The morality behind veganism

[Syne]

The question about homosexuality wasn’t meant to be a red herring.  I want to know how you think.  Tell me how you came to those conclusions.  Give me an example of a good simpliciter for homosexuality and omnivorism.  

Homosexuality is off-topic in this thread, and it is a red herring...no doubt in an attempt to poison the well, which you've already tried. Besides, it is redundant for the purpose to "know how [I] think" when you're also asking for an on-topic example.

Some of the good simpliciter of omnivorism:

• The high population and birth rate serve the survival and evolutionary adaptation of a species. Had we found any now-extinct species both suitable to domestication and good sources of food, they would not be extinct now.
  
• There is evidence that meatless diets in both parents can have negative epigenetic repercussions on the health and intelligence of their children. Our species developed on a meat diet, and there are many unforeseen consequences of suddenly changing what any species has adapted to over thousands of years.
  http://www.epigenome.eu/en/2,48,875
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16197315
  

One might argue that the survival of the species does not justify hardship of the individual, and this would be true for humans (except where avoidance of such hardship actually threatens the entire species). But humans are moral agents whose individual actions are more consequential than those of an individual animal. Animals exist largely to survive and reproduce. Farming serves both these...in an abundance unrivaled in nature.

[Secular Sanity]

Some of the good simpliciter of omnivorism:

• The high population and birth rate serve the survival and evolutionary adaptation of a species. Had we found any now-extinct species both suitable to domestication and good sources of food, they would not be extinct now.
  

• There is evidence that meatless diets in both parents can have negative epigenetic repercussions on the health and intelligence of their children. Our species developed on a meat diet, and there are many unforeseen consequences of suddenly changing what any species has adapted to over thousands of years.
  
  

One might argue that the survival of the species does not justify hardship of the individual, and this would be true for humans (except where avoidance of such hardship actually threatens the entire species). But humans are moral agents whose individual actions are more consequential than those of an individual animal. Animals exist largely to survive and reproduce. Farming serves both these...in an abundance unrivaled in nature.

In other words, we’re eating them for their own good.  

Yes, Syne, we are omnivores, but that appeals to the naturalistic fallacy.  You’re equating what 'was' and 'is' with 'should'.  You can’t really use that one now, can you?  You can’t say to hell with it.  We’re a part of the natural world.  Therefore, whatever we do is natural.  That really wouldn’t line up with your claim against homosexuality.  You can try to prove that it’s bad for the environment, but are humans good for the environment?  You can argue that it’s unhealthy, but can we survive on a vegan diet with supplementations, and remain healthy?  Or is eating meat simply more convenient?

This may be a pre-coffee glitch, so please bear with me.  I was thinking about the question that I asked Leigha earlier.

"If we didn't treat animals inhumanely, would you consider it ethical to eat meat?"

What happens when we compare the word 'inhumane' against itself?  

Inhumane:  Not human or lack of sympathy.

What does it mean to be human?  When we use the word 'inhumane' are we saying that it's our empathy that distinguishes us from an animal?

[Syne]

I'm not making an argument for the status quo or the naturalistic fallacy. Did you even read the evidence in the links you redacted from my quoted post? We have a greater logical responsibility to our own species, even just as an evolutionary imperative. We have a symbiotic relationship with food species, where we benefit from the calories/nutrition and they benefit from our interest in their care, breeding, and abundance. It does work out for the good of the species, and evolution does not show preference for the individual over the entire species. Likewise with humans, if herbivorous diets make offspring less healthy and intelligent then competitive pressure will ultimately be detrimental to those offspring. We have the same ethical epigenetic obligation to our children that we have to refrain from smoking/drinking while pregnant.

Aside from that, I believe it was an article you linked that said that producing crops resulted in:

• at least 25 times more sentient animals being killed per kilogram of useable protein
  
• more environmental damage, and
  
• a great deal more animal cruelty than does farming red meat.
  

Ethics is not a matter of individual sympathies. It is a matter of rationally weighing competing interests. Vegans simply don't have the same sympathies for rodents, snakes, and the environment as they do for cute calves, etc.. What is humane appeals to our humanity, but ethics is no more equivalent to altruism than it is to morals. Again, emotions only bias our decisions. And no, it is not empathy that distinguishes us from animals. There is plenty of evidence that animals can display empathy, even beyond their own species. What sets us apart is our capacity to reason.

[Leigha]

It has been said that altruism can have selfish motives behind it in that in order for a species to stand the best chance of survival, looking out for the entire group instead of just one's self, proves to be more prudent and necessary to the species' survival. If helping others rewards us in even the smallest of ways, is that truly altruistic?

[Secular Sanity]

It has been said that altruism can have selfish motives behind it in that in order for a species to stand the best chance of survival, looking out for the entire group instead of just one's self, proves to be more prudent and necessary to the species' survival. If helping others rewards us in even the smallest of ways, is that truly altruistic?

You might enjoy this book, "Pathological Altruism", Wegs.

The problem for me is that Syne isn’t really starting with a clean slate.  He came to the table as a creationist and has also admitted to being an anthropocentrist, as well.  I can’t simply hold that against him, though, without fully understanding it.  I’m going to read this article, Anthropocentrism: A Misunderstood Problem , and give it some more thought.

[Syne]

It has been said that altruism can have selfish motives behind it in that in order for a species to stand the best chance of survival, looking out for the entire group instead of just one's self, proves to be more prudent and necessary to the species' survival. If helping others rewards us in even the smallest of ways, is that truly altruistic?

That can be true...but only within a species. Any self-sacrifice without immediately discernible reward is altruistic.

The problem for me is that Syne isn’t really starting with a clean slate.  He came to the table as a creationist and has also admitted to being an anthropocentrist, as well.  I can’t simply hold that against him, though, without fully understanding it.  I’m going to read this article, Anthropocentrism: A Misunderstood Problem , and give it some more thought.

I hadn't really thought about it (since I focus on actual arguments made instead of ways to poison the well), but your atheism does seem to be the single driving factor in your beliefs. If you presume humans are just animals then you can justify your own natural inclinations over any ethical obligation of a species with more moral agency. You can justify your hypocritical view that meat eating is unethical while still eating meat, because your natural inclination is to justify your emotions (like sympathies for cute animals) while not curtailing your natural appetites.

Most people do not lend any credence to people whose actions do not match their words. So it is lucky for you that I don't just write you off as a hypocrite just trying to score virtue-signalling points. The idea that you might try to dismiss my arguments because I have a consistent ethical worldview is preposterous. That's like coming into an ethical discussion only to assert ethics don't exist. It automatically precludes you from legitimate intellectual discussion.

And all of this, like your qualms over my worldview, are a genetic fallacy.

Co-founder of Greenpeace explains the problem of ignoring human interests:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/BpBnJq19R60

[Secular Sanity]

From the article that I linked, I'd have to say that you are a human chauvinist, a speciesist.

"While the human chauvinist may officially claim there are criteria which provide reasons for preferring humans – such as that they have language, rationality, sociality etc. – no amount of evidence that other beings fulfil these criteria would satisfy them that they should be afforded a similar moral concern. The bottom line for the human chauvinist is that being human is a necessary and sufficient condition of moral concern."

Do animals deserve respect? 

And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:  But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.

Unlike animals, fruits have evolved to be eaten.  Ultimately, all animals, including humans, serve as carriers of life.  All animals play an integral part in sustaining plant life.  If we are going to eat animals, we need to respect them.

If you presume humans are just animals then you can justify your own natural inclinations over any ethical obligation of a species with more moral agency.

I liked Jay Bost's answer.

"The issue of killing of a sentient being, however, lingers. To which each individual human being must react by asking: Am I willing to divide the world into that which I have deemed is worthy of being spared the inevitable and that which is not worthy? Or is such a division hopelessly artificial? A poem of Wislawa Szymborska’s, "In Praise of Self-Deprecation," comes to mind.

In Praise of Self-Deprecation

The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.
Scruples are alien to the black panther.
Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.
The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations.
The self-critical jackal does not exist.
The locust, alligator, trichina, horsefly
live as they live and are glad of it.
The killer whale's heart weighs one hundred kilos
but in other respects it is light.
There is nothing more animal-like
than a clear conscience
on the third planet of the Sun.

They are able to cycle nutrients, aid in land management and convert sun to food in ways that are nearly impossible for us to do without fossil fuel.

For me, eating meat is ethical when one does three things. First, you accept the biological reality that death begets life on this planet and that all life (including us!) is really just solar energy temporarily stored in an impermanent form. Second, you combine this realization with that cherished human trait of compassion and choose ethically raised food, vegetable, grain and/or meat. And third, you give thanks."
—Jay Bost

So it is lucky for you that I don't just write you off as a hypocrite just trying to score virtue-signalling points.

Luckily for you, I don’t believe in luck and as for virtue-signaling—well…

If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, syne lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

I can’t help it.  I crack myself up.  

Co-founder of Greenpeace explains the problem of ignoring human interests:

Yes, I agree. Vegans should also respect human interests and avoid going the way of Cain.

I don’t think that C C would mind me sharing this PM.  I like the way her mind works.  

The members of the Weather Underground were horrified by the suffering and oppression of victims in their own time, and they wove that suffering into a larger narrative stretching back to the founding of America via genocide of Native Americans and enslavement of Africans. Once victims had been sacralized, the devil was clear: white capitalist America, which must be destroyed, by any means available.

Even though their morality was based squarely on the Harm/care foundation, which generally makes people recoil from violence, the group found a way to justify and motivate violence. They perpetrated dozens of bombings, mostly of police stations and other buildings that could plausibly be said to be part of the “system.” At one point they had planned to detonate a bomb at a Non-Commissioned Officers’ dance at the Fort Dix U.S. Army base, but the bomb went off in the bomb-maker’s Greenwich Village townhouse. After that episode, the group tried to avoid killing people and focused on destroying property; nevertheless, several members were involved in a botched 1981 robbery of a Brink’s truck that resulted in the killing of two police officers and two security guards.

The group’s leader, Mark Rudd, said of the time, “I cherished my hate as a badge of moral superiority”. Although the group members’ Harm and Fairness values led them to idealistic violence, those values also contributed to much self-criticism in later years. Some came to denounce the violent tactics, some still support them, but most came to agree with Berlin’s warning about the dangers of moral absolutism.

“The Vietnam war made us crazy,” said Brian Flanagan, years after his involvement with the group. “When you think you have right on your side, you can do some horrific things”.

Similarly, Bill Ayers reflected that “One of the great mistakes of 1969 is that we thought we [alone] had it right. The main failures we had were those of smugness and certainty and arrogance”.

Finally, Naomi Jaffe reflected on some of the group’s vacillations between extreme positions (whichever seemed more in line with the revolutionary narrative at the time): “It was reflected in the see-sawing from dismissing the white working class to glorifying the white working class. Obviously, both those positions are wrong. But they’re wrong because what’s right is pretty difficult and complicated”.

This vacillation illustrates two features of sacredness: It is all-or-nothing (the object in question is either sacred or profane), and it is constructed by tightly knit moral communities, not by individuals.

PDF: http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~jessegra/papers/...hapter.pdf

It’s scary, isn’t it, C C.  People are scary.

Planet of the enhanced apes, going superorganism for better or worse.

[Syne]

From the article that I linked, I'd have to say that you are a human chauvinist, a speciesist.

"While the human chauvinist may officially claim there are criteria which provide reasons for preferring humans – such as that they have language, rationality, sociality etc. – no amount of evidence that other beings fulfil these criteria would satisfy them that they should be afforded a similar moral concern. The bottom line for the human chauvinist is that being human is a necessary and sufficient condition of moral concern."

Do animals deserve respect? 

And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:  But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.

Unlike animals, fruits have evolved to be eaten.  Ultimately, all animals, including humans, serve as carriers of life.  All animals play an integral part in sustaining plant life.  If we are going to eat animals, we need to respect them.

Really? You think "no amount of evidence that other beings" "have language, rationality, sociality etc." would have an effect? I've argued that these traits are some of what give humans their primacy, so it would actually stand to reason that these traits proven in other species would raise them to at least some degree of parity. But you're not really using reason.

LOL. You trying to use the Bible is a joke. That same god purportedly made animal sacrifice a law (even in the same book of the Bible).

Do you make sure you only eat meat from specific, humane farms? Even when eating out? Or are you just hypocritically preaching at others?

If you presume humans are just animals then you can justify your own natural inclinations over any ethical obligation of a species with more moral agency.

I liked Jay Bost's answer.

"The issue of killing of a sentient being, however, lingers. To which each individual human being must react by asking: Am I willing to divide the world into that which I have deemed is worthy of being spared the inevitable and that which is not worthy? Or is such a division hopelessly artificial? A poem of Wislawa Szymborska’s, "In Praise of Self-Deprecation," comes to mind.

Yet you are hypocritically willing to "divide the world into that which I have deemed is worthy of being spared the inevitable and that which is not worthy" when it comes to fetal human life?

So it is lucky for you that I don't just write you off as a hypocrite just trying to score virtue-signalling points.

Luckily for you, I don’t believe in luck and as for virtue-signaling—well…

If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, syne lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

I can’t help it.  I crack myself up.  

Already setting up your usual "I wasn't being serious" defense? And it's pronounced "sign" not "sin".

Co-founder of Greenpeace explains the problem of ignoring human interests:

Yes, I agree. Vegans should also respect human interests and avoid going the way of Cain.

I don’t think that C C would mind me sharing this PM.  I like the way her mind works.  

This vacillation illustrates two features of sacredness: It is all-or-nothing (the object in question is either sacred or profane), and it is constructed by tightly knit moral communities, not by individuals. [/spoiler]

"There is an element of paradox in the concept of respect for a sacred cow, as illustrated in a comment about the novelist V. S. Naipaul: V. S. Naipaul ... has the ability to distinguish the death of an ordinary ox, which, being of concern to no one, may be put quickly out of its agony, from that of a sacred cow, which must be solicitously guarded so that it can die its agonizing death without any interference." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_cow...29#Paradox

What would vegans do without their sacred cow?

[Secular Sanity]

Ah, darn it.  I keep associating it with your old user name.  Well, you proved one thing, I’m not as funny as think I am.    

Really? You think "no amount of evidence that other beings" "have language, rationality, sociality etc." would have an effect? I've argued that these traits are some of what give humans their primacy, so it would actually stand to reason that these traits proven in other species would raise them to at least some degree of parity. But you're not really using reason.

You’ve proved that I’m not as funny as I think I am.  Now I’ll prove that you’re not as special as you think you are. As
Peter Tse has said, we became symbolic and abstract.  Yuval Harari has pointed out that this abstract thinking is what enabled us to cooperate on a large scale.

Yuval Noah Harari: What Explains the Rise of Humans?

Usually, we look for the difference between us and all the other animals on the individual level. We want to believe -- I want to believe -- that there is something special about me, about my body, about my brain, that makes me so superior to a dog or a pig, or a chimpanzee. But the truth is that, on the individual level, I'm embarrassingly similar to a chimpanzee. And if you take me and a chimpanzee and put us together on some lonely island, and we had to struggle for survival to see who survives better, I would definitely place my bet on the chimpanzee, not on myself. And this is not something wrong with me personally. I guess if they took almost any one of you, and placed you alone with a chimpanzee on some island, the chimpanzee would do much better.

The real difference between humans and all other animals is not on the individual level; it's on the collective level. Humans control the planet because they are the only animals that can cooperate both flexibly and in very large numbers. Now, there are other animals -- like the social insects, the bees, the ants -- that can cooperate in large numbers, but they don't do so flexibly. Their cooperation is very rigid.

The only animal that can combine the two abilities together and cooperate both flexibly and still do so in very large numbers is us, Homo sapiens. One versus one, or even 10 versus 10, chimpanzees might be better than us. But, if you pit 1,000 humans against 1,000 chimpanzees, the humans will win easily, for the simple reason that a thousand chimpanzees cannot cooperate at all. And if you now try to cram 100,000 chimpanzees into Oxford Street, or into Wembley Stadium, or Tienanmen Square or the Vatican,you will get chaos, complete chaos. Just imagine Wembley Stadium with 100,000 chimpanzees.Complete madness.

In contrast, humans normally gather there in tens of thousands, and what we get is not chaos, usually.What we get is extremely sophisticated and effective networks of cooperation. All the huge achievements of humankind throughout history, whether it's building the pyramids or flying to the moon, have been based not on individual abilities, but on this ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.

Now suppose I've managed to convince you perhaps that yes, we control the world because we can cooperate flexibly in large numbers. The next question that immediately arises in the mind of an inquisitive listener is: How, exactly, do we do it? What enables us alone, of all the animals, to cooperate in such a way? The answer is our imagination. We can cooperate flexibly with countless numbers of strangers, because we alone, of all the animals on the planet, can create and believe fictions, fictional stories. And as long as everybody believes in the same fiction, everybody obeys and follows the same rules, the same norms, the same values.

To conclude, then: We humans control the world because we live in a dual reality. All other animals live in an objective reality. Their reality consists of objective entities, like rivers and trees and lions and elephants. We humans, we also live in an objective reality. In our world, too, there are rivers and trees and lions and elephants. But over the centuries, we have constructed on top of this objective reality a second layer of fictional reality, a reality made of fictional entities, like nations, like gods, like money, like corporations. And what is amazing is that as history unfolded, this fictional reality became more and more powerful so that today, the most powerful forces in the world are these fictional entities. Today, the very survival of rivers and trees and lions and elephants depends on the decisions and wishes of fictional entities, like the United States, like Google, like the World Bank -- entities that exist only in our own imagination.

Yet you are hypocritically willing to "divide the world into that which I have deemed is worthy of being spared the inevitable and that which is not worthy" when it comes to fetal human life?

We’ve already discussed this.  While we may be the carriers of life and serve its future, in doing so, we must discover its value for ourselves, and its value resides in the present.  Most agree that higher brain birth begins approximately 24-36 weeks.  Everyone agrees that even a zygote is a potential life, but not everyone feels that a woman’s primary role is to be a carrier for that potential life.  

How can you equate legal abortion to murder when it has never lived?

[Syne]

You’ve proved that I’m not as funny as I think I am.  Now I’ll prove that you’re not as special as you think you are. As
Peter Tse has said, we became symbolic and abstract.  Yuval Harari has pointed out that this abstract thinking is what enabled us to cooperate on a large scale.

Did you mean to include some "proof" or evidence there? All you've provided was conjecture...and apparently only as an appeal to authority (since you don't seem capable of making a merit-based argument yourself).

Yet you are hypocritically willing to "divide the world into that which I have deemed is worthy of being spared the inevitable and that which is not worthy" when it comes to fetal human life?

We’ve already discussed this.  While we may be the carriers of life and serve its future, in doing so, we must discover its value for ourselves, and its value resides in the present.  Most agree that higher brain birth begins approximately 24-36 weeks.  Everyone agrees that even a zygote is a potential life, but not everyone feels that a woman’s primary role is to be a carrier for that potential life.  

How can you equate legal abortion to murder when it has never lived?

I remember you abandoning that discussion because you never could forward a consistent or cogent argument. An organism that has individually distinct human DNA is a human life. That is simple taxonomy. Your equivocation of "life" as "experience" is a red herring.

You just verified that you do "divide the world into that which I have deemed is worthy of being spared the inevitable and that which is not worthy". So you're just a run-of-the-mill hypocrite.