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Oli
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Hi everybody

Post by Oli »

Hi, just wanted to say I'm a real person that's trying to learn new stuff about veganism and ethics.
I first became interested in this area by watching Vegan Gains and Ask Yourself from YouTube debates but then learned about PV's rebuttal to AY's argument and became even more interested. AY always seemed as a guy more interested in "murking retards" than in actual thought provoking discussions which is a shame.
Hopefully we all have a good time.

Greetings,
Oli
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Jebus
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Re: Hi everybody

Post by Jebus »

Welcome Oli, it seems we've had quite a few new forum members because of that debate. What are your thoughts about veganism? Do you see yourself ever becoming a vegan?
How to become vegan in 4.5 hours:
1.Watch Forks over Knives (Health)
2.Watch Cowspiracy (Environment)
3. Watch Earthlings (Ethics)
Congratulations, unless you are a complete idiot you are now a vegan.
Oli
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Re: Hi everybody

Post by Oli »

Hello Jesus,

I think veganism is very compelling when talking about the environment (climate change etc...) and health (meat-eaters seem to have an higher heart disease and cancer risk but to be honest I haven't really dug too deep into it because I have other things to do and what I generally got from Vegan Gains and others is that that eating less meat and dairy is probably healthier, although many others like UV criticized the "What the Health" documentary which made me skeptical to what is and isn't fear-mongering, but like I said it's not really a priority of mine to look into it).
It is the ethics department, though, where my mind (logically or not) doesn't seem to want to give in easily which I would say is problematic because that is supposed to be the best argument for veganism, correct?
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Hi everybody

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Welcome!
Oli wrote: Sat Dec 16, 2017 3:48 pm I think veganism is very compelling when talking about the environment (climate change etc...)
That's the least controversial argument, since it doesn't depend on different beliefs about non-human animal value and it's based on hard science (thermodynamics, etc.).
That does depend on our ethical consideration for other human beings, but that's more broadly accepted by default.
Oli wrote: Sat Dec 16, 2017 3:48 pm and health
There's a very strong health argument for drastically reducing animal products, and for avoiding the meat of land animals.
So the argument for at most only eating seafood, and only one serving a day (or two servings a week), as a habit and rarely if ever eating any other meat is pretty solid.

However, once you reduce to a certain level -- just like with smoking -- there are diminishing returns.
It's hard to find negative health effects of a cigarette a year, for example, and for some people those mechanistic arguments aren't going to be very persuasive when the odds are so low of seeing an effect.

There are good reasons to believe that eating something like tempeh or tofu with Walnuts and a couple supplements (DHA and B-12) would be healthier than eating fish (lower methionine, no heme iron, lower saturated fat, lower heavy metals). But even if we had a population of a million people doing this and otherwise eating the same diet as people eating one serving of fish instead, it could be hard to find a statistically significant difference... or it might be a small difference and not very compelling to people on health grounds alone.

Even vegans eat junk food now and then (vegan doughnuts, etc.), so you could probably take animal product as roughly equivalent to vegan junk food.

There is ethical relevance to it, though. Consider game theory:

Harming a fish when eating that fish is even the tiniest bit harmful to your health vs. an alternative: Lose-lose
Eating a vegan doughnut (unhealthy for you, but probably not meaningfully harmful to others): Win(or neutral)-Lose

We tend to take a libertarian-like mindset that it's OK to hurt yourself... but not OK to harm others when you do it.
Although it could be OK to harm others to provide a material benefit to yourself. Like:

"non-vegan" lifesaving medication: Win-Lose

There's a good argument to be made for something that's necessary like that (and the definition of vegan encompasses that).

It's the Lose-Lose decisions that represent the worst in terms of rationality; doing harm all around for no sensible reason.

Oli wrote: Sat Dec 16, 2017 3:48 pm It is the ethics department, though, where my mind (logically or not) doesn't seem to want to give in easily which I would say is problematic because that is supposed to be the best argument for veganism, correct?
Well, the health argument is VERY strong, but it only gets you 99% the way there.
If you're a radical reducetarian/pescetarian or something like that and avoid most animal products, that's already pretty good.

And like I said, environmental issues are also pretty strong. We need to put an end to animal agriculture if we don't want to doom ourselves... we also have to switch to renewable energy, but just doing one of these isn't going to cut it.

What are your concerns with the ethical arguments?
Oli
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Re: Hi everybody

Post by Oli »

Hi Brim,

brimstoneSalad wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 12:52 pm That does depend on our ethical consideration for other human beings, but that's more broadly accepted by default.
I would even argue climate change poses a direct threat to my well-being too, since I'm in my 20s I'm likely to experience some direct effects at least related to increased temperatures (I already live in a warm country), correct?

brimstoneSalad wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 12:52 pm There's a very strong health argument for drastically reducing animal products, and for avoiding the meat of land animals.
So the argument for at most only eating seafood, and only one serving a day (or two servings a week), as a habit and rarely if ever eating any other meat is pretty solid.
So you are saying that eating fish is healthier than eating land meat?
The animals I consume consist of: salmon twice a week and chicken every day. No dairy.
Do you know whether chicken is better or worse than beef/pork/lamb in terms of health and environment in any meaningful way?
The graph below by WHO seems to suggest that there's no evidence for chicken causing cancer, correct? I've heard the YouTuber Vegan Gains claim that chicken causes health problems but maybe he was talking about heart problems?
Image
brimstoneSalad wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 12:52 pm one serving a day (or two servings a week)
Do you mean:
1 vs 2 servings per week
or
7 vs 2 servings per week?

brimstoneSalad wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 12:52 pm However, once you reduce to a certain level -- just like with smoking -- there are diminishing returns.
It's hard to find negative health effects of a cigarette a year, for example, and for some people those mechanistic arguments aren't going to be very persuasive when the odds are so low of seeing an effect.
The non-health related counter-argument though could be that it would be more difficult to only smoke a cigarette a year than to not smoke at all, correct?

brimstoneSalad wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 12:52 pm There are good reasons to believe that eating something like tempeh or tofu with Walnuts and a couple supplements (DHA and B-12) would be healthier than eating fish (lower methionine, no heme iron, lower saturated fat, lower heavy metals). But even if we had a population of a million people doing this and otherwise eating the same diet as people eating one serving of fish instead, it could be hard to find a statistically significant difference... or it might be a small difference and not very compelling to people on health grounds alone.
Do you personally take DHA and B-12 supplements?
Vegan Gains said multiple times he gets a B-12 injection every month, but TBH this sounds kind of bothersome.

brimstoneSalad wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 12:52 pm Consider game theory:

Harming a fish when eating that fish is even the tiniest bit harmful to your health vs. an alternative: Lose-lose
Eating a vegan doughnut (unhealthy for you, but probably not meaningfully harmful to others): Win(or neutral)-Lose
Correct me if I misunderstood you.
This argument works because eating the vegan doughnut will cause less overall suffering than eating a fish:
me eating a cyanide-infested cake (which will kill me but taste good) is equivalent to me eating a fish (which will kill it but taste good)? Since I would only be eating 1 fish, ever, it wouldn't cause any meaningful health issues, correct?

weekly vegan doughnut = good taste + minimal suffering (possibly my health)
weekly fish = good taste + high suffering (possibly my health and fish's life)

If so, I think this is a very good utilitarian way of looking at it.

brimstoneSalad wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 12:52 pm Although it could be OK to harm others to provide a material benefit to yourself. Like:

"non-vegan" lifesaving medication: Win-Lose

There's a good argument to be made for something that's necessary like that (and the definition of vegan encompasses that).
I will get into this later on.

brimstoneSalad wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 12:52 pm It's the Lose-Lose decisions that represent the worst in terms of rationality; doing harm all around for no sensible reason.
That's a strong point.

brimstoneSalad wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 12:52 pm What are your concerns with the ethical arguments?
So, I haven't really studied much philosophy or meta-ethics but I'd basically like to know the answer to a seemingly simple question: when should I be moral?
Now, of course the immediate answer to that question is "always" or "as much as possible", but that poses some problems in my mind.
In your opinion, morality is objective because we can observe that sentient beings seek pleasure and avoid pain, correct? So, unless I'm an actual psychopath with no empathy that sees others only as complex robots, it becomes pretty obvious that, since I belong to the group called "sentient beings", hurting a person or a cow should not be done because I think that hurting me should not be done, correct? Pain = bad, pleasure = good.
Now, when I was introduced to this concept I couldn't get myself to accept it because it seemed too simple: just be moral and all the world problems will be solved? But then I realized that it's not as useful as it seems, and if I ask a moral question to 10 moral objectivists I will get 11 different answers.

So, let's start:
Is it moral to kill a cow because it's Saturday? Of course not.
Is it moral to kill a cow for food if I'm stranded on an island with nothing else to eat? Most would say yes.

But if morality is objective, why does the self-preservation of a sentient being override the self-preservation of another?
Why does it matter that I will die if I don't eat a cow? That cow is an innocent being that was just minding its business.
If it's because I as a human will probably do more for other sentient beings than the cow will then a guy like Elon Musk should have more value than me, correct?
Is it moral to kill 10 cows for my self-preservation? If yes, then is it moral to kill 10 humans for my self-preservation? If not, why? I can understand if the difference was that a human has the capacity to benefit more sentient beings than a cow, but isn't this just utilitarianism? Otherwise, if it's just because humans have higher moral value, isn't this an unfounded assertion? We're back to namethetrait: what's the trait that gives a human more moral weight than a cow? His/her (sorry for assuming) ability to "experience more consciousness"? Can you provide evidence for this? To me this smells of speciesm, wouldn't you agree?

I thought the whole point of morality being objective was that it takes no preference to subjects. My interests shouldn't matter more than any other sentient being's interests.

If causing suffering to another sentient being only for self benefit is immoral then one of these must follow:
1- I can't kill for self-preservation
2- I can kill for self-preservation but then I won't be moral and in that case how do I know when I should be moral and when I shouldn't? "As far as practical" is completely arbitrary.

And that's my point. The very definition of veganism (a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose) is arbitrary, just as the term "needless" is: if I'm stranded on an island with a million cows and an hypothetical type of plant that I'm allergic to but cows aren't, most would agree that I eat the cows. I would be doing the best I could, so am I vegan, even if all I eat is animals? Am I being moral? Killing sentient beings because otherwise I would die, placing my interests above others? This doesn't make any sense.

I mean, I would do it. I would kill in a survival situation. But I just don't think it's moral to kill a sentient being in any circumstance. Isn't that the point? Suffering is bad. I would feel bad killing others, even if they "deserved it", because I'm not a psychopath. Some would say they wouldn't kill in a kill-or-be-killed scenario and they would rather die than harm others. Whether they are being honest or not, doesn't this prove that either morality is arbitrary or that acting morally is an arbitrary decision? I don't rape, you don't eat animals, some guy lives in a forest with no electricity and only eats 1000 kcal of some plant per day. We all agree that we ought to reduce suffering, but can't Hitler justify his moral choices to a meat-eater and a meat-eater to a vegan the same way that a vegan would to a minimalist? I've seen in some debates where the YouTubers Vegan Gains and Ask Yourself claim that they won't become minimalists and they already don't eat animals. How's that ethically different from a meat-eater claiming that he won't go vegan and he already doesn't rape? Can a guy that kills 1000 people criticize Hitler for killing more people? If so, what's the point of this? Why is it so obvious that Sam Harris or Ben Shapiro go vegan but not to exercise minimally only for healthy, reduce calorie intake and forget "the aesthetics", for example? We don't "need" to have good looking bodies.
To clarify: this is not an appeal to futility, this is an assertion that morality is not as objective as it appears to be. I do of course make selfless decisions that benefit others, and the best example that I can give is that I give affection to my dog. This is, I think, a good example because you could argue helping other human beings doesn't require acting selflessly, only a social contract. But when I give affection to my dog I know I won't get anything in return: I do it because she likes it.


Conclusion:
Don't see this as an excuse for hurting animals for my taste pleasure, I may go vegan in the future, but I am genuinely interested to learn more about this stuff and this forum seemed like an appropriate place. I just wasn't very convinced by the "causing suffering is wrong, so go vegan" ethical argument, because it seems so arbitrary and you could plug anything into the latter part, but not all would act it out. At some point their own self interests and convenience would override their moral consideration for others, and that's why I don't see how the notion that morality is objective is helpful, because in the end our decisions will be arbitrary, or if you prefer: subjective.

Am I making sense? Am I looking for an answer where there isn't one?




Off-topic:
Why aren't URL tags accepted here?
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Hi everybody

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pm I would even argue climate change poses a direct threat to my well-being too, since I'm in my 20s I'm likely to experience some direct effects at least related to increased temperatures (I already live in a warm country), correct?
That's true, but most people dismiss that because their personal effects are going to be small upon themselves. (like a fraction of a fraction of a degree). Most of the effects on you are from other people's actions taken together.

How your personal effects become significant is by affecting billions of people slightly, and statistically speaking sometimes that fraction is going to be "the straw that breaks the camel's back". We can also look at it cumulatively as a shared responsibility (X millions die, divided by the Y millions who contributed most, and you have responsibility for killing Z people).

We have to look at the behavior in terms of game theory and what's rational (because we want others to do the same), and not all people are going to be thinking like that.
Selfish people might just think their own actions won't come back to bite them so why change? It's a very destructive and irrational way of living.

Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmSo you are saying that eating fish is healthier than eating land meat?
Yes, that seems to be what the mechanistic and epidemiological evidence says.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmDo you know whether chicken is better or worse than beef/pork/lamb in terms of health and environment in any meaningful way?
It's probably a little better for health, and significantly better for the environment.

It is, however, significantly worse for animal welfare:
https://www.onestepforanimals.org/

Switching for fish is better for health than chicken, and most fish people eat are probably less intelligent.
Oysters would be ideal, because rope grown oysters are arguably good for the environment (they help clean the water) and they require no agricultural input (chicken are still fed feed, mostly corn and soy, which is wasteful).

There's a two part argument here for eating oysters:
https://sentientist.org/2013/05/20/the-ethical-case-for-eating-oysters-and-mussels/

The ethical and environmental cases are pretty sound. Health-wise they're probably comparable to fish.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmThe graph below by WHO seems to suggest that there's no evidence for chicken causing cancer, correct?
In populations. Think about it this way: people who eat chicken also usually eat more vegetables, exercise, are less likely to smoke, and other subtle things so it's harder to find an effect (even if you try to control for those things, there are likely things you can't control for).

Chicken contains the same cancer promoting substances as are in beef, but a bit less of them (for example, about 60% of the heme).
So we would expect it to be about 60% as carcinogenic (maybe more maybe less, if there are diminishing or exponential returns).
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pm7 vs 2 servings per week?
Okinawan diets include a serving a day, but government recommendations are two a week. Daily fish is probably overkill, and only necessary in a world without B-12 supplements.

In a world WITH DHA supplements, seafood is not necessary period.
Your best option for health is probably no fish and take a DHA & B-12 supplement.
But in terms of ethics and environment, rope grown oysters are a solid choice if you don't want to take supplements for some reason.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmThe non-health related counter-argument though could be that it would be more difficult to only smoke a cigarette a year than to not smoke at all, correct?
Possible, but it could also go the other way:
All or nothing mentality may break down under social pressure. It's likely that there are many people who are not vegan 364 days a year because of ONE day where they want to eat meat with family (like Thanksgiving).

That said, having an ethical reason (including environmental ethics) to do something can help a lot more to keep you on the wagon than just trying to do it for health. Most health motivated diets fail.

So I would say it's easiest to avoid meat if you do it for ethical reasons, and if you do avoid it for ethical reasons the result will probably be that you don't do it at all rather than doing it once a year.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmDo you personally take DHA and B-12 supplements?
Like most people in the developed world (including meat eaters), I take a multi (My multi includes B-12 at 100 mcg, as low as 25 mcg is fine). I am not convinced that DHA is necessary, but I understand why some people want to err on the side of caution and take it.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmVegan Gains said multiple times he gets a B-12 injection every month, but TBH this sounds kind of bothersome.
Injections are asinine. It's totally unnecessary, the oral route is just fine. And it discourages people from going vegan when public figures like that get B-12 shots, because it sounds inconvenient and/or scary (phobia of needles is common).

Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pm Since I would only be eating 1 fish, ever, it wouldn't cause any meaningful health issues, correct?
Anybody who has ever gotten cancer from smoking got it from one cigarette. Probably one molecule from that cigarette. It's playing the odds.
Of course there is only a very small chance that eating one fish would hurt you.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmweekly vegan doughnut = good taste + minimal suffering (possibly my health)
weekly fish = good taste + high suffering (possibly my health and fish's life)

If so, I think this is a very good utilitarian way of looking at it.
You can look at it in a utilitarian way.
The point about taste would be that there are delicious things that cause less harm.
Even if we like one thing in particular, tastes also change and we can learn to enjoy more/different foods.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Hi everybody

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pm So, I haven't really studied much philosophy or meta-ethics but I'd basically like to know the answer to a seemingly simple question: when should I be moral?
We know what good is, but practical morality is a heuristic.

A. Be moral all the time and sacrifice your own life
B. Be moral any time when it does NOT risk your own life or health to do so
C. Be moral only when it benefits you

If we examined the effects of these principles, we might see that A does the most good when it's adopted, but that less than 1% of the population does so, and as such it does almost go good.
We might find that C achieves virtually 100% adoption, but doesn't do much good either.
We might find that B gets adopted by 90% of people, and does almost as much good as A per person who adopts it, but because it's so widely used it actually does the most total good compared to any heuristic.

Based on this, we could understand that B is the correct approach to advocate/model at this time.

Morality, like any meme, must be capable of surviving and propagating to achieve its goal. We can understand that something is not practicable when it requires an unacceptable level of self-sacrifice, and we can understand that isn't not productive to condemn people for not accepting option A.

This is why I've been talking about the game theory models: Win-Lose, and Lose-Lose.

It's relatively easy to accept that Lose-Lose is wrong, and avoid those, and even JUST avoiding Lose-Lose does a lot of good. If we require people to abandon self preservation we're unlikely to do much or any good.

There's a saying "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good".
We need to advocate for practical heuristics.

Maybe in a few hundred years when humanity's consciousness is "raised" to the point of A being acceptable to most people that will become the preferred option, and people who advocate B will be in the wrong.

That's not subjective morality, that's pragmatism based on objective facts of memetic fitness.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmIn your opinion, morality is objective because we can observe that sentient beings seek pleasure and avoid pain, correct? So, unless I'm an actual psychopath with no empathy that sees others only as complex robots, it becomes pretty obvious that, since I belong to the group called "sentient beings", hurting a person or a cow should not be done because I think that hurting me should not be done, correct? Pain = bad, pleasure = good.
No, the consideration is for interests.

You would not want to be hooked up to electrodes that stimulate your pleasure centers and put you into a mindless euphoria, would you?

It's the interest/preference not to experience pain that makes pain a problem; we can't just arbitrarily say that this part of the brain lighting up is bad and this part lighting up is good, that this neurotransmitter cascade is bad, etc.

As an objective value system, morality is made up of consideration for the values of others (their interests/preferences) in summation, not an arbitrary dislike of one kind of experience.

Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmBut then I realized that it's not as useful as it seems, and if I ask a moral question to 10 moral objectivists I will get 11 different answers.
You will get a lot of wrong answers from people who haven't thought about these issues very much.

Most of them will stem from supernatural beliefs, some of them will stem from the sophistry of deontology, and some will stem from a mistaken adherence to hedonic systems.

However, minus the supernatural and deontological perspectives, there's considerable overlap for naturalistic realists: they are pretty much all consequentialists of some stripe and even comparing preference and hedonistic value systems some 99% of the conclusions are the same or very similar.

Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmIs it moral to kill a cow for food if I'm stranded on an island with nothing else to eat? Most would say yes.
Ultimately, it depends on the consequences.
If you're an altruist who is awaiting rescue so you can do more good in the world, then that harm is worth it.
If you're planning to get back to society to continue your career as a serial killer, then probably not.

But let's go back to the heuristics I mentioned above:
When it comes to judging somebody as bad for self preservation, that does not seem useful to maximizing adoption of moral heuristics and achieving overall good.
We have to be careful to distinguish good in absolute terms from judgement of character.

Even if the consequences in some cases are bad, it's hard to evaluate that individually with limited information, and rule consequentialism may help guide us to make the best choices on average.


Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmBut if morality is objective, why does the self-preservation of a sentient being override the self-preservation of another?
One has significantly less value than the other, for one.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmWhy does it matter that I will die if I don't eat a cow? That cow is an innocent being that was just minding its business.
Innocence doesn't have anything to do with it unless a "guilty" being is more likely to do more harm to others in the future, or favoring an innocent being will make others less likely to harm others because they want that favor in the future. But a cow is not going to be incentivized not to do bad things based on the fact that innocent cows are spared, because she has no idea of that rule.

Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmIf it's because I as a human will probably do more for other sentient beings than the cow will then a guy like Elon Musk should have more value than me, correct?
Correct.
Somebody on the verge of curing cancer or doing some other great thing probably has more value than you do.

As to whether you should be condemned for saving your own life instead of the life of that person? Well, that comes back to the heuristics I mentioned earlier.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmOtherwise, if it's just because humans have higher moral value, isn't this an unfounded assertion?
No. Preferences exist in terms relative to sentience because of how they manifest. That is, a preference exists because of the natural property of a mind using intelligence to realize it.
What we're looking at is evolving information systems, and some are larger and have more force than others.

Kind of how some computers have more RAM or a faster CPU than others, so are better at processing information.
When the "sentience" program is run, some are faster than others, thus have more sentience/more value.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmWe're back to namethetrait: what's the trait that gives a human more moral weight than a cow? His/her (sorry for assuming) ability to "experience more consciousness"? Can you provide evidence for this? To me this smells of speciesm, wouldn't you agree?
Sentience, which is roughly proportional to intelligence.
It's not speciesism: speciesism is judging difference based on species alone.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmI thought the whole point of morality being objective was that it takes no preference to subjects. My interests shouldn't matter more than any other sentient being's interests.
No, that's not the point. The point is that relative consideration of subjects is based on objective analysis, not subjective opinion.

Mass is pretty objective too (relative to reference frame, anyway), that doesn't mean a bike has the same mass as a car, but that there are objective metrics to assess mass.

Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmIf causing suffering to another sentient being only for self benefit is immoral then one of these must follow:
It's violating interests, not simply causing suffering.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pm1- I can't kill for self-preservation
Depends on the consequences.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pm2- I can kill for self-preservation but then I won't be moral and in that case how do I know when I should be moral and when I shouldn't? "As far as practical" is completely arbitrary.
Use a functional heuristic.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmif I'm stranded on an island with a million cows and an hypothetical type of plant that I'm allergic to but cows aren't, most would agree that I eat the cows. I would be doing the best I could, so am I vegan, even if all I eat is animals?
Yes.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmAm I being moral? Killing sentient beings because otherwise I would die, placing my interests above others? This doesn't make any sense.
You're probably being amoral, but it's permissible based on a morality optimizing heuristic.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmdoesn't this prove that either morality is arbitrary or that acting morally is an arbitrary decision?
For many people it is arbitrary, but it doesn't have to be.

Either way, we can at least understand that some actions (and some people) are more or less moral than others. It doesn't have to be and all or nothing/binary issue. We can understand that there is a spectrum to morality and justification, and we can make an effort to be better people.

A good person is not necessarily a perfect person, but is a kind of person who makes an effort to be a better person today than yesterday. As long as you're working on being better, I'd say you're a good person, and that's one of the most effective heuristics for moral judgement there are.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmI don't rape, you don't eat animals, some guy lives in a forest with no electricity and only eats 1000 kcal of some plant per day.
That last guy is probably on balance less beneficial to the world. You can't remove yourself from society and model behavior nobody is going to copy. It's much more effective to be an example others may follow.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmWe all agree that we ought to reduce suffering, but can't Hitler justify his moral choices to a meat-eater and a meat-eater to a vegan the same way that a vegan would to a minimalist?
People can and should do more than just be vegan. But there's a limit. Living in a hut in the forest isn't necessarily superior to modeling good behavior within society. Consider again the heuristics I mentioned; those help us understand what the best behavior to model is. And sometimes less is more.

I don't always agree with PETA, but this is a good point:
https://www.peta.org/living/food/making-transition-vegetarian/ideas-vegetarian-living/tiny-amount-animal-products-food/

Going to extremes of personal purity is probably less beneficial than being a more chill vegan who doesn't mind eating a little dairy or byproduct now and then for practical reasons.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmI've seen in some debates where the YouTubers Vegan Gains and Ask Yourself claim that they won't become minimalists and they already don't eat animals. How's that ethically different from a meat-eater claiming that he won't go vegan and he already doesn't rape?
It's not much different, particularly since they're doing a very bad job at justifying their choices.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmWe don't "need" to have good looking bodies.
We don't, but some of the plant based doctors look like death even if they are very healthy (when you're older and have that low a body fat percentage you can look pretty gaunt); if you're a pubic figure you should probably try to look more fit. Sometimes that means being slightly less healthy to look more healthy, thereby helping more people. And it may mean eating a little more than necessary, which has some harms, but on net may ultimately convince more people to adopt the lifestyle (again, heuristics).

Figuring out what the ideal level of behavior to not only be as moral as you can but to convince as many people to follow suit is a complicated process.
Is all beer vegan? Is birthday cake always vegan? Is the Paris exemption legit? How about the grandma exemption (anything your grandma makes is OK)?

There's reasonable discussion to be had on those issues. But something in the vegan proximity, at least 99% vegan, is certainly important.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmTo clarify: this is not an appeal to futility, this is an assertion that morality is not as objective as it appears to be.
Whether the consequences of something are good or bad can be evaluated very objectively. Of course, all that tells us is that there's a spectrum of harm, and nobody is perfect.

How to judge others, and which heuristics you follow, can seem more subjective until you make some study into game theory, memetic propagation, and how moral heuristics work.
We can apply the same standards of objectivity not just to the assessment of outcomes but to our practice of morality itself.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmDon't see this as an excuse for hurting animals for my taste pleasure, I may go vegan in the future,
That's great!
Or ostrovegan, freegan, etc.
We arguably need more people modeling and advocating these positions, because the more choices people have the more likely they'll find a moral moral form of consumerism that works for them.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pmI am genuinely interested to learn more about this stuff and this forum seemed like an appropriate place.
Right, I hope I was able to answer that for you.

Sorry this reply took a while.
Oli wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:59 pm Off-topic:
Why aren't URL tags accepted here?
Due to spammers.

You can use clickylink:

Code: Select all

[clickylink]URL[/clickylink]
There's a button for it too.
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