Philosophical Vegan Forum

It seems as though there are only two reasons for being vegan. The first is for health reasons. I find this reason sound for the most part, however the extreme lengths to which vegans go, to avoid partaking in any facet of the livestock industry, makes me wonder why not simply be a vegetarian? Foregoing leather, furs, etc., seems too overly—and I'm not trying to offend, but frankly the only word that fits here is—sanctimonious, for the health issue to be of primary concern. The second reason for being a vegan would be a moral reason. If you don't like that word, perhaps 'principled?' is a better fit? Regardless of what motivational superlative vegans label their lifestyles, it seems to me that vegans abstain from meat and skins and other products obtained from dead animals because they dislike / despise the killing of animals whether for food, use, or profit.

So, to the argument. Allow me to introduce Joe. Joe is hungry and shows up at Crasnick's Burger Emporium. He want's a quarter-pounder dripping grease with cheese and bacon and all the fixins. In Joe's pocket is a five dollar bill. He works for the power company. The power company gives Joe money in payment for Joe's services. Allow me to introduce you to Susan. She is a vegan. She also happens to have electricity connected to her house. In addition Susan pays taxes, purchases a variety of goods and services, and although Susan is careful not to directly pay money for animal related products, still, because she interacts in a meaningful way inside our society, her efforts from day to day are in fact part and parcel of the great society that partakes of meat and its byproducts in hundreds if not thousands of ways. Susan pays her power bill. The power company takes Susan's money and pays Joe. Joe buys a burger. Everyone is happily ignorant of the merry-go-round that wrinkled five-dollar bill has been riding.

Vegans with jobs pay taxes which go to pay for meat in soldier's MRE's and EBT cards used by the poor to purchase hamburgers. Vegans buy products which are sold by companies which buy and sell other products and services which directly or indirectly fund the lifestock industry. Money is fungible. This irreducible foundation, this bedrock principle of our society means that without packing up and moving into the wild, a vegan's efforts to avoid subsidizing the livestock industry are doomed to total failure.

You wear cotton farmed with a tractor using gasoline which guess what? Comes from oil which comes from...dead animals. You read books made from paper that came from a tree that grew from the soil composed of ... rotten leaves, poop, and ... yep dead animals. I could literally go on and on and on. You just can't exist in this society without benefiting from the multifarious legion of products, goods and services which are built—metaphorically—on a veritable mountain of carcasses.

So you scream meat is murder. Okay. That's fine, but you're able to scream those words because uncounted generations in their many thousands harnessed / ate / utilized /profited / survived because of meat. That hasn't changed. It seems to me like a fish complaining about how wet he is.

Well, tell me what you think, please. How do you reconcile the fact that your lifestyle choice not only doesn't hinder, but actively aids the lifestock industry?

You misunderstand consequentialism and economics.

Choosing to buy a veggie burger instead of a beef burger is a choice which does less harm, and benefits the animal agriculture industry less. Nobody is claiming to do no harm whatsoever, that's an impossible goal and has nothing to do with veganism, but we try to make choices that do less of it. That's all there is to it.

You're making an either-or fallacy: either do no harm whatsoever, or why care about any large degree of harm?

Yet you probably do not apply this to other aspects of your life, unless you don't complain about rape, murder, slavery, etc. of humans. There are "Joe"s out there spending the money they got from you through some economic link to buy roped to tie up their victims, and shovels to bury them with.
Does the existence of people who choose to rape and murder as part of their serial killing hobby, and the fact that you can't completely remove their actions from any distant effects of your own as part of the same economy, mean you might as well join in?

Answer that, I'd like to know what you think.
Are you just advocating sadistic/apathetic nihilism here, or do you think there's something special about veganism that makes it any different from any other harm we can not completely eliminate?


Our answer to that is pretty obvious: Just because you can not stop ALL harm in the world doesn't mean you should add to it, or that you shouldn't reduce the harm you do have control over.

Veganism is not about perfection, it's about reducing harm as much as is possible and practicable. It's part of the definition (look it up).
https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism
We only have control over our own consumer choices, not those of others (others who we can only encourage, not force, to improve).

Your concept of "total" failure is outright false. We fail only to varying degrees every day (there are even animal products in the roads), but we just strive to fail a little less where it's practicable. This is a criticism to be saved for extremist "vegan police" who complain about people eating tiny amounts of animal products on occasion as micro-ingredients; what we're concerned with is the 99%, not the 99.999999999%. Most vegans are pretty sensible on these issues.

Even PETA, which most vegans think is crazy, isn't that extreme. See this:
https://www.peta.org/living/food/making-transition-vegetarian/ideas-vegetarian-living/tiny-amount-animal-products-food/

JackAfter6 wrote:You wear cotton farmed with a tractor using gasoline which guess what? Comes from oil which comes from...dead animals. You read books made from paper that came from a tree that grew from the soil composed of ... rotten leaves, poop, and ... yep dead animals. I could literally go on and on and on. You just can't exist in this society without benefiting from the multifarious legion of products, goods and services which are built—metaphorically—on a veritable mountain of carcasses.

This indicates a complete misunderstanding of consequentialism.

Using gasoline which comes from ancient biomass doesn't cause more animals to be killed today to be turned into gasoline.

The natural process of fossil fuel formation has no resemblance to industry which is promoted by consumer spending. When people buy meat, more animals are bred and raised and killed.
If us using gasoline today caused somebody to get in a time machine and shoot a dinosaur to make more gasoline, you might have an argument there, but obviously that's not how it works.

The reason we should reduce gasoline usage is due to environmental harm, not because we're worried about harming the animals from a million years ago that have already died no matter what we do.

Most vegans are actually OK with things like eating road kill or freeganism, which doesn't cause more animals to die. We're concerned with consequence (not that we eat roadkill, it's still gross, it's just not necessarily wrong).
Likewise, it's considered OK to finish off the rest of the meat in your refrigerator when you go vegan, you just shouldn't buy more, and to wear out your leather shoes, etc. don't waste them.


As to your other point about moving into the wild: that's a common protest, but another misunderstanding.

Moving into the wild is not really a superior option.
There are many reasons we don't live in the forest; lack of health infrastructure, environmental inefficiency, etc. It would cause significant harm for humans to move into the woods.

Beyond that, you might argue that vegans should get together and make their own city with an economy completely free of animal products. This isn't really a good idea either; that would only remove vegan influence from others lives who could be inspired to make positive changes. It's better to support alternatives within society than to leave that society. E.g. if you buy a veggie burger, that helps keep said alternative on the shelf and allows others to make that same choice. Likewise, being a friendly an social vegan in your circles helps expose others to those ideas, recipes, etc.

Just like the PETA article says, it's important for changes to be seen as accessible. Isolating yourself doesn't do that.

PETA wrote:We discourage vegetarians from grilling waiters at restaurants about micro-ingredients in vegetarian foods (e.g., a tiny bit of a dairy product in the bun of a veggie burger). Doing so makes sticking to a vegetarian diet seem difficult and dogmatic to your friends and to restaurant staff, thus discouraging them from giving a vegetarian diet a try (which really hurts animals).

It's not about purity, it's about consequences.
If eating a hamburger would get ten people to go vegetarian, then you should do that because the consequences are better (less total animals harmed, less total environmental harm, etc.).

JackAfter6 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 28, 2017 7:30 pm Well, tell me what you think, please. How do you reconcile the fact that your lifestyle choice not only doesn't hinder, but actively aids the lifestock industry?

I'm not a Vegan, but the Vegans who occupy this site mostly are interested in decreasing harm toward animals.

Humans have utilized animals for millennia to better their lives, but now we have reached a point where it is not necessary to use animals for food or other reasons. Their main point is -"If we don't have to use an animal/animal product for this, then we should not."

I hate those "flashy" Vegans who drench themselves in fake blood and stand outside a burger joint; the people here are not (typically) those kind of Vegans. They just want to avoid harming any animal.

Is that really such a bad thing?

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Tue Nov 28, 2017 8:30 pm You're making an either-or fallacy: either do no harm whatsoever, or why care about any large degree of harm?

Yet you probably do not apply this to other aspects of your life, unless you don't complain about rape, murder, slavery, etc. of humans. There are "Joe"s out there spending the money they got from you through some economic link to buy roped to tie up their victims, and shovels to bury them with.
Does the existence of people who choose to rape and murder as part of their serial killing hobby, and the fact that you can't completely remove their actions from any distant effects of your own as part of the same economy, mean you might as well join in?

Answer that, I'd like to know what you think.
Are you just advocating sadistic/apathetic nihilism here, or do you think there's something special about veganism that makes it any different from any other harm we can not completely eliminate?

Sorry, but it is you are making a logical fallacy. Your argument is the classic strawman fallacy. Before you can lump rape and murder into the behavior of meat and skin harvesting, you first have to show that 1. All of the above are felonious, and 2. immoral. Such is not the case. A better example would be supporting or protesting American football. Many think it's barbaric, causes permanent injury, and should be outlawed. As for myself, I just think it's boring. I couldn't care one way or the other. Let them play, let them watch the players. Let them buy the jerseys or not. The tickets or not, the lunch boxes, pennants, etc. So what? Will it turn my nose up and the gift of a souvenir shot glass because it's got "Jets" emblazoned thereon? Nope.

Reductio ad absurdum: Say that you get your wish. Now everyone is a vegan. Now everybody goes out of their way to ensure that no animals are killed for our benefit. Did you want to buy a new house? Sorry, you'll displace a family of moles, one rabbit and cause the deer to lose some of its forage area. Did you want to get across the river? Sorry, now you'll have to get a canoe. Can't build a bridge because that endeavor might threaten a school of fish, some fresh water crustaceans and the odd turtle and frog.

You say that you wish to do less harm? Well kiss all those lovable cows pigs goats chickens sheep and assorted other livestock goodbye. WIthout humans to care for them, they're all going to be dead. Except for the merest remnant of each which will have a hard scrabble life dodging a world now full of hungry predators grown fat and numerous from all the easy pickings, and now starving and still numerous with the pickings now thin once more. Do no harm? You're a human and every decision you make no matter how trivial, redounds upon mankind down through the ages like a snowball thrown from a mountain. If you get your wish, and there are no more livestock, what will you do when pestilence and/or plague destroys vast acres of crops meant for human consumption?

I'm always amazed at the audacity of today's "enlightened" humans who think that NOW they know everything. NOW they finally get it. Everyone born before your great society was a dope, right? A vast horde of mouth-breathing morons came shuffling out of the past and gave birth to you, the genius. You don't have anything to learn from those fools. NOW you know everything. . . but perhaps I'm being unfair. You never claimed that you know everything, only that killing animals is doing harm. You don't lump natural predation into that so I'll assume you mean that only humans are nuanced enough to cause "harm."

This society is a passing phase. What you see around you today will not exist tomorrow. The penicillin you trust to survive an infection will not work tomorrow. The insecticide you trust to protect your crops will not work tomorrow. The return to the primitive is close and if we're lucky we won't be around to see it. Every species has experienced in its day a period of providential plenty. They bred to fill their expanded niche and then inevitably nature snapped back with a vengeance. You protest the killing of cows as doing harm, while I worry that because of easy meat we lost the ability to hunt. Everybody goes about washing their hands at every opportunity, getting vaccines, taking their vitamins. Well good for them, but they're woefully unprepared both immunologically and mentally for the inevitable die-off that is coming.

But back to the argument. You've failed to address the central premise that my entire argument rests upon. Money is fungible. You say that killing animals is wrong, and yet you go about working, paying taxes, buying, selling, driving sleeping, and everything you do is part and parcel of the entire system. Just because you're removed one step from the slaughter house you think that matters? You think that because you abstain from meat and leather it's somehow beneficial in some ineffable not doing harm—yet benefiting still from that harm—kind of way?

When you earn a dollar you're created wealth wealth that will be spent on what you hate. You should stop earning money. When you spend a dollar you've spent wealth that came from an industry that you hate. You should stop spending money.

I have asked a couple questions, please answer them. If you make a habit of evading questions rather than answering them honestly, you really won't be welcome here to preach without responding to arguments.

Question one:

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Tue Nov 28, 2017 8:30 pm Does the existence of people who choose to rape and murder as part of their serial killing hobby, and the fact that you can't completely remove their actions from any distant effects of your own as part of the same economy, mean you might as well join in?

You do not need to accept that killing animals is wrong in order to answer that question. I'm trying to establish what YOUR moral framework looks like.
You can answer this question.

Question two:

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Tue Nov 28, 2017 8:30 pmAre you just advocating sadistic/apathetic nihilism here, or do you think there's something special about veganism that makes it any different from any other harm we can not completely eliminate?

Following from the first one, assuming you're not a nihilist, this will help establish WHY you think veganism is different. You might say that you think it's wrong to kill humans but not animals, or that it's illegal to kill humans and that this justifies a different response.

Whatever your answers we can discuss this, but you need to answer the questions. These are not tricky questions, and they require you to make no assumptions to answer them. Answering them is not admitting that it's wrong to kill animals, and the questions themselves are not equating the actions but merely examining your beliefs.

If you answer these questions, we can continue the conversation.


Otherwise, does anybody else have the time or patience to answer this guy? I have a lot to do.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2017 2:39 pmOtherwise, does anybody else have the time or patience to answer this guy? I have a lot to do.

I sense this is another Vdofthegoodkind. He came here with what he thought was strong arguments but they are the same ones we have debunked over and over again. I will take over if (and only if) he responds to your questions. Otherwise, I don't think he is worth our time.

We should not eat meat because it causes unecessary suffering.

Jack After 6, none of your arguments change that fact. And none of it is a defence for eating meat.

Anyone who lived in Nazi Germany was part of a system where their taxes were paying for immoral wars and genocide. Your argument is like saying that anyone who lived in Nazi Germany may as well have killed Jews themselves and gone to Russia and raped villagers themselves, since they were inevitably part of the system. And that not raping Rusian villagers or killing Jews themselves directly would have been a pointless sanctimonious gesture.

If it's a human example, we suddenly think about it differently because of our species bias.

Veganism is steadily making a better world. More land, less cruetly, less environmental damage.