Veganism seems well-intentioned, but misguided. So then, your main reason for veganism is some sense of empathy for animal suffering? My best guess for vegans’ motives is to merely signal that empathy, for social status without any real concern for their real-world impact on animal welfare.
Empathy is a natural human tendency, at least for other members of the tribe. Extending that past the tribe, to humans in general, seems to be a relatively recent invention, historically. But it does at least seem like a useful trait in larger cities. Extending that to other animals seems unnatural. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong, per se, but it’s not a great start. A lot of humans believe weird things. Animistic cultures feel may feel empathy for sacred objects, like boulders or trees, or dead ancestors, or even imaginary deities with no physical form. They may feel this so strongly that it outweighs concern for their fellow humans at times. Are you making the same mistake? Do mere rocks deserve moral consideration?
So there are things that are morally important and things that are not. Where do we draw that line? Is it only a matter of degree, not kind? How much uncertainty do we tolerate before changing the category? If you take the precautionary principle, so that something is morally important if there’s even a small chance it could be, aren’t you the same as the rock worshipers neglecting their fellow humans?
Why do you believe animals can suffer? No, we can’t take this as a settled axiom. Many people do not believe this. But I’ll try to steelman. My thoughts are that generally humans can suffer. Humans are a type of animal, thus there exists a type of animal that can suffer. We are related to other species in almost exactly the same sense that we are related to our grandparents (and thereby our cousins), just more generations back. Perhaps whatever makes us morally relevant evolved before we were human, or even appeared more than once through convergent evolution. Not every organism need have this. You are related to vegetables in the evolutionary sense. That’s why they’re biochemically similar enough to ourselves that we can eat them. You’re willing to eat vegetables, so mere relation isn’t enough for moral weight.
By what test can we distinguish these categories? Is it perhaps the mere fact of an aversive behavior to stimulus? Consider the Mimosa pudica, a plant that recoils to touch. Is it morally acceptable to farm and kill such a plant? That’s just an obvious case. Many plants show aversive behaviors that are less obvious, like producing poisons after injury, even releasing pheromones that stimulate others nearby to do the same. But again, you’re fine with eating plants. Consider that when you burn your finger, your own spinal cord produces a reflexive aversive behavior before the nerve impulse has time to reach your brain. Is your spine conscious? Does it have moral weight by itself? Without going into bizarre thought experiments about the moral treatment of disembodied spinal cords, I think we can agree a conscious mind is required to put something in the “morally relevant” category. I hope you’re enough of a rationalist to be over the “soul” thing. (Why can’t vegetables have souls? Why not rocks?) I think it is a near certainty that the simplest of animals (jellyfish, say) are no more conscious than vegetables. So merely being a member of the animal kingdom isn’t enough either.
So which animals then? I think there’s a small chance that animals as simple as honeybees might have some level of conscious awareness. I also think there’s a significant chance that animals as advanced as gorillas are not conscious in any morally relevant way. Gorillas, notably, cannot pass the mirror test. Heck, I’m not even sure if Dan Dennet is conscious! So why are we so worried about cows and chickens? I am morally opposed to farming and eating animals that can pass the mirror test.
Gorillas to honeybees are pretty wide error bars. Can we push the line any farther down? Trying to steelman again. What about humans too young to pass the mirror test? Is it morally acceptable to kill them? Are vegans as a subculture generally pro life, or pro choice? On priors, I’d guess vegans tend Democratic Party, so pro choice, but correct me if I’m wrong. It seems so silly to me that I can predict answers to moral questions with such confidence based on cultural groups. But it goes back to my accusation of vegans merely signaling virtue without thinking. You’re willing to kill humans that are not conscious enough. So that fails too.
Even if there’s some degree of consciousness in lesser beings, is it morally relevant? Do they suffer? Humans have enlarged frontal lobes. This evolved very recently. It’s what gives us our willpower. This brain system fights against the more primitive instincts for control of human behavior. For example, human sex drive is often strong enough to overcome that willpower. (STIs case in point.) But why did evolution choose that particular strength? Do you think humans would still be willing to reproduce if our sex drive was much weaker than it is? This goes for all of the other human instincts. It has to be strong enough to compete against human will. Most notably for our argument, this includes the strength of our pain response, but it also applies to other adverse experiences, like fear, hunger, loneliness, etc. What might take an overwhelming urgency in human consciousness to get a human to act, might only require a mild preference in lower animals, which have nothing better to do anyway. Lower animals may have some analogue to our pain response, but that doesn’t mean it hurts.
I think giving any moral weight to the inner experience of cows and chickens is already on very shaky ground. But I’m not 100% certain of this. I’m not even 90% certain of this. It’s within my error bars. So in the interest of steelmanning, lets grant you that for the sake of argument.
Is it wrong to hurt something that can suffer? Or is it just sometimes the lesser of evils? What if that thing is evil? What if it’s merely indifferent? If agents of an alien mind indifferent to human values (like a paperclip maximizer) could suffer as much as humans, but have no more morality than a spider, would it be wrong to kill them? Would it be wrong to torture them for information? They would cause harm to humans by their very nature. I’d kill them with extreme prejudice. Most humans would even be willing to kill other humans in self-defense. Pacifistic cavemen didn’t reproduce. Pacifistic cultures tend to get wiped out. Game theory is relevant to morality. If a wild animal attacks your human friend, you shoot it dead. If a dog attacks you while you’re unarmed you pin it to the ground and gouge out its brains through its eye socket before it rips your guts out. It’s the right thing to do.
If you had a pet cat, would you feed it a vegan diet? Even though it’s an obligate carnivore, and would probably suffer terribly from malnutrition? Do carnivores get a pass? Do carnivores have a right to exist? Is it okay to eat them instead? Is it wrong to keep pets? Only if they’re carnivores? Why such prejudice against omnivores, like humans? Meat is also a natural part of our diet. Despite your biased vegan friends telling you that meat is unhealthy, it’s not. Most humans struggle getting adequate nutrition as it is. A strict prohibition on animal products makes that worse.
But maybe you think farm animals are more innocent than indifferent. They’re more domesticated. Not to mention herbivores. Cows have certainly been know to kill humans though. Pigs even kill human children. Maybe cows are not very nice people. But if I’m steelmanning, I must admit that self-defense and factory farming are very different things. But why aren’t you okay with hunting for food? What about happy livestock slaughtered humanely? If you are okay with that, then support that kind of farm with your meat purchases, have better health for the more natural human diet, and make a difference instead of this pointless virtue signalling. If you’re not okay with that, then it’s not just about suffering, is it? That was not your true objection.
Is it some deontological objection to killing living things? Vegetables are also alive. To killing animals in particular? I thought we were over this “soul” thing. Is it about cutting short future potential? These aren’t humans we’re talking about. They don’t invent devices or write symphonies. Is it about cutting short future positive experiences? Then consciousness is still important.
You are not innocent.
Commercial vegetable farming killsanimals! Pesticides kill insects with nerve gas. If they’re conscious, that’s a horrible way to die. But that wasn’t your true objection. It cuts short future experiences. Or are bugs also below even your threshold for moral relevance? In that case, why not eat them? Even so, heavy farm equipment like combines kill small mammals, like mice and voles. That’s why people occasionally find severed rodent heads in their canned green beans. The government has limits for this sort of impurity, but it’s not zero. It simply wouldn’t be practical economically.
So if farming mere vegetables also kills animals, why not become an ascetic? Just stop eating. You can reduce your future harm to zero, at the cost of one human. Your instincts say no? Ascetic cavemen did not reproduce. Game theory is relevant to morality.
Now you see it’s a numbers game. You can’t eliminate your harm to animals. You cannot live without killing. You still believe even bugs are morally relevant. You’ve even rejected suicide. So now what do you do? What can you do? It’s a numbers game. You have to try to minimize the harm rather than eliminate it. (At least before the Singularity). Is veganism really the best way to do that?
No, it really is not. Forget about your own diet. It’s not an effective use of your limited resources. Try to improve the system. Fund science to determine where the threshold of consciousness is, so you can target your interventions appropriately. Fund more humane pesticides, that work faster. Fund charities that change meat in school lunch from chicken to beef. Blasphemy, you say? You are not innocent! How many calories in one cow? How many chickens do you have to slaughter to feed as many children as one cow? Numbers game. Take this seriously or you’re just signaling.
I think I’ve laid out a pretty good case for why Veganism makes no sense, but since virtue signaling is important to your social status, I’m sure you’ll come up with some rationalization I haven’t thought of in order to avoid changing your mind.
Is it some deontological objection to killing living things?
Nope
Vegetables are also alive.
And?
To killing animals in particular?
Yes, all mammals, birds, and more are conscious. Many more are self aware. Pigs are of similar intelligence to dogs, so it could be highly likely they are self aware just like dogs are.
I thought we were over this “soul” thing.
Stop being so condescending please.
Commercial vegetable farming kills animals! Pesticides kill insects with nerve gas. If they’re conscious, that’s a horrible way to die. But that wasn’t your true objection. It cuts short future experiences.
Trophic levels.
In that case, why not eat them?
If they aren’t conscious, I’m not against it. However, we don’t know enough right now on insect consciousness; the subject is very hazy.
You can’t eliminate your harm to animals.
Strawman. No vegan has ever said that. Vegans are constantly correcting people saying how its about minimizing suffering, not eliminating.
Try to improve the system.
I’m doing both. I’m an effective altruist and anti-speciesist.
Fund science to determine where the threshold of consciousness is, so you can target your interventions appropriately.
There’s more information on this than you seem to say.
Fund charities that change meat in school lunch from chicken to beef.
I get what you’re saying here, but that’s silly. I’d push for plant foods.
Take this seriously or you’re just signaling.
I do. This isn’t signalling. I’ve thought about every single question you’ve asked here at prior times. These aren’t new to me.
I think I’ve laid out a pretty good case for why Veganism makes no sense
Not really. You seem extremely opposed to it.
I’m sure you’ll come up with some rationalization I haven’t thought of in order to avoid changing your mind.
Because there’s no possible way I could be right, right? It’d have to be rationalizing, lol.
That was only if you answered “yes” to the previous question. You didn’t, so never mind.
Stop being so condescending please.
I’m doing both. I’m an effective altruist
Public posts are talking to the general audience, not just to you. Veganism seems more religious than rational (like politics), but I’ll try to tone it down since you seem more reasonable and asked nicely. Assume good faith. Tone doesn’t come through well in writing, and it’s more on the reader than the writer.
If they aren’t conscious, I’m not against it.
Then why not eat eggs? I don’t mean the factory-farmed kind. If the hens were happy would it be okay? If yes, you should be funding the farms that treat their hens better with your food purchases, even if it’s not perfect, to push the system in a good direction.
Vegans are constantly correcting people saying how its about minimizing suffering, not eliminating.
Because there’s no possible way I could be right, right? It’d have to be rationalizing, lol.
that’s silly. I’d push for plant foods.
Even if that were the more effective intervention? Forget about the diet thing. It’s not that effective. Do what actually makes a difference. Use your buying power to push things in a good direction, even if that means eating meat in the short term. See http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/23/vegetarianism-for-meat-eaters/
Trophic levels.
It’s relevant in some cases, but I don’t entirely buy that argument. Efficiency, yes, but morality? On marginal land not fertile enough for farming, you can still raise livestock. No pesticides. What about wild-caught fish? Those are predators higher up the food chain, but they have a more natural life before they’re caught.
Animistic cultures feel may feel empathy for sacred objects, like boulders or trees, or dead ancestors, or even imaginary deities with no physical form.
Ya.. I’m not buying this here—that’s a giant false equivalency. You’re comparing inanimate objects to conscious beings; you’re also comparing religion and spiritual cultures to scientific arguments.
Where do we draw that line? Is it only a matter of degree, not kind? How much uncertainty do we tolerate before changing the category? If you take the precautionary principle, so that something is morally important if there’s even a small chance it could be, aren’t you the same as the rock worshipers neglecting their fellow humans?
I’m not saying this is black and white, but its not nearly as gray as you’re making it out to be. You can pick solid, semi-non arbitrary places to put the line. To start, biocentricity is never actually followed; no one cares about bacteria. Anthromocentricity is based on a marginal cases argument and speciesism. Sentiocentricity is based on the fact that these other beings feel things like ourselves and experience the world subjectively. That’s why I pick sentiocentricity. Sentient beings can suffer, and I inherently think suffering is wrong. If you don’t think suffering is wrong, there’s nothing to say here.
Why do you believe animals can suffer? No, we can’t take this as a settled axiom. Many people do not believe this. But I’ll try to steelman. My thoughts are that generally humans can suffer. Humans are a type of animal, thus there exists a type of animal that can suffer. We are related to other species in almost exactly the same sense that we are related to our grandparents (and thereby our cousins), just more generations back. Perhaps whatever makes us morally relevant evolved before we were human, or even appeared more than once through convergent evolution. Not every organism need have this. You are related to vegetables in the evolutionary sense. That’s why they’re biochemically similar enough to ourselves that we can eat them. You’re willing to eat vegetables, so mere relation isn’t enough for moral weight.
You’re really bringing up the plant argument? Even if plants were morally considerable, which they aren’t because they can’t suffer, it would be more altruistic to eat plants because of the way trophic levels work.
Consider the Mimosa pudica, a plant that recoils to touch. Is it morally acceptable to farm and kill such a plant? That’s just an obvious case.
Aversive behaviors is not indicative of suffering. Plants don’t even have a central nervous system.
But again, you’re fine with eating plants.
You say I’m fine with eating plants, as if this isn’t a problem to you. If you care so much about plants, become a jain.
I think it is a near certainty that the simplest of animals
Based off what evidence? I’m not saying something either way for animals like jellyfish, but you can’t just say “near-certain” with no backing.
I also think there’s a significant chance that animals as advanced as gorillas are not conscious in any morally relevant way.
Where are you getting this? You have nothing backing this. You can say you think this, but you can’t randomly say there’s a “significant chance.”
I am morally opposed to farming and eating animals that can pass the mirror test.
See, this gets more nuanced than you probably originally thought. When it comes to the mirror test, its not as a black and white as you may think. Not all animals use sight as their primary sense. Just learning this piece of information calls for a revamp of the test; its not as if this test was the most fool proof to begin with. I bring this up because dogs were recently found to be self-aware based on smell rather than sight; dogs primarily use sound and smell. Many other animals use other senses.
What about humans too young to pass the mirror test? Is it morally acceptable to kill them?
That’s a question you gotta ask for your own moral framework. You’re the one wanting to kill non-self aware beings.
Are vegans as a subculture generally pro life, or pro choice?
This is irrelevant. Most vegans are pro choice because pro life is based on very little actual evidence while pro life is.
Lower animals may have some analogue to our pain response, but that doesn’t mean it hurts.
What does lower animals mean? And sure it does, mammals and birds are conscious so it isn’t just a pain response. It isn’t just noiception.
If a wild animal attacks your human friend, you shoot it dead. If a dog attacks you while you’re unarmed you pin it to the ground and gouge out its brains through its eye socket before it rips your guts out. It’s the right thing to do.
Rhetorical appeal haha?
if you had a pet cat, would you feed it a vegan diet? Even though it’s an obligate carnivore, and would probably suffer terribly from malnutrition? Do carnivores get a pass? Do carnivores have a right to exist? Is it okay to eat them instead? Is it wrong to keep pets? Only if they’re carnivores? Why such prejudice against omnivores, like humans? Meat is also a natural part of our diet. Despite your biased vegan friends telling you that meat is unhealthy, it’s not. Most humans struggle getting adequate nutrition as it is. A strict prohibition on animal products makes that worse.
I have answers for all of these, but you asked so many loaded questions. I don’t have a pet cat, but if I did, I would preferable feed said cat lab meat. Do carnivores get a pass? They don’t get a pass, but for now they do require meat. I’m in favor of minimizing wild animal suffering and there are different strategies for that, being genetic engineering, lab meat for carnivores, etc. This is too far in the future because we don’t have control of the biosphere, so the environment will have to do for now. Is it wrong to keep pets? No, as long as they aren’t treated as property and so they are treated as family. Meat is also a natural part of our diet? Wait, so something being natural makes it right? Nope. Despite your biased vegan friends telling you that meat is unhealthy, it’s not. Thanks for being condescending, but no I’ve done the research myself. It can be more healthy. High doses of processed meat is unhealthy; I can link sources.
But maybe you think farm animals are more innocent than indifferent. They’re more domesticated. Not to mention herbivores. Cows have certainly been know to kill humans though. Pigs even kill human children. Maybe cows are not very nice people.
This is low, especially for a rationalists. We both know that had nothing to do with anything and was only a rhetorical appeal. Its not like many humans are nice people: murder, wars, etc etc.
All I’m seeing here is a whole ton of sophisticated arguing and a whole lack of actual knowledge on the subject. You wrongly assume that vegans are hippies who act on their feelings and there’s no factual basis behind it. You sure its not that you just really want to keep eating your tasty bacon and steak?
You say you’re against killing self aware beings. If pigs were proven to be self aware, would you quit eating them?
You’re really bringing up the plant argument? Even if plants were morally considerable, which they aren’t because they can’t suffer, it would be more altruistic to eat plants because of the way trophic levels work.
you’re also comparing religion and spiritual cultures to scientific arguments.
Because veganism seems more like religion than science. You give the benefit of the doubt to even bugs based on weak evidence.
Based off what evidence? I’m not saying something either way for animals like jellyfish, but you can’t just say “near-certain” with no backing.
No backing? How about based on the scientific fact that jellyfish have no brain? They do have eyes and neurons, but even plants detect light and share information between organs. It’s just slower. I find it bizarre that vegans are okay with eating vegetables, but are morally opposed to eating other brainless things like bivalves. It is possible to farm these commercially. https://sentientist.org/2013/05/20/the-ethical-case-for-eating-oysters-and-mussels/
That’s unreasonable. Humans have to assume a great deal to communicate at all. It takes a great deal of assumed background knowledge to even parse a typical English sentence. I said “vegans” are opposed to eating brainless bivalves, not that “Zarm” is. Again I’m talking to the audience and not only to you. You claim to be a vegan, so it is perfectly reasonable to assume on priors you take the majority vegan position of strict vegetarianism until you tell me otherwise (which you just did, noted). You sound more like a normal vegetarian than the stricter vegan. Some weaker vegetarian variants will still eat dairy, eggs, or even fish.
My understanding is the majority of vegans generally don’t eat any animal-derived foods whatsoever, including honey, dairy, eggs, bivalves, insects, gelatin; and also don’t wear animal products, like leather, furs, or silk. Or they at least profess to this position for signaling purposes, but have trouble maintaining it. Because it’s too unhealthy to be sustainable long term.
You say you’re against killing self aware beings. If pigs were proven to be self aware, would you quit eating them?
That’s not exactly what I said, but it’s pretty close. I established the mirror test as a bound above which I’d oppose eating animals. That is only a bound—it seems entirely plausible to me that other animals might deserve moral consideration, but the test is not simply self awareness.
Absolute proof doesn’t even exist in mathematics—you take the axioms on faith, but then you can deduce other things. At the level of pigs, logical deduction breaks down. We can only have a preponderance of the evidence. If that evidence were overwhelming (and my threshold seems different than yours), then yeah, I’d be morally opposed to eating pigs, other things being equal. In that case I’d take the consequentialist action that does the most good by the numbers. Like funding a charity to swap meats in school lunch (or better yet, donating to MIRI), rather than foregoing pork in all circumstances. That pigs in particular might be self aware already seems plausible on the evidence, and I’ve already reduced my pork intake, but at present, if I was offered a ham sandwich at a free lunch, I’d still eat it.
Me being vegan isn’t my only course of action. I convince others (on a micro level and I plan to do it on a macro level), I plan to donate to things, and push for actions like the one you said, but not really focused on school. I’m just getting into effective altruism, so obviously I’m more into consequentialist actions.
Part of me being vegan is so that I can convince others, not just the physical amount of meat I forego. You can’t really convince others on a micro, macro, or institutional level if you yourself aren’t following it.
Please stop trying to convince others, at least on this forum. This is a forum for people in the unbiased search for truth, not evangelizing of already deeply held views.
Veganism seems well-intentioned, but misguided. So then, your main reason for veganism is some sense of empathy for animal suffering? My best guess for vegans’ motives is to merely signal that empathy, for social status without any real concern for their real-world impact on animal welfare.
Empathy is a natural human tendency, at least for other members of the tribe. Extending that past the tribe, to humans in general, seems to be a relatively recent invention, historically. But it does at least seem like a useful trait in larger cities. Extending that to other animals seems unnatural. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong, per se, but it’s not a great start. A lot of humans believe weird things. Animistic cultures feel may feel empathy for sacred objects, like boulders or trees, or dead ancestors, or even imaginary deities with no physical form. They may feel this so strongly that it outweighs concern for their fellow humans at times. Are you making the same mistake? Do mere rocks deserve moral consideration?
So there are things that are morally important and things that are not. Where do we draw that line? Is it only a matter of degree, not kind? How much uncertainty do we tolerate before changing the category? If you take the precautionary principle, so that something is morally important if there’s even a small chance it could be, aren’t you the same as the rock worshipers neglecting their fellow humans?
Why do you believe animals can suffer? No, we can’t take this as a settled axiom. Many people do not believe this. But I’ll try to steelman. My thoughts are that generally humans can suffer. Humans are a type of animal, thus there exists a type of animal that can suffer. We are related to other species in almost exactly the same sense that we are related to our grandparents (and thereby our cousins), just more generations back. Perhaps whatever makes us morally relevant evolved before we were human, or even appeared more than once through convergent evolution. Not every organism need have this. You are related to vegetables in the evolutionary sense. That’s why they’re biochemically similar enough to ourselves that we can eat them. You’re willing to eat vegetables, so mere relation isn’t enough for moral weight.
By what test can we distinguish these categories? Is it perhaps the mere fact of an aversive behavior to stimulus? Consider the Mimosa pudica, a plant that recoils to touch. Is it morally acceptable to farm and kill such a plant? That’s just an obvious case. Many plants show aversive behaviors that are less obvious, like producing poisons after injury, even releasing pheromones that stimulate others nearby to do the same. But again, you’re fine with eating plants. Consider that when you burn your finger, your own spinal cord produces a reflexive aversive behavior before the nerve impulse has time to reach your brain. Is your spine conscious? Does it have moral weight by itself? Without going into bizarre thought experiments about the moral treatment of disembodied spinal cords, I think we can agree a conscious mind is required to put something in the “morally relevant” category. I hope you’re enough of a rationalist to be over the “soul” thing. (Why can’t vegetables have souls? Why not rocks?) I think it is a near certainty that the simplest of animals (jellyfish, say) are no more conscious than vegetables. So merely being a member of the animal kingdom isn’t enough either.
So which animals then? I think there’s a small chance that animals as simple as honeybees might have some level of conscious awareness. I also think there’s a significant chance that animals as advanced as gorillas are not conscious in any morally relevant way. Gorillas, notably, cannot pass the mirror test. Heck, I’m not even sure if Dan Dennet is conscious! So why are we so worried about cows and chickens? I am morally opposed to farming and eating animals that can pass the mirror test.
Gorillas to honeybees are pretty wide error bars. Can we push the line any farther down? Trying to steelman again. What about humans too young to pass the mirror test? Is it morally acceptable to kill them? Are vegans as a subculture generally pro life, or pro choice? On priors, I’d guess vegans tend Democratic Party, so pro choice, but correct me if I’m wrong. It seems so silly to me that I can predict answers to moral questions with such confidence based on cultural groups. But it goes back to my accusation of vegans merely signaling virtue without thinking. You’re willing to kill humans that are not conscious enough. So that fails too.
Even if there’s some degree of consciousness in lesser beings, is it morally relevant? Do they suffer? Humans have enlarged frontal lobes. This evolved very recently. It’s what gives us our willpower. This brain system fights against the more primitive instincts for control of human behavior. For example, human sex drive is often strong enough to overcome that willpower. (STIs case in point.) But why did evolution choose that particular strength? Do you think humans would still be willing to reproduce if our sex drive was much weaker than it is? This goes for all of the other human instincts. It has to be strong enough to compete against human will. Most notably for our argument, this includes the strength of our pain response, but it also applies to other adverse experiences, like fear, hunger, loneliness, etc. What might take an overwhelming urgency in human consciousness to get a human to act, might only require a mild preference in lower animals, which have nothing better to do anyway. Lower animals may have some analogue to our pain response, but that doesn’t mean it hurts.
I think giving any moral weight to the inner experience of cows and chickens is already on very shaky ground. But I’m not 100% certain of this. I’m not even 90% certain of this. It’s within my error bars. So in the interest of steelmanning, lets grant you that for the sake of argument.
Is it wrong to hurt something that can suffer? Or is it just sometimes the lesser of evils? What if that thing is evil? What if it’s merely indifferent? If agents of an alien mind indifferent to human values (like a paperclip maximizer) could suffer as much as humans, but have no more morality than a spider, would it be wrong to kill them? Would it be wrong to torture them for information? They would cause harm to humans by their very nature. I’d kill them with extreme prejudice. Most humans would even be willing to kill other humans in self-defense. Pacifistic cavemen didn’t reproduce. Pacifistic cultures tend to get wiped out. Game theory is relevant to morality. If a wild animal attacks your human friend, you shoot it dead. If a dog attacks you while you’re unarmed you pin it to the ground and gouge out its brains through its eye socket before it rips your guts out. It’s the right thing to do.
If you had a pet cat, would you feed it a vegan diet? Even though it’s an obligate carnivore, and would probably suffer terribly from malnutrition? Do carnivores get a pass? Do carnivores have a right to exist? Is it okay to eat them instead? Is it wrong to keep pets? Only if they’re carnivores? Why such prejudice against omnivores, like humans? Meat is also a natural part of our diet. Despite your biased vegan friends telling you that meat is unhealthy, it’s not. Most humans struggle getting adequate nutrition as it is. A strict prohibition on animal products makes that worse.
But maybe you think farm animals are more innocent than indifferent. They’re more domesticated. Not to mention herbivores. Cows have certainly been know to kill humans though. Pigs even kill human children. Maybe cows are not very nice people. But if I’m steelmanning, I must admit that self-defense and factory farming are very different things. But why aren’t you okay with hunting for food? What about happy livestock slaughtered humanely? If you are okay with that, then support that kind of farm with your meat purchases, have better health for the more natural human diet, and make a difference instead of this pointless virtue signalling. If you’re not okay with that, then it’s not just about suffering, is it? That was not your true objection.
Then what is?
Is it some deontological objection to killing living things? Vegetables are also alive. To killing animals in particular? I thought we were over this “soul” thing. Is it about cutting short future potential? These aren’t humans we’re talking about. They don’t invent devices or write symphonies. Is it about cutting short future positive experiences? Then consciousness is still important.
You are not innocent.
Commercial vegetable farming kills animals! Pesticides kill insects with nerve gas. If they’re conscious, that’s a horrible way to die. But that wasn’t your true objection. It cuts short future experiences. Or are bugs also below even your threshold for moral relevance? In that case, why not eat them? Even so, heavy farm equipment like combines kill small mammals, like mice and voles. That’s why people occasionally find severed rodent heads in their canned green beans. The government has limits for this sort of impurity, but it’s not zero. It simply wouldn’t be practical economically.
So if farming mere vegetables also kills animals, why not become an ascetic? Just stop eating. You can reduce your future harm to zero, at the cost of one human. Your instincts say no? Ascetic cavemen did not reproduce. Game theory is relevant to morality.
Now you see it’s a numbers game. You can’t eliminate your harm to animals. You cannot live without killing. You still believe even bugs are morally relevant. You’ve even rejected suicide. So now what do you do? What can you do? It’s a numbers game. You have to try to minimize the harm rather than eliminate it. (At least before the Singularity). Is veganism really the best way to do that?
No, it really is not. Forget about your own diet. It’s not an effective use of your limited resources. Try to improve the system. Fund science to determine where the threshold of consciousness is, so you can target your interventions appropriately. Fund more humane pesticides, that work faster. Fund charities that change meat in school lunch from chicken to beef. Blasphemy, you say? You are not innocent! How many calories in one cow? How many chickens do you have to slaughter to feed as many children as one cow? Numbers game. Take this seriously or you’re just signaling.
I think I’ve laid out a pretty good case for why Veganism makes no sense, but since virtue signaling is important to your social status, I’m sure you’ll come up with some rationalization I haven’t thought of in order to avoid changing your mind.
Nope
And?
Yes, all mammals, birds, and more are conscious. Many more are self aware. Pigs are of similar intelligence to dogs, so it could be highly likely they are self aware just like dogs are.
Stop being so condescending please.
Trophic levels.
If they aren’t conscious, I’m not against it. However, we don’t know enough right now on insect consciousness; the subject is very hazy.
Strawman. No vegan has ever said that. Vegans are constantly correcting people saying how its about minimizing suffering, not eliminating.
I’m doing both. I’m an effective altruist and anti-speciesist.
There’s more information on this than you seem to say.
I get what you’re saying here, but that’s silly. I’d push for plant foods.
I do. This isn’t signalling. I’ve thought about every single question you’ve asked here at prior times. These aren’t new to me.
Not really. You seem extremely opposed to it.
Because there’s no possible way I could be right, right? It’d have to be rationalizing, lol.
That was only if you answered “yes” to the previous question. You didn’t, so never mind.
Public posts are talking to the general audience, not just to you. Veganism seems more religious than rational (like politics), but I’ll try to tone it down since you seem more reasonable and asked nicely. Assume good faith. Tone doesn’t come through well in writing, and it’s more on the reader than the writer.
Then why not eat eggs? I don’t mean the factory-farmed kind. If the hens were happy would it be okay? If yes, you should be funding the farms that treat their hens better with your food purchases, even if it’s not perfect, to push the system in a good direction.
Even if that were the more effective intervention? Forget about the diet thing. It’s not that effective. Do what actually makes a difference. Use your buying power to push things in a good direction, even if that means eating meat in the short term. See http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/23/vegetarianism-for-meat-eaters/
It’s relevant in some cases, but I don’t entirely buy that argument. Efficiency, yes, but morality? On marginal land not fertile enough for farming, you can still raise livestock. No pesticides. What about wild-caught fish? Those are predators higher up the food chain, but they have a more natural life before they’re caught.
Ya.. I’m not buying this here—that’s a giant false equivalency. You’re comparing inanimate objects to conscious beings; you’re also comparing religion and spiritual cultures to scientific arguments.
I’m not saying this is black and white, but its not nearly as gray as you’re making it out to be. You can pick solid, semi-non arbitrary places to put the line. To start, biocentricity is never actually followed; no one cares about bacteria. Anthromocentricity is based on a marginal cases argument and speciesism. Sentiocentricity is based on the fact that these other beings feel things like ourselves and experience the world subjectively. That’s why I pick sentiocentricity. Sentient beings can suffer, and I inherently think suffering is wrong. If you don’t think suffering is wrong, there’s nothing to say here.
http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf
You’re really bringing up the plant argument? Even if plants were morally considerable, which they aren’t because they can’t suffer, it would be more altruistic to eat plants because of the way trophic levels work.
Aversive behaviors is not indicative of suffering. Plants don’t even have a central nervous system.
You say I’m fine with eating plants, as if this isn’t a problem to you. If you care so much about plants, become a jain.
Based off what evidence? I’m not saying something either way for animals like jellyfish, but you can’t just say “near-certain” with no backing.
Where are you getting this? You have nothing backing this. You can say you think this, but you can’t randomly say there’s a “significant chance.”
See, this gets more nuanced than you probably originally thought. When it comes to the mirror test, its not as a black and white as you may think. Not all animals use sight as their primary sense. Just learning this piece of information calls for a revamp of the test; its not as if this test was the most fool proof to begin with. I bring this up because dogs were recently found to be self-aware based on smell rather than sight; dogs primarily use sound and smell. Many other animals use other senses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test
Look at criticisms of the test^
That’s a question you gotta ask for your own moral framework. You’re the one wanting to kill non-self aware beings.
This is irrelevant. Most vegans are pro choice because pro life is based on very little actual evidence while pro life is.
What does lower animals mean? And sure it does, mammals and birds are conscious so it isn’t just a pain response. It isn’t just noiception.
Rhetorical appeal haha?
I have answers for all of these, but you asked so many loaded questions. I don’t have a pet cat, but if I did, I would preferable feed said cat lab meat. Do carnivores get a pass? They don’t get a pass, but for now they do require meat. I’m in favor of minimizing wild animal suffering and there are different strategies for that, being genetic engineering, lab meat for carnivores, etc. This is too far in the future because we don’t have control of the biosphere, so the environment will have to do for now. Is it wrong to keep pets? No, as long as they aren’t treated as property and so they are treated as family. Meat is also a natural part of our diet? Wait, so something being natural makes it right? Nope. Despite your biased vegan friends telling you that meat is unhealthy, it’s not. Thanks for being condescending, but no I’ve done the research myself. It can be more healthy. High doses of processed meat is unhealthy; I can link sources.
This is low, especially for a rationalists. We both know that had nothing to do with anything and was only a rhetorical appeal. Its not like many humans are nice people: murder, wars, etc etc.
All I’m seeing here is a whole ton of sophisticated arguing and a whole lack of actual knowledge on the subject. You wrongly assume that vegans are hippies who act on their feelings and there’s no factual basis behind it. You sure its not that you just really want to keep eating your tasty bacon and steak?
You say you’re against killing self aware beings. If pigs were proven to be self aware, would you quit eating them?
It’s not clear that plants can’t suffer http://reducing-suffering.org/bacteria-plants-and-graded-sentience/#Plants
Because veganism seems more like religion than science. You give the benefit of the doubt to even bugs based on weak evidence.
No backing? How about based on the scientific fact that jellyfish have no brain? They do have eyes and neurons, but even plants detect light and share information between organs. It’s just slower. I find it bizarre that vegans are okay with eating vegetables, but are morally opposed to eating other brainless things like bivalves. It is possible to farm these commercially. https://sentientist.org/2013/05/20/the-ethical-case-for-eating-oysters-and-mussels/
No I don’t. I never said anything close to that. In fact, I don’t even think there’s enough evidence to warrant me from not eating honey.
Again, not opposed to this. I never said anything about this either. Stop assuming positions.
That’s unreasonable. Humans have to assume a great deal to communicate at all. It takes a great deal of assumed background knowledge to even parse a typical English sentence. I said “vegans” are opposed to eating brainless bivalves, not that “Zarm” is. Again I’m talking to the audience and not only to you. You claim to be a vegan, so it is perfectly reasonable to assume on priors you take the majority vegan position of strict vegetarianism until you tell me otherwise (which you just did, noted). You sound more like a normal vegetarian than the stricter vegan. Some weaker vegetarian variants will still eat dairy, eggs, or even fish.
My understanding is the majority of vegans generally don’t eat any animal-derived foods whatsoever, including honey, dairy, eggs, bivalves, insects, gelatin; and also don’t wear animal products, like leather, furs, or silk. Or they at least profess to this position for signaling purposes, but have trouble maintaining it. Because it’s too unhealthy to be sustainable long term.
That’s not exactly what I said, but it’s pretty close. I established the mirror test as a bound above which I’d oppose eating animals. That is only a bound—it seems entirely plausible to me that other animals might deserve moral consideration, but the test is not simply self awareness.
Absolute proof doesn’t even exist in mathematics—you take the axioms on faith, but then you can deduce other things. At the level of pigs, logical deduction breaks down. We can only have a preponderance of the evidence. If that evidence were overwhelming (and my threshold seems different than yours), then yeah, I’d be morally opposed to eating pigs, other things being equal. In that case I’d take the consequentialist action that does the most good by the numbers. Like funding a charity to swap meats in school lunch (or better yet, donating to MIRI), rather than foregoing pork in all circumstances. That pigs in particular might be self aware already seems plausible on the evidence, and I’ve already reduced my pork intake, but at present, if I was offered a ham sandwich at a free lunch, I’d still eat it.
Me being vegan isn’t my only course of action. I convince others (on a micro level and I plan to do it on a macro level), I plan to donate to things, and push for actions like the one you said, but not really focused on school. I’m just getting into effective altruism, so obviously I’m more into consequentialist actions.
Part of me being vegan is so that I can convince others, not just the physical amount of meat I forego. You can’t really convince others on a micro, macro, or institutional level if you yourself aren’t following it.
Please stop trying to convince others, at least on this forum. This is a forum for people in the unbiased search for truth, not evangelizing of already deeply held views.
All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.
All aspiring rationalists are equally correct, but some are more equally correct than others ;)