Veganism

[Fake Messiah]

Just because slavery used to be legal doesn't mean that it has ever been moral.

That depends if you are a moral universalist or a moral relativist.

[Disagreeable]

So, is your true subject in this thread "What happens when you are moral?"

Nope. The point of the slavery analogy is just because something is legal doesn't make it moral and maybe non-veganism will be made illegal, just like owning slaves eventually was, someday. Key point is that the fact that consuming animal products is legal doesn't mean that it's moral.

[Ivan Denisovich]

Legality is not morality.

Yeah, that was the whole point. Just because slavery used to be legal doesn't mean that it has ever been moral. The same may be true of killing and eating non-human animals: and that's the analogy.

I'm not a practicing vegan. But it's a possibility.

Considering that humans are omnivores I wouldn't compare killing and eating animals with abhorrence that is slavery. It does nothing but cheapens any argument for immorality of eating meat and to be honest I've never saw them as being in any way convincing in the fist place.

[Disagreeable]

Just because slavery used to be legal doesn't mean that it has ever been moral.

That depends if you are a moral universalist or a moral relativist.

I'm a realist. I don't think that universal morality implies objective morality, nor do I think that relativist morality implies objective morality.

[Disagreeable]

Yeah, that was the whole point. Just because slavery used to be legal doesn't mean that it has ever been moral. The same may be true of killing and eating non-human animals: and that's the analogy.

I'm not a practicing vegan. But it's a possibility.

Considering that humans are omnivores I wouldn't compare killing and eating animals with abhorrence that is slavery. It does nothing but cheapens any argument for immorality of eating meat and to be honest I've never saw them as being in any way convincing in the fist place.

It's not an argument to say that eating meat is in any way justifiable because we're omnivores. Just as it's not in any way a justification for being racist to say that racism is natural.

And it doesn't cheapen the argument if what's done to factory farmed animals, at the very least, is on a par with what was done to human slaves. You seem to be assuming that slavery is morally worse than consuming animal products when that's in question. You may say that it cheapens the awfulness of slavery to suggest that these evils are on a par, but it may be said that it cheapens to awfulness of consuming animal products, which is basically endorsing an animal holocaust, to say that these evils are not on a par.

[Fake Messiah]

I'm a realist.

Oh, silly me, I thought you were a fantasist.

In other words, everyone thinks they are a realist when it comes to worldviews.

[Thumpalumpacus]

"Anti-realism", eh? Be specific.

I'm not sure which form of anti-realism you accept specifically, but from what you've said it seems that you accept some form.

I don't waste my time pondering schools of philosophy. I pay attention to what people are doing in the real world. That's why I find your "anti-realist" comment bemusing.

In the real world, people generally don't eat each other because of the yuck. I was simply saying that I hold those feelings too. That's realism, pal.

[Ivan Denisovich]

It's not an argument to say that eating meat is in any way justifiable because we're omnivores. Just as it's not in any way a justification for being racist to say that racism is natural.

Bullshit.

And it doesn't cheapen the argument if what's done to factory farmed animals, at the very least, is on a par with what was done to human slaves. You seem to be assuming that slavery is morally worse than consuming animal products when that's in question. You may say that it cheapens the awfulness of slavery to suggest that these evils are on a par, but it may be said that it cheapens to awfulness of consuming animal products, which is basically endorsing an animal holocaust, to say that these evils are not on a par.

Animal holocaust. Seems it never takes long for a deluded fanatic to unmask himself. You have no fucking idea about reality of Final Solution you piece of garbage. If you would you would have decency to not use it as cheap shot in facile crusade.

It's clear to me that you aren't discussing in good faith or are as deluded as internet memes makes vegan an vegetarians to be so consider this to be my last answer to you. I don't have time to waste on scum comparing Holocaust to eating meat.

[Belacqua]

I'm not sure which form of anti-realism you accept specifically, but from what you've said it seems that you accept some form.

I'm not sure if moral realism is right or not... I've never worked out everything that would entail.

I do think that some normative statements are persuasive to the point that no reasonable person would disagree with them. 

So a normative statement like "it's bad to chop the arms off of healthy babies for entertainment" seems undeniable to me. And I think that anyone who disagreed with it would be seriously deranged. 

(Right at the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle says that different fields of thought allow for different degrees of clarity and specificity. Ethics can never be as precise as many scientific fields, nor can its assertions be proven in a scientific way. But that doesn't mean that we can't be confident about some aspects of ethics.) 

So an extreme statement like that might be "just opinion," but it's an opinion that any sane person would hold. 

I also think that "less suffering is better than more suffering" is pretty hard to deny. Even if you think that a lot of suffering is necessary to teach us hard truths, the end goal of such a hard education is to get less suffering. 

Also, less extreme but fairly undeniable, is "it is best to make the most efficient use of limited resources." 

And I choose those two statements (that I think most people would agree with) because they form the basis of arguments for veganism -- at least the ones I've heard. 

Cows and pigs are feeling creatures and suffer when raised for slaughter. Raising animals for food requires more resources than growing beans for tofu, when measured per gram of protein. So those are two descriptive facts which support the normative statements. 

In fact I think there are several subjects in which the purists, in this case the vegans, have the better arguments, but I fail to follow their prescription. I still eat meat. This is because while we can think logically, we tend to live practically. It's easier for me to eat a healthy diet if I include the (fairly small) amount of meat that I do now. I hope that people in the future will do better than I do. This would require more than ethics-based personal commitment, though. A more general re-organization of how get our food would probably be necessary, just to make veganism more appealing and more normal, and not something that we have to commit to as if it were an ascetic regimen. 

My niece and her husband both majored in biology as it relates to food production, and both have been vegans for years. They claim that it's easy and they don't miss meat at all. But they've been practicing a long time, and they live in a college town where a significant % of the population makes the same choice. It's harder for me, as an old dog who learns fewer new tricks.

[Disagreeable]

It's not an argument to say that eating meat is in any way justifiable because we're omnivores. Just as it's not in any way a justification for being racist to say that racism is natural.

Bullshit.

The actual bullshit is your committing the naturalistic fallacy.

Animal holocaust. Seems it never takes long for a deluded fanatic to unmask himself. You have no fucking idea about reality of Final Solution you piece of garbage. If you would you would have decency to not use it as cheap shot in facile crusade.

You have no fucking idea about the reality of the animal holocaust you piece of garbage. If you would you would have decency to not act as if it's not on a par with the holocaust in Nazi Germany.

It's clear to me that you aren't discussing in good faith or are as deluded as internet memes makes vegan an vegetarians to be so consider this to be my last answer to you. I don't have time to waste on scum comparing Holocaust to eating meat.

You're the one saying that one holocaust is okay compared to the other. So you're the scum if anybody is. I think that both holocausts are bad, you only care about one of them.