Philosophical Vegan Forum

I've seen many of the threads on this very page and have been decidedly swayed but for 2 gaps:
-I don't necessarily agree with the ethical argument against harming animals-- Clarification later.
-It seems all arguments except for the ethical (Health especially) can be trumped in importance by personal preference. (A powerful argument can be made for the environmental effect and maybe someone will sway my opinion with that; however it should be noted that I do acknowledge it perhaps without fully understanding it.)

I'll first make clear my personal system of ethics based off what I believe to be logic alone.* I exhibit empathy strictly towards those beings who are capable of empathy themselves; a common counterargument (primarily by theists but it seems relevant here) is to draw parallels to the mentally handicapped or otherwise disabled people. Empathy and ethics are after all social structures I believe to have been complexly naturally selected for the good of the species. Reconciling for the apparent empathetic gaps within our own species and more relevant on this thread, for pets, is easy. Empathy isn't a simple person-to-person transaction but a system of tangled connections between all empathetic creatures, if we executed the disabled or killed and ate neighbors pets (not meant to be put on the same scale of evil, obviously) we may not violate the fundamental system by harming them, but we would have to answer to the family making it equally if not more inexcusable by this morality.

I invite you to criticize this in a number of ways, I see points of debate particularly around the system of ethics I find myself unique in defining, ignoring the ethical argument for veganism and focusing on another, or something I've argued fallaciously or illogically measured my preferences. (probably the most likely) (I would prefer to keep my obsessive use of parentheses and general iffy grammar out of it unless what I say can't be understood without restructuring.)

I hope you don't take these assertive qualifying statements as a confidence; I understand that the majority of my text is attempting no nullify arguments made against me (ironically including this), and that may seem to be a sign of stubborn rejection the response to which being ergo decedo-- perhaps a valid criticism itself. I feel sort of nearly vegan in ideology, (and frankly diet but that's primarily preference) to me without the ethical argument, vegan ideas fall short, but I'm sure someone here will rectify the argument for me. (Or just show me that I'm speaking complete nonsense.) To contribute to your rebuttal I'll give you a good old fashioned thesis statement, but understand the above text before you respond. "If a system of ethics is rationally constructed, but does not extend to animals, a person's choice to use animal products is only as reprehensible as it's affects on others." I make several additions to that statement, most prominently that it's affect on others can be discounted by the "meat-eater's" want to eat meat, and that it is a good moral system that excludes non-empathetic beings.

I'm of a more select group of the atheist community that believes the best answer to the question "Where does objective morality come from?" is that objective morality doesn't exist. I'm a humanist, in that I believe that the evolution of higher thinking gave us better logical faculties from which we created social rule systems, the epitome of those rule systems is the one that serves humanity's goals best while still adjusting for our nature.

James wrote:-It seems all arguments except for the ethical (Health especially) can be trumped in importance by personal preference. (A powerful argument can be made for the environmental effect and maybe someone will sway my opinion with that; however it should be noted that I do acknowledge it perhaps without fully understanding it.)

Health issues are about personal preference?

I guess, if you mean that it's your personal preference to increase your risk for heart disease and cancer.

James wrote:if we executed the disabled or killed and ate neighbors pets (not meant to be put on the same scale of evil, obviously) we may not violate the fundamental system by harming them, but we would have to answer to the family making it equally if not more inexcusable by this morality.

What about a newborn and orphaned baby? I guess it would be perfectly acceptable to throw that person into a volcano if I felt like it?

And in fact, that would actually be the right thing to do, and moral, because:

James wrote:"If a system of ethics is rationally constructed, but does not extend to animals, a person's choice to use animal products is only as reprehensible as it's affects on others." I make several additions to that statement, most prominently that it's affect on others can be discounted by the "meat-eater's" want to eat meat, and that it is a good moral system that excludes non-empathetic beings.

Yes, the meat-eaters want to eat meat. It gives them pleasure, and it's not harming anyone who can empathize, so it's alright. On top of that, it's moral, because a being who can empathize felt pleasure.

Just like if I throw a newborn that nobody has an emotional attachment to into a volcano, and I get some kind of sick kick out of it, then it's ethical for me to do so, because a being who can empathize gained and no beings who could empathize were harmed.

James wrote:I'm of a more select group of the atheist community that believes the best answer to the question "Where does objective morality come from?" is that objective morality doesn't exist. I'm a humanist, in that I believe that the evolution of higher thinking gave us better logical faculties from which we created social rule systems, the epitome of those rule systems is the one that serves humanity's goals best while still adjusting for our nature.

What does this social rule system have to do with anything? Do you think that it determines how we should behave? Why would that be the case?

What about evil social rule systems, that serve horrible goals of humanity? Like flogging people for dressing the wrong way, to reach the goal of enforcing Islam, for example. There aren't universal goals of humanity.

And what about the goals of other beings, like the goal of cows not to have their throats slit without consent, and their goal not to be scalded alive?

Hello

First of all, I think you will struggle to find something that is unique about humans. Empathy and morality definitely aren't only human phenomenons, but something you see in many animals -- even in small rodents. Primates also have an advanced sense of fairness. Personally, I think the only thing that is really unique about humans is our overblown sense of importance -- more than likely a cultural artifact of Abrahamic religions that is currently threatening to destroy all life on Earth.

Ignoring our health as well as the the environment (though I think the environmental aspect is also heavily tied to ethics), why should we not kill animals unnecessarily? Well, the fact is we just can't stop empathizing with animals' suffering, because they are exactly like us in this aspect. If we kill animals for fun (which is what's basically going on now) we have to live a lie full of cognitive dissonance and lies. People don't want to know where their meat comes from, and they definitely wouldn't want to do the things that are required to get it themselves. Parents have to lie to their children about what they're eating. Living in denial and spending a lot of mental energy on keeping something out of mind is not what I would describe as a moral life. Aside from that there are arguably very big ramifications of murdering billion of animals every year, most of which are killed for "fun". It can be hard to prove that speciesism the root of all discrimination, but I think there is good reason to believe it is. Ask soldiers in war what they think of their enemies, and they will call them pigs or rats. Look into the past of a serial killer and you will find out he/she started out by killing animals. Speciecism is a prerequisite for dehumanization. How we treat other people is closely tied to how we treat animals.

Subjective morality is also a weird thing to me. I think you'll end up having to say weird things, if you want to be logically consistent about it. For example, how can we condemn obviously disgusting cultural practices of some nations, e.g. female genital mutilation and stoning of gays? If we argue for subjective morality I don't think you really can.

Hello James, thanks for your sincerity. I am new here as well, so I'll just try to leave you with my opinion on that matter; other members may disagree, I don't know. I am not sure I quite got all of what you meant to convey in your post, I will do my best. My hope is to be logically consistent and rational enough.

James wrote: -It seems all arguments except for the ethical (Health especially) can be trumped in importance by personal preference.

In his "The Methods Of Ethics" (1874), the English philosopher Henry Sidgwick was trying to construct an objective morality. Is a healthy life an objectively "good" life, he wondered? Not necessarily, one may choose to live unhealthy. One, however, may be well mad if he chose to live an unhappy life full of pain and suffering. Therefore, what really matters is pain and pleasure. I do agree with you here.

James wrote:I exhibit empathy strictly towards those beings who are capable of empathy themselves

Why? Why empathy? What's empathy? Moral philosophers love to entertain such questions. Why did you choose empathy and not, say, the being's capability of seeing or hearing?

Time for a thought experiment: What if there existed a supercomputer that is capable of empathy. That supercomputer is even a better empathizer than human beings could ever be. Don't indulge yourself into the details, just consider it for the sake of the argument. But our supercomputer doesn't itself feel pain and pleasure, is it wrong if I threw a stone at our supercomputer? Is it wrong if I unplugged him? No, I think the only being that deserves a moral status is that of sentience, i.e. it feels pain and experiences pleasure.

I hope I've been convincing so far, because that's an important point. The only being worthy of moral status is a sentient being, not just an empathizer.

James wrote:I'm of a more select group of the atheist community that believes the best answer to the question "Where does objective morality come from?" is that objective morality doesn't exist.

The objectivity/subjectivity of morality is another issue. What if X brought up the subjectivity of morality as an argument for slavery? It is simply a non-sequitur here.

Classic wrote:Hello James, thanks for your sincerity. I am new here as well, so I'll just try to leave you with my opinion on that matter; other members may disagree, I don't know. I am not sure I quite got all of what you meant to convey in your post, I will do my best. My hope is to be logically consistent and rational enough.

James wrote: -It seems all arguments except for the ethical (Health especially) can be trumped in importance by personal preference.

In his "The Methods Of Ethics" (1874), the English philosopher Henry Sidgwick was trying to construct an objective morality. Is a healthy life an objectively "good" life, he wondered? Not necessarily, one may choose to live unhealthy. One, however, may be well mad if he chose to live an unhappy life full of pain and suffering. Therefore, what really matters is pain and pleasure. I do agree with you here.

James wrote:I exhibit empathy strictly towards those beings who are capable of empathy themselves

Why? Why empathy? What's empathy? Moral philosophers love to entertain such questions. Why did you choose empathy and not, say, the being's capability of seeing or hearing?

Time for a thought experiment: What if there existed a supercomputer that is capable of empathy. That supercomputer is even a better empathizer than human beings could ever be. Don't indulge yourself into the details, just consider it for the sake of the argument. But our supercomputer doesn't itself feel pain and pleasure, is it wrong if I threw a stone at our supercomputer? Is it wrong if I unplugged him? No, I think the only being that deserves a moral status is that of sentience, i.e. it feels pain and experiences pleasure.

I hope I've been convincing so far, because that's an important point. The only being worthy of moral status is a sentient being, not just an empathizer.

James wrote:I'm of a more select group of the atheist community that believes the best answer to the question "Where does objective morality come from?" is that objective morality doesn't exist.

The objectivity/subjectivity of morality is another issue. What if X brought up the subjectivity of morality as an argument for slavery? It is simply a non-sequitur here.

By far the most compelling comment thus far.
As I have yet to read the subject of your first objection I'll assert what I think is merely a clarification. Again, it seems you agree so I'll leave it short and say that an individual's ability to decide to be unhealthy is more important than that individual's health.

As for the second, I commend you and anyone else who quoted that, that was not even out of context but I feel I disagree with it myself. You have swayed me from the admittedly awkward position of considering empathy a prerequisite for empathy. I would be fine with sentience being the go-to prerequisite, unfortunately I'm sure you know what a notoriously difficult to define word that is (not that it matters). I think the limit to pain and pleasure is one you place somewhat arbitrarily.

Semantics aside:
The final argument of my question (with the admittedly irrelevant self representation) was meant to address ethics. This is where I really need to clarify; this is likely more relevant on a Atheistic discussion but I will give you the context for which I use the term "objective morality" along with it's obvious relation to modern ethics. I believe (perhaps erroneously) that morality is a consequence of our evolution, that we selected for social behavior over self interest, a consequence of the mental faculties to trade with one another. (admittedly not unique to humans but much more common in high primates) In the past, morality swayed individual's decisions from that of the least resistance to that which was best for his or her community. What we consider as ethics today are just those same social constructs that told hunter gatherers to hunt and gather; giving to a community makes you stronger than self interest. This, along with what is taught to you from birth, and hopefully a tiny margin of logical discourse (like this) is what ethics is. There is (probably) no way to measure how good these systems are "objectively", nevertheless most of us still believe that it is supremely important for us to have a good one to live by, so we propose simple ideas like pain/sadness=bad pleasure/happiness=good or by the measure of qualities more easily defined like good for the planet or good for the species. These unfortunately blurry lines define whether it is good to kill an animal, or if it is bad to kill an animal, what I would need to be convinced that killing an animal for pleasure is bad is:
-A better (albeit difficult to prove) system of ethics than "Good for humans= good : Bad for humans= bad"
-Proof that the harm; environmental, health, etc. is too damaging to be offset by the "pleasure" received at the cost of an animal.

I will say I sincerely doubt that this is the best way to post this response but I'm new.

knot wrote:Hello

First of all, I think you will struggle to find something that is unique about humans. Empathy and morality definitely aren't only human phenomenons, but something you see in many animals -- even in small rodents. Primates also have an advanced sense of fairness. Personally, I think the only thing that is really unique about humans is our overblown sense of importance -- more than likely a cultural artifact of Abrahamic religions that is currently threatening to destroy all life on Earth.

Ignoring our health as well as the the environment (though I think the environmental aspect is also heavily tied to ethics), why should we not kill animals unnecessarily? Well, the fact is we just can't stop empathizing with animals' suffering, because they are exactly like us in this aspect. If we kill animals for fun (which is what's basically going on now) we have to live a lie full of cognitive dissonance and lies. People don't want to know where their meat comes from, and they definitely wouldn't want to do the things that are required to get it themselves. Parents have to lie to their children about what they're eating. Living in denial and spending a lot of mental energy on keeping something out of mind is not what I would describe as a moral life. Aside from that there are arguably very big ramifications of murdering billion of animals every year, most of which are killed for "fun". It can be hard to prove that speciesism the root of all discrimination, but I think there is good reason to believe it is. Ask soldiers in war what they think of their enemies, and they will call them pigs or rats. Look into the past of a serial killer and you will find out he/she started out by killing animals. Speciecism is a prerequisite for dehumanization. How we treat other people is closely tied to how we treat animals.

Subjective morality is also a weird thing to me. I think you'll end up having to say weird things, if you want to be logically consistent about it. For example, how can we condemn obviously disgusting cultural practices of some nations, e.g. female genital mutilation and stoning of gays? If we argue for subjective morality I don't think you really can.

I'll keep it short, sorry I don't have the time to address every person thoroughly. First of all, humans really aren't that special, but I am one, and I am particularly invested in making sure they do well. Yes this distinction between humans and, say earthlings is arbitrary, after all I'm an earthling too, but I'm certainly not devoted to my race (i.e. Black, White, Hispanic) against others, I just stick to things that are biologically similar to me. Arbitrary though it may be, it's part of self-preservation and you have to draw the line somewhere between all objects are important and not even yourself, I find the most distinct barrier of entry at humans but that's not an argument regarding my dietary habits.

I wish morality was objective, but where would we get that objective morality from? I do indeed condemn what people consider evil acts, that doesn't mean that they are in fact evil acts or that the character performing said acts is evil. What we want is a gradation of good and evil, but what we have to settle with is our own synthetic gradation of these arbitrary systems. We have no choice but to evaluate systems of morals on what we esteem to be valid values; morality is a social construct but that doesn't make it any weaker, it does however come with the difficult consequence of needing to say "Killing is wrong." is an opinion.
AnticitizenX (another youtuber) has a great video on objective morality, but I feel like most atheists know that morals aren't quantifiably objective they just know that the arbitrary system they've created is just as good or better than any holy book's morality. The problem lies in deciding which qualities you want in your morality. You strike me as someone who probably wouldn't follow mine, being parallel to the measure of humanities well-being.

James wrote:I would be fine with sentience being the go-to prerequisite, unfortunately I'm sure you know what a notoriously difficult to define word that is (not that it matters). I think the limit to pain and pleasure is one you place somewhat arbitrarily.

Sentience is often misunderstood. Qualifying it in terms of pleasure and pain helps confuse people more, I think.

Sentience comes down to rudimentary intelligence. Not human level intelligence, but the basic ability to express true learning. This is a behavioral thing, which can be easily observed or tested for, so there's no ambiguity there. The basic test for this is one of operant conditioning (which is proof positive).
See Associative learning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning#A ... e_learning
(Non associative learning is not "true learning", but a matter of sensitization which looks like learning to the untrained eye, like a computer "remembering" your settings -- the computer doesn't actually understand your settings, it's just ticking a variable, which is equivalent to sensitization, a very different concept).

True learning itself is inherently indicative of the ability to experience pleasure and pain, and also inherently indicative of a certain degree of rudimentary self-awareness due to how it works.

If you ate your neighbor's pet, you have only wronged the family and not the pet. Replace pet with daughter (or slave) and you have an all too real, biblical system of morality. That kind of moral system is in effect asking "who has equal or greater leverage than me in society?" and then exploiting everyone or everything who doesn't. If it's not frowned upon then its automatically okay.

For the record, nobody personally convinced me to become vegan, I did so on my own after seeing youtube videos, including interviews and presentations by Yourofsky. So it would be hypocritical of me to really try and convince you. But I will give my 2 cents here and there.

EDIT: From an evolutionary standpoint, its not just OK to harm animals but also to own slaves and rape women, and kill or capture people of different tribes or races.
Good for humans = good
The translation for "humans" never meant all humans, and always meant "whatever closed society or arbitrarily defined group you happen to belong to" which is one that currently excludes animals.
This is evolutionary ethics. It results in people visiting Africa, taking some slaves for themselves and sailing back home.

EDIT: Pleasure is not a compelling argument for justifying harm to others. That is hedonism. Something can't be excused just because you found a lot of pleasure in doing it. And even if it could, the amount of pleasure in meat is nowhere near enough to validate the wrongdoing, because you'd have to buy meat for the rest of life, leaving an endless trail of suffering in your wake,or you buy meat only once and live vegan for the rest of you life, which makes that single act of meat redundant. After you eat a steak, you're just going to be unhappy again, so youll need to keep eating steaks. This is of course ridiculous, because steak does not bring happiness and meat does not bring meaning to life.

EDIT: Morality being a social construct is not an excuse, because if its a social construct that would make it something that should looked at with a lot of scrutiny, if not something that is outright evil.
Thing is, society's morals have changed, which should not only be alarming, but it demands that we ask how else can it be changed for the better.
But by your logic, we have no basis for ever changing social morality, since all morals are subjective, and since the present social moral code is always perfect and in no need of change.
By that logic women not being able to vote was a great idea, until they were allowed to vote, after which point that was a great idea.
This basis of morality, is not having any personal moral code at all, and viewing morals as something to be politically navigated. "Would the Joneses think of me less if I owned slaves, or if I didn't own slaves?"

EquALLity wrote:

James wrote:-It seems all arguments except for the ethical (Health especially) can be trumped in importance by personal preference. (A powerful argument can be made for the environmental effect and maybe someone will sway my opinion with that; however it should be noted that I do acknowledge it perhaps without fully understanding it.)

Health issues are about personal preference?

I guess, if you mean that it's your personal preference to increase your risk for heart disease and cancer.

James wrote:if we executed the disabled or killed and ate neighbors pets (not meant to be put on the same scale of evil, obviously) we may not violate the fundamental system by harming them, but we would have to answer to the family making it equally if not more inexcusable by this morality.

What about a newborn and orphaned baby? I guess it would be perfectly acceptable to throw that person into a volcano if I felt like it?

And in fact, that would actually be the right thing to do, and moral, because:

James wrote:"If a system of ethics is rationally constructed, but does not extend to animals, a person's choice to use animal products is only as reprehensible as it's affects on others." I make several additions to that statement, most prominently that it's affect on others can be discounted by the "meat-eater's" want to eat meat, and that it is a good moral system that excludes non-empathetic beings.

Yes, the meat-eaters want to eat meat. It gives them pleasure, and it's not harming anyone who can empathize, so it's alright. On top of that, it's moral, because a being who can empathize felt pleasure.

Just like if I throw a newborn that nobody has an emotional attachment to into a volcano, and I get some kind of sick kick out of it, then it's ethical for me to do so, because a being who can empathize gained and no beings who could empathize were harmed.

James wrote:I'm of a more select group of the atheist community that believes the best answer to the question "Where does objective morality come from?" is that objective morality doesn't exist. I'm a humanist, in that I believe that the evolution of higher thinking gave us better logical faculties from which we created social rule systems, the epitome of those rule systems is the one that serves humanity's goals best while still adjusting for our nature.

What does this social rule system have to do with anything? Do you think that it determines how we should behave? Why would that be the case?

What about evil social rule systems, that serve horrible goals of humanity? Like flogging people for dressing the wrong way, to reach the goal of enforcing Islam, for example. There aren't universal goals of humanity.

And what about the goals of other beings, like the goal of cows not to have their throats slit without consent, and their goal not to be scalded alive?

Again I'll take this step by step.
First to your comment about health being a personal choice: I do completely believe that health should take a back-seat to your freedom of choice, I defend that invariably as a matter of fact, indeed extending it to drug use and suicide. The only issue with all three is how it affects other people, either people who care about you or people having to pay for your treatment. (I hate to make this ad hominem and I am in-fact typecasting you, but are you against drug use? If you are not, then I elect you observe this incongruous aspect of your beliefs.)

As for the next two I assume you'll be satisfied with my retreat from the admittedly arbitrary prerequisite of being able to exhibit empathy. I will however say that their should be a limit to which empathy should be extended and I hope define it by my final rebuttal (as was the purpose of the final paragraph of my original statement)

I do feel the final paragraph, particularly the part about what I consider myself was a bit of a non-sequitur. The intent was to define the moral system of empathy I had described above, unfortunately I fell short of that goal so I will try to re-qualify the morality here. The validity of the argument in-part hinges on the fact that morality is not objective or if it is that we do not know definitively the best ethical system to adopt. If we are to assume what I consider to be the humanist qualifier for how we subjectively measure morality then that postulates that what is good for humans is good and what is bad for humans is bad. That is why I suggested the two argument paths put simply: Give me a better morality than the humanist or show me that it isn't good for humans anyway, these may not be the only way to argue the issue behind meat-eating's ethics but they seem the most obvious. Another may be to tell me that I have given you an impossible task by showing that you can't give an objectively better set of ethics because they are arbitrary.

James wrote:First of all, humans really aren't that special, but I am one, and I am particularly invested in making sure they do well.

Any religious group can say the same to the exclusion of others. That's how tribalism works. You aren't evolutionarily motivated to help people who aren't closely related to you.
If you came upon a homeless person who wouldn't be missed, and who was "leeching" from society, costing you tax dollars, etc. It would be, according to your theory, a moral prerogative to kill him or her. Cleansing society, creating a master race, etc. There's no room for weakness in a theory like that, no room for empathy for those less fortunate than yourself, or any compassion for those who can not help you in return.

James wrote:Arbitrary though it may be, it's part of self-preservation and you have to draw the line somewhere between all objects are important and not even yourself,

You don't have to draw any lines. The more accurate approach is a gradient of increasing moral value based on degree of sentience.

James wrote:I find the most distinct barrier of entry at humans but that's not an argument regarding my dietary habits.

I hope I addressed that above. But, it is when those habits are destructive to humans as well.

Nature doesn't give many shits about climate change. It'll spring back, adapt. Non-human animals can't be much bothered; at least, most of them. They just slowly follow the changing climate zones. They probably barely notice. They don't have houses to get destroyed hurricanes, or cities for Earthquakes to topple. Natural disasters really aren't a big problem for most wild animals. They just mozy on and find somewhere better. Humans do have a problem, but if climate change and the following displacement and plagues wipe out most of our population, that's actually good for nature in many ways.

James wrote:-Proof that the harm; environmental, health, etc. is too damaging to be offset by the "pleasure" received at the cost of an animal.

You don't seem to understand something about the normalization of experience that's critical here. There is no "pleasure" received at the cost of the animal. There is no "pleasure" received by smoking, or snorting crack either.

Right when somebody starts to snort crack? Sure. That initial hit is amazing. But they get used to it very quickly, and then they only feel normal when they're high, and the rest of life is hell. As a consequence, they're less happy on average.
Vegans do not enjoy their food less than carnists enjoy theirs.
Just like breaking any addiction and getting used to a new normal, carnists may initially feel like they're giving up something by going vegan, but that's just not the typical case. You get used to it, and it takes a couple months (like quitting smoking), and then there's not really anything to miss. For most vegans, meat starts to smell bad (as cigarette smoke can start smelling bad to ex-smokers once they fully kick the habit).

Fried Twinkies are not objectively more delicious than carrots or roasted mushrooms or tempeh or a fresh kale salad with a nice garlic vinaigrette. It's a matter of context. When you don't eat sweet and fatty stuff all of the time to overload your taste buds, normal food starts tasting richer and sweeter.
Experience is highly subjective. Aside from the absolute depths of misery (there is a certain minimum that's required), everything else is normalized.
If you map input vs happiness, It's a curve that reaches a plateau, rather than continuing to increase happiness, after a certain minimum of resource input.

You're not happier living in a mansion than a small apartment. You're not happier with a veal steak and caviar at every meal compared to vegetables. You're just not, not in the scheme of things; you'll usually be more miserable due to the consequences of these things (more stressful job, heart disease, etc.).
Rich people are not happier than the lower middle class. Extremely poor people are miserable, but that comes back to that certain bare-minimum you need. Anything over that presents rapidly diminishing returns.
The only average lifestyle that creates misery is for those who create their own misery by comparing their lives to others, and spending all of their time coveting rather than enjoying the life they have.

This isn't just speculation, this has been repeatedly borne out in psychological studies on happiness. It's something that has been widely known since antiquity, but more recently confirmed through modern science.