5 ms·

Vegans do have a good point, however, for the majority of the population food is just something that they crave, eat for taste, or because it is thrust in their

Vegans do have a good point, however, for the majority of the population food is just something that they crave, eat for taste, or because it is thrust in their face daily by corporations. They aren't doing it for the sake of killing, and therefore the point that vegans make isn't something people consider nor care for. I personally think your diet should be based on nutrition, with morals and the environment following a close second.

boston_clone 5y ago
That's the rub, though - we know that vegetarian (including vegan) diets are nutritionally complete and applicable at virtually all stages of life [0], yet people make choices that result in hundreds of billions of animals being slaughtered each year. The cognitive dissonance that accompanies eating meat is extraordinarily pervasive [1]. 0. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/ 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_eating_meat#Meat_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_eating_meat#Meat...
- KSteffensen 5y ago
  Why is there an ethical problem in slaughtering an animal for meat if that animal has been raised in good conditions and the actual killing happens with a minimum of pain and fear for the animal? I get why foie gras is problematic, but I don't see the problem in a leg of lamb.
  - boston_clone 5y ago
    > Why is there an ethical problem in slaughtering In short, I think killing another living being that experiences suffering is wrong. There needs to be at least a base agreement on some ethics before diving into an ethical debate, and if you don't see a problem with needlessly killing animals, then this exchange will be worthless. Extend the reasoning of how we know it's wrong to raise and kill a human for our own consumption to animals, and we arrive at veganism. Please see my second citation in the parent comment for a better overview.
    - will4274 5y ago
      > In short, I think killing another living being that experiences suffering is wrong. It fails Kant's categorical imperative. Animals aren't going to believe that eating meat is wrong - and if we tried to prevent animals from eating meat, we'd kill a lot of them - not to mention it'd just be ridiculous. There's simply no way to include animals in universal law and maintain reciprocity. It's an internally inconsistent ethical philosophy, and obviously so. That's to say - people make fun of ethical vegans for the same reason they make fun of libertarians - clear gaps in the philosophy they refuse to acknowledge.
      - delecti 5y ago
        I don't agree that morals need to be reciprocated to be valid. It's not internally inconsistent to say I think it's immoral to kill things beings even if they wouldn't grant me or others the same.
        will4274 5y ago
        Libertarians don't agree that the inability to protect the environment makes their philosophy invalid either. The fact is though, most people look for reciprocatity in their moral philosophy. It's not that every individual has to agree not to kill you. It's that we have to agree that punishment is appropriate for killers. Getting specific - it's incoherent to say it's immoral for humans to kill rabbits but moral for foxes to kill rabbits. To have a consistent moral philosophy, you have to either punish the foxes and try to prevent them from killing the rabbits, or you have to admit that killing rabbits isn't _really_ a problem.
        delecti 5y ago
        I'm not arguing that it's moral for foxes to kill rabbits. I'm arguing that the presence of immoral actors does not negate the arguments in favor of morality. Foxes aren't immoral, they're amoral. It's wrong for me to kill people even if natural disasters do. I can't have a moral discussion with a fox.
  - datavirtue 5y ago
    Because you are robbing a living creature of the only thing that matters...its life...the now. The next mental step is being able to debase the life of another human and classify them into castes. Aren't we trying to stop doing that? Animal husbandry keeps us ethically within the realm of easily devaluing other humans. You do it without even thinking.
  - JCharante 5y ago
    Have you seen the movie "The Island"? A organ supplier fakes a post apocalypse for the humans living in the bunkers. They still live a nice life and when they need organs they hold a lottery to see who gets to go to the surface where they've built a resort on an island as they supposedly repopulate. These humans live fairly happy lives and were bred (cloned) to be harvested for the organs. Would you oppose the real world implementation of this system? The people could even not find out what happens to them, they could be gassed during the transit. It really stems down to whether you think it's okay to kill living beings. I don't care too much for life forms smaller than 1cm and that's one of my biases, but I don't think it's okay to kill living beings larger than 1cm. You could say that we are humans and those are non-human animals, therefore it's okay. I'm not a fan of this line of thinking because that is how caste systems work in societies that exploit different groups of people. They're of a lower caste so it's okay to treat them like dirt. They're of a different skin color so it's okay to treat them bad. It's okay to kill them. If we discovered aliens, what would have to be different about them to make it not okay to raise them to be killed for our tastebud enjoyment? The ability to do calculus? Plenty of people can't do calculus. The ability to speak? We're still trying to learn how certain whales communicate or how crows seem to have a memory for previous bad actors /abusers in studies. We don't eat handicapped people nor people with severe mental problems. If it's not okay to farm humans, what about our predecessors? We have a common ancestor with other life forms on earth, so where do we draw the line? Bipedalism?
    - KSteffensen 5y ago
      I would not be ok with such a dystopia. However I don't think there's a clear line to be drawn. Why do most people object to eating dog or cat while they have no problem with pork? Pigs are about as intelligent as dogs (and can also learn to recognize individual humans). Extrapolating that line of thought there is also no fundamental difference between eating plants and animals, but most people argue that it's morally wrong to kill animals for meat but ok to eat plants.
      - boston_clone 5y ago
        > Why do most people object to eating dog or cat while they have no problem with pork? Cognitive dissonance, plain and simple. This was explained in the Wikipedia article I linked above.
jfengel 5y ago
A nutritious vegan diet is not difficult. The hardest thing about it is that you mostly have to cook it yourself, since so many restaurants offer few (or no) vegan choices. Fortunately, that's gradually improving. And it's a good idea for people to eat less restaurant meals if they're really interested in nutrition. It's hard to claim that nutrition is one's #1 priority when one is eating 1,500 or more calories per meal and few vegetables or whole grains. Veganism isn't automatically nutritious. It can be, just as meat diets can be -- but most meat eaters don't. Either can be nutritious with planning and education. As you say, your diet should absolutely start with nutrition. But given that you could eat nutritiously either way, you should indeed let your ethics guide you -- which includes both animal welfare and the environment as a whole. But in particular, it'll be very hard to claim that nutrition is top priority if you're frequently eating Big Macs and never eating vegetables or grains.

boston_clone 5y ago

That's the rub, though - we know that vegetarian (including vegan) diets are nutritionally complete and applicable at virtually all stages of life [0], yet people make choices that result in hundreds of billions of animals being slaughtered each year. The cognitive dissonance that accompanies eating meat is extraordinarily pervasive [1]. 0. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/ 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_eating_meat#Meat_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_eating_meat#Meat...

KSteffensen 5y ago
Why is there an ethical problem in slaughtering an animal for meat if that animal has been raised in good conditions and the actual killing happens with a minimum of pain and fear for the animal? I get why foie gras is problematic, but I don't see the problem in a leg of lamb.
- boston_clone 5y ago
  > Why is there an ethical problem in slaughtering In short, I think killing another living being that experiences suffering is wrong. There needs to be at least a base agreement on some ethics before diving into an ethical debate, and if you don't see a problem with needlessly killing animals, then this exchange will be worthless. Extend the reasoning of how we know it's wrong to raise and kill a human for our own consumption to animals, and we arrive at veganism. Please see my second citation in the parent comment for a better overview.
  - will4274 5y ago
    > In short, I think killing another living being that experiences suffering is wrong. It fails Kant's categorical imperative. Animals aren't going to believe that eating meat is wrong - and if we tried to prevent animals from eating meat, we'd kill a lot of them - not to mention it'd just be ridiculous. There's simply no way to include animals in universal law and maintain reciprocity. It's an internally inconsistent ethical philosophy, and obviously so. That's to say - people make fun of ethical vegans for the same reason they make fun of libertarians - clear gaps in the philosophy they refuse to acknowledge.
    - delecti 5y ago
      I don't agree that morals need to be reciprocated to be valid. It's not internally inconsistent to say I think it's immoral to kill things beings even if they wouldn't grant me or others the same.
      - will4274 5y ago
        Libertarians don't agree that the inability to protect the environment makes their philosophy invalid either. The fact is though, most people look for reciprocatity in their moral philosophy. It's not that every individual has to agree not to kill you. It's that we have to agree that punishment is appropriate for killers. Getting specific - it's incoherent to say it's immoral for humans to kill rabbits but moral for foxes to kill rabbits. To have a consistent moral philosophy, you have to either punish the foxes and try to prevent them from killing the rabbits, or you have to admit that killing rabbits isn't _really_ a problem.
        delecti 5y ago
        I'm not arguing that it's moral for foxes to kill rabbits. I'm arguing that the presence of immoral actors does not negate the arguments in favor of morality. Foxes aren't immoral, they're amoral. It's wrong for me to kill people even if natural disasters do. I can't have a moral discussion with a fox.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  Because you are robbing a living creature of the only thing that matters...its life...the now. The next mental step is being able to debase the life of another human and classify them into castes. Aren't we trying to stop doing that? Animal husbandry keeps us ethically within the realm of easily devaluing other humans. You do it without even thinking.
- JCharante 5y ago
  Have you seen the movie "The Island"? A organ supplier fakes a post apocalypse for the humans living in the bunkers. They still live a nice life and when they need organs they hold a lottery to see who gets to go to the surface where they've built a resort on an island as they supposedly repopulate. These humans live fairly happy lives and were bred (cloned) to be harvested for the organs. Would you oppose the real world implementation of this system? The people could even not find out what happens to them, they could be gassed during the transit. It really stems down to whether you think it's okay to kill living beings. I don't care too much for life forms smaller than 1cm and that's one of my biases, but I don't think it's okay to kill living beings larger than 1cm. You could say that we are humans and those are non-human animals, therefore it's okay. I'm not a fan of this line of thinking because that is how caste systems work in societies that exploit different groups of people. They're of a lower caste so it's okay to treat them like dirt. They're of a different skin color so it's okay to treat them bad. It's okay to kill them. If we discovered aliens, what would have to be different about them to make it not okay to raise them to be killed for our tastebud enjoyment? The ability to do calculus? Plenty of people can't do calculus. The ability to speak? We're still trying to learn how certain whales communicate or how crows seem to have a memory for previous bad actors /abusers in studies. We don't eat handicapped people nor people with severe mental problems. If it's not okay to farm humans, what about our predecessors? We have a common ancestor with other life forms on earth, so where do we draw the line? Bipedalism?
  - KSteffensen 5y ago
    I would not be ok with such a dystopia. However I don't think there's a clear line to be drawn. Why do most people object to eating dog or cat while they have no problem with pork? Pigs are about as intelligent as dogs (and can also learn to recognize individual humans). Extrapolating that line of thought there is also no fundamental difference between eating plants and animals, but most people argue that it's morally wrong to kill animals for meat but ok to eat plants.
    - boston_clone 5y ago
      > Why do most people object to eating dog or cat while they have no problem with pork? Cognitive dissonance, plain and simple. This was explained in the Wikipedia article I linked above.

jfengel 5y ago

A nutritious vegan diet is not difficult. The hardest thing about it is that you mostly have to cook it yourself, since so many restaurants offer few (or no) vegan choices. Fortunately, that's gradually improving. And it's a good idea for people to eat less restaurant meals if they're really interested in nutrition. It's hard to claim that nutrition is one's #1 priority when one is eating 1,500 or more calories per meal and few vegetables or whole grains. Veganism isn't automatically nutritious. It can be, just as meat diets can be -- but most meat eaters don't. Either can be nutritious with planning and education. As you say, your diet should absolutely start with nutrition. But given that you could eat nutritiously either way, you should indeed let your ethics guide you -- which includes both animal welfare and the environment as a whole. But in particular, it'll be very hard to claim that nutrition is top priority if you're frequently eating Big Macs and never eating vegetables or grains.