate responsibilities to people. Hence, "doctor, lawyer, police officer, teacher, pilot" are all words that describe a delegated responsibility of a human, and therefore the commodity that they represent. "We need more firefighters!" is a phrase that literally treats humans as commodities - showing how replaceable they are. How about whenever you ask a friend, or a family member to pick something up for you from the grocery store? Are they not being treated as a commodity to suit a need in that moment? However idealistic the notion, being a "sentient being" isn't mutually exclusive from being treated as a commodity. I understand the empathic argument in support of veganism full well (and I empathize with it), but there is such a thing as runaway-empathy, to the point that it becomes unproductive conversation. This is a win in an aim to reduce unnecessary suffering and pain. I'll take it as such. Seeking some sort of absolutism though, I can't wrap my mind around that. It gives me some serious Sith vibes...
- vulcan01 6y ago
  > Are they not being treated as a commodity to suit a need in that moment? Kant calls this: using people as a means to an end.
- netrus 6y ago
  Firefighters get something in return for being firefighters. Otherwise, it is slavery, and it is indeed feasible to argue against any slavery. The animals in the farm get nothing in return, don't have a choice. It is hard to argue their life is better than no life at all. No matter how philosophical you get, it is possible to be vegan, you only have to sacrifice some pleasure. If you value your pleasure over the miserable life of the animal, that certainly is something one can criticise without being inconsistent because "humans also need to work to buy food". If you actually want to argue for better workers' rights and redistribution from the rich to the poor, to end the missery of the working man: I think that is a good point :)
- 6y ago
kaycebasques 6y ago
As a vegan myself I think appealing to empathy is probably counterproductive because it implies that meat eaters don't have empathy. It's basically the vegan-mirror-equivalent of slothtrop's "Nothing's ever enough for vegans." comment. I feel like "meat eaters don't have empathy" is the common judgment that vegans cast on meat eaters, and "vegans are unrealistic, holier-than-thou perfectionists" is the common judgment that meat eaters cast on vegans.
- dzolob 6y ago
  I didn’t try to imply anything. I’m no vegan myself. Empathy is a great quality to cultivate; I don’t know if an ideal world is a vegan one, but I’m sure an ideal world treats humans, animals and living systems (intentionally avoiding the plants debate going on) with a great deal of empathy and respect.
  - kaycebasques 6y ago
    Ah, OK. For the reasons I mentioned earlier I did assume you were vegan. We're on the same page and we want the same thing. My goal was to point out to my fellow vegans that empathy seems to be a trigger word for meat/dairy eaters and usually doesn't lead to productive debate.
    - dzolob 6y ago
      Sure, I know :) Our egos tend to throw ‘empathy’ without it. Glad we had this exchange.

by dzolob 6y ago

As long as animals are treated as commodities instead of sentient beings, yeah, nothing is going to be enough for vegans. Empathy is a great quality to cultivate.

balabaster 6y ago

Empathy is great, but unfortunately it's not a fix. There's only so much empathy we can have for the environment around us without giving away everything and getting nothing in return. Having empathy for the needs of your fellow human beings is still empathy, even if it comes at the cost of empathy for animals. Empathy for animals at the cost of empathy for your fellow humans is no more a solution than the other way around. So empathy just doesn't fix everything.

the_gastropod 6y ago
That's a false dichotomy. Who's advocating for less empathy for humans?
- overboard2 6y ago
  The people who want humans to live with as limited a footprint as possible, their standard of living be dammed
- balabaster 6y ago
  Nobody's advocating less empathy for humans, what I'm suggesting is that according to spoon theory, there's only so much in a day you can give a shit about before you burn out [YMMV]. I'm suggesting that when you put all your empathy into caring for one thing at the cost of another, typically yourself, it's a hard path to walk. Empathy as a fix all, isn't. There needs to be balance between what's reasonable, feasible and practical, for our environment, for the eco-system and for us as humans. Empathy for sure is necessary, but it's only part of the solution, not the whole solution.
  - layoric 6y ago
    The spoon theory definitely applies as you change your behavior but once you’ve made new habits, it’s not the same. Spoons aren’t used up by category of empathy, if you heard detailed life stories of those dying of war or COVID it would be equally as taxing. I care about animal welfare and changed my habits to reflect that (when I felt I could, slowly over years) but like everyone, there is a line where there additional changes are “too much”. Eg, I’m not going to live without electricity or live purely offgrid, to me this is not practical and the positive impact that may have doesn’t outweigh the negative impact to my life. If you have a lot of pressures in your life, adding a diet change to that is not realistic. Pushing for meat alternatives in convenient places and making it easy for large groups of people to have small cognitive load (low cost of spoons) to go without meat for a meal is far more impactful than trying to convince everyone to go “full vegan or you are a monster”. If you have the time to consider your options and make a change to your habits that match your values, great, otherwise power to those trying to make those choices easier for everyone. Don’t let it weigh on you, take care of yourself and create space to make the changes you want to see in yourself.
yboris 6y ago
Typically, people who have a higher-than-average concern for the welfare of animals also have a higher-than-average concern for welfare of people. Compassion and empathy seems to grow for both, not be a trade-off. Compare an analogous concern to the one you raise: "what if caring about people of color comes at the cost of empathy for your fellow whites?"
- balabaster 6y ago
  See my note below about spoon theory. I guess I could've been clearer that I meant not a total fix, it won't fix everything on it's own. I didn't mean that it's not part of the solution.
- stirner 6y ago
  I walk past PETA’s west coast headquarters in Los Angeles every week, and they have inset windows behind a small ledge that’s raised from the street and protected from the weather [1]. They have the raised metal studs near the edge of the ledge, which are called “skateboard deterrents” [2], but given that the ledge is a couple inches high and unsuitable for any sort of grind trick, the purpose is clearly to prevent the homeless from sleeping on the ledge comfortably. My take on the vegan debate is that people who do it are making a good choice both practically and morally, and I wish I had the willpower to make it, and I also understand that PETA represents a very specific brand of veganism and animal welfare, but I always feel pretty sad when I see that PETA building and its unethical treatment of humans. [1] https://goo.gl/maps/iDZ2TZV4o12DiKtL8 https://goo.gl/maps/iDZ2TZV4o12DiKtL8 [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/how-cities-use-design-to-drive-homeless-people-away/373067/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/how-cit...
  - isthatsoup 6y ago
    do you shed a tear when you walk past a homeless shelter that serves meat, clothes their homeless in wool and doesn't have bird safety film on all the windows? Oh you don't. When it comes to supporting animal welfare, you have to be considered "perfect" for some reason.

zed88 6y ago

The moral dilemma that vegans/vegetarians face is at what size we consider them sentient. Does the same apply to the micro-organism that vegans consume everyday on their salad? Or they are simply not sentient enough because we can't see them with naked eyes?

throwaway2245 6y ago
Vegans don't face any such dilemma. The animal kingdom is quite clearly defined and vegans are pretty consistently defined as not consuming animals or animal products. If you wish to take a more extreme position that considers other forms of life (and almost nobody appears to), that's no longer just veganism: it's something more extreme.
- kempbellt 6y ago
  > Vegans don't face any such dilemma. This is such hand-wavy bullshit. It's such a lazy response to OPs point... Are humans animals? If so, should we not consume the products that humans create, in order to achieve perfect veganism? And if people are not animals, and I'm feeling a bit hungry........? The computer or phone you used to post your comment is an animal product. Unless, yet again, we consider humans to be above animals, and therefore exempt from all the rules, and veganism is cannibalizing itself, philosophically. Absolutist veganism (which is a beautiful idealism) exists heavily in a state of cognitive dissonance.
  - the_gastropod 6y ago
    This is.... one of the more bizarre critiques of veganism I've ever seen. You familiar with the concept of consent?
  - netrus 6y ago
    That's such a strange way to argue. We use heuristics all the time. As I said elsewhere, the farmer is not a slave, that changes the equation. If all salads were made by slaves, beef might be the ethical superior choice. But it isn't. If you find someone who wants you do eat them: I guess that's fine? You cannot li ve 100% without harming animals - so it is cognitive dissonance to call for ending 95% of animal suffering (that, again, serves no good reason)?

slothtrop 6y ago

Demonstrated sentience/consciousness is on a gradient, from nil/very-low, to high. And somewhere in between, a gray area. - mussels/mollusks (zero sentience) - insects (very low demonstrated consciousness) - fish (low demonstrated consciousness) - chickens/reptiles (disputed level) - dogs, dolphins, primates, etc (high) You can't equivocate chicken sentience with human sentience. What you can do is suggest they have a high enough level of sentience to warrant that certain treatments be immoral. I think infliction of constant stress and suffering certainly would be immoral, however, raising chickens does not necessitate it. And moreover, the level of sentience is not so high that captivity in itself / exploitation be problematic. If that were true keeping domestic pets ought to be just as problematic. Animals suffer in the wild, that is a constant. They require vigilance over a) predators, b) constant search for food, c) other natural threats. In captivity, these issues don't exist. Notwithstanding the symbiotic evolution of chicken with humans, a chicken is arguably better off in a free-roam farm than in the wild. This is constantly ignored. The vegan solution is such that these animals basically cease to exist (i.e. are killed) because they are more dependent on humans than their ancestors. That's what letting them be "sentient" beings instead of commodities would mean.

KevinAiken 6y ago
Mollusks include Cephalopods like octopus and cuttlefish, which are on the higher side of the consciousness gradient.
- slothtrop 6y ago
  Octopus have a pop culture reputation for being intelligent owing to lab maze experiments, but their intelligence isn't well known or defined. They have an average lifespan between 3-6 months to a few years depending on the species. "Until the 1970s, researchers tried to classify the intellectual abilities of different animals and rank them within a universal intelligence scale with humans at the top. That view crumbled as it became obvious that the abilities of different animals were tuned to the circumstances in which they live. Rats learn some things slowly and others very rapidly. Just one experience with a novel food that makes them ill will put them off that food for life, even if they only become sick many hours after eating it. It's a useful memory feat for an animal that survives by scavenging. Honey bees remember the location of a flower that is producing nectar after a single visit and with just a few trips will learn at what time of day the nectar flow is at its peak. Octopuses are not very social so we should not expect their intelligence to show itself in observational learning. [...] True, octopus have huge brains. But they look nothing like the brains of the vertebrates that are so adept at learning. [...] some critics suspect that their intelligence has been grossly exaggerated by anthropomorphising observers-"they watch my every move, therefore they must be curious". On the other hand, because cephalopod behaviour and brain structure are so foreign, others argue that their greatest cognitive feats are probably still being overlooked. " -- https://web.archive.org/web/20120407062518/http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/cephpod.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120407062518/http://www.fortun...

kempbellt 6y ago

This is a reducto ad absurdum takeaway, but I wonder if at some point will we consider the humans required to create said food, part of the "animals treated as commodities"? Unless humans are somehow exempt from the list, I don't see how this argument is feasible in the realistic sense. Humans are frequently treated as commodities, as any team over the size of 1 needs to delegate responsibilities to people. Hence, "doctor, lawyer, police officer, teacher, pilot" are all words that describe a delegated responsibility of a human, and therefore the commodity that they represent. "We need more firefighters!" is a phrase that literally treats humans as commodities - showing how replaceable they are. How about whenever you ask a friend, or a family member to pick something up for you from the grocery store? Are they not being treated as a commodity to suit a need in that moment? However idealistic the notion, being a "sentient being" isn't mutually exclusive from being treated as a commodity. I understand the empathic argument in support of veganism full well (and I empathize with it), but there is such a thing as runaway-empathy, to the point that it becomes unproductive conversation. This is a win in an aim to reduce unnecessary suffering and pain. I'll take it as such. Seeking some sort of absolutism though, I can't wrap my mind around that. It gives me some serious Sith vibes...

vulcan01 6y ago
> Are they not being treated as a commodity to suit a need in that moment? Kant calls this: using people as a means to an end.
netrus 6y ago
Firefighters get something in return for being firefighters. Otherwise, it is slavery, and it is indeed feasible to argue against any slavery. The animals in the farm get nothing in return, don't have a choice. It is hard to argue their life is better than no life at all. No matter how philosophical you get, it is possible to be vegan, you only have to sacrifice some pleasure. If you value your pleasure over the miserable life of the animal, that certainly is something one can criticise without being inconsistent because "humans also need to work to buy food". If you actually want to argue for better workers' rights and redistribution from the rich to the poor, to end the missery of the working man: I think that is a good point :)
6y ago

kaycebasques 6y ago

As a vegan myself I think appealing to empathy is probably counterproductive because it implies that meat eaters don't have empathy. It's basically the vegan-mirror-equivalent of slothtrop's "Nothing's ever enough for vegans." comment. I feel like "meat eaters don't have empathy" is the common judgment that vegans cast on meat eaters, and "vegans are unrealistic, holier-than-thou perfectionists" is the common judgment that meat eaters cast on vegans.

dzolob 6y ago
I didn’t try to imply anything. I’m no vegan myself. Empathy is a great quality to cultivate; I don’t know if an ideal world is a vegan one, but I’m sure an ideal world treats humans, animals and living systems (intentionally avoiding the plants debate going on) with a great deal of empathy and respect.
- kaycebasques 6y ago
  Ah, OK. For the reasons I mentioned earlier I did assume you were vegan. We're on the same page and we want the same thing. My goal was to point out to my fellow vegans that empathy seems to be a trigger word for meat/dairy eaters and usually doesn't lead to productive debate.
  - dzolob 6y ago
    Sure, I know :) Our egos tend to throw ‘empathy’ without it. Glad we had this exchange.