...so I have accepted ethical consistency as a constraint and challenged the monotonic absolutism of empathy/compassion as "pillars" - the solitary foundations of any moral position. — apokrisis

You claim to have accepted my 3 pillars while somehow still eating animals and holding a reasonable position?

Half the time you were arguing from a position you didn't even say you held. And the other half you were arguing that animals don't feel pain in a way you find reasonable enough to stop contributing to. That is a clear violation of empathy. Unless you are stating you only have empathy for humans? In which I would push your position into a consistency test. The reason you eat animals is probably not a reason you'd accept for yourself to be eaten, which makes your position contradictory/inconsistent/hypocritical. And if you would accept being eaten based on the same justification you have used to eat animals, I would say your position is absurd and/or unreasonable.

Apo is clearly trolling you. He likes to disguise the vapidity and trollishness of his replies in an endless word-jumble that he'll inevitably say you don't understand anyways. — Akanthinos

I am starting to realize that at this point. He can't even clearly communicate his position without pointing to something I said or something I implied (when I clearly didn't imply it).

My argument has been that - pragmatically - all foundations are dichotomous. Any complex system is founded on a dialectical balance. — apokrisis

How do you come to that conclusion?

Empathy, compassion and consistency are ALL SEPARATE thing. — chatterbears

I agree consistency is a different kind of thing here. It is a principle of constraint we are applying to the general discussion. But aren't compassion and empathy pretty tightly connected as the "what" and the "how"?

Empathy refers more generally to our ability to take the perspective of and feel the emotions of another living being. Compassion is when those feelings and thoughts include the desire to help. — chatterbears

So empathy is how we can actually imagine ourselves in another's shoes (and it is only imagining, with all that then entails in terms of veracity.)

And compassion is what we would then do as a result of imagining ourselves in those other shoes and viewing the situation in a now self-centred light from that different place.

So the goal of health is to improve the body's condition. From there we can make objective assessments, based on this goal, such as "Drinking 20 sodas per day is bad for you." — chatterbears

Yes. Pragmatism makes for good and balanced ethics. You ought to apply it consistently to the whole of your argument.

If we agree on a goal first, we can make objective assessments. We can say, for the sake of argument, that the goal of morality (being moral) is to improve (not diminish) the well-being of sentient beings. — chatterbears

Yes. That is how a pragmatic approach would work. Except that your notion of "we" is again tinged with absoluteness. I would suggest it would have to be balanced by that other natural tendency towards individuality. The collective "we" becomes some effective average. It represents an acceptable diversity of views as well.

So taking this probabilistic story as foundational - which is what pragmatism does - we already accept "exceptions to the rule" to the degree that they are just "accidents", or differences that don't make a difference on the whole.

This underlying anti-absolutism point becomes relevant later in the argument.

Based on that goal, we can say "Killing someone because of their hair color, is immoral" - Killing someone [based on an unreasonable justification] will diminish the well-being of that living being. That's just a fact, and it coincides with the goal we have set. — chatterbears

That's a red herring. If you've already permitted killing under some circumstances, you will have to have identified some conflict of interests that do indeed strike a reasonable balance. So it is that part of the argument that remains in play, as I argued. I didn't argue that you could bring in other "reasons" that are patently spurious.

If you want to talk about moral positions based on hair colour, go for it. But that isn't this discussion.

But even without me and you agreeing on a goal, I can still lead you [within your own subjective moral perspective] to Veganism. — chatterbears

Here we go.

If you don't care to be consistent in your beliefs, then that is a big problem. — chatterbears

How many times do I have to repeat that logical consistency is exactly what I am focused on and what I am discussing about your position.

Where you veer into pragmatism, I can agree. But where you try to start in monotonic foundationalism, I point out the logical flaw.

He can't even clearly communicate his position without pointing to something I said or something I implied (when I clearly didn't imply it). — chatterbears

Seems to be a trend when this topic is brought up.

But veganism IS cult-like. It is one thing to talk about the pragmatic health or environmental benefits. It is another to want to take over the world with an absolutist moral prescription.

How do you come to that conclusion? — NKBJ

Long story. :)

You claim to have accepted my 3 pillars while somehow still eating animals and holding a reasonable position? — chatterbears

Read what I wrote. I accepted ethical consistency and challenged empathy/compassion (as monotonic foundations).

Half the time you were arguing from a position you didn't even say you held. — chatterbears

Well yeah. This is a philosophy site. It is one of the skills of critical thinking to be able to present positions you don't have some passionate belief in. It would be quite hard to set out a reductio ad absurdum otherwise.

And the other half you were arguing that animals don't feel pain in a way you find reasonable enough to stop contributing to. That is a clear violation of empathy. Unless you are stating you only have empathy for humans? In which I would push your position into a consistency test. The reason you eat animals is probably not a reason you'd accept for yourself to be eaten, which makes your position contradictory/inconsistent/hypocritical. And if you would accept being eaten based on the same justification you have used to eat animals, I would say your position is absurd and/or unreasonable. — chatterbears

LOL.

But veganism IS cult-like. It is one thing to talk about the pragmatic health or environmental benefits. It is another to want to take over the world with an absolutist moral prescription. — apokrisis

Could you not say the same for the prohibition on slavery? That people wanted to take over the world with an absolutist moral prescription on treating human beings equally, in the same way Vegans want animals to be treated equally. And both situations are of the most basic level, to not cause harm. That is all. Apparently not wanting to cause harm to another living being when it is not necessary is an absolutist moral prescription?

I am starting to believe you're a troll at this point. So I may stop responding. You rarely even understand/comprehend my points, let alone respond to them accordingly. I'll give you one last shot.

Explain why you eat meat. And whatever justification you are using, would you also accept that same justification against yourself? Example: "I eat animals because they have less intelligence." - Would you then say it is morally justified for me to eat you if you were less intelligent? (Severely autistic or brain dead)

Either explain your position and apply consistency to your justification or I am done. I'll let someone else respond to your word salad.

Lol, yup. Apparently Vegans have this extreme and insane position.

Yeah, it is REALLY EXTREME to not want to hurt another living creature needlessly. HOW CRAZY of a position is that, lol? The irony of most meat eaters is, they look at dog or cat abuse as immoral. But when you point out that cows/chickens/pigs should ALSO be included in that same fair treatment as the dog/cat, "WHOA YOU HAVE AN EXTREME POSITION!!"

Could you not say the same for the prohibition on slavery? — chatterbears

Yes. To the degree that the argument might have been based on subjective feeling rather than rational debate.

A fanatic argues from the basis of emotions. A cult relies on scripts designed to elicit feelings by limiting the scope for reason and evidence.

Is slavery worse than having to work for a living as some corporation's paid employee? Probably yes on the whole. But it is still relative. There are still pros and cons to balance.

Apparently not wanting to cause harm to another living being when it is not necessary is an absolutist moral prescription? — chatterbears

Hmm. Again it is the "not necessary" bit which is at stake. My argument has been that imperatives come in pairs. Morality exists to resolve these foundational conflicts. That's how it works.

So sure, if there is no other point of view in play, it really doesn't matter. But if there is, it does.

Think about compassion/empathy a little more carefully. As I said, they are about being selfish from another point of view. And that is a good thing right? Being selfish ... but now standing in someone else's shoes.

So really we are talking about the ability to see two conflicting points of view and arrive at some pragmatic balance.

Well I'm talking about the pragmatism there. You are saying that an animal that lacks the sentience to reciprocate the good deed should be treated exactly like a sentient being that could.

So already your position is falling apart there.

The irony of most meat eaters is, they look at dog or cat abuse as immoral. But when you point out that cows/chickens/pigs should ALSO be included in that same fair treatment as the dog/cat, "WHOA YOU HAVE AN EXTREME POSITION!!" — chatterbears

It might be because dogs and cats are fellow meat eaters. The others are just plant eaters and so fair game. :razz:

Your survival depends upon existing within a community that to a large degree fuels/feeds itself on the use of animals. Sure, you can personally choose to buy soy milk at the supermarket, but the supermarket only exists within the context of a community that can feed itself day in day out, year in year out with easily digestible, transportable, preservable, calorie dense animal fats/proteins/sugars/etc (plus all the other uses we have for animals). Your community, that you are dependent upon for *your* survival, itself depends upon the use of livestock for its survival. It's not a luxury. Settled human existence depends upon livestock. You can't milk a soy plant twice a day, potatoes don't lay an egg a day. Livestock are a highly efficient means of converting calories humans can't digest/survive on (grass, feeds, etc) into calories that we can.

There's around 4.7 million people in my country, each requiring (say) an average of 2000 calories per day. That's 9.4 billion calories that needs to be produced, packed, transported, and consumed every single day just to keep the country running. You simply can't produce that many calories without relying upon livestock. The idea that it's more moral to personally choose not to ingest animal calories, is just a failure to understand just how dependent you are on your community for your daily survival. Sure, you can personally chose not ingest animal calories, and make up the calorie deficit in your diet with extra grains/fruits/vegetables, but you can't opt out of existing within a community that as a whole is dependent upon livestock for it's survival (people who wander off into the wilderness very quickly die).

Say you're a Maasai tribesman. Your own survival depends upon a existing within a community that would literally starve to death without it's cattle. Is it more moral to choose to just survive on the maize produced by the tribe, rather than also consume the blood/milk/meat of it's cattle? Without the cattle, you too will starve. You can't opt out of depending upon the community that depends upon the cattle (you will die). It's the same principle at play in the western world.

Of course none of this means that we can't/shouldn't have laws and systems in place to treat livestock humanely and with some degree of respect. They shouldn't suffer gratuitously and needlessly.

Humans have a higher intelligence level, and therefore can understand morals/ethics on a higher level. And the only thing I have applied to humans and animals that is universal, is that we ALL want to avoid pain and suffering. Every other moral dilemma or quality can be viewed as subjective, but the will to live and the goal to avoid pain, is universal. And we can build a moral system just off that foundation alone. If we all want to avoid pain and suffering, to cause NEEDLESS pain and suffering would be wrong. And by NEEDLESS, I am referring to pain that didn't need to be caused because there is an alternative. For example, we don't need to factory farm animals, because we have an alternative of a plant-based diet. Therefore, since it is not NEEDED in the same way a lion NEEDS to hunt an animal to survive, our actions have become immoral. Especially when you self-reflect on why you want to farm animals, most of it comes down to taste pleasure/convenience/cultural norms/etc... All reasons which are not valid or consistent within your own ethical views. — chatterbears

Wrong. Many of us seek pain and discomfort, so pain is not necessarily bad. Making mistakes is how we learn and develop. Enduring hardships can make us better and stronger people. Then there are those that say that being born is wrong and being alive is suffering and ending your life would be good (just look at some of the other threads on this forum). This is what I mean by it being subjective.

Understanding morals/ethics on a higher level is understanding that morals and ethics are subjective and vary from culture to culture as well from individual to individual. There is no universal right and wrong, or good and bad. It is based upon one's own individual goals, which can be shared or come into conflict with others' goals.

Your survival depends upon existing within a community that to a large degree fuels/feeds itself on the use of animals. — Inyenzi

Speaking up for pragmatic veganism now, it might be worth checking this on the future of animal-less meat and dairy ... https://vimeo.com/229663434

Rapid technological advance is coming that will transform our food production models. Or at least we need it to, otherwise the planet is screwed.

So meat-eating is not a sane general practice for the human race if it wants both a population peaking at 10 billion and to survive that in reasonable shape.

So meat-eating is not a sane general practice for the human race if it wants both a population peaking at 15 billion and to survive that in reasonable shape. — apokrisis

We have the entire universe for our living space. If we would just stop focusing on nationalism dividing humans into different groups based on culture and heritage, then maybe we could focus on expanding out into the universe. We don't want to keep all of our eggs in one basket regardless of what we end up eating. For the human race to survive extinction, we need to move off the planet.

I'll pull these relevant bits out of a previous thread - https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/133433

Veganism can be a healthy diet. But overall, we are evolved to eat like hunter/gatherers. Consuming wheat, or drinking animal milk, are more unnatural than boiling a squirrel so far as our digestive system is concerned.

However if we were actually talking about an objectively nature-honouring human diet, then every modern supermarket is the grossest abuse of that. There are immoral levels of sugar, bad fats, preservatives, colourings, etc, in what gets sold.

So which is the bigger social crime - factory farmed chicken or sponsorship of kid's soccer by "sports drink" manufacturers?

I'd admire any true vegan. So not one who lives on pasta and noodles. But really, given the way the food industry is set up, you would also have to have a crank's level of intensity to overcome all the obstacles put in the way of achieving that "perfect diet".

But to get back to the high level view, I think it is amazing just how much we have already changed the ecology of earth. When it comes to terrestrial mammalian ecosystems, it is now mostly a planet dominated by domestic animals.

Vaclav Smil has written great stuff on this like Harvesting the Biosphere....

If the domestication of the world's ecosystems is a moral dilemma, then vegans are ultimately just as caught up in that as meat eaters.

Smil says the human population has grown 20-fold in the last 1000 years and nearly quadruppled in just the past century. The numbers are still swelling by 230,000 every day.

So by his calculations, between 1900 and 2000 – allowing for the fact that humans have got on average somewhat taller and rather fatter – the global anthropomass has grown from 13 to 55 million tonnes of carbon (Mt C) by weight, or from 74Mt to 300Mt if you include the water and the body’s other mineral elements.

That is a lot of flesh to feed obviously. But Smil says bottom-line is what scientists call HANPP, or the human appropriation of net primary production – the amount of the planet’s total harvestable plant growth that this many humans now take as their share.

And Smil says it is about a quarter. That is, 25 per cent of the annual terrestrial phytomass production, the conversion of sunlight to plant material, winds up one way or another supporting the 55Mt of human carbon.

Hey yes, we rule!

The calculation is complicated of course. It includes not just the plant growth directly for food but also our take in fuel, fibre and timber.

And nearly half the HANPP figure represents the global loss of photosynthetic potential due to erosion, desertification, human created forest fires and the building over of good land – all the ways we have taken away from the Earth’s usual productivity.

Smil notes the world’s big cities now cover nearly 5 million square kilometers. In the last 2000 years, he says, with deforesting and other deprecations, humans have cut the total phytomass stocks from 1000 billion tonnes (Gt) of carbon to 550Gt.

But there is good news in the HANPP. At least farming efficiency has been keeping it somewhat under control.

Smil says it is estimated that a third of the Earth's ice-free surface has been taken over by human agriculture, some 12 per cent for crops and 22 per cent for pasture.

However because of the green revolution of the mid-20th Century – the switch to industrialised farming with diesel machinery, petroleum-based fertiliser, irrigation schemes and new crop strains – the figures have not blown out quite like they could have.

Over the past century, the global HANPP has only doubled from the 13 per cent supporting 1.7b people in 1900 to the 25 per cent supporting 7.2b people now.

And looking ahead, even with the global population expected to hit 9b by 2050, the human share of the Earth’s photosynthetic bounty may only hit 30 per cent.

Well, that is unless biofuels are needed as an alternative energy source and the resulting agricultural expansion balloons HANPP out to 44 per cent, as some studies suggest.

... then where Smil’s book gets especially thought-provoking ...

As well as the anthropomass and the phytomass, there is also the story of the zoomass – the drastic shift from wild to domestic animals in terms of the planet’s mammal population.

Smil calculates that the agricultural revolution of the past century has seen a seven-fold increase in plant production. In 1900, humans grew 400Mt of dry matter a year. Now it is 2.7Gt. But because humans like meat on their plate, half this phytomass goes to feed our farm animals.

We know the equation of course. It takes about 10kg of grain to produce 1kg of burger meat. And Smil says the consumption of meat in developed countries has shot up from just a few kilos per person per year to over 100kg.

In 1900, the world had 1.6b large domestic animals including 450m head of cattle and water buffalo. Today, that number is 4.3b, with 1.7b cattle and buffalo, and nearly 1b pigs.

In terms of biomass, the increase is from 35Mt of carbon to 120Mt. So about double the 55Mt of humans treading the planet in fact.

Wild zoomass has naturally gone skidding in the other direction, halving from 10mt to 5Mt during the 20th Century. With large grazing animals, the drop has been especially severe says Smil. Elephants have gone from 3Mt to 0.3Mt, the American bison is right off the radar at 0.04Mt.

Tot it up and the numbers are a little bonkers. The combined weight of humanity is today ten times the weight of everything else running around wild – all the world’s different mammal species from wombats to wildebeest, marmosets to rhinos.

And then our livestock, the tame four legged meals soon to end up on our dinner table, outweigh that true wildlife by 24 to 1 all over again. Talk about transforming a planet within living memory. The world is now mostly constituted of people, cows, sheep, goats and pigs.

As Smil says, the balance has gone from 0.1 per cent 10,000 years ago, to about 10 per cent at the start of the industrial revolution, to 97 per cent today. There may still be tens of thousands of wild mammal species sharing our Earth, but really they don’t add up to much of any consequence.

Again, just think about it. We harvest a quarter of the biosphere now. Ourselves and our four legged meals outweigh other terrestrial mammals by a combined 34 to 1.

So Huston, we indeed have a moral dilemma. Veganism starts to look like shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic.

We have the entire universe for our living space.

For the human race to survive extinction, we need to move off the planet. — Harry Hindu

Shit and move on, heh? Sounds like a plan. :)

Yeah, it is REALLY EXTREME to not want to hurt another living creature needlessly. — chatterbears

So is your problem in hurting another living creature or killing them? We could kill our food with no pain, if that is your problem. If it is the killing itself, then you vegans have that problem of killing life. Plants are life.

It doesn't matter if we shit here or not. Earth will eventually be swallowed up by an expanding sun, or destroyed by some other cosmic catastrophe. The universe has it's own shit (black holes, supernovas, comets, etc.) that will end up wiping out the entire planet with us along with it. Perspective.

Let's tell the truth folks. We are animals. Being an animal means being controlled by your instincts. But we are the only animal that got the potential to stop being an animal, we can gain total control over all of our instincts.

Our animal instinct controls our conscience, it compels us to eat meat. This drive we got to eat meat is so strong, that we unconsciously try to find reasons to be moral while doing something immoral, to blind ourselves to the fact that it is wrong to cause pain and cage another living being, though even a child can recognize this. This is the conlfict between moral awakened conscious and wild neutral instinct.

130 years ago, slavery was legal in my country, Brazil. My great-grandfather was a slave, but I'm white. Today, we all perceive slavery as completely immoral. The instinct to profit on top of another is not as basic and primitive as the instinct of eating meat. I've got faith that eventually, we will stop doing everything that is immoral and we will stop trying to see things that are immoral as moral.

If it is the killing itself, then you vegans have that problem of killing life. Plants are life. — Harry Hindu

Yes, this is a problem for most living beings in this planet, we can't go on without killing something else. But this relation with fruits at least isn't that bad, the tree is giving the fruit for anyone that wants to eat it, so they defecate their seeds and proliferate their species.

Maybe eventually we will find a way to live without having to kill other living beings, i think we could do it by absorbing the elements we need in it's raw form, the same way plants do it. But right now this is out of our reality, we need to focus on what we can do with what we got.

Your survival depends upon existing within a community that to a large degree fuels/feeds itself on the use of animals. — Inyenzi

Just because my community is using something that allows them to survive, doesn't mean they cannot improve it or replace it. And that's the entire point of Veganism. We do not need to factory farm animals any more. It's bad for the environment, worse for our health (than plant foods) and bad for the animals we are torturing and slaughtering. We could replace all factory farms with plant farms. And not to mention, half of the world's crops are being fed to the 50 BILLION animals we slaughter every year. All the land for those crops could be used to feed us, and there would still be a lot left over for people who are starving in poverty right now.

And if you're one of those people who denies the negative environmental factors and health issues, I'll post the google doc I created which cites well established scientific studies in these areas: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1REgp2VreWfgHhatxycdk0GN6P9HyXID6UTzuNb4f7sY/edit?usp=sharing

Wrong. Many of us seek pain and discomfort, so pain is not necessarily bad. Making mistakes is how we learn and develop. Enduring hardships can make us better and stronger people. Then there are those that say that being born is wrong and being alive is suffering and ending your life would be good (just look at some of the other threads on this forum). This is what I mean by it being subjective. — Harry Hindu

Really? So how about you go into a factory farm, lay on the floor and let one of the workers slit your throat. They can then feed you to a cannibalistic tribe who can benefit from your corpse.

It's extremely ignorant to conflate mental hardship with physical pain. The pain I am referring to is physical pain, which is an evolutionary trait. The fight or flight response. Either way, you want to avoid pain, whether that is by running away, or fighting for your life. The rare case of people who want to end their lives is NOT what I am referring to. I was referring to an overall commonality that all living beings share. Which is to avoid pain and suffering.

I am starting to think you're a troll as well, but I hope not.

If it is the killing itself, then you vegans have that problem of killing life. Plants are life. — Harry Hindu

I can't take you seriously any more. Vegans care about SENTIENT living beings that can experience pain and suffering. A plant does not have a brain or a nervous system, and therefore cannot experience pain and suffering. You keep conflating things in a ridiculous manner. I cannot tell if you're trolling at this point.

Yes, this is a problem for most living beings in this planet, we can't go on without killing something else. — jonjt

Just to clarify, I hope you weren't agreeing with Harry Hindu's incorrect statement of falsely equating plants to animals. Because it is quite clear that plants cannot feel pain and suffering, while animals (cows/chickens/pigs) can.

Indeed, we're not the same. We're a lot closer to the mammals than we are to the trees and vegetables. The truth is that we're so different that we don't know much about trees, but mammals are really close to us, we can easily bond with them.

We're still researching about everything basically, and even about the things that we think we already discovered 100%, there may be something we don't know yet. We recently discovered that trees got a close community and can communicate with each other, you should research about it. So we should value everything that's alive.

I believe his point remained unanswered.

I was assuming silence implied tacit agreement from all posters.:wink:

Justify means "to show (an act, claim, statement, etc.) to be just or right." Since you are trying argue that buying/eating meat is okay, you are justifying it. — NKBJ

I'm not arguing that it's OK. I'm arguing that eating meat doesn't make me responsible for the death of the animals. It might still be wrong to financially support an industry that kills animals, but it's not because I somehow become responsible for those deaths.

You can be. It's called "aiding and abetting." Paying someone for an immoral act falls in that category. — NKBJ

Someone who aids and abets the killing of an animal is responsible for aiding and abetting the killing of an animal, not for the killing of an animal.

In our particular case, exchanging money for meat at a supermarket just doesn't make me responsible for the farmer having killed that chicken. The responsibility is entirely the farmer's.

Yes, this is a problem for most living beings in this planet, we can't go on without killing something else. But this relation with fruits at least isn't that bad, the tree is giving the fruit for anyone that wants to eat it, so they defecate their seeds and proliferate their species. — jonjt

I'm talking about killing a whole plant, like a head of lettuce, or a whole forests of trees that are chopped down for fuel, building materials, etc.

Really? So how about you go into a factory farm, lay on the floor and let one of the workers slit your throat. They can then feed you to a cannibalistic tribe who can benefit from your corpse.

It's extremely ignorant to conflate mental hardship with physical pain. The pain I am referring to is physical pain, which is an evolutionary trait. The fight or flight response. Either way, you want to avoid pain, whether that is by running away, or fighting for your life. The rare case of people who want to end their lives is NOT what I am referring to. I was referring to an overall commonality that all living beings share. Which is to avoid pain and suffering.

I am starting to think you're a troll as well, but I hope not. — chatterbears

When we exercise, we experience physical pain, but we keep doing it for the health and social benefits. Physical pain teaches you what is dangerous to your body and what isn't. We need pain in order to survive. It evolved for a reason.

It is not a rare case for someone to end their lives. People do it every day.

Avoiding something does not make that thing you are avoiding "bad", or "wrong". Pain isn't "bad" or "wrong". Is everything that you try to avoid in life universally "bad"? When you try to avoid your mother in law does that make her "bad"?

I can't take you seriously any more. Vegans care about SENTIENT living beings that can experience pain and suffering. A plant does not have a brain or a nervous system, and therefore cannot experience pain and suffering. You keep conflating things in a ridiculous manner. I cannot tell if you're trolling at this point. — chatterbears

I can't take you seriously because you don't read posts and instead insist on these replies that do not address what I have said. I already made that same point in my post you are replying to. If it is about pain that you are worried about, then we can kill animals without them feeling any pain. If it is life you are worried about, then you kill life every time you eat a head of lettuce and are being inconsistent yourself. Who are you to determine which organism gets to live simply because of the arbitrary boundary you have chosen of having a nervous system or not.

I cannot tell you are an immature child pitching a fit, or an ignorant adult with a chip on his shoulder and is angry at the world for no reason.