Veganism

[Disagreeable]

... and that doesn't stop those opinions being subjective.

True. But it also doesn't mean that there aren't any moral facts.

In point of fact, nothing can be concluded in this discussion, which renders it mental masturbation, really.

Even if we don't come to a conclusion, this doesn't mean that the discussion wasn't worthwhile.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Even if we don't come to a conclusion, this doesn't mean that the discussion wasn't worthwhile.

Without new facts in evidence, it becomes mental masturbation, seems to me.

[Fireball]

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

[Disagreeable]

Even if we don't come to a conclusion, this doesn't mean that the discussion wasn't worthwhile.

Without new facts in evidence, it becomes mental masturbation, seems to me.

Well, to ask you a straightforward yes-or-no question: Do you think that if everybody in the world believed that slavery was okay then it would be okay?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Six.

Boru

[awty]

This should be confusing for guests and new members. A thread titled "Veganism" that keeps circling around to the topic of slavery.

Utter nonsense.

[Angrboda]

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Six.

Boru

[Mister Agenda]

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

As many as God wills; obviously.

[The Grand Nudger]

No more so than the definition of a cat or a moon, or any other word really, when you think about it.  Why is a cat a cat except that we call it such?  We can say a cat has biological markers making it a cat by any name, but so too would suffering.

You and I think of torturing cats as immoral. What makes our thinking regnant, such that it is an objective fact?

This is the same question, mechanically speaking, as why cats are cats.  Why cat facts exists, why cat facts are or can be objective.  I don't have a satisfying answer to that question, which underlies all truth alike statements in some way shape or form. 

Thing is, and this draws on other convos in thread not specifically your question above, I don't think we really need to have that answer to come to conclusions in these sorts of disagreements.  Whether it is objective or merely intersubjective...I'd put good money on every single person here agreeing that animal harm and ecological damage are of moral concern however they describe their morals and the nature of those morals.  Insomuch as we are having an allegedly objective conversation about things like greenhouse gas emissions, land use policy, sustainable production, and even best management practices from a standpoint of livestocks mental health - there is in principle an objective resolution to any disparity between two people with differing moral opinions about whether that (and those) concerns compel us to vegetarianism or veganism (or any number of other things instead).

While a moral argument may not require objective (or purportedly objectively true) premises to be made, once it does, it opens itself to objective scrutiny all the same. Thus I (we, the housecat) could very easily state that while we agree that animal harm and ecological damage are concerning, the alleged numbers and benefits in a given formulation may not add up, may make silent assumptions which may not be true or in fact are not true, and thus the argument fails to establish the purported moral duty of vegetarianism or veganism on it's own chosen grounds - objectively speaking

and.....ofc...being decent to animals (however we define either term) doesn't have to have an ecological pay-for in the first place. I'd be kinder even if there were an ecological cost to that kindness - which is great, because it doesn't take long to start tallying one up.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Without new facts in evidence, it becomes mental masturbation, seems to me.

Well, to ask you a straightforward yes-or-no question: Do you think that if everybody in the world believed that slavery was okay then it would be okay?

Not by my lights. It would be okay to them.