Veganism

[Fake Messiah]

I think that my assumption is justified because slavery was immoral prior to it being illegal. So they're not synonymous. If you don't accept that assumption then I don't know how I'm supposed to convince you. Do you think that slavery was moral back when it was legal? Or are you agnostic on the issue?

If slavery was always immoral, then why did the majority of people in ancient times have slaves? Is it because they were immoral, or was it because they thought it was moral?

And if they thought it was moral, then why did they think it was moral? Why didn't they know it was immoral?

[Disagreeable]

There are many reasons people can have false beliefs. If people thought slavery was moral then I'm not sure what their reasons were.

Apparently, a lot of slave owners thought that they were doing the black man a favor.

[Fake Messiah]

There are many reasons people can have false beliefs. If people thought slavery was moral then I'm not sure what their reasons were.

Maybe the reasons were that morals are not objective or universal, but stem from society and upbringing. Even Aristotle argued for "natural slavery," and he was, apparently, no fool and should have known better.

One could make a good case why slavery is bad, but again, it's "just" a case and not some objective law of nature. Just like corporal punishment was commonplace not so long ago, but is now absent from legal framework, although it's present among lynch mobs.

[Paleophyte]

There are many reasons people can have false beliefs. If people thought slavery was moral then I'm not sure what their reasons were.

Apparently, a lot of slave owners thought that they were doing the black man a favor.

Or they knew full well that they were doing themselves a favour and didn't much care what happened to the black man. Either way you cut it, what we once considered moral, we don't anymore. Human sacrifice and stoning people to death are no longer considered socially acceptable behavior.

[The Grand Nudger]

Doing the other guy a favor, or even fulfilling a moral duty. The white mans burden. Distasteful, but necessary. Some certainly said this for cover - but there were probably at least a few who genuinely believed it.

Maybe morals are objective, or can be - but society or an individual's upbringing often leads to people rejecting the objective conclusion in favor of something more suitable to them or the culture they come from. That would be descriptive subjectivity, or relativity. There's daylight between should have known better and could have known better. I'd say that if we considered the person aristotle seemed to be, and the project aristotle's work seems to be aimed at, then we would probably conclude that while he could have known better, we would not expect aristotle to know better. The descriptive should.

In an objective case, moral propositions and conclusions very much are (or can be) statements on or consequences of the laws of nature, and we may change our moral conclusions as our knowledge of ourselves, other people, and the world around us changes. Yes, there's a theoretical "right answer" whether we know it or not - but just as with any other fact (or so the idea goes) it's existence and it's possession by a given individual or a given society are not interchangeable.

We can draw this back towards ethical veganism in an objective case and say that there may be fact-based reasons that ethical veganism is ore or less compelling. We'd probably all agree there, yeah? Like, say, an ethical vegan states a number of animals harmed by livestock production and the accuracy of that claim has something to say about the moral conclusions drawn from it? Or, perhaps, a person hears that, and doesn't doubt the number or the harm, but believes that an even bigger number and/or greater harm of the same type is or will be caused by doing as the ethical vegan argument suggests - and so...on the arguments own grounds, it fails as a matter of fact and not disagreement in principle.

-That's where I am, personally, in the context of all we've already discussed about morality and how we each conceive of it in general - I also have concerns that ethical veganism is an argument unintentionally tainted by the subjective weight of personal consumption, when, depending on our life choices and circumstances, eating animals may not be the greatest harm we do to them.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Veganism and vegetarianism both have palpable objective results which seem to be more ecologically sound -- less methane in the air, less pigshit in river deltas downstream making dead zones, and so on. Does that make them more moral?

If you'd answer yes, then the concomitant is that you believe that ecological soundness is a moral imperative of some sort. That's not a criticism, because you might be concerned about all living things. It's not praise, because acting to reduce ecological damage in order to support your own species may still do harm onto others.

[The Grand Nudger]

Higher rates of mortality in livestock are not ecological damage, and it's unclear how a vegetarian or vegan diet would reduce ecological damage. If we wanted to reduce ecological damage, then we ought to aim at transportation and energy. As far as food goes, possible reductions in ecological damage include livestock based production as a replacement for chemical agriculture. Short version of a long story, sustainably produced anything is superior to anything other-than under those metrics. The idea that I should not eat meat because it's damaging does not apply if the meat I eat is produced regeneratively or ethically harvested (ecological wild catch).

[Thumpalumpacus]

Higher rates of mortality in livestock are not ecological damage, and it's unclear how a vegetarian or vegan diet would reduce ecological damage.  If we wanted to reduce ecological damage, then we ought to aim at transportation and energy.  As far as food goes, possible reductions in ecological damage include livestock based production as a replacement for chemical agriculture.  Short version of a long story, sustainably produced anything is superior to anything other-than under those metrics.  The idea that I should not eat meat because it's damaging does not apply if the meat I eat is produced regeneratively or ethically harvested (ecological wild catch).

I'm not a farmer, but doesn't clear-cutting for ploughed fields reduce the ability of naturally-evolved species to do what they've evolved to do?

Also, how might transportation and energy might reduce dead zones in river deltas in a way that supports the local ecology? Massive hog-farms far upstream are fairly well-known for making those river deltas oxygen-starved with a resultant impact on the fishermen who also rely upon a balanced ecology for their livelihoods. Are you wanting to truck all that fecal matter? Do we need that much nitrogen injected into our economy? Is that trucking not also affecting us? I don't understand this response of yours.

I'm not arguing for not eating meat. I do so myself. But I am wondering about the ecological impacts of factory farming. Where do you put all that cowshit and pigshit to feed umpteen millions of people and maintain your export markets? It's gotta go somewhere. Is the Mississippi Delta worth the money from China?

[Fake Messiah]

There you go. Pollution is something that people today know is immoral, but they do it anyway. They do it because they rationalize to themselves that they must do it. Which again brings up the question, "What does it mean to be moral?" Again, not much. To call people today immoral because of polluting would be ridiculous because people do it in such large numbers that it is generally accepted.

The best you can do is to say "well, history will judge you" or "our descendants will judge you," but most people don't give a shit and even throw garbage out of their cars and ridicule people who speak of pollution.

Now, you could do something to curb pollution to really minimal levels, but most people are oblivious to that concept. In other words, if there were better leadership, then there would be less pollution or society would be more moral. Just like people in ancient times could survive without slavery in, let's say, agronomy, but most people could not realize it. They thought it would cost them too much, but who would actually bare the burden of cost were the aristocrats. Just like with the pollution today, it mostly benefits billionaires who are, unfortunately, in charge of shaping people's opinions.
Like, do you think people chose Trump, or was it the billionaires who manipulated his ignorant base to think they did, because they're too dumb to understand how they got played?

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm not a farmer, but doesn't clear-cutting for ploughed fields reduce the ability of naturally-evolved species to do what they've evolved to do?

The clearcutting will continue no matter what we eat, and for the timber alone.  Throwing cattle on aftwerwards is just a value add (and it's done because clear cut forest land is notoriously unproductive while beef commands a premium). The general selling point here is that a vegan diet compared against a particularly high meat-consumption american diet might contribute to 30% less greenhouse gas in and of itself - as in a 30% reduction to the contributions from ag - but this reduction comes primarily from livestock reduction - it does not mean that any other animals will be better off, and assumes we will not, then, create that 30% some other way.  More fields of whatever we're then eating and more extraction and application to grow it or replacing ag industries with other industries to offset the economic loss - which is what would be expected.  All of which harms animals, all of which entails more ecological damage. Generally speaking, advocates say that won't happen...but that's because they believe we should do a ton of other things to prevent that as well.  Which we should!  However, that does suggest that the intended benefits do not come from swearing off meat, but from doing those other things - which we could do without swearing off meat.        

Also, how might transportation and energy might reduce dead zones in river deltas in a way that supports the local ecology? Massive hog-farms far upstream are fairly well-known for making those river deltas oxygen-starved with a resultant impact on the fishermen who also rely upon a balanced ecology for their livelihoods. Are you wanting to truck all that fecal matter? Do we need that much nitrogen injected into our economy? Is that trucking not also affecting us? I don't understand this response of yours.

To answer the big question from the start - yes, we need that much nitrogen injected into our economy.  In fact we need even more nitrogen injected into our economy as it is than we have right now if we factor in hunger.  Chemical sources are more dense, but also more ecologically destructive - and on a global scale.  As in, there's all sorts of damage you might do to your local area by modifying or using the land a particular way - but your input and energy sources, your transporatation decisions, will damage the fuckin amazon or coral reefs off australia. Ideally, we'd source nitro locally by grazing in a fallow year or onsite feedlots, for example, but as it stands food production and input extraction are often not done in the same areas.  We have to remember that we're considering an ethical argument against eating meat, not an ethical argument against producing it a particular way.  If sustainably produced livestock does not do The Bad Thing, or could even help to reduce The Bad Thing then eating sustainably produced meat is not ecologically or morally wrong according to that arguments own metrics.  

I'm not arguing for not eating meat. I do so myself. But I am wondering about the ecological impacts of factory farming. Where do you put all that cowshit and pigshit to feed umpteen millions of people and maintain your export markets? It's gotta go somewhere. Is the Mississippi Delta worth the money from China?

Depends on how much we value human life, and whether or not we consider harm to humans worthy of consideration just like harm to other animals is.  We put all that shit into our food right now - in addition to turning oil into food.  If we had to choose between the health of a river and starving people I don't think that contributing to hunger would be the ethical decision.   These things are rarely that clean, ofc, the health of a river and the health of the people on the river being tied together.  We're a riparian species too.   

Ag isn't haphazard or set up wherever we would like however we like.  You'll see numbers floating around, for example, of how much "farmland" is used for cattle.  OFC it's only "farmland" because it's being used for cattle.  It's suitability to grow food crops is not guaranteed by the presence of grazers.  That's actually one of the main considerations as to whether or not to put cattle on land in the first place.  Similarly, you'll hear about how much farmland is used to grow feed for cattle.  Here again the implication is that it could be freed up to produce food for people directly - but his is not necessarily so.  There are land capacity, equipment, skill, budgetary, and economic considerations that went into those decisions.  At the bottom of the well, there are no purely good decisions in ag.  It's an exlusively sub-optimal decision field. At least from the standpoint of animal harm or ecology.  Baked in.  We have some leeway to decide who or what suffers where, but no ability whatsoever to stop that suffering - short of committing self righteous suicide.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. It is often hubris informing us that we might stop this or that thing by some personal decision we make, not understanding that all of the decisions we make will inevitably lead to that very thing by natural laws which we cannot negotiate with, and do not change based upon our moral or ecological sympathies. To wit, all we've ever been doing on this rock, from the very start, is shifting suffering and damage between two buckets. Ours, and everything else's.