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Do you think that animals have consciousness? Do they feel pain, fear? Is it moral for you to inflict pain and fear on a conscious being? What about 1,000,000 of those beings? Would you butcher a toddler for meat? What about an animal with similar (or more) depth of emotion and cognition than that? Is it okay because they are other species? What about the deforestation caused by animal agriculture? What about the impact on climate change? I think there are many valid moral arguments that you are outright dismissing with a mere hand wave. I hope you give it some more thought
if you have an argument that it is immoral, make it. i don't care for your interrogative style.
I like to give people questions to ponder and explore. I think my arguments are very clear from the questions I have raised. Suffering of conscious beings is a negative thing. Particularly the egregious conditions in which we raise our "meat". This isn't even considering the horrible conditions that humans suffer working in and around the meat industry.
I like to give people questions to ponder and explore.
if you don't wan to construct an argument that's fine, but the socratic method isn't terribly convincing for me and many others.
You can't appreciate a philosophical argument on a philosophical issue? I suppose that can be valid. It seems to me you don't want to consider the ideas I have raised in good faith
i'm willing to consider a fully formed argument. i'm not willing to be pestered by an endless interrogation.
Suffering of conscious beings is a negative thing.
can you support this claim?
There's obviously no way to prove this sort of statement, however every conscious being I've asked has told me they don't like suffering. Additionally, almost all conscious beings specifically go out of their way to avoid suffering. I personally find this evidence sufficiently convincing.
but pain in and of itself isn't bad. it can be justified or unjustified.
We're not simply talking about pain, though. I like the painful sensation from hot peppers, for example, but I wouldn't ever wish to subject myself to the systematic violence and awful conditions that farmed animals face.
and I wouldn't wish for you to be treated like an animal, either.
Can you supply a convincing argument for suffering? We are fully capable of living with much, much less meat production. Why should we continue to inflict pain on things which can experience it? It seems manifest to me
Can you supply a convincing argument for suffering?
i'm not saying it's a moral good. i'm saying it's amoral. as in it is neither good or bad in itself.
We have agency over our actions and the ability to reduce the negative impacts we have on the world. We are unique in this ability, and we should exercise it
it's not clear that animal suffering is a negative.
Would you kick a dog in the street? Shoot a cat with a bb gun? These are things that happen with frequency, but I wouldn't do because I think that causing pain to another animal, senselessly, is a bad thing.
Would you raise a chicken in complete darkness for its whole life? Would you raise a cow in a suffocatingly small pen among its excrement? Impregnate a cow constantly and steal its babies away for meat so you can continue to milk it until it dies? Animals feel pain. They communicate, they suffer, they mourn.
If you can supply an argument that causing suffering of innocent animals is good/doesn't matter, I'm all ears.
If you can supply an argument that causing suffering ... is good/doesn’t matter
sure. battlefield amputations cause suffering. sometimes it saves a life. it's good.
If you can supply an argument that causing suffering of innocent animals is good/doesn’t matter, I’m all ears.
"innocent" here is an appeal to emotion, since we don't regard non-human animals as moral agents.
Would you kick a dog in the street? Shoot a cat with a bb gun?
no. these are cruel. practicing cruelty toward animals may create a habit, and end with practicing cruelty toward people, which would be immoral. it is best not to practice cruelty at all.
Is it moral for you to inflict pain and fear on a conscious being?
i suppose that depends on circumstances.
What about the deforestation caused by animal agriculture?
that's bad. buying beans doesn't fix it though.
This is a strawman. No one is arguing buying beans fixes deforestation. However, if less meat is produced (ie less animals are raised for slaughter), then less deforestation will come as a result of the meat industry. If legume farming was destroying the rainforest, I'd have a problem with that too
If legume farming was destroying the rainforest,
turns out, a lot of the the deforested amazon is being used to grow soy.
This was the case, and is certainly problematic. Take it a step further -- who or what is consuming that soy? Animal agriculture, by and large. Therefore this is an argument for veganism, or at least reducing consumption.
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/victories/amazon-rainforest-deforestation-soy-moratorium-success/
the vast majority of the world's soy (about 85%) is pressed for oil in an oil press for human use. the byproduct of the press is called soy meal or soy cake, and would be a waste product if we didn't find a use for it. currently, almost all of it goes to feed livestock, (about 70% of the entire crop-weight).
soybeans are used by people, and we feed the trash to livestock.
Can you supply a source for this please?
This seems to reinforce my point. Surely 75% of production is not simply wastage otherwise. This is even ignoring the fact that I provided a source showing that deforestation by soy is far less problematic than it used to be.
the soybean is only 20% oil. we extract 17% of the global crop as oil. we must find something to do with that waste product.
This is even ignoring the fact that I provided a source showing that deforestation by soy is far less problematic than it used to be.
ok. i did "ignore" that. am i supposed to accolade every true statement?
if less meat is produced (ie less animals are raised for slaughter), then less deforestation will come as a result of the meat industry.
but just being vegan doesn't cause this to happen.
It's simple economics. Less demand, less supply.
that's not causal.
you are outright dismissing with a mere hand wave.
i am not. i have been fighting with vegans, primarily on issues of the environment, for i think 8 or 9 years now. i have heard about every argument (though i'm always excited to find a new one!), and i have not been convinced by any of them that i have a duty to be vegan.
