We all try to be moral, as far as our own moral compass is concerned atleast. Regardless of if we make an active effort to bring in some morals, i.e. religion and the likes, it ultimately comes down to pleasing our own conscience. Now, it is also true that, we do a lot of things which, given awareness of facts, is something we ought not to do, but we continue doing them anyways; Sometimes through sheer ignorance, willful or otherwise, and other times through a fetish(philosophy) - like knowing full well one lives a lifestyle of pollution, but through the fetish of recycling a few plastic bottles or choosing eco-friendly alternatives (not that I have anything against these), one can live with oneself etc.
Non-vegans, even when vividly made aware of the facts, tend to remain indifferent in their actions even if they believe that they believe that said acts are cruel or whatever. Otherwise most of us would be vegan. If you ask a meat-eater to actively take part in whatever cruelty (if true) he is contributing to, he would likely be very repulsed by it, if not give up in the middle of this 'experience'. Yet I can almost guarantee you that in a short while, you will find him at the local steakhouse or McDonald's etc.
The fact is, the way we get meat to our person, is extremely distant from the source; this distance is what allows the good 'carnist' to exist, one who would never choose to take part in the sourcing of these goods. The farther the presentation is from the source, the easier it becomes for one's mind to simply ignore these distant facts - which is much preferable to our brains as compared to facing the utter displeasure of cognitive dissonance.
But you must, especially if you are a vegan, ask yourself before you judge the 'carnists' too harshly; are there not many other aspects of your life where you also partake exactly in this 'ignorance from distance'? - now that is no argument against veganism obviously; it's just that, nobody wants to see a chick be killed in whatever grotesque fashion in factory machinery; you can convince them of the cruelty of that - and others, quite easily. But convincing them that their McDonald's hamburger has any tinge of cruelty, is quite a difficult task, atleast past a few instants, after which they can conveniently move on with their lives. And don't even bother explaining to the rich lady buying a leather bag about the cruelty of that, she doesn't have any P.R. to lose.
You can't convince someone, who simply can't bother, and the distance it too great to generate that spark from within; and this is only for those arguments which are legitimate ofcourse. And in the same fashion that an a 'system' (I hate to use that word because it has continuously left such a bad taste in my mouth)- the system, which thrives off pollution, expects us to feel guilty, is met with fetishistic disavowal. A system, allowing us such distance and convenience, is simply indulged in.
I understand I haven't used any fighting words here, but I just hope, you'll find something you vehemently disagree with and indulge. And this format is much less exhausting for me and more fun, than if the debate was on my terms. Regardless, thanks for reading, cheers!
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"are there not many other aspects of your life where you also partake exactly in this 'ignorance from distance'?"
There is a difference of scale and practicality here that borders on context denial.
Both sides can agree to the empirical facts. Animals in the animal-industrial complex are forcibly conceived, enslaved in confinement, and destined to be executed often times by gas chamber or blunt-force trauma to the head. The methods vary and sometimes the animals are not killed immediately, but most pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, sheep, cows, and so on are killed for use as commodities in our markets and economies.
It is absolutely true that vegans partake in ignorance from distance, or are unaware of the ethical consequences of their lifestyle choices. Right now, if I were to survey most vegans living in developed countries, the clothing brands that they wear would be created by companies that use cheap labor overseas to create their goods, which is a form of exploitation of the global South. Being vegan does not mean that you are never going to do anything 'wrong', this is just a nirvana fallacy. This hypothetical ideal that is never in an ethical dilemma doesn't exist, people don't work that way.
All that veganism is is the bare minimum one can do given the empirical facts and ethical views that many people share (slavery is wrong, executing sentient beings is wrong).
You say it's a bare minimum; but it is just a preference (one-of rather) out of all the other known-kept distances.
this is just one example, that you yourself provide; there are tons of such examples, you don't get to assign to one of them exceptional moral force over atleast some of the others, when you say "bare minimum" - unless you also partake against those equivalent-others.
"but it is just a preference (one-of rather) out of all the other known-kept distances."
Veganism can be a preference, yes. So what? What's the point here? Veganism doesn't deal with capitalist exploitation of the global South in regards to clothing brands, that's not what the theory explains. It isn't in the scope.
If your argument is that vegans are somehow ethically unaware, then yes that has already been conceded. If the point is that vegans are obliged TO be ethically aware of non-vegan concerns, such as child labor or other things of that sort that don't deal with animal welfare, then you would need a proper argument for that.
You could put every decision we make on a graph and give it an X impact and Y sacrifice value. We all agree everyone has a right to survival and a right to a fulfilling life. Not all actions we take should be justified exclusively with survival. Socialization, recreation, variety, exploration, and pleasure are functionally necessary to a fulfilling life. The debate lies in what level of suffering justifies what level of self-fulfillment. There is a balance there we all implicitly understand. For example, if I were to torture dogs because I find it immensely enjoyable, we would all agree that’s wrong.
The thing is, Veganism already aligns with this balance, and if more people witnessed what really happens in a slaughterhouse they would recognize that. Like you said, “distance” prevents us from even honestly evaluating the morality of eating meat, and that’s by design! The less you know, the more you’ll buy. Thanks ag gag laws and misleading consumer packaging.
Eating or abstaining from animals is at the bottom right of the impact-sacrifice graph: highest possible impact, relatively low sacrifice. That is exactly what makes veganism such a compelling argument, and an urgent necessity. It is a massive reduction in suffering at the expense of very little sacrifice to your personal pleasure, time, money, or health. It also has profound impact on other urgent issues like land conservation, water conservation, environmental destruction, human welfare, zoonotic disease, and anti-biotic resistance. On the other hand, navigating modern society with zero electricity and transportation would be at the top left corner: enormous sacrifice with relatively little impact.
And this:
"It also has profound impact on other urgent issues like land conservation, water conservation, environmental destruction, human welfare, zoonotic disease, and anti-biotic resistance. On the other hand, navigating modern society with zero electricity and transportation would be an enormous sacrifice with relatively little impact."
--> is quite unwieldy;
To whom do these advantages confer to? unless you are a delusional idealist, which I'm sure you aren't, this confers to future generations etc. But you are certainly overselling quite a bit when you say, "profound impact"; here's a thought, what impact do you think the average joe makes on these issues in today's society? If he got abducted by aliens (avoiding darker means of escape from society) - what impact do you truly believe that has on these issues? Now, this "profound impact" will not even be a fraction of joe's. My point is, you can be a vegan in order to bring peace to your conscience, and do your part, but it is important not to over-estimate what your part could possibly mean, specifically if this grand estimation is quite a large part of your 'calculus' here. It is also important to understand that, 'doing your part' is a bit misguided, as it isn't really 'your part' in any non-personal sense; i.e. doing what you can to please your conscience with no non-negligible effect upon the catastrophe of whatever systemic blobs that brought this upon us; with the vague hope of eventually reaching critical mass. This is again, very idealistic. If someone truly makes a 'solid' impact on said systems, then that is commendable of course, and such behavior could be encouraged; but you do not get the moral weight of large, positive, systemic changes, to wield upon the average joe who could only ever hope to please his puny (as in scale of 1 person, whoever it is) conscience.
---
This is less clean/clear than what I'd like, but my battery is charging from nought - so do feel free to ask questions, I'll try to answer them as pointedly as I can; but the above response should have a good amount of point, if you just read thru it slowly - lotta... meat to chew on.. (sorry)
1.) Veganism is passive. Donating to a charity would be comparable to being an animal rights activist. Within the category of changes in consumer habits there is none that approaches the value of veganism in terms of sacrifice and impact.
2.) The “profound impact” is the individual lives and suffering of each animal you eat, or spare from existence, throughout your life. Independent from any larger social change that impact is an incredibly profound reduction in suffering which can be achieved entirely passively.
The moral force of a larger systemic change can be used against someone; but in cases like this, it is only personally, by all practical means, and I think we do agree here;
It's not that:
Rather, it's that those who're acutely aware of certain injustices, might collapse those certain distances and merely to please their own conscience, they do what they can. And what one can in one facet, where it's a drop in a sea of seas, is not enough moral force to persuade others, since the distance is simply too much and the feedback too little. They must have their own distances internally collapsed to reliably take up such efforts.
It might be good to do what you can, but no one does what they can, because that is too much, they only do what they must, to please their conscience, to re-establish distance of facts much too larger than themselves, thru personal, atomic means.
Sounds like a round about way of saying nothing we do matters and we shouldn’t care about how our actions impact anyone. Your decisions do have real victims with lived experiences at the end of them. We don’t act with kindness to please our conscience. We do so out of empathy. Out of understanding that if you were that pig screaming in a gas chamber or hoisted by your feet bleeding out you would wish to be spared from that suffering. The argument of veganism is simple: “the greatest good with the smallest sacrifice.” Why would you not pluck such low hanging fruit?
Empathy is also part of 'conscience', which encompasses whatever we attribute moral weight to, for whatever reason;
The point is, you aren't saving any pigs, you hate that millions of pigs are in grotesque situations, so you don't buy packaged frozen meat;
Your empathy clearly isn't enough to care for others who are in much worse situations than you, because if it was, you would live extremely frugally, putting all your efforts into saving many lives etc. Every dollar you spend on a whim that doesn't go towards some critical charity, is an epitome of your lack of 'empathy' - as you define it - or whatever else
You care about what you've collapsed the distance to, so you re-establish that distance, since you can never save a million pigs.
The above is quite forceful and not rigorous, but to be direct and concise about fundamentally nuanced large topics, requires loss in precision.
Empathy is a function within the conscience it is not a method of self pleasure to the conscience.
You are saving pigs, rather you are saving the pigs who aren’t yet born from being subjugated to this fate by excersizing your purchasing power over supply and demand.
You’re correct, I wouldn’t even call myself a particularly empathetic person yet I am vegan nonetheless precisely because it doesn’t require any sacrifice of time, money, health, or pleasure. Devoting every waking moment of life to altruism is indeed an entirely different thing to ask of someone. Thankfully, veganism doesn’t ask any of that but achieves comparable lifetime impact on suffering. Again, this is exactly what makes veganism such a compelling and urgent argument: high impact, low sacrifice. Also, I agree vegan philosophy has significant overlap with minimalism so I am in general quite frugal with purchases that impact other people and animals.
For a person who hasn't had their distance collapsed, insignificant and indirect nudges aren't enough incentive for the large effort needed for veganism-proper; To not bother is simply an easier prospect. And since you do not have the directness or magnitude to carry significant moral force, it's reduced to a personal endeavor notwithstanding collapsed distances; again, not a great prospect for the average joe.
I hope it is obvious that I'm not arguing against veganism, but rather why most people don't readily adopt it when it seems so obvious at first glance when expressed.
2.) Sum the number of animals you eat throughout your life with the incidental deaths caused in production of resources for their rearing and then try to say that is “minimal.” Reframe it in terms of X number of childhood pets and ask if that’s minimal.
3.) I think you overestimating the effort and sacrifice. It is a one time change in your pantry items and meal planning and then you no longer need to put any effort into checking ingredients again. It is definitely not an ongoing effort in my experience. You may even find some enjoyment exploring the range of culinary ingredients veganism leads you to.
I have “collapsed” the distance between most suffering in this world fairly equally. I have witnessed the extremes of human sufferings in various conditions as well as the animals. In fact, witnessing the human suffering was a pivotal point that led me to veganism because I recognized the commonality between the animal experience and the human experience in similar circumstances. My focus and urgency on animal welfare isn’t because my distance to that suffering is more “collapsed,” it is because the scale of animal suffering in animal agriculture is truly unfathomable and within our power to easily solve as consumers. It’s a highly actionable problem that’s also the greatest source of suffering.
Imagine we had a legalized system where 90 billion humans were born and slaughtered each year and all everyone had to do to stop it was not buy X,Y,Z petty, meaningless thing. It would be a no brainer right?
'Childhood Pets' are special because they are scarce - atleast because they aren't absurdly plenty. But that's just a nitpick.
That isn't a good way to look at things; tallied over a life time, all sorts of actions cause quite grotesque outcomes - in anycase, that wouldn't hold because.. the animals reared overall throughout your life time also grows, so the ratio doesn't really change. I've already mentioned many - you can pick any limited aspect of the extremely altruistic lifestyle mentioned before, how many deaths you think you could prevented, say donating to certain charities providing medical-care/vaccines etc.
By veganism, I assume all animal products are to be avoided, obviously including non-food products like, say- leather. That is quite a significant undertaking.
"I have “collapsed” the distance between most suffering in this world fairly equally."
No you haven't. Unless you are in constant unbearable moral turmoil or live a life of extreme altruism; It simply isn't feasible to do so. If you perceived the entire moral weight of your existence, you would be crushed and/or live a life of extreme altruism and frugality - maximizing efforts; towards which, again, would only please your conscience of the moral weight of your existence, continuously falling short in any objective form; and/or/whatever... an existence of continuous excruciation and hapless justification of one's own existence - now that's some existence.
alright alright, tbf, You probably just misunderstood that, side-effect of defining things as you write I suppose.
90 Billion Humans carry much more urgent moral weight as compared to animals, making the distance's job much harder - and that is obviously an understatement if something like that happens erratically/out-of-nowhere etc.
Here's a thought, would you let 90 Billion Animals die to save one human life?
Now, what if it's someone close to you, dearest to you- ofc this particular question is about as relevant as the whole childhood pet thing; (a bit more but whatever) - the former question is still interesting; to see if infact one values human life more - which people tend to do I'd say.
[now I have to take a nap, I'll respond when I get back, have a good one]
This is perfectly said.
We agree that other people's immoral behavior is not a good reason to stab someone in the throat for a sandwich.
But can we convince you? Do you agree with the vegan position that animal exploitation is wrong and should be avoided?
I do think I indulge indirectly in immoral cruelty towards animals, to whatever extent; I generally respect your position, but I cannot hold it myself, because it's easier for me too hand-wave my indirect immorality than to bother to live that much more morally. If and It might be otherwise disappointing to you and for that I am sorry, but I am sure there are many like me, and it simply isn't worth your disappointment; You can indulge in that bit of peace you gain from being more moral, and let others take discomfort in their bits of immorality - notwithstanding ignorance; as your position, I'd imagine is much more involved than inaction. cheers
There's no need to apologize to me. It is the animals who suffer and are exploited by your actions.
If you decide you want to take steps to stop exploiting others, I'd be happy to suggest resources to help. For you, it may be learning new habits and consumption choices - but for the animals, it is life or death.
I encourage you not to resign yourself to inaction.
well I'll be the first to let you know
"I'm lazy therefore I won't stop abusing animals, after all everyone else is abusing them too" Wow good debate
What is the distinction between exploitation of animals against exploitation of plants? I've always heard sentience is the cornerstone but that is incredibly arbitrary.
Why is sentience arbitrary? Sentience is the ability to have a subjective, conscious experience.
Is it arbitrary for me to say that I only care about the experience of things that can experience?
What trait would you prefer grant someone/something moral consideration?
I very much have arbitrary morality, because there hasn't been established that something has inherent value over something, you're trying to tell me that your morality is valuable but you're only presenting that you have created a classification and put a select group into it.
I mean in a sense all morality is "arbitrary" by your logic.
You never answered the question though. What trait (arbitrary or otherwise) do you think grants something or someone moral consideration?
It is, all morality is arbitrary because there is not inherent value in anything. I do not consider something having a trait grants it moral consideration.
Let's start from where you are: does anything or anyone deserve moral consideration in your view? Who or what does, and why?
My morality doesn’t make yours more or less coherent, so it is irrelevant.
Does your behavior reflect this world view? Like do you harm others if you can get away with it because "all morality is arbitrary"?
I don't care if you follow my moral system, you care if I follow yours, so it doesn't matter what mine is in relation to why you consider yours valuable enough to apply to others.
All I'm trying to do is make an argument from consistency. Say, "here is a value you have in one instance. Are you being consistent with that value?"
You may intellectually believe that all morality is arbitrary, but you almost certainly don't live that way. If you do, then I'm worried about the safety and well-being of those around you haha.
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If sentience was arbitrary then you would walk and stomp on animals just like you do grass.
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Sentience seems to be a requirement for suffering, which is the factor at play here
Which is an anthropomorphic quality we bestow upon other living organisms, on a sliding scale.
One can identify traits of sentience from certain entities, and assess roughly how much suffering they can experience. While this process is quatitatively arbitrary, one can, with certainty, conclude a rock is not sentient at all, while an animal is at least somewhat sentient, by using only objective measures.
Plants are equally as alive, but they don’t share anthropomorphic qualities so they aren’t deemed sentient, which is why the distinction is arbitrary.
Nor do they have the biological qualities
I hate to tell you this but you share common ancestry with plants, they do very much have biological qualities.
That's because the properties of a sentient being are not simply "be alive"
Right, because sentience was a classification we designed and put what we liked into that classification arbitrarily.
Not "what we liked", but what fit the properties of sentience. It's not strictly arbitrary, given that there are many classes of entities that cannot possibly be considered sentient, like statical systems
Then you're going to have to define what you mean by sentient.
It’s not arbitrary, it is necessary order to judge the ability to suffer. The ability to suffer is not arbitrary either when discussing the ethics of harm.
I don't see how your question relates to the topic.
If there are no distinctions between plants and animals, does that make animal exploitation okay?
If there are distinctions between plants and animals, does that make animal exploitation okay?
Because you're trying to establish that what you call animal exploitation is wrong, so you would have to establish where that is even something worth considering in the first place.
You can disagree that animal exploitation is wrong - feel free to make the argument in favor of exploiting animals.
That argument shouldn't need to make mention of plants.
Why does my morality need to be discussed to critique yours?
We don't have to talk if you don't want to.
What I said is that veganism is the position that animal exploitation is wrong and should be avoided. Then you asked me about plants. It's not clear to me how your question is intended as a response to my comment, much less as a critique of the vegan position.
Animal exploitation is uniquely wrong compared to exploitation of plants because:
Why do you feel it is my responsibility to finish your sentences?
I haven't made any claims about plant exploitation. Because it's not related to the thread topic.
So there isn't any distinction, so eating animals and eating plants is equally morally wrong?
No, I don't think acting according to our best judgment is ultimately about pleasing our conscience. I think this kind of psychological egoism has little going for itself philosophically and empirically, yet it is still a frequent narrative. Some people do what they ought to do because they have the character to do so, no matter if they have the ability to rationalize it away and not for the sake of pleasing themselves.
Half-agree. Weakness of will is something everyone has to struggle with. I don't think indifference is the right word. People are often struck by the wrongness of the practice, cannot fit it with their self-perception and then struggle with the conflict. But you are right that people can, and our culture serves, comforting ways to dull their character.
Yes, this is a factor. But there is much more than that. I think there are a lot of ideological and social factors that play a role. People want to fit in with the group. Culturally, it is comforting to frame do-gooders as either selfish, cringe, or equally bad in reality. And so on.
Yes, you cannot convince someone who cannot be convinced. But far, far more people tell themselves that they cannot be convinced than there are people that actually cannot. It is a comforting story to tell, after all. While very difficult as one's better judgment has to go against biases, it is seldom impossible. Far more people have the capacity to be good. That I have hope in.
'do what they ought to do because they have the character to do so' no matter how you wanna phrase it; you do something because to do otherwise would make you feel not so great, be it because you believe you have 'violated your character' or whatever - also, to say that "psychological egoism has little going for it philosophically and empirically" might just be one of the falsest statements I've heard in a good while;
if people weren't indifferent and struggled with said conflict as you claim; everyone would be in constant turmoil for sake of many many conflicts in themselves; but what you call the dulling of character, I say it's just the product of said indifference; it's simply not feasible to not be indifferent to a vast majority of one's internal conflicts - atleast for most people; and even those who have enough self-awareness, usually fall back into indifference, if having known about it preemptively.
I definitely agree that vegans tend to get a lot of undeserved flack as a group (though ofc some deserved for particular cases) - and it's always comforting to mock as a group, what we know to be good, to cope with our own immorality.
I doubt that last para; some people do - not get convinced largely because of their belief that they cannot be convinced; as a way of avoiding it since they believe being convinced would have undesirable repercussions. But what I meant was, for most, even if you convince them of the cruelty from afar in a conversation, they probably will not think about that biting into their ham sandwich; because you were there collapsing that distance, but now that you aren't, unless they make a valiant effort themselves, they take another bite. - also, I never claimed it was impossible, but I meant to say that more in the sense of if you go up to the average joe and attempt to convince him, it is, atleast extremely difficult - for so and so reasons.
This got long. I had to cut parts. Sorry. Hopefully it is still coherent.
Why believe this is true? It is not obviously so (unless it is a trivial version). Here are two considerations against it:
(1) Imagine Anne. She is going to give 1000$ to an effective charity. On the way, a hypnotist says, "Hey, you're on the way to that charity, ain't you? Well, I have an offer: pay me 200$ and I'll hypnotize you to *think* you've given 1000$ to charity and make you forget the whole hypnosis thing. No shame, no guilt, no nothing... And you'll have the 800$ left to do with as you please. What do you say?"
Here, Anne wouldn't feel bad for not giving to charity. Yet, it seems possible that Anne could say, "No, I would rather give to the charity, because that is the right thing to do." But then it appears at least possible that people could do something good even if not doing it would fail to make them feel "not so great." So the self-soothing story is not obviously true.
(2) The because is also dubious. It might be the case that not doing what you ought to do often makes you feel bad. However, this does not show that one is motivated to do what one ought to do because they would feel bad otherwise. Something can be a known side-effect without this making it the motivation for the action, just like how people can know they will sweat if they jog, without this meaning that going jogging is motivated by sweating.
I don't think not-indifferent means constant turmoil. Being in constant affect is not what I meant.
Maybe our difference here is about what we are reading into the word "indifferent". Rationalization, wishful thinking, projecting negative traits onto those that bring the topic up and the like to cope with going against one's better judgment is not to be "indifferent". One is conflicted, but being conflicted does not require constant affect. Let us say that a person feels guilty about drinking too much. They find ways to not think about their alcohol issues, they might come up with stories about how it was not their fault, that other people drink so it is fine that they drink, etc.. Still, calling this person "indifferent" towards their drinking habit seems to me inapt.
It makes it more difficult to change one's mind. It is often a defensive maneuver akin to "Shut up!" due to internal conflict. And yes, this significantly decreases the likelihood of persuasion in practice. So I agree that people suck in this way a lot of the time.
Sure, I agree, except that I wouldn't say that it takes valiant effort in the case of veganism. It depends on the person, but it is rarely above a moderate cost, and small or trivial for the vast majority of people in the West.
There are biasing factors. That is the best explanation for why the vast majority of people support something that is clearly wrong when viewed up close and under careful reflection, and that takes little effort to avoid. I think you are right that it is very difficult to make people change. Most people are unethical people, rationalizing and doing things that they often at some level realize are wrong, while having the capacity to do what is good.
No worries, still coherent.
(1) This is flawed, let me explain:
- Anne wants donate to a charity because it's the 'right' thing to do
- Anne, before the hypnotization, is not hypnotized (truism I know)
- Anne, knows, that choosing the hypnotization, would mean, that she would not be giving to charity, moreover, she would be 'pocketing' 80 percent, while still stealing away the 'feel-good'-ness of donating to charity
- implying, before she is hyponotized, she know that being hypnotized is the 'wrong' thing to do, even if this would not persist post-hypnotism, impulsive actions notwithstanding, she would choose *not* to be hypnotized.
- now, Anne, does what she feels is 'right', and avoids what she feels is 'wrong', even if said 'wrong' has guaranteed material benefit and a guarantee of no conscience-repercussions, because the repercussions still loom large at the time of the decision
- feeling 'right'/'wrong' is a function of the conscience
- therefore, Anne is driven by her conscience [if said conscience is something your conscience determines as 'good', you might say she is of good character; further, you might say she is of strong character for not being impulsive and temporarily betraying her own conscience]
(2) Sweating is not a 'good' feeling, so it can't really serve as motivation generally; but I get what you're trying to say. The issue is, if there is no motivation, regardless of the nature of said motivation, nobody would ever do anything. Correlation is *not necessarily* causation; sure; but all causation *is* necessarily correlational. We eat because, hunger feels bad, and food tastes good, especially the hungrier we are and the more energy our body perceives to food to contain - hence sugary foods tend to taste 'good', and so on. You can't just arbitrarily define a 'character' entity and assign all motivations (or claimed lack thereof) to it without further justification.
- I lean towards agreement here though, because I would consider, one who drinks, is only conflicted some of the time, I would consider him 'indifferent' to said conflict when he is drunk out of his mind and dancing on a table; so I suppose that is merely a definitional difference.
- Yes, people have many means of achieving what I'd consider indifference to such conflicts (or cognitive dissonance), whether it was deliberate, sub-consciously, or whatever.
- Here I think is where we differ the most, the first part about biases and people supporting things that to someone else under more careful inspection, or their own careful reflection, might seem.. stupid. That's all fine and dandy, but I would differ in calling most people unethical, especially if you wouldn't consider yourself unethical, since you too, have a lot of 'distances' in your psyche, so if merely the existence of said distances can mark someone 'unethical', I'd be astonished to find a man who isn't. But of course I do believe there are many other criteria one might have for someone being unethical apart from reviling their 'distances', and that is obvious, I certainly don't think everybody is ethical even in the non-distances-related context. I think virtually everyone can be considered unethical in a sense, but we do have to cut some slack for people who aren't even momentarily aware of said distances.
[cheers man]
Nice, I appreciate how you laid out your reasoning.
That is certainly a motivational story you can tell. However, is it the only possible story? Your story seems to require:
(1) a momentary feeling of aversion in the moments before the hypnosis;
(2) that is stronger than 800$ worth of future pleasure, affirming future moral conscience with a false memory, and erasure of all guilt and shame after the hypnosis;
(3) and avoiding that aversive feeling is the motive for the act;
(4) applying in every possible case of refusal.
(1)-(4) don't seem obviously true to me. Couldn't Anne have trained herself to not second-guess actions that take discipline, and thus instantly say "no" without weighing what she would consequently feel? That strikes me as possible too.
My point with the Anne story is not that conscience pleasing as motivation is impossible. It is that other motivations are seemingly possible. And if so, then it is not obvious that pleasing our conscience is the ultimate aim of moral motivation. The question becomes a question of which possible stories fit the data best.
You seem to presuppose that motives are just good feelings, which is not obviously true. Also, why could sweating not be the motive for jogging while (dis)pleasurable feelings must be the motives for moral acts without just presupposing the difference? Both accompany certain actions we do or avoid. Why is one obviously the ultimate motive and the other not?
Yes, but not always. Sometimes we might eat something that tastes bad because we are trying to be healthy. Our motivations for actions are more complex than avoidance and pleasure-seeking.
I did not intend to claim that all moral actions are motivated by character (which is basically one's integrity, discipline, disposition to act in accordance with one's best judgment). A person’s motive can be the moral act itself without it being about guilt-avoidance or pleasing the conscience, and that requires character in cases.
If people knowingly cause significant harm for their own trivial benefit where those significantly harmed are objectified and essential as resources to serve this trivial benefit, done repeatedly, that makes the people in question unethical. The fact that people distance themselves does not make them better. It arguably makes them worse in a way.
And by "unethical" I don't mean "have done acts that are unethical". Some unethical acts can be rationally justifiable for the sake of self-interest. When I say that people are "unethical", I mean that it goes repeatedly beyond what self-interest could justify. I don't think I'm unethical in this sense I'm ascribing to most people, while it is true that I have done and most likely will do more unethical acts.
Fair point. Unaware people are not necessarily unethical in the sense I've been applying the term. It would depend on how willful their unawareness is and how demanding becoming aware would be. Cheers.
Even if anne chose to override her moral tendencies and impulsively be immoral for sake of the swathes of future pleasure, that doesn't take away from the fact that her initial moral tendencies still were against this decision.
If anne has trained herself to act without second thought on the basis of 'rules', whether self-established or whatever, that is more deontological. Where she is doing something for the sake of said rule, where violating said rule would be a negative stimuli. This stimuli could be exacerbated by the reasoning behind the rule which could again be tied back to her conscience. [Doing [bad thing] is bad hence I must not do bad thing - assuming 'must not' implies the rule's establishment here]
Dis/pleasurable feelings are the motives for moral actions, because to not be moral triggers negative feelings upon/with realization, and to be moral triggers positive feelings etc. etc. Now sweating cannot be a motivation for jogging, if you want to be analogous to the above 'motive for morality' explanation, sweating is a motive to not jog if anything;
We might eat something that tastes bad because it's healthy, but it still tastes bad, it's just that violating this 'rule' (established in whatever sense for the sake of being healthy) again produces dis-pleasurable feelings - more accurately, negative feelings. Someone on a diet, who binged on junk food, post-binge, will feel like shit, no? If not, they weren't that serious about the diet in the first place, but in most cases, people are, and end up feeling like shit for that upon violation.
A person's act not based on pleasing the conscience, definitionally, is an amoral act - of course, you could trace back in the chain of motives and terminate at the conscience and on that basis claim the act as a moral one; it eventually does just come down to, pleasing the conscience.
What I mean to say is, a degree of separation, is not a justification but rather, is something whose existence makes accurate judgement harder and makes it easy for us to not associate ourselves with the cruelty taking places, much farther, and away in this chain. Not to mention, the utter normalization of meat-eating, certainly only makes this even easier. In that it's easy to be ignorant of the facts owing to normalization, *distance*, and so on. This is also validated by the existence of vegans who are so keenly aware or un-ignorant of the facts that their conscience simply cannot allow them to go on living as a 'carnist' or whatever devilish label is assigned to the meat-eaters.
It is not that they distance themselves, it is rather that they are distanced from this cruelty by default. And again, the normalization does not help. But perhaps there is also some (not pertaining to the immediate topic at hand) thing to be said about how this practice has lasted/been normalized throughout history, past the periods of it's necessity - and the existence of pets and the like, is also testament that people can care for animals, and certain animals, are cared for way more than others, even if merely by their status as belonging to the 'pet' category - stray cats etc. And the class of animals which are usually eaten perhaps have been relegated to that status, not arbitrarily in a 'utility' sense, but morally arbitrarily, and this split here also probably is another factor to add to the list. Of course this last factor deviates from out immediate topic in the sense that this is more about why the killing of these animals itself is not considered as seriously as if it was the case with other animals, and mainly, that even the general killing of them isn't considered cruelty in itself, even without any additional cruelty - If dogs were being killed for food, assuredly very swiftly, without additional cruelty, there would still be a real, mass, problem.
The act is immoral, but the people, usually have a plethora of factors (a more precise, if philosophical term for this would be: 'systemic disavowal') to mitigate their individual immorality upon judgment in my opinion. Cheers.
You're certainly making a valid point. Try another example - vehicular transport. Over 5 million vertebrates die every day due to it. That's more than enough to saturate any capacity for empathy for any human being. Yet, vegans don't realize it, don't seem bothered with it and don't seem to refuse to participate in it.
The human capacity to care about anything is limited to the mental model of the world they have induced in them. Vegans are laser-focused on meat industry and have more than enough reasons to do so. The problem is, there's a million other cases where you can build a narrative about extreme injustice and lack of compassion, towards humans as much as animals, and then that can become a point for activism.
Ultimately you can pick one, many or none, and just enjoy your impossibly short and inconsequential time here, at the end of which you'll be eaten, too. Blaming people for choosing the latter certainly doesn't strike me as peak compassion and understanding either.
I do think a decent philosophical point is being made in the OP as well as in your comment. It is true that existing is inevitably going to cause suffering.
However nothing said by either of you really counters veganism. Veganism is about reducing suffering wherever possible and practicable. So with regards to your point about vehicular transport: I need a way to earn money, and I need a way for food to get from the fields to my home. I can't afford a property with enough land to grow enough food to meet my nutritional and caloric requirements. Therefore I need to drive to buy food from the store.
In my experience, vegans are actually more aware of the unseen injustices that their existence causes than the average person. The animal agriculture industry just happens to be the largest and most egregious injustice perpetuated by the common person. It's also a problem that is very easily fixed on an individual scale. In other words, giving up animal products is not a difficult thing to do. The hard part is convincing others to do so.
I don't think countering veganism is necessarily the point. If vegans went "hey, here's how we see it, you're welcome to see it the same or different way, friend" there's nothing to counter (and some certainly are like that). If they say "this is the tragedy that only we recognize thru our superior empathy", then there's something to be said about that, and we did.
I don’t know how the extreme suffering of nearly 90 billion land animals each year could be called anything but a tragedy. In reference to this post, have you yourself witnessed what happens to pigs, cows, and chickens on an active kill floor? It is literally torture. Every aspect of our current morality already says this is a deeply immoral tragedy. We all agree animal cruelty is wrong. We just ignore it in our day to lives through psychological mechanisms like compartmentalizations, objectification, disassociation. Assumptions we tell ourselves about “painless deaths” or whatever welfarist label is slapped on a packaging to ease our conscience.
"Wisdom of repugnance" approach is not my moral stance, as I don't think it is for anybody who spent some time thinking about it. It may be gruesome, doesn't mean it's automatically immoral. Abortion may certainly be unpleasant visually, but it's not automatically immoral by the same measure.
What is "our current morality"? We're all sentientists all of a sudden? I don't see "biological phenomena that happen to be like mine are axiomatically superior" as the mandatory morality we were all supposed to be following, must have missed a memo.
No I was simply asking if you’ve witnessed the process. Being a properly informed consumer is step 1 in evaluating whether that level of suffering justifies the enjoyment you derive from it.
The current morality being: unnecessary animal cruelty is wrong. That much is already reflected in our laws and culture (contingent on the word unnecessary of course). I would say we are witnessing the intertia of an animal agriculture system which was once necessary for survival propelled by the enormous consumer demand and profit potential of capitalism. Veganism is an obvious, immediately adjacent extension of the morality “unnecessary animal cruelty is wrong,” which we haven’t seriously grappled with as a society until recently.
I agree entirely, and I certainly am a vegan in that understanding. The only difference is what we understand as "unnecessary". I think maintaining preferred human diet is a strict necessity to that degree, while if industrial processes can be regulated and improved to ensure more humane animal treatment, they should be (even with some manageable impact to meat availability). However, animal based products must stay generally available.
So you basically believe people need meat to be healthy. Alright, I won’t get into that debate. There is a large body of evidence from medical and nutritional organizations out there about this subject.
Not at all, while much better bioavailability of some nutrients in meat helps with that (and there's certainly some health risks related to meat), it's manageable to stay perfectly healthy on plant based diet.
I just don't think "necessity" is bare austerity of biological survival. I think some level of comfort, preference and quality of life is necessary for life to be worth living. Again, we can resign from using cars just the same and save well over 5 million animals daily, yet we don't.
Everybody, vegan or not, is okay with animal death and suffering for human comforts other than necessary, the only question is what area you happen to point to.
Not using a car: low impact, very high sacrifice.
Not eating meat: gigantic impact, low sacrifice.
Millions vs Trillions
Slight change in consumer habits vs massive quality of life improvements.
Veganism is a compelling and urgent argument precisely because it’s the highest impact, lowest sacrifice change in consumer habits you could make. The value to reduce suffering and embody the future you wish to see in such an easy change is unmatched. This isn’t even considering its effects on other urgent topics like land conservation, water conservation, zoonotic disease, anti-biotic resistance, and human welfare in slaughterhouses.
one hundred percent! exactly-
This only applies to necessary driving. But I doubt that you and vegans actually limit yourselves to necessary driving. For example, do you drive to meet up with friends, to go to a movie, to go on vacation? Clearly, if you believe that driving is a necessary evil, you would not drive unnecessarily, correct?
Fair point.
I'm already pretty much a homebody, so I don't do much unnecessary driving. But if I were to follow my values all the way to their most core principles then I would probably minimize it even more.
Also we need to iron out the word "necessary" here. Necessary for what? I would argue that animal products are unnecessary to live a happy and healthy life. However, I would argue that relationships with family and friends are necessary to live a happy and healthy life. Therefore driving to see friends could be counted as necessary driving. However, you're right I could probably still be happy and healthy without seeing another movie in theaters or even going on another vacation.
So we agree in some sense that both purchasing animal products and unnecessary driving are immoral. I plan on changing my actions to reflect that. Do you?
Likewise with the non vegan, at least for me eating meat is necessary to live a happy and healthy life.
Now imagine there’s a particular vehicle, that is available to you, sometimes at a premium, sometimes much cheaper, that dramatically reduces the immoral action it causes compared to the standard one. It requires you to learn to drive it again because it’s slightly different, but quite easy and enjoyable. Given this alternative that doesn’t require a huge sacrifice, shouldn’t you take it?
I'd first have to have agree with immorality of the old one in the first place, however if it did cause reasonably significant harm to humans (let's say the old one was exhausting a lot of harmful exhaust fumes) then I likely would.
However, I don't see any solid logic in vegan morality, and switching my diet to plant based would mean losing a huge element of my life that I certainly very much like, so this metaphor doesn't work on multiple levels. To be clear, I'm not opposing any vegans to switch to plant based diet if they honestly barely care about that switch. I'd certainly prefer them not to if that's a significant sacrifice for them, though.
So then just say “I don’t care about animal suffering that I can avoid” and stop doing gymnastics and appeals to hypocrisy.
Sounds good, I promise I will the moment you will (or you refuse to use vehicular transportation entirely).
Why? You don’t find anything wrong with it. What’s it to you?
Like a bike?
Yes, where the situation applies. glad you agree.
Can you give an example of where it this situation doesn't apply?
Why?
I want to better understand what you meant by that
By what? A bicycle is not a replacement for every vehicular need, it doesn’t apply to all situations. I can’t move my fridge with a bicycle or travel 400 miles in a day.
I see. Is there a situation where riding a vehicle at a speed that kills bugs ever justifiable? Or, in the analogy, a situation where eating regular meat is justifiable?
The speed is the requirement, the question is if there’s an alternative that’s better. Eating is a requirement, there’s an alternative that’s better. If there is no alternative other than abstention (ie, vegans should vanish into thin air and make sure any methane from their own decomposition is captured and used for some virtuous purpose), then yes to any other hypothetical.
exactly, it's not that this is a justification - it's as unjustified as all the other things, just preferences at a certain point
So how do you think Vegans can solve this problem? Meaning, how can they get a larger number of people to abstain from Animal Products?
I am not sure, If I knew, I would probably be a vegan by now, convince myself eh?
Fair enough.
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I grew up in a very wealthy, modern and western nation (Norway). At 6 I learned to catch, kill, and gut a fish. At 10 I helped my dad when we were slaughtering chickens that no longer layed eggs. I later helped my mum make the chicken stew from the slaughtered chickens. We also had geese (became dinner on New Years Eve), rabbits, cats, a dog, and a large fruit and vegetables garden. We never bought potatoes in the store, our basement were full of them. And the freezer were full of free fish, meat, and fruit.
There is a reason why the vast majority of vegans grew up in large cities. They have literally had no interaction with animals outside a few pet dogs and city pigeons.
Do you have a source? because this feels like vibes
According to the vegan society and a survey they did 88% of vegans live in urban or suburban areas, compared to 12% living in rural. This matches population density.
So maybe it's just more people live in cities?
"most vegans live in cities" https://ivu.org/vegan-recipes-around-the-world/vegan-food-academy/blog-front-page/item/how-to-launch-a-vegan-restaurant-that-thrives-a-blueprint-for-purpose-driven-culinary-entrepreneurs.html
"most vegans live in cities" https://www.acti-veg.com/2025/03/02/angry-vegans/
Do you ever wonder why people block you?
Can you do better?
Could you give an example of a source you view as better than the one from United Nations?
Please seriously think about this interaction we just had and really consider yourself here
I gave you the 88% source and compared England to England
You then come in and use the same 88% source and compared it to the world
And now you lack the willingness to self examine and ask if the problem is the source coming from the UN
Be for real dude if you ever need a clear example of why you get blocked it's this sort of bogus bullshit right here
Do better
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So find a survey about urban vs rural vegan populations worldwide
I'll wait because I already tried
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84.8 % of UK live in urban areas though? https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/United-Kingdom/Percent_urban_population/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
First off lol @ UK what's wrong can't find ENGLAND POPULATION STATISTICS? Ideally matching the year the vegan population survey was done .. like pulling teeth dude seriously self reflect here very dishonest
Second off lol at your source url tracers you left in
Third off lol at you thinking this is a gotcha being off by 3%
I never made any claims on UK specifically though.
First off bud, you don't know me; it's easy to call somebody privileged/urbanite, on the internet, it's annoying if anything.
Also, if they themselves do not consider it cruelty, then it isn't cruelty, I made that pretty clear; not to mention, by 'cruel' most people refer to grotesque vignettes of 'factory farming' - that is what I was referring to.
I am neither from/of the west, nor a vegan; calm your jets, christ
If they were willing to admit that it was wrong and that they just didn't care or were lazy then I would think we would be a lot further along.
The problem is to me.. is this place is full of people who actually honestly argue that it's okay to kill and torture for their own gain and that there's nothing immoral about it.
It's that classic tendency to argue that because we do it it's moral rather than just admitting that we do immoral things
By 'this place', you mean reddit? (and even twitter etc.) Because in the real world, most people wouldn't say that cruelty towards animals isn't immoral, now they may come up with justifications/excuses/etc. attempting to justify the immorality by bringing in other factors; but that is different from arguing against 'the immorality of cruelty towards animals' itself. A more rigorous split would be b/w those who would actively take part in the cruelty vs. those who wouldn't, and only are willing to passively take part in it. Of course even that isn't a 'concrete' split, but it's good enough. [also, whether one derives pleasure from active cruelty, vs. not; factors summed up, a pretty solid split]
no i mean in generral.
justifications/excuses that you mention are exactly arguing against the immorality of cruelty towards animals.
refusing to admit that paying someone to torture/kill is immoral is just one way to argue that its okay to kill and torture.
If I were to go around stealing from people and then say to you "oh but its not stealing because (insert some random justification or excuse here)" that doesn't mean i'm not stealing.. it just means i'm lying to either you or myself.
Even if i'm not lying purposefully does it matter? Even if I believe it - i'm still arguing that its okay to steal.
hence stealing is illegal, you can't achieve a degree of separation in your justification like you can for the animal fiasco
Yes you can. Have you ever heard of purchasing stolen goods.
And this is a morality discussion not legality
even purchasing stolen goods, is illegal, and the illegality of it does a pretty good job of collapsing the illusory distances being held up so far; if eating meat was illegal people would be much more conscious of eating meat, thereby being more aware of why it's illegal/the cruelty behind it
and you saying 'this is a morality discussion not legality' is stupid to say the least
i'll ask you one time to keep the conversation civil, mature, and not resort to personal attacks.
Morality is not the same as legality and that is relevant.
You keep pointing out the distance element but my point is:
Whether someone is ignorant of the morality of an issue or not - does not completely change the morality of the issue. As such buying stolen goods is morally wrong.
As such - you may decide you don't care about buying stolen goods - but that doesn't make it right. And its still just as wrong in and of itself.
So back to my original point - admit that it is wrong to not be vegan and move on with life. Go be non-vegan and just be honest about it rather than trying to come up with these advanced justification algorithms. I'm not saying you're doing that here - but in general my post was about people in general - not you.
Sigh, the point I'm trying to make is, the act is immoral yes, but the people can, and usually do have mitigated immorality because of systemic disavowal; If I don't care about buying stolen goods knowing full-well they are stolen, that is simply not immoral, because morality is fundamentally personal, a person you might consider 'bad' might not be 'bad' as far as his subjective is considered. Now, people tend to not want to admit even the immorality of the act itself because systemic disavowal has had them form beliefs that would be better tolerated if it were not immoral or atleast justifiable, hence they don't outright admit it. But even if they temporarily admit it, they still might continue not out of conscious 'malice' (used loosely) but because of the multitude of factors that make it 'appropriate' as far as immediate ease is concerned.
it just kind of leads to a bit of a "so what"
Yes I agree that most people don't consider themselves subjectively as "bad".
if we were to level set on a topic we both agree is bad though. Say.. slavery?
If i told you slave owners culturally believe slavery isn't that big of a deal. Maybe some people don't even own slaves they just support it through buying slave produced goods because its cheaper and easier.
wouldn't anti-slavery advocates focus on a couple of things like:
getting general consensus that slavery is morally wrong
stopping slavery
and the fact that there is a population in denial is kind of.. the whole point on why #1 is important.
in this example, the point is that, the people you point out, who don't own slaves but buy slave produced goods, have atleast mitigated immorality - because they would, atleast being analogous, agree that slaver is morally wrong if harshly shown the roots of these products that they buy - but they buy them in the first place because of systemic disavowal and distancing of the heinous roots, which is again reinforced in myth-sort beliefs and so on, to preserve their, cognitive non-dissonance I suppose;
bring widespread awareness can break thru the systemic disavowal, but that is a herculean task compared to flashing the truth onto a single person in a moment, which is soon enough, usually atleast, forgotten because the systemic disavowal/distancing, facilitates it so strongly-
I am as indifferent to the suffering of my food as you are to yours.
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Thank you.
This is a really well done post. If I had any awards I'd give one to you
aye man, really appreciate it, have a great day
Sad to see there aren't any other publicly available posts in your account
im pretty new to reddit- only recently made an acc
I don't think distance factor is that significant. Plenty of people lives near animal are non vegan.
'distance to cruelty' specifically, where cruelty is atleast what one perceives within his own subjective as immoral; the point wasn't to say that distance is the reason why we aren't all vegan, but rather, most of us who would otherwise consider these things cruelty, still continue to be non-vegans, can be attributed to said distance - the cruel man doesn't represent 'most' of us, if he did we wouldn't call him 'cruel' but that's another matter entirely anyways...
Do you think if we put these people( who says killing animal for food is cruel) close to the animal farm/factory. They would be vegan ? I don't think so.
When I say distance, I don't mean it in the literal sense; It's not general distance to cruelty, but the distance of one's conscience to what it perceives as utter cruelty. To give a reasonable if perhaps flawed example; people walk by homeless men, but nobody would walk by a drowning man - though both likely would share the same fate
In that case, for most people, the perception of cruelty dwarf the satisfaction from eating meat.
If someone had to manually let a pig bleed from a hook and chop it up and so and so on, to get my meat- voiding the labor involved, one still wouldn't do so --- if the same happened in some factory and you got frozen meat packaged in foam and saran wrap, your distance to cruelty is much less - you don't perceive the cruelty in Walmart; the difference is not knowledge, but subjective distance.
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thank you!
What do you think a fetish is?
I don't mean it in the usual sense;
even if you ignore that word, the rest of it still makes sense; so it should be alright
Eating meat itself is bad and ignorant. Does it make everyone who does it bad person? Not necessarily. Maybe they are, but maybe they are a good person in other aspects, they can save someone's life.
I judge eating meat, but I don't judge a person
95% of people on earth either can't afford, or are otherwise not able to both plan an execute a vegan diet. Are you judging all of their actions or just the remaining 5%?
I think that the extent to which people would be repulsed by taking part in modern animal agriculture is a function of how protected we have been from its realities by the methods themselves. The act of rearing and killing, butchering and eating would not be repulsive to many people we went back only 100 years or so.
Being protected from its realities is more likely to cause it to repulse when the facts of it are discovered.
It’s ironic that the act of making animals foods easier to access may well lead to more people choosing not to eat them.
50% of people live on less than 10 USD per day, which needs to cover all expenses. For 85% of the world its cheaper to get their protein from chicken rather than beans. That leaves 15%, and the question is - how many of them would be able to plan and execute a healthy vegan diet? 5% perhaps? About 1% are already vegan, which means advocacy efforts are effectively directed at the remaining 4%.
So 95% of people may eat animal-based foods - and vegans see it as perfectly ok. And then only 4% are doing something horrifically immoral and urgently need to change their lives..
This is why veganism doesnt make sense.
That's a lotta numbers. I'm sold.