That's because zero is not attainable in those other items. — andrewk

Isn't it? I take zero flights, I use zero conflict minerals, I buy zero goods from companies and countries with poor human rights records, I pay zero amount of money into banks who invest in the arms trade. All of this is quite easy, I could do more if I was willing to sacrifice more comfort. I could take zero car journeys, buy zero disposable plastics, buy zero non-fair-trade goods, keep zero income above that which I strictly need, spend zero time doing anything but campaigning for human rights, spend zero time/money doing anything but campaigning to supply clean drinking water to the thousands still without it.... It's perfectly possible to achieve zero in many other areas of life which might otherwise cause suffering.

Good for you! Given those choices, I'm struggling to see why you would find fault with someone being a vegan. Their choosing to consume zero animal products acts in the same direction as those things in which you've chosen to go down to zero. Many people who are vegan for the reason of reducing animal suffering may also do the same as you on the things you mention. Certainly most of the ones I know do. I would have thought that would be a reason for celebration rather than criticism. But perhaps we are at cross purposes.

The main reason why I find fault with people campaigning for veganism is unrelated and much more complex. Its to do with the value I give to naturalness and how I think it best to deal with uncertainty.

The lesser issue I'm raising here is that I do not find "a desire to reduce suffering" to be a sufficient explanation for veganism in any case. There's no equivalent movement advocating zero extents in those other areas I mentioned (where zero is clearly possible). Any ideologies associated with them (like environmentalism) advocate reduction, not zero. Veganism seems to stand out as an ideology for advocating a zero level (rather than reduction) and advocating it in one very specific area of suffering. To be clear again I'm talking about the ideology, not the people (who may themselves advocate all sorts of things).

I don't understand the reason for the difference between veganism (zero animal products) and just animal rights campaigners (reduction in suffering inflicted on animals). I'm sure most strong animal rights campaigners are themselves vegan, but that's a personal choice. The ideology itself seems to me to be sensibly focussed on a direction, not a target. Climate change campaigners want us to reduce our carbon emissions, green-space campaigners want us to increase urban green-space... All sensible goals. Vegans want us to eliminate animal products. It just seems like a complete waste of energy. Improving animal welfare on farms would realistically do far more to reduce suffering overall than trying to get the world to give up 2 million years of omnivory.

Somehow I don't think you'd find that so fair when the time comes.

And so do you think it's permissible for us to kill and eat severely mentally disabled humans?

Guess you live in a cave without air conditioning, medicine, factory farmed meat, and electronics...oh wait, you're chatting with us here. Hm, how does that figure into "naturalness" and doing things exactly like we always have for millennia?

Veganism is partly a consequence of considering the animal kingdom as a collection of Pokemon trading cards, as early biologists and pseudobiologists like Darwin taught us to do (Darwin himself was a great collector).

However, the truth is that farm animals, pet animals and pest animals are all part of the human phenomenon, just like the trillions of unicellular and pluricellular beings living inside and all over our bodies. What makes us human, biologically, spiritually, socially, can not be explained without them.

For that reason, to stop our relationship with them, that is: to let them go extinct, is equivalent to mutilate further the human event. A dog is not a species: a dog is the wolf structure incorporated to the human system. A pig is not a species: a pig is the boar structure that has changed to become part of our digestive system, just like we are part of his extended family and his feeding and reproductive systems.

To call for much better treatment of animals and plants that are part of us is very easy to defend ethically; for their own good and ours. However, veganism is not ethically sound as it implies the destruction of a huge part of the human phenomenon and the human soul, incarnated in these life forms and the ways in which we engage with them culturally and personally. Plus, they also contribute to the wider phenomenon of the biosphere producing organic supplies to countless other species, and also DNA memory.

An individual can be a vegan and it might be a good thing, as more vegans means less demand of animal products in our critically overpopulated world; however, society as a whole can not be vegan entirely, if the values of life, identity and compassion are to be preserved.

Why aren´t these things obvious?

The human "soul" (whatever the heck you mean by that) requires us to lock up billions of animals in over-crowded factories, torture them their whole lives, and then slit their throats?

Your position can only arise out of a total denial of the inner life of anyone but a human. Which means you don't have even a basic understanding of Darwin's theories.

you haven´t read my comment, but an imaginary comment concocted by your mind. This is probably due to an excessive emotional implication; I suffer it myself when I discuss the future of my country with Spanish globalists, I find difficult to understand them because "what they are supposed to mean" interferes with my comprehension.

In this case, there is nothing in the real comment requiring over-crowded factories, which disgust me, and nothing about slitting throats. I advocate ethical farming and legal procedures to sacrifice animals, that in Europe (except for Muslim slaughterhouses) exclude blades and knifes entirely. The legal procedure is to let animal calm down, then put them to sleep, and electrocution. The animals (except for the Islamic slaughter houses, and illegal slaughtering) in Europe are not supposed to feel pain or hear other animal suffer when they are sacrificed, for ethical reasons and also for purely industrial reasons (the organoleptic properties of the meat are impaired by animal stress; and bloody killing makes higiene standards more expensive to keep).

https://ec.europa.eu/food/animals/welfare_en

Ethical farming is not so expensive, if we are prepared to eat less meat and more dairy and pulses, and we find local providers. I´m very lucky to have an ALDI supermarket in my quarter, for they have all kind of organic items and they are very cheap.

Guess you live in a cave without air conditioning, medicine, factory farmed meat, and electronics...oh wait, you're chatting with us here. Hm, how does that figure into "naturalness" and doing things exactly like we always have for millennia? — NKBJ

No to the cave, yes without air conditioning, haven't taken any modern medicine for at least 30 years, no to factory farmed meat and yes to electricity.

Naturalness and "doing things exactly like we always have for millennia" are not synonymous.

And I said quite clearly that the main reason I disagree with veganism is complex and to do with both naturalness and the way we deal with uncertainty. But since this thread is not about the reasons why I disagree with veganism, and you don't show the slightest humility about any potential alternatives to your own blindly fundamentalist dogma, I don't see the point in discussing the matter here.

This is probably due to an excessive emotional implication; — DiegoT

Please refrain from assuming you know what is going on in my mind or what my emotional state is. That's not only impolite, it's also poor philosophizing.

You still haven't explained a)what the heck the human "soul" is
and b) why it requires murder to thrive.

you don't show the slightest humility about any potential alternatives to your own blindly fundamentalist dogma — Isaac

I think I'm just as right as you think you are.
But let's dissect your label for a moment:

fundamentalist: adjective, 1. relating to or advocating the strict, literal interpretation of scripture.
Well, there is no "scripture" I'm referring to. No religion I'm following. No god I'm appealing to. So that's just not accurate.
2. relating to or advocating strict adherence to the basic principles of any subject or discipline.
Well, I also strictly adhere to the principles of not murdering babies, not raping people, and not beating my spouse...so I guess not all fundamentalist attitudes are so bad.
That being said, I never maintained that there are no circumstances ever in which meat eating might permissible. My stance is that if you can be vegan, due to your circumstances, then you ought to, and that this applies to most people living in industrialized countries.

dogma: noun, a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.
a) I guess science could count as an authority in veganism? But I prefer to see it as a source of information...um, nope: no appeals to authority in veganism. And as stated above, I don't believe veganism to be "incontrovertibly true." There are exceptions. And when lab grown meat is available, that'll be an alternative to veganism. And I'm always open to new evidence or a good argument--just haven't come across any yet.

Naturalness and "doing things exactly like we always have for millennia" are not synonymous. — Isaac

You're the one who talked both about being natural and insisting on meat-eating cause it's a millennia old practice. But okay.

Your insistence on naturalness still makes no sense. I mean, you can read how the appeal to nature has been debunked in any logic 101 textbook.

Pedant

3.noun - a person who adheres too rigidly to book knowledge or definitions without regard to common sense.

Lol. I'm just going to take that as you conceding the argument.

the human soul is all the sum of all the contents of our metaphysical selves. The culture, the spiritual, our values, symbols, rituals, our tastes, beliefs, notions, ways of behaving, relationships. Everything that makes human kind possible but it is invisible.
I tried to guess an emotional activation as the cause of you failing to understand what I wrote after reading it, It was not an insult or anything S.

For example when I write: "To call for much better treatment of animals and plants that are part of us is very easy to defend ethically; for their own good and ours" you somehow understood: "The human "soul" (whatever the heck you mean by that) requires us to lock up billions of animals in over-crowded factories, torture them their whole lives, and then slit their throats?".

You said:

However, veganism is not ethically sound as it implies the destruction of a huge part of the human phenomenon and the human soul, incarnated in these life forms and the ways in which we engage with them culturally and personally — DiegoT

Either we eat animals and therefore must murder them for our "soul" (your description of which I find troubling), or we refrain from murdering them, and either totally or mostly (if you want to eat animals which have died of natural causes, I guess that's fine too) go veg.

In this post you have shifted from solely criticising people being vegan to also criticising people campaigning for veganism. The two are very different. I'll address your comments about campaigning, as that's what the OP is about and what others here are discussing. We can address the issue of being vegan separately if you think that warrants a separate discussion.

My response re campaigning is that I don't think zero is practical in those other things you mention, so it would not make sense to campaign for zero in those.

Never flying disqualifies one from most interesting jobs, some of which are jobs in which one can do far more to reduce greenhouse pollution than if one didn't do the job and didn't ever fly. Furthermore one can buy carbon offsets for one's flights and, if one does some research, ensure that they are genuine, meaningful reductions in emissions. Minimisation is the only practical possibility here.

Never using anything that may involve conflict materials such as rare earth elements form the Congo makes it almost impossible to use a computer. That again rules out the possibility of doing jobs where one can do far more to reduce suffering than that which is created through the conflict materials necessary to the job. Minimisation is the only practical possibility here.

Not buying things from companies that may not have clean supply chains for human rights is not practical in some cases, since most major retailers sell some products that don't conform to that, and for many goods it is impossible to trace the entire supply chain, including that of all tools, transport arrangements and so on that are used in supporting the supply. Again, minimisation is the only practical possibility if one is to live an engaged life that materially helps others.

Veganism is different in that being a vegan does not prevent one from living an engaged, helpful life. It is not easy (if it were, I would be a vegan rather than a namby-pamby vegetarian that tries to come as close to veganism as he can bear (which is sadly, not terribly close)), but it is achievable for those with strong values and will, without making them ineffective in other aspects of life.

I think veganism is very unusual in this respect, compared to other harm-reduction practices, in that it is possible and practical to get to zero. But from another perspective, it doesn't get to zero and is like other harm-minimisation strategies, because in any food production activity some animals will be harmed, be it only when they are trodden underfoot by people planting grain. Eliminating consumption of animal products doesn't get to zero but eliminates an enormous amount of harm.

Nor is the zero issue an article of faith for vegans. Only the most wild-eyed are so extreme that they would rather starve then eat, or even touch meat, or would refuse to eat tofu in a frying pan that had previously been used for sausages. Peter Singer has said that he will eat small amounts of meat or fish when to do otherwise would cause great upset to those offering it, and the animals involved have already been killed so that his refusal would not reduce any harm.

I think perhaps the zero issue becomes associated with veganism because some of the most vociferous campaigners are zero perfectionists. But I don't think most ethical-vegans are like that.

I think perhaps the zero issue becomes associated with veganism because some of the most vociferous campaigners are zero perfectionists — andrewk

Gary Francione for one. (It's hard to prove him wrong, though.)
But other than that I think it's just a red herring meat eaters have purposefully created so as not to have to listen to the actual arguments.

Yes, I find Gary Francione's public advocacy of his position regrettable. It is so extreme and absolutist that it just encourages people to conclude 'I can't achieve that, so why bother trying at all', and going off to fry up some factory-farmed bacon and battery-hen eggs.

I don't think we can be as certain about the mental capacity of severely mentally disabled humans, which is why euthanasia is such a controversial topic. The research that would give us a better understanding is struck by a catch 22 of what experiments are ethical; were the results of research to find that mentally disabled individuals are, internally, still highly sentient. We are more confident of the limits of an animals intellect than we are about the disabled.

Also cannibalism is just a disturbing concept and scenery compared to our natural content with killing prey. I imagine we are, at a genetic level, less inclined to kill other humans regardless of the ethical rationale. Just like many things we do without questioning the logic.

If you feel killing animals is equally disturbing then that is respectable but it is not necessary you putting your instincts aside and rationally objecting to injustice. We can't really justify not sending all our money to the 3rd world or halting society until we all have equal privilege, but we do. Fairness is a fairy tale.

We are more confident of the limits of an animals intellect than we are about the disabled. — Xav

How does that work? I recommend the book "are we smart enough to know how smart animals are" by Frans de Waal. There you'll see that we actually have a lot of proof that animals are way smarter than we've ever given them credit for. Provably smarter than some disabled humans.

We can't really justify not sending all our money to the 3rd world or halting society until we all have equal privilege, but we do. Fairness is a fairy tale. — Xav

Oh, well, I guess we should just stop all good acts then. s/
If you don't send your money to Africa, you're not engaging in a good act.
If you avoid animal products, you're avoiding engaging in a bad act.
Those are different things.

In this post you have shifted from solely criticising people being vegan to also criticising people campaigning for veganism. — andrewk

I haven't criticised either. In fact I've made it very clear in just about every post that I'm talking about the philosophy 'veganism' (and by default the espousal of it) not he activities as a whole of the people who adhere to it.

Never flying disqualifies one from most interesting jobs, some of which are jobs in which one can do far more to reduce greenhouse pollution than if one didn't do the job and didn't ever fly. Furthermore one can buy carbon offsets for one's flights and, if one does some research, ensure that they are genuine, meaningful reductions in emissions. Minimisation is the only practical possibility here. — andrewk

Not eating meat disqualifies one from most interesting meals some of which (organic locally reared lamb or wild venison) can do far more to reduce greenhouse pollution than if one ate other choices (industrially farmed palm oil).

Not wearing wool disqualifies one from most comforting outer wear some of which (organic pure wool) can do far more to reduce greenhouse emissions than alternatives (polyester fleece).

Never using anything that may involve conflict materials such as rare earth elements form the Congo makes it almost impossible to use a computer. — andrewk

I'm using a smartphone right now which contains no conflict minerals and all of my computer parts are second hand. I think it would be reasonable in the long-term to eliminate second hand goods from the metric, but an elimination of conflict minerals is perfectly possible right now.

Not buying things from companies that may not have clean supply chains for human rights is not practical in some cases, since most major retailers sell some products that don't conform to that, and for many goods it is impossible to trace the entire supply chain, including that of all tools, transport arrangements and so on that are used in supporting the supply. — andrewk

Firstly, if its impossible to trace the supply chain then how is it any different knowing if animal products were used? This problem seems to apply equally to the aspiring vegan as it does to the social justice campaigner.

Secondly, as with the computer, there's very little nowadays that can't be bought second hand.

You seem to be presenting the argument solely from the point of view of an urban hipster in some jet-setting humanitarian career. What about the beef farmers living in rural Scotland. In what way is it impracticable for him to achieve zero flights? He probably does that already. I suspect his purchase of brand new consumer items is pretty limited too. But altering his entire farming system and trying to grow soya in the Highlands is hardly "achievable for those with strong values and will, without making them ineffective in other aspects of life." and for him. I live on an estate where we shoot the deer to protect regeneration in an ancient woodland. It's pretty easy for me not to fly (never been on a plane in my life), but I'm not sure I see much sense in me not eating venison.


The problem I have with veganism comes down to this. I don't see a way in which the additional reduction in harm from moving from organically farmed, free-range or wild meat, to no meat at all, could possibly be so much greater (and certain to be greater) as to justify re-arranging the entire globes food production system. Are you so certain you've covered all the long-term consequences that you'd be willing to stand by such a massive intervention?

If we all stopped wearing wool and started wearing polyester fleece are you so certain that more sheep would be saved from harm than ocean life would be killed by microplastics?

If we stopped grazing sheep on unproductive highlands are you really that certain that the remaining ecosystems could handle the additional burden of protein production?

If organic dairy farms started to lose their markets to soya are you so certain that the economic consequences on the market value of the soya would have less impact on the ecosystems of soya growing regions than the harm caused to the organic dairy cows?

Veganism is just another hubristic ideology. We live in an extremely complex world. Our planet's vital resources are managed by finely balanced ecosystems whose workings we barely understand, our human economy is understood hardly any better, and veganism is suggesting we attack the problems in these systems not by carefully and respectfully making small changes and observing the results, not by reverting to some previously tried system that seemed to work, but by sweeping away ten thousand years of agricultural land management, several million years of ecosystem management to replace it all with a completely untried system. It's crazy.

In fact I've made it very clear in just about every post that I'm talking about the philosophy 'veganism' — Isaac

Yes, I remember that. In reply I pointed out that veganism is a practice, not a philosophy, so trying to critique it as a philosophy is a category error.

If we all stopped..... — Isaac

When more than 50 per cent of the world's population is vegan, we can start worrying about that. I don't think that will happen in the lifetime of anybody currently alive.

veganism is suggesting we attack the problems in these systems not by carefully and respectfully making small changes — Isaac

You mean like the careful, respectful, slow, incremental way that we introduced factory farming and modern industrial agriculture more generally?

Yes, I remember that. In reply I pointed out that veganism is a practice, not a philosophy, so trying to critique it as a philosophy is a category error. — andrewk

Veganism is a philosophy because it makes ethical statements and ethics is part of philosophy. Personally, I don't even agree with veganism's meta-ethical position (that we ought to reduce harm to sentient beings to the maximum extent possible), but taking that as agreed for now, the moral proposition veganism makes is that - a net reduction in harm is had by moving from organically reared hill-farm or wild meat to no meat at all, and that we can be sufficiently certain of this to outweigh the risk of undertaking a completely unprecedented alteration to the global ecosystem and economy.

I just don't buy that claim and I haven't yet heard a convincing defence of it.

When more than 50 per cent of the world's population is vegan, we can start worrying about that. I don't think that will happen in the lifetime of anybody currently alive. — andrewk

But that's crazy, why would you advocate a moral system which relies on a failure in uptake. Couldn't I (or anyone else) just argue that our meat eating represented part of the necessary 50% your system is relying on to continue to eat meat?

You mean like the careful, respectful, slow, incremental way that we introduced factory farming and modern industrial agriculture more generally? — andrewk

No, I mean the exact opposite. I mean that veganism should definitely not make exactly the same mistake that factory farming and industry made, of thinking we can run the global ecosystem based on the tiny understanding we currently have. The predator-prey ecological relationship has been a part of the ecosystem for millions of years, what I'm doing shooting and eating deer has a six thousand year precident in my ecosystem. I think mixed agriculture itself is a bit of a upstart, but we at least have a few thousand years of practice to see what it does. Industrial agriculture has only been around for a few decades and it is already obvious that it is a devastatingly bad idea. A move to organic free-range farming, making use of poor land to produce protein from grass and richer land to produce the bulk of food from vegetables is a system which would massively reduce harm and yet is one which (thanks to thousands of years of practice) we are already aware of the consequences of (both positive and negative) so that we can manage them.

Veganism may well be a very good way to go for urban hipsters and I'm glad that so many are making that change, but it's not a universally applicable moral, it's just one solution among many, suitable in some circumstances. If indeed it were just a practice as you claim, then I would have little issue with it (I still object to the replacement of animal products such as wool with industrial ones like polyester), but its near ubiquitous presence on philosophy forums and public debate belie this claim.

why would you advocate a moral system which relies on a failure in uptake — Isaac

Only on uptake at a level that is way beyond what we know would ever occur. If you reflect on it, I think you'll find that a great deal of moral advocacy that people do would cause terrible disruption if everybody took its advice. They are aimed at increasing the number of people doing whatever it is, confident in the knowledge that, at best, the proportion may increase from a small minority to a medium-sized minority. It's perfectly sensible. It's just pragmatism.

Veganism is a philosophy because it makes ethical statements and ethics is part of philosophy. — Isaac

No. Veganism is a diet. Look it up. There are many different reasons why people are vegan, only some of which have anything to do with ethics, and there is more than one ethical angle that leads to a vegan diet. We've been over this already.

Next, since a diet is personal, it doesn't imply anything about what others should do. Evangelical ethics-based vegans may make 'ought' statements about it, but there will be great variety amongst what those people say. Plenty limit their advocacy to urban people whose only access to animal-based products is the factory-farmed stuff in supermarkets. They would have nothing to say about your idyllic, bucolic existence where you have the luxury of eating only free-range, clean-killed deer.

I think you're either only listening to the most extreme vegan evangelists - people like Gary Francione - or just taking it all too personally, and interpreting messages that are meant for the urban majority as being also directed at you in your unusual situation.

I suggest you just relax and be glad that the concerns that bother most ethical vegans, about animals leading miserable lives ending in a terrifying, prolonged and brutal killing process, do not apply to you. Why not just enjoy your privilege?

Evangelical ethics-based vegans may make 'ought' statements about it, — andrewk

And thus far, these are the only sorts of vegans I have encountered posting about the subject on philosophy forums (our current medium of discourse). I don't argue this way with everyone I meet who happens to be a vegan. I don't run an anti-vegan campaign. I'm just writing about the philosophical element (ethical statements) on a philosophy forum, in response to people making clear ethical connections (as this thread has). Seems entirely appropriate to me.

And thus far, these are the only sorts of vegans I have encountered posting about the subject on philosophy forums (our current medium of discourse). I don't argue this way with everyone I meet who happens to be a vegan. — Isaac

Perhaps you're referring to discussions you've had elsewhere, because looking back over your interactions on this thread, your only interaction with a vegan is with NKBJ, and your criticism of them doesn't touch on whom they would like to see adopting veganism, but rather is about the issue of how comparable adopting veganism for ethical reasons is to other ethically-driven harm-reduction activities.

If someone has been arguing in this thread that nobody, anywhere, ever, should eat meat - not even indigenous hunter gatherers - then I've missed it. Perhaps you could point it out.

but going vegan doesn´t prevent systematic and deliberate killing and torturing of animals; I suggest you visit an organic farm and ask the farmers what they do to make sure they have a good harvest. If you really want to prevent animal suffering, you need to eat only fruits from trees that have grown naturally in natural parks. Other than that, an inmense amout of animal suffering is implied; going veg will only restrict the suffering to animals that don´t look like potential cute pets.

I'm working on the presumption (perhaps erroneous) that anyone making moral assertions on a public forum (such as here) is some form of ethical realist and as such to whom their assertion is addressed is not relevant. The claim that I paraphrased (which I take to be implicit in the fact that veganism differentiates itself from mere animal welfare), is a moral claim which, under a presumption of ethical realism, is a universal claim.

If someone has been arguing in this thread that nobody, anywhere, ever, should eat meat - not even indigenous hunter gatherers - then I've missed it. Perhaps you could point it out. — andrewk

our morals forbid us to harm or kill. — TheMadFool

Veganism is about the commitment to reducing suffering. — NKBJ

It's just an obvious, easy choice that others are too stubborn to make. — NKBJ

It's a paradox for omnis who want to maintain that they care about animals, believe less suffering is better than more suffering, and yet willingly contribute to the meat industry. — NKBJ

If you avoid animal products, you're avoiding engaging in a bad act. — NKBJ

I don't read anything in those quotes that even hints at the idea that these pronouncements only apply to a particular subsection of society, do you? Maybe 'others' in the third quote refers only to some specific group 'others' that is not specified? Maybe 'omnis' in the fourth quote is a term somehow meant to exclude hunter-gatherers, hill farmers and deer-shooters that I'm unaware of. But even then, the second and fifth quotes seem pretty conclusive to me.

Behind a thin veil of careful wording it is becoming apparent that there exists a sense of moral superiority in some of these people with regards to their veganism. A sense of moral superiority which is blatantly hypocritical, because they choose to voluntarily participate in a society the faculties of which inevitably cause suffering to living beings, both human and animal.

Unless one is perfectly dedicated to the reduction of suffering, it is hopelessly hypocritical to judge the moral fibre of others.

And back to square one. Well, if you can't/won't understand how animal agriculture (obviously) kills more animals, then you're beyond hope.