Philosophical Vegan Forum

If a deontological approach to vegan activism (for one specific person) produced greater results than a Utilitarian or some non-Utilitarian consequentialist approach, wouldn't it be better for that person to prioritise the deontological approach over the other approaches? Furthermore, wouldn't disregarding a deontological approach (despite it having better consequences) simply because it's deontological, be deontological? Because it has been dismissed on the basis that it's wrong, rather than for its consequences (which are, in this hypothetical, that a deontological approach has been most effective).

If it were, sure you could use deontological arguments to achieve consequentialist goals. However, for determining what our goals are correct moral reasoning is very important. I also don't think deontological arguments are more effective, since they're so easy to reject. There is also the added downside that if people realize the reasoning is flawed, that might make them more resistant to the vegan movement. In this particular case, we do not know whether consequentialist or deontological reasoning is more effective. Especially in that case, I favor to use the one that is correct.

That's kind of like Christians who know that the Bible contains contradictions, and that evolution is true, but who lie about both of these because they think they'll get more converts that way.

Maybe that's true in the short term, but deception can come back to bite you.

Deontological approaches are superficially simpler, so they're easier for some people to understand and may yield more short term results, but a large part of recidivism (which is the biggest problem in veganism today -- something like 75%) may be attributed to deontological argument which are easily debunked (High Carb Low Fat fads may also be a big part of that, but these are both very recidivism-encouraging practices).

You may make more vegan converts, just like orthorexic vegan diets do, but there's probably a carnist (or a doctor/peer intervention in the case of the orthorexic diets) right around the corner de-converting 75% of them with simple arguments against deontology/bad health advice.

Just like Atheists are de-converting the naive Christians who reject science or think the Bible is the literal and inerrant word of god; it's too easy a position to argue against.
Atheists LIKE when the Christians advertise their anti-scientific dogmatic positions, because it helps convert more atheists in the long run; it is how Christianity destroys itself.

ThinkAboutThis wrote:If a deontological approach to vegan activism (for one specific person) produced greater results than a Utilitarian or some non-Utilitarian consequentialist approach, wouldn't it be better for that person to prioritise the deontological approach over the other approaches?

I wouldn't, because of the above. We have to play a longer game here. Instant converts who bounce right back aren't very useful.

ThinkAboutThis wrote:Furthermore, wouldn't disregarding a deontological approach (despite it having better consequences) simply because it's deontological, be deontological? Because it has been dismissed on the basis that it's wrong, rather than for its consequences (which are, in this hypothetical, that a deontological approach has been most effective).

If it were really more effective in the long-run, and we had solid evidence of this, then it might be preferable activism. But, this isn't what we've seen in the past, and it's not what we see in other instances of proselytism (like with Christians).

If you can get them on board with deontology, then reliably convert them to consequentialism (as a two staged approach), that might get the benefits of both. I think it would be more work, though, which could just be used to convert more people with a purely consequentialist argument.
We'd have to do a study to compare them. It sounds difficult as a pitch, though, even for me.

Also, remember, convincing ten people to halve their meat consumption (not technically creating any vegans at all) is likely better than making one vegan. This is another point where consequentialism succeeds and deontology fails; deontology alienates people who might have been willing to reduce, but not go vegan.
Research has shown reduction messages to be very effective, like vegetarian messages, and vegan messages to usually fail.
BUT after somebody reduces, that person is more likely to go vegetarian, and after somebody goes vegetarian, that person is more likely to go vegan.
Consequentialism supports a step-based approach, which is what the evidence suggests works best.

miniboes wrote:I also don't think deontological arguments are more effective

This would depend on who one is trying to convince. For example, Christians may be more receptive to Deontology or Rule Consequentialism (The Ten Commandments), but atheists may be more receptive to Consequentialism.

If one Vegan is trying to convince one non-Vegan, it could be worth it to switch between Deontological and Consequentialist arguments in an attempt to see which works best.

miniboes wrote:...since they're so easy to reject.

I'd argue that most nonvegans would have a hard time rejecting an argument from a person like Gary Francione.

miniboes wrote:In this particular case, we do not know whether consequentialist or deontological reasoning is more effective. Especially in that case, I favor to use the one that is correct.

I agree. But if Deontology was shown to yield better results in certain demographics, I'd probably include some "Deontological-consequentialism" in those areas.

brimstoneSalad wrote:That's kind of like Christians who know that the Bible contains contradictions, and that evolution is true, but who lie about both of these because they think they'll get more converts that way.

Similar. Although, in this analogy, evolution would be carnism, yet I don't believe carnism to be true.

I think it's more akin to a Christian who believes yelling at people is wrong, but does so anyway because it has been shown to produce more converts (not that it does).

brimstoneSalad wrote:Deontological approaches are superficially simpler, so they're easier for some people to understand and may yield more short term results, but a large part of recidivism (which is the biggest problem in veganism today -- something like 75%) may be attributed to deontological argument which are easily debunked (High Carb Low Fat fads may also be a big part of that, but these are both very recidivism-encouraging practices).

That's a good point about potential short term results, something I didn't think about. Although, I don't believe there would be many carnists capable of disputing vegans deontological claims, because once the carnist understands it at a level beyond the deontological vegan, they'd likely become a vegan anyway. And for the few who hadn't become vegan who are disputing the Deontologists claims, there'd likely be a consequentialist involved as well (depending where the argument is happening).

For example, there's a discussion on a forum between a deontological vegan, a carnist and a consequentialist vegan:

Deontologist: Using animals is inherently wrong.
Carnist: Nope. Using animals could be morally permissible if it doesn't violate their interests, or cause suffering.
Consequentialist: Yeah, true. But that still doesn't justify unnecessary cruelty.

brimstoneSalad wrote:If you can get them on board with deontology, then reliably convert them to consequentialism (as a two staged approach), that might get the benefits of both.

I thought this as well. As I stated in my reply to miniboes, different demographics could respond better to Deontology (like Christians etc).

brimstoneSalad wrote:Research has shown reduction messages to be very effective

Any links to this?

ThinkAboutThis wrote:If one Vegan is trying to convince one non-Vegan, it could be worth it to switch between Deontological and Consequentialist arguments in an attempt to see which works best.

This could make you look dishonest. Because, well, it kind of IS dishonest. You're representing at least one thing as true when it isn't. You could say "some people argue X" instead of stating is as the truth, but then that loses a lot of force.

ThinkAboutThis wrote:I agree. But if Deontology was shown to yield better results in certain demographics, I'd probably include some "Deontological-consequentialism" in those areas.

This is where rule consequentialism may be useful.

ThinkAboutThis wrote:This would depend on who one is trying to convince. For example, Christians may be more receptive to Deontology or Rule Consequentialism (The Ten Commandments), but atheists may be more receptive to Consequentialism.

Rule consequentialism is fine.

If you're using Deontological arguments on Christians, you also are not using your time optimally. You should use Scripture instead, and appeals to being a good emissary.

I see the value in religious arguments for veganism as long as they are explicitly religious, and don't muddle the secular argument. Nobody is going to end up confused about that.

ThinkAboutThis wrote: Similar. Although, in this analogy, evolution would be carnism, yet I don't believe carnism to be true.

I mean for a vegan who understands deontology contains contradictions, but advocates it anyway, compared to a Christian who knows the Bible/creationism is contradictory, but advocates it anyway.

For the vegan, there is a choice to make a consequential argument. For the Christian, there is the choice to make a more science-accepting and the-Bible-is-metaphor-to-teach-us-values argument.

ThinkAboutThis wrote: Although, I don't believe there would be many carnists capable of disputing vegans deontological claims, because once the carnist understands it at a level beyond the deontological vegan, they'd likely become a vegan anyway.

ThinkAboutThis wrote:I'd argue that most nonvegans would have a hard time rejecting an argument from a person like Gary Francione.

Most don't have to. If even one in a hundred does, they still outnumber us, and because they have the better argument than deontology, they will win in any standoff.
Carnists don't become vegan by simply understanding that the deontological argument for veganism is wrong. It's easy to poke holes in it, even for a nihilist, a relativist, a hedonist, or a Randroid.

ThinkAboutThis wrote: And for the few who hadn't become vegan who are disputing the Deontologists claims, there'd likely be a consequentialist involved as well (depending where the argument is happening).

For example, there's a discussion on a forum between a deontological vegan, a carnist and a consequentialist vegan:

Deontologist: Using animals is inherently wrong.
Carnist: Nope. Using animals could be morally permissible if it doesn't violate their interests, or cause suffering.
Consequentialist: Yeah, true. But that still doesn't justify unnecessary cruelty.

1. There wouldn't necessarily be a consequentialist there. There very often isn't. Here there are, because the vast majority of active forum members are, but on other forums that's not usually the case; there might only be one or two vegans there, and there's a good chance of them both being deontological.

2. When there isn't a consequentialist, it's just a carnist giving a dogmatic vegan a smack-down, and that makes veganism look bad to everybody reading it who might have been considering going veg.

3. Even when there is a consequentialist there, it's a waste of the consequentialist's time which could otherwise be spent on activism. If the original deontologist had just been a consequentialist to begin with, somebody else wouldn't have had to come in and correct everybody, and there could have been two threads instead of one.

Deontology is an anchor, and it creates an obligation for the rest of us. It's not hard to dismantle it, but the more going around, the more work there is that we have to do rather than doing something more useful elsewhere.

ThinkAboutThis wrote: Any links to this?

Mercy For Animals has an article on it:

http://www.mercyforanimals.org/v-word

brimstoneSalad wrote:This could make you look dishonest. Because, well, it kind of IS dishonest. You're representing at least one thing as true when it isn't.

I agree, but if that dishonesty lead to a greater good, and you were in a controlled environment where the people involved didn't know you were being dishonest, what would be the problem? For instance, many of those generic motivational quotes that gyms promote which cause people to exercise and live healthier lives could also been seen as dishonest, but since the outcome is generally a constructive one, it can be tolerated. Of course, using deceitful arguments like Gary Francione's (in specific cases) for a good cause isn't as clear cut as using deceitful motivational quotes to fool people into exercising, but it still could be worth looking into.

brimstoneSalad wrote:If you're using Deontological arguments on Christians, you also are not using your time optimally.

I do agree that since using deontology does predominantly lead to a worse outcome, it would be better to avoid using it. However, it's not necessarily deontology itself that is bad, but rather the results which it causes, so if there is a way to successfully fool people (who otherwise wouldn't be convinced) with deontological arguments, perhaps they could then be useful. I think deontological arguments do tend to sound more convincing to the average carnist, because they don't require words like 'usually', 'generally', or 'typically' (and so on), so they're endowed with illusion of being correct, despite not actually being 100% correct, which could result in faster conversion rates, but as you pointed out -- this could happen:

brimstoneSalad wrote:You may make more vegan converts but there's probably a carnist right around the corner de-converting 75% [maybe not that high] of them with simple arguments against deontology.

brimstoneSalad wrote:1. There wouldn't necessarily be a consequentialist there. There very often isn't. Here there are, because the vast majority of active forum members are, but on other forums that's not usually the case; there might only be one or two vegans there, and there's a good chance of them both being deontological.

2. When there isn't a consequentialist, it's just a carnist giving a dogmatic vegan a smack-down, and that makes veganism look bad to everybody reading it who might have been considering going veg.

3. Even when there is a consequentialist there, it's a waste of the consequentialist's time which could otherwise be spent on activism. If the original deontologist had just been a consequentialist to begin with, somebody else wouldn't have had to come in and correct everybody, and there could have been two threads instead of one.

True, true. Good points.

On the whole, I do agree with you, I'm just trying to figure out if deontology is completely useless, or if it can be useful in some places.

ThinkAboutThis wrote: I agree, but if that dishonesty lead to a greater good, and you were in a controlled environment where the people involved didn't know you were being dishonest, what would be the problem?

The problem just being that there are few controlled environments in reality. It's the same issue as the trolley problem. In some isolated bubble, sure, sacrifice one to save ten -- that seems like sound reasoning. But in a social context, we have to deal with the consequences of that kind of behavior on the larger scale, and people pushing each other off bridges is not necessarily desirable.

Truth will almost always come out. The only situations where I think we can justify lying are temporary, or terminal/acute emergency ones.
For example, in psychology research where we tell people one thing for purposes of experiment, then debrief them after.
Or a brief ruse for a joke or a surprise -- like a man tricking his girlfriend to "pop the question" in a memorable way.
Or if somebody is dying, and would want to be lied to in order to relieve anxiety "You'll be OK".
Or in the case of the assassin looking for his target -- the situation could be temporarily diffused by lying to save a life, and then more reliably resolved later by contacting the authorities.

In any of these cases, we expect the truth of the matter to soon be known, or for the relevant situation to be resolved by the time it is known.

Carnism is a persistent issue rather than an acute one.

The only cases I can see minor deception being useful to convince a carnist is in overcoming food tasting bias. E.g. presenting some food to taste (like mock chicken), and only after the tasting revealing it's vegan. Most people understand how that kind of thing works (assuming at least the person didn't have some legitimate objection to tasting vegan food).

ThinkAboutThis wrote:For instance, many of those generic motivational quotes that gyms promote which cause people to exercise and live healthier lives could also been seen as dishonest, but since the outcome is generally a constructive one, it can be tolerated. Of course, using deceitful arguments like Gary Francione's (in specific cases) for a good cause isn't as clear cut as using deceitful motivational quotes to fool people into exercising, but it still could be worth looking into.

Quotes on motivational posters are not as bad, since they're not always seen as true, but rather just inspiring (some of them are obviously metaphorical/figurative or optimistically naive). It's also something somebody else said, which is more defensible.

Rhetoric and expressions can be powerful, but we should make sure their messages aren't counterproductive.
Quoting people is one way to gain some distance form a message to avoid being dishonest about it. "Here's what this person said ... what do you think?"
One better way to do it is also to ask questions, rather than state facts. "Do you think animals have the right to live?" etc.

ThinkAboutThis wrote:I think deontological arguments do tend to sound more convincing to the average carnist, because they don't require words like 'usually', 'generally', or 'typically' (and so on), so they're endowed with illusion of being correct, despite not actually being 100% correct,

This is where rule consequentialism may be useful.

"lying is wrong, except to save a life"
"killing animals is wrong, except to save a life"

People can understand rules and exceptions, which are clearly limited. So, you just show that they don't qualify for the exceptions, so what they're doing is wrong.

ThinkAboutThis wrote:I'm just trying to figure out if deontology is completely useless, or if it can be useful in some places.

I think it's useless, because whatever rhetoric deontology can produce that seems useful, we could mirror it in a consequentialist context and have it be just as compelling and also consistent when examined as a bonus.

Do you have any expressions from deontology you think are particularly useful?
We can try to fix them.