Philosophical Vegan Forum

I am not a Vegan because meat and animal parts are tasty. Hamburgers, bacon, hot dogs, steak, tuna salad, hot wings, tacos, breakfast sausages, eggs, cheese, milk, ice cream, yummy yummy yummy.

Seriously believing that yielding to the natural inclination to consume sentient beings and their byproducts is somehow bad is about as irrational to me as believing the myths and nonsense in millenniums old books telling me that the world was made by a giant fairly man in the sky. It just doesn't make sense when you step back and think about it objectively for a moment.

I get the whole thing about not wanting to eat anything with a face and it's a living sentient being and it has a family and it's of value as an entity and we have no right blah blah blah, but that's all just emotion and personal guilt. We evolved to eat meat. In fact we evolved, BECAUSE we eat meat, specifically cooked meat.

Sorry, just don't get it. Atheism, I'm on board. Religious people are willfully ignorant in my book. Veganism seems a lot like religion to me.

If I'm mission some profound point of logic, someone please clue me in.

I am not a Vegan because meat and animal parts are tasty. Hamburgers, *penis*, hot dogs, steak, tuna salad, hot wings, tacos, breakfast sausages, eggs, cheese, milk, ice cream, yummy yummy yummy.

How much you enjoy something ought not be the barometer by which you determine if something is moral. Rape is enjoyable to the rapist. Id also wager that human flesh could be tasty, yet I doubt you would argue that its morally acceptable to kill and eat other humans (in non-emergency situations).

Seriously believing that yielding to the natural inclination to consume sentient beings and their byproducts is somehow bad is about as irrational to me as believing the myths and nonsense in millenniums old books telling me that the world was made by a giant fairly man in the sky. It just doesn't make sense when you step back and think about it objectively for a moment.

Naturalistic fallacy? Its natural therefore its acceptable? We engage in a lot of unnatural things on a day to day basis that you would fight to keep.
Id also question whether we do have a natural inclination to consume sentient beings... I could see an argument that would put eating meat squarely in the nurture category rather then nature. If you are brought up in a society that openly encourages eating animals, then you are being conditioned to think in a certain way. That does not mean its natural (if that even matters), it just means that we are engaging in a socially accepted activity.

I get the whole thing about not wanting to eat anything with a face and it's a living sentient being and it has a family and it's of value as an entity and we have no right blah blah blah, but that's all just emotion and personal guilt. We evolved to eat meat. In fact we evolved, BECAUSE we eat meat, specifically cooked meat.

Im curious about something. Would you be in favour of killing other humans to feed other humans? Perhaps we could pick out the weak and unintelligent in our society and kill them and eat them. Im assuming you would NOT be in favour of this. What would be your argument against such an activity? Please fully elaborate why that would be immoral.

Veganism seems a lot like religion to me.

What is the definition of "religion", because I fail to see how you could confuse the two.

Nautilus209 wrote:I am not a Vegan because meat and animal parts are tasty. Hamburgers, *penis*, hot dogs, steak, tuna salad, hot wings, tacos, breakfast sausages, eggs, cheese, milk, ice cream, yummy yummy yummy.

It's your legal right to do whatever you please, within the bounds of the law. You can eat all the penises you want. Do not confuse legality, or even majority opinion, as morality.
Understand the concept of the bandwagon fallacy: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/bandwagon
And appeal to authority: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority

People can be good while breaking unjust laws (say, laws that make homosexuality illegal), or bad while following unjust laws (3rd Reich anyone? I shouldn't need to give an example here).

Nautilus209 wrote: Seriously believing that yielding to the natural inclination to consume sentient beings and their byproducts is somehow bad is about as irrational to me as believing the myths and nonsense in millenniums old books telling me that the world was made by a giant fairly man in the sky.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding here. These two things can not be compared.

The former is axiomatic, the latter is empirical.
The "giant fairy man in the sky" is a claim about empirically relevant "physical" reality.

Do you understand the concept of how mathematics works? It's all based on definitions -- axioms.

2 + 2 = 4
This is true based on the definition of the + operator.
2 - 2 = 0
Likewise, true based on the definition of the - operator.

What is 2 Kfrlsi 2?
Well, it depends entirely on what "Kfrlsi" means, and how it works.

Here are some results of the Kfrlsi operator:

2 Kfrlsi 2 = 4
2 Kfrlsi 3 = 1

You CAN NOT tell me these particular claims with regard to Kfrlsi are incorrect, because you have no idea what Kfrlsi means or does.
The only way you could potentially call any set of claims about Kfrlsi incorrect is if you prove them to be inconsistent (this would require a mathematical proof, with which I doubt you have experience).

As it turns out, I define Kfrlsi here as equivalent to addition when the sum of the numbers would be even or zero, and the absolute value of subtraction when the sum would be odd. And it returns undefined when the sum wouldn't be an integer. That's a perfectly legitimate logical operator.

Likewise, your ignorance of the philosophy of ethics is so complete, you have no idea what we're even talking about.

What does morality mean?
That's a very important question, but one you completely ignore.

You're asking the wrong questions here.

There ARE wrong claims about ethics. The easiest way to demonstrate those claims as wrong is through internal inconsistency.
Beyond that, there is also a semantic element to the question, as well as a functional one, but that's another matter you're probably not ready for yet (let's keep it simple).

You have not actually demonstrated any inconsistency. Here you're just ranting about something you don't like; that is entirely irrational. Your opposition to the claims is purely emotional.
Which is precisely the criticism you level against the claims themselves (which is untrue in this case).

Nautilus209 wrote: It just doesn't make sense when you step back and think about it objectively for a moment.

Correction, the answer doesn't make sense to YOU, because you don't even understand the question.
The fact that you confuse axiomatic/logical philosophical claims with supernatural or preternatural empirical claims proves your absolute ignorance on the subject.

Of course it wouldn't make sense to you. Just as my earlier statements regarding the hypothetical Kfrlsi operator shouldn't have made sense:

2 Kfrlsi 2 = 4
2 Kfrlsi 3 = 1

WTF? That doesn't look like math, right?
And yet it is, when the operator is clearly and consistently defined.
Therein lies your ignorance.

Nautilus209 wrote: I get the whole thing about not wanting to eat anything with a face and it's a living sentient being and it has a family and it's of value as an entity and we have no right blah blah blah, but that's all just emotion and personal guilt.

No, you don't.

There are vegans who make bad arguments based on emotion. There are also atheists who say god doesn't exist because something mean happened and "waa".
Here, you're making a straw man fallacy: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

That's not the argument we're making.
Look into Utilitarianism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism
That will give you at least some very basic grasp on the discussion at hand.

Nautilus209 wrote: We evolved to eat meat. In fact we evolved, BECAUSE we eat meat, specifically cooked meat.

First, this is an appeal to nature fallacy: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-nature
It's a common fallacy among anti-science woos. Like people who say medicines/vaccines/etc. are unnatural and therefore wrong. Or rapists who claim (correctly) that rape is natural, but then suggest (incorrectly) that it makes it morally justified.

There are lots of terrible things that are 'natural', and lots of good things that aren't.
Appeal to nature is about as dogmatically irrational as you can get.

Second, if you're referring to the expensive tissue hypothesis, your claim is false.
Humane Hominid has a good article on this topic: http://paleovegan.blogspot.com/2011/11/ ... issue.html
Read that.

If you don't care about scientific accuracy, you can make up claims all day about what was or wasn't required for humans to evolve, but the fact of the matter is that none of that matters at all. We did evolve, and we're here now. It would take a special kind of moron with a special kind of ignorance of evolution to suggest that we would "de-evolve" if we stopped eating meat. I hope that's not what you're suggesting. Is it?

Nautilus209 wrote:Sorry, just don't get it. Atheism, I'm on board. Religious people are willfully ignorant in my book. Veganism seems a lot like religion to me.

Atheism can be taken as a religion when people are dogmatic about it, and so too can veganism. Gary Francione is a good example of that. That's not what we're advocating here, and if you've gotten that impression you've been misinformed.

Nautilus209 wrote:If I'm mission some profound point of logic, someone please clue me in.

Logic, yes. Profoundly. But also fact.
You should make some basic effort to fact-check claims before making them.
Everything I write, I have multiple tabs open, constantly doing Google searches, confirming bits and pieces of information (even when I don't post a link).
I make mistakes sometimes, but I do my best not to. In over a thousand posts here, I've made one serious mistake that I know of. You seem to have a 100% failure rate so far, which is an indication to me that you aren't very concerned with factual accuracy.

- Who fed us cooked meat before we evolved to do it ourselves?

- "That's just all emotion and personal guilt". It seems that to some people the footage is nothing more than an emotional hurdle, while ignoring the moral issue. But I suspect emotions are a two way street. If you get over the footage you might feel a sense of relief, a sense of pride, and you may even feel shame for having been affected by the footage initially. So as you can see there can be emotions backing that decision too. The problem is that emotions are ephemeral; one emotion always replaces the next.

- The problem isn't simply that eating sentient beings are wrong, but the fact that the animals in the care of these businesses are being grotesquely mistreated, before being sold to you. On top of that these companies fight for legislation to take away our right to know, not just vegans but everybody. So in other words they hate you too. You're perhaps too wrapped up in the ideological viewpoint in which, in a perfect world, you eating meat could be considered part of the natural order, and that the animals are killed relatively humanely, even though none of it is true in reality by any stretch of the imagination. (unless you hunt your own meat rather than buy it)

There is absolutely no fair excuse to not be vegan. The only real excuse I've gotten from friends and family is "I'm to lazy" "I just don't care" At least you're being honest, but then you're also a horrible person who the world would be better without. I don't judge non-vegans who just don't know the facts and therefor is not vegan, but if you know what the consequences of their choices are, and still choose to eat meat, then you're plain and simple evil. (or just extremely stupid)
An average person kills 8-16 000 animals in his/her lifetime, I think that amount of non-human animal lives greatly exceed the importance of only one human life.

- It's with no doubt the best for your health (and looks, mood, self confidence, energy level, therefor work performance, mental and physical performance, empathy ability, and the list goes on...)
- Therefor the best for your family/friends who will have you around for longer, and you will be a better person for them
- Its with no doubt the best for the one billion people starving (we are taking their food to feed our cows.
- Its with no doubt the best for the 90 billion animals who is killed without a chance to defend themselves. (most of these animals are tortured in the most sick, grotesque way)
- Its with no doubt the best for the enivorment. If a family of 4 gets a Prius car vs a traditional car, they will save 1 ton of CO2. If they go vegan they will save 6 tons of CO2. (in one year) According to World Watch 51% of climate gasses comes from animal agriculture

So if you care about yourself, your family, other people in the world, the (non-human) animals and the planet, you will go vegan.

Welcome Karoline, you should post an intro!

Karoline wrote:There is absolutely no fair excuse to not be vegan.

Well, some people live in third world countries and don't really have any other food aside from fish because they don't know how to farm, for example.

Karoline wrote:The only real excuse I've gotten from friends and family is "I'm to lazy" "I just don't care" At least you're being honest, but then you're also a horrible person who the world would be better without.

Well, it's debatable, but you're right about it being an honest excuse that makes them less of people.

Karoline wrote:- Its with no doubt the best for the one billion people starving (we are taking their food to feed our cows.

Well, that's not technically true. The ignorant governments that control those countries turn away foreign aid, like US corn, because it's GMO and not Organic, and they think it's been infected with AIDS.
Crazy is a large part of the reason people are starving too.

But the level of consumption can not be sustained as the world's population grows. It will start to become true that people are starving because there's not enough agricultural output to feed everybody, particularly with breakdown in infrastructure due to climate change.

Karoline wrote:- Its with no doubt the best for the 90 billion animals who is killed without a chance to defend themselves. (most of these animals are tortured in the most sick, grotesque way)

Well, not the most sick. But they are treated horribly. There are worse ways to be treated, but not many.

Karoline wrote:- Its with no doubt the best for the enivorment. If a family of 4 gets a Prius car vs a traditional car, they will save 1 ton of CO2. If they go vegan they will save 6 tons of CO2. (in one year) According to World Watch 51% of climate gasses comes from animal agriculture

Those numbers can be deceptive. But it may be around 50% if we assume that the grain that is fed to livestock would be used for bio-diesel instead, displacing fossil fuels and the related emissions. That's not an unreasonable assumption, but it should be stated so nobody is confused or thinks your numbers are wrong.