Critique of the Vegan Atheist

[Lord Daddy Lombrosis]

Hello, I'm new here. I made a video critiquing the Vegan Atheist's views on meat consumption. I'd love to hear his response to it, as well as feedback from other vegans.

youtube.com/watch?v=ES-F4bUtL_8&list=UU3fYRR1RQCkLuw7sW2Ld6PA

[brimstoneSalad]

It's not easy to respond to videos in text.

Please post a synopsis of your arguments so they may be addressed on the forum (and you can be quoted).

[Lord Daddy Lombrosis]

Why can't my arguments be paraphrased? They don't need to be quoted directly.

My commentary is displayed in bold text, and there's not that much of it. Surely you can pause it.

[miniboes]

Sigh, I wrote like two paragraphs and then I accidentally closed the page. Here I go again.

Is it immoral for a chimpanzee to eat wild pigs?

It depends on the situation.
If the chimpanzee stumbles across a dead wild pig, it is not immoral as the harm has been done and eating the pig will not do any more.

If we're talking about actually killing a pig for food:
If the chimpanzee has nothing else to eat, it is a bit of a grey area but I would say it is not immoral; the chimpanzee has to choose between starving and killing the pig. Both would be bad.
If the chimpanzee has more than enough plant food, which is more likely, then it is immoral for the chimpanzee to kill the pig as it causes unnecessary suffering to the pig and its family.

Second, the Vegan Atheist talks about animals making choices. This implies that animals are morally responsible agents.

No, it does not. I'll elaborate below.

If an agent makes choices, then they are morally responsible for those choices, since they could have chosen to do otherwise.

But could they have evaluated the situation in a way that makes them realize they should choose otherwise? For example, when a baby bites his big brother, does the baby know in advance that will hurt the brother? Would you hold the baby morally accountable if he was not aware of the consequences? The baby could have chosen not to bite his big brother, but it was an uninformed decision. Can a chimpanzee make a complex moral evaluation that goes outside of his intuition and species? That remains to be seen. Agents cannot be held accountable for all of their moral decisions, and just being an agent does not necessarily make one morally responsible.

It seems that the Vegan Atheist would have to concede that chimps are immoral, or at least culpable to some degree, for hunting other creatures.

At most he would have to agree that chimps are capable of doing immoral things. Not that chimps are immoral (one can do immoral things and still not be immoral) or morally responsible.

Obviously chimps aren't open to rational persuasion, so what's to be done about this?

Perhaps nothing, perhaps we should separate chimps from pigs. That is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not one should use animal products though.

You mention the scenario where chimps have enough fruit and nuts to eat but decide to eat the pigs anyway, I explained earlier that I do deem this an immoral choice, however they are not necessarily morally responsible for that choice. Did they know there were enough fruits and nuts? Do they know the pigs feel pain? Can they even evaluate whether or not causing other animals suffering is wrong? It is very possible the moral evaluation is just too complex. Most humans, however, are perfectly capable of making such complex moral evaluations and are to be held morally responsible for their choices.

The suffering that human beings would experience if they were slaughtered for food would be far more profound than the momentary pain that animals go through in such circumstances

Even if this were true, which I do not think you demonstrate, it would not matter. Let's say I gather an army and decide to try and slaughter all Muslims in the Netherlands, and I succeed in killing one million of them. The suffering would be far less than the holocaust, but you can still compare it to the holocaust to make moral evaluations. A lesser holocaust is still terrible. Similarly, even if non-human slaughterhouses cause less suffering than human slaughterhouses would, non-human slaughterhouses are still terrible and it is still useful to compare them to human suffering to make moral evaluations.

Humans would suffer in a variety of ways. They would lose their personal liberty and there would be a constant, impending sense of doom.

How did you determine non-human animals do not experience this? Have you ever seen cows being shipped off to slaughterhouses? If what they express is not an impending sense of doom, I don't know what is.

It has been said that the psychological torment of awaiting one's execution is worse than the act of being executed.

I agree.

Animals experience neither this sensation, nor the loss of liberty.

How did you determine that?

They don't have the concept of X, Y and Z.

How did you determine that? How did you determine they cannot feel and be aware of a loss of freedom, the impending end of their life or the separation without having a concept of it? Can you grief for the death of a loved one without having a concept of death?

If he wants to say that they do have these concepts, then how are they communicated to humans? What "oink" or "moo" means "I miss my family"?

Why the fuck would they need to communicate their concepts and feelings to humans? How in the world is that relevant? Can you not feel something without being able to tell someone? Do I need to tell someone "I am sad" in order to be sad? That's asinine.

The reason there is no farm animal equivalent to "The Diary of Anne Frank" is because animals don't have the concepts and existential self awareness of humans that makes their suffering so profound.

No, the reason they have no equivalent of "the Diary of Anne Frank" is because they have not invented writing. This could be because of inferior intelligence, but that has nothing to do with the profoundness of their suffering.

The degree to which animals suffer in slaughterhouses is measured by the magnitude of pain they experience in the moments of being put to death?

Who's doing this exactly? Why does the magnitude of suffering even matter, is even a little suffering not too much if it is unnecessary? Would it not be immoral for me to intentionally stick my brother with a pin, even though it barely hurts?

Moreover, why is having less roaming space than in the wild such an injustice?

Stay in your bedroom for a year or two, then we'll talk.

Suppose meat-eaters agree that the pain animals undergo is a form of suffering?

Well, they should. The condition of being in pain is pretty much the definition of suffering.

Then slaughterhouses could administer an anesthetic to the animals to mute their pain.

Did you not just finish saying the anticipation of death is worse than the pain of dying? How about the emotional suffering? You're gonna give them antidepressants too?

The reality is that slaughterhouses are not doing this, so if you think this would be moral you should in any case be vegan until animals are actually dying painlessly.

By the way, would it be wrong for me to slaughter the million Muslims I was talking about if I gave all of them an anesthetic? If you're going to talk about those concepts please actually demonstrate animals do not have those concepts.

Plant food is not a necessary source of nourishment either. We can get all the nutrients we need from meat and vitamins.

Wait, what are the vitamins made of? Have you ever heard of scurvy, which would be quite prevalent if we were to stop eating plant foods? Where would you get your fiber and antioxidants? The bad fats, animal protein and cholesterol would make cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes and cancers even more prevalent. There is a difference between surviving long enough to bear children and actually being healthy.

Actually, this does not even matter. You've created a red haring so attractive I almost ignored that animal foods are produced in an incredibly harmful way, especially compared to plant foods. Even if you're ignoring the ethical aspect, the environmental damage of animal agriculture should be enough to go vegan, as Al Gore for example did. The meat- and dairy industries emit more greenhouse gasses than all other emissions combined, making them the single biggest contributors to global warming.

I will ignore most of your closing statements as I think I've rebutted them already, but:

It is not rational; it is effeminate and sentimental.

What if it is effeminate and sentimental? What the hell is wrong with that? These things are not contrary to rationality, to claim they are would be sexist. The notion that is is somehow mainly to eat an abused animal, the product of great suffering, is asinine. Perhaps if you would fight off a wild boar with your bare hands that would be quite manly, but instead you buy a meat loaf wrapped in plastic, paying to let the killing be done for you. That is not manly, it's cruel at best.

Like most social justice causes, it seeks to inhibit human freedom.

Should one really be free to kill and abuse just for the sake of freedom? There's a reason rape and murder are outlawed, or would you argue that is wrong too for the sake of freedom?

[brimstoneSalad]

Why can't my arguments be paraphrased? They don't need to be quoted directly.

Then you'll say I'm misrepresenting your argument, or something.

Posting a transcript also allows people who can't watch the video right now, or who don't want to watch a video (I prefer reading to watching, particularly things like this that are more likely to be irritating), see what your argument is about.

[brimstoneSalad]

And here I thought it was going to be "I crave meat, therefore I need something in meat, therefore I can't be vegan. Checkmate VeganAtheist!"

That was worse. Thanks, miniboes, for transcribing.

It depends on the situation.
If the chimpanzee stumbles across a dead wild pig, it is not immoral as the harm has been done and eating the pig will not do any more.

Well, there's the concept of harm, and then there's the concept of morality or immorality of action.
Is it immoral for a hurricane to flood a city? It has no rational agency or concept of morality; as a force of nature it is amoral. However, it is harmful.

But there are a few distinct questions here that somebody like this would need to answer.

Is it immoral for orangutans to rape each other?
Is it immoral for lions to kill a human?
Is it moral for a wild dolphin to save a human from drowning?

Can non-human animals be morally responsible for anything at all, positively or negatively?

One presumes these kinds of people think it's immoral for humans to rape and kill each other, but maybe not (this person sounds like some kind of anarchocapitalist Randroid who may not believe in morality), so that's an important line of questioning too.

Is it immoral for humans to harm each other in those ways?
And are there any humans (such as the mentally disabled, young children, or the senile) for whom these kinds of actions are not immoral?


Indeed, it's not a binary question. What is or isn't harmful, and how harmful, can be clearly demonstrated in terms of violation of the wants of sentient beings, but what is or isn't moral correlates to the harmfulness or helpfulness of an action only by the degree of moral agency possessed by the actor (which isn't a binary thing).

At most he would have to agree that chimps are capable of doing immoral things. Not that chimps are immoral (one can do immoral things and still not be immoral) or morally responsible.

I don't know what TVA said, but I don't think it's useful to classify things as moral or immoral in themselves without respect to the agency doing those things. It's a semantic issue, though, and I could be persuaded otherwise.

We may say "it's immoral to kill animals", but that's really shorthand for "it's immoral for YOU, as a rational moral agent, to kill animals".

Naturally, we're not addressing Chimps, or babies, or the mentally disabled, or the senile, or anybody else who has diminished capacity and is thereby incapable of learning, understanding, and evaluating moral action.

The meat- and dairy industries emit more greenhouse gasses than all other emissions combined, making them the single biggest contributors to global warming.

Not all others combined, just the ones we can actually reduce with our current infrastructure without starving to death and destroying the world economy; of the "optional" emissions, they are king.

It is one of the biggest methane producers, and because methane is pretty much the most potent greenhouse gas (common one anyway), that's a big concern. It's hard to compare directly to CO2, but in the short term, around 70 times the potency by mass.

Suggested reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas

The totality of atmospheric methane contributes up to 9%. This is likely still an underestimate because we're still learning about its compounding effects, like on O3, but it's a safe one.

But that's deceptively small in statistics, because up to ~72% of the greenhouse effect is from water vapor and clouds. It's the little stuff that makes a big difference, persists in the atmosphere, and creates a kind of feedback loop (whereas water enters and exits the atmosphere very quickly depending on global temperatures and weather conditions).

All said, when you take into account some 40% of methane being natural, multiply by 3.6 to normalize for the effect of water, and count only Animal Agriculture's share of anthropogenic methane (It's usually called enteric fermentation and manure management, possibly to hide the fact that we're talking about cow farts? Maybe not), which is about 1/3rd (most of the rest is natural gas released from drilling and mining), you get that cow farts (and poops, and other farmed animals too) are responsible for about 6.5% of total persistent global warming gases.

However, if you want to count it for it's contribution to anthropogenic global warming, which would only be reasonable, you have to consider that CO2 and O3 is mostly natural (even now), and have only increased by about 40%, while CH4 (Methane) has increased 170% in the last couple hundred years, which means that these 'cow farts' make up a much more impressive 16% of global warming (anthropogenic CO2 and O3 making up 19.3% the effect of persistent greenhouse gases, and the total of all anthropogenic methane making up about 19.4%)

16%

That's just the farts (and it would be a little more than that, since cows did exist before 1750 too, but there weren't many of them).
Transportation and industrial infrastructure for the animals, their products, their food, and the processes needed to grow that food increases that footprint, but enough to make it a majority? No. 20% total almost certainly (given the CO2 emissions in agriculture and transportation), but I would balk at more than 30%. We spend a lot of energy in the home, at work, in unrelated industries (particularly construction), and on transportation of our persons around town.

16% alone is very significant, and it pretty much comes down to us turning off our lights, computers, heating, and air conditioning (as it's comparable to the total of all emissions associated with residential energy usage), or not eating meat anymore to have a similar effect.
That's why I say it's the largest source of optional emissions -- the other things we can do right now aren't very realistic (Yes, less realistic than the world eating less meat, hard to believe).

[TheVeganAtheist]

I agree with most of what miniboes has articulated. I don't feel the need to rehash and reword many of the same points.

[Lord Daddy Lombrosis]

Is it immoral for a chimpanzee to eat wild pigs?

It depends on the situation.
If the chimpanzee stumbles across a dead wild pig, it is not immoral as the harm has been done and eating the pig will not do any more.

If we're talking about actually killing a pig for food:
If the chimpanzee has nothing else to eat, it is a bit of a grey area but I would say it is not immoral; the chimpanzee has to choose between starving and killing the pig. Both would be bad.
If the chimpanzee has more than enough plant food, which is more likely, then it is immoral for the chimpanzee to kill the pig as it causes unnecessary suffering to the pig and its family.

The most I can say for your response is that it's logically consistent with TVA's conviction that animals have agency (though you seem to hem and haw on the issue later, asking me if chimps are like infants). The reason I asked about chimps is because most vegans have told me that chimps and other creatures are amoral. The question then becomes why we should extend our moral concepts to creatures who aren't moral actors. TVA wants to hold animal life as sacrosanct as human life but answering no to my question is an admission that animals are not moral creatures.

If an agent makes choices, then they are morally responsible for those choices, since they could have chosen to do otherwise.

But could they have evaluated the situation in a way that makes them realize they should choose otherwise? For example, when a baby bites his big brother, does the baby know in advance that will hurt the brother? Would you hold the baby morally accountable if he was not aware of the consequences? The baby could have chosen not to bite his big brother, but it was an uninformed decision. Can a chimpanzee make a complex moral evaluation that goes outside of his intuition and species? That remains to be seen. Agents cannot be held accountable for all of their moral decisions, and just being an agent does not necessarily make one morally responsible.

Infants don't have the concepts of right and wrong. Even if moral concepts are innate, they aren't actualized until later in childhood. Most children have to be taught that something is wrong and infants can't understand moral instruction because they can't understand language. At most they can comprehend some kind of positive reinforcement for their actions. If you want to compare chimps to babies, then chimps are not morally responsible for their actions and hence not capable of carrying out immoral actions. It makes no sense to talk about an agent doing something immoral who isn't capable of moral reasoning. Even a psychopath could develop some kind of utility-based ethics.

It seems that the Vegan Atheist would have to concede that chimps are immoral, or at least culpable to some degree, for hunting other creatures.

At most he would have to agree that chimps are capable of doing immoral things. Not that chimps are immoral (one can do immoral things and still not be immoral) or morally responsible.

If chimps are not morally responsible then they are not capable of doing immoral things.

Obviously chimps aren't open to rational persuasion, so what's to be done about this?

Perhaps nothing, perhaps we should separate chimps from pigs. That is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not one should use animal products though.

You mention the scenario where chimps have enough fruit and nuts to eat but decide to eat the pigs anyway, I explained earlier that I do deem this an immoral choice, however they are not necessarily morally responsible for that choice. Did they know there were enough fruits and nuts? Do they know the pigs feel pain? Can they even evaluate whether or not causing other animals suffering is wrong? It is very possible the moral evaluation is just too complex. Most humans, however, are perfectly capable of making such complex moral evaluations and are to be held morally responsible for their choices.

If chimps can't evaluate the moral status of harm, then they are not moral agents because they lack moral reasoning (e.g. can't determine that it's wrong to inflict unnecessary harm, etc). In which case, they are not capable of committing immoral acts.

The suffering that human beings would experience if they were slaughtered for food would be far more profound than the momentary pain that animals go through in such circumstances

Even if this were true, which I do not think you demonstrate, it would not matter. Let's say I gather an army and decide to try and slaughter all Muslims in the Netherlands, and I succeed in killing one million of them. The suffering would be far less than the holocaust, but you can still compare it to the holocaust to make moral evaluations. A lesser holocaust is still terrible. Similarly, even if non-human slaughterhouses cause less suffering than human slaughterhouses would, non-human slaughterhouses are still terrible and it is still useful to compare them to human suffering to make moral evaluations.

The analogy of a holocaust doesn't work because it assumes what's at issue. It assumes that the pain cattle feel (if any) from a bolt gun is equivalent to the pain human beings experience.

It's not merely less pain. It is a different kind of pain. It's a present-directed and short-lived pain.

Humans would suffer in a variety of ways. They would lose their personal liberty and there would be a constant, impending sense of doom.

How did you determine non-human animals do not experience this? Have you ever seen cows being shipped off to slaughterhouses? If what they express is not an impending sense of doom, I don't know what is.

This is baseless sentimentalism. How would you verify, from looking at the expressions (or lack of expressions, because cows don't really contort their facial features like humans, but never mind that) of cows in a cattle car, that it knows that it's going to die? It can never tell you how it feels. And please, no question begging analogies involving human communication.

Animals experience neither this sensation, nor the loss of liberty.

They don't have the concept of X, Y and Z.

How did you determine that? How did you determine they cannot feel and be aware of a loss of freedom, the impending end of their life or the separation without having a concept of it? Can you grief for the death of a loved one without having a concept of death?

If cows and other farm-raised animals had these concepts, then'd they have a syntax to express them. But they don't even have the building blocks of a syntax. They don't have an alphabet or subtle nuances in their sounds to develop one. They make sounds to indicate present desires (to mate and eat), not to talk about events that may happen in the future or abstract moral concepts. Humans have evolved a complex syntax to express complex concepts (about events, past and future, right and wrong, chance and necessity, et al). Our language is a by-product of our cognition, and therefore of its concepts. If this is wrong, then provide an alternative explanation for why humans evolved a complex syntax. Do you think our syntax and the evolution thereof is unrelated to our cognition?

This is why TAV's "sentience" argument fails. Humans and non-human creatures are both sentient but that's a crude basis for assigning them equal value. It's a false equivalence. The concepts contained in our cognition are deployed in situations involving real suffering. An African slave might think, "I've lost my freedom," "I don't know where I'm going" and "I may never see my homeland again." The cow on the other hand doesn't have these concepts that make human suffering so profound. The cow doesn't know what the hell is going on when he's on the killing floor. What "moo" means "I'm about to lose my life"? Thus it is impossible to empathize with whatever animals feel in slaughterhouses. Apparently, you've made a breakthrough in animal behavior by inferring these thoughts from expressions of cows being hauled off to the slaughterhouse.

If he wants to say that they do have these concepts, then how are they communicated to humans? What "oink" or "moo" means "I miss my family""

Why the fuck would they need to communicate their concepts and feelings to humans? How in the world is that relevant? Can you not feel something without being able to tell someone? Do I need to tell someone "I am sad" in order to be sad? That's asinine.

There is no way to express these concepts without a syntax. If there is, explain it to me. Looking at cows in a cattle car is bogus sentimentalism. It tells me nothing about animal cognition and what it's possible for them to communicate. They'll never be able to tell you what they feel, while a human being can, so that comparison doesn't work.

The reason there is no farm animal equivalent to "The Diary of Anne Frank" is because animals don't have the concepts and existential self awareness of humans that makes their suffering so profound.

No, the reason they have no equivalent of "the Diary of Anne Frank" is because they have not invented writing. This could be because of inferior intelligence, but that has nothing to do with the profoundness of their suffering.

Be specific. What does their inferior intelligence consist in? Can they produce a syntax? Can they evolve a means of communicating concepts of loss, liberty and the future without a syntax?

The degree to which animals suffer in slaughterhouses is measured by the magnitude of pain they experience in the moments of being put to death?

Who's doing this exactly? Why does the magnitude of suffering even matter, is even a little suffering not too much if it is unnecessary? Would it not be immoral for me to intentionally stick my brother with a pin, even though it barely hurts?

It matters because the response by concerned parties to the condition of animals in slaughterhouses should be proportional to their suffering. It's immoral to prick your brother, but you shouldn't get a life sentence for it. The suffering of animals in a slaughterhouse, in my view, is not worth shutting down the slaughterhouses or going on plant-only diets. If animals suffer in slaughterhouses, we need to identify the extent of their suffering and devise an appropriate response.

Moreover, why is having less roaming space than in the wild such an injustice?

Stay in your bedroom for a year or two, then we'll talk.

That is question begging. It assumes precisely the issue at hand (that animals experience the same indignities as humans).

Suppose meat-eaters agree that the pain animals undergo is a form of suffering

Well, they should. The condition of being in pain is pretty much the definition of suffering.

There are degrees of suffering. It is my contention that animal suffering is minuscule compared to the suffering of (for example) slaves.

Then slaughterhouses could administer an anesthetic to the animals to mute their pain.

Did you not just finish saying the anticipation of death is worse than the pain of dying? How about the emotional suffering? You're gonna give them antidepressants too?

These are loaded questions. You keep assuming that human suffering is equivalent to animal suffering without providing any justification for thinking so.

The reality is that slaughterhouses are not doing this, so if you think this would be moral you should in any case be vegan until animals are actually dying painlessly.

This would only be done to placate the vegan. I do not consider the condition of farm animals to be one of horrific suffering for reasons already elucidated.

By the way, would it be wrong for me to slaughter the million Muslims I was talking about if I gave all of them an anesthetic? If you're going to talk about those concepts please actually demonstrate animals do not have those concepts.

The Muslim holocaust is question begging. It equates the value of human and animal life. No justification for this equivalence has been provided.

Plant food is not a necessary source of nourishment either. We can get all the nutrients we need from meat and vitamins.

Wait, what are the vitamins made of? Have you ever heard of scurvy, which would be quite prevalent if we were to stop eating plant foods? Where would you get your fiber and antioxidants? The bad fats, animal protein and cholesterol would make cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes and cancers even more prevalent. There is a difference between surviving long enough to bear children and actually being healthy.

Actually, this does not even matter. You've created a red haring so attractive I almost ignored that animal foods are produced in an incredibly harmful way, especially compared to plant foods. Even if you're ignoring the ethical aspect, the environmental damage of animal agriculture should be enough to go vegan, as Al Gore for example did. The meat- and dairy industries emit more greenhouse gasses than all other emissions combined, making them the single biggest contributors to global warming.

I'm not an engineer but I'm sure there are ways to regulate the emissions. Most factories have some kind of ventilation system that filters the amount of chemicals that are released into the air.

The point I was making is that TVA keeps saying that meat is not a necessary part of the human diet, but neither is plant food. We could get all of our nutrients from meat. Eskimos survived on meat for ages without getting scurvy.

"Much of what we know about the Eskimo diet comes from the legendary arctic anthropologist and adventurer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who made several daredevil journeys through the region in the early 20th century. Stefansson noticed the same thing you did, that the traditional Eskimo diet consisted largely of meat and fish, with fruits, vegetables, and other carbohydrates--the usual source of vitamin C--accounting for as little as 2 percent of total calorie intake. Yet they didn't get scurvy.

Stefansson argued that the native peoples of the arctic got their vitamin C from meat that was raw or minimally cooked--cooking, it seems, destroys the vitamin. (In fact, for a long time "Eskimo" was thought to be a derisive Native American term meaning "eater of raw flesh," although this is now discounted.) Stefansson claimed the high incidence of scurvy among European explorers could be explained by their refusal to eat like the natives. He proved this to his own satisfaction by subsisting in good health for lengthy periods--one memorable odyssey lasted for five years--strictly on whatever meat and fish he and his companions could catch.

A few holdouts didn't buy it. To settle the matter once and for all, Stefansson and a colleague lived on a meat-only diet for one year under medical supervision at New York's Bellevue Hospital, starting in February 1928. The two ate between 100 and 140 grams of protein a day, the balance of their calories coming from fat, yet they remained scurvy free. Later in life Stefansson became a strong advocate of a high-meat diet even if you didn't live in the arctic; he professed to enjoy improved health, reduced weight, etc, from meals consisting of coffee, the occasional grapefruit, and a nice steak, presumably rare. Doesn't sound half bad, and one might note that until recently the Inuit rarely suffered from atherosclerosis and other Western ailments.

Vitamin C can be found in a variety of traditional Eskimo/Inuit staples, including the skin of beluga whales (known as muktuk), which is said to contain as much vitamin C as oranges. Other reported sources include the organ meats of sea mammals as well as the stomach contents of caribou. You're thinking: It'll be a mighty cold day in the arctic before they catch me eating the stomach contents of caribou. Indeed, you have to wonder whether the Inuit really ate such stuff either, since Stefansson describes it being fed to dogs."

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/rea ... get-scurvy

It is not rational; it is effeminate and sentimental.

What if it is effeminate and sentimental? What the hell is wrong with that? These things are not contrary to rationality, to claim they are would be sexist. The notion that is is somehow mainly to eat an abused animal, the product of great suffering, is asinine. Perhaps if you would fight off a wild boar with your bare hands that would be quite manly, but instead you buy a meat loaf wrapped in plastic, paying to let the killing be done for you. That is not manly, it's cruel at best.

Again, recall that my reply was directed at TVA. He says that his views are based on reason and evidence, but his notion that we can "empathize" with the suffering of animals strikes me as very effeminate. It's what I'd expect someone who just saw Bambi to say. TVA shows photos of little calves snuggling beside their mothers. Despite what he and other vegans say, people don't ignore the suffering of cattle out of convenience, but because most people who aren't overcome with sentimental feelings realize that animals live in a different mental universe than humans. Even you seem to agree if you have to ask me if chimps are like babies.

Like most social justice causes, it seeks to inhibit human freedom.

Should one really be free to kill and abuse just for the sake of freedom? There's a reason rape and murder are outlawed, or would you argue that is wrong too for the sake of freedom?

Loaded question. You're assuming that animals can be violated like humans.

Anyways, thank you for taking the time to respond to my video Miniboes.

[miniboes]

The question then becomes why we should extend our moral concepts to creatures who aren't moral actors..

Perhaps chimps are amoral, perhaps they are not. I frankly don't care. If they are sentient, we are to extend our moral principle of not inflicting unnecessary harm upon other sentient beings to them.

You would probably agree serial killers and rapists have done horrendously immoral things. I think you would also agree that immoral is worse than amoral. Would it be okay to rape a rapist then, just because they have done immoral things? I would say it is not, because inflicting unnecessary harm is still wrong.

You might protest to me comparing chimps to humans again, but this is only to demonstrate that whether or not a being is moral is irrelevant to whether or not we should refrain from harming them. If there is a relevant difference between humans and chimps in ethics, this isn't it as there are clearly "immoral" humans we still choose not to unnecessarily harm.

Infants don't have the concepts of right and wrong.

Although I think we can drop the discussion on whether or not chimps are moral agents, as I think it is irrelevant, I do want to correct you here. You do not need a moral concept to make moral evaluations or distinguish right from wrong. A rudimentary sense of fairness and empathy is pretty much all you need, although it might not be as sophisticated as the discussion we are having now. These senses have clearly been demonstrated to be present in chimps and various other animals by Frans de Waal and his colleague whose name I forgot.

http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/publi ... l_2013.pdf
http://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_ ... ave_morals

If chimps are not morally responsible then they are not capable of doing immoral things.

As I define it, to be morally responsible means you are to be held accountable for the wrong or right that you do. We have very clear examples of people that do immoral things but are not deemed responsible for those actions, there are entire institutions for people like that here in the Netherlands. Those people are those suffering of a mental illness at the time of committing a crime, meaning they could not clearly evaluate the consequences of their actions. Perhaps you are working with different definitions though, in which case this becomes a semantic disagreement.

The analogy of a holocaust doesn't work because it assumes what's at issue. It assumes that the pain cattle feel (if any) from a bolt gun is equivalent to the pain human beings experience.

It is not, it assumes there is less suffering than in the holocaust. What I try to point out is that even if the suffering is significantly less, it is still wrong.

It's not merely less pain. It is a different kind of pain. It's a present-directed and short-lived pain.

You are yet to demonstrate your claim that animals do not suffer the same way humans do. An even if they did, would that really justify harming them? We have no nutritional need for meat; it has no essential purpose. Even if the harm we inflict upon the animals is minimal, it would still be wrong as we do it only for pleasure and convenience.

How would you verify, from looking at the expressions (or lack of expressions, because cows don't really contort their facial features like humans, but never mind that) of cows in a cattle car, that it knows that it's going to die?

You know, perhaps they do not know. We can clearly see they are suffering, however. Every animal has very similar ways of expressing pain; screaming and squealing. Even if they expressed pain in a completely different manner than we did, we could determine how they do it by studying their behavior. We know what a cow does when they get hit, and we know that their emotions when they get separated from their child or are about to be slaughtered is very similar.

Keep in mind I never made the claim their suffering is equal to that of a human, but even a little suffering is too much.

It can never tell you how it feels.

Perhaps it can, but you just don't understand it. Can a Chinese woman tell you how she feels? Sure, but if it's in Chinese you have no idea what she's saying.

If cows and other farm-raised animals had these concepts, then'd they have a syntax to express them.

Please demonstrate the truth of this claim.

If this is wrong, then provide an alternative explanation for why humans evolved a complex syntax.

Your claim is not true until proven otherwise, to claim it is would be an argument from ignorance fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Do you think our syntax and the evolution thereof is unrelated to our cognition?

No, but surely there are other factors in play, for example the wide range of sounds we can make thanks to our tongue, vocal cords, etc.

An African slave might think, "I've lost my freedom," "I don't know where I'm going" and "I may never see my homeland again." The cow on the other hand doesn't have these concepts that make human suffering so profound.

The concepts are completely irrelevant to moral value. We do not not enslave people because they will think "I've lost my freedom", we do not enslave people because it causes them to suffer.

If I was absolutely retarded, completely unaware of these concepts, only capable of feeling the most basic physical pain, would it be okay for you to ship me off to Auschwitz? These are the questions you'll have to answer if you're going to claim cognition or intelligence is what we should base our moral principles on.

What "moo" means "I'm about to lose my life"?

Which Chinese symbol means "stop raping me, it hurts."? Do you really have to be able to express something verbally in order to experience or be aware of it? Does a mute person not have feelings?

Why the fuck would they need to communicate their concepts and feelings to humans? How in the world is that relevant? Can you not feel something without being able to tell someone? Do I need to tell someone "I am sad" in order to be sad? That's asinine.

Thus it is impossible to empathize with whatever animals feel in slaughterhouses.

It is not, you can see they are suffering. However, empathy is not necessary for moral consideration. Only the recognition that unnecessary harm is wrong.

There is no way to express these concepts without a syntax. If there is, explain it to me.

Your claim is not true until proven otherwise, to claim it is would be an argument from ignorance fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Also, you really haven't answered the questions I asked there. You keep claiming animals have no way to express these concepts, but do not demonstrate how the lack of these concepts or the ability to express them would make it okay to make animals suffer.

Looking at cows in a cattle car is bogus sentimentalism.

No, it is choosing not to look away. If you are willing to eat the products of the meat and dairy industries, you should at least be aware of what is happening in them. Similarly, you should be aware of whether or not your chocolate producer gets their cocoa from slave workers.

In fact, I would encourage you to watch the Earhtlings documentary. If what is happening there is not good enough for your eyes, then why is it good enough for your stomach?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce4DJh-L7Ys

They'll never be able to tell you what they feel, while a human being can, so that comparison doesn't work.

Some humans can not tell you what they feel. Is it okay to murder them?

Be specific. What does their inferior intelligence consist in? Can they produce a syntax? Can they evolve a means of communicating concepts of loss, liberty and the future without a syntax?

I don't care. You point out a difference between humans and other animals that is arbitrary until proven otherwise.

It matters because the response by concerned parties to the condition of animals in slaughterhouses should be proportional to their suffering. It's immoral to prick your brother, but you shouldn't get a life sentence for it.

Yeah, but you should still stop it as otherwise you would be a prick.

The suffering of animals in a slaughterhouse, in my view, is not worth shutting down the slaughterhouses or going on plant-only diets.

What exactly is the benefit of keeping them open?

If animals suffer in slaughterhouses, we need to identify the extent of their suffering and devise an appropriate response.

What you have done, however, is not identifying their suffering at all. You make a completely unsupported assertion that they suffer less or in different ways than we do, then choose to ignore the suffering completely. To ignore suffering is definitely not the appropriate response.

That is question begging. It assumes precisely the issue at hand (that animals experience the same indignities as humans).

You ask why it is an injustice, not why it is an injustice to animals. Perhaps they do not suffer from having less roaming space than in the wild, but that we should be certain that is the case before we do it.

There are degrees of suffering. It is my contention that animal suffering is minuscule compared to the suffering of (for example) slaves.

Prove it.

Did you not just finish saying the anticipation of death is worse than the pain of dying? How about the emotional suffering? You're gonna give them antidepressants too?

These are loaded questions. You keep assuming that human suffering is equivalent to animal suffering without providing any justification for thinking so.

No, I keep not assuming they are not equivalent.

I'm not an engineer but I'm sure there are ways to regulate the emissions.

Why would you be sure of that?

Most factories have some kind of ventilation system that filters the amount of chemicals that are released into the air.

Clearly it doesn't work, as they are still a huge contributor to humanity's carbon footprint.

On the whole plant foods are not necessary thing, the article you link has no peer-reviewed scientific sources at all and frankly I don't care. It's just not important whether or not plant food are necessary.

Again, recall that my reply was directed at TVA. He says that his views are based on reason and evidence, but his notion that we can "empathize" with the suffering of animals strikes me as very effeminate.

You say that as if there is anything wrong with something being effeminate. Why would that be?

It's what I'd expect someone who just saw Bambi to say.

Bambi was a good movie, dude. Also, https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

Despite what he and other vegans say, people don't ignore the suffering of cattle out of convenience, but because most people who aren't overcome with sentimental feelings realize that animals live in a different mental universe than humans.

Then they are all making a huge mistake in thinking that is important at all. Also, saying the vegans are sentimental is a pathetic attempt to discredit it by attacking the character rather than the argument.

Loaded question. You're assuming that animals can be violated like humans.

No, I'm not. I'm only asking if preserving freedom is sufficient justification to allow harm.

[brimstoneSalad]

Great work so far miniboes, I do not know how you manage to argue with idiots like this and be so nice. Do you edit your replies after you type them? It's like a superpower.

Perhaps chimps are amoral, perhaps they are not. I frankly don't care. If they are sentient, we are to extend our moral principle of not inflicting unnecessary harm upon other sentient beings to them.

You would probably agree serial killers and rapists have done horrendously immoral things. I think you would also agree that immoral is worse than amoral. Would it be okay to rape a rapist then, just because they have done immoral things? I would say it is not, because inflicting unnecessary harm is still wrong.

Correct!

This IS a kind of poetic justice, but that doesn't make it right. Justice is not inherently good, and very often it is evil.

If it was OK to eat a particular species of animal because they eat other animals, then it would also be OK to kill and eat any humans who did that. It's an unending chain of permission to harm anybody who has harmed.

Christians love to say "judge not lest ye be judged" and "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" (things they don't seem to understand), but those concepts underline a key point; that kind of justice doesn't work, because we're all guilty, and we'd only be giving ourselves permission to be much shittier to each other and feel good about it.

Gandhi famously said: "An eye for an eye makes us both blind."

Although I think we can drop the discussion on whether or not chimps are moral agents, as I think it is irrelevant, I do want to correct you here. You do not need a moral concept to make moral evaluations or distinguish right from wrong. A rudimentary sense of fairness and empathy is pretty much all you need, although it might not be as sophisticated as the discussion we are having now. These senses have clearly been demonstrated to be present in chimps and various other animals by Frans de Waal and his colleague whose name I forgot.

Excellent point.

It's useful to look at it as less of a binary, and more of a continuum of growing understanding of morality.

Perhaps you are working with different definitions though, in which case this becomes a semantic disagreement.

It's more useful (and less confusing) to qualify them as good or bad things, or helpful or harmful things (which a hurricane can do), rather than "immoral things", because an action being moral or immoral depends on the agent.

Slight modification in word use can help understanding a lot.
Semantics are the root of most arguments, so they're important to address.

No, but surely there are other factors in play, for example the wide range of sounds we can make thanks to our tongue, vocal cords, etc.

Syntax has to do with word order, which is actually pretty random, and not even necessary to convey and understand concepts (a sufficient vocabulary can make up for any lack of syntax). Vocabulary is what's important, and non-human animals have ample vocabulary (and those taught to communicate with humans even invent new compound words; e.g. "slow lettuce" for kale).

Children express and understand concepts with pure vocabulary before they have a grasp on syntax.

A common example that comes to mind is "daddy car" to mean both "daddy's car" and "daddy is in/at the car"
They clearly understand both the concept of ownership "mine"/relationship, and location without the syntax to correctly express those things, and this is further evident through emphasis and context in speech.

Vocabulary assists in categorization, and recall of concepts, and in conveying new concepts, and compound ones. Syntax is only necessary for more efficient communication, there's no reason to believe it's important in cognition.

Children fall short on the cognitive side when compared to many other species of animals even after they have acquired advanced human syntax. We have such advanced syntax because we are a social species that relies heavily on communication. It's not because we couldn't think without it.

Anybody capable of speech who can't generally understand language without correct syntax is either trying not to, or is somehow brain damaged, since even young children and non-human animals can figure it out. One would have to have some kind of damage that prevented the brain from understanding words if they were out of their expected order or context, and I'm not even sure that particular form of brain damage exists.

Clearly it doesn't work, as they are still a huge contributor to humanity's carbon footprint.

It's always amazing when people like that who have no concept of chemistry or really any science or engineering in general think they can come up with solutions to all the world's engineering problems.

Methane can't be filtered out of the air, it's a gas, not a particulate. And it can only be burnt (converted into CO2 and water, combusting with atmospheric oxygen) if it's at a high enough concentration to sustain combustion (as is done in drilling for oil, or with natural gas leaks -- you see towers of fire).

Idiots is what I call them. People who are ignorant, but too arrogant to admit it and ask for help.

All of the conceivable "solutions" to that problem are immense infrastructure investments.

Then they are all making a huge mistake in thinking that is important at all.

Yes, they are. Humans live in different mental universes from each other, too. The Nazis and the Jews lived in different mental universes; we all have slightly different views of reality, and whatever the Nazis (and this carnist poster) view as reality is quite different from the rest of us to permit them to engage in such heinous acts and justify them like that.

When people make pains to say that "animals" are different, do they realize that all humans are distinct from each other too? Usually not.
Don't know if that's useful to point out here, though, as I don't think this person is interested in learning or being rational about this.

Your patience may win out and prove me wrong though. I hope it does.