(June 3, 2013 at 11:52 pm)Forbinator Wrote:

(June 3, 2013 at 10:58 am)little_monkey Wrote: I'm still waiting Forbinator to define what he means by ethical. I guess not only The Germans are coming is at fault here.

I thought I'd already made my position pretty clear from previous posts. But I'll try to summarise: Ethical is a subjective quality, but there are some aspects of ethics that (practically speaking) are objective and accepted axiomatically.

You can't be wishy-washy. It's either subjective or objective. Most atheists will opt for subjective. The vast majority of theists will say that God commands, and those are objective.

Quote:I listed four things earlier:

1. Murdering humans for pleasure
2. Stealing from humans for pleasure
3. Harming or physically violating humans for pleasure
4. Senseless animal cruelty

Those are your choices, and you can't impose those choices on everyone. But you can be an activist and try to convince a concensus of people to agree with those choices. And perhaps change people's attitude.

Quote:If you think any of those four things are not ethically wrong, then I probably have to concede any moral argument with you, as there would be no ethical reference point to base any argument on, and ethics is a relativistic topic.

See above answer.

Quote:If we combine the above four "ethical wrongs" with some facts, we can logically determine that our exploitation of animals cannot be justified:

5. The animals that we exploit have a survival instinct, and therefore an interest in living, as evident from their "fight or flight" responses, production of catecholamines and corticosteroids in response to stress (particularly when predators are visible), and ability to feel pain and suffering as evident from their central nervous system and pain receptors. Since the nervous system of birds, fish and mammals is effectively the same as ours, the burden of proof is with you to show that it has a different function from ours given that the anatomy is virtually the same. It's a bit like trying to claim that an animal uses his/her ears for something besides hearing; the burden of proof would be with you, and in the meantime we assume their ears are used to hear.

6. Animal farming necessarily involves cruelty, although it wouldn't be considered "senseless" as it serves the purpose of producing food and clothing. But the cruelty is still unnecessary, since we can use plant-based resources for the same outcome, and with much less land use (which, among other arguments, offsets the environmental arguments against veganism).

Given what was stated in (5), we must apply (1), and by extension, (3), to other species including birds, fish and mammals, and almost certainly to crustaceans as they have pain receptors but as part of a different nervous system. The key is that while other species are different from us, they are the same as us in the ways that pertain to wanting to live.

Given what was stated in (6), and if we accept that the distinction between "senseless" and "unnecessary" cruelty is negligible, and irrelevant to the outcome for the victim, we must apply (4) to all cases of cruelty, including those which inevitably occur as part of the farming and slaughter process. http://www.earthlings.com shows the different types of cruelty that occur, and explains why they are not "one-off" events, but are intrinsic to production.

Those are good reasons to not treat animals with unnecessary cruelty. But we are what we are from millions of years of evolution, which made us omnivores. So I believe your activism is bound to fail.

As I said, if you don't agree with those four points, then I have no hope of convincing you of an ethical position. I guess you don't call the police if any of the first three things happens to you or your family, because all morality is subjective?

Also, if you claim the evolution argument, you need to specify what traits you're referring to. If you refer to the ability to hold tools, this trait actually evolved in herbivorous primates before us. Also: http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html

EDIT: I just realised that you weren't actually stating you disagreed with the four points I wrote, but that the points were subjective. Perhaps it's best to ignore my question about calling the police.

(June 4, 2013 at 4:42 am)Forbinator Wrote: As I said, if you don't agree with those four points, then I have no hope of convincing you of an ethical position. I guess you don't call the police if any of the first three things happens to you or your family, because all morality is subjective?

Being ethical and being lawful are different things. In many places there are laws dealing with cruelty against animals, in which case calling the police would be the right thing to do.

Quote:Also, if you claim the evolution argument, you need to specify what traits you're referring to. If you refer to the ability to hold tools, this trait actually evolved in herbivorous primates before us. Also: http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html

I fail to see how that is relevant to vegan philosophy.

Quote:EDIT: I just realised that you weren't actually stating you disagreed with the four points I wrote, but that the points were subjective. Perhaps it's best to ignore my question about calling the police.

It was a legitimate question.

Rhythm has raised (here and in another thread) a very interesting point against veganism, or at least for the idea that it doesn't really matter what we eat. As I understand it:

1. Right now we're producing massive amounts of meat and our food system relies on it.
   
2. This works because we can grow massive amounts of relatively robust strains of plants such as soy or corn which aren't "bio-available" to human digestion but are okay to feed animals
   
3. Human-digestible crops won't grow in sufficient quantity where these robust non-human-digestible crops grow
   
4. Therefore it is a necessity that we eat meat since we couldn't hope to grow enough plants to feed everyone

This is an intriguing argument but for the third point: I don't think you have at all shown that it is indeed not possible to grow human-digestible plants in the areas (e.g. of South America) where right now massive mono-cultures of soy are grown for live-stock feed. There have been farmers living in these areas who were pushed out of their land by major corporations which are now growing the soy there, and these farmers must've used the land to grow plants since their traditional diet is far from meat-centric. It might require more thought than just planting the same crop everywhere and then spraying it with tons of fertilizer and pestizides, but there is no evidence that it is not possible. All the while we would reduce the stress we're putting on the planet, e.g. by reducing methane emissions from animal agriculture.



Another argument that was raised is that animals also get harmed in the process of producing plants for a vegetarian (human) diet. However: It is one thing to defend ones own crop production against pests while trying to minimize the animals that are getting hurt in the process and it is something completely different to try to maximize the number of raised and killed animals with little concern for their suffering, which is precisely the goal of todays mass meat production. This also ignores that the animals getting killed in the fields to produce the vegan dinner would also get killed in the fields to produce the dinner for the cow that the meat eater has for dinner.

(June 3, 2013 at 2:45 am)Forbinator Wrote: I know about flystrike and agree that it is a worse fate than mulesing. This only strengthens the position that sheep farming is inhumane, particularly in a climate to which they are not adapted, where they have no natural resistance to parasitic infections. Farmers can never cure their herds of infections, only "manage" it, and when they are intensively farmed at high stocking densities, they are subjected to very high worm burdens.

And yet you choose to ignore one entire side of the argument. I just explained to you that wool is a harder wearing textile than cotton or synthetic fibres and this makes it far more environmentally friendly for certain applications. Yet you didn't even respond to this.

Quote:Superfine Merino wool is viewed as a "luxury" item and has a certain economic status associated with it, and it is perhaps this issue that is the greatest barrier to abolishing the trade.

Merino wool comes from a certain breed of sheep. No doubt that diet plays a role too, but I haven't heard of the intentional starvation of livestock as playing a role, thus I take your claim with a grain of salt.

Quote:Because you say so? Merino wool with a fibre diameter of <22 microns is considered desirable, and will fetch the highest price in the market. Feeding trials have been done that show a positive correlation between feed intake and fibre diameter. We have terrible droughts here in Australia which inhibit grass growth; do you really think a farmer will care if the sheep go hungry for a few days, as long as they're still standing and producing wool? Our sheep herds are very large (in the thousands), shearing cuts are real and cause a disease called caseous lymphadenitis. If shearers process thousands of sheep in a day, it is not feasible to manage individual wounds effectively.

No, because you dismissed an entire part of the argument without even responding to it. You chose not to discuss the benefits to the wool fibre, and instead only want to talk about what you see as the "humane" and "ethical" side of the argument. And do I think that farmers care about the wellbeing of their livestock? Yes I do - what kind of farmers do you know that don't??

(June 4, 2013 at 6:47 am)Aractus Wrote: And do I think that farmers care about the wellbeing of their livestock? Yes I do - what kind of farmers do you know that don't??

These farmers:





Or the farmers exporting their live sheep:

(June 3, 2013 at 4:29 am)littleendian Wrote: No, he's merely thinking this through, that's more than you can say about yourself because if you are Anglican then you believe absurdities that you might find absurd if you ever switched on that marvelous device God gave you for thinking.

Why don't you go fuck yourself?

I'm not here so that you can attack me because of my faith - that kind of bullshit is simply not welcome. Is this your pathetic tactic here? Instead of discussing on-topic you want to hurl personal insults based on bullshit straw man arguments? What's truly pathetic (and at the same time absurd) is that 1. you assume that I don't think things through, and 2. you believe that I don't think for myself!

Go fucking think about what you wrote!

(June 3, 2013 at 4:29 am)littleendian Wrote: No, he's merely thinking this through, that's more than you can say about yourself because if you are Anglican then you believe absurdities that you might find absurd if you ever switched on that marvelous device God gave you for thinking.

You need to calm down and get some steak. Your diet deficiencies are affecting your mind.

(June 4, 2013 at 6:53 am)littleendian Wrote: These farmers:

Whoopty-Fucking-Doo. That's mulesing. Yeah it aint that pretty, and yes it causes the sheep some short-term temporary pain. Get over it. If it's a choice between that and flystrike I choose mulesing, obviously - it's a procedure done in the best interests of the sheep's health!! Not because the farmer wants to do it!!

(June 4, 2013 at 7:00 am)Aractus Wrote: yes it causes the sheep some short-term temporary pain.

Long-term, long-term is the word you're looking for, look at the blood gushing for crying out loud.

(June 4, 2013 at 7:00 am)Aractus Wrote: Get over it.

No, I won't. If you want to be a person who just gets over this kind of cruelty being commited billion fold, go ahead, but don't tell me to join your club. Never.

(June 4, 2013 at 7:00 am)Aractus Wrote: If it's a choice between that and flystrike I choose mulesing, obviously - it's a procedure done in the best interests of the sheep's health!! Not because the farmer wants to do it!!

It's only a choice between this and flystrike because we have overbred these poor creatures and now they're not fit for a decent life anymore. Is it really too much to ask of you to acknowledge that there might be something going wrong here?

---

(June 4, 2013 at 6:55 am)Aractus Wrote:

(June 3, 2013 at 4:29 am)littleendian Wrote: No, he's merely thinking this through, that's more than you can say about yourself because if you are Anglican then you believe absurdities that you might find absurd if you ever switched on that marvelous device God gave you for thinking.

Why don't you go fuck yourself?

If you're sensitive maybe you shouldn't go around calling people "looneys", okay?