Philosophical Vegan Forum

i thought i would make a topic in witch we can talk about things vegans have said that are flatly wrong. I have 2 to bring up.

1) vegan because life is sacred
the statement is fine be some definitions of the word scared, if you where meaning to say that life is highly valued by the being experiencing life, that its a fair statement. there are more clear and concise ways to display this, rather that bulking on all the extra baggage that comes with the word scared.

2) milk is bad for your bones or milk leaches calcium out of your bones
This claim starts from the statement that milk is acetic, altho this is true it fails to mention that milk is only very slightly acetic. they than continue with the statement that milk make's the blood acetic, I am however unsure how acetic your blood will become and its relation to the acidity of the food you inject, i am doubtful that it is anywhere near 100%. proponents of this claim will state that your body leaches calcium out of your bones in order to cope with the change in blood acidity. they fail to mention that your body only really does this when there is a large jump in ph levels that the body can not clear out before causing harm to your body, and that for inclines such as that experienced when drinking milk can be corrected by a healthy liver. proponents of this will often not react to new data, and therefor miss the truth of the matter. the data i am talking about it that of milk intake to bone density. if the claim was true high levels of milk should lead to low levels of bone density.

feel free to comment on these arguments and bring up your own things you wish vegans would stop saying dew to there untruthful nature.

New research has found that animal protein does cause you to pee out calcium, but it is the dietary calcium you pee out, not the calcium in your bones. However, milk is still linked to osteoporosis , thus bad for your bones anyway. Nutritionfacts.org has videos on both of these subjects. I will add links to the post later if I remember (on ipad atm).

Also, I think you mean to say 'sacred' and 'acidic' instead of 'scared' and 'acetic'.

bobo0100 wrote: feel free to comment on these arguments and bring up your own things you wish vegans would stop saying dew to there untruthful nature.

I know English probably isn't your first language, and you speak it better than I can any other language, but your posts are sometimes very hard to read.

You're a good writer in the sense that the overall structure and ideas you convey are well formatted, but you frequently use the wrong word, and sometimes not even with homophones.

Miniboes pointed out two, but there are several dozen errors.

It's not that we can't figure out what you're saying after a while... but when vegans make so many errors in grammar and spelling, it kind of makes us look dumb. Shouldn't we strive to present a better image than that?

i should be capitalized as I. The first word in every sentence should always be capitalized.
Witch is noun, a woman with magical powers, you mean which.
Two, write out numbers when they are small (or single word), unless you are comparing numbers, one of which is too big to write out.
Sacred, not scared. This is a huge error, you repeat it every time. Scared means frightened.
By, not be. Were not where. Is not its.
Acidic, not acetic (acetic is vinegar, a kind of acid which isn't present in or formed by milk).
Although, not altho: altho is informal, and unless you're making a tweet and are limited in character count it's inappropriate.
Makes, not make's. Apostrophes are not used to convert a verb into the third person present form. If you use them only for possessive forms, you will almost always be right.
Ingest, not inject. Injection is typically done by syringe (and strongly implies that).
Increases, not inclines -- but this is a less severe error. This sentence is also broken, grammatically.
Therefore, not therefor. Due not dew (dew is condensation on grass or leaves; e.g. dew drop).
Their, not there. 'Their' is possessive, belonging to them; 'there' is an adverb, as in "It's over there".

It's fine to make an error now and then, we all do... but this is a little too many. Maybe you can proof read and check words you're unsure of?

So yeah:

1) Just overall poor grammar and spelling, which while it may not make something false (although technically it does when the wrong word is used), it certainly makes it look un-credible to carnists, which is perhaps the most important point.

2) Anything based on deontology rather than consequentialism. E.g. the notion that exploitation without harm is wrong just because it's "exploitation". It damages the credibility of veganism, and makes us look dogmatic. We should focus on harm, which is something people can understand, something clearly demonstrable, and that has real philosophical weight and consistency behind it.

brimstoneSalad wrote:1) Just overall poor grammar and spelling, which while it may not make something false (although technically it does when the wrong word is used), it certainly makes it look un-credible to carnists, which is perhaps the most important point.

I really agree with this, and that's why I always try to work on my expression. I always try to make as few mistakes as possible in my posts here, which sometimes cause me to work on a post for a pretty long time.

I understand this isn't a linguistic forum, but maybe we can try to point out errors that come back very regularly (at least I would appreciate somebody doing that to me).

brimstoneSalad wrote:2) Anything based on deontology rather than consequentialism. E.g. the notion that exploitation without harm is wrong just because it's "exploitation". It damages the credibility of veganism, and makes us look dogmatic. We should focus on harm, which is something people can understand, something clearly demonstrable, and that has real philosophical weight and consistency behind it.

Is it actually possible to refute a deontological claim on purely deontological grounds? What is the basis on which you can evaluate a deontological claim to be valid? It seems to me that every moral absolute can be put forward in deontology, as long as you think it is something important and serving humanity (or a more expanded moral circle).

Volenta wrote: I understand this isn't a linguistic forum, but maybe we can try to point out errors that come back very regularly (at least I would appreciate somebody doing that to me).

I haven't seen you make any serious errors, you write quite well. I think maybe you're too hard on yourself. But I'll try to let you know if I see any.

Volenta wrote: Is it actually possible to refute a deontological claim on purely deontological grounds?

Deontology is either inherently arbitrary or irrational (founded on logical fallacies). You can't refute anything with deontology. At best its just a bald negation based on unfounded assertion.

Volenta wrote:What is the basis on which you can evaluate a deontological claim to be valid?

What do you mean valid? It can't be, it's not based on logic. You'd have to throw out logic -- then everything is valid (and invalid).

Volenta wrote: It seems to me that every moral absolute can be put forward in deontology, as long as you think it is something important and serving humanity (or a more expanded moral circle).

As long as nothing -- there are no standards or metrics, because even those would be assertions.
Trying to substantiate deontology is a fool's errand of infinite regress.

You could just as well assert an absolute of serving the duty to maximize evil, or cucumbers... or evil cucumbers.

Could one of you explain to me what deontology is? I am quite confused.

miniboes wrote:Could one of you explain to me what deontology is? I am quite confused.

It's a heavy subject. Deontology was contrived by Kant.

In short, it's the idea that certain things are right or wrong in themselves, regardless of their consequences.

E.g. lying is always wrong, no matter what, period.

A murderer asks you where his victim is? Better not lie, that would be wrong.
Seriously. That's not a straw man.

The whole thing is propped up, usually, upon god to whom absolute duty to obey those principles are owed.
Kant fairly famously said (paraphrasing), that if god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. This is because he knew at some level that his moral system was arbitrary, and required an absolute law giver to legitimize the arbitrary declarations of deontology.

He also made some attempt with the categorical imperative, which is itself rife with contradiction. That gets a little more complicated.

But to sum it up, deontology is the "alternative" to consequentialism.

Deontology arbitrarily asserts a thing/action to be right or wrong, Consequentialism evaluates the rightness or wrongness of a thing/action based on its consequences.

Some people say there's also something called virtue ethics, but it's not really its own thing.

Okay, I think I understand. Sounds pretty dumb indeed. Thanks for the explanation!

brimstoneSalad wrote:Deontology is either inherently arbitrary or irrational (founded on logical fallacies). You can't refute anything with deontology. At best its just a bald negation based on unfounded assertion.

In consequentialism/utilitarianism you can evaluate if a claim is correct in that framework, because the consequences of an action can be shown to have a good or bad impact on human and animal wellbeing. What I tried to ask is whether the same can be said when practicing deontology. But you already answered it: no.

brimstoneSalad wrote:What do you mean valid? It can't be, it's not based on logic. You'd have to throw out logic -- then everything is valid (and invalid).

Then it indeed makes sense to call it dogmatic, since you can't be reasoned out of a position.

brimstoneSalad wrote:The whole thing is propped up, usually, upon god to whom absolute duty to obey those principles are owed.
Kant fairly famously said (paraphrasing), that if god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. This is because he knew at some level that his moral system was arbitrary, and required an absolute law giver to legitimize the arbitrary declarations of deontology.

Right, but deontology doesn't necessarily mean divine command theory, there are also atheistic deontologists.

miniboes wrote:Sounds pretty dumb indeed.

Well, you and brimstoneSalad are now forcing me to ask for at least a bit more moderate view. There are some very sophisticated moral philosophers that are influenced by or proponents of deontology. It's a complex subject, and it's a subject that philosophers are discussing for ages. I don't agree with them, but if you read the work of some deontologists, I don't think they are dumb and irrational.

Volenta wrote: Right, but deontology doesn't necessarily mean divine command theory, there are also atheistic deontologists.

Like Ayn Rand's 'Objectivism', yes. But those I find even more bizarre.

Volenta wrote:There are some very sophisticated moral philosophers that are influenced by or proponents of deontology. It's a complex subject, and it's a subject that philosophers are discussing for ages. I don't agree with them, but if you read the work of some deontologists, I don't think they are dumb and irrational.

Rational deontologists aren't really deontologists, but consequentialists in disguise; using a seemingly rigid rule based system, but justifying it with consequentialism and that argument that humans aren't very good ad judging the outcomes of their actions and are better at following rules, so it works out better on average. "People should follow these rigid rules because the consequences are better overall than trying to ask them to make their own decisions on a case by case basis" -- That's not actually deontology, but perfectly legitimate consequentialism (provided it can be demonstrated to be true empirically).

For legitimate deontologists, that's where Kant's categorical imperative comes in, which does make it all sound pretty rational until you deconstruct and reveal the flaws in that framework. It's sort of a restated golden rule, but fails to be self correcting as the golden rule is, and just ends up being a form of relativism masquerading as an objective framework due to the commonality of social ethics and lack of creative thinking.