How to simply explain what veganism is and argue for it – Work in Progress Video Script

[NonZeroSum]

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How to simply explain what veganism is and argue for it – Work in Progress Video Script

The formal syllogisms won’t be in the video, they’ll just be linked in the description.

Let me know what you think.


Table of Contents

• 0. Intro

• 1. The Vegan Definition

◦ 1a. How to explain what veganism is
◦ 1b. Why not other definitions?
◦ 1c. What specifically is wrong with other definitions?

• 2.. Arguments for Veganism

◦ 2a. General Purpose - Name The Trait
◦ 2b. Consequentialist - Marginal cases
◦ 2c. Virtue Ethics - Respect for Animal Capabilities
◦ 2d. Deontology - The Golden Rule
◦ 2e. Nihilist Ethics - Property Rights for Animals

• 3. Outro

• 4. Formal Syllogisms

◦ 4a. General Purpose - Name The Trait
◦ 4b. Consequentialist - Marginal cases
◦ 4c. Virtue Ethics - Respect for Animal Capabilities
◦ 4d. Deontology - The Golden Rule
◦ 4e. Nihilist Ethics - Property Rights for Animals


0. Intro

Hello, okay this is going to be a long video, so time-codes in the description if you just want to flick around. First I’m going to introduce my preferred definition of veganism, why I think it’s the best one, then run you through 5 amazing arguments for veganism. This is mainly for vegans to become better skilled at advocating, but any feedback is more than welcome.


1. The Vegan Definition

1a. How to explain what veganism is

I define veganism as simply "an animal products boycott."

I make the point of saying it’s one campaign tactic among many, aimed primarily at achieving the end of animal agriculture.

And say; why someone would arrive at that ethical conclusion could be a million ways, but the 3 main ethical schools of thought you can draw from are consequentialism, virtue ethics and deontology.


1b. Why not use other definitions?

The reason I would encourage people use the definition "an animal products boycott" and not other definitions is it gets at the root motivation people have for being vegan without being divisive about which ethical system is best.

In 1944 those members of the vegetarian society who were avoiding all use of animal products created their own vegan society and came up with the word vegan out of a concern we should be advocating the boycott of the dairy and egg industries.

Now I acknowledge that one problem with defining veganism as an “animal products boycott” is people saying “well would you be okay with hunting wild animals yourself then?” But to that I would answer “implicit in the word boycott is an ethical judgement on the activity that creates the product.”

So, when I boycott products containing palm oil because of rainforest destruction needed to produce the product for example, it wouldn’t suddenly be okay for me to then go out and do that rainforest destruction myself just because I didn’t sell the palm oil on.

You can't desire that all commercial use of animal products stop existing in the world through a commercial boycott and also do an action which through your boycotting hope to prevent the incentive for it ever happening.

Now, does this definition leave room for any exceptions to the rule? Well yes in a way, but I would say a positive one, in that it allows for waste animal products to be used if no profit finds it’s way back to the person who caused the harm. If you can get a supermarket to redirect it’s 1000 loaves of bread containing whey from going in the dumpster to a food bank, that can only be a benefit to the world.

Also, it doesn’t attempt to include animal entertainment boycotts in what it means to be vegan, and simply leaves that to be included in what it means to be an animal rights advocate. Although it’s so similar one can raise an eyebrow about why someone would boycott animal agriculture and not animal cruelty as entertainment. People already view veganism as simply abstaining from the use of animal products, so we just do have to contend with why awful people like some eco-fascists desire to be vegans and denounce them. To try and pretend that someone boycotting animal products can’t also be an awful person in other ways is wilfully ignorant. In the same way, claiming that ex-vegans could never have been vegan for not having understood the ethical arguments is fallacious and off-putting.


1c. What specifically is wrong with other definitions?

Why not define veganism as reducing suffering which is the consequentialist reason for being vegan? Because ‘reducing suffering’ is too big, too abstract, too idealistic, beyond the capacity of one person to ever achieve, laudable but doomed to failure. Whereas ‘boycotting animal products’ is not. ‘Reducing suffering’ creates the impression of the martyr, the need to live a ridiculously puritan lifestyle, like Jain monks sweeping the floor everywhere they walk. And excludes all other ethical systems.

Why not define veganism as the rule that ‘man should not exploit animal’ which is the deontological reason for being vegan? Because it immediately brings to mind the plenty of ways we can pragmatically rescue animals and improve their circumstances while still being seen to be exploitative-ly keeping them captive, e.g. rescuing dogs, chickens or horses. And excludes all other ethical systems.

Why not define veganism as a hodge-podge of the two main ethical systems, consequentialism and deontology, as the modern vegan society tries to do? Because it’s far too convoluted and open to misinterpretation. You get into debates about what does “as far as is possible and practicable” mean, when you could just say veganism is a boycott. If you aren’t capable of participating for being eating disordered for example, that’s ok, you can be ethically on par with or more ethical than a vegan in your own way, but you just aren’t able to participate in the boycott.


2. Arguments for Veganism

Now what are the best arguments for advocating veganism?

Well that really depends on your audience, but I’ll run through a few and give my thoughts on the pros and cons of each.

So, first off let’s start with an argument that is designed to work on any ethical system, called name the trait.


2a. General Purpose - Name The Trait

Basically it asks what would be the ethical implications for humans if we used the same justifications that meat eaters use for how we treat animals.

1. Would you prefer not to kill a human for food if you could easily access and eat plant food?

2. Would you prefer not to kill a non-human animal for food if you could easily access and eat plant food?

3. If you answered that you’re not ok with killing humans for food and you are ok with killing non-human animals for food, what trait is true of the animal that would let you feel justified in killing animals. And, if that became true of humans, would you then feel justified in killing humans if you could easily eat and had access to plant food in either scenario?

So lack of intelligence, no social contract, etc.

So one positive feature of this argument is it directly makes real for people the severity of their actions.

The negatives are it doesn’t directly deal with any of the pragmatics of day to day living. It’s this abstract hypothetical in which if the other persons position is shown to be absurd, nothing they said was of any value. You may win your point but still alienate the person. People like to have the feeling that they have imparted some knowledge about the world in a two way conversation, not that they are just being shown up for their mistakes.

One way to alleviate this problem could be to ask beforehand, how confident are you on a scale of 1 to 10 that eating animal products is ethically justifiable in your current situation in life? Engage them in the idea that we all have assumptions we were raised with which we have to work hard to see through sometimes, as a precursor to asking your questions. Having had the conversation, ask if their confidence was increased or decreased.

But even this tact again runs the issue of people just saying a high number and then feeling obligated to argue strongly to justify their conviction. Or even coming away with a lower number, but now believing it’s even more of a complex topic than they previously thought - so feeling vindicated in continuing to consume animal products because “there are no easy answers”, even though the agnostic position should be to ‘do no harm’.


2b. Consequentialist - Marginal cases

Very similar to name the trait.

When meat eaters try to justify the killing of non-human animals they often reach for the idea that humans have some superior ability which entitles them to control the lives of those without that ability. How this intuition plays out in society has led to disabled people working below minimum wage or the putting off of using tax payers' money towards accessible public amenities like bus stops with the right pavement height for wheelchair users.

Quoting from Wikipedia:

The argument from marginal cases takes the form of a proof by contradiction. It attempts to show that you cannot coherently believe both that all humans have moral status, and that all non-humans lack moral status.

Consider a cow. We ask why it is acceptable to kill this cow for food – we might claim, for example, that the cow has no concept of self and therefore it cannot be wrong to kill it. However, many young children may also lack this same concept of "self". So if we accept the self-concept criterion, then we must also accept that killing children is acceptable in addition to killing cows, which is considered a reductio ad absurdum. So the concept of self cannot be our criterion.

Then we can say for any criterion or set of criteria (either capacities, e.g. language, consciousness, the ability to have moral responsibilities towards others; or relations, e.g. sympathy or power relations), there exists some "marginal" human who is mentally handicapped in some way that would also meet the criteria for having no moral status.

Positives are it works well on consequentialists.

Negatives are: because of its focus on how similar humans are to animals it could unintentionally leave you with a warped picture of only the cost and complexities of helping disabled people to engage in as many of the aspects of society that they are capable of and would like to. So coming to the end of a discussion solely focused on connecting two negative facts about some disabled people and non-human animals.

Therefore it’s important that there should be time spent acknowledging both the unique perspectives of neuro-divergent people who have improved our society dramatically like Albert Einstein. As well as the unique capabilities of non-human animals to pursue what they have reasons to value, that is a great source of wonder to us, which inspires the arts and which we can study through behavioural science.

Which leads us well onto...


2c. Virtue Ethics - Respect for Animal Capabilities

If the wonder that we experience in viewing wild animals is not 'how similar to us they are', but their 'real opportunities to do and be what they have reason to value' and one sufficient reason we grant this freedom at least to a basic extent to humans is they have a desire to achieve what they find valuable then; the fact non-human animals experience this desire too means we ought extend these freedoms to animals.

So, a holistic world-view of not wanting to reduce both the quality and quantity of positive experiences humans can have with animals, as well as animals with other animals for low-order pleasures such as taste/texture.

From the philosophical vegan wiki:

Veganism is at its core about peace and compassion. By not buying animal products, you may even feel more at peace and start to get other ideas about how to become a more compassionate person in other areas of your life. Feeding your virtue in one way can help you become a happier person, while doing harm to animals can lead to cruelty or caprice in other ways e.g. the link between slaughterhouse workers and rates of domestic violence.

Of course be prepared to acknowledge that there are fringe cases of people going vegan as a method to feed a concept of superiority and use it as a tool to bash others over the head with.

Positives are it’s hard to argue against without making yourself look bad aha.

Negative are: we’re used to treating virtue as an extra something special we’re not required to do, but makes you an even better person if you do voluntarily. So the idea that we ought do something just because we find wonder in it doesn’t appear to hold a lot of weight on it’s own. Therefore probably best used in tandem with an argument like name the trait. Still the argument offers an avenue to talk about what goals and ambitions people have and how breaking with addictions to unhealthy foods could make them happier because of the compassion they would also be showing animals and the better world with more wildlife in it that they could help to bring about.


2d. Deontology - The Golden Rule

The golden rule isn’t strictly deontological and can be used on anyone, but it is also very close to how deontologists you may encounter view philosophy, like Kant’s categorical imperative for example: The principle that everyone should only act in such a way that it would still be acceptable to them if it were to become universal law. So when applied to animals; not breeding sentient life into existence, only to keep them confined, tear families apart and kill them later, as you wouldn't want it to happen to you.

From the philosohical vegan wiki:

• Ask people if they accept the golden rule

• Ask if they were in an animals' hooves if they would like being born into this world as property, only to be killed at a young age for another's taste pleasure.

• The response should typically be "no", but...

There are three common objections:

1. The objection that we could eat nothing, because "If I were a plant I wouldn't want to be eaten either"

This is easily answered, but may lead into more discussion: If you were a plant you would not care about being eaten, because plants are not sentient and have no brain or ability to think. The only likely response is plant-sentience, which is an argument rife with pseudoscience and misunderstanding of physiology and the nature of sentience and intelligence, as well as often supernatural claims.

2. The arbitrary objection that the golden rule only applies to humans.

Which begs the question of "why?", and "why not only to your own family and not to strangers?" Or "why not only to your own 'race'?"

3. The rejection of application of the golden rule to those who in theory would not or could not apply it back to you.

This is a misunderstanding of the golden rule, which operates independently of how others might treat you.

Positives are it’s simplicity.

Negatives are by comparing 'how similar to us they are' in their desire to avoid simple things like pain, it again, like the first two arguments, unintentionally draws people’s attention away from animals desire to ‘do and be what they have reason to value'. E.g. conjures up imaginings of having to share a busy high street with masses of sheep and cows because they want to enjoy the same right to free movement as you. However, you can easily argue that as humans there are some ways that we can intelligently gather that fences separating human habitat from animals would be a plus because it’s in cows own interest not to get lost inside a concrete jungle.


2e. Nihilist Ethics - Property Rights for Animals

If you desire the ability to live a full life on your property because it satisfies a desire you have to meet your basic needs and you’re in favour of guardianship laws to protect this ability for severely mentally disabled people in court because they can't defend themselves then; you should really desire non-human animals who also have these needs have a legal right to their wild habitat as property and should enjoy guardianship laws which protects their legal rights in court through appointment of a guardian to represent the case of one or a group of animals unless another reason is specified on pain of living in bad faith.

This centres the discussion on how you may be excluding other groups because it's the social norm. If there's one norm that unites nihilists in their rejection of universalist ethics, it's that of the desire to live authentically, so not acting in a way you don't believe due to outside social pressures, like that acting without compassion is necessary to what it means to be a man.

Everyone has some values they were brought up with that inform their meta-ethical system. It’s up to us to test out those values as we go along against new ones we discover and decide what kind of world we want to live in. We are meaning-seeking creatures innately, we can if we chose seek the happy flourishing of ourselves and others in the process, instead of living a life predicated on taking from others happy flourishing unnecessarily.

Getting to a stage in human civilization where we are able to derive meaning from compassionately caring for the basic needs of every person could be a great thing, just like we could find meaning in getting to see more land freed up for wildlife, where animals are able to express all their capabilities.

Positives are it gets you to appreciate what core basic necessities you take for granted as a means of encouraging the other person to show compassion for animals.

Negatives are it is primarily made to work on nihilists highly concerned with authenticity. Again could be used in tandem with name the trait, to first show a basic commonality for how we all come into this world with certain needs and then ask what trait justifies excluding one group from moral consideration over another.

Secondly people may question the logistics of granting rights to animals today which gets into a procedural tangent about how to incrementally introduce the law in parts, first to grant habitat rights in planning disputes, then rights for some of the few farm animals left when we grant them rights to live a full life to seek refuge in semi-wild habitat like pigs allowed to go feral, so long as we can re-introduce predator species to keep the population in check.


3. Outro

But yeah, that’s the end of the video, remember to tailor the argument you use to the person you’re talking to. Let me know what you think in a comment down below, all the best, peace.


4. Formal Syllogisms

4a. General Purpose - Name The Trait

P1) Humans have moral value.

P2) If your view affirms a given human is trait-equalizable to a given nonhuman animal while retaining moral value, then your view can only deny the given nonhuman animal has moral value on pain of P∧~P.

P3) Your view affirms a given human is trait-equalizable to a given nonhuman animal while retaining moral value.

C1) Therefore, your view can only deny the given nonhuman animal has moral value on pain of P∧~P

P4) Animals have moral value.

P5) If a being has moral value, we ought not support the use of that being for animal products.

C2) Therefore we ought not support the use of animal products


4b. Consequentialist - Marginal cases

P1) Some humans (infants, young children, profoundly intellectually disabled) are intellectually comparable to non-human animals.

P2) If the well-being of non-human animals (e.g. their avoiding a given amount of suffering, their benefiting from a given quality of life) is morally less important than ours (in virtue of these lesser intellectual abilities), then the well-being of these humans is equally less important (in virtue of their lesser intellectual abilities).

P3) But the well-being of these humans isn’t morally less important than ours.

C1) Therefore, The well-being of non-human animals is not morally less important than ours.

This entails (if you like in conjunction with P4. Our well-being is morally important) the Principle of Equal Consideration: human and non-human animal well-being is of equal intrinsic moral importance (i..e moral importance in itself and apart from its further effects) - e.g. all else held equal, the fact that an act would inflict a given amount of harm (e.g. a given amount of suffering) on a human or a non-human animal is an equally strong moral reason against it.

Defense of P3: It is deeply implausible that intellectual ability affects the intrinsic importance of one's well-being once we distinguish (i) its role in making one a moral agent who owes duties vs. a moral patient who is owed duties, (ii) its role in affecting the instrumental importance of one's well-being for others, and (iii) its role in determining how beneficial or harmful certain things are for you (including how much typical human adults benefit from living vs. how much non-human animals and profoundly intellectually disabled humans benefit from living).

Defense of P2: The only relevant thing that distinguishes non-human animals from intellectually comparable humans is bare biological species membership, but it's deeply implausible that bare biological species membership is relevant to the intrinsic moral importance of someone's well-being once one we focus on what it really is: something like potential to interbreed to produce fertile offspring, psychology-independent morphology, phenotype-independent genotype, history of phylogenetic descent. It's no more plausible that these matter to the intrinsic moral importance of someone's well-being than someone's ethnicity / continent of ancestry and consequent facial features, hair texture, and skin colour (race), or her chromosomes and relative gamete size (sex).

The weakening: Even if somehow intellectual ability or biological species memebership per se mattered to the moral importance of someone's well-being they couldn't matter very much. Since they seem utterly devoid of moral importance; surely it is safe to at least conclude:

C2) Principle of Minimal Consideration: We should / are morally required to avoid inflicting enormous harm on non-human animals for what is at most relatively trivial benefits for ourselves.

Empirical considerations about factory farming, human health, environmental effects, and, if you like, further philosophical considerations about what makes death a harm, the potential relevance of the fact that future farmed animals won't exist unless we buy animal products, and the probabilities that one's purchasing decisions will make a difference of various kinds and to what extent this matters, we get:

P5) To avoid inflicting enormous harm on non-human animals for what is at most relatively trivial benefits for ourselves, we must be vegan.

Finally, C2 and P5 entail:

C3) We should / are morally required to be vegan.


4c. Virtue Ethics - Respect for Animal Capabilities

P1) If the wonder that we experience in viewing wild animals is not 'how similar to us they are', but their 'real opportunities to do and be what they have reason to value' and one sufficient reason we grant this freedom at least to a basic extent to humans is they have a desire to achieve what they find valuable THEN the fact non-human animals experience this desire too means we ought extend these freedoms to animals.

P2) The wonder that we experience in viewing wild animals is not 'how similar to us they are', but their 'real opportunities to do and be what they have reason to value' and one sufficient reason we grant this freedom at least to a basic extent to humans is they have a desire to achieve what they find valuable.

C) Therefore the wonder that we experience in viewing wild animals is not 'how similar to us they are', but their 'real opportunities to do and be what they have reason to value' and one sufficient reason we grant this freedom at least to a basic extent to humans is they have a desire to achieve what they find valuable AND the fact non-human animals experience this desire too means we ought extend these freedoms to animals.


4d. Deontology - The Golden Rule

P1) If I would like to be treated well then I should treat others well

P2) I would like to be treated well

C1) Therefore I should treat others well

P3) I would not like to be treated badly then I should not treat others badly

P4) I would not like to be treated badly

C2) Therefore I should not treat others badly

C3) Therefore I should treat others well and not treat others badly

P5) Non human animals count as “others”

P6) Veganism is entailed by treating others well and not treating others badly

C3) Therefore I should be veganism


4e. Nihilist Ethics - Property Rights for Animals

P1) If I desire the ability to live a full life on my property because it satisfies a desire I have to meet my basic needs and I'm in favour of guardianship laws to protect this ability for severely mentally disabled people in court because they can't defend themselves THEN I should desire non-human animals who also have these needs have a legal right to their wild habitat as property and should enjoy guardianship laws which protects their legal rights in court through appointment of a guardian to represent the case of one or a group of animals unless another reason is specified on pain of living in bad faith.

P2) I desire the ability to live a full life on my property because it satisfies a desire I have to meet my basic needs and I'm in favour of guardianship laws to protect this ability for severely mentally disabled people in court because they can't defend themselves.

C) Therefore I desire the ability to live a full life on my property because it satisfies a desire I have to meet my basic needs and I'm in favour of guardianship laws to protect this ability for severely mentally disabled people in court because they can't defend themselves AND I should desire non-human animals who also have these needs have a legal right to their wild habitat as property and should enjoy guardianship laws which protects their legal rights in court through appointment of a guardian to represent the case of one or a group of animals unless another reason is specified on pain of living in bad faith.

Defence of P1: The different identity relations between humans and animals would be the other specified reason, if you desire to do something simply because of reason x, and reason x applies to this other group, then unless another reason is specified you're likely simply excluding the other group because it's the social norm. So you haven't thought it through, hence living in bad faith. You can still easily get out of it by saying you don't care about speciesism, but that would be adding another reason.

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[NonZeroSum]

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Got a critique of @Margaret Hayek's interpretation of marginal cases:

The Argument from Less-Able Humans ("Marginal Cases")

P1. Some humans (infants, young children, profoundly intellectually disabled) are intellectually comparable to non-human animals
P2. If the well-being of non-human animals (e.g. their avoiding a given amount of suffering, their benefiting from a given quality of life) is morally less important than ours (in virtue of these lesser intellectual abilities), then the well-being of these humans is equally less important (in virtue of their lesser intellectual abilities)
P3. But the well-being of these humans isn’t morally less important than ours

Therefore, C1. The well-being of non-human animals is not morally less important than ours

This entails (if you like in conjunction with P4. Our well-being is morally important) the Principle of Equal Consideration: human and non-human animal well-being is of equal intrinsic moral importance (i..e moral importance in itself and apart from its further effects) - e.g. all else held equal, the fact that an act would inflict a given amount of harm (e.g. a given amount of suffering) on a human or a non-human animal is an equally strong moral reason against it.

Defense of P3: It is deeply implausible that intellectual ability affects the intrinsic importance of one's well-being once we distinguish (i) its role in making one a moral agent who owes duties vs. a moral patient who is owed duties, (ii) its role in affecting the instrumental importance of one's well-being for others, and (iii) its role in determining how beneficial or harmful certain things are for you (including how much typical human adults benefit from living vs. how much non-human animals and profoundly intellectually disabled humans benefit from living).

Defense of P2: The only relevant thing that distinguishes non-human animals from intellectually comparable humans is bare biological species membership, but it's deeply implausible that bare biological species membership is relevant to the intrinsic moral importance of someone's well-being once one we focus on what it really is: something like potential to interbreed to produce fertile offspring, psychology-independent morphology, phenotype-independent genotype, history of phylogenetic descent. It's no more plausible that these matter to the intrinsic moral importance of someone's well-being than someone's ethnicity / continent of ancestry and consequent facial features, hair texture, and skin colour (race), or her chromosomes and relative gamete size (sex).

The weakening: Even if somehow intellectual ability or biological species memebership per se mattered to the moral importance of someone's well-being they couldn't matter very much. Since they seem utterly devoid of moral importance; surely it is safe to at least conclude:

C2. Principle of Minimal Consideration: We should / are morally required to avoid inflicting enormous harm on non-human animals for what is at most relatively trivial benefits for ourselves.

Empirical considerations about factory farming, human health, environmental effects, and, if you like, further philosophical considerations about what makes death a harm, the potential relevance of the fact that future farmed animals won't exist unless we buy animal products, and the probabilities that one's purchasing decisions will make a difference of various kinds and to what extent this matters, we get:

P5. To avoid inflicting enormous harm on non-human animals for what is at most relatively trivial benefits for ourselves, we must be vegan.

Finally, C2 and P5 entail:

C3. We should / are morally required to be vegan.

C3 is invalid. the defense of P2 doesn't really help either. in the defense of P2, i take it that it's saying that, probably, it's metaphysically impossible for species membership to have moral worth, but that doesn't stop the argument from being invalid. when we form our arguments, it would be spurious to restrict to metaphysical possibility, and if we don't have that restriction, there are worlds where P1, P2, and P3 are true, and yet c is false.

As a proof, say you're trying to prove that you have some h2o to someone. you walk up to them and go:

P1) I have water.
C) I have h2o.

Without them believing a crucial premise, that water is h2o, then unless they're just irrational, they won't be persuaded that you have h2o! sure, it is metaphysically necessary that water is h2o, and it's impossible for water to not be h2o, but that doesn't matter here.

Similarly, you can't go "species mattering is metaphysically impossible so this argument is logically valid." it's not.

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[NonZeroSum]

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Got a response from Levi_invictus, going to try and invite him here, because Reddit's acting weird and not showing me his replies for days.

Name the Trait

P2) If your view affirms a given human is trait-equalizable to a given nonhuman animal

My view doesnt affirm that. You cant trait-equalize my identity to an animal.

Marginal Cases

C2) Principle of Minimal Consideration: We should / are morally required to avoid inflicting enormous harm on non-human animals

I agree, P5 i disagree : to avoid enormous harm we ought to treat them well , that doesnt entail that i must be vegan, its an appeal to welfarist positions.

Virtue Ethics

2c P1 and P1

Wrong. Just because i value P1/P2 in humans doesnt mean i MUST value that on animals, how do you derive to that conclusion?

Golden Rule

As you pointed out the golden rule has its limitations and is not applicable to animals, people misunderstand the GR, its more a general guideline how to treat "others" and at certain situations it becomes a massive disadvantage and not intuitive anymore.

Nihilist Ethics

If I desire the ability to live a full life on my property because it satisfies a desire I have to meet my basic needs and I'm in favour of guardianship laws to protect this ability for severely mentally disabled people in court because they can't defend themselves THEN I should desire non-human animals who also have these needs have a legal right to their wild habitat as property and should enjoy guardianship laws which protects their legal rights in court through appointment of a guardian to represent the case of one or a group of animals unless another reason is specified on pain of living in bad faith.

Property laws are only applicable in a state of society, the main but not the sole reason we protect disabled people is they are members of our society and forget that, even if im for disabled rights i dont have to be for animal rights, so its wrong on 2 levels. Furthermore how do you think this will turn out in your hypothetical world, will your punish the deer cuz it trespassed the property of a wild hog and what about the wolf who not only trespassed but even ate the deer while the prey being full conscious, murder charges and crime against animality ???

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[NonZeroSum]

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Sorry just saw this now. Which school of philosophy do you most relate to, so I know which to focus on? Consequentialist, virtue ethics, deontology, nihilist or other?

Name the trait

My view doesnt affirm that. You cant trait-equalize my identity to an animal.

P2 simply says it's possible to take away all the traits that makes up a human and add those true of an animal such that it's an animal. To argue otherwise would be to argue against the law of identity. You likely mean to reject P3, where P1 = Humans have the right not to be turned into a burger where the person has access to and can eat plants. So you could answer it doesn't matter what trait you switch with an animal, animals never gain this right, basically 'belonging to my own species (humanity)' is the trait, then that would justify on your view it being ethical for aliens to kill us for a burger even though they have access to and can eat plants.

Marginal cases

P5 i disagree

If you agreed with C2 that all else held equal, the fact that an act would inflict a given amount of harm (e.g. a given amount of suffering) on a human or a non-human animal is an equally strong moral reason against it... then you should be hunting your own meat with exploding bullets to the head that causes no pain or acknowledge you're a hypocrite, you don't go round punching people unjustifiably and yet you buy meat which intentionally causes suffering to the scared animals loaded onto trucks and forced into slaughterhouses with screams and smells of death.

Virtue ethics

Wrong. Just because i value P1/P2 in humans doesnt mean i MUST value that on animals, how do you derive to that conclusion?

You might have commented before I edited it, if one sufficient reason for granting the freedom to humans applies to animals, then you're contradicting yourself by not granting that freedom to animals:

P1) If the wonder that we experience in viewing wild animals is not 'how similar to us they are', but their 'real opportunities to do and be what they have reason to value' and one sufficient reason we grant this freedom at least to a basic extent to humans is they have a desire to achieve what they find valuable THEN the fact non-human animals experience this desire too means we ought extend these freedoms to animals.

Golden rule

at certain situations it becomes a massive disadvantage and not intuitive anymore.

Can you say what premise you're rejecting? I still treat others how they would like to be treated, I just grant it's not dirt simple intuitive. Like I would still be respecting animals desire to express their capabilities to roam large distances unimpeded like we grant humans, but just for the same reason I don't walk into a bear cave making myself and the bear uncomfortable, we can put up fences around towns and cities to make respecting species with different interests work also, without preventing them from still being able to fill their biological desire to roam large distances.

Nihilist ethics

even if im for disabled rights i dont have to be for animal rights,

Again, can you say what premise you're rejecting? If you accept one sufficient reason for giving disabled people right to property is they have needs which that property can provide like running water and shelter and that reason applies to animals, why would you be inconsistent in not applying the same reasoning to animals?

If you don't think disabled people have this right and they should only be allowed to live because of our arbitrary compassion for them looking like humans that makes logical sense too, just seems kind of heartless and would bring us back to name the trait. So, it being ethical on your view for aliens to hollocaust us because we're not of their species.

Furthermore how do you think this will turn out in your hypothetical world

The argument simply says if you personally desire to live a full life on your property for reasons of it serves a need and you can recognise this reason applies to animals on their wild habitat you shouldn't desire that you yourself end their life or take away their habitat unjustifiably. So ideally building towns upward rather than extending outwards, unless the case for human wellbeing is so great that we can improve wildlife habitat in other ways as a better settlement, the same way we pay farmers off to build roads through their fields. Animals obviously can't reason in this way and some need to eat meat to survive.

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[NonZeroSum]

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2nd reply from Levi_invictus.

I dont have a particular shool in mind, I have different values who often collide eachother, so yeah im more a value pluralist then anything else.

Name the trait

P2 simply says it's possible to take away all the traits that makes up a human and add those true of an animal such that it's an animal.

OK, then explain it to me, how do you take my identity and add /equalize it to an animal.

To argue otherwise would be to argue against the law of identity.

Its hugely ironic that to you bring up Leibnizs law. That was/is the reason why other vegans (Perspective philosophy and vegan footsoldier) in particular reject(ed) NTT and said its not logically sound. Just watch the video(s) on yt if you want to know more.

basically 'humanity' is the trait, then that would justify on your view it being ethical for aliens to kill us for a burger even though they have access to and can eat plants.

OK lets play NTT . I wouldnt say its only 'humanity' i would add other traits like : self-awareness, moral agency, rational being =" vernunftbegabtes Lebewesen" (Kant). That would cover everything i suppose and (more intelligent) aliens wouldnt be allowed to kill us.

Marginal cases

If you agreed with C2

Sry i made a mistske, I reject C2. First of all what is a trivial benefit, i could argue like Eizel Mazard that video games are at max trivial benefits and what he proposes and lets be real he is right (and im a passionate gamer myself) that vg are a waste of time and could be detrimental. The thing is you can expand C2 to everything in your free time and say you dont need that for your survival and it causes unnecessary harm therefore its immoral, you would be a hypocrite aswell. What i mean with rejecting P5 is we should reduce as far as possible the suffering of farm animals and provide them with (natural) food, water, shelter. This is possible and is common in small farms but obv not in large industrial farms. Thats the reason why im buying animal products from those places and trying to avoid other animal products as long as it is reasonable and practicable.

Virtue Ethics

You might have commented before I edited it, if one sufficient reason for granting the freedom to humans applies to animals, then you're contradicting yourself by not granting that freedom to animals.

Yeah sry i read something different, I reject all of 2c. Im not respecting the capabilites of animals, i often times express wondering when im seeing their specific abilities like an ant carrying objects 300 times its weight but that doesnt mean anything, to respect its life it must have the specific properties i mentioned above.

The Golden Rule

Can you say what premise you're rejecting?

What im saying is that people misunderstand the gr, its meant to be a general guideline how to behave in a HUMAN environment and even there its always depending on your socio economic and political power. So lets say i have a death note (like in the famous anime) and i could kill/manipulate any person i want, why shouldnt i use that power, respond to that and i hopefully can show what the foundational problems of gr are.

Nihilist Ethics

Again, can you say what premise you're rejecting? If you accept one sufficient reason for giving disabled people right to property is they have needs which that property can provide like running water and shelter and that reason applies to animals, why would you be inconsistent in not applying the same reasoning to animals?

Because disabled persons are members of our society so their rights count. But the premise i reject is P1). As i alluded in my first response are the legal implications and consequences of such a law and you dodged it, what about an prey animal getting killed and eaten by an predator animal, what would you do then, is it not extremely unfair to require/expect a human animal to obey to your laws but other non humans animals dont need to do that, and can smoothly rape, kill and genocide eachother ???

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[NonZeroSum]

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Name the trait

OK, then explain it to me, how do you take my identity and add /equalize it to an animal.

Because once you're done taking away everything that is unique to the human experience and add in those that are unique to the chicken say, you just have two chickens, all P2 is saying is once you've done that you'd have a contradiction to say that it both is and isn't 2 identical chickens. So 'if I'm contradicting myself, I'm contradicting myself'.

Its hugely ironic that to you bring up Leibnizs law. That was/is the reason why other vegans (Perspective philosophy and vegan footsoldier) in particular reject(ed) NTT and said its not logically sound. Just watch the video(s) on yt if you want to know more.

Yeah no in terms of the newest version just 'was' the reason, I did too, but it's valid now. I fought the incredibly facile but funny trench war from the philosophicalvegan forum trenches prodding AY with jokesy videos while he tried to heap scorn on the wiki article criquing it:

• NameTheTrait
• NameTheTrait_2.0+_(official)
• Jokesy video

OK lets play NTT. I wouldn’t say its only 'humanity' i would add other traits like : self-awareness, moral agency, rational being =" vernunftbegabtes Lebewesen" (Kant). That would cover everything I suppose and (more intelligent) aliens wouldn’t be allowed to kill us.

Cool, so you wouldn't view the arbitrary reason aliens had for factory farming a de-evolved human being without self-awareness, moral agency & rationality as unethical. Because the only other reason you value humanity is just it's "your own species."

Marginal cases

The thing is you can expand C2 to everything in your free time and say you dont need that for your survival and it causes unnecessary harm therefore its immoral

Potentially, I'm not a consequentialist so don't care about reducing harm as a primary goal, I think we should grant a basic level of freedom to all animals regardless of harm, so the harm that you would feel confortable doing equally to disabled/de-evolved aliens or animals for wanting to do harm playing video games is unjustifiable to me.

Virtue Ethics

to respect its life it must have the specific properties i mentioned above.

Ok I think you're missing out on working towards the goal of maximizing both the quality and quantity of positive experiences humans can have with animals, as well as animals with other animals for low-order pleasures such as taste/texture. But if you can't appreciate animals real opportunities to do and be what they have reason to value as an ethical good in and of itself then yeah this argument isn't for you.

The Golden Rule

So lets say i have a death note (like in the famous anime) and i could kill/manipulate any person i want, why shouldnt i use that power

That's a misunderstanding of the rule, it's self correcting: As the recipient of certain treatment, would you want somebody to treat you according to the preferences of the doer were he or she the recipient based on his or her personal tastes, or the tastes of the recipient? No matter how much you personally like chocolate, if you were in the position of somebody who doesn't enjoy chocolate (or is even allergic to it) that context matters, so in carrying out the golden rule we treat people according to their own wants.

Nihilist Ethics

Because disabled persons are members of our society so their rights count.

But you don't respect disabled rights for the very basic reason of them desiring to satisfy a need to things like shelter and food, so you don't actually respect their desires, you just do it because they happen to have the same aesthetic as you or are birthed from able-humans you do value.

What about a prey animal getting killed and eaten by a predator animal?

I basically view all animals as citizens of their own singular overlapping country we have a power sharing agreement with, but agree it's not desirable for us to prosecute disputes between equally incapacitated animal citizens of a foreign country, let me know how you think I could change the wording of the argument to represent that if you think it needs it.

But yeah it's an argument for why I think we should legally obligate humans to respect animal lives & habitat because we respect the same desire of disabled humans need for land and to express their capabilities and we have the reasoning capabilities to be able to avoid inflicting unjustified cruelty.

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[NonZeroSum]

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3rd Reply:

Name the trait

Because once you're done taking away everything that is unique to the human experience and add in those that are unique to the chicken say, you just have two chickens, all P2 is saying is once you've done that you'd have a contradiction to say that it both is and isn't 2 identical chickens. So 'if I'm contradicting myself, I'm contradicting myself'.

That doesn’t make sense to me and still doesn't explain how the trait equalization process works when you want to transfer a unique identity.

Cool, so you wouldn't view the arbitrary reason aliens had for factory farming a de-evolved human being without self-awareness, moral agency & rationality as unethical. Because the only other reason you value humanity is just it's "your own species."

First of all every value is arbitrary, secondly i would have a problem with killing such humans, I said humanity. When you ask why you value humans i couldn't give you a finite answer to that but i would point out the massive biological barrier ALL humans have when its coming to eating their own (excluding psychopaths), but its not that humans can not be eaten from other animals of we can but we are biologically hard wired not to do it which is undeniable and uncontroversial. I am not seeing a contradiction in my statement, my view is consistent, you agree on that?

Virtue Ethics

Potentially, I'm not a consequentialist so don't care about reducing harm as a primary goal, I think we should grant a basic level of freedom to all animals regardless of harm, so the harm that you would feel comfortable doing equally to disabled/de-evolved aliens or animals for wanting to do harm playing video games is unjustifiable to me.

Can you elaborate this statement?

The Golden Rule

That's a misunderstanding of the rule, it's self correcting: As the recipient of certain treatment, would you want somebody to treat you according to the preferences of the doer were he or she the recipient based on his or her personal tastes, or the tastes of the recipient? No matter how much you personally like chocolate, if you were in the position of somebody who doesn't enjoy chocolate (or is even allergic to it) that context matters, so in carrying out the golden rule we treat people according to their own wants.

I disagree on that. The thing is there are different implications from philosophers to that. I take a stance heavily leaning to Thomas Hobbes and not some philosophical vs Regan or other vegans said what the gr is. The gr is a general guideline, nothing more and mate you still dint answer my question, should i use the death note or not and why, when you give me your thoughts on this i can explain my position perfectly to you.

Nihilist Ethics

But you don't respect disabled rights for the very basic reason of them desiring to satisfy a need to things like shelter and food, so you don't actually respect their desires, you just do it because they happen to have the same aesthetic as you or are birthed from able-humans you do value.

That's a difficult topic i admit but i think you nailed it. When a human is disabled on such a high degree that he/she is not even autonomous any more, cant talk, think and is basically just an animal or even below that mentally speaker (not physically) then i font see having any specific responsibility to such a living being, that the whole point of Singers Marginal cases but his premise is false, most people are not valuing heavily disabled persons, its just family and friends who care and ob. the fact that we all can fall into this category one day, reaching and old age, suffering a disease, having a car accident or whatever, so its ultimately a self protective measurement than anything else.

I basically view all animals as citizens of their own singular overlapping country we have a power sharing agreement with, but agree it's not desirable for us to prosecute disputes between equally incapacitated animal citizens of a foreign country, let me know how you think I could change the wording of the argument to represent that if you think it needs it.

Mate that so delusional, post that on a legal forum and people will laugh on you, do you a favour and leave your bubble and i font mean that pejoratively. Your using human terms, we are citizens, we are living in state of society, animals not, animals are not capable in living in such a state and the fact that you couldn't respond properly to my deer wolf example just shows that you are not really believing in this shit. Where and when did we sign a power share agreement with animals, are you hearing yourself???

But yeah it's an argument for why I think we should legally obligate humans to respect animal lives & habitat because we respect the same desire of disabled humans need for land and to express their capabilities and we have the reasoning capabilities to be able to avoid inflicting unjustified cruelty.

Who do you mean with we, you mean the tiny percentage on hardcore ethical vegans who are basing their ethics on a fantasy fairy tale like in the Disney movies?

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[NonZeroSum]

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Name the trait

That doest make sense to me and still doest explain how the trait equalization process works when you want to transfer a unique identity.

Just imagine 2 mirror universes where every atom happened to fire in exactly the same way throughout time and every neuron such that you're just looking in the mirror at your identical self.

We start off with a hypothetical world of just chickens, worms and grass. Then we can swap half the traits of that world with this one, so all space time changed such that chicken-human-hybrids exist. Then switch all the traits such that it's just what happened to this universe in another universe.

Do you view the human in the mirror world as having moral value? Yes. Then you can only deny the given non-human animal (that we trait switched to a human) has moral value on pain of P∧\~P.

If 'X', then you'd be contradicting yourself.
'X'
Therefore you're contradicting yourself.

secondly i would have a problem with killing such humans,

You would, but you wouldn't have an ethical argument that you would accept in their position for why the aliens shouldn't kill the de-evolved human, because you would also see no ethical issue with killing disabled or intelligent aliens who had de-evolved.

Virtue ethics

Can you elaborate this statement?

I'm saying I acknowledge in some consequentialist systems giving all your money to charity and eating a burger once a year is better than going vegan and not giving to charity. I think we have the character virtue obligation not to intentionally breed animals into the world only to betray their interests to express their capabilities by intentionally ending their life for a burger. So that's my baseline, then I try to live a low impact lifestyle and donate to campaigns and charities on top.

Golden rule

I disagree on that.

You're fine to say you'd prefer the argument written differently, but I've given a formal argument which includes respecting the other persons view, so I'd like you to respond to that.

Should i use the death note or not and why?

I actually just got done writing a script on why we shouldn't use violence to end violence for the animals which answers your question:

Even if it could be argued that a war of terror, killing those involved in animal agriculture was the easiest route to reducing the number of animals bred into living horrible lives… I would still say it’s ethically wrong to be the person who takes another's life just because it’s the easiest way. You could have worked to become president and outlawed it with one signature, you could have inspired a 1000 liberators to break every cage.

It’s an act of self-harm to treat life with such disregard when you could have been that same deluded person shrouded in the justificatory trappings of society treating your behaviour normally.

What I see is vegans in mourning for the animals, angry and wanting to find an outlet for that anger. After the vegan activist Regan Russell was killed, many ALF actions happened in response, and if taking the risk to slash slaughterhouse trucks’ tires in the dead of night is how you develop stronger bonds with a group of people and gain the confidence to do amazing things like travel the world and learn from other liberation struggles, then I’m all for it…

But, I don’t think the way we win today is treating a cold bureaucratic system with equally cold disregard in whose life we had the resources to be able to intimidate this week. Time on earth is the greatest gift people have, to make mistakes and learn from them, so I could never condone risking injury to people when fighting such a monolith as the animal agriculture industry today.

Nihilist Ethics

Most people are not valuing heavily disabled persons, its just family and friends who care and ob. the fact that we all can fall into this category one day, reaching and old age, suffering a disease, having a car accident or whatever, so its ultimately a self protective measurement than anything else.

I disagree, I think people get a lot of peace of mind knowing disabled people are well cared for, not only because we might fall into that situation one day, because we feel compassion for their unique interests, just like we can for animals,

Where and when did we sign a power share agreement with animals

I'm saying we might ought advocate for it to come about in future, but I'm not convinced it would be needed, we have laws on the books prosecuting humans against cruelty to animals now, without needing to apply it to animals against other animals, all I'm suggesting is we have a lawyer play devil's advocate in those situations, such that they get a defence against human cruelty for their unique species interests, like desiring to have wildlife habitat as a refuge.

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[NonZeroSum]

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Any suggestions? Do people want it on the philovegan channel? Or just the arguments? Or just one argument per video? It's 20 mins long at the moment read time, but I prefer to have it all together so you can see how they relate. But should probably edit it down somehow.

Link to the wiki youtube page encase anyone wants to make edits there.

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[Red]

Do you think it'd be best to make it one long video? Some people may get bored and click off. It might be best to split this into several parts.

Overall from what I've skimmed this seems like a great script! There may be a few things in need clarification, I'll give a more thorough read later.