Philosophical Vegan Forum

If all fruit, vegetables, beans, nuts and fungi mutated to become sentient beings tomorrow, and they grew spinal chords and nervous systems, and had the level of intelligence as a grown primate, would you continue to eat them even if everyone in the world knew? If not, what would you eat, seeing as all living things are now technically classified as sentient?

Why stop there?
If air molecules became sentient, and were tortured and killed through the act of breathing, would you still breathe?

Hypotheticals are great, when they're actually things that could possibly happen. I'm not sure that such obviously impossible hypotheticals are particularly useful. When you throw all logic and science out the window, you can invent a situation that would force people into any action you like.

If I were to witness something like this happen, knowing it to be impossible, I would come to the only rational conclusion, and check myself into a mental health facility for treatment, where of course I would continue eating plants because they are not sentient, and I've had a psychotic break (even if they talk to me on my plate).

I will note, in case this is some kind of bizarre argument you've heard from a carnist: Even if all laws of reality were suspended, and some kind of god caused this to happen, it would still not be appropriate to eat meat, however, being a product of a much longer chain of suffering.

far fetched hypotheticals have no practical purpose other then to masterbate once imagination.

Here's the thing: That will never happen, at least for the next uhh.. lemme see.. *looks at watch* about the next 200000000000000000000 years!

TheVeganAtheist wrote:far fetched hypotheticals have no practical purpose other then to masterbate once imagination.

Seriously? this comment is kind of like commenting with "I don't wanna answer". Many things are just fun to think about, they don't always have a practical purpose. Why do you seem opposed to "masturbating one's imagination"? It's somewhat similar to going to a sci-fi or gaming forum and commenting with "do something productive with your life".
That being said, I do think your answer to this question reflects on how much you value yourself over other sentient life so maybe it does have a practical purpose.

Even if plants were sentient, veganism would still be the most ethical and least method that requires suffering, because farming animals involves feeding them large amounts of sentient plants. So for example growing and farming a potato only kills one sentient being, but growing and farming a steak would kill a very large amount of lives due to the amount of plants that cows eat plus the cow him/herself (* (steak mass/cow mass) roughly).
I'm a vegan to minimize the suffering as much as I can. Unfortunately I can't completely eliminate all suffering.
Also, if our bodies needed meat to survive then I would eat meat, but they don't.

donaldthegrat wrote:

TheVeganAtheist wrote:far fetched hypotheticals have no practical purpose other then to masterbate once imagination.

Seriously? this comment is kind of like commenting with "I don't wanna answer". Many things are just fun to think about, they don't always have a practical purpose. Why do you seem opposed to "masturbating one's imagination"? It's somewhat similar to going to a sci-fi or gaming forum and commenting with "do something productive with your life".

Meat-eaters regularly try to use these hypotheticals (see: "if you were on a deserted island..") to make an argument against veganism, it is worth pointing out that they mean nothing for reality.

your answer to this question reflects on how much you value yourself over other sentient life

Wait, how does it?

miniboes wrote:

donaldthegrat wrote:

TheVeganAtheist wrote:far fetched hypotheticals have no practical purpose other then to masterbate once imagination.

Seriously? this comment is kind of like commenting with "I don't wanna answer". Many things are just fun to think about, they don't always have a practical purpose. Why do you seem opposed to "masturbating one's imagination"? It's somewhat similar to going to a sci-fi or gaming forum and commenting with "do something productive with your life".

Meat-eaters regularly try to use these hypotheticals (see: "if you were on a deserted island..") to make an argument against veganism, it is worth pointing out that they mean nothing for reality.

your answer to this question reflects on how much you value yourself over other sentient life

Wait, how does it?

Actually probably almost every vegan's answer would be the same: YES. That shows a level of selfishness in valuing yourself more than many others (not that there's anything wrong with it, we're all selfish to some level).
But if your answer happens to be no, then that means that you value many others more than yourself.
It's just something to think about. But you're right, this question has almost no practical value.

It would be a stupid argument against veganism, but I really don't think that's what the poster of the comment meant by it. he/she is vegan anyway.

donaldthegrat wrote: Actually probably almost every vegan's answer would be the same: YES. That shows a level of selfishness in valuing yourself more than many others (not that there's anything wrong with it, we're all selfish to some level).

why do you assume that most vegans would answer YES?
Even if so, I suppose that many of the vegans would answer yes to save the energy in entering a pointless debate, if they one who was asking it was serious about it.
I would probably reply "yes, I hate plants so much that I eat as many as I can to get them off this planet. If they became sentient all the better as they would feel the pain. little green mofos"

metalized wrote:I would probably reply "yes, I hate plants so much that I eat as many as I can to get them off this planet. If they became sentient all the better as they would feel the pain. little green mofos"