Philosophical Vegan YouTube Channel

Introduction

Welcome to the Philosophical Vegan channel

Our goal is to stimulate and inform debates on philosophy and science around vegan issues, and vegan adjacent issues such as environmentalism, ethics, and activism.

If you haven't, be sure to check out the forum and wiki. These serve as the basis for most subject matter on the channel.

Philosophical Vegan deals mainly with meta-activism, as a resource for vegans and our allies working toward environmental and animal welfare ends, but we welcome non-vegans for discussion and debate on the subjects too and we hope these videos can be entertaining and educational for anybody interested in philosophy, ethics, or environmentalism.

Beyond forum and wiki content, you'll find debates, philosophical criticism, and collaborations here on the channel, as well as Q&As

We mean to help foster community of rational minded vegans and curious allies on youtube and beyond.

The most important thing is being willing to question assumptions and go beyond dogma to support our values with reasoned arguments and evidence. We hold that it is reasoned argument, not emotional appeal, that will move the open minded among the intellectual influencers out there to go vegan. Sometimes not right away. But we can at least put some pebbles in shoes.

Not that we're opposed to cute animal videos, or the shocking ones in the right context. That can work for some, particularly as a final push for somebody who already agrees with veganism on a philosophical level, but it's not our focus, so you won't see very much in the way of slaughterhouse footage here and certainly not without some warning. You might see more cute animals though.

1. How To Advocate To Pro-Vegan Leftists (Mock Vaush Debate)

How To Advocate To Pro Vegan Leftists 2.0 - Draft of Part 1

Text on the screen: This is the intro to a debate that happened between 2 YouTubers on the topic of veganims and animal rights.

At the 1:30 mins mark we'll jump in to mock debate how the conversation could have more ideally gone.

Then finally at the 6 mins mark we'll cover all basis by giving a formal counter-arguement in the case where someone still expressed disagreement.

Vaush: Howdy

AY: So, you currently are not a vegan?

Vaush: That is correct

AY: Now if we replaced all the animals in the factory farms with humans you wouldn't say it’s morally wrong…

Vaush: We can skip a few steps, I include animals in my ethical system, I agree that meat eating is morally unjustifiable. I’m not... “believes meat eating is fine,” I’m... “knows veganism is correct and is too much of a moral hypocrite to go forward with it.”

AY: Oh ok, well I actually had no idea how you would react on this topic, so I think your reaction in a way is admirable because of how honest you are, but in a way it's sad because of how pathetic you seem to be.

*Rewind sound effect*

Script: So bit of advice, never call a person pathetic when they're genuinely trying to explore an issue with you, as it's just a rude thing to say and makes people dig their heels in. So I'll let Vaush give his arguement then I'll mock debate how I think the conversation could have gone more ideally.

Vaush: My argument here, and this is one of defending hypocrisy, so I recognise my bias in this respect, but the argument I would have here is comparable to the argument I would make for not for example telling people to not buy t-shirts that were made in China. It’s that we live in a system of such unfathomably inhuman production and it’s so convenient to adhere to the ethical modes of production in which we live, that I don’t know if I can condemn a person ethically on an individual level for participating in systems that are so much larger than them. You know?

Script: Okay I can answer that, so it’s important to acknowledge where someone is either unaware of or incapable of following a vegan lifestyle, that they are not individually responsible for the act of eating meat, even though the act itself is still harmful. When it comes to awareness there's a lot of nuance there with elective ignorance, but let's just say it was impossible for them to know.

But we should be wary of extending that lack of individual responsibility away from extreme situations like being stranded on a desert island, to today where a lot of industry happens to be unethical.

Because even if we granted the argument that there's a better economic system we could move to, which would make "all consumption under capitalism is unethical" true by comparison to that ideal, there still exists a scale of immorality. It's not just "this is worse than the ideal so it's just as bad as anything else that's also worse than the ideal". Provided a sense of relative harm we hope once people become aware of particularly bad industries, they will get on board with living a low-impact vegan lifestyle -- not because it's perfect in every way, but because it's better than the current status quo.

So there’s two things: 1. There’s the potential harm in playing down the effectiveness of the vegan boycott, because a really important positive attribute to acknowledge about this lifestyle is it's a broad food category that in its wholefood form is easy to distinguish on the shelf. Therefore experimenting with the diet doesn't need to feel like a burden to take on board in the same way researching and seeking out conflict-free minerals in everything you buy can be for example. 2. The potential harm in exaggerating exceptions to the rule of individual responsibility.

But yeah you accept buying animal products is unethical, your argument is just that some of the individual responsibility gets shared more evenly with the collective society for say voting parties which maintain the status quo, which in turn alienates/socially conditions you into believing you don't have full agency. It becomes an appeal to futility fallacy, because that doesn't equate to actually having zero agency and there still remains some moral difference between the two choices regardless of how much better an ideal would be. The excuse evaporates once you rationally realize that the feeling of being without any agency doesn't reflect reality.

Vaush: Yes, I agree that meat eating is morally unjustifiable. I’m not... “believes meat eating is fine,” I’m... “knows veganism is correct and is too much of a moral hypocrite to go forward with it.”

Script: Cool, so yeah, you just have a critique of where activists put their energy?

Vaush: Yes, I just think advocacy is more effective when it's being done outside of the demand by consumers, I don’t think there’s any likelihood or any possibility of getting the vast majority of people off of their meat diets.

Script: Well beyond the obvious answer that we can drive incremental change in capitalism itself by choosing less harmful products and better companies where we can identify them, I would say existing as a vegan in the world is this really positive step to showing your seriousness and dedication you’re willing to put in. Not only can it inspire others but it can also help people who are serious about change each other and get organized, for example people’s willingness to start a food not bombs stall or guerrilla garden.

Secondly It's not the case that we need to win over everyone to veganism in order to make massive change, if a large enough minority can create breathing room for legislation and food co-ops that can provide alternatives to everybody on the way to a vegan world, I do think it’s both an obligation to attempt it and to make the transition easier saving humans and wildlife in the process. As well as driving less, buying second hand, etc. Buying nothing ever or meticulously tracking the source of every mineral may be insurmountable, but these are all pretty low bars to reach for and within the grasp of ordinary people.

Thirdly, even if you reject its effect on capitalistic industry, boycotts have the effect of bringing communities together under a liberation politics. For example car-sharing during the Montgomery bus boycott, students leading the call to stop subsidising Israel and before that South Africa, the widespread boycotting of a reactionary tabloid newspaper in the UK that ran stories saying mass suffocation at a football stadium due to overcrowding and fences were the fans fault. So boycotting to show your real felt ties to the land you stand on as necessary optics for seriousness on the left, and regardless of the mechanism by which they function the efficacy is hard to dispute.

And finally I’d just say there’s a way you could take this concern for shifting the blame onto individuals too far the other way, in that I think we’d agree if someone was obscenely rich and spent all their money on luxury items, never donating to campaigns or charities that we would need to bring about a better society you would think badly of this person because they would be displaying the same indifferent behaviour you’d expect of someone who say participated in systemic racism, for example excluding your generationally low-income black friend with no car from playing on your sports team by never seeing it as your responsibility to offer to drive to pick them up so they can join in.

Vaush: Yes. Look forward to discussing this more.

Script: Great, also if you could look into some animal rights news stories to cover on your stream, I do think there’s a lot of damning political stories which would do the job of bringing people further left as well as hopefully towards veganism. I’ll leave links to some in the description you can take a look at.

Alright, take care.

*Rewind sound effect.*

Script: Ok if that sounded at all implausable or you just want to know what to do if you face stiffer resistance. We'll run through that again, drawing from formal logic.

Vaush: Ok, here's a statement that I would make, this is a bit of a stupid hypothetical, but it's still one that I believe in. If there was a person who ate meat, who recognized that it was wrong, they know they're participating in a horrid industry, but they eat meat.

They think like, they could stop eating meat, but my life is miserable as it is, I can barely afford to keep the lights on in my house, my job is shit, like being able to eat this sick ass ethnic food that was passed down to me from my grandparents, this is one of the few things that I can live for and to take that away from me, I can't do it.

Do you think that the harm done to an individual to deprive them of that meat or dairy or what have you, would be substantial enough to say like ok, alright maybe you can keep eating meat, I won't say it's unethical if your life is hinged upon the joy that brings you or would you say that no level of joy justifies participation in that industry?

Script: Sure, so I certainly wouldn't spend my time advocating veganism with that person, if I was their friend I'd just listen to their problems and ask where I could help out. But more broadly, could we formalize your main concern in this way:

P1) We ought not spend time advocating individuals reduce their harmful consumption under capitalism if doing so puts an unhealthy focus on those most disadvantaged, drawing attention away from what systemic policies would uplift the most disadvantaged to be able to make healthy consumer choices.

P2) Advocating individuals reduce their harmful consumption under capitalism puts an unhealthy focus on those most disadvantaged, drawing attention away from what systemic policies would uplift the most disadvantaged to be able to make healthy consumer choices.

C) Therefore we ought not spend time advocating individuals reduce their harmful consumption under capitalism because doing so puts an unhealthy focus on those most disadvantaged, drawing attention away from what systemic policies would uplift the most disadvantaged to be able to make healthy consumer choices.

Alright now we can run through two exceptions to the rule, then a more general rebuttal:

Vegan Exception Counter-Argument #1

P1) If we ought spend time advocating individuals donate some amount of spare cash to campaigns & unions under capitalism because donating spare cash to campaigns & charities helps bring about a market socialist society THEN we inherently are advocating individuals reduce their harmful consumption under capitalism to have the spare cash to donate to campaigns & charities.

P2) We ought spend time advocating individuals donate some amount of spare cash to campaigns & unions under capitalism because donating spare cash to campaigns & unions helps bring about a market socialist society.

C) Therefore we ought spend time advocating individuals donate some amount of spare cash to campaigns & unions under capitalism because donating spare cash to campaigns & charities helps bring about a market socialist society AND we inherently are advocating individuals reduce their harmful consumption under capitalism to have the spare cash to donate to campaigns & charities.

Vegan Exception Counter-Argument #2

P1) If a man lived his whole life from birth to the age of 50 in a vegan socialist commune, being a wildlife vet and left to do a talk for 1 day and had the choice of buying a bacon sandwich from a wage labour deli or vegan sandwich from a worker co-op, before returning to the commune to live out the rest of his life, then it would be okay for their friends to ask why he chose to do the unethical act, drawing attention to his individual responsibility because there was zero to negligible alienation or social conditioning clouding his opinion.

P2) A man lived his whole life from birth to the age of 50 in a vegan socialist commune, being a wildlife vet and left to do a talk for 1 day and had the choice of buying a bacon sandwich from a wage labour deli or vegan sandwich from a worker co-op, before returning to the commune to live out the rest of his life.

C) Therefore a man lived his whole life from birth to the age of 50 in a vegan socialist commune, being a wildlife vet and left to do a talk for 1 day and had the choice of buying a bacon sandwich from a wage labour deli or vegan sandwich from a worker co-op, before returning to the commune to live out the rest of his life, AND it would be okay for their friends to ask why he chose to do the unethical act, drawing attention to his individual responsibility because there was zero to negligible alienation or social conditioning clouding his opinion.

Vegan General Counter-Argument

P1) If we ought spend time participating in whichever campaigns are most likely to bring about a market-socialist society fastest THEN bar fringe situations like eating disorders and severe depression it’s appropriate to discuss the unethical act of buying meat with people so as to work out where they can best put their energy. Even if doing so puts a focus on their individual responsibility, because doing so brings about systemic policy changes faster which would uplift the most disadvantaged to be able to make healthy consumer choices.

P2) We ought spend time participating in whichever campaigns are most likely to bring about a market-socialist society.

C) Therefore we ought spend time participating in whichever campaigns are most likely to bring about a market-socialist society fastest AND bar fringe situations like eating disorders and severe depression it’s appropriate to discuss the unethical act of buying meat with people so as to work out where they can best put their energy. Even if doing so puts a focus on their individual responsibility, because doing so brings about systemic policy changes faster which would uplift the most disadvantaged to be able to make healthy consumer choices.

2. Open Letter to Matt (Mirror)

google drive copies

3. How to use media more productively

As viewer, commentator, contributor and/or creator.

4. How to use the philosophical vegan wiki

Scrolling screen capture and explanation for most practical uses.

5. Top 25 Most influential moments for veganism in history.

vegetarian-history

Forum Game/Debate: Most important moments in vegan history.

My animal ethics history blog post

6. Benetar Response

forum thread

7. Anti-Natalism in the vegan movement

Various expressions of rational to fatalist online, geographically and historically.

Youtube Anti-Natalists

He debunks himself often enough reminding us that his words are just the product of scar tissue basically rerouted brain tissue through long-term depression he’s grown too used to to abandon. Just a negative utilitarian who doesn’t see any virtue in accepting the limits of human control, it’s bizarrely religious in that he clings to the sense that the only meaning could come from if there were a merciful god that would fix all of nature.

Possibly take down of his joke theory of everything essay:

Rational Wiki wrote: Gary Mosher: Physics crank who fervently asserts an alternate "theory of everything", rejecting all evidence of special/general relativity and the double slit experiment. He is also known as "inmendham", and alternately proposes a "destroy all life" philosophy.

Thread-Gary-Inmendham-Theory-of-Everything

critique-of-inmendhams-radical-pessimism.html

Website

8. Freegan Practices Explainer and Open Letter to Vegan Advocates

Thread

Wiki page on freeganism

Video library page on freeganism