So what is the ultimate goal of veganism?

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sykkelmannen
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Re: So what is the ultimate goal of veganism?

Post by sykkelmannen »

Dsalles wrote: Tue Dec 26, 2017 7:44 pm The end goal for me is when enough people get a distaste for killing animals, and the number of vegans begins to rise. And all the other stages between vegans and total carnists,who would eat any animal, start to tilt to the vegan side, and a momentum is created, where meat, leather and all its other by-products become prohibitively expensive and substitutes become the standard, and people know how to get enough of the necessary nutrients just as people know to brush their teeth and proper hygiene, and it becomes less of a sacrifice to go vegan. I hope we dont need to enforce laws, just as there are rarely cases of having to enforce laws against cockfighting anymore. We dont need laws against bullfighting outside of the Iberian Peninsula. Because people dont want to see it. Violent tactics will not get us there. Distaste will.
Excellently put.
Deva
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Re: So what is the ultimate goal of veganism?

Post by Deva »

bigbossomni wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2017 1:04 am I generally hear 2 things. Most folk on youtube demand the absolute outlaw of eating or using animal products
I personally don't like the idea of outlawing the consumption of animals for food. I think it will be phased out naturally.
So my question is. Do you think vegans are some authority as to which they can draw the line to which animal deaths are or aren't acceptable? And that everyone should be required to follow the same moral standards as you?
No. I don't think vegans are an authority. We are biased. Even within the vegan community, there is disagreement such as whether its ethical to kill for survival. But, I think there are some very good arguments for veganism that sway me personally. Some vegan activists on youtube do seem to communicate very dogmatically and authoritatively, and (although I admire how much heart they have for the animals) I do take them with a grain of salt.

I don't think everyone should be forced to follow my moral standards, because for me they are mostly philosophical, and my argument for why it is "wrong" to kill animals doesn't even resonate strongly with me.

But here's how I feel about it, and sure, I'd like the world to feel this way:

I feel a great amount of empathy for suffering of animals in factory farms. I also feel empathy with animals who are experiencing happiness, concern for their young, etc.

Its true that many animals probably cannot understand the concept of life and death. And I do not always feel a great sadness for animals killed painlessly. I think it is less wrong to kill them than to kill a human.

But if I step away from these words "wrong" and "right" for a moment, animals still have lives and emotions that are like mine, and the only way I would want to impact them would be to allow them to experience more life. Because I value life, experiences, my interests, and my emotions, how can I not value theirs as well?
bigbossomni
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Re: So what is the ultimate goal of veganism?

Post by bigbossomni »

Thanks a good response. I see too many vegans claiming their emotional based opinions as facts. I do not feel for the animals I hunt. I just want to death to be a quick clean kill. Thats as far as I'll go in considering the animal.
Jamie in Chile
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Re: So what is the ultimate goal of veganism?

Post by Jamie in Chile »

Hi big bossomni,

I did eat factory farm products for many years which in my opinion probably made me morally worse or more ignorant than someone who eats only hunted meat and is able to make clean fast kills. Because hunted animals at least gets to live a better quality of life and are better for the environment. If I saw someone hunting it would upset me more than if I saw someone reaching for the chicken in a supermarket because the violence is in front of your eyes. But, this may be irrational.

I am vegetarian and mostly vegan now. I think it is morally wrong to cause unecessary suffering and death, and therefore I am against all or almost all meat, at least 99% of meat including hunted meat. (The only exceptions might be leftovers or roadkill, for instance.) I also found out that eating meat is unnecessary and that vegan meals can be just as nutritous and tasty. However I understand and accept you will continue to kill animals, as long as I don't have to be there to see it.

If I was out enjoying a nature walk, and came across a hunt in progress, it would upset me. To try and imagine my feelings, imagine you lived in a world where sexual assault and stealing was accepted and legal and you saw a woman being mugged and groped, and you had to stand by and watch or just turn away, because if you attacked those carrying out the assault only YOU could be arrested and you would be seen as the radical one. That's about how a vegan would typically feel seeing an animal hunted and killed.

Definately not all of us, though. Some of us are vegan because of animal welfare (specific concerns about factory farms rather than fundamental opposition to all meat), or the environment, or the health. But the majority, of certainly the majority of people who are truly vegans by definition, probably have fundamental ethics against most or any use of animals as product at the core of our belief system.

It would be especially annoying to see hunting in a beautiful nature area I loved and went to to relax or enjoy nature. I think to avoid these kinds of conflicts there should be areas where hunting is allowed and vegans can choose to stay out of, and areas where it isn't, which I assume is already the case anyway in most places.

By the way, big bossomni, changing the way animals are treating in factory farms is absolutely not the end goal of veganism or the belief of most vegans and animal rights campaigners. Either ending all/most factory farming or ending all/most use of animals is the goal.
bigbossomni
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Re: So what is the ultimate goal of veganism?

Post by bigbossomni »

simple chile you see a hunt walk away. morality is subjective you can say how awful it is to hunt but its simply an opinion you dont like what you see? Walk away. And sorry your goal of veganism will never happen unless you people are totalitarian
Jamie in Chile
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Re: So what is the ultimate goal of veganism?

Post by Jamie in Chile »

Lay Vegan wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2017 3:30 am Attempting outlaw animal products is not only unreasonable and unproductive, but could even be potentially worse for the animals. Similar to the criminalization of drugs which lead to the intensity of more drugs, the criminalization of the consumption of animal products would force these animals into a black market where cruelty would be even more severe. Here, quality of life would not be maintained by government regulation or reputational market mechanisms.

Read more about this here; https://medium.com/@justingoro/dear-vegans-eating-meat-should-not-be-made-illegal-97dcd4772bbc
The Medium article rests on the dubious argument that meat would be a victimless crime in a legal sense. The section of the article, Animal slaughter is not legally the same as murder, is weak. Not the sub-title, but what follows below it. It’s clear to me that in fact meat eating falls in the top left quadrant of the article, with an external victim and aggression.

Making killing animals illegal would make it hard to hide and run the very large scale factory operations that must stay on a single site for economic reasons. The illegal market would have to depend largely on imports, I think. Drugs is a poor comparison since they can be moved around much more easily and don’t go bad quickly. Illegal drugs also rely on addiction – meat is not about addiction. Some people also often like to buy all their food in a one-off shop at a single site. Making meat illegal would in my opinion likely reduce the quantity consumed and the total suffering; of course this can’t be argued conclusively one way or the other.

Making meat illegal is not a realistic option for now however, for the simple reason that for something to be illegal it needs the support of a majority of the population. Therefore, this will not be a realistic topic of discussion in any country until at least 50% of the population has themselves already stopped eating meat, and this will not happen in any country for decades at least.

I think things will happen in stages over the coming decades instead with lesser legal measures against meat. First, subsidies for meat eating will be removed at some point as it makes no sense. Then, taxes will be levied on meat, or at least it will be discussed (this will likely be based on an environmental rather than ethical argument). Current welfare standards will become illegal but meat will continue to be allowed with newer standards.

Legality of killing animals is not a yes/no thing because there are different attitudes to different species. Perhaps if global warming accelerates dramatically and it is causing more severe catastrophes and emergency measures are needed, breeding cows might be phased out in Europe just like they are phasing out diesel and petrol cars in the next generation. We can already see that there the case for legal protection of some very intelligent animals such as dolphins and apes is already a fairly mainstream argument that is taken seriously, and this may extend eventually to others. Perhaps one day there will be a campaign focused on pigs due to their intelligence level.

Most vegans today have not called for making meat illegal and my guess is that if you surveyed vegans “should meat be illegal” the majority would say no. At least the majority would not admit publically that they would like to see meat being illegal because it’s not an argument that can be won today and would just upset others for little gain. We can see in this thread examples of vegans that don’t think meat should be illegal. However, I suspect vegans are more likely to feel that way because making killing animals illegal is not a realistic goal at the moment, is radical, and could alienate followers. Therefore, winning hearts and minds just makes more sense for our generation.

So in other words we don’t have the power or the allies or the majority opinion to achieve this even if we wanted it. I honestly think in the future if >50% of people stopped eating meat then the vegans of future generations would call for killing animals/meat/factory farms to be illegal.

Of course, strictly speaking, I think eating (all) meat itself would never be illegal otherwise roadkill would be illegal which doesn’t make moral sense. The crime would have to be killing an animal and even then that would perhaps have to apply to only certain animals and would have certain exceptions (for example for self defence).

If killing animals is ever made illegal, it will not be within our lifetimes.

So big bossomni, there is no chance veganism and animal rights movement will stop your hunting completely within your lifetime, so in that sense they are not a real threat to your way of life but for your grandkids or great grand kids, that’s not necessarily going to be the case.

Veganism and hunting are fundamentally opposed and there is very little middle ground that can be found except learning to respect each other even though we have different opinions.

Best of luck to you big bossomnni.
Jamie in Chile
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Re: So what is the ultimate goal of veganism?

Post by Jamie in Chile »

bigbossomni wrote: Wed Jan 03, 2018 11:26 pm simple chile you see a hunt walk away. morality is subjective you can say how awful it is to hunt but its simply an opinion you dont like what you see? Walk away. And sorry your goal of veganism will never happen unless you people are totalitarian
When someone says morality is subjective, I am not so sure about that. What if you caught someone raping and murdering a teenage girl in an imaginary country where there was total anarchy and no laws and they said to you ah "morality is subjective, walk away". Would you say fair enough, and walk away? Could you honestly feel comfortable doing so, if morality is truly subjective?

I am saying that killing animals for food is morally wrong and you are saying it is not. One of us is right and one of us is wrong. We can agree to disagree if you like and respect each other's different viewpoints if you like, happy to do so and respect your decision. But you can't just dismiss all moral arguments by saying morality is subjective.

Not unless you are prepare to say that the morality of raping and murdering a teenage girl is a subjective matter.
bigbossomni
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Re: So what is the ultimate goal of veganism?

Post by bigbossomni »

I am sure that natural actions to us such as hunting will never be illegal. We are omnivores and are very good hunters as nature made us so. Vegans cannot even keep the numbers to make such a change and even so they would have to be at least totalitarian which history has shown has never worked long term
Jamie in Chile
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Re: So what is the ultimate goal of veganism?

Post by Jamie in Chile »

Probably, hunting is already partly illegal. For example you probably aren't allowed to hunt in national parks or kill protected species. But hunting will not be 100% illegal within at least the next 100 years. What humans might decide 1000 years in the future we can only speculate on, hard to say for certain.

Vegans are not totalitarian. It's very annoying when the state or anyone tries to interfere in your private life or tell you what to do in your private life. Everyone should have the right to do whatever they want in their private life, in my opinion, provided that they don't hurt others.

If in your private life, you liked to go out and hunt human beings and take them home and eat them, we can presumably both agree that you shouldn't be allowed to do that, and it isn't totalitarian to forbid killing humans. Since animals also have intelligence and can suffer and feel pain, I don't see any fundamental reason why it should be completely wrong to kill humans but not at all wrong to kill animals.

Granted, it is less wrong.

That's way I don't think vegans are totalitarian. If I was saying you can't eat cabbage because I said so, and you could only eat carrots, that would be more totalitarian because I would be controlling your life even when you weren't hurting anyone else.

Anyway, I'm going to bed now...
bigbossomni
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Re: So what is the ultimate goal of veganism?

Post by bigbossomni »

chile you lost .making humans equal to animals. again more vegans equating murder to hunting animals
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