Philosophical Vegan Forum

And as far as going out of ones way to take care of the mentally disabled, I certainly don't do this.. Do you? I wouldn't be spending my days looking after mentally disabled people and I'm sure you wouldn't either. Perhaps you would if it was your brother or sister, some type of immediate family, but as a moral obligation I don't think there is any for you to spend your time looking after random mentally disabled humans. Surely this isn't what you are suggesting? We look after them as a society because as a society we can afford to do so. We have a tax system that we all contribute to and that pool of money is divided up, a portion of that goes to looking after the disabled etc because we have empathy for them. If our society crumbled and we went into a depression and didn't have the resources to look after them anymore, well it would be up to individuals to dedicate their own time to them.

We pay taxes which goes to welfare systems that ends up paying for other people to take care of them. So if you're in favor of those policies and believe it is a moral imperative (which all normal people in society do), then you DO go out of your way to take care of mentally disabled people.
Given how expensive our social safety net is in western european countries for example, and how much of salaries is taxed, it stands to reason that 24 work hours per year would be a rather conservative estimate as to how much time each individual spends "taking care of" mentally retarded people or people that are otherwise incapable of taking care of themselves.

As for "If our society crumbled and we went into a depression and didn't have the resources to look after them anymore, well it would be up to individuals to dedicate their own time to them"
What a fucking retarded argument is that. You're basically doing the same thing as a meat eater who brings up "in a survival situation you vegans would eat a cow" to justify eating meat outside of a survival situation -_-


And let's talk about family members specifically then. Are you morally obligated to take care of your mentally disabled family members? If so, why? Just because you share more DNA with them than with any other organism on earth? (if you're gonna try to weasel your way out of it by talking about mentally disabled children and that parents have a responsibility to take care of them... let's only talk about mentally disabled people whose parents died)
And if you're not morally obligated to take care of disabled family members, welcome to retard holocaust territory again!!!

vdofthegoodkind wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2017 8:51 am First of all, most mentally disabled people that are incapable of functioning in human society are still WAY more intelligent than your average chimpanzee, let alone other nonprimate animals. You could ditch all mentally disabled people in the woods near a river, and they wouldn't just all die (especially if you leave them with some bats/machetes and occasionally fly over and drop some care packages with matches or lighters or whatever all over the place).
The only thing that would happen is they would experience a shitload of stress, hunger and thirst, and have a decreased life expectancy compared to if they are taken care of by society, just like ALL OTHER ANIMALS do.

Second, WANTING to help some creature due to empathy, and BEING MORALLY OBLIGATED to help some creature are two VERY different things. If you say you are morally obligated to help someone, like a retarded person/animal, in need, then AY and VG's "moral baseline" bullshit defense to justify their consumption of luxury items in favor of donating their money to helping others in need, falls completely to shit.

Wow. You are so far off the track here bud. Firstly, the type of intelligence necessary for a bird to find a particular nectar in certain flowers etc and to fly south in winter knowing they need to move with the weather, and live completely fulfilled lives in harmony with the environment and each other etc is highly tuned. Same with any animal that knows how to survive individually or as a group in their natural habitat and in harmony with that said habitat, this is an intelligence that in many ways is beyond humans (who are currently destroying our environment and ourselves, but that is for another conversation). Point being there are different types of intelligence and how well an animal survives in harmony with it's environment is a major component of that, and to say that a retarded human is still "WAY" more intelligent than your average chimpanzee is a ridiculous statement and exposes not only your human centric bias but your lack of perspective. Retarded humans (depending on the level of retardation but I'm assuming if they are in need of constant care for the purposes of this example it is pretty bad) I doubt would last more than a few weeks in the wild on their own, not sure what you are basing your confidence in their survival abilities on.
Secondly, animals are far better off without human society haha they certainly don't need humans society to help or protect them, unless of course they have been domesticated by said human society..
Next, I never asserted that I personally am morally obligated to go out of my way to help retarded people or sick animals, I don't believe I am, and neither is anyone else. Of course if someone or some creature was suffering in front of me I would feel there is a moral obligation to help that person or creature, however it would be case by case dependent. However, AS A SOCIETY I think we do have a moral obligation as a collective to help those in need (within reason), but this is getting into a different conversation for there are many factors here to be considered...

vdofthegoodkind wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2017 8:53 am

And as far as going out of ones way to take care of the mentally disabled, I certainly don't do this.. Do you? I wouldn't be spending my days looking after mentally disabled people and I'm sure you wouldn't either. Perhaps you would if it was your brother or sister, some type of immediate family, but as a moral obligation I don't think there is any for you to spend your time looking after random mentally disabled humans. Surely this isn't what you are suggesting? We look after them as a society because as a society we can afford to do so. We have a tax system that we all contribute to and that pool of money is divided up, a portion of that goes to looking after the disabled etc because we have empathy for them. If our society crumbled and we went into a depression and didn't have the resources to look after them anymore, well it would be up to individuals to dedicate their own time to them.

We pay taxes which goes to welfare systems that ends up paying for other people to take care of them. So if you're in favor of those policies and believe it is a moral imperative (which all normal people in society do), then you DO go out of your way to take care of mentally disabled people.
Given how expensive our social safety net is in western european countries for example, and how much of salaries is taxed, it stands to reason that 24 work hours per year would be a rather conservative estimate as to how much time each individual spends "taking care of" mentally retarded people or people that are otherwise incapable of taking care of themselves.

As for "If our society crumbled and we went into a depression and didn't have the resources to look after them anymore, well it would be up to individuals to dedicate their own time to them"
What a fucking retarded argument is that. You're basically doing the same thing as a meat eater who brings up "in a survival situation you vegans would eat a cow" to justify eating meat outside of a survival situation -_-


And let's talk about family members specifically then. Are you morally obligated to take care of your mentally disabled family members? If so, why? Just because you share more DNA with them than with any other organism on earth? (if you're gonna try to weasel your way out of it by talking about mentally disabled children and that parents have a responsibility to take care of them... let's only talk about mentally disabled people whose parents died)
And if you're not morally obligated to take care of disabled family members, welcome to retard holocaust territory again!!!

Relax man, getting rather worked up there. I'm not trying to make any argument, just responding to you. We, as a society, are in agreement that a portion of our money that we work for, should go toward looking after disabled and retarded people. That is it. Because we are in a position that we can do this, we do! Same with being vegan. We are in a position where we don't need to exploit, hunt and kill animals, or breed them to kill them. Because we are in a position to eat and thrive on a plant based diet, we do! And because we are in this position, we have a moral obligation to not kill and hurt animals when we don't need to. Same with retarded people, we are in a position where we can dedicate a portion of our money to looking after them, so we are morally obliged to. If society crumbled, things would be very different for both these cases.

Daz wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2017 9:20 am Wow. You are so far off the track here bud. Firstly, the type of intelligence necessary for a bird to find a particular nectar in certain flowers etc and to fly south in winter knowing they need to move with the weather, and live completely fulfilled lives in harmony with the environment and each other etc is highly tuned.
Same with any animal that knows how to survive individually or as a group in their natural habitat and in harmony with that said habitat, this is an intelligence that in many ways is beyond humans (who are currently destroying our environment and ourselves, but that is for another conversation).

First off, you're overly romanticizing a life in the wild for other animals as a means of special pleading, disregarding the brutal facts that hunger, thirst, stress, disease, and predation are INCREDIBLY common occurences in nature FOR ALL ANIMALS.

Point being there are different types of intelligence and how well an animal survives in harmony with it's environment is a major component of that, and to say that a retarded human is still "WAY" more intelligent than your average chimpanzee is a ridiculous statement and exposes not only your human centric bias but your lack of perspective.

That's because you're reading things into that statement that I never implied. You were making some kind of fallacious argument that mentally retarded humans BELONG in western civilization and not in nature and that mentally disabled people by their very nature are incapable of surviving and thriving in the wild. Merely named the higher intelligence than a chimp to alert you to the simple fact that your grim sketch of the situation is a mere straw man and nothing more.

Retarded humans (depending on the level of retardation but I'm assuming if they are in need of constant care for the purposes of this example it is pretty bad) I doubt would last more than a few weeks in the wild on their own, not sure what you are basing your confidence in their survival abilities on.

We're talking about people of which the only requirement is that they are unable to hold a steady job in our society. Do you have any fucking idea the range of people that fall under this umbrella. The overwhelming majority of people within that group are still very capable of scavenging and foraging for food in the wild and defending themselves against predators.

Secondly, animals are far better off without human society haha they certainly don't need humans society to help or protect them, unless of course they have been domesticated by said human society..

Dude, whether you have a domesticated housecat or a fucking wild lion, if you provide them with a warm house as shelter, free food and water, they're VOLUNTARILY never gonna stray too far from your place. Every fucking creature on earth prefers free food, protection, and luxury over being stuck in the wild. And ofcourse cats and lions are gonna go outside constantly when it's nice weather out, but the exact same thing is true of mentally disabled people if you remove all the doors in mental health facilities.

Next, I never asserted that I am morally obligated to help retarded people or sick animals, I don't believe I am, and neither is anyone else.

Then in your moral framework the retard holocaust is morally permissible and anyone can just name 'intelligence' as the trait in NTT.

Of course if someone or some creature was suffering in front of me I would feel there is a moral obligation to help that person or creature, however it would be case by case dependent.

Aka special pleading.

As a society, I think we do have a moral obligation to help those in need within reason, however this is getting into a different conversation for there are many factors here to be considered...

More special pleading.

Daz wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2017 9:34 am Relax man, getting rather worked up there. I'm not trying to make any argument, just responding to you.
We, as a society, are in agreement that a portion of our money that we work for, should go toward looking after disabled and retarded people. That is it. Because we are in a position that we can do this, we do!

So are you implying we dont have a moral obligation to do so? If so, welcome morally permissible retard holocaust if tomorrow everyone decides to change their mind on that particular subject!

Same with being vegan. We are in a position where we don't need to exploit, hunt and kill animals, or breed them to kill them. Because we are in a position to eat and thrive on a plant based diet, we do!

What society are you living in? As far as Im aware only a VERY small minority is vegan.

And because we are in this position, we have a moral obligation to not kill and hurt animals when we don't need to. Same with retarded people, we are in a position where we can dedicate a portion of our money to looking after them, so we are morally obliged to. If society crumbled, things would be very different for both these cases.

If you are in a position to donate 4800 dollars to starving kids in yemen and buying a 200 dollar buspass to get around town, why is it not a moral obligation to do THAT and is it ok for you to buy a 5000 dollar car instead?
If you are in a position to donate 1000 dollars a year to starving kids in somalia and getting a 4000$ a year apartment instead of that 5000$ a year nicer apartment, why is it not a moral obligation to do THAT?
<fill in example that is applicable to you>

Why the fuck is it a moral imperative to give x amount of money to help mentally disabled people in our society and is it not a moral imperative to give x+y amount of money to help other people or animals for that matter. What makes those mentally disabled people so special (no pun intended), that they are so lucky to have a moral claim on our help and morally require us to sacrifice more luxury items that we might want to buy.
You're like the king of special pleading.

vdofthegoodkind wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2017 9:45 am

Daz wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2017 9:34 am Relax man, getting rather worked up there. I'm not trying to make any argument, just responding to you.
We, as a society, are in agreement that a portion of our money that we work for, should go toward looking after disabled and retarded people. That is it. Because we are in a position that we can do this, we do!

So are you implying we dont have a moral obligation to do so? If so, welcome morally permissible retard holocaust if tomorrow everyone decides to change their mind on that particular subject!

Same with being vegan. We are in a position where we don't need to exploit, hunt and kill animals, or breed them to kill them. Because we are in a position to eat and thrive on a plant based diet, we do!

What society are you living in? As far as Im aware only a VERY small minority is vegan.

And because we are in this position, we have a moral obligation to not kill and hurt animals when we don't need to. Same with retarded people, we are in a position where we can dedicate a portion of our money to looking after them, so we are morally obliged to. If society crumbled, things would be very different for both these cases.

If you are in a position to donate 4800 dollars to starving kids in yemen and buying a 200 dollar buspass to get around town, why is it not a moral obligation to do THAT and is it ok for you to buy a 5000 dollar car instead?
If you are in a position to donate 1000 dollars a year to starving kids in somalia and getting a 4000$ a year apartment instead of that 5000$ a year nicer apartment, why is it not a moral obligation to do THAT?
<fill in example that is applicable to you>

Why the fuck is it a moral imperative to give x amount of money to help mentally disabled people in our society and is it not a moral imperative to x+y amount of money to help other people. What makes those mentally disabled people so special (no pun intended), that they are so lucky to have a moral claim on our help.
You're like the king of special pleading.

I think you are conflating things a bit here. There is a massive moral difference between directly taking a knife or gun and killing another living being (that is otherwise happy and wants to be free and keep living) unnecessarily, simply for pleasure. Or breeding these beings into a hellish life of captivity, confinement and suffering to then kill them and their family at a whim for pleasure and profit. Compared to giving away part of your earned money to others that may be in more need of it than you.

Daz wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2017 9:56 am I think you are conflating things a bit here. There is a massive moral difference between directly taking a knife or gun and killing another living being (that is otherwise happy and wants to be free and keep living) unnecessarily, simply for pleasure. And giving away part of your earned money to others that may be in more need of it than you.

No, you're just throwing out a red herring. Im merely talking about inconsistencies in light of name the trait. Unless you wanna say "its ok to be inconsistent in light of name the trait in all other ways, EXCEPT when it comes to direct murder", then it is completely irrelevant what you're saying here. And if that is indeed what you're saying, I'm promoting you from King of special pleading to Emperor.

vdofthegoodkind wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2017 9:59 am

Daz wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2017 9:56 am I think you are conflating things a bit here. There is a massive moral difference between directly taking a knife or gun and killing another living being (that is otherwise happy and wants to be free and keep living) unnecessarily, simply for pleasure. And giving away part of your earned money to others that may be in more need of it than you.

No, you're just throwing out a red herring. Im merely talking about inconsistencies in light of name the trait. Unless you wanna say "its ok to be inconsistent in light of name the trait in all other ways, EXCEPT when it comes to direct murder", then it is completely irrelevant what you're saying here. And if that is indeed what you're saying, I'm promoting you from King of special pleading to Emperor.

Haha ok perhaps I am not understanding what you are saying, or we are getting our wires crossed somewhere. Break it down for me clearly, what are you trying to say here? Are you attempting to show an inconsistency in the NTT argument? If so please explain...

vdofthegoodkind wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2017 9:45 am Why the fuck is it a moral imperative to give x amount of money to help mentally disabled people in our society and is it not a moral imperative to give x+y amount of money to help other people or animals for that matter. What makes those mentally disabled people so special (no pun intended), that they are so lucky to have a moral claim on our help and morally require us to sacrifice more luxury items that we might want to buy.
You're like the king of special pleading.

Most (if not all) 1st world countries do give out a significant amount of foreign aid, paid for by taxes. What are you getting at?

Daz wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2017 10:03 am
Haha ok perhaps I am not understanding what you are saying, or we are getting our wires crossed somewhere. Break it down for me clearly, what are you trying to say here? Are you attempting to show an inconsistency in the NTT argument? If so please explain...

Cliffnotes of everything that happened so far:

What I did was show how you, AY, and all vegans are inconsistent with regards to the NTT argument in a way, by means of the mentally disabled people thing and the driving thing.

What you then did was try to straw man and special plead your way out of the mentally disabled thing while never even addressing the driving thing.

What I then did was highlight your straw man and special pleading concerning the mentally disabled thing.

What you then did was start talking about how the way you're inconsistent with respect to NTT (condemning leaving mentally disabled people in the wild, but not animals) is different from meat-eaters' way of being inconsistent (condemning direct murder of humans but not animals). Ofcourse they're different types of inconsistencies, but they're still both inconsistencies with respect to name the trait.
If you're gonna accept being inconsistent with respect to name the trait in one way, but not another way, you have to give a reason WHY. Just saying "murder is worse than letting someone die by not helping them" is just special pleading. Both are still morally wrong according to your own beliefs.

It's just like how a meat eater cannot justify his murder of animals by saying "yeah but there are rapists and murderers who eat meat and ALSO rape and murder people, so it's ok for me to eat meat because Im not as bad as them".