Philosophical Vegan Forum

I was speaking with a very intelligent and accomplished friend of mine and was explaining to him that I became Vegan since about 3 weeks now and I am very happy that I did. I was further explaining that I noted that Vegans in general are very warm and kind people and full of positive energy in what has become a rather dull world due to the never ending security and economical worries.

I summarized by thinking out loud that ‘ there must be goodness in a person if out of empathy for a bee he would sacrifice his food pleasure.’ and the comment he shared was ‘ well it’s either that or it can be the person is crazy. ‘. It was a funny pun which I did appreciate as such but it also got me thinking further.

It appears that it is easier for modern society to accept fasting for health reasons rather than for moral reasons. If I had only spoken of health benefits I am sure being crazy would not have found it’s place into the discussion. So telling someone I am eating only plant based foods because it is healthier than eating animal origin foods would allow the conversation to continue in a more constructive manner.

I for myself am much more attracted to the spiritual development aspect of Veganism though the health benefits are very numerous. And regarding the food for the soul aspect I find it surprising that people would not automatically relate to it since almost all religions have some sort of fasting integrated into their mandatory practice. And I would assume that being zealous in that practice would naturally receive respect and admiration rather than ridicule.

Keeping in mind also that Veganism is not a religious movement and many of those who adhere to it tend to be non-religious people. That incidentally I find very remarkable in itself. People who do good for religious reasons have the belief in reward and punishment which might skew their motivations. Someone who practices sacrifice out of pure empathy has the luxury of being more genuine in his practice.

So here I find in Veganism food for my body and also food for my soul! Please share your views and agree or dispute as you wish. All civilized forms of expression are welcome.

PS. That is why I consider Veganism an excellent complimentary lifestyle. I will make that the topic of the next post…

VGnizm wrote: I summarized by thinking out loud that ‘ there must be goodness in a person if out of empathy for a bee he would sacrifice his food pleasure.’ and the comment he shared was ‘ well it’s either that or it can be the person is crazy. ‘. It was a funny pun which I did appreciate as such but it also got me thinking further.

He is not alone. I remember reading Larissa MacFarquhar's beautifully-written Strangers Drowning and she gives a nice overview of the way deeply altruistic people have been seen throughout the ages. Without going into too much detail, people can respond pretty violently. In one chapter she describes what you have to go through if you decide to donate a kidney, for example.

Larissa MacFarquhar wrote: In the early days of kidney transplants, in the late sixties and early seventies, doctors tended to see altruistic donation through the lens of psychoanalysis, and, viewed thus, it looked troubling indeed. Altruistic donors, some doctors felt, were “not to be trusted,” “screwballs.” “These people must be abnormal—to do such a thing,” one transplant surgeon said. Donating an organ to a stranger was not just not admirable, doctors felt—it was perverse, it offended the conscience. It was against human nature.

At some point, she writes about a man who decides to donate his kidney to a complete stranger. At first, many people congratulated him for what he had just done, but later on the situation changed. When he still was at the hospital, a woman called and told him she hoped his remaining kidney would fail, because her husband had been next in line to receive a kidney and he had given his to someone else.

Larissa MacFarquhar wrote: Looking for advice, he started posting on a website, Living Donors Online, and he discovered that many donors had to deal with peculiar emotions after surgery. He read about one case in which a woman had donated to her sister, but the kidney was rejected and her sister died; after that, the rest of the family stopped speaking to her. One spouse donated to the other; then the recipient spouse left the donor, perhaps because the burden of gratitude had left the marriage irredeemably distorted. That had happened quite a few times, it seemed.

It's clear that in many occasions altruistic people are not treated as one would expect. Human nature is complicated. Pure, self-less altruism is not something that you can easily (if at all) find in nature and people are often disturbed by those who decide to lower the quality of their lives in order to help others. That's probably why being vegan for health reasons sounds OK to most, but doing the same for ethical reasons sounds odd.

Luckily, the book also presents a vast array of occasions in which people have been celebrated for what they have done. Occasions in which deciding to do the most good led to a life full of joy and compassion. Julia Wise and her husband, Jeff Kaufman, would be a good example of that. Matthieu Ricard would be another one. He has been called 'the happiest man on earth' and these are his words on vegetarianism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWREkK-LB3E

Larissa concludes her book as follows:

If there were no do-gooders the world would be similar to ours, but worse. Without their showing what a person can do for strangers if he sets himself to do it, fewer would try. [...]these strange, hopeful, tough, idealistic, demanding, life-threatening, and relentless people help keep those life-sustaining qualities alive.

Hello DarlBundren,

First of all my sincere thanks for this most instructive response that in itself is far more developed than the question asked. And the observations you site from Larissa MacFarquhar's writings are very thought provoking. I would like very much to pursue this dialogue into its natural evolution towards an analytical explanation to this behavior. I for my part accept the complexity of human nature fully but i also require 'common denominators' to be able to associate, behavioral and other observations, in the hope of creating a comprehensible unit of knowledge.

So as such i already see a correlation throughout history with the most marked ones being the Abel and Cain or yet again Jesus and Barabas events that are common knowledge and are explained in a very simplified manner. I would like to zero in more if possible with the help of knowledgeable people into the more intricate psychological workings behind these behavioral choices and especially on the individual level. The hope being to present a more explicit and surgical explanation than simple headlines such as 'good and evil' or ' jealousy and hatred'.

So i would be grateful for any contribution as to any analytical explanations for those extremely resentful human reactions to altruism that can manifest themselves in human behavior.

I am no psychologist, so I cannot really help you with that.
As far as I can tell, however, the idea that there's something fishy about altruism is not new. Freud, Nietzsche and Darwin probably led the way.

In Freud's view, altruism was often seen as narcissism. Psychoanalysis described it as a sort of auto-erotic compulsion in which the body of the moral man was seen as his enemy and pleasure could only be achieved by giving up things such as money, sex or food.

Nietzsche, on his part, famously did all that was in his power to destroy Christianity. To him, goodness and humility were abhorrent concepts. Humble men were weak men and were not destined to great things. Becoming an ubermensch, on the other hand, entailed complete selfishness.

Darwin was a bit different. He genuinely tried to argue that altruism was part of our nature. But, to many of those who believed in natural selection, selfishness simply made a lot more sense. (Richard Dawkins clearly explains why this line of reasoning is wrong in the preface of 'The Selfish Gene')

In addition to the aforementioned philosophies, I guess, we could also add the increasingly weak faith in god and the afterlife, and the increasingly strong faith in cultural relativism.

These are all very powerful ideas and may help to explain the negative reaction that many people have to altruism. I have barely scratched the surface, but I hope it helps.

It goes without saying that I don't agree with many of those ideas

Thanks again DarlBundren,

And this added insight is very instructive and of course for the neutrality of the analysis no participant should be defending a personal view but rather trying to develop the view that takes into account if not all at the least the majority of the elements. So as such i will try to filter some key notions from the analysis as a starting point.

So altruism is associated with narcissism.
The physical is an obstacle to attaining mental pleasures.
Selfishness is the key to self accomplishment.
Altruism is a part of human nature.
Resentment of altruism can be due to lack of superstition.
Relativism has replaced absolutes in morality.

Some of the above are equations and some are explanations so lets try to sort them.

So altruism is associated with narcissism.
Selfishness is the key to self accomplishment.

The physical is an obstacle to attaining mental pleasures.
Altruism is a part of human nature.
Resentment of altruism can be due to lack of superstition.
Relativism has replaced absolutes in morality.

In view of these elements we have different perspectives as regards altruism and i think that if we manage to understand altruism then we will also understand the resentment to it. So i think we should first focus on defining altruism and also the motivating reasons behind choosing to practice it by an individual.

here is the Google defintion :

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altruism
ˈaltruːɪz(ə)m/
noun
noun: altruism

disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others.
"some may choose to work with vulnerable elderly people out of altruism"

synonyms: unselfishness, selflessness, self-sacrifice, self-denial; More
consideration, compassion, kindness, goodwill, decency, nobility, public-spiritedness;
generosity, magnanimity, liberality, open-handedness, free-handedness, big-heartedness, lavishness,
benevolence, beneficence, philanthropy, humanitarianism, charity, charitableness;
literarybounty, bounteousness
"they supported the measures not out of altruism but out of self-interest"

antonyms: selfishness
Zoology
behaviour of an animal that benefits another at its own expense.
"reciprocal altruism"

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So to summarize the definitions and synonyms they all indicate selflessness and yet we recuperate from Freud that it is narcissism meaning not necessarily selfishness but self-love. Not necessarily the same.

I would like to make note of this interesting correlation between selflessness and self-love if it does really exist. I will then ask the question that might lead us further and that is why would selflessness and self-love in one person provoke an aggressive reaction in another since they both seem to be internal mechanisms that do not have any negative externalizations ? Aggressiveness normally being mostly a self defense mechanism though other forms exist.

I will then ask the question that might lead us further and that is why would selflessness and self-love in one person provoke an aggressive reaction in another since they both seem to be internal mechanisms that do not have any negative externalizations ? Aggressiveness normally being mostly a self defense mechanism though other forms exist

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They feel threatened because vegans claim to have the moral high ground on the matter. They claim to know what's right to do and people don't like it when they are told what to do. Especially, if it involves not eating bacon.

Makes sense Darl.

But if we follow that reasoning to the end it probably means that for some reason they do accept that it is a better choice which is causing them embarrassment and that is why the shun it and it's followers. Else they would be indifferent.

In any case it is easier to close this by agreeing to the fact that it must be the ' love of bacon'