Compilation of common arguments
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 6:12 pm
Hello there. I've been debating veganism with people on Youtube for a while now. I've noticed that people mostly use the same bad arguments and excuses for eating meat over and over again, and I'm pretty fed up with writing the same replies from scratch every time. I want to make a compilation of counter-arguments to these common, stupid arguments so that I can just do some fast CTRL+C instead.
Feel free to edit what I wrote if you think I'm wrong, worded something poorly or you feel it should be explained in more detail. Also, please add more stupid arguments and their counter-arguments. It would also be ideal with references to peer-reviewed scientific articles
Work in progress. Answers are meant to be more fleshed out eventually
Eating meat is natural
See appeal to nature fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature
Just because something is "natural" does not mean it's good. The term natural is a poorly defined term to begin with, but clearly we can't base ethics on what animals (including humans) do in the wild. Just think of rape, theft and murder for example.
Meat-eating has been part of our culture for thousands of years
Just because something is a cultural norm during any given time period does not automatically make that thing acceptable or good. Think slavery, witch burning, stoning of gays, antisemitism etc.
Most people can't live on plant-based diets!
What evidence is this based on? In fact, it has been determined that a well-planned vegan diet is appropriate for all stages of life (source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12826028)
Don't push your beliefs on others!
You have no nutritional need for meat, and therefore you're inflicting unnecessary harm on others based on an irrational belief system. A belief system that YOU push onto the animals. Ergo, you're a hypocrite.
Morality is subjective
So we can never say something is objectively bad? Morality deals with actions and their consequences on the well-being of conscious creatures. Clearly these things are not immeasurable quantities, and therefore not just a matter of personal opinion.
Our brains grew big because of meat!
Actually, it seems our brains grew bigger because we figured out how to cook our food, which enabled us to consume more calories and waste less energy digesting our food. Now that we didn't have to spend so much of our time eating calorically dillute raw foods, we could instead focus our attention on more complex tasks.
(source: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/45/18571)
Meat does not have any magical brain-growing powers. It just happens to be very calorically dense. In this day and age we have much healthier and more ethical alternatives available.
A vegan diet is lacking in B12. A good diet should provide all vital nutrients!
All life is equal. You eat plants, so you're a hypocrite!
If we stopped eating animals they would overpopulate the planet
I didn't climb to the top of the food chain to eat lettuce
Feel free to edit what I wrote if you think I'm wrong, worded something poorly or you feel it should be explained in more detail. Also, please add more stupid arguments and their counter-arguments. It would also be ideal with references to peer-reviewed scientific articles
Work in progress. Answers are meant to be more fleshed out eventually

Eating meat is natural
See appeal to nature fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature
Just because something is "natural" does not mean it's good. The term natural is a poorly defined term to begin with, but clearly we can't base ethics on what animals (including humans) do in the wild. Just think of rape, theft and murder for example.
Meat-eating has been part of our culture for thousands of years
Just because something is a cultural norm during any given time period does not automatically make that thing acceptable or good. Think slavery, witch burning, stoning of gays, antisemitism etc.
Most people can't live on plant-based diets!
What evidence is this based on? In fact, it has been determined that a well-planned vegan diet is appropriate for all stages of life (source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12826028)
Don't push your beliefs on others!
You have no nutritional need for meat, and therefore you're inflicting unnecessary harm on others based on an irrational belief system. A belief system that YOU push onto the animals. Ergo, you're a hypocrite.
Morality is subjective
So we can never say something is objectively bad? Morality deals with actions and their consequences on the well-being of conscious creatures. Clearly these things are not immeasurable quantities, and therefore not just a matter of personal opinion.
Our brains grew big because of meat!
Actually, it seems our brains grew bigger because we figured out how to cook our food, which enabled us to consume more calories and waste less energy digesting our food. Now that we didn't have to spend so much of our time eating calorically dillute raw foods, we could instead focus our attention on more complex tasks.
(source: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/45/18571)
Meat does not have any magical brain-growing powers. It just happens to be very calorically dense. In this day and age we have much healthier and more ethical alternatives available.
A vegan diet is lacking in B12. A good diet should provide all vital nutrients!
All life is equal. You eat plants, so you're a hypocrite!
If we stopped eating animals they would overpopulate the planet
I didn't climb to the top of the food chain to eat lettuce