It's not clear to me that a swift killing or the free range aspect makes the suffering any less gratuitous. The human/animal suffers less in a quantitative measure by being free range, but the swift killing undermines the quantitative reduction by the qualitative gratuity of killing them. We would object to that treatment as being extraordinarily cruel (to family and friends as well the interests of the human) to kill a human in that way. — Soylent

What exactly counts as gratuitous suffering? I'd have thought gratuitous suffering is to be understood as strong and not short term physical or psychological pain. I don't think free range living and a swift death meets this criteria.

Gratuitous suffering is any suffering that is not justified, whether it is unjustified by quantity (i.e., is of excessive intensity) or quality (i.e., is inflicted for no purpose or unnecessarily). Suffering that is inflicted as an unavoidable consequence of a necessary action is not gratuitous since it is not preventable. This definition alters the argument in this way:

Definition: If suffering is known and preventable, then said suffering is gratuitous (i.e., unjustified and wrong).

The antecedent condition of P1 follows from this definition.

Suffering that is inflicted as an unavoidable consequence of a necessary action is not gratuitous since it is not preventable. — Soylent

What counts as a necessary action? Is me turning down a girl necessary? If not then, according to your definition, I would be inflicting her with gratuitous suffering and so I ought to accept her proposal (despite my desire not to).

I might be committed to say yes, the suffering of turning down a girl is gratuitous. I'm not sure if it follows that I ought to accept her proposal, unless the gratuitous suffering of turning down a girl is preventable if and only if I accept her proposal. In this case, the methods of rejection might mitigate or eliminate the gratuitous suffering.

Certain grubs, the larval form of some insects, are reported to taste like a shrimp omelet. Are larvae sentient? They are definitely animal.

What about adult insects? It is thought that insects have neither the complexity nor the organization of an animal nervous system to experience suffering, gratuitous or otherwise. Suppose we eat adult insects?

How about brainless sea cucumbers? Oysters? clams? Neither of these have CNS.

Eggs? Milk?

I ask because I am wondering whether strict veganism is the goal of your argument. Global warming is causing and will cause far more gratuitous suffering to all animals, whether they are eaten or not, than carnivory.

I might have a problem with P1.

P1 If any gratuitous suffering is preventable and known , it is wrong to allow said gratuitous suffering. — Soylent

What about the trolley problem? Surely allowing the trolley to kill five people would result in gratuitously more suffering than if you flipped the switch and killed one person. And yet many people, including myself, would find this immoral.

There's room for some flexibility from this argument. A condition of the moral claim is epistemic (i.e., known suffering) and if there is sufficient understanding to be confident that killing an animal does not produce suffering (I.e., no CSN) than it would not fall under the obligation of this argument. If eggs and milk come from a sentient non-human animal and using eggs and milk taken from humans would constitute gratuitous suffering in humans, it constitutes gratuitous suffering in non-human animals. I used veganism because I considered it a broad obligation supported by this argument. A narrowing of the obligation requires a justification in itself, and I considered that any narrowing was arbitrary. I could be wrong, but that remains to be seen.

In terms of the environmental argument, it could be another way to come about this issue, and certainly bolster the cause, but I would worry the prevention premise (i.e., gratuitous suffering caused by global warming can be prevented if and only if it is possible to adopt a vegan diet) is defeated by a reduction proposal (i.e., if we restrict eating meat and greatly reduce food production practices using animals as food, gratuitous suffering caused by global warming can be prevented.)

Do you find it immoral for good reason or by appeal to emotion? Maybe you just need to align your emotions with the moral requirement. For instance, it could be that it's a no-win situation and you can assuage some guilt by justifying inaction rather than action.

The semantic distinction is this: veganism can be defined as the practice of not using sentient animals in our food production. — Soylent

I suppose. You would need to specify that you are intending this as a stipulative definition, however, or else you're going to get objections from "standard" vegans (who eschew all animal products, including non-food animal products). You might also need to head off objections that your argument should apply to non-food products like leather jackets (unless you in fact want to extend the argument beyond food products).

But the risk-averse assumption would say we are poor at discerning sentience in other animals, so for risk-aversion, we can assume all animals used in food production are sentient. I would say the knowledge of some is sufficient to error on the side of caution with all. — Soylent

If the risk-averse assumption goes through, then we might not need the semantic distinction. You could argue that veganism (standard definition) is entailed by the main argument (which covers all sentient animals) plus the risk-averse assumption (which extends the argument to all animals, just as the "standard" vegan wants).

However, I do not think that the risk-averse assumption goes through. Even if the border between sentient and non-sentient animals is blurry, it does not follow that we cannot rule out certain species. Dogs, cats, cows, and dolphins are all sentient. Lobsters? I don't know. But there are all sorts of insects that I am quite confident do not have sentience in the relevant sense, and I have no reason to think that I'm just bad at discerning their sentience (not least because my confidence is based on the fact that they lack the requisite physiological structures).

This rebuttal is addressed by P2 wherein the measure of gratuitous suffering is whether it would be considered gratuitous in humans. — Soylent

The trouble here is that humans have different capacities for suffering than animals. So it does not easily follow that an act which would cause gratuitous suffering in humans would also cause gratuitous suffering in non-human animals. Not all animals get attached to particular toys, for instance. Yet a young child may be terribly upset if you take away a toy and replace it with a different one (even a newer version of the old one).

Definition: If suffering is known and preventable, then said suffering is gratuitous (i.e., unjustified and wrong). — Soylent

You're going to need at least one more clause here. When my father goes to the dentist for a root canal, it is known that he will suffer from it. That particular suffering is also preventable (he could opt out of the root canal). Yet we do not consider the suffering gratuitous. One reason is that we take it to be known that the root canal will prevent even worse suffering.

You might think your existing premises already cover that case (if the known and preventable suffering from the root canal is less than the known and preventable suffering of the dental problem, then the latter negates the putative gratuitousness of the former). But what about elective surgeries? Or how about dangerous hobbies? Is the suffering these things bring justified by the pleasure we hope to receive from them or by our choosing them?

I also worry that the plausibility of the premise rests on the general assumption that gratuitous suffering is excessive in some way (whether quantitatively or qualitatively). If one allows a chicken to live a decent life (for a chicken) and then kills it as quickly and humanely as possible, there is very little loss associated with the chicken's death (not least because of its limited capacity to formulate desires). Principles that ask us to minimize suffering without eliminating it (which, as @BitterCrank notes, is impossible) always have problems with figuring out what counts as minimizing—particularly if we have to balance it with whatever suffering humans are made to endure by not having access to certain food items.

However, I do not think that the risk-averse assumption goes through. — Postmodern Beatnik

I don't think it would go through either, at least not as rigorously as I would like. There will always be the hard-line skeptics that will demand proof rather than accept a principle on an assumption. The argument relies on a risk-averse assumption of some sort, whether the strong one I claimed earlier or a weaker version introduced to account for BitterCrank and your own objections.

The trouble here is that humans have different capacities for suffering than animals. — Postmodern Beatnik

This is precisely what the risk-averse assumption aims to overcome. The assumption is that humans are not biologically special to a degree and that if the capacity for sentience is present in non-human animals, that faculty is also minimally necessary and sufficient for gratuitous suffering of a higher order. If we want to single out humans as special we need a strong claim why they are, without relying solely on introspection. The argument makes room for discovery to add or remove animals as needed, but during our state of ignorance, as it were, we can use the assumption as a guide for ethical treatment.

You're going to need at least one more clause here. — Postmodern Beatnik

I think part of your objection is covered by my reasonable cost condition not yet mentioned here.

The reasonable cost condition states:

If any gratuitous suffering is preventable, known and the cost to prevent it is reasonable, then it is wrong to allow said gratuitous suffering.

One does not have an obligation to prevent gratuitous suffering if the cost of prevention is an onerous burden on the agent (e.g., risk one's life to save another). The reasonable cost condition is vague, but as a minimum I kept it as obligations of omission rather than commission. We have obligations to prevent gratuitous suffering in a limited sense, if the prevention requires only that we abstain from actions that cause gratuitous suffering and not perform actions that alleviate or eliminate gratuitous suffering. Obviously, if we abstain from some action then we must choose another to take its place, but we have no specific obligation for the replacement action or any other further actions.

One might choose to inflict or risk gratuitous suffering on oneself (e.g., elective surgeries), if the prevention is considered to be an unreasonable cost (e.g., further harm, either psychological or physical).

The problem is that P6 is not necessarily true depending on the subject. As far as I can tell it comes closest to being true when everyone adopts a vegan diet. There is no direct link between the person who eats the animal and the treatment of the animal. It could well be that my going vegan does not have any effect on the animals that are farmed, chances are my super market is not going to order less meat because I am no longer buying from them. — shmik

I promised to address the issue of the ambiguous subject (i.e., adopted by whom, an individual or collectively as a society) as mentioned in the parallel thread. Upon reflection, this is a much more substantial objection than I previously considered, in particular because several of my premises adopt the plural pronoun "we". The inclusion of "we" negates the ambiguity and the truth of the conclusions as entailments rely on subject consistency throughout. I am forced, as it were, to come down on one side or the other in terms of the subject.

I am inclined towards the individual obligation contingent on the conditions of the moral obligation (i.e., known, preventable, and a reasonable cost). It doesn't make much sense to me to say, "we know" because "we" is an undefined group and not necessarily a homogeneous group with shared knowledge or beliefs. Some people know, and others don't. The obligation only applies to the class of people that satisfy the conditions of the moral obligation.

, I believe, objected that the prevention condition is more robust as a collective obligation, which is true, but comes at the cost of weakening the knowledge condition and the new reasonable cost condition. For the argument to go through, the prevention condition only has to be maintained in even a weak form (although this might make the argument less persuasive as a behaviour modifying argument).

The P6 premise relies on whether gratuitous suffering caused by food production practices is preventable if and only if it is possible to adopt a vegan diet (in the individual). That is a dubious claim. Two objections come to mind: i) the individual obligation is ineffective at preventing gratuitous suffering and ii) the collective obligation is effective at preventing gratuitous suffering. If either is true, the biconditional is defeated. A charitable reading can grant that i) is false, the individual obligation can prevent gratuitous suffering, but the denial of ii) may require asserting the truth of i). If the collective obligation is ineffective at preventing gratuitous suffering, it is not clear how the individual obligation could possibly hope to be effective. On the surface this commits a division fallacy, but I'm not sure it is an error in reasoning in this case. Any thoughts? Am I missing something?

There will always be the hard-line skeptics that will demand proof rather than accept a principle on an assumption. — Soylent

But I don't think one has to be a hard-line skeptic to deny the strong version (which is what I was responding to). There's a very soft kind of skepticism available here that says "the line is blurry, but it's not 10 miles wide." In fact, the strong version doesn't seem even remotely plausible. The weak version seems a lot more defensible. It significantly reduces the scope of the argument, but you seem to be fine with that.

This is precisely what the risk-averse assumption aims to overcome. — Soylent

I realize that, but I don't think that either version succeeds in doing so even if we accept it. What the risk-averse assumption tells us is that non-human animals are sentient. But even if sentience is a necessary condition for experiencing any form of suffering, it is not a sufficient condition for experiencing all forms of suffering. Sentience makes certain kinds of suffering possible, but other kinds of suffering require additional cognitive functions. Mere sentience, for instance, does not bring with it the ability to have long-term expectations or the risk of harm that comes from having such expectations dashed. So even if I were to accept that all non-human animals were sentient, it would not follow that they were all capable of suffering in the exact same way as humans. But if not everything that constitutes suffering in humans constitutes suffering in non-human animals, then the direct correspondence between human and non-human animal suffering has been broken. Therefore, we cannot assume that everything that constitutes gratuitous suffering in humans constitutes gratuitous suffering in non-human animals.

Furthermore, there seem to be clear counterexamples to the claim that everything that constitutes gratuitous suffering in humans constitutes gratuitous suffering in non-human animals. Here's a stupid one: watching someone being tortured. Not all non-human animals have the empathic capacity for this to cause suffering. But most humans do. Therefore, watching someone being tortured would constitute suffering in humans, but it would not constitute suffering (and thus could not constitute gratuitous suffering) in certain non-human animals. Here's a less stupid example: miscarriage. Not all non-human animals have the capacity to understand what pregnancy is or to have hopes and expectations about child rearing. But a human can learn about pregnancy, get pregnant on purpose, prepare their home for a child, and dream about their own future as a parent and the child's future as it grows into an adult. A human can also experience incredible heartbreak at the loss of a pregnancy and the subsequent loss of those hopes and expectations. Humans can even experience this sense of loss if they find out that they weren't actually pregnant—or that they are not capable of becoming pregnant.

So not only can we not assume that everything that constitutes gratuitous suffering in humans constitutes gratuitous suffering in non-human animals, we have good reason to reject it. But I also worry that your own examples might not work even if we accept the principle. For example, you mentioned egg harvesting. Yet it is not clear to me that sifting through the menstrual discharge of human women and extracting unfertilized eggs from it would cause them gratuitous suffering. Yet this is precisely what we are doing when we collect chicken eggs for food. So long as the chickens are given proper food, proper amounts of space, and anything else necessary for a decent life, it's unclear why harvesting unfertilized eggs discharged through a natural process constitutes any sort of harm at all.

We have obligations to prevent gratuitous suffering in a limited sense, if the prevention requires only that we abstain from actions that cause gratuitous suffering and not perform actions that alleviate or eliminate gratuitous suffering. — Soylent

This seems implausible, especially once the reasonable cost condition is in place (which I agree is helpful, particularly against the specific case I brought up previously). If gratuitous suffering is such a problem, and if it costs me very little to perform some action that would alleviate, eliminate, or reduce some gratuitous suffering, why am I not obligated to do so?

One might choose to inflict or risk gratuitous suffering on oneself (e.g., elective surgeries), if the prevention is considered to be an unreasonable cost (e.g., further harm, either psychological or physical). — Soylent

Is this the only condition on which we can inflict or risk gratuitous suffering on ourselves? And if so, I wonder how wide a gap this creates. Is freedom too high a cost to pay for not being able to get elective surgeries? Let's say we were trying to convince someone to wait until they were 21 to get a full body tattoo despite 18 being the age at which people are generally considered adults (and thus capable of making their own decisions on matters like these). Tattooing isn't exactly pleasant, particularly a full body tattoo. This is a known risk of getting a tattoo (so there's some known suffering involved). Not getting the tattoo spares them from a certain amount of physical harm for a short period of time (so the known suffering is preventable), and the psychological harm is arguably minimal given the fact that they only have to wait three extra years to get the tattoo (so the cost to prevent the harm is reasonable). Should the 18-year-old wait? Is it obligatory that they do so? Should they wait longer?

Your response it excellent, thorough, and probably too much to overcome. You've done a very good job of undermining the knowledge claim of gratuitous suffering, on which this particular argument hangs together. I was intrigued to construct this argument by a throw-away line in forgettable article that made precisely that claim. I have no particular interest to defend this argument beyond what I feel is intellectually honest, but I will address some comments for which I feel I can offer a response.

If gratuitous suffering is such a problem, and if it costs me very little to perform some action that would alleviate, eliminate, or reduce some gratuitous suffering, why am I not obligated to do so? — Postmodern Beatnik

A case could be made that there are obligations for action to be taken to alleviate, eliminate, or reduce some gratuitous suffering, but abilities to perform actions vary from person to person and the strongest obligation is one where no special skill or ability is required. I am disabled, so if an obligation for action falls outside my scope of ability I am not obliged to act on it (i.e., ought implies can). When I construct an argument for an obligation I want to cast the widest net possible, which means reducing the number of people falling outside the scope of ability. It's not that there may not be further obligations for people to act, but at the basic level I want to focus on the most general obligation applicable to the most/all people.

Is this the only condition on which we can inflict or risk gratuitous suffering on ourselves? — Postmodern Beatnik

I'm inclined to say yes, but the nature of this condition is very fuzzy and problematic. It leaves room for the individual to risk harming oneself with the justification that the prevention cost was unreasonable only later to decide that they were wrong about the cost or the harm. That's the nature of life. In order to know the balance of the costs, one needs experience or the appropriate moral leaders that can offer insight.

Hey Soylent, much of the posts in the other thread are taken up with the point that P6 must be speaking about the result of individual action rather than collective action for the argument to work. It needs to mean that each individuals (from the set of people who can go vegan) adoption of veganism has an affect on the gratuitous suffering. I'm pretty certain both me and Postmodern Beatnik agree on that but it seems that we misunderstand each other often enough that I can't be sure.

Two objections come to mind: i) the individuals obligation adoption of veganism is ineffective at preventing gratuitous suffering and ii) the collective obligation adoption of veganism is effective at preventing gratuitous suffering. If either is true, the biconditional is defeated. — Soylent

When written like this, which is the way P6 is written (ii) is not a problem. As long as each persons adoption of veganism is effective at preventing suffering the biconditional holds (here the collective can be viewed as a group of individuals).

A charitable reading can grant that i) is false, the individual obligation can prevent gratuitous suffering — Soylent

If you go by this then I think this 'issue' with P6 is solved.

I don't really understand what that has to do with a charitable reading though. I view P6 as stating a fact about the world which can either be true or false. I believe it is false because the biconditional is too strong. That said there are ways to fix it up, I've mentioned one using statistics. Another could be to hold that an individual has an obligation even if he doesn't know whether his specific actions will have an effect. Either of these allow you to replace the biconditional with something weaker and still get an obligation as your conclusion.

I believe it is false because the biconditional is too strong. That said there are ways to fix it up, I've mentioned one using statistics. Another could be to hold that an individual has an obligation even if he doesn't know whether his specific actions will have an effect. Either of these allow you to replace the biconditional with something weaker and still get an obligation as your conclusion. — shmik

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "too strong". It's strong insofar as it establishes a one-to-one relationship between the means and ends of an action. If another action can be substituted for the adoption of veganism by the individual, the bi-conditional is defeated since it explicitly states the only means for preventing gratuitous suffering is the adoption of veganism by the individual (hence objection ii). Statistics and individual knowledge of the outcome is irrelevant to the scope of this argument. The individual doesn't need to know the specific mechanism or the statistical outcome of the adoption of veganism, only that there is a causal chain (albeit weak) between the adoption of a vegan diet in the individual and the prevention of gratuitous suffering, which is not that outlandish.

There is grounds for P6 that holds regardless of the ambiguity of subject (i.e., adoption of veganism by the individual or collectively). The only way to prevent the gratuitous suffering of the intentional killing non-human animals caused by food production practices is to refrain (directly or indirectly) in the intentional killing of non-human animals (i.e., adopting a vegan diet) The obligation to prevent that specific gratuitous suffering cannot be achieved in any other way, even by improved treatment prior to the killing. I picked a vegan diet because I thought the broader argument was more defensible than a narrowing to vegetarianism.

I have no particular interest to defend this argument beyond what I feel is intellectually honest, but I will address some comments for which I feel I can offer a response. — Soylent

No problem! This has been fun, even if it is just an exercise.

It's not that there may not be further obligations for people to act, but at the basic level I want to focus on the most general obligation applicable to the most/all people. — Soylent

Right. This is the point to focus on. You let me push you into a corner before by saying that we don't have certain obligations, but you had no need to make that concession. All you needed to say was "regardless of whatever other obligations we may have, we have this obligation of omission" (which is where you have now landed). After all, the argument loses nothing by remaining silent about what other obligations we may have.

I'm inclined to say yes — Soylent

Again, I think this is the correct response (strategically, at least). You didn't answer the tattooing question directly, but I take it from your response that you think the concern about freedom is covered by the "unreasonable cost (due to psychological harm)" clause. Is this correct?

It needs to mean that each individual's (from the set of people who can go vegan) adoption of veganism has an affect on the gratuitous suffering. I'm pretty certain both me and Postmodern Beatnik agree on that but it seems that we misunderstand each other often enough that I can't be sure. — shmik

Or at least, you misunderstand me enough that you can't be sure. But in this case, you are correct that we are in agreement here.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "too strong". It's strong insofar as it establishes a one-to-one relationship between the means and ends of an action. If another action can be substituted for the adoption of veganism by the individual, the bi-conditional is defeated since it explicitly states the only means for preventing gratuitous suffering is the adoption of veganism by the individual (hence objection ii). — Soylent

Well could you think of another possible way that some gratuitous suffering could be prevented? I could name many that would even have a closer relationship to the suffering of animals. A farmer letting two of his cows out into a field one afternoon, even though he normally doesn't do so, is enough to defeat the bi conditional. That's what I mean by too strong, it argues that the are no other ways to prevent any of the animals gratuitous suffering. It argues that someone who had been dumpster diving for his meat would have an affect on animal suffering if he became vegetarian because it can't allow that there are any individuals whose veganism has no effect.

Too say that some people have an effect is a weaker claim that all people have an effect.

Or at least, you misunderstand me enough that you can't be sure. — Postmodern Beatnik

True I do have a lot of trouble constructing a coherent position from your posts.

True I do have a lot of trouble constructing a coherent position from your posts. — shmik

And yet no one else does.

Well could you think of another possible way that some gratuitous suffering could be prevented? — shmik

P6 isn't about gratuitous suffering simpliciter, though. It's about gratuitous suffering caused by food production practices. Letting the cows out one afternoon doesn't stop them from being slaughtered and processed for food. And while it may give them some pleasure, it doesn't prevent their eventual suffering. This is particularly important given that the argument is concerned with eliminating our contribution to the gratuitous suffering of non-human animals caused by food production practices (and not just reducing it). Just finding another way to reduce the suffering doesn't affect the claim that one might have to adopt a vegan diet to eliminate one's contribution to the suffering.

Moreover, the argument seems to be concerned with getting individuals to refrain from personally contributing to the gratuitous suffering of non-human animals. In that case, P6 should be understood as saying something like "if it is possible to adopt a vegan diet, then (your contribution to) gratuitous suffering caused by food production practices is preventable; and if it is not possible to adopt a vegan diet, then (your contribution to) gratuitous suffering caused by food production practices is not preventable." This might be glossed as "you can't prevent your contribution to gratuitous suffering without adopting a vegan diet."

I agree that this is false. If a non-human animal can be given a decent life and a humane death, I think it becomes much harder to argue that its suffering is gratuitous (though this would get us into issues with the definition of gratuitous suffering on offer). But nothing about the biconditional requires veganism to eliminate one's contribution to gratuitous suffering of non-human animals on its own—which makes sense as it would be rather odd if the argument allowed one to work as a butcher so long as their diet was vegan. (Indeed, this is one reason that veganism is traditionally defined as going beyond diet alone.)

I have scanned the argument and it sounded, in part, like the antinatalism argument. Is the veganism argument a form of this argument? Where the vegan hopes to reduce pain and suffering animals experience by not eating animals, which would mean less and less animals will be bred for production.

P6 isn't about gratuitous suffering simpliciter, though. It's about gratuitous suffering caused by food production practices. Letting the cows out one afternoon doesn't stop them from being slaughtered and processed for food. And while it may give them some pleasure, it doesn't prevent their eventual suffering. — Postmodern Beatnik

I am speaking about food production. The vast majority of gratuitous suffering during food production is a result of farming practices before the animals are slaughtered. I doubt that I am the only person who believes that even small changes in farming practices such as removing some of the confinement of the animals is enough to prevent some suffering. Some of your contribution can be preventable by changes in the practices of your supplier.

Some of your contribution can be preventable by changes in the practices of your supplier. — shmik

But then it's not your contribution. It may be the case that boycotting a farm could result in the farmer changing his practices. But your example of the farmer making a personal decision to let two of his cows out one afternoon has only to do with his contribution. Your contribution (or at least, the relevant portion of your contribution given the additional stipulations Soylent has made on this thread) comes from factors that you can personally control (including, but not limited to, the demand you add to the market).

I'm not unsympathetic to the point about changing our farming practices. I've already stated that I think everything that counts as gratuitous can be separated from the fact of an animal's eventual slaughter. I've also stated that I think P6 is false. I just don't think you've hit on the reason that it's false. You're still worried about the logic of it and missing the fact that the premise doesn't say that adopting a vegan diet is the only way to reduce your contribution to the gratuitous suffering of non-human animals caused by food production practices.

Nothing in P6 says there is no other way to reduce the gratuitous suffering of non-human animals caused by food production practices or even your contribution to it. All it requires is that one's contribution cannot be fully eliminated without adopting a vegan diet. Again, I think this is false. But it's not false due to the ability of the farmer to let his cows out from time to time.

But then it's not your contribution. It may be the case that boycotting a farm could result in the farmer changing his practices. But your example of the farmer making a personal decision to let two of his cows out one afternoon has only to do with his contribution. Your contribution (or at least, the relevant portion of your contribution given the additional stipulations Soylent has made on this thread) comes from factors that you can personally control (including, but not limited to, the demand you add to the market). — Postmodern Beatnik

This is pretty weird, trying to separate your contribution from the farming practices. So I am buying my meat from a local farm that uses factory farming practices. I contribute to demand from this farm which causes animals gratuitous suffering. The farm then decides to go organic and try to create an environment without gratuitous suffering, meanwhile I continue to buy meat from it. Are you arguing that at first I had a contribution, then that contribution disappeared, but also that it was not my contribution it was the farmers? Doesn't really add up. Your contribution is contributing demand in a farm that causes gratuitous suffering. You can't detach the personal contribution from the practices of the supplier.
If you argue that letting a couple cows out one evening isn't part of farming practices, just the farmers whim, then you are going after the example, not my main point.

All it requires is that one's contribution cannot be fully eliminated without adopting a vegan diet. — Postmodern Beatnik

So there are numerous ways to read P6 (again, because it was created in such a vague way). You here are presenting a reading that all of the personal contribution is preventable iif a vegan diet is adopted. I was interpreting it as some of the personal contribution is preventable iff a vegan diet is adopted.
Again there is a trade off between these two positions. If you read it as all then P6 will be false for any person that has a non vegan practice which does not contribute to gratuitous suffering. The example I gave earlier was of a person who dumpster dived all their meat, this is relevant if P6 means some. If you read P6 as all then it is enough for someone to dumpster dive only 10% of thier meat and it will still be false when talking about them as they only needs to reduce the other 90% (the practices that contribute to suffering) for their entire contribution to be preventable.

But yeh I don't disagree that if you read it as all then its not a problem if some of the contribution is preventable without her going vegan.

This is pretty weird, trying to separate your contribution from the farming practices. — shmik

Good thing I'm not doing that, then.

Are you arguing that at first I had a contribution, then that contribution disappeared, but also that it was not my contribution it was the farmers? — shmik

No.

If you argue that letting a couple cows out one evening isn't part of farming practices, just the farmers whim, then you are going after the example, not my main point. — shmik

Of course I am going after the example. The example was your evidence, so the point doesn't stand if the evidence for it isn't any good. But that doesn't mean I think letting the cows out isn't part of farming practices. The point is that there is a difference between the farmer letting the cows out because we convince him to and the farmer letting the cows out because he does so on a whim. If he does so on a whim, then our actions didn't cause it. That seems pretty straightforwardly true. Therefore, unless the example is modified to make it such that our actions are leading to the cows being let out, it seems strange to attribute to us any reduction in their suffering that letting them out causes.

So there are numerous ways to read P6 (again, because it was created in such a vague way). — shmik

If you're not concerned with reading it correctly, then yes.

You here are presenting a reading that all of the personal contribution is preventable iff a vegan diet is adopted. — shmik

No, I am not. In fact, I am saying that we should understand P6 as claiming that so long as we have not adopted a vegan diet, some of our preventable contribution to the gratuitous suffering of non-human animals caused by food production practices remains. Such a reading leaves open the possibility that there are other ways of reducing the gratuitous suffering of non-human animals caused by food production practices and that we may have other duties regarding the gratuitous suffering of non-human animals caused by food production practices. It is a minimal strategy: whatever our other duties may be, we are at least obligated to adopt a vegan diet.

It's not clear to me that a swift killing or the free range aspect makes the suffering any less gratuitous. The human/animal suffers less in a quantitative measure by being free range, but the swift killing undermines the quantitative reduction by the qualitative gratuity of killing them. We would object to that treatment as being extraordinarily cruel (to family and friends as well the interests of the human) to kill a human in that way. — Soylent

What does cruelty have to do with it? The issue was that it caused gratuitous suffering. So you'd need to show that animals suffered gratuitously by being swiftly killed. Furthermore, I think the comparison with humans fails as it seems unlikely that the friends and families of the to-be-killed animal would suffer.

... gratuitous suffering caused by food productions practices is preventable if and only if a vegan diet is adopted ...

How many vegan diets would need to be adopted to make food production practices preventable? Just one? If more than one then my obligation to adopt a vegan diet is dependent on others adopting a vegan diet as my obligation to adopt a vegan diet is dependent on it making gratuitous suffering preventable, and my adoption of a vegan diet making gratuitous suffering preventable is dependent on others adopting a vegan diet.

Of course I am going after the example. The example was your evidence, so the point doesn't stand if the evidence for it isn't any good. — Postmodern Beatnik

Um, no it's not. It's a rhetorical device whereby the example given is very weak to show that the conditions for the claim being false are easily satisfied. It's the same as saying, 'even Brian could work out what I meant in that example'. A charitable reading would not argue that the example is false but rather look at what the argument is implying.

I am saying that we should understand P6 as claiming that so long as we have not adopted a vegan diet, some of our preventable contribution to the gratuitous suffering of non-human animals caused by food production practices remains. — Postmodern Beatnik

But this isn't a charitable way of reading the argument, it is false if I have any non vegan practices which don't contribute to gratuitous suffering caused by food production. I wrote this exact thing in the post above. For example dumpster diving some of my food, eating at a party; eating the leftovers that my housemate is about to throw out; eating some chocolate you find on the street; having a sip of your friends hot chocolate; chances are that buying meat from a supermarket doesn't have an effect either etc. (think of your own example if you think those are problematic). If I cut out everything but these behaviors then I am not vegan and none of my preventable contribution remains.

Um, no it's not. — shmik

If the example isn't evidence (even if just by way of illustration), then what was the purpose of presenting it?

It's a rhetorical device whereby the example given is very weak to show that the conditions for the claim being false are easily satisfied. — shmik

Yeah, that's called "evidence."

A charitable reading would not argue that the example is false but rather look at what the argument is implying. — shmik

I was doing both at the same time, whether you realize it or not.

But this isn't a charitable way of reading the argument, it is false if I have any non vegan practices which don't contribute to gratuitous suffering caused by food production. — shmik

First of all, charity does not require us to interpret a claim in a way that makes it true at all costs. Second, you don't actually mean if you have any non-vegan practices. I sleep every night, and my sleeping at night does not contribute to gratuitous suffering caused by food production. But that clearly does not disprove (or in any way undermine) the claim. What you mean is something like "non-vegan food consumption practices."

Now, I agree that the pro-vegan is committed to either making an exception here or forwarding the (rather implausible) claim that these behaviors somehow contribute to the gratuitous suffering of non-human animals. But note that Soylent has already opted for the former strategy in dealing with other problems. In the OP, he makes what he calls a "semantic distinction." According to this, veganism is to be defined as "the practice of not using sentient animals in our food production." He introduced the distinction to avoid an objection I made regarding non-sentient animals, but presumably he could use it (with minor adjustments) against these cases as well. If the argument is not committed to "standard" veganism, then it might have room in its definition of "veganism" for these odd cases.

Nor is this unprecedented: Singer's vegetarianism allows for eating cows that get struck by lightning, for instance. Cora Diamond takes him to task for this, but the dispute ultimately comes down to whether vegetarianism is aimed at an external goal (e.g., reducing suffering) or an internal goal (e.g., improving one's character). The same could dispute could be replayed among vegans, and the content of Soylent's argument strongly suggests that he would take the Singer route.

(So again, @Soylent, what do you have to say here? If you won't carve out an exception for these cases, then it would seem that shmik's objection does, at last, succeed.)

If the example isn't evidence (even if just by way of illustration), then what was the purpose of presenting it? — Postmodern Beatnik

Well I was speaking to Soylent who asked me to explain what I meant by too strong, so it makes sense to give a weak example.

Well could you think of another possible way that some gratuitous suffering could be prevented? I could name many that would even have a closer relationship to the suffering of animals. A farmer letting two of his cows out into a field one afternoon, even though he normally doesn't do so, is enough to defeat the bi conditional. That's what I mean by too strong, it argues that the are no other ways to prevent any of the animals gratuitous suffering. — me

Of coarse I didn't expect anyone to interpret me as saying that if a farmer letting 2 of his cows out into the field on one occasion doesn't reduce their suffering during the food production process, then my argument falls apart. It makes no sense to interpret it that way.

First of all, charity does not require us to interpret a claim in a way that makes it true at all costs. — Postmodern Beatnik

Of course not, actually I think most the claims to charity in this thread are garbage, if an argument has 2 interpretations both of which are problematic (in much the same ways) then neither of them is considered the charitable one.

Second, you don't actually mean if you have any non-vegan practices.I sleep every night, and my sleeping at night does not contribute to gratuitous suffering caused by food production. But that clearly does not disprove (or in any way undermine) the claim. What you mean is something like "non-vegan food consumption practices." — Postmodern Beatnik

Now this is covered by the principal of charity, it's not even worth bringing up. Anyway I didn't realize that vegans don't sleep, that sleeping was a non-vegan practice.

So now that we have dispensed with the obligatory sparring, you agree that my point needs to be addressed in the context of this argument, good.

it makes sense to give a weak example. — shmik

The problem is that the example is bad.

Of course, I didn't expect anyone to interpret me as saying that if a farmer letting 2 of his cows out into the field on one occasion doesn't reduce their suffering during the food production process, then my argument falls apart. — shmik

No one has interpreted it that way. If you think so, then you are thoroughly confused.

I think most the claims to charity in this thread are garbage — shmik

Well, all of the claims about charity on this thread have been made by you and Soylent, with most of them made by you. So if you want to dismiss them as garbage, I won't object.

Anyway I didn't realize that vegans don't sleep, that sleeping was a non-vegan practice. — shmik

Equivocation. Calling something a non-vegan practice is not the same as saying vegans don't do it. It is to say that it is not part of or entailed by the veganism.

So now that we have dispensed with the obligatory sparring — shmik

I'm not sparring. Perhaps you are. The fact that anyone had the gall to disagree with you on the other thread clearly set you off for some reason, and you've been trying to score points rather than make productive contributions ever since. But all I've been trying to do is get your objection expressed in a way that was both sensible and clear. We've finally achieved that, so I'm satisfied.

you agree that my point needs to be addressed in the context of this argument, good. — shmik

Well, of course I do. Once deciphered, they're similar to the points I made a month ago. Again, this was never about disagreeing with you. This was about the clarification process that is central to philosophy. What you are saying now is much different in form and expressed content than what you started with, even if it reflects what you were trying to get at all along. And given your incessant claim that Soylent's argument wasn't clear enough, it seems odd to exempt yourself from the same sort of demands. Surely that is not your intention, in which case there should be nothing wrong with me trying to get clear on what exactly it is you are trying to say.