Ethics of veganism

[npts2020]

15 hours ago, LuckyR said:

No, I brought up the point to illustrate the fact that practicing veganism doesn't necessarily absolve one from the purported "negatives" of the industrial ranching industry.

Perhaps not but there is such a thing as degree. Drinking one beer a day will not completely eliminate all of the negative effects of alcohol but it surely reduces them greatly when compared to an individual who drinks a fifth of bourbon every day. How much meat does the average cat eat compared to the average American? Keep in mind a large, active cat only needs to eat 400-600 calories a day.   https://pet-calculator.com/cat-calorie-calculator/

[LuckyR]

21 hours ago, npts2020 said:

Perhaps not but there is such a thing as degree. Drinking one beer a day will not completely eliminate all of the negative effects of alcohol but it surely reduces them greatly when compared to an individual who drinks a fifth of bourbon every day. How much meat does the average cat eat compared to the average American? Keep in mind a large, active cat only needs to eat 400-600 calories a day.   https://pet-calculator.com/cat-calorie-calculator/

Which totally makes sense in the environment forum, but here in the ethics forum, "degree" isn't the focus. Either you support the industrial ranching industry, or you don't.

[TheVat]

So degree and nuance aren't relevant to ethics?  It only deals in absolutes and binary choices?  I don't think that's the case.

 

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

So degree and nuance aren't relevant to ethics?  It only deals in absolutes and binary choices?  I don't think that's the case.

 

It reminds me of trying to understand relational databases, my ears bled brains... 

[LuckyR]

4 hours ago, TheVat said:

So degree and nuance aren't relevant to ethics?  It only deals in absolutes and binary choices?  I don't think that's the case.

 

Nice try. I did not say not "relevant", I said "not the focus". For example, if on the scale of murder victims created, the "degree" between killing 10 vs killing 2, is 8, whereas the degree of difference between 1 and zero is only one. However ethically the difference between violating the community ethical standard by murdering one is huge, whereas the difference between violating the ethical standard twice vs 10 times, still puts one in the ethical category of "murderer". I don't dispute that you are free to disagree, though most in the community (whose ethical standard is the measuring stick) agree. 

Edited February 13 by LuckyR

[TheVat]

7 hours ago, LuckyR said:

Nice try. I did not say not "relevant", I said "not the focus". For example, if on the scale of murder victims created, the "degree" between killing 10 vs killing 2, is 8, whereas the degree of difference between 1 and zero is only one. However ethically the difference between violating the community ethical standard by murdering one is huge, whereas the difference between violating the ethical standard twice vs 10 times, still puts one in the ethical category of "murderer". I don't dispute that you are free to disagree, though most in the community (whose ethical standard is the measuring stick) agree. 

There could be a different issue of degree, however, from homicide.  If so, your example might not work as an ethical modeling of, say, using ground up salmon heads to make cat food.  I don't find any evidence that fish are developmentally advanced enough to be self-aware and cognizant of mortality, so a sustainable harvest of them used for feeding my furry companions does not seem to be equivalent to a person committing murder.  (though I would object to asphyxiation of the salmon as a method of killing them, as I object to any inhumane treatment of an animal)  Questioning equivalences is part of what I see as nuance in an ethical discussion, and very much part of the focus of a thread on the ethics of vegan v nonvegan.  I hope this clarifies my position a bit.

[LuckyR]

On 2/13/2025 at 6:51 PM, TheVat said:

There could be a different issue of degree, however, from homicide.  If so, your example might not work as an ethical modeling of, say, using ground up salmon heads to make cat food.  I don't find any evidence that fish are developmentally advanced enough to be self-aware and cognizant of mortality, so a sustainable harvest of them used for feeding my furry companions does not seem to be equivalent to a person committing murder.  (though I would object to asphyxiation of the salmon as a method of killing them, as I object to any inhumane treatment of an animal)  Questioning equivalences is part of what I see as nuance in an ethical discussion, and very much part of the focus of a thread on the ethics of vegan v nonvegan.  I hope this clarifies my position a bit.

Oh, I apologize for being difficult to understand, I wasn't trying to equate murder with eating meat, I was illustrating how ethics, unlike other more quantitative endeavors, focuses more on whether ethical standards are breached (or not), than it does on how much those standards are breached. Of course as a secondary issue once the primary question of one's ethical status is determined, especially when comparing two examples of violations of ethical standards, we can debate whether this or that breach is larger, but that's a lesser concern.

[npts2020]

On 2/13/2025 at 2:15 AM, LuckyR said:

in the ethics forum, "degree" isn't the focus. Either you support the industrial ranching industry, or you don't.

Actually degree is frequently (if not always) a focus in ethics. How many people do you know who say murder is wrong but still support capital punishment? How about ones who say lying is wrong but will still tell their kids about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or the Boogeyman? Are those people unethical?

[dimreepr]

50 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

Actually degree is frequently (if not always) a focus in ethics. How many people do you know who say murder is wrong but still support capital punishment? How about ones who say lying is wrong but will still tell their kids about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or the Boogeyman? Are those people unethical?

This is why the vegan argument doesn't work ethically, bc it's emotional.

frequency is completely irrelevant, the focus of ethics is to remove the emotional argument...

Essentially, the auditors of life. 😉

[LuckyR]

7 hours ago, npts2020 said:

Actually degree is frequently (if not always) a focus in ethics. How many people do you know who say murder is wrong but still support capital punishment? How about ones who say lying is wrong but will still tell their kids about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or the Boogeyman? Are those people unethical?

I'm not seeing your examples as refutations of my comment. You're (correctly) bringing up examples of contractictions within belief systems, which underscore flaws in individual's purported ethics. Not dissimilar to the vegan cat owner in my example. 

 

Of course, all of the above use rationalizations to smooth over these internal ethical (actually moral, but many use the terms interchangeably) inconsistancies. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Just a thing. 

Edited February 15 by LuckyR

[dimreepr]

17 hours ago, LuckyR said:

I'm not seeing your examples as refutations of my comment. You're (correctly) bringing up examples of contractictions within belief systems, which underscore flaws in individual's purported ethics. Not dissimilar to the vegan cat owner in my example. 

 

Of course, all of the above use rationalizations to smooth over these internal ethical (actually moral, but many use the terms interchangeably) inconsistancies. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Just a thing. 

The difference is, individuals can have morals society needs ethics.

A moral can be an absolute, where as an ethic is a democratic version of a moral.

The NHS is a typical example; free at the point of need, coupled with the doctor's hypocratic oath, combine to make NICE appear rather nasty; and thus it drowns in absolute need...

[LuckyR]

7 hours ago, dimreepr said:

The difference is, individuals can have morals society needs ethics.

A moral can be an absolute, where as an ethic is a democratic version of a moral.

The NHS is a typical example; free at the point of need, coupled with the doctor's hypocratic oath, combine to make NICE appear rather nasty; and thus it drowns in absolute need...

We are in agreement on the relative difference between morals and ethics (though the appreciation of the difference is not universal). 

Having said that, please go into further detail on the "difference" you're referring to in your first paragraph. 

[npts2020]

On 2/15/2025 at 7:09 AM, dimreepr said:

This is why the vegan argument doesn't work ethically, bc it's emotional.

frequency is completely irrelevant, the focus of ethics is to remove the emotional argument...

I fail to see what frequency has to do with emotion. Furthermore, you will have to explain to me what the emotional part of the sustainability and good health arguments in favor of veganism are.

 

(I also noticed nobody cared to tackle the ethics of adopting feral cats vs killing them or allowing them to eat all of the birds in the neighborhood except to make a blanket statement that vegans shouldn't have cats)

[TheVat]

32 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

also noticed nobody cared to tackle the ethics of adopting feral cats vs killing them or allowing them to eat all of the birds in the neighborhood except to make a blanket statement that vegans shouldn't have cats)

Bear in mind that some of us are pretty busy these days, not just with life in general, but being blasted by the new administration with a gushing firehose of flaming crap and trying to get some sense of what's happening to our country.  I did want to respond to some of your comments.  A lot of feral cats do end up being euthanized, so I think one could argue that adoption has multiple knock-on effects including avian species protection, improving quality of life for both the cats and the humans who accept them as companions, rodent infestation control in houses (thus reducing use of poisons, and also possible spread of disease from rodent feces), etc.

  I don't see simple binary answers to the thorny questions of what moral weights we give each benefit or detriment.  Being vegan is not usually construed as an absolute moral rejection of carnivory in all species - that would be ridiculous.  A vegan can eat no meat, but that doesn't create a world where natural carnivores like felines can be converted to veganism.  Given the control we humans have over ecosystems, we do have to consider our obligations of sound stewardship.  Should an excess of predators on avian species, disrupting an ecological balance, be handled primarily with culling the predators, leaving them alone, or domestication and feeding with processed foods that use waste scraps from industrial food production?  I am perhaps too biased (cat lover) to arrive easily at some objective assessment.

[npts2020]

That's kind of the point, even in the most ethical of regimes there will be grey areas where right and wrong are not easily delineated. Having spent a pretty good portion of my life on and around farms, I am not particularly shocked by the slaughter of an animal for food but that seems to be the biggest reason a lot of vegetarians I know don't eat meat and fits into the above narrative of emotions ruling the day. However, that was never a major influence on my decision to become and remain a vegetarian for the past several decades.

[dimreepr]

16 hours ago, LuckyR said:

Having said that, please go into further detail on the "difference" you're referring to in your first paragraph.

Essentially, the individual can hold a moral absolute and express its value, in order to persuade other's; ethics is the brake that stops one from enforcing that value on others...

12 hours ago, npts2020 said:

I fail to see what frequency has to do with emotion.

You're conflating my arguments in order to be obtuse

 

12 hours ago, npts2020 said:

Furthermore, you will have to explain to me what the emotional part of the sustainability and good health arguments in favor of veganism are.

Not my job, if you hadn't noticed, I'm not a fan... 🙄

10 hours ago, npts2020 said:

That's kind of the point, even in the most ethical of regimes there will be grey areas where right and wrong are not easily delineated. Having spent a pretty good portion of my life on and around farms, I am not particularly shocked by the slaughter of an animal for food but that seems to be the biggest reason a lot of vegetarians I know don't eat meat and fits into the above narrative of emotions ruling the day. However, that was never a major influence on my decision to become and remain a vegetarian for the past several decades.

Good for you, I genuinely applaud your fortitude in resisting a 'bacon sarnie' in order to stick to your moral stance; but we are talking about veganism in this topic...

And that means no cheese, and arguable no honey either; no good can come from this... 😉

13 hours ago, npts2020 said:

(I also noticed nobody cared to tackle the ethics of adopting feral cats vs killing them or allowing them to eat all of the birds in the neighborhood except to make a blanket statement that vegans shouldn't have cats)

Mostly bc it's an emotional argument and I've already explained why that's not relevant here...