Veganism

[The Grand Nudger]

There will always be somebody who can't fire the bow without somehow hitting their own ear. No explanation will account for the terminally stupid or the criminally insane. What we can be reasonably certain is that if I take a bag that has one rock in it and drop another rock into it, then, barring breakage, the overwhelming majority of people will agree that there are two rocks in the bag. Aliens from other worlds that breathe ammonia and communicate via modulations of scent would be likely to arrive at the same conclusion.

People disagree about facts all the time, but I still think those are good examples.  These are the sorts of moral opinions that moral realism concerns itself with too.  So, for example, when I talk about what's wrong with our food systems I'll refer to things that any person, things that I would expect an alien, even, to be able to comprehend.   

By contrast, let's extract nine other people from all of human history and lock you in a room with them. The topic will be religion. Suitable weapons will be provided to all concerned parties. I doubt that you'd last a single day (honestly, a whole 24 hours is woefully optimistic) before you felt compelled to either lie about your beliefs in self-defense, maim somebody (probably several somebodies) in self-defense, or leave the experiment on account of an acute case of dead. We've had Thou Shalt Not Kill for about three millennia (probably more), and I doubt that in all of that time there has been a single year that we didn't commit mass murder of some form or other.

We're compromised agents, for sure.  Even if we know we shouldn't do a thing we can come up with all sorts of reasons and excuses for doing that thing.  Lay aside metaethics for a moment, because it doesn't really matter what the nature of moral compulsion is in my individual case.  In the example you offered I doubt I'd last 24 minutes...but when I started swinging whatever club you handed me I wouldn't spend any time trying to convince myself that I'm doing a good thing.  In objective terms, whether it's a bow and arrow, how many rocks are in a bag, or moral opinions - failure is a possibility - but a failure to shoot a bow or get the correct sum should not be confused with there being no way to shoot a bow or no correct sum.  Lay aside whether or not people can agree on any given set of moral opinions about a thing...because I don't need agreement to know my mind or justify my own opinions.  Assume it's all entirely subjective and individualized.  I personally think that there's a bunch of cruel shit we do to livestock that I should not be party too - and yet...I do still buy those products.  

The rocks are a fact. There are two of them in the bag, and very few sentients would consider anything else. Facts describe the world as it is. By contrast, 'moral facts' describe what should/ought. They describe what is not, but we feel should be. That makes them dependent on what we feel at this moment, and that makes them not fact. We're a species of conflicting and compromised impulses that give rise to some interesting solutions in game theory. Describing that as 'moral fact' just mystifies the matter.

Moral propositions describe what should or ought be - moral facts are what those statements are premised upon.  Can you tell the difference between the moral proposition that we should not play with our peckers... and we should not assault our SO's?  Is there any difference?  From my pov, they're actually both premised on the same (alleged) moral facts.  Facts of harm.  Where one fails and the other succeeds is in getting those facts right.  I approach arguments for vegetarianism and veganism in the same light, and that's where they very often fail.  They purport to report a fact that would compel me (insomuch as anything does..as above), if it were true, but fail to accurately report on that (or those) facts.  

I thought that we had already discussed this with the various civilizations that felt no compunctions about sacrificing them to the flames, leaving them out on mountaintops, or drowning them in cenotes. Children have been used as cheap sources of expendable labour in our society less than 200 years ago. And then there are modern sweatshops. Where were your sneakers made?

By cheap adult labor...which really isn't better when you think about it.  I think we're not talking about the same thing.  Moral realism isn't the proposition that everything I do is moral, or right.  Or that everything I believe is the right thing to believe.  It's the idea that there are mind independent moral facts in the world and that people can make true and false statements about them.   I think it's true that much of what goes into feeding us is harmful, and electively so.  I think it's false that becoming a vegan or a vegetarian would change those material facts either at all, or to the degree that people so inclined wish they would.  Thus, the ethical argument from suffering fails, because it's proposed solution does not eliminate or reduce suffering, it merely shifts that suffering between buckets.  That I privilege the human bucket is, and I'm pretty good at being open about this...a neverending fountain of real and potential moral failure - it's simply moral failure that I am prepare to accept.   I'll eat less chicken for the sake of the chicken.  I'll lose money..for a time...trying to raise them ethically, even.  I won't starve, or impoverish my kids, for the sake of a chicken.  If in the grand scheme of things there is some mystical hereafter and I find myself staring at a panel of chickens in the afterlife, I'll get a good hearty laugh...and deserve by rights whatever moral condemnation my life's record has earned.