I’m not a vegetarian, but I play one on TV. I do enforce a no more than once a day meat diet.

My main problem with PETA is that they emphasize their moral superiority over actual effectiveness. Not unlike anti-choicers who don’t ever pass laws that would actually reduce abortions, but lets them feel all warm for making a stand.

I’ve got a few things written up about PETA here and there, and I agree—they’re not a damn bit effective.

Wanna promote vegetarianism? Get some cardiologists to talk about vegetarianism as a heart-healthy diet.

Wanna promote yourself as an organization cram-packed with world-class jerks? Do just what PETA does.

Any tactic that successfully conns young women into stripping naked in public is OK with me.

Shame on you, JL. You shouldn’t be lusting after women; they are meat as you are meat as I am meat and we are all ... inedible.

Amanda, yet another post that makes me want to treat you to an adult bev next time I’m in Austin..

Fuck off, JL.  I didn’t say they were “conned”, and there’s absolutely something disgusting about men whose sexual arousal rises as the level of consent of the woman involved goes down.  Of course, I’m utterly unsurprised that Sugar Ray agrees with you.  He probably thinks consent is “anti-male”.

Yes, it’s pretty sad when a vegan advocate doesn’t grasp the naturalistic fallacy. Conceded that Newkirk is an idiot.

I don’t anticipate a world where everyone is a vegetarian, nor do I really desire that.

Because animals don’t deserve to live.

Amanda, what you know about me, my intentions, my motivations, you could fit in your Cracker Jacks version of your Little Red Book.

Grammar, that’s exactly the absolutist attitude that doesn’t fly with me.  What animals, for instance, do you expect me to sacrifice to show that I think every animal deserves to live?  My cats or the animals ground up in their food?

Sugar Ray, you show up and educate everyone about what you are like.  You haven’t hidden that you intend to argue that men are defined by domination, and equality is “anti-male”.  Or that you are a megawatt asshole.  If you thought you were cleverly hiding these facts, you also revealed that you are even fucking dumber than I could have guessed.

Amanda, what you know about me, my intentions, my motivations, you could fit in your Cracker Jacks version of your Little Red Book.

Sugar Ray Republican

But SRR, I have a full dossier on you mind, heart, and soul right here in my unabridged, unexpurgated leather copy of The Necromonicon by Abdul “The Mad Arab” Alhazred. You’re the third entry under ‘minor nuisances and cannon fodder’.

“Because animals don’t deserve to live.”

They know what they did.

It almost feels trite to point out that the “biological fact” excuse is exactly the one used by meat eaters, is it not?  Our bodies digest meat, and we crave it.  Therefore it’s justified.  End of story.

Sometimes I’ve seen people try to use the opposite end of this argument—humans are engineered to eat plants, not animals!—and it’s even stupider.  If we were engineered to eat plants, we’d have a couple more stomachs.

What we are engineered for is being omnivores—we’ll eat pretty much anything.  I often wonder who the heck looked at a lobster and thought, “Ooh, that looks yummy!” So arguments that humans as rational beings can choose for themselves have a lot more weight with me than trying to pretend we didn’t evolve the way we did.  That’s the lefty version of “the earth was created in 6 24-hour days!”

I will say that if I die alone with my cats, I do not begrudge them their rights to eat me.  I hope they wait until I’m all dead, and in exchange for this favor, I scratch their bellies.

BTW, atheist wins the thread.

Grammar, that’s exactly the absolutist attitude that doesn’t fly with me.  What animals, for instance, do you expect me to sacrifice to show that I think every animal deserves to live?  My cats or the animals ground up in their food?

There’s been no serious attempt to synthesize dietary replacements for the animal proteins in cat food. But given the state of modern science, and the breakthroughs in protein sequencing that we are seeing right now and expect within the next few decades, there’s no reason for you to propose that this is an intractable dilemma.

Also, the fact that your cats can’t currently live on a vegan diet has nothing to do with the fact that every human here already can.

I’ve never had a vegan explain to me what would happen to cows and chickens were everyone a vegan.

I grew up near farms. Cows are dumb as a brick. They’d go extinct in a few decades in the wild. Chickens are smart, but mean as hell and would be deep frying us if they were more highly evolved. You don’t want to keep them as pets, and in the wild they’d turn into pests real fast.

Pigs? I don’t eat pork. Because pigs are smart and nice. They would do just fine--probably become domesticated pets.

Now, I’m all for free range/organic etc, and hate factory farms.

Also, I’m pretty sure you were talking about humans when you said “I don’t anticipate a world where everyone is a vegetarian, nor do I really desire that.” I responded to a statement about humans. It’s fine for you to bring up your cats, but unfair to simultaneously accuse me of (implied unreasonable) absolutism concerning them.

Funny how “whathaveyou” doesn’t include any male bits. Apparently Newkirk has decided to be upfront about her misogyny: straight women aren’t people. They’re just publicity tools.

This is what some of the wackier cults in the 1960s referred to “flirty fishing”: using sex to try to get people to agree with you. Mostly what it does is attract the kind of asshole who thinks it’s funny to pretend to agree with you just long enough to get some.

I’ve never had a vegan explain to me what would happen to cows and chickens were everyone a vegan.

It won’t happen overnight, of course. People figure out morality pretty slowly, as even the last few centuries since the Enlightenment have depressingly shown.

But even in that magical overnight scenario, there’s no reason to release domesticated animals into the wild. Let them die natural deaths at the ends of good lives where they’re well cared for.

Chickens are not mean. I’m sorry, but I’ve known chickens personally. If they are handled from youth, they get along with humans just fine.

Grammar, desert has nothing to do with it. It just ain’t that simple. It is possible to both eat meat and be conscious of and invested in the reduction of animal suffering. We do need to eat less meat. In fact, we need to eat a lot less meat. But just don’t buy the argument that killing animals for the purpose of food is wrong, full stop. Animals eat other animals. So do we. Being human means that we have greater responsibility for the pain we cause other animals then do other predators, but that responsibility is to ourselves, not really to the animals we eat. And it doesn’t preclude the eating of meat.

I have the same “problem” with certain vegans (if you want to call it a problem) I have with evangelical Christians and Mac users--the moral superiority complex and general pushiness.

*Doesn’t apply to all vegans, Mac users, or even evangelicals--just the more obnoxious ones.

Animals eat other animals. So do we.

See the aforementioned naturalistic fallacy that Amanda called out Newkirk on. You just did it.

Look, we also kill other humans. Doesn’t make it right.

Animals exhibit a preference for living. Their lives are their own, and they have rightful claim to their own bodies. To take away their lives, when you don’t even have to, is cruelty in and of itself.

Grammar, I am a vegetarian and yet I get scolded about Teh Animal Murder as if I were a meat eater.  It inclines me to wonder if this is really about reducing animal suffering as much as it is about feeling self-righteous, because otherwise it might be worth considering that I’m more an ally than The Enemy on this.  But it’s true---I do think that we are animals and as animals, we’re going to interact with other biological beings, plant and animal, and sometimes it will be win-win, and sometimes someone is not going to come out well for it.  I can’t hate a tiger for eating a person, so I can’t hate a person for vice versa. 

I do think that animal cruelty hardens people and makes them cruel, and it should be avoided.  And I think that the disaster of CAFOs is an emergency situation we need to quit ignoring right now.  But the absolutist position tends to make people tune you out when animals are mentioned at all, even if you’re not assaulting the act of meat-eating per se, but saying it should be, like all things, done in moderation with an eye towards being better people and having a cleaner world.

Sometimes I feel the absolutist vibe in me, because I really love animals.  And then I’ll squash a roach or my cat will grab a bird and I’ll let her kill it rather than deal with it, and I remember that some amount of death is part and parcel of different species interacting.

Grammar, you assume that morality is like a physical law of nature, waiting for us to discover and accept it. Like evolution, or gravitation. But morality isn’t a law of nature. There is no objective ethics. Morality is like language - we are (almost) all born with the capacity to learn to speak and understand the speech of others. There’s no particular reason to believe that we will speak your language, particularly when you remember that the morality of causing animal suffering has nothing to do with the animals beyond their capacity to experience pain. I don’t think that the range of human feeling about this is likely to become unified enough to produce a species of avowed vegans.

Also, your optimism for the state of progress in biochemistry and polymer science is charming but misplaced.

The vast majority of humans do not kill other humans intentionally as a matter of course. In fact, if a person does that, he’s widely recognized to suffer some kind of defect. Even soldiers, who are ordered to kill, often have horrible effects from having to carry out an order like that (PTSD etc.).

Bears, wolves, lions, and humans, kill other animals as food normally.

And Grammar, I’d far rather the research dollars that would go into creating a synthetic protein for cats go towards, oh, creating a shot to cure people of cat allergies so more cats can find homes.  Just off the top of my head idea of a better use of limited resources.

Being human means that we have greater responsibility for the pain we cause other animals then do other predators, but that responsibility is to ourselves, ot really to the animals

This hasn’t been a popular argument since the nineteenth century. The assertion is that hurting animals corrupts the mind/soul of the perpetrator. It follows that if someone knows what he’s doing and is cool with the consequences to himself, then blowtorching his own dog is a victimless action, like chewing tobacco.

No one seriously believes that.

Blowtorching a dog is a lot more serious than blowtorching a TV set, but not nearly as serious as blowtorching a human.

Frying your dog is a bigger deal than frying ants.

There’s a scale.

For the record, the bird thing happened once and it was inside my house.  I do not let my cats kill birds outside, because I am aware of the songbird depletion problem.  This one had the misfortune to fly down my chimney.  But I wasn’t going to cry over it or anything.  I was mostly annoyed, and I refuse to see this as evidence of sociopathy on my part, or whatever animal rights people would say.

I don’t really see humans as somehow above animals.  I truly think we are just another species in a diverse world. I think that believing humans are somehow above animals (therefore not-animal) an egotistical fallacy that, in most people, makes them disregard animal intelligence or animal feelings or animal suffering.  But it’s also the fallacy that feeds absolutist animal rights argument, because we look at other animals kill and we feel superior to them because we are better than that or can be.  I disagree.  Inter-species interactions are pretty diverse.  Some times it’s killing and eating and sometimes it’s avoidance and sometimes happy symbiosis, such as the pet/person relationship.

See the aforementioned naturalistic fallacy that Amanda called out Newkirk on. You just did it.

Look, we also kill other humans. Doesn’t make it right.

Animals exhibit a preference for living. Their lives are their own, and they have rightful claim to their own bodies. To take away their lives, when you don’t even have to, is cruelty in and of itself.

I’m not committing a fallacy, I’m pointing out that our moral qualms about animal suffering are strictly anthropogenic. The point is not that killing animals is natural, therefore it is morally acceptable. The point is that the killing or harming of animals by other animals is neither morally right nor wrong, so morality comes into it because we’re involved. What I’m trying to draw out of this is the fact that our involvement does not ipso facto mean that our actions are NOT moral, which is essentially what you are saying: we are human, so when we cause any harm or violence at all, it is not moral.

A point: are there times when killing other people is morally acceptable? Such as in self-defense in fear for your life? What about by accident? What about more controversial situations.

As for “preference for living,” what do you mean by that? If you mean that animals are going to pursue actions that are likely to keep them alive, how does that tell us anything meaningful? ALL living organisms do this. Plants seem to show a preference for living as well. So do bacteria. They don’t even have nervous systems! Is that where we draw the line, then? Of course, insects have nervous systems, but they probably have about as much autonomy and ability to feel pain as does your typical marigold. So we need to go further up. But where? Where is the line and how do we justify where we draw it?

That is, of course, leaving aside those times (inconvenient for your argument) when animals DON’T show a preference for life. Sick, injured or old animals that just give up eating, or insects that finish mating and just die.

Do you get that you’re making a purely arbitrary, entirely subjective judgment here? This has everything to do with us. Just us! We DO need to give ourselves rules, because we are aware that animals are capable of suffering, but we’re just going to have to accept that, when you get right down to it, our boundaries will be totally arbitrary. And for that reason, it is for some extent true that the eating of meat is acceptable because, well, animals eat animals and so do we.

Ok, Grammar, what about vegans who don’t think people should have pets? Can you explain that because I don’t get it.

I wouldn’t say it’s being “above” that sounds a little 19th-Century, but sentient beings (this could include apes and dolphins as well as humans) have more rights than non-sentient ones. Just like a dog has more rights than an ant.

“I was mostly annoyed, and I refuse to see this as evidence of sociopathy on my part, or whatever animal rights people would say.”

...don’t worry.  Somebody else will see it at evidence of sociopathy on your part…

***

I’m fascinated by these socio/political arguments.  The more absolutist people become, the more likely intra-group attacks will take their toll.  And there’s no limit to being absolutist.

I’m watching to see when a vigorous plants-rights movement forms…

“Even soldiers, who are ordered to kill, often have horrible effects from having to carry out an order like that (PTSD etc.).”

There are lots of people capable of killing without remorse or resulting psychological trauma. We call them sociopaths and, thankfully, they’re not the majority. I’m way out of my league in suggesting this, but I’ve always thought that maybe they aren’t diseased in the way that abnormal psychology textbooks suggest, but merely in possession of a different kind of human brain. For obvious reasons it’s better for the species that they not be the dominant type so we’ve evolved to only have enough to fill positions as politicians, the military and the occasional serial killer.

Basically, I don’t think there’s any such thing as “normal”, nor do I think that humans are inherently peaceful. That kind of essentialist thinking about people is just as dumb as PETA’s romanticized view of animals.

No one seriously believes that.

Well, that’s certainly a relief, seeing as that’s not what I said.

We are not accountable as individuals. We are accountable to the rules and morality of the culture that we live in. Do you seriously think that Mr. Blowtorch is accountable to the DOG? Nope. He is accountable to his neighbors who understand that blowtorching a dog is a sick, evil thing to do.

“...but sentient beings (this could include apes and dolphins as well as humans) have more rights than non-sentient ones. Just like a dog has more rights than an ant.”

Ben, I never realized what a brainist you were.  I’m not sure my mom will let me play with you anymore… :(

I’m way out of my league in suggesting this, but I’ve always thought that maybe they aren’t diseased in the way that abnormal psychology textbooks suggest, but merely in possession of a different kind of human brain.

That’s an entirely valid viewpoint.

Grammar, I am a vegetarian and yet I get scolded about Teh Animal Murder as if I were a meat eater.  It inclines me to wonder if this is really about reducing animal suffering as much as it is about feeling self-righteous,

1) The dairy industry is the veal industry.

2) I didn’t accuse you of anything except pessimism. If less unnecessary death is a good thing, why isn’t it even better to try to approach zero?

3) I’m trying to be super respectful, and I’m just answering fallacious arguments as they come up. I do the same thing on the topics of evolution, and abortion, whenever I feel I can help.

But it’s true---I do think that we are animals and as animals, we’re going to interact with other biological beings, plant and animal, and sometimes it will be win-win, and sometimes someone is not going to come out well for it.

I agree. Not a reason to give up.

I can’t hate a tiger for eating a person, so I can’t hate a person for vice versa. 

Who said anything about hate? Unlike the tiger, you can talk to the person and show them their error. I honestly don’t know what you’re getting at here.

and I remember that some amount of death is part and parcel of different species interacting.

Please don’t try to imply that I think otherwise. I’m just saying that humans can choose, and this makes our interaction a moral question, where we should strive to do better than we do.

But the absolutist position tends to make people tune you out when animals are mentioned at all, even if you’re not assaulting the act of meat-eating per se, but saying it should be, like all things, done in moderation with an eye towards being better people and having a cleaner world.

Well, I do believe that animals have rights. Should I shut up?

And Grammar, I’d far rather the research dollars that would go into creating a synthetic protein for cats go towards, oh, creating a shot to cure people of cat allergies so more cats can find homes.  Just off the top of my head idea of a better use of limited resources.

We do not live in a centrally planned economy, so your opinion will not affect private funding. Nor should you expect that the research you prefer wouldn’t lead to accidental discoveries in the field I’m talking about. This research will get done. But even if it doesn’t, again, it has no bearing on whether or not humans should be vegans.

I’d say if it’s not advantageous to have people like you be dominant in the species, you’re not “normal”.

I think my argument might come across as a relativist one, which I really don’t mean it to.

A better point to make is that our squeamishness about harming animals comes from our own ability to empathize. Hurting animals is bad because it makes us feel bad. That’s a healthy feeling, but it does not preclude the use of animals for food or other products provided we are able to give them a good quality of life without unnecessary suffering.

Grammar, you assume that morality is like a physical law of nature, waiting for us to discover and accept it. Like evolution, or gravitation. But morality isn’t a law of nature. There is no objective ethics. Morality is like language - we are (almost) all born with the capacity to learn to speak and understand the speech of others. There’s no particular reason to believe that we will speak your language, particularly when you remember that the morality of causing animal suffering has nothing to do with the animals beyond their capacity to experience pain. I don’t think that the range of human feeling about this is likely to become unified enough to produce a species of avowed vegans.

And even if moral realism is true, there’s no inevitability to history.

No inevitability that human slavery will ever be ended, either.

Your point is that I should shut up? Or what?

It’s interesting how we do measure other animals against ourselves, but have all these blind spots.  Like, what animal is morally superior: a cow or a cat?  (To use the animals in the picture.) Well, cows don’t kill other animals, and cats take a perverse-seeming joy in killing birds and rodents.  So, cows?  Well, but cats show much deeper and more interesting emotions.  They show love and affection towards other cats, towards people, and sometimes to dogs.  They’re clearly much more self-conscious than cows, too, because they’re playful and can feel embarrassment, which shows they’re aware of how others perceive them.  So they’re more mentally complex than cows.  Does that make them morally worth more than a cow?  Not objectively---there’s no objective morality.  But I certainly rate a cat higher.

Blowtorching a dog is a lot more serious than blowtorching a TV set, but not nearly as serious as blowtorching a human.

Frying your dog is a bigger deal than frying ants.

There’s a scale.

I wouldn’t say it’s being “above” that sounds a little 19th-Century, but sentient beings (this could include apes and dolphins as well as humans) have more rights than non-sentient ones. Just like a dog has more rights than an ant.

What follows from this is that if you’re in a dilemma, where you have to choose a dog or a child from a burning building, there’s a preference.

You aren’t in a dilemma.

You can survive right now on a vegan diet.

@mnemosyne:

“I often wonder who the heck looked at a lobster and thought, “Ooh, that looks yummy!””

Poor people did.  The Cockroach of the Sea used to be cheap protein (caviar did too).  It says something about taste, though I’m not sure what, that a food people used to eat because they couldn’t afford anything better has come to be preferred over what used to be luxuries.  Maybe it’s about relative scarcity, and the fact that no one’s managed to factory-farm lobsters yet…

Unlike the tiger, you can talk to the person and show them their error. I honestly don’t know what you’re getting at here.

Cross-species communication is not impossible or uncommon, even.  I communicate with my cats all the time, and they with me.  It’s limited---obviously, we’re on different planes---but I just don’t disdain animals’ intelligence.  They are quite clever in figuring out how to communicate subtle messages without, you know, grammar.  I respect that the tiger will eat me.  It doesn’t strike me as a flaw in tigers that they are uninterested in human motivations and reasoning and desires.  Now, I’m not saying we should be like tigers.  We shouldn’t; we’re different.  Causing suffering is a different deal for us.  But that merely complicates killing for us in a way it doesn’t for tigers.  It doesn’t mean it’s always wrong.

But it’s also the fallacy that feeds absolutist animal rights argument, because we look at other animals kill and we feel superior to them because we are better than that or can be.

Seriously? Who feels this way?

What does it even mean to feel morally superior to a tiger?

Pointing out that we can make choices and are thus morally bound to do so has nothing to do with superiority.

Arguably, it’s an existentialist terror; we are condemned by our freedom.

I don’t really see the point in getting into a go-nowhere discussion about who has intrinsic rights.  Technically, no one.  But humans bestow rights to each other.  Animals cannot enter into a social contract with us in the large scale that we can with each other.  I mean, I have a social contract with my cats.  I feed them and love them and they don’t assault my feet and treat me like authority.  But rights are an elaborate enough construction that having a wide scale rights argument outside of our species seems to deplete the word of its very specific meaning. 

I think people shouldn’t be cruel to animals.  But interspecies interactions are different than intraspecies interactions for humans.

What does it even mean to feel morally superior to a tiger?

You argued from a position of moral superiority to a tiger.  You don’t expect tigers to be vegans, because tigers can’t respond to moral appeals. That was your exact argument.  The basis of your argument is that we have morality and animals don’t.  We have a choice, and they don’t.  Because we’re higher beings, equipped with morality and they’re not.  Isn’t that your argument?

A point: are there times when killing other people is morally acceptable? Such as in self-defense in fear for your life? What about by accident? What about more controversial situations.

Yes, yes, yes, and maybe.

As for “preference for living,” what do you mean by that? If you mean that animals are going to pursue actions that are likely to keep them alive, how does that tell us anything meaningful?

“Preference” implies an awareness. Obviously anything without a nervous system isn’t implicated by that. Plants react to chemical stimuli; so do metals. This is a distraction.

Is that where we draw the line, then? Of course, insects have nervous systems, but they probably have about as much autonomy and ability to feel pain as does your typical marigold. So we need to go further up. But where? Where is the line and how do we justify where we draw it?

If insects are not known to feel pain, that has nothing to do with the fact that vertebrates are. This is a distraction. An ambiguity in insects does not excuse moral duty to those species we do know feel pain.

That is, of course, leaving aside those times (inconvenient for your argument) when animals DON’T show a preference for life. Sick, injured or old animals that just give up eating, or insects that finish mating and just die.

Not at all inconvenient, because my point is only that when we do know an animal has a preference for living, we should respect that preference.

Do you get that you’re making a purely arbitrary, entirely subjective judgment here? This has everything to do with us. Just us! We DO need to give ourselves rules, because we are aware that animals are capable of suffering, but we’re just going to have to accept that, when you get right down to it, our boundaries will be totally arbitrary. And for that reason, it is for some extent true that the eating of meat is acceptable because, well, animals eat animals and so do we.

You made a flying leap there. No, the existence of pain is not arbitrary. If you’re saying that we have no inherent obligations to beings that cannot argue in their own defense, then we have no inherent obligation toward severely mentally disabled humans. I do not accept the premise.

Benquo--

In China, “peasant food” is the new fad of the rich there. Basically, the food their grandparents ate when they were nearly starving. Similar, huh? Humans are weird.

Ok, Grammar, what about vegans who don’t think people should have pets? Can you explain that because I don’t get it.

It’s complicated, and related to the problem of animals as property. http://abolitionistapproach.com would be a good place to start.

If we can develop a legal paradigm where humans are legal guardians of companion animals, with the responsibilities that entails, then I part ways with the “no pets” crowd.

I can’t really explain it more than that since that’s not my stance.

To make it clear, I think human morality evolved as a special survival strategy.  For better or worse, a lot of it appears to be based on disgust and self-righteousness instead of rational evaluations of harm reduction.  It has to be that way---most moral judgements and decisions are made faster than you can take the time to really think about it.  But the downside is evident in both the hardcore animal rights movement and the anti-choice movement---disgust and strong emotions are elevated over harm reduction because it feels more moral. 

To anti-choicers, it’s obvious that never having sex won’t kill you, and thus it’s obvious what the only truly moral behavior is---abstinence.  And to hardcore vegans, avoiding animal products is the same argument.  It’s possible, therefore you have no excuse.

The result in both cases is disaster.  When anything short of abstinence is considered equally evil and worthy of condemnation, the vast majority of people have no clue how to proceed in a way that balances their desires and presence in the world with the values of health and a peaceful society.  They have promiscuous sex without protection, because they never learned the middle road.  Or they never stop to think that they could cut their meat consumption 80% or eliminate meat but stick to dairy or, ideally, eat mostly a vegan diet but use animal products from free range sources.  But, as we’ve seen in the sex department, the middle road of harm reduction is really effective.  All goals can actually be reached---pleasure is had, but people are also safe, if they take precautions. 

Same with harm reduction strategies in humans interactions with other animal species.  We will actually serve our mutual interests with domesticated animals best if we have free range farming and reduced meat and animal product consumption.  We get a much reduced but still existing taste of the beloved products, and they get to live the farm lives their very genetics compel them to live.  We do not degrade our moral character with unnecessary and lavish cruelty, and they get to walk around, eat grass, and be as happy as cows and pigs can be.

We are not accountable as individuals. We are accountable to the rules and morality of the culture that we live in. Do you seriously think that Mr. Blowtorch is accountable to the DOG? Nope. He is accountable to his neighbors who understand that blowtorching a dog is a sick, evil thing to do.

Of course he is accountable to the dog. If he’s not, then all that matters is whether he soundproofs his basement so his neighbors don’t have to hear the dog’s screams.

Please, somebody else speak up here and say I’m not alone in believing that a dog has a right to not be tortured. Ben D., I believe you’ve already implied as much, yes?

A better point to make is that our squeamishness about harming animals comes from our own ability to empathize. Hurting animals is bad because it makes us feel bad.

This is a radical relativist viewpoint. It means that a sociopath cannot do wrong if he cannot experience empathy.

It means that when slavery was socially acceptable, it was not wrong.

Grammar, that doesn’t make sense.  By your logic, it’s only cheating if you get caught.  I don’t cheat on my boyfriend because I’m accountable to other people, including him.  But accountability stretches beyond just being really good at hiding something.  I’m sure there’s a good evolutionary reason for this, but your accountability to others is something you feel even if you know you can’t get caught.  Which is why I wouldn’t cheat on my boyfriend even if I knew for sure he’d never find out.

Blow-torching a dog, by the way, is the sort of thing Fred was talking about in his post about why people really want to believe in Satanists.  It feels really good to feel superior to people who engage in behavior that is both cruel and inexplicable.  But bringing it up in a discussion about killing animals for explicable reasons---to eat them, mainly---is a red herring.  It’s like an anti-choicer bringing up women who get knocked up and have abortions for fun to argue against abortion in general.  The horror comes from the inexplicable nature of it more than from a well-reasoned moral stance.

You argued from a position of moral superiority to a tiger.

No, he didn’t and you explain this in the very next sentence.

You don’t expect tigers to be vegans, because tigers can’t respond to moral appeals. That was your exact argument.  The basis of your argument is that we have morality and animals don’t.

Yes, this is completely true, but it in no way implies moral superiority to a tiger. Morality is a human construct. We have it, and tigers do not. That was Grammar’s point. It is impossible to be morally superior to a tiger because tigers don’t have morals. Tigers can’t be good or bad. They’re just tigers.

We have a choice, and they don’t.  Because we’re higher beings, equipped with morality and they’re not.  Isn’t that your argument?

Logical fail. Humans invented the very idea of morality. It doesn’t make us higher or better or anything else. But, to argue tigers do have morality is just ridiculous.

Mythago - exactly.  I don’t have an issue with nudity, but the fact that it is 100% women, and I guess straight women must like looking at boobs but not a naked man?  Give me an ad with Bill Compton from True Blood and I’d pay attention.  I wouldn’t even send PETA an exasperated email.

You argued from a position of moral superiority to a tiger.  You don’t expect tigers to be vegans, because tigers can’t respond to moral appeals. That was your exact argument.  The basis of your argument is that we have morality and animals don’t.  We have a choice, and they don’t.  Because we’re higher beings, equipped with morality and they’re not.  Isn’t that your argument?

I honestly do not understand this notion that being capable of morality makes someone morally superior. That would imply that you and I are morally superior to severely mentally disabled humans. It’s a nonsensical question with a null answer.

It’s long been a theory of mine that PETA was taken over by anti-PETA people years ago, and has been attempting to destroy the group from within ever since.

Well, not really, but is there a more rational explanation for their horribly misguided media campaigns?

Slavery comparisons are also insulting and not appropriate.  We can’t project our understanding of liberty on animals. We should observe them and try to understand them as they are.  Slavery was about members our own species, who can in fact enter into a social contract because, you know, same species.

By the way, the anti-pet ownership thing is a classic example of how people who claim to be for animal rights are doing so because they see humans as not-animals, but superior to animals in a way that elevates us out of being debased animals.  They see pets as something that humans own, and really, a good pet/person relationship isn’t like that.  It’s more a classic symbiotic relationship. 

Unfortunately for we vegetarians, so is the cow/human relationship. Their existence, like corn or many other vegetables, depends on our desire to eat them.

Tigers can’t be good or bad. They’re just tigers.

Isn’t that exactly saying that we’re superior because we have elevated things like morality, instead of like the debased tiger?  It’s very religious, that, like saying we’re closer to the angels.

i hate the exploitation of animals, and i do not eat or wear them. it was a decision i made a long time ago. i also, more so, hate the exploitation of any people, and the misogyny towards women in the name of animal rights achieves neither. i hate thinking of other living beings killed through electric shocks stuck up their anus. using naked women exploits women for the sake of animals, and detracts from the overall cause of respecting real, living beings. the way peta has gone about animal equality isn’t effective, and it’s taking away their ability to make moral judgments. i love animals. animals are not people, and i hate seeing women exploiting their bodies because they’re told it will save animals’. protecting the one should not necessitate anyone, anywhere, getting naked.

Grammar, that doesn’t make sense.  By your logic, it’s only cheating if you get caught.

What statement of mine are you referring to? That is the opposite of my logic. I think you are mistaking my rephrasing of grolby’s argument for my own, and your objection relates to grolby, not me.

Blow-torching a dog, by the way, is the sort of thing Fred was talking about in his post about why people really want to believe in Satanists.  It feels really good to feel superior to people who engage in behavior that is both cruel and inexplicable.

Amanda, I never accuse you of arguing in bad faith. Will you please, just this once, return me the favor of not making the assumption that I’m in this for feelings of moral superiority?

The point about the dog is not irrelevant; it’s a moral thought experiment. The hope was that people would click through. Instead, I will copy and paste here, so the context becomes clear for everyone reading:

In his book Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog, Gary Francione proposes a stunning hypothetical that illustrates the problems with the way that we view animals in our culture. To take Francione’s hypothetical, imagine that there’s a nasty bastard named Simon the Sadist who gets off on torturing a dog by burning the dog with a blowtorch. Now, as a non-facetious question, ask yourself: is there anything wrong with this? If you’re like us, you can’t say “hell yeah!” quickly enough. Anyone with any moral conscience whatsoever can see that there’s plenty wrong with this scenario. As far as we can tell, Simon is subjecting a dog to horrible torture, and it is clear that the dog suffers for this torture. It squeals in pain, it recoils, and it pulls away. Were we to ask Simon why he was torturing the dog, his only response would be that he enjoys doing it, that it gives him great pleasure.

This seems objectionable to most reasonable people. Here’s a whack-job who’s torturing dogs because he feels like it and enjoys it. Beyond that, he can’t really give us any other reason. We’re going to venture a guess and say that you don’t have to be a vegan to find this deeply problematic. But why do we find it so very problematic? If asked, most reasonable people would say the dog feels pain, and would agree that dogs should not be subjected to undue pain. The dog knows that he’s being tortured and has every interest in not being tortured further. Seems pretty clear, right? In the end, most of us would simply say that there’s no need for it.

In addition, most people would likely extend this kind of thinking outward to other animals as well. Most folks would say that we shouldn’t blowtorch cows or pigs or chickens or anything else either. And when we see these kinds of animal abuse cases, we’re usually completely shocked by them. This kind of blatant torture and death feels unnecessary to us, because we understand that at some level animals suffer. Most people--whether vegan or not--would understand these kinds of problems and object to them.

If most people can agree that these things hold, then how can most people eat meat, dairy, and eggs? If we can agree that animals should not face undue suffering for our pleasure, how can we justify killing animals for meat? As many vegans show, it is completely feasible to live a healthy and vital life without animal products of any kind. Considering that we can live quite well without animal products, our consumption of animal products cannot be chalked up to anything but preference and tradition. And if we truly have an interest in keeping animals free from suffering, our preference for meat is no more valid than Simon’s preference for blow torching animals.

Slavery comparisons are also insulting and not appropriate.

And I didn’t make one. The point was confined to grolby’s notion that morality cannot extend beyond the groups that invent it, and the point is relevant there.

In order to demonstrate that such reasoning is fallacious, it is necessary to show how it would hurt a group that we already understand to deserve better.

I gave up on PETA when it came out that they were euthanizing the stray dogs and other pets they took into their “shelters,” and sneaking the bodies into Dumpsters so no one would find out. Ethical treatment my ass.

I am an omnivore - I have the biological plumbing and chemistry to eat pretty much anything not intrinsically poisonous and/or excessively putrid.  I can choose to eat only plants, if I desire, since that is a valid subset of food eaten by omnivores.  But, I can also eat the tender juicy meat, too.  Agriculture is simply humans using their natureal weapons, ie brains, to make food gathering easier.  The only practical difference between me and a tiger is that his happy ass has to actually hunt down food, while my bigger brain (or more precisely, the bigger brains of lots of people before me) lets me get pre-aquired, pre-killed, pre-dismembered meat from the grocery store.  There is no morality to it, just the human survival strategy of using the noggin to feed itself.

Do I want to kill my dog?  No.  He is a companion, and I choose to not put him on the menu.  Would I eat my neighbor’s dog? No - it would count as stealing.  A stray? No - chance of disease, parisites, etc. too high.  Would I eat a dog raised specifically for consumption?  Maybe - still have some socially ingrained taboos, but might try it if in the mood.  Now, if things were wildly out of whack and it was down to my dog or intense hunger: his ass is going in a stewpot - I might feel sadness for losing the companion, but he’s a valid protein source.  Just because it has sappy eyes does not mean an animal is somehow exempt from the food chain (or that it has eyes at all; explain any meaningful difference between a cow and a carrot, foodwise - why is killing the cow bad, but the carrot okay?)

I am against animal cruelty because it represents being cruel for cruelty’s sake; caging birds makes their meat taste crappy - free-range birds are more finger-licking.  So are cows fed in pasture.  None of it improves anything except the manufacturer’s bottom line - being an ass to animals doesn;t provide anything positive to the consuption, so I oppose alot of crap the meat industry does - not because I think chickens are nice creatures (for the record, they tend to be insane little psycho-bastards; and cows have less brainpower than slightly retarded bricks)

By the way, the anti-pet ownership thing is a classic example of how people who claim to be for animal rights are doing so because they see humans as not-animals, but superior to animals in a way that elevates us out of being debased animals.  They see pets as something that humans own, and really, a good pet/person relationship isn’t like that.  It’s more a classic symbiotic relationship. 

Please educate yourself on the actual argument before you jump to these conclusions.

The reason that CAFOs exist is that animals are, currently, legal property. This not the matter of opinion that you present it as, and your subsequent reasoning, about debasement or whatever, simply does not follow.

Isn’t that exactly saying that we’re superior because we have elevated things like morality, instead of like the debased tiger?  It’s very religious, that, like saying we’re closer to the angels.

No. You are the one who keeps saying this. Again, that same reasoning would imply that you and I are morally superior to severely mentally disabled humans. That would be a nonsensical moral judgment against disabled humans, but you’re the one who keeps repeating it, not me.

I HATE PETA.  Their constant attacks against biomedical research is unforgivable.  I don’t think the argument against PETA is even about whether you are for or against animal rights or suffering.  Their only point is to create publicity.  They rail againt biomedical researchers killing rats, yet they have never, to my knowledge, protested against the makers of rat poison or mouse traps.  There are SO MANY regulations and oversight procedures to make sure research animals are treated as humanely as possible.  As a scientist, I know first hand how much work goes into making sure the animals are treated well.  Rat poison and mouse traps are horrible and inhumane ways of killing animals, why the hell doesn’t PETA ever target them? 

http://www.rds-online.org.uk/

“If most people can agree that these things hold, then how can most people eat meat, dairy, and eggs?”

Milking a cow just as bad as taking a blowtorch to it?

Sometimes I wonder why I hate vegans so much, and then they come along and remind me.

To anti-choicers, it’s obvious that never having sex won’t kill you, and thus it’s obvious what the only truly moral behavior is---abstinence.  And to hardcore vegans, avoiding animal products is the same argument.  It’s possible, therefore you have no excuse.

The result in both cases is disaster.  When anything short of abstinence is considered equally evil and worthy of condemnation, the vast majority of people have no clue how to proceed in a way that balances their desires and presence in the world with the values of health and a peaceful society.  They have promiscuous sex without protection, because they never learned the middle road.  Or they never stop to think that they could cut their meat consumption 80% or eliminate meat but stick to dairy or, ideally, eat mostly a vegan diet but use animal products from free range sources.  But, as we’ve seen in the sex department, the middle road of harm reduction is really effective.  All goals can actually be reached---pleasure is had, but people are also safe, if they take precautions. 

qft

That’s the most succinct I’ve heard the argument for the value and importance of moderation made. Thank you, I think that’s exactly the right take to illustrate the importance of small change and the middle road in living together as a society.

To anti-choicers, it’s obvious that never having sex won’t kill you, and thus it’s obvious what the only truly moral behavior is---abstinence.  And to hardcore vegans, avoiding animal products is the same argument.  It’s possible, therefore you have no excuse.

This is a false equivalence. Two humans can enter into mutually consensual sex, rationally informed of the possible consequences. How does an animal consent to being murdered?

The result in both cases is disaster.  When anything short of abstinence is considered equally evil and worthy of condemnation, the vast majority of people have no clue how to proceed in a way that balances their desires and presence in the world with the values of health and a peaceful society.  They have promiscuous sex without protection, because they never learned the middle road.

The difference is that sex is actually not wrong, while murdering animals is. The anti-sex freak is asking people to defy morality, while the vegan is asking you to live up to it. I invoke the punkassblog defense.

We will actually serve our mutual interests with domesticated animals best if we have free range farming and reduced meat and animal product consumption.

How is it in an individual animal’s interest to be murdered for human consumption?

Milking a cow just as bad as taking a blowtorch to it?

Sometimes I wonder why I hate vegans so much, and then they come along and remind me.

Thanks for keeping the discourse civil.

Nobody said “just as bad.” Cows raised for milk do not live good lives, and then they are slaughtered and eaten. The point is that this is unnecessary. And if we recognize that unnecessary suffering is wrong in one case, why not another? It doesn’t have to be “just as bad.” It’s still not good.

I have two bird feeders and a birdbath in my backyard, which yield me a yearlong cacophany/symphony. Of course the cats and the hawks target the trees where the feeders hang, and occasionally they get fed, too, with which I am not cool.

My brothers have fond feelings towards raptors, and object when I express violent antipathy towards them and boast of chasing them off with a squirt gun (when the crows alert me by squawking “Hawk! Hawk!").

However, my question is whether I should let my mother take home her uneaten chicken lunch and set it out for the crows.

Or they never stop to think that they could cut their meat consumption 80% or eliminate meat but stick to dairy or, ideally, eat mostly a vegan diet but use animal products from free range sources.  But, as we’ve seen in the sex department, the middle road of harm reduction is really effective.  All goals can actually be reached---pleasure is had, but people are also safe, if they take precautions.

All goals are reached? Like the individual animal’s goal of not being murdered? False equivalence between a victimless action like consensual sex, and murder of animals who are obviously victims, just does not hold up.

And it is actually your stance, that some murder is okay and we’ll just have to live with it forever, that leads to moral confusion and ineffectual action. It’s incoherent to say that it’s a good idea to try to stop arbitrary% of murders but stop there. If it’s acceptable to stop at 100-arbitrary%, then murder isn’t wrong, and there was no point in trying to stop any in the first place.

Does it ever occur to PETA types that domestication of animals as food providers and food themselves has actually been a fairly successful evolutionary trait? Cows are one of the most successful animals out there, as far as getting their genes into the next generation is concerned, far more successful than, say, zebras, which can’t be domesticated as far as I know. Same goes for chickens as compared to raptors, for example. Those animals developed the ability to live with and near humans and as a result, their ranks have swelled tremendously. Other animals that we don’t use as foodstuffs have adopted the same strategy in a matter of speaking--pigeons, for example, are highly successful precisely because they live with humans.

And if we recognize that unnecessary suffering is wrong in one case, why not another? It doesn’t have to be “just as bad.” It’s still not good.

In other words, you do think that milking a cow is on the same moral spectrum as burning it with a blowtorch.

Let’s say there was no factory farming, since you say that’s your concern.  We could all have our own little apartment cows to provide us with milk and keep our own chickens for eggs.  Still on the same moral spectrum as burning it with a blowtorch?

“Preference” implies an awareness. Obviously anything without a nervous system isn’t implicated by that. Plants react to chemical stimuli; so do metals. This is a distraction.

No, you’re just being neuro-centric.  Plants are living things, with genetic codes they seek to propagate, just like us animals.  They grow, they reproduce, they respond to stimuli, they metabolize, and they can die, just like us.  They respire, they have circulatory systems, they regulate their bodies with hormones, just like us.

Plants have a physiological response to injury much like that connected to the experience we call pain, and this response can even be blocked by certain chemicals that we use as painkillers; in a nutshell, plants experience pain.

To assert that plants merely “respond to chemical stimuli” like a lump of non-living matter is to grossly distort or misrepresent biology (and chemistry; a “lump of metal” doesn’t react to chemical stimuli, it reacts WITH them) in support of your preferred ideology, and that is just unacceptable.

By refusing to consider that plants are living, breathing organisms just like the animals you consider immoral to eat, you reveal more about your personal biases than about the ethical merit of your argument.

Grammar, just shut the fuck up.  You sound like a fucking fundamentalist telling everyone here that they’re going to Hell for not kissing the Divine Ass.  Just shut up, get out, take your shit back to the Teenage Self-Righteousness Factory you got it from and return it for being defective.

Grammar RWA, this really isn’t about whether veganism is right or wrong or whether animals’ lives have value. It’s about PETA. If you’re opposed to the exploitation of animals, you’d no doubt object to using a trained elephant to do cute tricks to get people to donate to “Save the Elephants”, because it’s still exploiting and mistreating the animal. “But it’s for a good cause” doesn’t justify the means.

Likewise, if you view women as at least equal to animals, you probably don’t think much of the idea of using “ooooo boobies!” as a way to pretend you’re converting people to veganism and the love of animal rights. (Did all those nice young women posing for PETA join the movement because they want to see more boobies? Doubt it.) And if you did believe that sex sells and is a fine way to convert people to the way of nonviolence to all species, then you’d probably want to have some men doing sexy stunts in public, too, to lure in women and gay men.

Funnily, PETA doesn’t do that. They encourage young female PETA members to do stunts that have just about nothing to do with converting people to their way of thinking. For example, having two women shower together on a street corner to promote the idea that raising meat animals wastes water. Do you think that’s really the message people took away?

What T&A;stunts do accomplish is getting PETA publicity. That’s really all Newkirk cares about. Not the animals.

I am an omnivore - I have the biological plumbing and chemistry to eat pretty much anything not intrinsically poisonous and/or excessively putrid.  I can choose to eat only plants, if I desire, since that is a valid subset of food eaten by omnivores.  But, I can also eat the tender juicy meat, too.  Agriculture is simply humans using their natureal weapons, ie brains, to make food gathering easier.

When the discussion has already several times covered the naturalistic fallacy, you shouldn’t make it again.

You are trying to derive “ought” from “is”. If “is” implied “ought” then murdering humans would be okay because we used to murder humans. It doesn’t work. See David Hume, G. E. Moore, or failing that, Wikipedia.

Now, if things were wildly out of whack and it was down to my dog or intense hunger: his ass is going in a stewpot - I might feel sadness for losing the companion, but he’s a valid protein source.

And notice how you brought this up. You intuitively reach for the situation where starvation is imminent. Fine. But that does not imply that it’s okay to murder an animal when you aren’t starving, when it’s not necessary.

<blockquote>explain any meaningful difference between a cow and a carrot, foodwise - why is killing the cow bad, but the carrot okay?</blockquot>

Please. Carrots don’t have brains to feel pain. You just declared you aren’t participating in a serious discussion. Don’t troll.

Grammar RWA, this really isn’t about whether veganism is right or wrong or whether animals’ lives have value. It’s about PETA.

And I already said Newkirk was an idiot. I don’t like PETA, for sexism and other reasons.

If several people reply about veganism and morality, then the thread is also about that.

Look, if you want to get people to become vegans expose them to the coldly logical arguments of Peter Singer and James Rachels. They make the case that it’s not so much the killing that is wrong, but the suffering inherent in raising animals as food that is wrong. It’s quite possible that in many cases raising animals to produce eggs and milk might cause more suffering than raising animals for meat.

I do not eat milk or eggs, but I do eat meat several times a week. I think I cause less suffering than those who do not eat meat yet still eat milk and eggs. I have a supply of feral pork and grass fed beef. These animals live free until the last day or two of their lives. This is a better life than most factory farmed animals get.

Does it ever occur to PETA types that domestication of animals as food providers and food themselves has actually been a fairly successful evolutionary trait? Cows are one of the most successful animals out there, as far as getting their genes into the next generation is concerned, far more successful than, say, zebras, which can’t be domesticated as far as I know.

And if we’re going to view everything from the viewpoint of the selfish gene, then it’s acceptable for you to murder any human as long as you clone them twice.

It follows that if someone knows what he’s doing and is cool with the consequences to himself, then blowtorching his own dog is a victimless action, like chewing tobacco.
No one seriously believes that.

Well, I do. I’d never do it to any pet of my own, but pets are property and if someone wants to do that to his own, for whatever reason, that makes me think somewhat less of him - and I’d wonder what kind of person would torture an animal like that for no good reason - but it’s not any of my business.

I don’t think it was any of my business that Michael Vick wanted to run a dogfighting ring. I don’t think highly of him for doing it, but as long as he wasn’t stealing the dogs, and as long as he took care of the mess, why should I give a shit?

I dunno, maybe it’s studying biology. The closer you are to the natural world - the actual natural world, not an idealized Garden of Eden full of My Little Ponies - I think, honestly, the less you’re inclined to give a shit about vegetarianism or legal prosecution of animal cruelty.

In other words, you do think that milking a cow is on the same moral spectrum as burning it with a blowtorch.

Let’s say there was no factory farming, since you say that’s your concern.  We could all have our own little apartment cows to provide us with milk and keep our own chickens for eggs.  Still on the same moral spectrum as burning it with a blowtorch?

No, but you’re still treating animals as property. If they are property, then people will still be legally murdering them for food. This hypothetical is also rather divorced from reality, and is a distraction from the moral issue that you can deal with right now. “What if...” ignores real suffering, right now.

Please, somebody else speak up here and say I’m not alone in believing that a dog has a right to not be tortured.

What, a right? Like, from the government?

Seriously?

There’s been no serious attempt to synthesize dietary replacements for the animal proteins in cat food. But given the state of modern science, and the breakthroughs in protein sequencing that we are seeing right now and expect within the next few decades, there’s no reason for you to propose that this is an intractable dilemma.

This is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read in my life. Seriously, WTF?

Carrots don’t have brains to feel pain.

Would we cut down trees if they screamed? Maybe, if they screamed all the time for no good reason.

No, you’re just being neuro-centric.

That’s a pretty good centrism. It’s the same centrism that lets us be certain that the morning-after pill is A-OK, because a blastocyst can’t experience pain.

Plants are living things, with genetic codes they seek to propagate, just like us animals.  They grow, they reproduce, they respond to stimuli, they metabolize, and they can die, just like us.  They respire, they have circulatory systems, they regulate their bodies with hormones, just like us.

Bacteria also fit this bill. Who cares? None of that implies any awareness.

Plants have a physiological response to injury much like that connected to the experience we call pain, and this response can even be blocked by certain chemicals that we use as painkillers; in a nutshell, plants experience pain.

None of this implies awareness. It’s a non sequitur to say “plants experience pain.” If they do, then point me to where this consciousness occurs.

By refusing to consider that plants are living, breathing organisms just like the animals you consider immoral to eat, you reveal more about your personal biases than about the ethical merit of your argument.

What grand assumptions you make. First, that I haven’t heard this rubbish a thousand times. Second, that I haven’t considered its merit. Again, show me where an awareness of pain occurs in plants. I’m considering it right now. Bring the evidence.

There isn’t any, and this is a distraction. Even if we were uncertain about plant pain, it wouldn’t excuse causing pain to animals who we know feel pain and have a preference to live. Even if you were making a serious argument, you’d just be offering a counsel of despair. Difficulty and ambiguity in one area would not excuse us in another.

This is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read in my life. Seriously, WTF?

What’s wrong with it, Entomologista? I ask seriously. Cats are obligate carnivores, but what’s the technological restriction that will prevent us from engineering suffering-free cat food?

Since this thread appears to still be active, another thought for you, Grammar.  A bit of Barbara Kingsolver, from her book Small Wonder:

I don’t really feel, as some have told me, that it’s a sin to eat anything with a face, nor do I believe it’s possible to live by that rule unless one maintains a certain degree of purposeful ignorance.  Butterflies and bees and locusts all have faces, and they die like lambs to the slaughter (and in greater numbers) whenever a field of vegetable food is sprayed or harvested.  Faceless?  Not the birds that eat the poisoned insects, the bunnies sliced beneath the plow, the foxes displaced from the forest-turned-to-organic-wheat-field, and so on.  If the argument is that meat comes from higher orders of life than those creatures, I wonder how the artificial, glassy-eyed construct of a bovine life gets to weigh more than the wiles of a fox or the virtuosity of a songbird.

Which is a bit of a simplification of the overall argument, but eloquently states the issue I wanted to discuss.  Unless you live on a diet of sauteed SCOBY, or you get all your food from a sealed greenhouse, your consumption is going to result in the deaths of animals.  A great number of them.

What, a right? Like, from the government?

Rights are protected by governments, not granted.

It follows that if someone knows what he’s doing and is cool with the consequences to himself, then blowtorching his own dog is a victimless action, like chewing tobacco.
No one seriously believes that.

Well, I do. I’d never do it to any pet of my own, but pets are property and if someone wants to do that to his own, for whatever reason, that makes me think somewhat less of him - and I’d wonder what kind of person would torture an animal like that for no good reason - but it’s not any of my business.

I don’t think it was any of my business that Michael Vick wanted to run a dogfighting ring. I don’t think highly of him for doing it, but as long as he wasn’t stealing the dogs, and as long as he took care of the mess, why should I give a shit?

I dunno, maybe it’s studying biology. The closer you are to the natural world - the actual natural world, not an idealized Garden of Eden full of My Little Ponies - I think, honestly, the less you’re inclined to give a shit about vegetarianism or legal prosecution of animal cruelty.

Thank you for making my point that the view of animals as property leads to immoral brutality.

Anyone else here who has a shred of empathy should read your words and tremble. You are the man of the future.

Unless you live on a diet of sauteed SCOBY, or you get all your food from a sealed greenhouse, your consumption is going to result in the deaths of animals.  A great number of them.

I am doing what I can in the world I live in today. Kingsolver offers only a counsel of despair.

A heightened awareness of both animal rights and environmental sustainability will lead to new techniques in farming. Poisons, clearcutting, current machinery, are the legacy of an attitude that is indifferent to both animals and the planet. Surely we can agree that without some tremendous consciousness raising, we’re headed toward environmental collapse. I merely propose that we include individual animals in our considerations.

No, but you’re still treating animals as property. If they are property, then people will still be legally murdering them for food.

Yes, because people in the United States slaughter their pet dogs by the millions every year so they can eat their meat.

This hypothetical is also rather divorced from reality, and is a distraction from the moral issue that you can deal with right now. “What if...” ignores real suffering, right now.

See, you keep saying you don’t do this for the rush of great moral superiority over all the rest of us evil meat-eaters and milk-drinkers, and then you come out with stuff like this.

Sure, let’s talk about the real world.  Right now, animals are being slaughtered and exploited because Heifer International sends them to developing countries.  This is the moral equivalent of the slave trade, correct?  After all, they’re taking innocent animals and sending them to places where they know perfectly well they’re going to be killed and eaten.

Look, if you want to get people to become vegans expose them to the coldly logical arguments of Peter Singer and James Rachels.

I am not a utilitarian. I believe in rights.

Thank you for making my point that the view of animals as property leads to immoral brutality.

Hardly, since I’ve never done anything immorally brutal. Sure, you object to my position. I object to yours. Neither one of us can get an “ought” from an “is”, so we’re free to argue about it, but neither one of us is objectively more right than the other. We both have the equal opportunity to try to sway society to our side, and you may very well win - you may win by practicality, since there may not be enough room in the future to raise any livestock at all. (Though animal livestock can actually produce food from land incapable of crop agriculture.) But in the short term I doubt people are going to want to put down the bacon and the cheese.

What’s wrong with it, Entomologista? I ask seriously.

What, really? Seriously? You’ve set out on a Grand Crusade to re-engineer all carnivorous life on Earth and you can’t see anything wrong with it?

Are you an idiot or just an ideologue?

Rights are protected by governments, not granted.

Debatable.  Whether certain rights are natural or legal is a classic philosophical battleground.  See here, and here.  I’d be interested to know how you think rights can exist outside of an institution or authority to uphold them.

I am not a utilitarian. I believe in rights.

How convenient for you. Meanwhile, in many parts of the world, utility is what keeps people alive. At least acknowledge that it’s your privilege that allows you to wax so poetic and high-mindedly about these things, and that lots of people don’t have that option.

Why would we go through all the trouble of synthesizing meat, supposing it were possible, when it’s walking around outside? But beyond that, it’s not really my job to educate every moron on the internet. I’m sure your local library has a good selection of biochemistry books you can check out, if you would like to know the error of your ways.

Anyone else here who has a shred of empathy should read your words and tremble. You are the man of the future.

Strictly speaking, wouldn’t he be the man of the past?  Unless you’re under the impression that things are worse for animals now than they were in, say, Victorian England.

I am doing what I can in the world I live in today. Kingsolver offers only a counsel of despair.

A heightened awareness of both animal rights and environmental sustainability will lead to new techniques in farming. Poisons, clearcutting, current machinery, are the legacy of an attitude that is indifferent to both animals and the planet. Surely we can agree that without some tremendous consciousness raising, we’re headed toward environmental collapse. I merely propose that we include individual animals in our considerations.

It’s funny, how often realism gets confused for pessimism.

I’m an environmentalist 100% of the way, and I think there’s nothing wrong with occasionally eating meat.  You’re basing your argument on the premise that animals have rights.  I don’t think they do, except for the ones we choose to give them.

Yes, because people in the United States slaughter their pet dogs by the millions every year so they can eat their meat.

If you’re suggesting that living in close proximity with cows will make us treat them like companion animals instead of slaughter animals, though it hasn’t in the past, I’d like to see it. Seriously. Maybe you’re right.

See, you keep saying you don’t do this for the rush of great moral superiority over all the rest of us evil meat-eaters and milk-drinkers, and then you come out with stuff like this.

I do it because I hope to reach someone who’s reading the thread. I know that you personally don’t like me, Mnemosyne, and I’ve been an asshole to you before. I understand why you want to make this personal, but I’m not quite in the mood for that fight tonight. Some other time, maybe?

Sure, let’s talk about the real world.  Right now, animals are being slaughtered and exploited because Heifer International sends them to developing countries.  This is the moral equivalent of the slave trade, correct?  After all, they’re taking innocent animals and sending them to places where they know perfectly well they’re going to be killed and eaten.

It’s indicative of a deep moral tragedy that permeates all of human society. There shouldn’t be people so poor that they need a single goat to survive. I hope that democratic socialism, or some other system that respects living humans as more than cogs in a machine, can bring an end to poverty.

If humans somewhere, making less than a dollar a day, absolutely need to eat animals to survive, this is still not an excuse for us, in wealthy nations, to kill unnecessarily for our own palates.

Hardly, since I’ve never done anything immorally brutal.

You just said you don’t support laws against animal cruelty. Advocacy of a political position has consequences.

PeTA just justified eating meat. Yay for meat! lol

How convenient for you. Meanwhile, in many parts of the world, utility is what keeps people alive. At least acknowledge that it’s your privilege that allows you to wax so poetic and high-mindedly about these things, and that lots of people don’t have that option.

And see my reply to Mnemosyne. Yes, utility keeps people alive. But Singer argues that there are no rights, only utility. I’m sure you’re already familiar with the unresolved objections to that approach.

My privilege is also shared by everyone here on this thread. I’m doing something with it.

Why would we go through all the trouble of synthesizing meat, supposing it were possible, when it’s walking around outside?

Tissue cloning has already been done. It’s not a question of possibility. Beyond that you just say you don’t see any moral problems with murdering animals, and you make no attempt to justify yourself.

Unless you’re under the impression that things are worse for animals now than they were in, say, Victorian England.

Of course things are worse now. Corporate mega-farms didn’t exist in Victorian England; animals were allowed to walk around. The profit motive makes the situation worse every year.

I know that you personally don’t like me, Mnemosyne, and I’ve been an asshole to you before. I understand why you want to make this personal, but I’m not quite in the mood for that fight tonight. Some other time, maybe?

I don’t hate you when we talk about other subjects—it’s just this one.  If that helps.  I also ride Chet about his obsession with the perfection of science, so it’s not just you I torment.

If humans somewhere, making less than a dollar a day, absolutely need to eat animals to survive, this is still not an excuse for us, in wealthy nations, to kill unnecessarily for our own palates.

So, in other words, it is sometimes acceptable for humans to exploit animals?

See, that’s what gets to me.  In real life, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions.  Draconian solutions lead to draconian problems.  Even if everyone on the planet became a vegan tomorrow, that would cause a whole other set of problems as we try to re-negotiate on a global scale how and where we grow our food and how it gets from place to place.  Would the greater necessity for vegetable foodstuffs mean that countries would have less to export and smaller countries with less access to agriculture would go hungry?  Even if the change is country-by-country, what do the countries that depend on meat they buy from overseas do if that country goes vegan before the meat-dependent countries have the infrastructure in place to make the switch themselves?  How much instability is going to result from the fact that everyone will need to live closer to sources of agriculture, and what kind of conflicts will result?

If you only want to look at the United States, what do we do with the herds of cows that will no longer be eaten?  Dairy cows really do have a need to be milked because of the way we’ve bred them over the past 10,000 years—what do we do with all of that milk, or do we just let the cows walk around in pain so we’re not exploiting them?  Do we neuter all the cattle so they can die off “naturally”?  What would be the consequences of eliminating an entire species that we expressly bred for our convenience? 

If no artificial solution is found, do we also let our domestic cats die off as a species since we won’t be able to feed them meat products anymore, or do we send them all off to become feral? 

Shorter me:  There are no simple answers in life, and I don’t trust anyone who tries to sell me a cure-all, whether it’s a pill or a religion or a diet.

i’m rather curious, as cows have been bred over the years to produce massive amounts of milk, when this hypothetical animal-freeing takes place and they’re allowed to lives untampered with by humans, what will prevent the inevitable deaths via mastitis from occurring? having had it, it’s a form of suffering and pain i’d wish on nothing. other domesticated animals living feral i could understand, but this issue with cows, i’m unsure how it can be argued around.

I was invited to interview with PETA for a job, and although I already felt a bit wary about their marketing ideas, I really needed employment.  I was told that for the interview I’d need to fly to their offices at my own expense, but that I would be housed in special housing they kept for visitors.  I wasn’t permitted to stay at a hotel—I had to stay in PETA’s housing.  I’d be required to stay for two days, but no one would tell me how I’d be spending those two days.  I was also told that after going through all this, I would probably not be offered a job because most interviewees didn’t make the cut.

The whole idea left me feeling completely uncomfortable.  The wasted money on plane fare, the forced isolation at the interview site, the two days of mystery activities—I felt like I was going to be indoctrinated into a cult.  I also couldn’t believe that I was going to be forced to put out money to interview for a job I probably wouldn’t be offered, when other nonprofits I’ve worked with have conducted in-depth phone interviews to whittle down candidates. PETA obviously has no concerns about things like environmental damage from unnecessary airline travel.  I trusted my gut, declined the interview, and I’m glad I didn’t waste any time or money on them.  I’d been annoyed by many of their PR efforts before I considered working for them, but now I just think they’re lunatics who attract other lunatics.

(Lest my loyalty to animals be questioned, I am the Director of a no-kill animal sanctuary).

Of course things are worse now. Corporate mega-farms didn’t exist in Victorian England; animals were allowed to walk around. The profit motive makes the situation worse every year.

Wow.  Really?  I’m not sure if you’re historically ignorant or if you’re only looking at the sheer numbers and don’t care about how the individual animals were actually treated.  I thought every animal lover had read Black Beauty.

Debatable.  Whether certain rights are natural or legal is a classic philosophical battleground.  See here, and here.  I’d be interested to know how you think rights can exist outside of an institution or authority to uphold them.

No problem.

“When we call anything a person’s right, we mean that he has a valid claim on society to protect him in the possession of it, either by the force of law or by that of education and opinion. If he has what we consider to be a sufficient claim, on whatever account, to have something guaranteed him by society, we say he has a right to it.... To have a right, then, is, I conceive, to have something society ought to defend me in the possession of.”—Mill

“Mill’s [analysis] does not restrict rights to those that are recognized by the existing laws of a given society ad suitably enforced. It is quite possible, given Mill’s analysis of rights, for someone to have a valid claim to something (and thus a right to it) and yet for society not to recognize the validity of this clai and thus to fail to protect the individual in his possession of it.... One of the roles appeals to rights play, as the American philosopher David Lyons notes, is their use “to argue for changes in the social order."”—Regan

1) If rights are constructed, then no one ever had rights before the Magna Carta. I’m playing a little loose with history here, because I know the Magna Carta wasn’t the first law to address human rights, and don’t know which law was. But whichever it was, no one ever had the right to live, to be safe, or to be free, until that law.

This is in conflict with most people’s understanding of rights: that they are inherent in the individual, and not granted or revocable by law or custom. Specifically, it conflicts with one of the United Nations’ founding documents, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which begins:

“Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,”

and it also conflicts with the United States Declaration of Independence, which says near the beginning:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

These and most modern understandings of rights hold that they are automatic, naturally occurring, and inherent because of what humans are, not where or when they live. Therefore, all humans everywhere, even prehistoric cave painters, have had rights, even if unjust laws did not take notice of those rights. I am merely proposing that we consider whether what humans are, those properties that make them automatic holders of rights, are not also found in animals.

2) If rights are constructed by mutual agreement, and contingent upon reciprocity, then infants, toddlers, certain mentally ill people, and mentally retarded people do not have rights. If they cannot understand and extend rights to others, they cannot receive rights in return. Reciprocity is probably a too brutal standard. It even means that mentally retarded people, like Johnny Paul Penry, do not have the right to not be executed, even though they don’t understand the laws they broke. In fact they have no rights precisely because they cannot understand the laws they broke.

Reciprocity is contrary to most people’s understanding of right for this reason. But if we reject reciprocity for humans, it’s not clear why we should not also extend that consideration to animals. Neither Johnny Paul Penry nor a longhorn bull can enter into a mutual agreement of rights, nor understand why they should not kill me. That does not mean I’m automatically entitled to kill them, though.

3) If rights are constructed, and animals really don’t have rights, then Simon the Sadist really does have the right to blowtorch his dog as much as he likes. He has that right automatically because humans have the right to liberty insofar as they do not infringe upon the rights of others, and the dog has no right to not be blowtorched, so Simon’s hobby does not infringe upon anyone else’s rights.

In fact it would be unethical, and a violation of Simon’s rights, to stop him from blowtorching his dog. He’s just exercising his freedom. The only way to revoke his dog-burning rights is to say that his behavior is infringing upon someone else’s rights. As long as he’s doing it in the privacy of his own home, and the dog’s squeals aren’t breaking any noise ordinances, the only being around who can be said to be harmed is the dog.

We’re well into the territory of Richard Bramwell and other Randroids now. Humans can blowtorch dogs all they want, because dogs are property and natural resources for us to consume, etc.

Our local asshole, Chet, is fine with this. Most humans who experience empathy are not. I propose that this moral intuition, while not universal, is a means of comprehending truths. Not everyone can do complex math, either, but that does not make it untrue.

If we want to get out of this right-wing-libertarian mess, we have to extend to the dog the right to not be blowtorched.

I’ve always wondered in threads like these why being a vegan who is “smarmy” and who thinks they are better than everyone else is such a grave sin while being a meat-eater who revels in smacking down their arguments is not.

I get the same feeling reading this thread as I do when I try to interject some feminism into a thread on a non-explicitly-feminist blog or message board.  I get attacked for being an “elitist” who thinks I’m better than everyone else. 

No one likes to be told that they are potentially performing morally wrong actions, but there seems to be no way of discussing action that may potentially be morally wrong without indicting those who perform said actions. 

I wonder: is there anyway to render these threads purely theoretical?  Because, from what I’ve seen, both sides are equally guilty of turning a potentially instructive debate into a referendum on their own lives.  Not just the supposedly “self-satisfied” vegans.  Not just the defensive meat-eaters.

* Full disclosure:  I am a vegetarian who owns a pet dog.  My dog eats meat.  I am troubled by this but I accept the guilt and continue on feeding her in the absence of a better solution.

I hate PETA.  Zealots are never interested in REAL change or they would lose their reason for being. They only exist to feed their own egos and position themselves as holders of a superior truth, which they can use to bludgeon everyone else who dares to question them.

I am sympathetic to arguments about reducing consumption of animal protein (for both health and environmental reasons) and laws protecting animals from unnecessary cruelty (in regards to those raised for food) and enforcement of laws preventing cruelty to animals in general.  But I really despise this topic (apparently not enough to stop reading them though...). These arguments never get beyond the polarized “You’re evil for even contemplating eating meat as legitimate” and “Well, you’re an idiot for thinking animals are on a similar moral plane to humans.” It’s exhausting to read.

I guess I’ve always wondered: if humans do adopt veganism, what happens to the balance of various ecosystems? For better or worse, we are the primary predators for cattle, chickens, and pigs.  Other ecosystems have been devastated by removal of predators.  We’ve also conditioned these animals to be unsuitable for an environment where humans are not preventing other natural predators from having total access to their population.  I think it’s important to consider that widespread veganism could result in serious environmental issues.

I don’t hate you when we talk about other subjects—it’s just this one.  If that helps.blockquote>

No kidding, that does help a little.

<blockquote>So, in other words, it is sometimes acceptable for humans to exploit animals?

In other words, I am not going to use legal force to impose my morality, rooted in a privilege that everyone should have, on people who do not yet have that privilege. I do not have a yes or no answer to that particular question.

See, that’s what gets to me.  In real life, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions.

I quite agree, having already acknowledged that killing in self-defense is okay. But there may be one-size-fits-many. To say that veganism isn’t an option for a starving family in Africa still does not let you or I off the hook!

Even if everyone on the planet became a vegan tomorrow, that would cause a whole other set of problems as we try to re-negotiate on a global scale how and where we grow our food and how it gets from place to place.

And since it isn’t going to happen by magic overnight, but rather by increments, this is not even an objection. Absolutely nothing in the following paragraphs is relevant to the actual animal rights movement in the actual world:

Would the greater necessity for vegetable foodstuffs mean that countries would have less to export and smaller countries with less access to agriculture would go hungry?  Even if the change is country-by-country, what do the countries that depend on meat they buy from overseas do if that country goes vegan before the meat-dependent countries have the infrastructure in place to make the switch themselves?  How much instability is going to result from the fact that everyone will need to live closer to sources of agriculture, and what kind of conflicts will result?

If you only want to look at the United States, what do we do with the herds of cows that will no longer be eaten?  Dairy cows really do have a need to be milked because of the way we’ve bred them over the past 10,000 years—what do we do with all of that milk, or do we just let the cows walk around in pain so we’re not exploiting them?  Do we neuter all the cattle so they can die off “naturally”?  What would be the consequences of eliminating an entire species that we expressly bred for our convenience?

Incremental solutions will work themselves out. Humans are brilliant like that.

What you are offering is a counsel of despair. We can’t do it overnight, so we shouldn’t do it. Come on. You can recognize the possibility of making the necessary changes in your own life. I’m talking to Pandagonians, not to the World Council of Wizards.

If no artificial solution is found, do we also let our domestic cats die off as a species since we won’t be able to feed them meat products anymore, or do we send them all off to become feral?

Tissue cloning has already been done. It is not a question of possibility. I was asking about a cheaper solution, but cat lovers will find a way. What does this question have to do with anyone in this thread, today? You are making up excuses and distractions. The uncertainty of feeding cats in the future is not an excuse for avoiding veganism today.

Shorter me:  There are no simple answers in life, and I don’t trust anyone who tries to sell me a cure-all, whether it’s a pill or a religion or a diet.

You’re the one pretending it’s simple, with all this nonsense about “what if it happened overnight?”

i’m rather curious, as cows have been bred over the years to produce massive amounts of milk, when this hypothetical animal-freeing takes place and they’re allowed to lives untampered with by humans, what will prevent the inevitable deaths via mastitis from occurring? having had it, it’s a form of suffering and pain i’d wish on nothing. other domesticated animals living feral i could understand, but this issue with cows, i’m unsure how it can be argued around.

Read the thread, answered at least three times now, not going to happen overnight, not an issue.

Hell, I’ll cut and paste it for you.

“But even in that magical overnight scenario, there’s no reason to release domesticated animals into the wild. Let them die natural deaths at the ends of good lives where they’re well cared for.”

That would of course imply milking the cows who already give milk; not all do.

I’ll pass your concerns on to the World Council of Vegan Wizards.

Leigh-Ann, that is pretty creepy!

Wow.  Really?  I’m not sure if you’re historically ignorant or if you’re only looking at the sheer numbers and don’t care about how the individual animals were actually treated.  I thought every animal lover had read Black Beauty.

But animals are still treated that poorly. Everything in that book still goes on around the world, and the hells of factory farms here in America are no better. Taking into consideration the numbers, then yes, there is more suffering today, both for individuals on average and in aggregate.

See, that’s what gets to me.  In real life, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions.  Draconian solutions lead to draconian problems.  Even if everyone on the planet became a vegan tomorrow[...]

I’m not sure anyone is proposing a one-size-fits-all solution. I don’t think anyone is proposing some overnight change to veganism, so I’m not sure what the “Even if” is about. Most animal rights activists plan for and expect a long slog.

Animal rights activists don’t even have the political power (nor i imagine, the desire) to impose an extreme agenda on anyone. I don’t see what’s wrong with pushing the discourse toward ethical treatment of animals, and eventually, in the distant future, approaching vegetarianism as a society.

PETA is a group of douchebags, and I don’t think anyone is going to bat for them. Whenever there’s a thread on PETA though, the discussion always turns to trashing vegetarians ("You’d let a baby burn alive!” “You wanna starve Africans!") and piling on with the extreme hypotheticals and academic minutiae, because… why? People want to express their compassion in a way that most people don’t?

I’ve always wondered in threads like these why being a vegan who is “smarmy” and who thinks they are better than everyone else is such a grave sin while being a meat-eater who revels in smacking down their arguments is not.

I rather wonder why simply bringing up the necessity of veganism is taken as prima facie evidence of self-righteousness.

I’m a compulsive gambler. I evicted my grandmother and sold her house after securing power of attorney. I don’t think I’m better than anyone.

I guess I’ve always wondered: if humans do adopt veganism, what happens to the balance of various ecosystems? For better or worse, we are the primary predators for cattle, chickens, and pigs.  Other ecosystems have been devastated by removal of predators.  We’ve also conditioned these animals to be unsuitable for an environment where humans are not preventing other natural predators from having total access to their population.  I think it’s important to consider that widespread veganism could result in serious environmental issues.

We have an obligation to the animals already in our care. When this becomes an issue, very late in the game, there will already be very few domestic food animals, due to dwindling supply for dwindling demand. At the end, they should be allowed to die natural deaths, after good veterinary care throughout their long lives, on large farms. They can be prevented from breeding so that there is little environmental impact.

Alternatively, there is the possibility of taking on some of those species as companion animals.

Grammar, that is exactly what I was trying to say.  I guess that is what I meant by the scare-quotes around “Smarmy.”

I am sick and can’t sleep so that might have something to do with it…

Ah. Well, I was open to the possibility that I do sound smarmy. I really don’t know. I don’t know any other way to talk about this. I’ve really tried to be super respectful to everyone, except those who bring up the patently dishonest “carrots is life!” argument, and Chet, who I just don’t like.

I wonder: is there anyway to render these threads purely theoretical?  Because, from what I’ve seen, both sides are equally guilty of turning a potentially instructive debate into a referendum on their own lives.  Not just the supposedly “self-satisfied” vegans.  Not just the defensive meat-eaters.

I’d love that, if it could be done. I don’t know how to think or argue that way, but it would do wonders for the headaches I always get during these threads.

Feels like it would take someone far smarter than me, to come up with such a non-confrontational framework.

I’ve really tried to be super respectful to everyone,

Our local asshole, Chet, is fine with this.

Thank you for making my point that the view of animals as property leads to immoral brutality.

Yeah, I’m not going to contine.  Take your self-righteous teenage bullshit and your trolling, idiotic, holier-than-thou posts, and get out.  The post at the top of this was about PETA and the fact that they’re moralless, expolitative douchebags; you have made it a point to drag it off-topic for your own personal screeds against everyone you hate.

You are NOT welcome here if you’re going to try and recenter the discussion onto your personal topics.  Get the fuck out.

Threads drift. At least a dozen other people have chosen to participate in this particular subthread.

Amanda, Pam, Auguste and Jesse each have always had the option of banning me or asking me to leave.

I don’t know you, Damian, and after your earlier enraged outburst, I don’t respect your opinion and I don’t care if I detract from your enjoyment of the site.

Chet is an asshole, and I don’t think he would dispute this. He is, at least, much more interesting than you.

Please, somebody else speak up here and say I’m not alone in believing that a dog has a right to not be tortured.

But does it have a right not to be eaten is the question.

Actually, it’s not even that.  The topic was originally about PETA and its exploitation of young women.  Not dog torture.  You’re the one who sidetracked the thread into a philosophy seminar.

Oh, but since we’re on the topic of eating dogs, anyone else notice how culturally specific that taboo is?  Someone mentioned sarcastically that millions of dogs aren’t slaughtered for food in North America.  Well, they were before the genocide.  Dog was a staple of many Native American diets.  Just sayin’. 

Plants have a physiological response to injury much like that connected to the experience we call pain, and this response can even be blocked by certain chemicals that we use as painkillers; in a nutshell, plants experience pain.

Great.  Let us now write 20k words on the ethical and moral issues involved in maintaining bonsai.  Discuss.

I’m curious what Grammar’s opinion on turning off computers and/or corporate bailouts would be.

Domesticated animals are tools created by people to make their lives easier or more enjoyable. The same is true of full scale companies and technology. Neither has Neuro-receptors, true. But unlike a cow, Corporations actually have a legal personhood and responsibilities (enforcement may be sketchy, but the same is true of humans and law enforcement), and are actually capable of expressing a desire to continue existing. Many people would say that a true artificial intelligence should have some scale of rights, and that our current tech isn’t at that level, but a turkey doesn’t exactly pass a Turing Test either. Justify your open bias against Collective Entities and primitive technoforms, mammal.

Whether it is ethical of us to use tools that can feel pain is a matter of discussion, sure, but it is possible to make death for food and fashion sake painless. Whether we have a right to make them live and die a hollow life for this purpose, to deny them a definition of existence beyond our needs is another discussion, but I fail to see why livestock should have a right to a non-absurd existence that humans do not get the pleasure of sharing.

Moreover, what right have these bio-tools, livestock, to continue with support and existence once they no longer serve their purpose. A domesticated species is created for a purpose, without that purpose, handfuls may survive as ferals, but really, they should know the genocide of the useless, no differently from their COBOL programmed silicon brothers.

But then, I suppose you don’t really care about the extinction of the Bovine, so long as each is allowed to die in their natural life span.

Self-righteousness in any form nullifies an argument.

But does it have a right not to be eaten is the question.

If a dog has claim to its own body, then it has a right to live.

Justify your open bias against Collective Entities and primitive technoforms, mammal.

Show me that a consciousness emerges from the corporate noosphere, or that any existent AI has anything like consciousness or pain, and we’ll talk. I’m open to the latter possibility, but I’ll need evidence. You and I both know the former is bullshit, but hey, I’ll play along. If there are ambiguities, these do not excuse us from acting in regard to those animals that we do know experience pain.

and are actually capable of expressing a desire to continue existing.

No, a corporation cannot express anything. Individuals acting within the corporation express themselves. A cow can and does express its desire to live; it will flee and fight in its own interest. It need not even understand death to do so; it is aware of life.

Whether it is ethical of us to use tools that can feel pain is a matter of discussion, sure, but it is possible to make death for food and fashion sake painless.

If a cow has claim to its own body, then it has a right to its own life. Pain is only one of several concerns.

Whether we have a right to make them live and die a hollow life for this purpose, to deny them a definition of existence beyond our needs is another discussion, but I fail to see why livestock should have a right to a non-absurd existence that humans do not get the pleasure of sharing.

Humans do have this right, see my post at 01:47 AM. That our rulers deny us this right is a problem to be solved by political action, not a grudge to take out on others. To “pay it forward” is little different from kicking one’s dog after a rough day.

Moreover, what right have these bio-tools, livestock, to continue with support and existence once they no longer serve their purpose. A domesticated species is created for a purpose, without that purpose, handfuls may survive as ferals, but really, they should know the genocide of the useless, no differently from their COBOL programmed silicon brothers.

For much of history, human children were created to be agricultural tools. Yet this fact does not strip the individuals of their rights.

But then, I suppose you don’t really care about the extinction of the Bovine, so long as each is allowed to die in their natural life span.

We have made the world an exceptionally inhospitable world for them. Make the world a nice place for cows to come to, and it would be a different matter; like I said, there is the possibility of respecting them as companion animals. But I would not subject individuals to needless suffering for the nebulous sake of “species.”

The idea that everyone shifting to a vegetarian / vegan diet would end animal suffering is false.  For one thing, vast number of animals are killed by agricultural machinery. The various pests and parasites that we go to great lengths to control or eliminate are also animals. Then there’s the ecosystem impacts of agriculture, which are massive.

Then there’s the minor point that it’s more-or-less impossible to run a closed-loop agricultural system without livestock, so you have to supplement with various synthetic inputs which (a) are non-sustainable, and (b) cause further massive ecosystem impacts in their production.

You can’t walk in the world without treading on something.

This thread must be at least the 5th (or more) about whether the exploitation of naked women is justified because of PETA’s moral imperative.

And like every previous thread on this topic I’ve seen, it sooner or later (usually sooner) devolves into this holier-than-thou shouting match about vegetarianism/veganism vs. everyone else.

Little discussion of whether using tits and ass to protect animals is okay, lots of discussion about whether different animals feel pain, whether they are sentient, whether they have inherent rights, whether plants can be compared to animals, all sorts of extreme scenarios presented, etc.

And it seems, at least to me, that no enlightenment ever occurs, just a hardening of attitudes and increased distrust between the various factions.

Sad…

***

BTW, when is someone going to step up and express concern about microscopic animals?  Bacteria, yeasts, molds, fungi, viruses (viruses aren’t really alive so fuck ‘em), etc.? 

Our bodies, and the bodies of most multicellular animals are veritable slave colonies of bacteria, held hostage in our guts and tissues and forced to work for us.

Is no one concerned about this exploitation?  Can no one see that this is wrong?

If we can use scientific means to produce artificial protein to feed cats, can’t we figure out a way to stop the exploitation of our microscopic friends?…

I enjoyed this thread.

It was pleasant to read a discussion not about the economy or BO or McC.

What MikeEss said.

I don’t believe our society is set up to treat animals as anything other than property- and honestly, I don’t see how it ever could be. They require us to act as their advocates. I strongly support laws against their abuse and mistreatment, but those laws have to be enforced by other humans. We’ve spent the last several thousand years selectively breeding animals to be a part of the society we set up, and now what ? We dump them ? We spend three hundred years breeding them back into the wild ? We turn our backs on them and walk away, whistling ?

The animals we are surrounded by are no longer wild animals. They can’t survive without us in the world we designed- it is our responsibility to ensure their success and their survival here. They are as much a part of our society as we are- and until there’s some kind of plan in place whereby their future is figured out and their very specific needs are met, I can’t advocate dumping our current system. Changing it ? Yes. Bettering it ? Please, yes. There’s no need for suffering. I support small, free-range farms where animals can be cared for and given good lives. I support caring, responsible pet ownership.

But animals used for food, and animals who act as companions, are a part of our society- not above it, outside it, or below it. The only possible solution is one that takes their needs and their status into account. I have to agree with all the people who’ve already said “but what do we do with cows ?”

If we can use scientific means to produce artificial protein to feed cats, can’t we figure out a way to stop the exploitation of our microscopic friends?…

What about the poor mitochondria in our basic cell structure? Won’t someone think of the endosymbiotic prokaryotes!? Talk about a slave species… we eukaryotes should be ashamed of ourselves for a billion years of crass exploitation.

Question to those who continually bring up the notion that life for cattle and chickens etc. wouldn’t be great in a vegan/vegetarian world:

Do you actually care or are you just playing gotcha?

Because I know some people (NOT SAYING YOU, I’M SAYING SOME PEOPLE I KNOW IN THE REAL WORLD) who like to make this point who:

a) do absolutely nothing to make their lives better now

and

b) like to take the stance of deliberately baiting me, a vegetarian (telling me they will eat twice as much meat as they did before to “make up for me,” hiding meat in my food, etc.)

My point is this: people always say that vegans/vegetarians are self-righteous and only want to feel holier-than-thou (if I’m not correct, this point *was* made in the original post).  But if you (HYPOTHETICAL) are simply trying to “catch” grammar in an awkward position rather than arguing in earnest that meat *is* okay, then it seems to me that you (HYPOTHETICAL YOU THAT YOU ARE) are being just as smug as any (HYPOTHETICAL) vegan/vegetarian could be.

Did I make the point that the people discussed in this scenario are HYPOTHETICAL?

“The animals we are surrounded by are no longer wild animals. They can’t survive without us in the world we designed- it is our responsibility to ensure their success and their survival here. They are as much a part of our society as we are- and until there’s some kind of plan in place whereby their future is figured out and their very specific needs are met, I can’t advocate dumping our current system.”

The symbiosis between domesticated animals and humans is a key factor in these discussions.  They have changed/been-changed to meet our needs, but we have also changed because of their relationship to us.  Symbiosis works in both directions.

Dogs are no longer wolves, domestic cats are no longer wildcats, cows/sheep/pigs/horses/etc., are not the animals they once were.  And it seems to me to be irresponsible to pretend we can just end this relationship and not expect problems — for them and us…

Define “just end.”

Do you mean “end tomorrow?” Because I think Grammar has been pretty clear that such a scenario is both not being called for by anyone and impossible.

Do you mean “end gradually?” Didn’t the process that you discussed occur gradually?  Couldn’t we gradually undo such a process as our society transforms?

Besides, if we are imagining a society that has transformed into animal rights advocates, shouldn’t we assume that they will keep this concern in mind and act accordingly?  Why assume that animal rights advocates are so naive that they don’t even understand the situations and concerns of the beings for which they are advocating? 

We aren’t all just high school kids going through a phase who haven’t done the reading, you know.

Can we consider this particular topic within this thread finished?  It has been addressed multiple times.  Let’s go back to crucifying each other about some other aspect of this debate, eh?

Stop trying to deflect onto Chet. I can’t believe you’re wasting all this time on the internets when you’ve got all that protein to synthesize for cat food.

“Do you mean “end gradually?” Didn’t the process that you discussed occur gradually?  Couldn’t we gradually undo such a process as our society transforms?”

Is it possible?  Sure, no laws of physics will be broken.  Is it likely?  Much more problematic.

We’re talking about evolution here, stuff that occurs on a large timescale. 

If we were in a position to intelligently guide our own evolution, aren’t there a lot of other human flaws that are much more pressing than just eating meat?  Ending warfare?  Controlling population size?  Ending hunger and disease?  There are huge numbers of problems that could be solved if we would just evolve in certain directions.  But we’re so pathetic we can’t fix those problems for ourselves, let alone for other species.

We don’t control this process, not in any meaningful and predictable way.  We may be more aware of what’s going on around us, but we’re still strapped into the rollercoaster and have little influence over what happens to us (whether we fool ourselves into believing otherwise or not).

But please, carry on.  I’m just a notch in a bedpost and you’re just an anonymous commenter on a blog…

MikeEss, whatever the sci-fi objections against this far future scenario, it doesn’t change the fact that every person who adopts a vegan diet today is making a difference for individual animals. The average Westerner consumes over 100 animals a year. Shift that one person’s economic demands away from animal foods, and there’s a real quantitative difference in real animals’ lives over the course of that person’s lifetime.

Can you or I end war today? Can either of us end poverty, or disease, or global warming? No, and yet this is no excuse for us not to do our individual parts toward the solution.

You can make a change in your life that will result in hundreds fewer animals being raised for murder.

I would not be surprised if, by merely breathing, I am killing billions of bacteria. And can I say absolutely that their tendency to further their life-processes is really different from my own?

MikeEss’s point wins, so far as its underlying implication is that you can hardly act in this world without your actions having some consequences that damage other lives, great and small, cognitive, sentient, or vegetative.

Hell, my tax dollars fund a heinous, illegal war in Iraq; I’m complicit—and knowingly—in the wrongful deaths of tens of thousands of human beings.  To make a living, I must drive a car; my use of this device has devastating ecological consequences.

Next to these realizations, Grammar’s arguments—so seductive in isolation, in their moral purity, in their beautiful intentions—look silly. Or really, it’s their absolutism that is silly.

It’s an absolutism that, if you take it seriously, will have you living like a 3rd century Christian ascetic—sleeping out in the open air, wearing rags, living on berries and weeds (and feeling torn up about even that modest concession to appetite).

I don’t believe our society is set up to treat animals as anything other than property- and honestly, I don’t see how it ever could be. They require us to act as their advocates.

We could be legal guardians instead of property owners, for instance. And animals without guardians could still enjoy the legal protection of their rights to live.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-759025.html

If animals are not owned by particular individuals who value them, then, because they are property, we consider them worthless and are reluctant to impose the stigma of criminal liability on those who destroy worthless property. For example, in a 1997 case, three young men broke into an animal shelter in Iowa and bludgeoned sixteen cats to death with baseball bats, seriously injuring seven others. The youths were convicted of a misdemeanor because the value of the cats did not exceed $500, the amount of property damage required for conviction of a felony. The youths maintained, and the court accepted, that cats in an animal shelter have no market value because no one wants them. So long as animals are viewed as property, if they have no market value, then they have no value at all.—Francione

I would not be surprised if, by merely breathing, I am killing billions of bacteria. And can I say absolutely that their tendency to further their life-processes is really different from my own?

What you can say absolutely is that they cannot experience pain and cannot be aware of lives to lose.

Unlike vertebrates, which you can absolutely say the opposite of.

Hell, my tax dollars fund a heinous, illegal war in Iraq; I’m complicit—and knowingly—in the wrongful deaths of tens of thousands of human beings.  To make a living, I must drive a car; my use of this device has devastating ecological consequences.

Next to these realizations, Grammar’s arguments—so seductive in isolation, in their moral purity, in their beautiful intentions—look silly. Or really, it’s their absolutism that is silly.

This is exactly the argument that anti-feminists use against us when we bring up women’s pay inequality, or the right to autonomy over one’s body. Somewhere there are children starving! Why are you so concerned about these trivial things when X is so much more important!

Everything MikeEss brings up is a real problem, and not one of those problems stands in the way of any one of us here making a personal decision to stop killing animals.

This is a both/and blog.

I would not be surprised if, by merely breathing, I am killing billions of bacteria. And can I say absolutely that their tendency to further their life-processes is really different from my own?

Got to address this again, because this is such a deeply disingenuous argument.

To pretend that you actually think this is important is to allow the anti-choicer’s argument that a blastocyst, a potential person without any brain or even neurons, is morally equivalent to an already-born human.

The idea that everyone shifting to a vegetarian / vegan diet would end animal suffering is false.  For one thing, vast number of animals are killed by agricultural machinery. The various pests and parasites that we go to great lengths to control or eliminate are also animals. Then there’s the ecosystem impacts of agriculture, which are massive.

Already addressed; you didn’t read the thread.

Then there’s the minor point that it’s more-or-less impossible to run a closed-loop agricultural system without livestock, so you have to supplement with various synthetic inputs which (a) are non-sustainable, and (b) cause further massive ecosystem impacts in their production.

Humanure greatly alleviates this issue. Beyond that, this is another far future sci-fi objection, and if you can invoke such ephemera, then I can say we’ll have sustainable synthetics by then.

Again, it’s a distraction from the difference that you can make right now in your life. “Everybody else is doing it” is not an argument for your counsel of despair.

BTW, when is someone going to step up and express concern about microscopic animals?  Bacteria, yeasts, molds, fungi, viruses (viruses aren’t really alive so fuck ‘em), etc.?

Our bodies, and the bodies of most multicellular animals are veritable slave colonies of bacteria, held hostage in our guts and tissues and forced to work for us.

They aren’t animals. They’re bacteria and fungi, and they aren’t forced to do anything. Gut flora just flock to the digestive system and grow there.

If bacteria and fungi even could be exploited, the only way we really do so is by making insulin and other products. And since we’re not using pig insulin anymore, that’s quite a plus. Again, because the discussion is about animals.

Question to those who continually bring up the notion that life for cattle and chickens etc. wouldn’t be great in a vegan/vegetarian world:

Do you actually care or are you just playing gotcha?

Because I know some people (NOT SAYING YOU, I’M SAYING SOME PEOPLE I KNOW IN THE REAL WORLD) who like to make this point who:

a) do absolutely nothing to make their lives better now

and

b) like to take the stance of deliberately baiting me, a vegetarian (telling me they will eat twice as much meat as they did before to “make up for me,” hiding meat in my food, etc.)

Megan, I really appreciate this. It’s much less painful and exhausting to go through this argument, just knowing that I’m not alone here. (Juan Stoppable, thank you too!)

I’ve heard those same taunts a thousand times. Restaurant cooks sometimes throw a small piece of ham into my food. They can’t even know me; they’re back in the kitchen, but the mere fact that someone is ordering a vegan meal (offered on the menu, not even a special request) is license to hate.

I just can’t understand that mentality.

Anyway, Megan, you’re lacto-ovo vegetarian? I don’t want to open up an argument, so please don’t feel obligated to defend or even respond if you don’t want to, because I’m still glad that your heart’s in the right place.

I’ll just ask you to consider where you money is going, and research how:

the dairy industry is the veal industry and the beef industry; dairy cows are still slaughtered, and their babies, which they have to have to start giving milk, are slaughtered very young.

the egg industry is the poultry industry; as soon as laying hens stop laying they are slaughtered, and many of their male babies are ground up as chicks and added to livestock feed.

Better a cow that becomes a steak than never a cow at all. The real question is would the earth be better off without cows, chickens, sheep, etc.  Because we’re not going to raise them just for the hell of it.

Congratulations, Chet, you’re a fucking sociopath. It’s “none of your business” if someone blowtorches their dog, since the pet is their property? What if he blowtorches his wife? She was his property until very recently. Yeah, the wife is intelligent and the dog is not, but that doesn’t impact their shared ability to be tortured and feel physical pain.

I’m “close to the natural world--the REAL natural world” as a farmer, and that’s precisely what makes me think that mass cruelty to animals is as ludicrous as mass cruelty to humans.

Of course the vegans wouldn’t like me either--I raise cows and chickens. But honestly, I prefer the vegans to those who dismiss animal cruelty.

My quarrel with the vegans is their definition of “necessary” and their importance on biological life. I don’t buy that animals for the most part have a “goal” to live. Higher primates do, but chickens? Nope, at least not that I can see. And enriching your diet, while not strictly necessary (at least, not for the economically privileged), is an acceptable reason for using animals in my view.

I don’t agree with Grammar RWA’s arguments, but you can’t get around them by pointing to the constructed nature of morality. Even if morality is constructed, it is no more a response to animal rights arguments than it is to human rights arguments.

I forgot; I know the pattern, and someone is going to accuse me of starting a circular firing squad.

I’m not doing that. Megan is obviously already concerned with animals’ lives, and it’s a fair assumption that she’d prefer to be more fully informed of the relevant issues. Information is not judgment.

Juan, it was an attempt at a joke to make a point…

Better a cow that becomes a steak than never a cow at all.

Better that you be born in a cage without sunlight, separated from your mother before you’re weaned, and then murdered, than never be born?

Are you sure?

Really, follow your logic. If it’s better that a cow be born to die, then it’s even better for even more cows to be born to die. Even if that means there’s so much meat supply that they can’t all be consumed, we should make as many cows as possible and kill them, letting the bodies pile up, because it’s just an objectively good thing for a cow to be born to die.

Your logic has the same flaw that the “potential life” argument does; favor a blastocyst, and you ought to start demanding that every human egg be fertilized and carried to term, because life always trumps quality of life.

My quarrel with the vegans is their definition of “necessary” and their importance on biological life. I don’t buy that animals for the most part have a “goal” to live. Higher primates do, but chickens? Nope, at least not that I can see.

They needn’t be aware of the consequences of death. They still own their own bodies and their own lives, and they act to preserve themselves. That you’re smart enough to trick them into a room where they can’t escape doesn’t mean that they consent to murder.

And enriching your diet, while not strictly necessary (at least, not for the economically privileged), is an acceptable reason for using animals in my view.

Then there’d be nothing wrong with murdering and eating a severely mentally disabled human. It’ll enrich your diet, and they won’t know what you’re about to do to them, nor fully appreciate the consequences of their own death.

Juan, it was an attempt at a joke to make a point…

But you didn’t make a valid point. So it was really just an aimless joke.

I don’t agree with Grammar RWA’s arguments, but you can’t get around them by pointing to the constructed nature of morality. Even if morality is constructed, it is no more a response to animal rights arguments than it is to human rights arguments.

Well stated.

Grammar:

You totally miss the point.  Is cowness a good thing, a priori?  Let’s, just for the hell of it, say they are all free range cattle.  They are in my neck of the woods.  Is it better that that animal existed for a time or not?  If you were master of the universe would you decree a) we shouldn’t eat cows and that x-number of cows should exist anyway?  To follow your logic to the end will mean the end of cowness on our planet.  You will be responsible for the extinction of a species.

Why as the master species do we tolerate the existence of any animals that we have the power to destroy?  What the hell good are tigers or pandas?  Well, we like to look at them.  What about companion animals.  Would they exist if we didn’t like to pet them and watch them?

Let’s not confuse the issue of eating animals with the issue of how they are raised.  Because, I’m fairly certain, you’d argue against eating them even though they are raised humanely.

Juan, it was an attempt at a joke to make a point…

If the point was that animal rights activism is stupid, then it’s a fucked point.

I think this thread should be about PETA being a bunch of dicks. Their shock tactics are absolutely heinous, and their myopia wrt animal rights causes them to disrespect human dignity.

The thing is Amanda took a shot at people who desire a vegetarian society in the distant future. I don’t anticipate a vegetarian world either. Not in my lifetime, or my nephews’ and nieces’, or even their kids’. But Grammar took offense to the implication that, the desire for that world is absolutist and wrong. Then the dogpile began.

So, in short: PETA sucks.

You totally miss the point.  Is cowness a good thing, a priori?  Let’s, just for the hell of it, say they are all free range cattle.  They are in my neck of the woods.  Is it better that that animal existed for a time or not?  If you were master of the universe would you decree a) we shouldn’t eat cows and that x-number of cows should exist anyway?  To follow your logic to the end will mean the end of cowness on our planet.  You will be responsible for the extinction of a species.

You didn’t read the thread, and you accuse me of missing the point? No, to follow my logic does not mean extinction. I’ve said it half a dozen times now; if we were to begin to treat cows as companion animals, it might be a different matter. I can’t answer for which route is better. This sci-fi bullshit is a distraction. Ambiguity in the future does not excuse you from responsibility for your actions today. You can make a choice today to stop killing.

Let’s not confuse the issue of eating animals with the issue of how they are raised.  Because, I’m fairly certain, you’d argue against eating them even though they are raised humanely.

Torture is torture, and murder is murder. There’s your distinction.

By refusing to consider that plants are living, breathing organisms just like the animals you consider immoral to eat, you reveal more about your personal biases than about the ethical merit of your argument.

Grammar, you do not know that plants don’t experience pain, so from where I sit, you’re drawing a “moral line” just as surely as meat eaters do, simply in a different place that *you* believe to be right. It’s no different than those who think a fertilized egg is life and draw the line there against abortion or the morning after pill.

I come from a different perspective. I recognize that the same life force, for lack of a better word, animates me, my cat, a cow and a carrot. Whenever I eat *anything* something dies to support my life. I recognize that sacrifice, whether it’s a lettuce or a lamb that’s died to allow me to eat.

We all draw the lines where we feel comfortable. You think that things with a face and a brain that’s like yours deserve protection. Arguing we should all draw the line in the same place is no different than saying that since someone anti-abortion draws the line at sperm meets egg, we all should accept that.

I know you’re going to argue that we *know* a cow feels pain, but an embryo doesnt, and a carrot doesnt. We don’t know what a carrot or an embryo feel, we only know what we believe based on our current scientific understanding of “pain” and “feel” and “brain.” And you’re certainly within your rights to say “That’s enough for me, I draw the line with living things which are like me.”

But expecting everyone else to draw the line there is a bit much. I have a friend who accepts that all living things feel pain. She eats only what drops from the trees, nuts, fallen fruit, etc. because to her, it’s immoral to end the life of anything to feed her body. To her, your stance seems hypocritical and incomplete and immoral, just as you seem to think that the stance of meat eaters is immoral. We all draw the line where it’s comfortable for us. You’re no different than the guy who eats steak for breakfast lunch and dinner.

So, in short: PETA sucks.

RAmen.

They’ve recently lied that drinking milk causes autism. I want every animal rights proponent to stop funding them. It’s no longer even a question: they do more harm than good.

Anybody reading this thread and donating to PeTA? Stop. Send your money to http://www.friendsofanimals.org/ instead.

Grammar RWA, glad to hear that you’re not defending PETA. They’re an embarassment to all sentient persons concerned about animal rights.

But even in that magical overnight scenario, there’s no reason to release domesticated animals into the wild. Let them die natural deaths at the ends of good lives where they’re well cared for.

This is where the Vegan argument really loses me. It’s one thing to talk about nonviolence and non-cruelty...but then what happens to the animals? Are we going to sterilize them so they don’t reproduce? (We don’t sterilize humans without their consent.) Physically prevent them from breeding? (Again, we don’t do this to humans.) Either we agree to sterilization and the mass extinction of entire populations of animals, or we turn the planet into a giant animal preserve for all the herds of cattle we allow to breed, won’t kill and can’t feed with nobody having an economic incentive to do so. The same goes for domesticated dogs and cats; either you let them breed as part of their ‘rights’ or you sterilize them and let them die out as species. (No more guide dogs.)

I’m not posing this as a gotcha. If we put animals on the same plane of freedom and non-exploitation as humans, what do we do with them?

Grammar:

Bet we aren’t going to treat cows as companion animals, are we?  At least not very many of them.  Cowness will be reduced by nearly 100%.  Sci-Fi?  Where?

Is the existence of any animal, regardless of how they meet their end, a good thing and if so why?  Is their life an a priori good.  Simple answer, yes or no?

If yes, do animal rights derive from Sky Daddy?  If not, then we’re back to moral relativism.

Grammar, you do not know that plants don’t experience pain,

Also, “you don’t know for sure that there’s no god!” and “you don’t know that you’re not a brain in a vat, or in the Matrix!”

Both are fair assumptions until someone demonstrates any evidence to the contrary. Both are useful metrics to live one’s life by. Objections of “what if” are based on pure wankery.

It’s no different than those who think a fertilized egg is life and draw the line there against abortion or the morning after pill.

It’s qualitatively and quantitatively different. A fertilized egg does not have a brain, or even neurons. You know damned well that the line cannot be drawn there by any rational person.

I recognize that the same life force, for lack of a better word, animates me, my cat, a cow and a carrot.

Yay, magic!

Demonstrate evidence for a “life force.” What you are talking about is metabolism. Learn some biology.

But expecting everyone else to draw the line there is a bit much. I have a friend who accepts that all living things feel pain. She eats only what drops from the trees, nuts, fallen fruit, etc. because to her, it’s immoral to end the life of anything to feed her body. To her, your stance seems hypocritical and incomplete and immoral,

Then your friend is an imbecile. There’s no kind way to say this. She’s a moron.

I’m not posing this as a gotcha. If we put animals on the same plane of freedom and non-exploitation as humans, what do we do with them?

Give them legal recognition of their rights and let the courts appoint advocates for them. I can’t tell you what the result will be. This isn’t the personal excuse that you want it to be; it doesn’t let you off the hook for killing over 100 animals a year.

But even in that magical overnight scenario, there’s no reason to release domesticated animals into the wild. Let them die natural deaths at the ends of good lives where they’re well cared for.

Chickens are not mean. I’m sorry, but I’ve known chickens personally. If they are handled from youth, they get along with humans just fine.

Ok, so you’re not going to release them into the wild.  Instead they get to die natural deaths at the end of good lives where they’re well cared for.

Ummm...Who’s gonna pay their good lives and good care?

Do they get to reproduce?  Or are you going to separate the Bulls from the Cows? 

If we don’t eat beef cattle and we don’t consume dairy products and if we don’t wear leather, well the cow no longer has reason to exist.

Wild cows went extinct several millenia ago. 

Feral chickens are annoying and disgusting creatures, not much different than a pigeon, except noiser and more ill-tempered - especially roosters.  So, you want to create another breed of vermin.  A real flying rat.  Something that makes pigeons look good by comparison.

What about the pigs?  Most pigs are not of a disposition that will lend them to becoming house pets.  Pigs can be ornrey, and, unless you indulge in the brutal practices of ripping out their teeth like farmers do, they would be dangerous as house pets.  Pigs can chew through bone, and pigs aren’t above biting and chewing on each other.  They may be able to survive if they went feral, but who knows what the environmental impact would be if they were released into the wilds of North and South America?  No natural predators, willing to eat anything and everything, rapidly reproduce, they could cause significant environmental damage in a very short period of time.

Sheep?  Sheep are dumber than cows.  What will you do with the sheep? 

Goats could probably get by.

Horses don’t have a problem with going feral. 

At least 2 species will be rendered extinct by what you advocate, whether its done quickly or slowly doesn’t matter.  Extinction is what happens.  Save the cows from dying young (because guess what, all animals and people are born with a death sentence.  Its only a matter of how long and how) or from being milked, and you render them extinct.  They don’t get to live AT ALL.  ditto with sheep.

How is it moral to advocate for the extinction of an entire species?

Bet we aren’t going to treat cows as companion animals, are we?  At least not very many of them.  Cowness will be reduced by nearly 100%.

I can’t predict the future and neither can you. When people are taking animals seriously enough to stop eating them, then there’s certainly a real possibility that they’ll be treated as companion animals instead.

If they do go extinct, which I expect is unlikely, how is this worse than murdering individuals today? I would not subject individuals to needless suffering for the nebulous sake of “species.”

Sci-Fi?  Where?

In your dishonest pretense that this far future scenario has any bearing on the moral choice you as an individual have before you right now. You can stop killing animals.

Is the existence of any animal, regardless of how they meet their end, a good thing and if so why?  Is their life an a priori good.  Simple answer, yes or no?

Currently existing lives have intrinsic value. Your dishonesty has been to conflate future potential lives with current lives.

The origins of rights I’ve already addressed. If you don’t want to read the thread, I’m not going to give you my time.

omnivore on 10/17 at 01:11 PM

Asshole didn’t read the thread.

Both are fair assumptions until someone demonstrates any evidence to the contrary

It’s already been noted on this thread that this has been demonstrated about plants. You dismiss that as “biochemical” just as people used to dismiss the brains of animals as inferior because they were different and smaller than human brains

And no, I’m not talking about magic. I’m talking about the simple recognition that living things are living things. You’re breaking them down into different categories of “Worthy of protection” and “Not worthy of protection” based on your understanding of those ideas, and then getting upset when other people do the same thing, but put different living things in those categories than you do.

And it’s really swell to call someone whose moral sense extends to more living things than yours does as “a moron,” especially when you arent thrilled when people say the same of vegans for exactly the same reason.

You know, as much as I think that those who doth protest too much about Teh Gay Menace are barricading their closet door with 2x4s and nails, I shouldn’t be surprised when I get the same impression from vegans. Only their closets are packed with Outback commercials and bags of beef jerky.

This isn’t the personal excuse that you want it to be; it doesn’t let you off the hook for killing over 100 animals a year.

Wow. That’s the second-dumbest non sequitur I’ve ever seen. I’m not interested in being ‘let off the hook’ for eating animals, actually.

What I am interested in is discussing what you say you’d like to discuss; the importance of animal welfare and of persuading others to give up killing, eating and otherwise exploiting animals. The corollary of that is that animals will not all vanish. What do we do with them? Getting pissy and accusing me of seeking absolution (really: no) is not a thoughtful consideration of this issue. Neither is hand-waving, or nonsensical solutions like “court-appointed advocates for millions of cattle”.

What you’re doing, really, is refusing to grapple with an important issue because it’s complicated and difficult. I’m not saying that you have to present a solution in three easy steps or you don’t get to be a vegan. I’m asking for your view, as a vegan, on how we address this issue. You can’t say that you’re really advocating for animals if your view of their welfare stops at the edge of your dinner plate.

“If the point was that animal rights activism is stupid, then it’s a fucked point.”

...I’m not taking a stand on animals rights activism because it’s an extremely complex issue.  I feel very conflicted about many aspects.

What I am trying to point out is strident absolutism is the road to hell.  Just as the people who fomented the French Revolution, for example, were eventually consumed by it, absolutist thinking of any kind seems to lead inevitably to further death and destruction.

See the “pro-life” movement for a more current example.  They start out consumed with the philosophical POV that life begins at conception — a stand I and many others disagree with, but there you go.

Where they end up is forcing women to follow through with a pregnancy regardless of its affects on the individual woman, an arbitrary judgment that all birth control is wrong, that it’s perfectly okay to assassinate abortion doctors, etc.

In other words, being “pro-life” for some people has led them to hate (certain examples of) life.

I can see aspects of that here in this thread.  And that’s all I was trying to say…

“But you didn’t make a valid point. So it was really just an aimless joke.”

We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that point…

Asshole didn’t read the thread.

‘Asshole’ probably didn’t want to waste his time reading 170-odd comments.  Feel free to keep dishing out the ad hominems, though, it really bolsters your argument.

Grammer, all you’ve done is prove you’re a fundementalist, of a different stripe the average American ones, but akin to them all the same. There is no grey in any of your worlds, only black & white judgement.

It’s already been noted on this thread that this has been demonstrated about plants.

No, nothing of the sort has been demonstrated. To signal cell damage and trigger repair, plants utilize hormones similar to the stress hormones animals utilize, which both inherited from our common ancestors, colonial eukaryotes.

What’s missing in plants is any locus of awareness, or any evidence that a decentralized awareness could be occurring. I’m willing to talk about this in detail, but I assure you, I’ve studied it and the data does not imply anything that you’re imagining.

And no, I’m not talking about magic. I’m talking about the simple recognition that living things are living things. You’re breaking them down into different categories of “Worthy of protection” and “Not worthy of protection” based on your understanding of those ideas,

Hang on, no I’m not. Plants are worthy of protection, because animals rely on a balanced ecosystem. To say that plants don’t have minds or rights is not to say they should not be protected. The statue of David has no mind or rights, but it is worthy of protection.

And it’s really swell to call someone whose moral sense extends to more living things than yours does as “a moron,” especially when you arent thrilled when people say the same of vegans for exactly the same reason.

I apologize. I’ve been baited repeatedly by consciously dishonest arguments, and it really looked like you were doing the same thing. Your friend is wrong and misinformed, but I was wrong to call her a moron. The world would not be a worse place if more people were as careful and conscious about how they impact the ecosystem.

Learn some biology.

Learn some yourself, fucko.

Grammer, all you’ve done is prove you’re a fundementalist, of a different stripe the average American ones, but akin to them all the same. There is no grey in any of your worlds, only black & white judgement.

Precisely. And like other fundamentalists, insulting to others whose moral sense differs, whether it extends to fewer *or* more restrictions than youve decided are appropriate.

Grammer, all you’ve done is prove you’re a fundementalist, of a different stripe the average American ones, but akin to them all the same. There is no grey in any of your worlds, only black & white judgement.

Also a lie. See my replies at 01:47 AM, 01:55 AM, and 02:36 AM.

I’m willing to talk about this in detail, but I assure you, I’ve studied it and the data does not imply anything that you’re imagining

I assure you, Ive studied it too, and come to a different conclusion than you have.

Hang on, no I’m not. Plants are worthy of protection, because animals rely on a balanced ecosystem.

You’re not allowing plants to be worthy of protection in and of themselves. You’re seeing them as worthy of protection because they offer food and shelter to animals. That is no different than people who see animals as worthy of protection so they’ll be good work animals or make good food.

Your friend is wrong and misinformed, but I was wrong to call her a moron

Dont you see that people can think YOU are wrong and misinformed to want to protect animals from being food? Again, you’re just drawing a different moral line than my friend is, or that I do.

FTR I eat very little meat because I dont much like it, and no red meat at all. I eat it because I cannot tolerate soy, tofu, nuts or other “protein substitutes” that vegans eat. But I dont think the chicken I eat is “morally superior” to the lettuce I consume. I know that you do see it that way, and that’s just fine. What I fail to grasp is how you can miss the inherent hypocrisy in seeing some living things as worthy of protection in and of themselves, and some worthy of protection only as a food source, while condemning others for doing exactly the same thing. And that’s pretty much my point - you’ve come to a conclusion about where you draw the line, and you think everyone should have the same line. And in that, you are no different from pro-lifers, regardless of the ‘reasons’ you think you are right and they are wrong about embryos or the ‘reasons’ you think you’re right about animals vs plants.

What I am interested in is discussing what you say you’d like to discuss; the importance of animal welfare and of persuading others to give up killing, eating and otherwise exploiting animals. The corollary of that is that animals will not all vanish. What do we do with them? ... What you’re doing, really, is refusing to grapple with an important issue because it’s complicated and difficult. I’m not saying that you have to present a solution in three easy steps or you don’t get to be a vegan. I’m asking for your view, as a vegan, on how we address this issue.

Since this will happen slowly, demand will dwindle supply, and we’re no longer talking about billions or millions.

What happens then? Again, I can’t predict it. Shall we make them into companion animals, or let them go extinct? It’s a really good argument to have, in a few hundred years. It’s irrelevant now. My opinion today probably won’t even be considered by people then, and in any case, they’ll have the more relevant information of the facts on the ground at that time.

The question facing us today is how to reduce as much as possible the unnecessary suffering we all cause. The answer is veganism.

PETA isn’t exactly worthless, as the awareness of animal rights it helps create, and by logical extension human rights, more than balances out the mostly toothless meat-eatin’ mockery that comes its way.

BUT IF THEY’RE ACTUALLY SERIOUS ABOUT THE RIGHTS OF ALL LIVING BEINGS, then PETA should either get out of the nekkid business entirely, or instead send only us men out front and center with our best features forward for the cause.  That would strike a balance, probably attract even more attention, and address historical grievances - then after a while get out of the nekkid business altogether.

OTHERWISE, PETA, QUIT EXPLOITING WOMEN, as you can’t enhance the rights of animals by sacrificing the right to dignity of others.  It’s like invading a country for “its own good”.  It’s stupid and wrong, and it harms others (example does not necessarily include Darfur).

Hopefully, PETA will grow up and face a bright future without the chip on its shoulder about its crucial cause not being taken seriously.  They’ve otherwise done good work, and they now should go about their important business in ways that actually do no harm.

I assure you, Ive studied it too, and come to a different conclusion than you have.

I already invited you to bring the data.

You’re not allowing plants to be worthy of protection in and of themselves. You’re seeing them as worthy of protection because they offer food and shelter to animals. That is no different than people who see animals as worthy of protection so they’ll be good work animals or make good food.

Of course it is qualitatively and quantitatively different. Animals can experience suffering by being utilized.

Dont you see that people can think YOU are wrong and misinformed to want to protect animals from being food?

What I see is that people who don’t understand the relevant science can conflate animals and plants. I do not believe that everyone’s pulled-from-the-ass opinion is of the same weight. Evidence matters.

And that’s pretty much my point - you’ve come to a conclusion about where you draw the line, and you think everyone should have the same line. And in that, you are no different from pro-lifers, regardless of the ‘reasons’ you think you are right and they are wrong about embryos or the ‘reasons’ you think you’re right about animals vs plants.

I do not see the point in taking seriously people who do not believe that evidence matters. Pro-lifers are quantitatively wrong. If this were all about putting opinions on a pedestal, then we’d all be wrong for opposing pro-lifers’ attempts to control us.

Dont you see that people can think YOU are wrong and misinformed to want to protect humans from being enslaved? Again, you’re just drawing a different moral line than my friend is, or that I do.

Same logical fallacy, different century.

Same logical fallacy, different century.

And someone is going to claim this is a moral equivalence. It isn’t, it’s an attack on the logical structure of the argument.

In order to help people intuit why such reasoning is fallacious, it is helpful to show how it would hurt a group that we already understand to deserve better.

My headache is coming back to the point that this is unbearable. I’m sorry to those who are in the midst of ongoing discussions with me, but I have to give up now. I will read replies later but I cannot promise anything further.

Thanks to everyone who’s given this some thought.

I grew up near farms. Cows are dumb as a brick. They’d go extinct in a few decades in the wild.

Obviously you’ve never accidentally left the gate open to a pasture. Cows look docile, but those fuckers can run.

I don’t agree with Grammar but I’m disturbed that so many people are:

1) arguing against strawmen of his arguments
2) bashing vegans for being fundamentalists
3) using the same types of arguments that opponents of abortion or women’s equality use. Or worse just sliding into moral relativism.

As far as I can tell, all Grammar is saying that if you need to eat meat then fine eat meat. But if you don’t need to then what’s your justification other than it tastes good? As to questions of what to do with domesticated animals if everyone became vegans overnight, that is a ridiculous question. And that’s similar to an argument that the Romans shouldn’t stop slavery because the economy would collapse and how would all these poor former slaves survive?

I’m not a vegan or even a vegetarian but I do try to examine my attitudes about eating meat and don’t blithely cast judgment on those who feel differently.

We all draw the lines where we feel comfortable. You think that things with a face and a brain that’s like yours deserve protection. Arguing we should all draw the line in the same place is no different than saying that since someone anti-abortion draws the line at sperm meets egg, we all should accept that.

All ethics debates are pointless! Hooray!

What I am trying to point out is strident absolutism is the road to hell.  Just as the people who fomented the French Revolution, for example, were eventually consumed by it, absolutist thinking of any kind seems to lead inevitably to further death and destruction.

See the “pro-life” movement for a more current example.  They start out consumed with the philosophical POV that life begins at conception — a stand I and many others disagree with, but there you go.
[...]

I can see aspects of that here in this thread.  And that’s all I was trying to say…

I’m not sure where in the thread you saw it, but ok.

Obviously, Pandagon is a place where ridiculous beliefs are regularly skewered. The thing is, most of those beliefs have political traction, and can affect someone’s rights in the matter of two years or less. They’re also supported by people who are intellectually dishonest and argue in bad faith.

Animal rights activists aren’t a gaggle of douchebags. They don’t have some sweeping legislative agenda that will take right away from people. It’s mostly for non-controversial stuff: animal derivatives in makeup, horse meat, dog fur. This is basically the exact opposite of anti-choicers, homobigots, et al. The only harm that mainstream animal rights people visit upon society is making people defensive.

Whenever the animal rights debate comes up, it seems someone is always forced to stake out a 200 year ethics and policy framework, and if they don’t, their beliefs are bankrupt. When someone asks for all the details of what a post-feminist society is supposed to look like the typical (and correct) answer is that we are not psychics, and we are concerned with working toward equality in the here and now. (This isn’t an equation of women and animals. Just a critique of how to people approach political movements in general.)

Not all ethics debates have to involve completely shredding apart the other side, and they aren’t all a wash, either. It’s possible to accept an ethical stance as valid without agreeing with it. Honestly, what’s the harm in advocating for vegetarianism?

In short: PETA sucks.

Not all ethics debates have to involve completely shredding apart the other side, and they aren’t all a wash, either. It’s possible to accept an ethical stance as valid without agreeing with it. Honestly, what’s the harm in advocating for vegetarianism?

Juan, is there a particular reason you’re not differentiating between vegetarianism (which to most people implies continuing to consume animal products, just not the ones that require death) and veganism?  I’ve seen you do it several times in this thread and they don’t seem to have the same moral base at all from an animal rights perspective, at least as Grammar has laid it out here.

Grammar is not just arguing for being kinder to animals, or reducing meat consumption.  She’s* arguing for widespread adoption of ideas that will lead to the elimination of species, like it or not.  She’s arguing that taking milk from cows or eggs from chickens is inherently evil in and of itself, no matter what conditions those cows or chickens are kept in.

I do not believe that other animals deserve the same rights as human beings.  They are not our moral equals, because they do not have a moral sense.  Grammar believes the opposite and thinks that a cow has the exact same right to live its life without interference as a human being.  That’s a pretty difficult barrier to cross.

* I’m remembering Grammar as a she—apologies ahead of time if I’m misremembering.

The anti-war movement should use PETA tactics. Anti-Vietnam war protesters did. I could not find the story on the internets, but recall a report from an underground newspaper purchased in SF about naked Yippie women serving pigs heads at a ballroom event attended by pro-war businesspersons and politicos. We need that kind of confrontation today. 

PETA does a lot of good things for animals. Many people think animals are sentient. PETA thinks animals are sapient.

If god didn’t want us to eat animals he wouldn’t have made them taste so good.

Warning TLDR alert!

Juan, is there a particular reason you’re not differentiating between vegetarianism (which to most people implies continuing to consume animal products, just not the ones that require death) and veganism?

I consider the framework to be mostly equivalent.

Just as a personal disclosure: I agree that most dairy cows have shitty lives. I disagree with the assertion that we can never, ever drink cows’ milk or eat unfertilized bird eggs. I always drink soy milk unless I know the farm that the cow’s milk came from. I think cows’ milk should be primarily for their offspring, and if they need to be milked after that (without constant artificial insemination), then that’s ok. And I only eat free range eggs.

That being said, I can see where vegans are coming from, and I agree with the thrust of their arguments. In an ideal world, I would live a completely vegan lifestyle, and may later on down the road.

I believe we have a responsibility to care for the species we’ve domesticated/made as long as they’re around. I don’t think Grammar disagrees with that assessment. The whole domesticated animal and extinction scenarios are so far flung into the future that they are purely academic. It’s like “What will happen to gender? Will there be no gender? Infinity+1 genders?”

The goal in the present is to just get people to question certain assumptions and give animals more moral consideration. Maybe get people to think about small stuff like why do I need gelatin in my yogurt or why most jeans need little leather patches on them. This isn’t crazy stuff.

Animal rights activism is extremely marginal so much so that minor philosophical distinctions can become (or seem like) fringe movements. This makes it easy to point to the extremes. Most vegans and vegetarians aren’t going to call you a slavemaster for having a dog, claim third-world citizens should starve instead of eating a goat, or say you should go to trial for running over a cat.

I don’t believe Grammar has called anyone ‘evil’ in this thread. I’m certainly not going to call meat-eaters evil. I think it’s a moral failing that our society perpetuates and that we can largely do without. Failings are common. We’re all imperfect. If we’re at a dinner party, I’m not going to shit on you for what’s on your plate.

I do not believe that other animals deserve the same rights as human beings.  They are not our moral equals, because they do not have a moral sense.  Grammar believes the opposite and thinks that a cow has the exact same right to live its life without interference as a human being.  That’s a pretty difficult barrier to cross.

I don’t think anyone’s expecting you to. Animal rights advocacy really is about the long game. The only thing that might be expected is to honestly agree to disagree, and possibly acknowledge that Grammar’s opinions aren’t necessarily shitty opinions to have.

Successful ego baiting, Mnemosyne. I can’t keep myself away when you lie about me.

I do not believe that other animals deserve the same rights as human beings.  They are not our moral equals, because they do not have a moral sense.  Grammar believes the opposite and thinks that a cow has the exact same right to live its life without interference as a human being.

I even remember the last time you repeated this lie about me, and I repudiated it: http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2008/02/13/6729/#comment-491184

To say that a nonhuman animal has the right not to be murdered is not to say that its claim upon that right must be weighted exactly the same as a human’s. But the animal’s right to its own life certainly outranks your flavor preferences.

Even in this thread I have already acknowledged that, as Vincent puts it, “if you need to eat meat then fine eat meat. But if you don’t need to then what’s your justification other than it tastes good?”

Look, I would save a child from a burning building before I would save a dog. This is irrelevant to whether or not the dog also has a right to live. I would also save a child before I would save an elderly person. This is irrelevant to whether or not the elderly person also has a right to live.

She’s* arguing for widespread adoption of ideas that will lead to the elimination of species, like it or not.

I doubt that very much, since we don’t use cats and dogs for food anymore but we keep them around because we like their company. And if it does? So what? Why should we torture individuals for the sake of their “species”? They don’t care about their species. They care about their own lives. Again, I’ve already forwarded your concern to the World Council of Wizards.

*gay man. No apology necessary.

I eat meat. I cannot tolerate vegetables, although rice is a staple in my diet. At this point, people like Grammar RWA turn off and don’t want to hear anymore.

I am against animal cruelty. From where I stand, humans are at the top of the food chain. The only responsible thing to do is to eat only enough to survive, and not to overconsume. It’s this overconsumption that leads to profiteers taking advantage of animals and hurting them in due process.

When my animal gets killed, I expect it to be killed quickly, quietly and easily. Animals should not live in suffering; they should live the best quality of life possible while alive. When they die, they should go with as little pain as possible. When they land into my pot, I give my thanks to it for sustaining me, and to the farmer who took care of it in a non-cruel way before delivering it to me the consumer.

So rather than buy from the supermarket where I have no clue where my meat is coming from, I buy from the local market where I can meet the farmer himself. Frankly, I think Polyface Farms should be the leading example of how meat should be raised in a way that’s land-healing and good for animals. But that’s just me.

http://www.polyfacefarms.com/

I believe we have a responsibility to care for the species we’ve domesticated/made as long as they’re around. I don’t think Grammar disagrees with that assessment. The whole domesticated animal and extinction scenarios are so far flung into the future that they are purely academic. It’s like “What will happen to gender? Will there be no gender? Infinity+1 genders?”

That is what I’m saying. You understood fine; I was starting to wonder if I was speaking in tongues.

From where I stand, humans are at the top of the food chain.

See also the naturalistic fallacy, might makes right, will to power, manifest destiny.

When they land into my pot, I give my thanks to it for sustaining me,

Another stain on the record of religion and superstition. As though some animal soul has gone to a better place and gives a crap whether you’re thankful for its murder.

Shit, this is getting really bad for my stress system. I’m going to try again to step away.

What’s missing in plants is any locus of awareness, or any evidence that a decentralized awareness could be occurring.

This is what gets me about veganism/animal rights.  It’s not really veganism, and it’s not really animal rights.  It’s “rights for animals I think are cute” a nd it’s “not eating animals I think are cute”. 

Because if you’re only for protecting the animals that have central nervous systems, that means shellfish and insects are off the hook.  I’ll have the lobster thermidor, please!  And could you add a side of conch fritters, and th a cup of the crabmeat bisque?  Oh, why that’s a lovely mother-of-pearl brooch you’re wearing! 

Insects are a little easier, because our culture doesn’t value them as food.  So it’s pretty easy to turn down things that are highly sought-after delicacies outside the west.  Though I have a feeling you have no problem squishing roaches and spiders, and swatting flies.

It’s especially disingenuous on an environmental level, because shellfish are so often over-fished.  There are entire genii of insects that only exist in economically sensitive parts of the world, which are on their way to extinction.  Oh, but that’s OK, because at least we’re not hurting their little fee-fees, right? 

I think that if you want to be vegan, go ahead.  But once you couch it in moral terms, especially if those moral terms relate to the fact that (some) animals have central nervous systems and can feel pain, it just gets impossibly fuzzy because suddenly the only animals that count are the cute ones.

Humane Society of the United States is just as bad.  Massive fund raising, moral superiority, nothing to actually do anything to help animals.

“Does it ever occur to PETA types that domestication of animals as food providers and food themselves has actually been a fairly successful evolutionary trait?”
An *extremely* successful trait for all involved, at that (including us). A handful of generalist herbivores and omnivores banded together and conquered the world, that’s pretty much the definition of evolutionary success (we couldn’t have accomplished nearly as much without our animals, and many of them would be extinct or nearly so without us).

“They may be able to survive if they went feral, but who knows what the environmental impact would be if they were released into the wilds of North and South America? “
There are already feral pigs… pretty much everywhere, actually.

I think that if you want to be vegan, go ahead.  But once you couch it in moral terms, especially if those moral terms relate to the fact that (some) animals have central nervous systems and can feel pain, it just gets impossibly fuzzy because suddenly the only animals that count are the cute ones

Exactly, it leaves out living things which are “less like us.” And its a lousy argument for veganism, IMO. When you put it in moral terms, you’re going to encounter people who have a more stringent and less stringent sense of morality in your particular subject (ie, those who think eating anything is ok, those who think only fallen fruit is ok). It’s a slippery slope argument.

Far more effective is the argument that growing enough grain to feed animals that become food is wasteful and environmentally unsound, when that acreage could be put to better use growing plants that feed humans directly.

It’s not the veganism I take issue with, it’s the argument based on “animals are like us and shouldnt be eaten” that seems to fall afoul of an argument which is easily pushed aside by those with a different “moral” sense about animals and other living things.

This is what gets me about veganism/animal rights.  It’s not really veganism, and it’s not really animal rights.  It’s “rights for animals I think are cute” a nd it’s “not eating animals I think are cute”. Because if you’re only for protecting the animals that have central nervous systems, that means shellfish and insects are off the hook.

Insects and shellfish have central nervous systems. Google-fu would have told you that in a heartbeat.

And look at what I said: What’s missing in plants is any locus of awareness, or any evidence that a decentralized awareness could be occurring.

That means I’m even leaving open the possibility of decentralized nervous systems, and moral obligations toward them, EXACTLY what you accused me of overlooking when you thought that insects and lobsters didn’t have a CNS. All I’m asking is that the “plants feel” crowd come forth with a shred of evidence for even decentralized awareness.

You literally took the opposite of everything I said, in the clearest possible terms, and castigated me for it. Apparently you desperately need to believe that I don’t care about shellfish, but it’s not true.

The reason I try to keep bringing people’s attention back to vertebrates is that they are completely uncontroversial. Trolls always want to say “well, what about sponges?” or some shit, because suggesting that the speaker is less than perfectly pure is a middle-school way of implying that no progress can ever be made for any species, and nothing should ever be done. Bringing it back to vertebrates is the way of keeping to focus on your responsibility. You can’t be sure about sponges? Well, you can be sure about vertebrates, so do something about them.

If you want to include insects and shellfish in your veganism (which you don’t practice, oh hypocrite) then that’s great. But it’s a goddamned lie to say that I’m not concerned about them. Fuck you. Quit lying.

I don’t know you, Damian, and after your earlier enraged outburst, I don’t respect your opinion and I don’t care if I detract from your enjoyment of the site.

Heavens, I disagree with you and call you what you are!  Why, I’m less than human!

Don’t you have some schoolwork to do, you fucking teenager?

Seriously, get the fuck out.  You’re a troll and an idiot, and this site would be best served with you as nothing more than a bad memory.

Oh, and if you’d like to talk enraged outbursts, one needs look no farther than THIS THREAD to see yours.  Dozens of them.

Hypocritical teenager.  Grow the fuck up and come back when you can be reasonable, mature, and, most of all, not a fucking troll.

It’s not the veganism I take issue with, it’s the argument based on “animals are like us and shouldnt be eaten” that seems to fall afoul of an argument which is easily pushed aside by those with a different “moral” sense about animals and other living things.

Your friend might not be a moron, Broce; I don’t know her. But you definitely are.

Just a moment ago you were condemning me on a misreading of what I said:

You’re not allowing plants to be worthy of protection in and of themselves. You’re seeing them as worthy of protection because they offer food and shelter to animals. That is no different than people who see animals as worthy of protection so they’ll be good work animals or make good food.

Now you’re making that exact argument that you scolded me for:

Far more effective is the argument that growing enough grain to feed animals that become food is wasteful and environmentally unsound, when that acreage could be put to better use growing plants that feed humans directly.

You’re saying the reason to avoid meat isn’t because animals are worthy of protection in and of themselves, but only because of the utility of vegetarianism to humans!

By itself, that’s a flawed but understandable argument. In contrast with what you just said to me, though, it makes you an imbecilic hypocrite.

To say that a nonhuman animal has the right not to be murdered is not to say that its claim upon that right must be weighted exactly the same as a human’s. But the animal’s right to its own life certainly outranks your flavor preferences.

Okay, I must be dumb, because I really don’t see a difference between what I said and what you’re saying here.  If animals have an inherent right not to be interfered with by us, whether it’s killing them or milking them, how is that not giving them the same rights as human beings, who also have an inherent right to not be interfered with?  I honestly don’t understand the distinction you’re trying to draw.

I will go further than you on one thing, though:  claiming that humans are at the top of the food chain isn’t a naturalistic fallacy—it’s out and out false.  The fact that we have developed weapons we can use to fend off predators (assuming we have said weapons to hand in a crisis, of course) doesn’t magically boost us up higher in the food chain.  It just means we have a defense against the predators higher up on the food chain who would like to make us into their dinner.

Dozens of them.

Three. After I’m misrepresented repeatedly.

Into the killfile with you, Damian. *plonk*

castigated me for it.

You’re going to have to dial it down a notch, hon.

Saying that I disagree with your (pretty much invented from whole cloth) moral worldview is not castigating you.  I honestly don’t care what you do or don’t eat, or why you do or don’t eat it.  What I take issue with is the idea that anyone who so much as puts organic and sustainably/humanely farmed milk in their coffee is somehow equivalent to Michael Vick, because that’s ridiculous.

Okay, I must be dumb, because I really don’t see a difference between what I said and what you’re saying here.  If animals have an inherent right not to be interfered with by us, whether it’s killing them or milking them, how is that not giving them the same rights as human beings, who also have an inherent right to not be interfered with?  I honestly don’t understand the distinction you’re trying to draw.

Let me try to explain it another way. If you and I were stranded on a desert island with no food, it’ll just be a matter of time before one of us whacks the other over the head with a rock and starts eating. Probably it’ll come down to whoever is more ruthless, or maybe we’ll agree to flip a coin or a seashell.

That doesn’t mean that the one who was killed didn’t have a right to live.

And it doesn’t mean that the one who killed did something terrible. The alternative was for both of us to starve. It’s better that one of us lived. The killer had a right to self-preservation.

This right to self-preservation, I think, comes before the obligation to others’ right of life.

And a human has more to preserve. The same way an adult woman is more valuable than her fetus, even if that fetus has a brain, because the woman’s brain has “memories and dreams, relationships and friends, children who love and rely on them, hopes and ambitions, favorite songs, stories to tell, a stated preference for living, a kinship with the world, something to lose.”

The nonhuman animal, depending on degrees of sophistication, has less than the adult human and more than the fetus. Some animals have more to lose than others, too. If we are forced into choosing, these degrees must be considered.

It’s just that here in modern America, we are not forced into choosing between ourselves and animals, or our children and animals. If we were, we’d be justified in choosing the human, but we <i>aren’t.</a>

What I take issue with is the idea that anyone who so much as puts organic and sustainably/humanely farmed milk in their coffee is somehow equivalent to Michael Vick, because that’s ridiculous.

Not what I’ve said. Ever.

At least Mnemosyne has the decency to try to get it right, finally.

Grammar, you very clearly stated that plants were to be protected because of animals, and I quote:

Plants are worthy of protection, because animals rely on a balanced ecosystem.

As for the rest of your insults, they really don’t further your point, and I’m not here to exchange digs with you.

You draw the line with some kinds of animals as worthy of protection in and of themselves. I understand this. I think it’s a weak argument, because you *have* drawn a line, and there is nothing inherently correct about where you’ve chosen your stand. A line can be argued at other places too. You refuse to accept that, because you’re so invested in being absolutely rigidly correct.

You’re saying the reason to avoid meat isn’t because animals are worthy of protection in and of themselves, but only because of the utility of vegetarianism to humans!

Which does not make me a hypocrite. I havent argued the morality or immorality of eating plants or animals. I’ve argued that you don’t seem to get that drawing such a line leaves the line open to movement in either direction.

genii

Genera. Just a nitpick.

The nonhuman animal, depending on degrees of sophistication, has less than the adult human and more than the fetus. Some animals have more to lose than others, too. If we are forced into choosing, these degrees must be considered.

All animals are equal. Some animals are more equal than others.

Got it. Who decides? Based on what, how similar their nervous systems and brains are to humans?

Sorry I’ve been away for a bit.  Still sick :(

Grammar: Yes, I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian.  I live in an agricultural area and so 99% of my milk and egg purchases are local (as in I’ve seen the animals running around). 

I seesaw back and forth between this position and veganism.  I believe that, in theory, the consumption of milk and eggs is not morally wrong, though I recognize that it is nearly impossible in our current configuration to obtain them ethically as a mere consumer. (factory farms, etc.)

I agree with Vincent that Grammar has been straw-manned pretty badly.  I have not seen her call any individual out as “a bad person.” She has merely demanded that each individual be accountable for their ethical choices.

I haven’t seen very many rebuttals to her arguments that do this.  Not a whole lot of “I disagree, it is not morally wrong to inflict pain and this is why,” or, “I disagree, my aesthetic taste in food is worth more than an animal and this is why,” or, “I disagree, animals do not have rights like humans do for this reason.”

Instead, nearly everyone is trying to undermine her position. 

I respectfully ask those who keep bringing up species extinction and plant-feelings to look closely at their own positions and respond with a positive argument.  Otherwise, you are just sniping from the sidelines.

Maybe you think that meat eating is not an ethical issue at all.  That in itself requires arguing and I’d be interested to hear it.

** NOTE: I’m not saying that NO ONE has made a real argument about that position rather than merely attacking Grammar.  To those who have contributed to this thread by elaborating new positions, thanks.

Grammar, you very clearly stated that plants were to be protected because of animals

And your lie was to claim that “That is no different than people who see animals as worthy of protection so they’ll be good work animals or make good food.”

You keep asserting this radical relativism, where only opinions matter. Evidence matters. No reply from you to Juan Stoppable’s excellent response at 02:28 PM. No reply to me at 01:50 PM.

A line can be argued at other places too.

And those lines are wrong. Just like the pro-lifer who draws a line at conception. The line is wrong.

I’ve argued that you don’t seem to get that drawing such a line leaves the line open to movement in either direction.

Only to people who refuse to discuss why the line should be anywhere in particular. Most people are not such moral cowards.

If there are no lines, then there is nothing wrong with human-on-human murder. This is ridiculous. Your whole nonargument is summed up right there.

Got it. Who decides? Based on what, how similar their nervous systems and brains are to humans?

Yes, obviously.

The only reason we have for not killing other humans is because we recognize that something is going on inside their heads that is similar to what’s going on inside our own.

Similarity to humans is the only measurement we have.

I suspect there’s something similar enough going on inside the insect brain. These are not matters of opinion, though; they are empirical questions that science can address.

I have not seen her call any individual out as “a bad person.”

Chet. And I’ve basically done it to Mnemosyne in other threads, although my respect for her is back today. Megan, I’m not a nice fellow, mostly because I’m quick to anger, and if you invest anything in defending my rhetorical honor, you’ll be quickly disappointed. I appreciate, though, that you did notice I’m being strawmanned before I’m lashing out. But you should probably stop there.

I don’t understand why nobody is advocating for machine rights.

I don’t believe Grammar has called anyone ‘evil’ in this thread. I’m certainly not going to call meat-eaters evil. I think it’s a moral failing that our society perpetuates and that we can largely do without. Failings are common. We’re all imperfect.

No, we’re not evil.  We’re immoral.  GRWA has posted about half the comments on this thread explaining in detail why we omnivores are immoral.  And murderers.

Seriously, murder?  That word, which you throw around awfully casually in so many of your comments, has a specific meaning you know.  You’re equating eating meat with a crime that is punishible by decades or life in prison or even the death penalty.  Cut it out, unless you really do think I belong in prison for eating steak.

Gee, I wonder why people here are getting pissed off at you and equating you with pro-lifer fundies?

Genera. Just a nitpick.

Thanks.  I didn’t know the correct word, and spell check was giving me the big red wavy line for both “genuses” and “genii”, so I just had to go with the more fun choice and know I was wrong.

Not what I’ve said. Ever.

Then what did you mean when you said, way, WAY upthread, that “the dairy industry is the veal industry”? 

I don’t think it’s only the big bad evil factory farms that inseminate cows for the purposes of producing lactation, then do away with the resulting calf.  I’m not sure exactly what the “nice” farms do, but I know they don’t give the calves to their kids to raise as pets until they die of natural causes.

Oh, and I forgot about the part where you apparently think it’s wrong for people to own animals as pets.  If it’s cruel to own an animal, how is it not cruel to use an animal to produce milk, even if you do it humanely?

Megan, if you’ve got spare time for nonfiction, Gary Francione’s book Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? is excellent. One of the important topics is that while animals are legally property, under a market economy, it is impossible to raise their standards of living as high as you or I would hope. It is not an anticapitalist tract, just an investigation of the dynamic between property law and the markets. Francione is a lawyer. It’s about 190 pages.

Seriously, murder?  That word, which you throw around awfully casually in so many of your comments, has a specific meaning you know.

I’m not going to limit myself to only one legalistic definition of the word. It’s an important distinction. One can kill a plant, but not murder it. One can murder an animal.

Then what did you mean when you said, way, WAY upthread, that “the dairy industry is the veal industry”? 

I meant that the dairy industry is the meat industry. The same companies operate them, the money for one funds the other, the industries depend on one another to coexist. Now, are you saying that the veal industry is like Michael Vick?

I don’t think it’s only the big bad evil factory farms that inseminate cows for the purposes of producing lactation, then do away with the resulting calf.  I’m not sure exactly what the “nice” farms do, but I know they don’t give the calves to their kids to raise as pets until they die of natural causes.

Right. They murder them. But I would say it’s still worse to train dogs to kill each other, and let them fight and maim each other, basically ruining their minds with bloodlust and ensuring they can never experience a normal life.

At least in theory, someone can break into a farm and take baby cows to a sanctuary where they can live out normal lives.

The problem with morality from empathy is that different people have very different levels of empathy towards what-have-you.  In the end it is just a matter of opinion, though in some cases opinion can be in consensus and the majority can impose their will.  Fortunately we have other sources for morality.  But currently, the line of argument that animals shouldn’t be killed because they are like us (empathy) only will work on people who actually feel animals are like us, which obviously you don’t need to convince of anything.

Oh, and I forgot about the part where you apparently think it’s wrong for people to own animals as pets.

Also a lie. I said if we can alter the legal and social framework so that we are legal guardians to animal companions, the potential problems with pet ownership aren’t there anymore.

And many pet owners today treat their pets well enough already. Amanda and her cats, for example, are doing great. I’m talking about making sure that animals have protection under the law that they do not have today.

That doesn’t mean that the one who was killed didn’t have a right to live.

And it doesn’t mean that the one who killed did something terrible. The alternative was for both of us to starve. It’s better that one of us lived. The killer had a right to self-preservation.

This right to self-preservation, I think, comes before the obligation to others’ right of life.

Ah, I see where we have a disconnect.  Because I do think it would be wrong to kill and eat a fellow human in that situation, even if it would preserve my own life.  (Eating someone who died naturally or accidentally would be okay as long as I had not caused the death.) I think that human beings have a duty to one another that they do not owe to the other animals.  I think we have some duties to the other animals, including a duty to treat them as humanely and respectfully as possible, but I don’t think we owe them the same duties that we owe our fellow humans.

I believe that, in theory, the consumption of milk and eggs is not morally wrong, though I recognize that it is nearly impossible in our current configuration to obtain them ethically as a mere consumer.

Yet another thing I don’t understand about the animal rights angle. 

OK, so under current conditions many/most people don’t have access to humanely produced dairy products..  Therefore it is immoral to own a pet, and MEAT IS MURDER!!11!!!111!111!!!! and anyone who is even minimally OK with, like, taking cream in their coffee is on about the level of all the former brownshirts who were “just doing their job”. 

That’s a HUGE leap. 

I mean, if you’re working toward some real-life goal, why not just work toward the goal of making humanely produced dairy more accessible?  Why not work towards better standards on farms, the abolition of CAFOs, etc?  Those are all very realistic, almost easy, goals to have.  In a lot of ways, outlawing CAFOs would probably be easier than anything feminists or anti-racists or gay right supporters are trying to do, because CAFOs are pretty obviously horrid and getting rid of them wouldn’t really challenge anybody’s “traditional values” It’s just a matter of ag and food handling policy.

This is why animal rights advocates often come off as empty, or self-righteous, or immature.  Because you jump directly from “dairy products aren’t farmed in a way I consider humane” to “murderers!” Without stopping in between to work on an issue you can actually make an impact on.  (because I promise that nobody’s going to advocate the death penalty for omelet chefs anytime soon).

For example, in Regalado v United States, Regalado was convicted of violating the anticruelty statute of the District of Columbia for beating a puppy. Regalado appealed, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to convict him because the state had not proved that he had intended to harm the puppy; he claimed that he had merely disciplined the puppy. ... The [appellate] court recognized that anticruelty statutes were “not intended to place unreasonable restrictions on the infliction of such pain as may be necessary for the training or discipline of an animal.” Therefore the act of beating an animal does not in itself prove liability; the beating must be accompanied by a “malicious” mental state. In short, unless the state can prove that the defendant is sadistic, there can be no conviction under the anticruelty law.—Francione

I think that human beings have a duty to one another that they do not owe to the other animals.  I think we have some duties to the other animals, including a duty to treat them as humanely and respectfully as possible, but I don’t think we owe them the same duties that we owe our fellow humans.

But you see, I’ve said exactly that already.

What you keep failing to do is explaining why not murdering an animal isn’t one of the duties we owe to them.

What you keep failing to do is explaining why not murdering an animal isn’t one of the duties we owe to them.

Because killing an animal is not “murder.” You can only murder another human being.  Killing an animal is killing them.  To me, saying that killing an animal is “murder” is putting them on the same moral plane as a human being, which brings us right back to the beginning of the argument.

I said if we can alter the legal and social framework so that we are legal guardians to animal companions, the potential problems with pet ownership aren’t there anymore.

WTF?

OK, so I say that you don’t think it’s moral for humans to own animals as pets.  You call me a liar, and then say that all of our social conventions about animal ownership need to change before it will really be OK for us to even be “legal guardians” to animals.  And that there are “problems” with animal ownership. (And I’m pretty sure you’re not talking about the problems most people would think of, which are already socially discouraged and/or legislated against, like animal abuse, dog fighting, puppy mills, and the like)

Wha?  Did you sustain a life-threatening head injury recently by any chance?

it wouldn’t excuse causing pain to animals who we know feel pain and have a preference to live.

Forgive me if this has been said, I couldn’t be assed to read the entire thread.
Animals that are not self aware do not have a preference to live.  They have an instinct to live.  I could buy a bonobo or a spermwhale having some rudimentary self awareness and consciousness and hence a preference but not a cow (dumb heard-bound herbivore) or a chicken (dumb and viscous feathered dinosaur).  They have an instinct for self preservation, not a preference.
Pain is not always a moral negative.  I have had medical and dental procedures performed on me that have hurt like hell.  But that pain served a purpose, it restored my ability to use parts of my body.  So pain with a purpose behind it is at worst morally neutral.
The pain caused during slaughter serves a purpose, a human purpose. A human purpose as purpose is a human conceit.  A cow has no purpose other than what we choose to apply to it.  The pain caused allows me to eat the animal.
I can and do minimize it in my personal buying choices – I buy from a local farmer who raises free range chickens, turkeys, steers and pigs.  I am human and do have empathy so I do think that reducing negative sensory stimuli such as pain and fear during slaughter is worthwhile and I am willing to pay for it.
Now before anyone throws up “so you believe that torture is justified!!!one!!” I consider torture bad for at least two reasons:
1. It’s an ineffective means of interrogation
2. I don’t want anybody doing it to me!
So I would regard killing an animal for food as a reasonable thing to do.  I find arguments for veganism form a “think of the animals” unconvincing.

Why not work towards better standards on farms, the abolition of CAFOs, etc?  Those are all very realistic, almost easy, goals to have.  In a lot of ways, outlawing CAFOs would probably be easier than anything feminists or anti-racists or gay right supporters are trying to do, because CAFOs are pretty obviously horrid and getting rid of them wouldn’t really challenge anybody’s “traditional values” It’s just a matter of ag and food handling policy.

Your ignorance of the actual battle is obvious. Here’s an example: http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/?p=162

Without stopping in between to work on an issue you can actually make an impact on.

Talking to people about veganism and convincing them to become vegans is one of those actual issues, and it has an actual impact on >100 actual animals per person per year.

Because killing an animal is not “murder.” You can only murder another human being.  Killing an animal is killing them.  To me, saying that killing an animal is “murder” is putting them on the same moral plane as a human being, which brings us right back to the beginning of the argument.

You want to talk about it as “killing”, fine, Mnemosyne, just for you I will use this word.

Now explain to me why not killing an animal isn’t one of the duties we owe to them.

and then say that all of our social conventions about animal ownership need to change before it will really be OK for us to even be “legal guardians” to animals.

You’re lying again!

I said that right now the arrangements between many pet owners and their pets are A-OK. I used Amanda and her cats as an example!

I just said that when the human is not disposed to treating the animal right, the animal has no recourse. That’s why the legal framework has to change.

We’re completely on the honor system right now. Those who do honor their pets are fine, but we can’t leave it at that for everyone else.

You are just profoundly dishonest, Opo, and I’m done wasting my time with you.

Comment by The Opoponax blocked. [unkill]​[show comment]

Should have done it months ago.

Talking to people about veganism and convincing them to become vegans is one of those actual issues,

Yeah, see, that’s what I’m talking about.

Let’s say that, through your completely obnoxious little “sales pitch”, you convince 10 people to become vegans in the next 5 years.  Which is actually a pretty tall order, becauseit’s rare that any one person “convinces” anybody to make a radical lifestyle change like that in the course of a conversation. 

In that 5 years, how many petitions could you have circulated?  How much state legislation could you have drafted?  How many legislators could you have lobbied?  How many USDA officials could you have written to?  How many local farms could you have visited and helped to support?  How may people could you have told about the humanely produced eggs and milk booths at the local farmer’s market?  How many local supermarkets could you have convinced to carry humane dairy products?  How many local restaurants could you have connected with nearby farms? 

Other people are already out doing that stuff—I’m involved with some of that, and I’ve never encountered a vegan in any of that work (aside from some who bristled at the thought of me buying the pastured eggs and humanely produced milk at all).  The vegans are busy trying to convince people to stop eating animal products at all, and getting nekkid in the name of cuddly bunnies or whatever.

Honestly, I’ve probably done more good talking up the new locavore-oriented restaurant in my neighborhood (which uses only local, sustainable, and humane dairy, eggs, and meat) in the last month than you have done EVER by trying to convince people to stop eating animal products.

Now explain to me why not killing an animal isn’t one of the duties we owe to them.

Because, like many other animals, we are omnivores.  It’s no more morally wrong for me to eat a chicken than it is for a mountain lion to eat me.  A mountain lion wouldn’t deliberately keep me in torment for days or weeks or years before finally killing and eating me, so we shouldn’t do that to our fellow animals, either—if we are going to eat animals, we should do it with as little pain to them as possible. 

I get the feeling that you think that humans are special and different than the other animals.  I really don’t, so I don’t think that we owe them a courtesy that they would not extend to us.

If you choose differently, that’s your right, but the line you’re drawing is not nearly as bright and clear as you seem to think.

(And I’m pretty sure you’re not talking about the problems most people would think of, which are already socially discouraged and/or legislated against, like animal abuse

Missed that one just as I posted that reply. What a despicable liar you are:

For example, in Regalado v United States, Regalado was convicted of violating the anticruelty statute of the District of Columbia for beating a puppy. Regalado appealed, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to convict him because the state had not proved that he had intended to harm the puppy; he claimed that he had merely disciplined the puppy. ... The [appellate] court recognized that anticruelty statutes were “not intended to place unreasonable restrictions on the infliction of such pain as may be necessary for the training or discipline of an animal.” Therefore the act of beating an animal does not in itself prove liability; the beating must be accompanied by a “malicious” mental state. In short, unless the state can prove that the defendant is sadistic, there can be no conviction under the anticruelty law.—Francione

Because, like many other animals, we are omnivores.  It’s no more morally wrong for me to eat a chicken than it is for a mountain lion to eat me.

The naturalistic fallacy. Might makes right. Every time we have this discussion, I point out that you are making this formal fallacy, and you never get it.

Goddamn, Mnemosyne. I’m sorry I ever called you a liar. You’ve just got a brick skull.

Mnemosyne’s next objection is that it’s not “might makes right”, it’s just reciprocity.

How do I know? Because it always is.

And I’ve already addressed it.

2) If rights are constructed by mutual agreement, and contingent upon reciprocity, then infants, toddlers, certain mentally ill people, and mentally retarded people do not have rights. If they cannot understand and extend rights to others, they cannot receive rights in return. Reciprocity is probably a too brutal standard. It even means that mentally retarded people, like Johnny Paul Penry, do not have the right to not be executed, even though they don’t understand the laws they broke. In fact they have no rights precisely because they cannot understand the laws they broke.

Reciprocity is contrary to most people’s understanding of right for this reason. But if we reject reciprocity for humans, it’s not clear why we should not also extend that consideration to animals. Neither Johnny Paul Penry nor a longhorn bull can enter into a mutual agreement of rights, nor understand why they should not kill me. That does not mean I’m automatically entitled to kill them, though.

Now I really am done here. There’s no one left in this thread except the hardened partisans, and it’s a waste of time.

GrammarRWA, hope you feel better soon and the strawmanning stops.

Lots of people are ecological vegetarian/vegans, what some would call utilitarians.  I understand it and agree with it.  I believe it’s wasteful to use up natural resources raising animals when you can eat plants that would feed the animals, and cut out the middleman.  But I also despise cruelty to animals and know that that is a huge part of most (but not all) of the animal product industry.

I eat some fish, and feel conflicted about it.

Mnemosyne:

If you only want to look at the United States, what do we do with the herds of cows that will no longer be eaten?  Dairy cows really do have a need to be milked because of the way we’ve bred them over the past 10,000 years—what do we do with all of that milk, or do we just let the cows walk around in pain so we’re not exploiting them?  Do we neuter all the cattle so they can die off “naturally”?  What would be the consequences of eliminating an entire species that we expressly bred for our convenience? 

History_mom:

I guess I’ve always wondered: if humans do adopt veganism, what happens to the balance of various ecosystems? For better or worse, we are the primary predators for cattle, chickens, and pigs.  Other ecosystems have been devastated by removal of predators.  We’ve also conditioned these animals to be unsuitable for an environment where humans are not preventing other natural predators from having total access to their population.  I think it’s important to consider that widespread veganism could result in serious environmental issues.

Sorry, but this is kind of silly.

The likelihood that everyone would decide en masse tomorrow to forego meat and animal products is just not going to happen.  If people as individuals decide to forego meat and animal products, one by one, the market will shrink, fewer animals will be raised for meat or milk or eggs, and the industry will go away, bit by bit.  Just like the buggy whip industry.  There won’t be pigs, chickens and cows wandering the streets. They won’t be bred and so very few of them won’t exist.

If meat-eating is not illegal, just uncommon, then there will still be meat animal herds.  If everyone stops eating meat, someone will still want an exotic Black Angus on their ranch, or in a zoo.  There will be some meat and milk and egg animals left, because there are always hobbyists.  Again, conflating the life of the individual animals with the species (which is actually a human construct) is inaccurate.  No sane vegan will be machine-gunning factory farms.  This is the problem with PETA-style “actions,” as we all apparently agree.

Mnemosyne:  <blockquote>If no artificial solution is found, do we also let our domestic cats die off as a species since we won’t be able to feed them meat products anymore, or do we send them all off to become feral? 

As I understand it, the only Amino Acid that cats can’t get from plant sources is Taurine.  Add that to their diet and they will be fine; forget it, and they go blind. 

So all you need is synthetic Taurine, which already exists:  http://www.vegancats.com/pages/1007/FAQ.htm

The naturalistic fallacy. Might makes right. Every time we have this discussion, I point out that you are making this formal fallacy, and you never get it.

Because its not a fallacy.  You are applying the anthromoporphic principle to animals.  You are supplying your own purpose to the animal that very few other human beings share.
You are making a moralistic argument based on your very own, rarely shared, feelings about what is right and what is wrong.

Gah.  Sorry, I missed an end blockquote at “sorry this is kind of silly.”

The naturalistic fallacy. Might makes right. Every time we have this discussion, I point out that you are making this formal fallacy, and you never get it.

I get that you think the naturalistic fallacy should be some kind of automatic argument-ender.  It’s not.

We have, quite literally, a philosophical difference here.  I’m not sure why not agreeing with your philosophy means I’ve got a “brick skull.” It’s like a Nietzchean explaining their philosophy to me and saying I’m dumb when I reject their philosophy.

JoAnne, you did see that the FAQ on the page you linked me to specifically says that not all cats can be fed a vegan diet and that they recommend continuing to feed meat to neutered males and any other cat with urinary problems, right?

Not to mention that feeding a vegan diet to an obligate carnivore is controversial, to say the least.  I always get nervous when I see people on the internet saying that veterinarians don’t know anything about animals.

I had tofu for the first time last night.

Yuck.

I guess I’ll have to use a different recipe next time.

Ahem. I’m not sure what these women are going to do with my attention once they have it. If I can look away from the naked chick to listen to a screed, I can look away, period.

A topless woman wouldn’t stun me; I’m a grown man. I know how to handle breasts.

I think I can safely say the internet won this round, and the original topic lost.

Mnemosyne:

JoAnne, you did see that the FAQ on the page you linked me to specifically says that not all cats can be fed a vegan diet and that they recommend continuing to feed meat to neutered males and any other cat with urinary problems, right?

Not to mention that feeding a vegan diet to an obligate carnivore is controversial, to say the least.  I always get nervous when I see people on the internet saying that veterinarians don’t know anything about animals.

Yes, that website says that pretty much all female and many male cats can be fed a vegan diet. 

And all dogs can, because they’re not obligate carnivores.  They’re omnivores, like us.

It just seemed strange that the universal response to vegan cats was, “well if we could grow meat in a vat maybe we could feed our cats non-meat products.” I think it was Entomologista who basically said anyone who thinks a cat can live on a vegan diet is an idiot.

The technology is here.  We can use it now, for many if not all cats.

Yes, that website says that pretty much all female and many male cats can be fed a vegan diet.

A website that sells vegan cat food says that you can feed your cats a vegan diet?  Imagine that!  It’s not like they would have any kind of financial interest or anything.

If you can show me a study from, say, the International Journal of Veterinary Medicine that says that feeding your cat a vegan diet will not harm them, that would be more along the lines of proof.  People on the internet saying everything’s great with their cats doesn’t really rise to that level.

Note that I don’t have an ethical problem with feeding a vegan diet to an omnivore like a dog—if you’re feeding it a healthy diet, then whatever.  But if you’re so worried about animal exploitation that you’d rather feed your cat a diet that could blind or kill it rather than feed it meat, you’re better off with a rabbit.  They’re fuzzy, they can use a litter box, they can be very affectionate, and they’re natural vegans.

I don’t know why this only just occurred to me, but:

Grammar, the fact that the philosophical concept of the naturalistic fallacy exists does not make it automatically true.  You may reject naturalism as a basis for your philosophy, but that doesn’t automatically invalidate naturalism as a philosophy.  There’s no way to scientifically or even objectively test whose philosophy is “right,” which is why we all end up in these little internet arguments.

I lost any respect for PETA when they had me agreeing with Tucker Carlson about their comic book about fishing with your Dad being equal to child abuse (because you’re KILLING FISH!)
Oy vey.

There are so many false equations and straw man arguments…

I like eating veggie sometimes so I’m more veggie than I was but it’s for my own sake. I like the way it feels not eating meat everyday. I don’t go preaching it around or anything but for me it works.
If they could take a tack like mine.. well OK they wouldn’t be a national organization I suppose.

Ugh. I can’t believe I just read this whole thread. I won’t torture myself by trying to respond to all the strawman-ing with actual arguments, but I have to at least point this out:

(FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a vegan, I LOATHE PETA, I have nothing at all against the people who choose to eat meat and my reasons for going vegan have absolutely nothing with the insulting “cute fuzzy baby animals!” tripe that’s trotted out in arguments like this--my veganism evolved out of my feminism, my health concerns, and my opposition to both factory farming AND the agricultural industrial complex--just because I choose to eat a vegan diet does not mean that I think that my ethical choices exist in a vacuum.)

Whoever it was who said that they hated vegans for only sticking up for the cute animals, the animals “like us”, and went on and on about shellfish and pearls--not even touching how condescending you’re being, WHO ever told you that eating fish/shellfish/lobster/etc is vegan??? It’s absolutely not, just as a definition; anyone who has an otherwise vegan diet but eats those things is technically a PESCATARIAN. it’s a perfectly valid choice in itself, although there are lots of environmental concerns to be raised, but let’s call things what they are, shall we?--especially when that’s what you’re basing your whole post around.

I love Amanda’s posts, and I was actually enjoying the exchanges on this thread until about a quarter of the way through. I like debate around the issues that are most important to me. I live in the deep south, where I get it on all sides for my feminism and my veganism, and it’s thoroughly disheartening to see that in an online space where I thought commenters might be more open and respectful of views like mine, they are in fact largely mean-spirited and disrespectful of differing views on “animal rights”.

“I’m sure they do more than that.  But I never hear about it, which of course is the point.  They’ve moved from being an obnoxious absolutist group on animal rights that has less of a grasp on the complexities of our relationships with animals than anti-choicers have on human sexuality and reproduction to a sex and guilt roadshow.  They’re worthless. “

a) You’re not gonna hear about the other stuff PETA does until/unless you pay attention. You’ve gotta read their blog or subscribe to their alerts. The MSM isn’t going to notice PETA’s “other stuff” so you can’t rely on getting your information about PETA from the MSM.

b) STOP, STOP, STOP comparing animal rights activists to anti-choicers. They’re NOT the same, not even close.  Your theory about that is just wrong.

c) Stop acting like you’re a vegetarian. You’re not. So just stop pretending.

That sounds interesting, thanks for the tip, Grammar.

Unfortunately for the time being I’m gonna have to step outta this thread.  Been down this road too many times before.

Have fun in the rhetorical trenches!

Mnemosyne:

Yes, that website says that pretty much all female and many male cats can be fed a vegan diet.

A website that sells vegan cat food says that you can feed your cats a vegan diet?  Imagine that!  It’s not like they would have any kind of financial interest or anything.

If you can show me a study from, say, the International Journal of Veterinary Medicine that says that feeding your cat a vegan diet will not harm them, that would be more along the lines of proof.  People on the internet saying everything’s great with their cats doesn’t really rise to that level.

Note that I don’t have an ethical problem with feeding a vegan diet to an omnivore like a dog—if you’re feeding it a healthy diet, then whatever.  But if you’re so worried about animal exploitation that you’d rather feed your cat a diet that could blind or kill it rather than feed it meat, you’re better off with a rabbit.  They’re fuzzy, they can use a litter box, they can be very affectionate, and they’re natural vegans.

Why do you think I’d rather feed a cat a dangerous diet than feed it meat?  You’re jumping to quite a conclusion there.  I think this is the problem with this argument, that taking position A is suddenly assumed to mean I take positions B through Z.  In this case, choosing a safe vegan diet for an animal if it’s available is equated to wanting to hurt it because, I guess, we all know that a vegan diet for that animal could never work.

I don’t have a cat right now, but if I did, I’d do some investigation into whether I could feed it without using meat products.  If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t cause a cat to suffer so that other animals wouldn’t—that makes no sense.  I would feed it food with meat products in it, either buying it or making it myself (I know at least one farmer who treats his animals ethically).  But if I could feed a vegan diet, I would want to do so.

The site you gave me serves no results if you search on vegetarian.  Or vegan.  Or taurine, for that matter.  I get one result, in Portuguese, for “taurine” using Google with a specific site clause.  So it’s a little hard to find out from there.

So instead I used Google Scholar. 

I don’t have access to full articles.  Here’s the abstract of one at http://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/abs/10.2460/javma.229.1.70:
Results—People who fed vegetarian diets to their cats did so largely for ethical considerations and were more likely than people who fed conventional diets to believe that there are health benefits associated with a vegetarian diet and that conventional commercial cat foods are unwholesome. Both groups were aware of the potential health problems that could arise from improperly formulated vegetarian diets. All cats evaluated had serum cobalamin concentrations within reference range, and 14 of 17 had blood taurine concentrations within reference range.

Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Vegetarian diets are fed to cats primarily for ethical considerations. Results of this study should aid practitioners in communicating with and providing advice to such clients.</blockquote>

No “warning danger don’t do it.”

I can’t read even the abstract for another article, but the bit from Google shows:

Homemade Diets: Attributes, Pitfalls, and a Call for Action
RL Remillard - Topics in Companion Animal Medicine, 2008 - Elsevier
... activity level. Blood taurine levels should be checked annually on both
dogs and cats consuming a vegetarian diet. Laboratory data ...
Web Search

Which sounds like it’s not saying not to give your cat a vegan diet, but that you should check taurine levels for safety.

I didn’t see any scientific articles that were anti-vegetarian or anti-vegan for cat food.  I did find the place you probably cribbed the “get a bunny” from, (http://www.petconnection.com/blog/2008/10/01/cats-are-carnivores/) but that devolved into a bunch of “no, we’re the northern kitty huggers, not the eastern kitty huggers, we never said that.” The article essentially says, cats have pointy teeth, so they have to eat meat.  My response:  They also have claws, so I guess they also have to hunt their food.  And the toms have scent glands, so it must be necessary for them to spray the house.  Uh, no.

I’m only saying, we don’t necessarily have to manufacture fake meat, that’s just like real meat, to feed a cat.  We feed many animals food that’s nothing like what they were “built” to eat.  We feed humans that way, too.  We obviously weren’t “built” to eat anything cooked, for example.  Did neolithic people eat tofu?  Strawberry ice cream?  Bittersweet chocolate?  No.  And who uses that that argument against eating those things now?  Some very strict raw foods people, many of whom are also vegan.  Are you sure you want to throw in with them?

In this case, choosing a safe vegan diet for an animal if it’s available is equated to wanting to hurt it because, I guess, we all know that a vegan diet for that animal could never work.

Yes, if you completely ignore the point that there’s no such thing as a safe vegan diet for a cat, you could come to that conclusion.  The ASPCA says it.  The Vegetarian Society says it.  Cat Fancy magazine says it, though I suppose I’ll have to borrow the magazine from my vet and scan it for you since they don’t put their articles online (the exact citation is in the linked article, however—May 2008).  Hell, even people who comment on PETA’s website don’t recommend it!

We’re not discussing if it’s ethical to put your dog on a vegan diet, because a dog can do just fine on a well-balanced vegan diet.  We’re discussing if it’s ethical to put your cat on a vegan diet that could well kill it.  I’ve seen a lot of things by vegans online where they’ve decided that shortening their cat’s life by feeding it a diet that slowly starves it to death is perfectly ethical because they’re saving the lives of so many other animals.  I can’t get my head around that.

I did find the place you probably cribbed the “get a bunny” from ...

Yes, because only one person in the entire universe has thought of that, so the only way I could have come up with it was stumbling across it online.  <eyeroll>

Believe it or not, I am not actually stupid just because I disagree with you.  Especially when I’m disagreeing with you about things you happen to be wrong about (again, see multiple links above).

Is it scientifically possible that maybe someday in the future we’d be able to come up with a perfect vegan diet for cats?  Possibly, but I’ve already been told that I have to stick to the here-and-now and not go off on sci-fi flights, so we should stick to what’s possible now and in the near future instead of getting all speculative.  Right now, it is not possible to feed a cat a vegan diet and keep it healthy, so it’s a choice of which animals you feel better about killing, farm animals or your pet cat.

We feed many animals food that’s nothing like what they were “built” to eat.  We feed humans that way, too.  We obviously weren’t “built” to eat anything cooked, for example.  Did neolithic people eat tofu?  Strawberry ice cream?  Bittersweet chocolate?  No.

Did you miss the part where humans are omnivores and are adapted to eat pretty much anything that doesn’t poison us outright?  We are adapted to eat meat and vegetables and grains and dairy and all of the stuff that’s in tofu (beans), strawberry ice cream (strawberries, sugar, cream), bittersweet chocolate (cocoa, cream).  Or do you think that by combining foods we can already eat in new ways that somehow chemically turns them into a completely different foodstuff that we would be unable to digest?  As I said above, if humans were natural vegans, we’d have a couple extra stomachs to help us digest.

Again, humans and dogs are omnivores.  If we’re careful, we can both eat vegan diets.  Cats are not. To insist on slowly starving a cat to death because you don’t like the idea of feeding it meat is psychotic.

Kitten,
you wrote: “I thought commenters might be more open and respectful of views like mine, they are in fact largely mean-spirited and disrespectful of differing views on “animal rights”. “

Amanda and her ilk actually encourage this. It’s the same at Feministing.

They don’t merely attack PETA and claim PETA is sexist, they open the door to anti-animal and anti-vegan discussion. If they ever posted positive stuff about vegetarianism, veganism or animal rights,I’d have a different opinion. But the fact is, they usually just regurgitate the Center for Consumer Freedom (a food industry front group that vilifies PETA).

It’s almost like they just do it for the attention. It’d be so easy to just ignore PETA entirely and stop playing the game. Ultimately though, even with the bad press, Amanda, Jessica, Vanessa, Ann, and the other anti-PETA feminist bloggers are still helping PETA. And they’re still backhandedly encouraging veganism because vegans and animal advocates feel the need to respond here and elsewhere. So I can’t get too upset. They’re fanning the flames and keeping the web activist fire burning.

“If they ever posted positive stuff about vegetarianism, veganism or animal rights,I’d have a different opinion.”

Oh, bullshit. Amanda talks about her diet in regard to environmental and economic sustainability. It’s not the central issue of the blog, but it comes up in her posts, and not just her posts about vegetarianism and veganism.

Not to argue further for veganism to the hardened partisans, but to clarify a misunderstanding:

the fact that the philosophical concept of the naturalistic fallacy exists does not make it automatically true.  You may reject naturalism as a basis for your philosophy, but that doesn’t automatically invalidate naturalism as a philosophy.  There’s no way to scientifically or even objectively test whose philosophy is “right,” which is why we all end up in these little internet arguments.

The formal fallacy known as the naturalistic fallacy does not have anything to do with metaphysical naturalism. The names are similar, but they simply aren’t related. The naturalistic fallacy was identified by David Hume, reidentified and named by G. E. Moore. Both men were naturalists. Supernaturalist theists are the group most commonly making the naturalistic fallacy today.

This is an example of how it is always, always a huge logical fail:

It’s no more morally wrong for me to eat a chicken than it is for a mountain lion to eat me.  A mountain lion wouldn’t deliberately keep me in torment for days or weeks or years before finally killing and eating me, so we shouldn’t do that to our fellow animals, either—if we are going to eat animals, we should do it with as little pain to them as possible.

I get the feeling that you think that humans are special and different than the other animals.  I really don’t, so I don’t think that we owe them a courtesy that they would not extend to us.

Taking this argument seriously: orangutans routinely rape other orangutans, and scientists have documented orangutans raping humans. Therefore… See where this is going? You simply cannot derive “ought” from “is.” If you think you can, mail it in to the major philosophy journals, because you’re going to be bigger than Hume. Honorary degrees, prestigious awards, book tours and fat research grants await! You’re going to be rich (for an academic, but we’re still talking about a million or more).

Taking this argument seriously: orangutans routinely rape other orangutans, and scientists have documented orangutans raping humans. Therefore… See where this is going?

I come back to the thread and I see meat-eating conflated with rape.  If you can’t see what’s wrong with that line of thinking, well…

But I also despise cruelty to animals and know that that is a huge part of most (but not all) of the animal product industry.

Yes, here again is what I mean.  There is this very quick jump from “I hate animal cruelty and dislike the ways that most animal-based foods are produced in America nowadays” to “therefore nobody should allow any animal product to pass their lips, EVER, or they are morally suspect as human beings”. 

I hate animal cruelty and dislike the currently acceptable policies of the animal product industry.  So I’m “flexitarian” heavy on the not eating meat who tries her damndest to source humane (and more importantly to me, ecologically sound) animal products, and works in both an activist and consumer capacity to change the way that we think about how livestock should be treated and the conditions animal-derived foods should be produced under.  I don’t make the leap from “CAFO’s suck” to “meat is murder!” and try to convince everyone I know that they’re all a bunch of immoral sacks of shit because they order eggs benedict at brunch every now and again.  I work for change to the policies and attitudes I think are problematic. 

One example - right now I’m a member of a planning committee for a food co-op in my neighborhood.  One area that I’ve worked on is developing a list of food suppliers the co-op will get its food from.  Specifically, I’ve worked to connect our co-op with farms and vendors who use humane and ecologically sustainable farming and animal-handling practices.  With our support, those farms and vendors will remain financially viable and hopefully grow as businesses, while also hopefully inspiring other farms and food vendors in the area to adopt similar practices.  And people in the neighborhood will have a good source for food they can trust was humanely raised (and slaughtered, in the case of meat) at a feasible price, which will also hopefully mean that they will come to expect this sort of thing and demand it of other places they shop for food. 

These are things that most people who are of the opinion that Everyone Should Be Vegan And Nobody Should Ever Eat Any Animal Products, EVAR usually do not pursue.  Because if you give people butter from happy cows, they won’t be vegan anymore, will they?  And we can’t have that, can we?

WHO ever told you that eating fish/shellfish/lobster/etc is vegan???

Vegans.  Under the (apparently erroneous, but they said it, not me) rubric that they don’t have central nervous systems and thus cannot feel pain. 

Look, that there are some ignorant vegans out there spouting nonsense to justify their particular eating habits doesn’t make the non-vegans they propagandized at look bad, it makes them and their vegan brethren look bad.

an online space where I thought commenters might be more open and respectful of views like mine

Oh, I am absolutely respectful of your views.  I just don’t share them, and have met a lot of people who claim to espouse the same views who spouted off ignorant nonsense.  My problem is not with the idea that some people are vegan.  I’m vegetarian 99% of the time, try as hard as I can to eat only organic/sustainable/local/humane/etc dairy (and meat, when I eat meat), and make an effort to eat vegan meals when possible and/or convenient.  I would like to be better about this stuff than I am, and try to seek out a vegan option wherever possible/palatable (not a fan of the vegan approach where you just eat whatever you want, whenever, by replacing all the real, natural, and healthful animal products with fake processed soy junk).  I also own precious little leather and am not a pet owner for reasons that are remarkably similar to the reasons I’m not a parent (at this point I just don’t have the resources to provide a good life for an animal - I work 60+ hours a week, am never home, and don’t make enough money to ensure that I could provide whatever was needed, from doggy daycare to insulin treatments).

What I’m not respectful of is the idea that the above makes me a bad person, on a continuum with child abusers, murderers, and sociopaths.  And I’m sorry, but if you want to live in the world of grownups you are going to have to understand that not everyone is always going to agree with your personal moral compass or ideas about how the world should work.

“Amanda talks about her diet in regard to environmental and economic sustainability. It’s not the central issue of the blog, but it comes up in her posts, and not just her posts about vegetarianism and veganism. “

Amanda is not a vegetarian. She is a meat-reducer.

The Opoponax wrote: “These are things that most people who are of the opinion that Everyone Should Be Vegan And Nobody Should Ever Eat Any Animal Products, EVAR usually do not pursue.  Because if you give people butter from happy cows, they won’t be vegan anymore, will they?  And we can’t have that, can we? “

No, we oppose ‘happy meat’ (and ‘happy butter’ etc) for animal rights reasons, not to control you. It’s not about you. Get over yourself.

Moreover, happy meat is not sustainable. The rapidly growing population simply can’t consume animal product in a sustainable manner, period. As a society, we can choose to go vegan or we can sterilize everyone. I vote vegan.
Details here: http://www.humanemyth.org/faq/1127.htm

Lastly, there is NO possible way to absolutely ensure humane slaughter. Some number of sick people will abuse animals. If you care about animals, the only humane choice is to stop eating them.

Lastly, there is NO possible way to absolutely ensure humane slaughter. Some number of sick people will abuse animals. If you care about animals, the only humane choice is to stop eating them.

The fact that in some activity some people will do things that are considered morally questionable or reprehensible is true about every single thing humans are involved in, so that’s pretty much a non-starter as an argument.  In fact, it’s an incredibly stupid argument.

Some people use the education to indoctrinate children into immoral beliefs (such as racism).  Therefore the only reasonable thing is to stop educating children.

Some people meet other people in bars and clubs or other social gathering places in order to lure them out and rob and/or rape and/or kill them.  Therefore, the only safe thing to do is prevent people from gathering in social situations where strangers are present.

Some advances in science and technology result in being adapted to weapons.  Therefore, we must stop all science and technological advancement.

Some people abuse and even kill children, sometimes their own.  Therefore, the only humans choice is to stop having kids.

What a lonely, sad, pathetic, dying, world that philosophy leaves you in.

@ Opoponax:

Yeah, again, those people are not actually vegans. Those are people who CALL themselves vegans. I believe the technical term is “moron.”

And again, at the tone of your post, I just want to reiterate that I have absolutely no problem with you not sharing my views, and I do not hurl hyperbolic insults at people who disagree with me (unlike many here both on my side and on the other). I do “live in the world of grownups”, thank you.

I agree that people who call themselves vegan and do/say stupid shit represent other vegans poorly, but do we really have to come out every time and say “no really, we’re all different though we have our share of douchebags like any other generalized group” to keep otherwise open-minded-seeming people from saying things like “vegans all think [strawman argument] so they’re all stupid” or “i hate vegans”? Really?

Grammar RWA: “You simply cannot derive “ought” from “is.” If you think you can, mail it in to the major philosophy journals, because you’re going to be bigger than Hume.”

I agree with this, but aren’t you essentially doing the same thing? You start with the “is” of human empathy and intuitions, and use it as a basis for saying that there are certain “oughts” such as the assertion that causing unnecessary pain is inherently and always wrong. For example, with your blowtorch example you say that anyone with basic empathy will realize it’s wrong - but that’s only the case with people who make the leap from: “This action triggers my empathy to a huge degree, and I feel completely willing to stop people from doing it” to “This action violates a universal morality”.

And yes, that does make me a moral relativist, in the sense that I don’t believe that hypothetical societies of sociopaths are violating some sort of morality that’s inherent to the nature of the universe.

I’m a vegetarian, and would be vegan if it were easier (I am a weak person in that sense), and I’m all in favor in trying to convince others to reduce the suffering of animals. But I think the best way to do that is to just appeal to their empathy as such, not try to appeal to a universal morality that there is no way to prove.

Amanda and her ilk actually encourage this. It’s the same at Feministing.

They don’t merely attack PETA and claim PETA is sexist, they open the door to anti-animal and anti-vegan discussion.

Funny. When Hugo decides he needs to stop turning into a crazed asshole every time he discusses animal rights, you wail about free speech and feeling oppressed, but you think nobody should be allowed to dis PETA in case the discussion criticizes vegans.

If you have some ideas as to how Amanda can call out PETA on its deliberate and needless anti-woman tactics without “opening the door” to attacks on animal-right or vegan activists in general, why don’t you share those? If you don’t, then all you’re saying is you don’t give a fuck about humans. Which we knew, but at least put it out there, why don’t you?

I said if we can alter the legal and social framework so that we are legal guardians to animal companions, the potential problems with pet ownership aren’t there anymore.

Speaking as a lawyer, THAT is a lie.

As a legal guardian of a human, you do not have the right to simply sterilize your charges absent court permission, which is nigh impossible to get. You do not have the right to euthanize them if they are sick and in pain and no cure is possible. You cannot sell their children or give them away to others. This is true even if you are the guardian of a person who is severely mentally disabled, such that you are making their decisions for them.

If you’re going to give animals the same rights as humans, then you will need to petition a court to permit you to have your cat neutered (and the chances of getting that permission are virtually zero). You will not be allowed to just give away kittens, even to people who will provide excellent, loving homes. If your dog is hit by a car and is so badly injured that survival is impossible, you will just have to give him painkillers and let him die naturally; you can’t have him painlessly euthanized.

So what do we do? We clearly can’t just treat animals like dependent humans; if we treat them as other than humans we’re not giving them full rights. What do we do right now given technological limitations? We can full speed ahead on funding cruelty-free cat food, but it isn’t here yet; am I wrong to own cats when their existence means another creature’s death? Should I insist that Guide Dogs for the Blind stop exploiting animals when there is no equally-capable robot substitute?

Again, I’m not asking this as a prelude to saying “therefore you might as well have steak”, or to say that unless I get an answer within 30 seconds, being a vegan is wrong. I’m asking because I’d like to be convinced, and seeing long-term problems with no possible solutions does not convince me. If veganism is to mean something other than my individually opting out of the system but doing nothing further - that is, actually changing things so animals are not killed, eaten and exploited - we have to talk about tougher issues than where to find an alternative supplier of sesame-flavored tempeh when Whole Foods runs out.

mnemosyne:

In this case, choosing a safe vegan diet for an animal if it’s available is equated to wanting to hurt it because, I guess, we all know that a vegan diet for that animal could never work.

Yes, if you completely ignore the point that there’s no such thing as a safe vegan diet for a cat, you could come to that conclusion.  The ASPCA says it.  The Vegetarian Society says it.  Cat Fancy magazine says it, though I suppose I’ll have to borrow the magazine from my vet and scan it for you since they don’t put their articles online (the exact citation is in the linked article, however—May 2008).  Hell, even people who comment on PETA’s website don’t recommend it!

I thought the standard was peer-reviewed articles.  I’m not ignoring the point, I wasn’t convinced of it from the peer-reviewed articles I could find.

Anyway, you keep ignoring the part about my wanting to research it first before acting in a way that could harm my hypothetical nonexistent cat.

The one point I was trying to make was that the focus on “we’d have to make fake MEAT that’s just like REAL MEAT” was weird, and more science-fictiony than replacing the amino acids or other dietary elements that an animal might normally get from meat with synthetics.

It wasn’t a claim that you can too do it right now perfectly.  It’s part of a potential plan to minimize the amount of factory farming that would have to take place to allow people to have pet cats.

To insist on slowly starving a cat to death because you don’t like the idea of feeding it meat is psychotic.

Look.  When I insist on slowly starving a cat to death because I don’t like the idea of feeding it meat, you can call me psychotic.  But you’ll have to wait.  Because I NEVER FUCKING INSISTED that cats should be on a vegan diet.

Every time I’ve said “if” you seem to leap into “you’re lying, it’s not possible, but you don’t care, you want to kill cats because you’re psychotic.” I don’t get why you’re doing this.

I think it might be possible, if not now, in the near future.  Not with science-fictiony meat from a vat a la KFC rumors.  With intelligent use of synthetics.

This was just a side point of my comment, phrased in an “as I understand it” kind of way.  Not me screaming at anyone who feeds her cat meat. 

Hell, I even said I’d feed my hypothetical currently nonexisting cat meat if it were not safe to feed a non-meat diet.

The Opoponax:

[quoting me] But I also despise cruelty to animals and know that that is a huge part of most (but not all) of the animal product industry.

Yes, here again is what I mean.  There is this very quick jump from “I hate animal cruelty and dislike the ways that most animal-based foods are produced in America nowadays” to “therefore nobody should allow any animal product to pass their lips, EVER, or they are morally suspect as human beings”. 

When I make that jump, then vilify me; hope you are not doing it here.  This discussion has gone so crazy, I can’t tell, and hope you don’t take offense if you didn’t mean to give any.

happy meat is not sustainable. The rapidly growing population simply can’t consume animal product in a sustainable manner, period. As a society, we can choose to go vegan or we can sterilize everyone. I vote vegan.

This is completely idiotic, I’m sorry.

I agree that the American tradition of meat at every meal, for everyone, all the time, just ‘cause that’s how we roll, is not sustainable. 

I also agree that the dairy industry, such as it is, is not sustainable. 

I’ll even say that the amount of dairy I personally eat is not sustainable, even though a large amount of it is in fact sustainably produced.  Because I eat a lot more dairy than is reasonable, I’ll admit (buon giorno, insalata caprese!). 

But it just doesn’t make any sense to say “well there are a lot of people on this planet, you see, so therefore none of them should ever eat or otherwise use animal products in any way, because such as also.” People should eat sustainably produced meat and dairy as they have access to it and can afford it—it should not be our current Walmart version of affordable (though it should be more widely available); its actual cost should be reflected in its price.  But if a local farmer can do it, and you can get it, by all means, eat up.  Or, if we were living in Communist Utopia, I guess the available sustainable dairy should be divvied up amongst the population, and we should all get our one pat of butter a year and be happy with it. 

Not to mention that the idea that everyone should just keep with the making babies, and if we all have to chew cardboard for nutrition, well so be it, is moronic.  We really do need fewer people on this planet, and while I think mass sterilization is a rotten way to go about it, saying “ooops, sorry, too many humans, naughty breeders, no cheese for you! (Oh, and BTW you freaks who craved cheese in the first place are all a bunch of sociopaths!)” is just flat out stupid.

BTW, the idea that vegetable-based agriculture is sustainable, but animal is not, is fucking HILARIOUS.  My locally farmed free-range organic pastured egg is a million times better for the environment than your processed chemical Egg Replacer™.  Period.

Yeah, again, those people are not actually vegans. Those are people who CALL themselves vegans. I believe the technical term is “moron.”

No, I believe the technical term is “one true Scotsman fallacy”.  But thanks for playing.

Yeah, again, those people are not actually vegans. Those are people who CALL themselves vegans. I believe the technical term is “moron.”

No, I believe the technical term is “one true Scotsman fallacy”.  But thanks for playing.

I disagree; I don’t think the “one true Scotsman fallacy” applies here. 

That fallacy, essentially one of a circular argument, is a way of discrediting someone who is a member of a group by picking a characteristic some members of the group share and declaring that to be a universal disqualification.  What makes it a fallacy is that the chosen characteristic is not a generally-agreed-upon disqualifier for many members of the group.  “How can you call yourself a feminist if you wear makeup” is such an argument.

This particular characteristic, eating shellfish, seems to be commonly considered very not-vegan by vegans.  The Wikipedia def is “Veganism is a diet and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veganism) and that seems to cover it.  Of course people interpret the details differently, but fish and shellfish are definitely animals.  They’re not plants or minerals.

I guess someone somewhere might define veganism as not causing pain to animals, and say that fish or shellfish do not feel pain.  But exploitation of animals is part of the supposed original definition:  “the word “veganism” denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.” (same source)

I’m not a vegan, but I’ve never met anyone who eats fish or shellfish and claims to be a real, practicing vegan.  This would be the equivalent to someone who hates African-Americans as “not a bigot” because African-Americans aren’t really people.

As a vegan, feminist, lesbian, and animal rights activist I’m disappointed at the negative coverage of vegans and the animal rights movement.  I believe all forms of exploitation are linked, so it would seem natural for others who believe in fighting or ending exploitation, would also support fighting/ending the exploitation of non-human animals.  Yet Feminste, Feministing, and here at Pandagon the only time veganism and/or animal rights is ever brought up is when PETA engages in another disgusting campaign. 

A plant based diet is more sustainable; I eat a diet consisting of whole grains, pasta, beans, legumes, vegetables, and fruits.  I don’t substitute eggs with some “chemical egg replacer,” I use tofu or flax seed.  Furthermore, the sustainable production of meat, dairy, and eggs is impossible in a capitalist society. 

But my real issue about consuming and/or using animal products comes from an ethical standpoint.  We don’t need animal products to be healthy (in fact, veg*n diets are healthier,) therefore we eat animal products not out of necessity, as other animals do, but for pleasure.  I don’t agree with causing unnecessary suffering and death for pleasure.  I don’t think killing an animal so you can enjoy it’s meat is in any way humane, regardless of how you kill her/him.  I don’t believe we have a right to use other animals for our own purposes; pleasure, entertainment, clothing, research, etc.

Well, after having read this thread, it’s surprising the craving for bacon I’ve developed.  Nice crispy bacon, mmmm.

Look--I tried the vegetarian thing.  Had a roommate who was vegetarian, decided it was just easier to follow her path than freak her out with slabs of sizzling beef in the kitchen, etc.

Discovered one thing: my body really doesn’t work that way.  I need protein in the form of meat, fish, or eggs. Trying the complementary protein stuff doesn’t have the same effect on my blood sugar levels as pure protein from the typical sources does.  I end up never feeling full.  Maybe if I had been raised on a vegan diet since I was a baby, but I wasn’t. 

And anyone who thinks they’re going to breed the instinct out of cats to hunt mice, kill them, and eat them has rocks in his head.  If you’re trying to feed your cat “vegan” cat food and it has any possibility of getting outside, trust me--it’s filling up on all those tasty little things running around on all fours.

I don’t agree with causing unnecessary suffering and death for pleasure.  I don’t think killing an animal so you can enjoy it’s meat is in any way humane, regardless of how you kill her/him.  I don’t believe we have a right to use other animals for our own purposes; pleasure, entertainment, clothing, research, etc.

You know, I’m quite honestly rather curious to know...do you live somewhere within the range of the cockroach?

(I live in the Arctic, so I don’t have roaches.)

See, I’m rather curious about how the whole philosophy works: I get that people don’t want to kill animals for meat, fine.  What about killing animals for other reasons, like, oh, I don’t know, the fact they live in your home under the refrigerator?

How about using bug zappers?

How much of those vegetable and fruits you eat are fertilized via bees, with hives taken from field to field by beekeepers?

Are you opposed to foods like chocolate-covered crickets?  Escargot?  Do locusts and mealworms get the same rights as cows and chickens?

Do you refuse to wear silk as well as wool or leather?

You see, my problem is that “animals” consist of a rather large kingdom in the big brush of life, yet there seems to be this focus on mammals and birds, and sometimes fish.  So, my real question is: do the animals with no internal skeleton get the same benefits as those with one?

I ask because in my experience, I’ve seen people get all angsty when they have mice or rats removed from their homes--they want capture traps, and the critters released--yet mention the words “cockroach” or “termite” and it’s time to break out the insecticide with no second thoughts whatsoever.

That’s what tends to annoy me about animal rights people: they argue that it’s a black and white world, you either protect the animals are you don’t, there’s no middle ground...you know, so long as the animal isn’t really icky.  Protect the chicken, overlook the tapeworm and the mosquito.

There is no “humane” meat - all animals suffer in captivity… they are brutally mutilated, artificially inseminated, castrated, isolated, removed from their families, kept from their natural habits then stuffed into trucks to travel hundreds of miles to slaughterhouses where they face another series of brutalities.  The only way to avoid animal cruelty and suffering is to go vegan. 

And it’s typical that conversations that start off questioning the needless, deliberate slaughter of billions of sentient beings ends upon the accidental killing of an insect.  I personally don’t willfully go around supporting genocide for insects - The two are worlds apart in intent… can we solve the problem of the billions of sentient beings before we tackle the incidental roach or flea?  I’m sure it can be dealt with - once we figure out the biggest of problems concerning the “meat” - “food” animals.

And it’s typical that conversations that start off questioning the needless, deliberate slaughter of billions of sentient beings ends upon the accidental killing of an insect.

You didn’t answer my question.  I’m not talking about the accidental killing of an insect, I’m talking about the deliberate killing of pests in one’s home: would you be willing to live with cockroaches, silverfish, and bedbugs, or not?  Simple question.

And “natural habitat”?  Sorry to break the bad news, but the natural habitat for most farm animals is the farm.  Thousands of years of directed evolution will do that.