Vegan Gains on the Atheist Experience and most recent videos on veganism from or to Matt Dillahunty

[NonZeroSum]

Matt Dillahunty vs. Vegan Gains with a summary from Unnatural Vegan
https://youtu.be/sPw920Df2Ns

^wow 1,266 views and climbing fast. Just shows what good editing can do to give visual ques to follow like talking heads, getting UV's message out there a little bit more, and starting some good discussions.

Wow, that's awesome!

Has it been shared somewhere big?

It is great, at 2.1K now.

None that I can tell searching on google, it must just have found it's way into the sidebar of people's recommended videos, and the enticing thumbnail of them side by side is doing the work.

[brimstoneSalad]

It's not a tu quoque fallacy.

It is, because Matt has the burden of proof to substantiate HIS claims of objective morality in light of these defenses of arbitrary lines.

It's the same burden a theist holds who claims that God is omniscient and that humans have free will.

This is all regardless of whether or not Richard, or any vegan, is consistent.
The fact that Richard isn't competent enough to argue that and put Matt on the defensive only speaks to Richard's personal failures.

Those vegans have a burden of proof to prove their lifestyle y is superior.

No, we don't. Just like atheists don't have the burden of proof that there is no god when criticizing the contradiction between the Christian god's supposed omniscience and the notion of free will.

They say "your behavior leads to undesirable thing A, so you should go vegan and adopt behaviors y".

Richard/Isaac are making a poorly formed argument that fails to comprehend the burden of proof. Appealing to a bad argument that nobody here is making to dismiss another argument isn't valid.

We've had this conversation before, the only way for him to do that would be to become some kind of insanely altruistic person. A life not at all unifiable with a life in western society. In all other cases those vegans are just paying lipservice.

"Lipservice" is all you need when discussing the concept. You don't have to be perfect to aspire to be better and just be honest about what morality means.

All Matt has to do is admit that what he's doing is morally wrong, and that his arbitrary lines aren't valid. He doesn't actually have to DO anything for his arguments to become consistent.

Don't make the "Ask Yourself" fallacy of confusing dissonance between action and belief (and being an imperfect moral actor) with a logical contradiction in one's claims.

Matt is guilty of the latter when making claims about Objective morality while appealing to arbitrary lines.

The only question is whether logical consistency on this point is possible at all, and it clearly is.

Disagree

And you're still making the "Ask Yourself" fallacy. Being an imperfect moral actor is not the same thing as being logically inconsistent. I don't know how you don't understand this.

AND more importantly, if it is not possible then Matt's claims that there exists an objective morality at all or false. So he'll have to walk back something on way or another.

That's false. It says nothing about the existence of an objective morality. It only says something about matt's compliancy with that so called objective moral standard.

Arbitrary lines invalidate Objective morality. It's not complicated.

If Matt can not substantiate his argument for Objective morality without appealing to arbitrary lines, then he has failed conceptually to support his claims.
Nothing to do with his being compliant with those standards, it's all to do with his beliefs themselves.

Maybe there's another non-Dillahunty version out there that is valid, but the Dillahunty version has failed.

First of all, there is a wiiiiide range of mentally disabled people that are not able to function on their own in society and keep a steady job. A very large subset of those people are still miles ahead in intelligence when compared to the brightest nonhuman animal.

Enough behind to be incapable of functioning in society, yet capable of compensating (without any training) for weak instincts and a lack of natural traits that benefit it to fill a niche in the wild?

If this is truly your objection we can just keep caring for the ones that we have a decent enough reason to assume they would die instantly (like your baby animals example above) and just ditch the ones that we know would be "fine" (i.e their quality of life would be equal to that of wild animals).

I don't think any such individuals exist with the same potential quality of life and level of sentience as a wild animal, short exceptions of habitat destruction which makes wild animals' lives more difficult (but also something people generally oppose and think we have a duty to correct).

However I also don't think ANY of these endeavors are effective uses of resources, and I don't know where you got the idea that I did.
I don't think that arguing against them is effective either, though.

If you don't want to spend money on ineffective altruism, I'm not going to complain about that.

even though there's a good chance the mentally disabled people we drop off in the woods arent gonna make it long term there's nothing fundamentally different about their circumstances when dropped in the wild.

Here you go muddying the waters again.
A human has substantial disadvantages relative to wild animals. There's no reason to believe a mentally disabled human would have as easy a time of it on average as an animal of the same intelligence; quite the contrary.

Third, If you drop them with some clubs, clothes, etc in a well-selected area with few large predators, a lot of naturally growing food and drinkable water, chances are they're not gonna die any time soon.

Drop them on some Hawaiian island with lots of fruit and streams?
That would very likely be better for some of them than institutionalization. institutions can be pretty terrible.

OR... there's no requirement to drop them on their own. We could put them with some bear grills type motherfuckers, let's say 1 for every 10 retards. A lot more cost-effective than keeping an entire facility with nursing staff operational, and takes care of the majority of your (false) objections to my analogy, while still being a completely absurd scenario in the eyes of every "normal" person.

As you reform the scenario, if you actually consider the outcome of that it may be better than institutions.
If it uses fewer resources that we can devote to effective altruism, the overall outcome may be better.

The thing is, care for mentally disabled isn't exactly draining the economy. It's one of those small inefficiencies that isn't really a high priority and probably never will be. We have bigger things to deal with. If you wanted to do something like that why should I worry about it? And why is this even a subject of conversation?

I already explained why it's irrelevant.

Wow, baby wild animals. Oddly specific response to my general example of the mentally disabled receiving completely stress-, hunger-, thirstfree benefits. Problems which all animals, baby or not, have to deal with all the time.

We do it for injured ones, too.
And you already know my position on wild animal suffering; I think it's important, it's just a less pressing and more difficult issue to tackle than the present one.

It doesn't matter to me personally. It's just the thing that vegans like Richard use to corner people like Matt. He knows full well that Matt's reputation/career would be stained/ruined if he publicly said it was ok to just kill mentally disabled people for food provided they are only intelligent to the same extent as a pig.
That's something that you cannot say in our society as a public figure.

That sounds like Matt's problem, and it's a very different issue vs. just not spending money on care.

And I'm done again. Your gish-gallop style of argumentation is fucking exhausting.

You're the one bringing up most of this stuff; I'm responding to it.

Responding point by point is not a gish-gallop, you don't seem to know what that is.

You're welcome any time.

[NonZeroSum]

Hey anyone who wants to take up this conversation, I felt like we were going in circles, but he’s professing a genuine desire to go vegan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPw920Df2Ns&lc=z23yzf0zxku3ufck3acdp430ln5lwrvxbgolvhquompw03c010c.1517164897101286

LeoniCarsoni
I think the main point Matt was trying to get across on Sunday's episode is that it's immoral for humans to kill other humans (even when there is no direct suffering of friends or family) because considering such things not immoral would reduce the well-being of everybody in the society who is aware of the implications of such actions being morally permissible (we'd all live our lives in fear).

What Matt didn't mention, but I think should have, is that vegans have the burden of proof to demonstrate that livestock are aware of their destiny, and whether or not they live their entire lives fearing that destiny.

Activist Journeys
I did catch that, but it feels like a social contract plaster to stick over a hedonist approach to ethics, where it would be a lot simpler if he just respected the well being of all animals. It's not necessary for animals to know they're going to slaughter for it to be bad, only for us to corrupt their interests to live full lives, by breeding them and continuously ripping them away from their family and any fulfillment they can find by interacting with their natural environment and building their own social relationships.

LeoniCarsoni
Bear in mind, I'm talking about a situation in which the animals do not live through suffering, because the topic of this is the actual slaughter of the animals.

If someone could assure you that the animals they are eating lived happy lives up until that moment they were slaughtered, would that change your stance?

Activist Journeys
I did answer your question when I said it's a moral wrong to breed them for the purpose of cutting their lives short, to rob them of their desire to go on living and keep getting fulfillment out of life. We can imagine a situation where it would be morally good to euthanize an animal to save it from a further degeneration into painful terminal illness. We can even imagine the donated freegan use of the dead animal as object to be morally good, if it went to feed a carnist who would otherwise contribute money towards an industry that intends to breed more animals into lives of suffering. But it is the cutting short of the animals life in slaughter, for sure.

It's the robbing them of any fulfillment they continue to desire to have at the point of slaughter and the economic in-viability for animals to have the nice happy family lives up to the point of slaughter. Lambs and calf's are taken from their mothers leaving them crying out for weeks, male calf's and chicks are killed soon after birth, you get the picture, see these infographics for more: http://www.four-paws.us/campaigns/farm-animals-/farm-animal-life-expectancy/

LeoniCarsoni
Activist Journeys, you are claiming it's a moral wrong to breed them for the purpose of cutting their lives short. How did you determine that is a moral wrong?

Activist Journeys
Because they have interests to carry on living that you are depriving them of. There is an objective basis to morality which Matt accepts, increasing the amount of well being in the world by serving interests where there is no risk to yourself. You don't get to turn around and say I get to do as much harm as I want outside this species which has members that can comprehend a constitutional model of rights. It's called hedonism and it's a broken mistaken philosophy, just do some reading, like the hedonic treadmill. There is the clear as day issue of how we justify not extending rights to life to animals that can gain more well-being out of life than some in our own species, children/old/mentally disabled. Matt wants to forget about that moral reasoning and just leave it to the intuitive whims of society, when we did that with humans it lead to holocausts, slavery, etc.

LeoniCarsoni
I'm not sure who here is saying "I get to do as much harm as I want outside this species"... I certainly didn't say it.

The objective basis of morality that Matt accepts refers to overall well-being. How did you determine that depriving the animal of their interest to carry on living outweighs the increase in well-being generated by the granting of its life experience in the first place, as well as the well-being granted to those who consume the meat? The values you set on these things are all subjective. Do you have a way to demonstrate that there are objective "weightings" that we can place on each of these things?

Activist Journeys

How did you determine that depriving the animal of their interest to carry on living outweighs the increase in well-being generated by the granting of its life experience in the first place

That's the hedonist mistake that you wouldn't accept being put in a machine that puts you in a pure state of bliss because it wouldn't be life, just like you wouldn't accept having your head being exploded if it could be done painlessly. The unborn have no interests, the living have interests to carry on, that's it. There are descriptive/subjective levels to ethics like virtue/effective sensibility, but only above the objective material/respecting interests to life where there is no risk to yourself.

LeoniCarsoni
I would accept having my head exploded painlessly if I knew ahead of time that the resulting outcome was an overall increase in well-being. It's far easier for us to measure how something like that would affect human well-being. The suffering it would cause my loved ones and the fear it would cause in society in general would be a much larger decrease in well-being than my own death would be. We can easily measure these fluctuations in well-being in humans because of our ability to communicate with each other. My personal well-being is insignificant compared to the whole of society. How do we measure that the reduction in well-being caused by a cow's slaughter exceeds the gain in well-being overall?

Activist Journeys

how do you know I wouldn't accept being put in a machine that puts me in a pure state of bliss?

I believe you might, that's the point, you and Matt are making a categorical error, wanting to dream re-live experiences in the "permanent bliss machine" is only as useful as if you can accommodate the knowledge you gain, "exit the machine" and put into practice what you learned to better pursue your interests with others in real life. Well-being is connected to fulfillment of pursuits, happy flourishing (eudomonia), not happiness which you share in balance with sadness.

I would accept having my head exploded painlessly if I knew ahead of time that the resulting outcome was an overall increase in well-being.

The weight of interests you commit a moral wrong against when you fund the perpetual killing can't come close to the momentary gratification you get from eating food, which you can with a small learning curve easily replace with new almost identical tastes or more diverse tastes. It's not an emergency situation where someone has a gun to your head and saying eat this or I nuke America.

LeoniCarsoni
You should go back and read my comment again. I edited it long before you replied, deleting the only part you quoted because that part was actually irrelevant.

As for your comment, I don't understand the phrase: "wanting to dream re-live experience is only as useful as you can accommodate the knowledge you gain into pursuing interests with others in real life."

Further, are you saying that your definition of well-being is the only one that matters in an objective sense?

Activist Journeys
It was very relevant to how both you and Matt think and reason.

The hedonic treadmill, the machine that provides only good experiences in loops of memory, think of the film Vanilla Sky or Repo Men.

are you saying that your definition of well-being is the only one that matters in an objective sense?

Think of the scientific image of animals; collections of atoms impacting on other atoms. Only we can all feel, derive well-being from achieving our interests. On top of that is the social science of behavior, why we join the groups we do, how we interact. As moral agents who aren't in a kill or starve situation, we have an obligation to respect the basic interests of all animal life where there is no risk to ourselves. And I might add only gain for our health and the planet.

LeoniCarsoni
Can happiness be used as a metric for well-being?

Activist Journeys
No, only happy flourishing, which can either be understood through consequential interests, character virtues or prima-facie duties. Hedonism is a mistaken broken system. I can't keep walking you through moral universalism, you have to go away and do the reading yourself.

LeoniCarsoni
I'm sure you're correct that I'm probably somewhat hedonistic. The thing is, I don't actually understand how it's a mistaken broken system. I don't sacrifice well-being in other humans to gain my own, and I don't sacrifice well-being in non-human animals unless it seems like the overall gain is higher than the overall loss. If you want to just complain that the system is broken without providing an objective, measurable way to demonstrate that it is broken, I don't really know how this discussion can progress.

It seems like you're far more emotionally invested in this than I am, so it's difficult for me to stay on the same page as you.

Activist Journeys
I'm really not emotionally invested, I just can't hold every persons hand till they have quit all the justifications. You're repeating the same/similar questions and I don't want to continue repeating the same/similar answers. I think the best thing for you is to get a better grasp of moral universalism's ins and outs, systems proposed and refutations made. This is philosophy, then the measuring comes later. My only emotion is glad that this video has reached so many people and made people a little more familiar with the arguments, but its just that, the arguments have been explained to you, now I think you'd benefit from going and doing the background reading.

LeoniCarsoni
You've dodged all of the questions that matter. In particular, you keep claiming that my version of hedonism is automatically wrong but you won't explain why. You're making an assertion and not backing it up with anything other than "do your own reading". I didn't think that was how philosophy worked. By all means, though, feel free to stick with that method. You have a great opportunity here to push a lazy person (me) to become at the very least a bit more of a reducitarian, and at most a full blown vegan.

I've been considering veganism for a few months, and every time I get close I run into a discussion like this, where the vegan attempts to defend the indefensible using obfuscation. I'll be here when you find a concise way to explain how my philosophy is wrong.

[brimstoneSalad]

I left a brief message for him from PV account seconding the invitation.

[Mr. Purple]

No, only happy flourishing, which can either be understood through consequential interests, character virtues or prima-facie duties. Hedonism is a mistaken broken system. I can't keep walking you through moral universalism, you have to go away and do the reading yourself.

I also can't see where you explain how a framework based on conscious experience like hedonism would break down. Unless I'm misreading things, it looks like you talked about what is right and wrong in your interest-based model, then simply asserted that hedonism doesn't work multiple times without explanation. That obviously won't be convincing to anyone. The thought experiments may be convincing to some, but LeoniCarsoni seemed to accept the consequences.

It's unfortunate that you've decided to use the "If you were as well educated as I am, you would agree with me." line rather than actually formulating your argument in a sufficiently convincing way. This is what I consider to be the most intellectually dishonest tactic brimstone employs as well, and it's unfortunate you've taken it up.

At this point, I wouldn't blame LeoniCarsoni for not coming here to engage further.

Given how irreconcilable these two moral intuitions are, It may be better to agree to disagree, and instead focus on how the experience based moral framework he already has would just as clearly lead to veganism in essentially all real-world cases. You could also focus on how Matt's position can just as easily be criticized from either framework. Saying that morality is exclusively about well-being like Matt does, then arbitrarily excluding most of the beings on earth that experience this well-being doesn't make sense regardless of which side you lean towards morally.

[NonZeroSum]

No, only happy flourishing, which can either be understood through consequential interests, character virtues or prima-facie duties. Hedonism is a mistaken broken system. I can't keep walking you through moral universalism, you have to go away and do the reading yourself.

I also can't see where you explain how a framework based on conscious experience like hedonism would break down. Unless I'm misreading things, it looks like you talked about what is right and wrong in your interest-based model, then simply asserted that hedonism doesn't work multiple times without explanation. That obviously won't be convincing to anyone. The thought experiments may be convincing to some, but LeoniCarsoni seemed to accept the consequences.

It's unfortunate that you've decided to use the "If you were as well educated as I am, you would agree with me." line rather than actually formulating your argument in a sufficiently convincing way. This is what I consider to be the most intellectually dishonest tactic brimstone employs as well, and it's unfortunate you've taken it up.

No I didn't. I accept obligations under a mostly universal objective morality, I have a virtue ethics informed by prima-facie duties and consequential interests, but ultimately motivated by an existential nihilist/speculative realist goal. I said I knew enough to present a few thought experiments that he acknowledged placed him and Matt in a hedonist school of thought, explained why I believed that to be wrong. Then when he continued to ask me what I perceived to be the same/similar questions, I asked that he might go away and do the reading himself so the semantic details might become intuitively clearer to him.

Given how irreconcilable these two moral intuitions are, It may be better to agree to disagree, and instead focus on how the experience based moral framework he already has would just as clearly lead to veganism in essentially all real-world cases. You could also focus on how Matt's position can just as easily be criticized from either framework. Saying that morality is exclusively about well-being like Matt does, then arbitrarily excluding most of the beings on earth that experience this well-being doesn't make sense regardless of which side you lean towards morally.

That wasn't my goal, my goal was to show how Matt had the burden of proof for so vocally promoting an objective basis to morality, standing up for the rights of women etc. But he has a huge blind-spot when it comes to animals, and uses a false distinction between virtue and obligation, where he abstracts the risk element of the 'virtue side of things' out to social contract.

I offered it up to the forum because I accepted someone with a fresh pair of eyes could do a better job, I remembered you agreeing with the article that said if you could give animals a happy life and kill them painlessly you'd accept it, so you would also be a better person to discuss with him.

______________

Comment link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPw920Df2Ns&lc=z23yzf0zxku3ufck3acdp430ln5lwrvxbgolvhquompw03c010c.1517164897101286

Activist Journeys
Okay, I just feel we're going round in circles, I've offered it up to the forum I'm a part of if anyone wants to take up your offer, maybe they can give it a fresh pair of eyes, you're welcome to join the forum too: http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&p=36903#p36903

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Philosophical Vegan
You're absolutely welcome to the forum; this is an extensive topic and hard to discuss effectively in youtube comments sections.
The issue of hedonism is actually one of our most discussed topics.

However, I will say that even if you are a classical hedonistic utilitarian, going vegan is still appropriate due to the harm caused by animal agriculture put against a short term benefit (your tastes adapt, so your loss of pleasure is short term as you discover other things you enjoy eating and learn to like vegan foods more).

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LeoniCarsoni
Philosophical Vegan I agree that there is plenty of suffering caused by animal agriculture as is, but we were discussing the hypothetical scenario where there is no pain inflicted, and the only harm is in the killing of the animal. I agree that if there was absolutely no way to reduce the suffering caused by agriculture, the only moral option would be veganism.

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Philosophical Vegan
+LeoniCarsoni
The important question of what we do today is what the circumstances are today, not a distant hypothetical. And it's not just harm to the animals themselves, but to the environment and other human beings both through emissions increasing global warming (which affects humans too) and causing antibiotic resistance.

If you want to talk pure hypotheticals, slavery of human beings could be done without physical or psychological harm (by maintaining ignorance), but it's far fetched and an unreasonable expectation; when we commodify living beings, the incentive to cut corners and value profit over their interests will always be there. There are good reasons to prefer abolition over reform for industries we simply do not need or benefit from as a society.

Please join the forum so we can discuss this and the question of root problems of hedonistic moral systems at more length.

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LeoniCarsoni
Philosophical Vegan the key part of what you said about slavery is "maintaining ignorance". That makes it a terrible example for comparison and actually solidifies what I said before about our ability to communicate being one huge difference between us and non-human animals. I might get on the forum another time, but for now I'd like to wrap up this discussion here. As long as you continue responding to me I'll be responding to you, unless of course we come to some sort of agreement.

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Philosophical Vegan
+LeoniCarsoni

the key part of what you said about slavery is "maintaining ignorance".

The same is true for non-human animals if kept as pets. For example, a cat, once wild, may be very miserable kept in captivity and unable to roam, but one raised in captivity may be more or less satisfied.
It's arguably important to not know what you're missing, and this applies to humans and non-humans alike.

That makes it a terrible example for comparison

It's a perfect example. We're dealing with two situations that ARE unethical, but could speculatively be made ethical in a hedonistic system with the right circumstances and control.

and actually solidifies what I said before about our ability to communicate being one huge difference between us and non-human animals.

There is a degree of difference, not a fundamental one. Non-human animals can communicate emotional states pretty effectively to people who know how to read them, and can learn to communicate beyond that as well; it depends on the species and upbringing.

Likewise, we can't effectively communicate from human to human all the time. There are issues of language, but also of divisive ideology in the context of ignorance that make it even more difficult. Look at the gulf forming between the left and right, for example.

Communication is not some simple trait that varies absolutely between humans and animals, but a complex dynamic.
And even if it were, there's no reason to claim that it's a morally relevant trait, and that beings that can not communicate with you deserve no moral consideration (if that's what you're claiming).

You seem to have missed my other points.
The question is the ethics of what you're doing NOW with the system that currently exists, not a speculative future system where those problems have been fixed. In the very least, you should be receptive to tentative veganism, and abstain until you can find an ethical source of animal products and a way to compensate for the environmental harm.

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LeoniCarsoni
"In the very least, you should be receptive to tentative veganism, and abstain until you can find an ethical source of animal products and a way to compensate for the environmental harm."

This part I mostly agree with (by that I mean, I am receptive to tentative veganism for the reasons you mention), but that's not really the topic of this discussion. The topic was specifically about the animal slaughter and usage of the animal products (excluding the suffering that is involved). Some vegans suggest that even if the animals did not suffer, it would be wrong for us to consume them or their products. That's where the argument falls flat for me.

I guess I'll try to clarify again that I'm not suggesting that beings that can not communicate with me deserve no moral consideration. Nobody seems to understand this part (both when Matt says it and when I say it in my own way). There are many reasons it's wrong to kill humans, even the ones who are a detriment to society. Here are two of the big reasons that pop into my head:
1) They want to live and it would be wrong to take that away from them.
2) They don't want to live their lives fearing that they could be killed if society says it's ok for them to be killed.

Non-human animals very likely fit #1, but they very likely don't fit #2, would you agree?

[Margaret Hayek]

There is some really weird stuff in there about reciprocation being important but only on the basis of "kinds" which for some reason are supposed to be biological species (why not broader "kinds" - e.g. subphyla like vertebrata or even kingdoms like anamalia? Why not more narrow "kinds" like humans of a given age or ability range?).

I think he's arguing some kind of pragmatic approximations.
He wasn't making much sense there, but he was more so in his other points.

He seems clearly to have invoked them in some sort of way, but what exact role they are supposed to play in his views seems very unclear.

I suspect he invokes them on the grounds of instrumental utility, in helping society function (thus alleviating suffering and producing "well being"), and where those rules go beyond affecting suffering then in terms of providing members of that society (who can comprehend the protections it offers) peace of mind (his example of following a will despite the person not being alive, because knowing it would be done gave him peace of mind during life).

Thanks - I think that's very interesting and helpful. Here as I see it is what the steel-manned version of the Dillahunty view might look like - it's a combination of act and rule utilitarianism that might resemble the views of John Stuart Mill as developed in his book, Utilitarianism. Please just let me know if this differs from your understanding:

Basic Moral View 1 (Act Utilitarianism for Moral Reasons): The strength of our moral reasons to do something are determined by its straightforward utility, i.e. the extent to which it brings about more (expected) well-being than ill-being for all beings capable of well or ill-being (which is presumably the class of all sentient beings) than the other acts one could have performed int he circumstances.

Basic Moral View 2 (Morally Virtuous = More Morally Favoured than Minimally Permissible): An act is morally virtuous to the extent to which it is (i) morally permissible, and (ii) more favoured by moral reasons than the "bare morally permissible minimum" (i.e. the act least favoured by moral reasons that is still morally permissible).

Basic Moral View 3 (Rule Utilitarianism for Moral Permissibility & Impermissiblity): An act is morally permissible (or impermissible) just in case and because it would be permitted (or not permitted) by optimific systems of rules - i..e. those system of rules that we have at least as much moral reason to adopt (and I guess enforce, "if not by law, by the opinion of [our] fellow-creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of [our] own conscience", Mill Utilitarianism Ch 5) as any other systems of rules - i.e. those systems of rules that, if adopted and enforced, would bring about at least as much utility as any alternative system of rules.

Axiological / Empirical View 1: Being vegan (i.e. not purchasing animal products or doing things that increase the chances of others purchasing such products) in our current circumstances would not be required (nor, of course, would it be forbidden) by optimific systems of rules

Axiological / Emprirical View 2: Being vegan is more favoured by moral reasons than consumption choices that constitute the bare morally permissible minimum

Conclusion 1: Failing to be vegan is morally permissible (but of course being vegan is also morally permissible)

Conclusion 2: Being vegan is morally virtuous


Does that sound right?

If so then the main problem seems to be that Axiological / Empirical View 1 is radically implausible. There is simply no reason to think that the costs of our enforcing veganism with sanctions of conscience in our own minds will do more harm than good relative to not doing so. Indeed, even if - as is obviously false - adopting some silly set of rules that only makes us enforce with sanctions of conscience our treatment of other humans were optimific, it would still follow that we should enforce veganism with sanctions of conscience because, as UV has pointed out with reference to the empirical literature, going vegan is the single lifestyle change that can most easily reduce one's environmental destruction and waste of resources and the consequent harms to other humans. But there is, as noted, every reason to think that a system of rules will do more good than harm if it enforces with sanctions of conscience various things we might do to non-human animals simply for their own sake, and no reason to think that it should rule out blood sports but allow being non-vegan.

I wish I could come up with a steel-manned version on which Dillahaunty's conclusions weren't so obviously false, but I suspect that that's just impossible. I think his position really is just obviously hopeless.

His real problem is his fixation on experiential states rather than preferences.

I strongly disagree, and I really don't see why you think that. I hope that my reasoning above makes clear why I think that your claim here is false. I think that we can very easily see that whether we use a preference fulfillment theory of well-being or some kind of experientialist theory of well-being (like classical hedonism), Axiological / Empirical View 1 just clearly fails miserably. So Dillahunty's failure to endorse your favoured theory of well-being is simply beside the point.

[brimstoneSalad]

Does that sound right?

I'm not sure I parsed all of that correctly, but I don't think so. I don't know for certain where his claims of moral virtue come from, but his explanation of saving a child from an oncoming truck seem to suggest it's a matter of personal difficulty and it's not distinguished in fundamental type.

I take it he believes it's morally virtuous to be vegan because of the environmental effects, and because there is some animal suffering in the current system, so it does reduce experiential well being.
BUT if we developed a system that killed happy animals painlessly 100% of the time (regardless or violating their desires to live, something he doesn't care about) and resolved the environmental problems, he would not see it as morally virtuous anymore. And I think he believes the former already exists, and that the latter is a trivial matter of trusting science to fix our mistakes rather than bothering to do anything ourselves (much like Tyson does).
The reason he doesn't see it as an obligation is because he thinks it's healthier to eat meat and inordinately difficult and self-sacrificing to be vegan... and that the harms aren't really a big deal.

His distinction between obligation and virtue is not of some fundamental type like Kant's distinctions between perfect and imperfect duties, it's more of an arbitrary add-on that serves to confuse the conversation. It's something he needs to explain better because I think most people misunderstood it (assuming I understand it).

If so then the main problem seems to be that Axiological / Empirical View 1 is radically implausible. There is simply no reason to think that the costs of our enforcing veganism with sanctions of conscience in our own minds will do more harm than good relative to not doing so.

He is wildly incorrect about the science of nutrition with his claims that it's more healthful to eat meat than to not eat meat.
Beyond that, I don't think he has taken the time to really engage with other problems of animal agriculture and the magnitude of existential risk they pose.

I wish I could come up with a steel-manned version on which Dillahaunty's conclusions weren't so obviously false, but I suspect that that's just impossible. I think his position really is just obviously hopeless.

I agree that's probably true. Even as a strict hedonistic utilitarian they're indefensible.

I strongly disagree, and I really don't see why you think that.

Because that allows him to circumvent all of the issues with killing animals who want to live as an act in and of itself, and it breaks down the rest of his moral claims by generating the same kinds of exceptions that allow him to kill animals -- creating ignorance to avoid anxiety, which is his only cited reason preventing the painless killing of humans. Surely we could talk about lost productivity and other matters, but these are all variable. There would always be people whom it's fine to kill in certain ways for any reason, because the only thing he could appeal to is consequence of causing anxiety or trouble for others, not any loss for the one being killed.

Empirical View 1 just clearly fails miserably. So Dillahunty's failure to endorse your favoured theory of well-being is simply beside the point.

You can certainly address it empirically too, but his system still fails in many other ways even if you do that, and that is the harder path. He has clearly made great effort to avoid and rationalize this information already (if it were the case that he seemed open-minded to empirical arguments, that might be different).
Anybody who insists that eating meat is healthier than not eating meat today holds some special views on nutrition that are not evidence based.
At worst I would expect any sensible person to hold only that eating small amounts of meat is not necessary or beneficial relative to a well planned vegan diet, but also not harmful. Neutrality of small amounts of meat is a far cry from his claims of superiority.

[Margaret Hayek]

Hi all,

Reg Flowers posted a video in which he shares some of his thoughts about the debating efforts of individuals like VG:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGIw08jCnR0


Here is a cross-post of my comment on his video:

Hi Reg, I agree with you that abrasive tone can be very counterproductive, and that arguments like that from less able humans shouldn't in many / most contexts have to carry the main weight in arguing for veganism (especially if they're being used to establish a kind of "equal consideration" thesis according to which we should all else held equal be just as concerned about equally sized harms / benefits independent of their further effects to non-humans as to humans. This is because much, much weaker and less controversial ethical premises are entirely sufficient to support veganism, including there simply being reasons not to harm other humans via the massive waste and environmental degradation from animal agriculture). But I have several worries about what you say here. (1) I don't think that most people, even those giving you hate, really think that it's OK to kill you for relatively trivial reasons. (2) There is a massive difference between killing someone (especially if she is a responsible agent) in self-defense or other-defense (or for self- / other-defense plus deterrence in the case of the death penalty, but I actually suspect than many of your targets here don't even support the death penalty) and killing someone for relatively trivial reasons like taste-pleasure / convenience. (3) I think that there ARE times and places where it is important to think about the actual strength of our moral reasons to omit harming non-human animals for their own sakes. For instance, this can be used to defend against challenges the helpfully weak ethical premise that we owe enough to non-human animals for it to not be OK to harm them for relativley trivial reasons (which is something that Matt Dillahaunty - unlike many / most people with whom one might discuss veganism in everyday life - is actually trying very publicly and vocally to deny). Such reflection on the strength of our reasons not to harm non-human animals for their own sakes can also reinforce the environmental reasons to be vegan. Finally, in the context of making these arguments to other vegans, I think that it can help to reduce recidivism (which we know is very common) to help existing vegans appreciate just how strong are our reasons not to harm non-human animals for their own sakes. This is an audience who is best positioned to react positively to these stronger arguments since, as Tobias Leenaert might put it, unlike for non-vegans who haven't yet figured out how to go vegan, for those who are already vegan but could just use some extra motivation to remain so "heightened compassion for non-human animals DOESN'T cost too much" because they're already vegan.

[brimstoneSalad]

Great post Margaret, and thanks for cross-posting so this didn't get lost in the youtube comments void.

This is because much, much weaker and less controversial ethical premises are entirely sufficient to support veganism

I would try to avoid the term "weaker" because it may be interpreted as something undesirable, when I think what you mean is that the premises are not making such strong claims?