It's pretty easy to justify veganism, if you can argue that you should care about animals. There's pretty much no other good reason to be a vegan. I assumed you're a vegan and you probably watched some of these vegan propaganda videos which influenced your decision. I'm making generalizations here, so if you aren't a vegan just ignore this.
There are also religous, environmental and humanitarian reasons but those are a lot rarer. Just saying
Global warming is a another topic entirely, though I'm not convinced on the actions of humans causing it. If you are talking about other enviromental stuff, well you should be protesting for better enviromental care and not boycott every animal product.
Doing absolutely anything because of religious reasons if borderline retarded and any intelligent person can see that.
Humanitarian reasons are basically just feeling sorry for the animals.
I think you are taking a bit the easy way out here. Do you think that a moral system should be equally valid for any moral agent? If, to take an exotic example, an advanced alien race would fly to planet earth, imprison all of mankind and begin to eat one after the other, do you think that they would be doing something "wrong", in any meaningful sense of the term?
There is no objective morality. Of course I would think that they're doing something wrong, because mankind is suffering. Mankind is what keeps me alive and provides for me. But from the alien pow, they aren't doing anything wrong. I don't really understand what you mean by taking the easy way out. I feel like you're trying to go into arguing semantics.
I am not at all trying to "argue semantics", but I thought you would argue for objective morality, since I thought you said that "killing humans" would be wrong for humans (maybe I mixed up your statements). I only wanted to point out that if a moral system exists for humans I don't see any consistent way to limit it to humans merely on the basis of species. I think if it exists, it necessarily exists for all moral agents with comparable cognitive abilities and has to consider all sentient beings. Do you hold that humanitarianism just means that you are feeling sorry for other humans, too? So if a person feels more sorry for other animals than for humans he is perfectly entitled to hold their happyness in higher regards than the happyness of humans?
Our moral system is meant to keep our society alive and going. Most people agree to "You don't hurt me and I don't hurt you." Humanitarianism is just a way of enforcing this. In the case of animals it is "I don't hurt you and I don't get anything in return." Why would I want to do something that offers me absolutely nothing, but limits my choices? Are you starting see what I mean?
If you hold animals in higher regard than other humans, other humans will not like you. Sure that person is entitled to his opinions, but he/she has to be ready to handle the consequences. Some people are against animal testing, even though it has given us huge leaps in medicine and saved thousands, if not millions of human lives. These same people would rather see all of those saved people die, if it meant that a few rats didn't have to suffer. These people can go fuck themselves.
I see, so then I just misinterpreted your other posts. Well, a moral system is exactly explaining (as in aiming to provide reasons for) why you should do (or not do) something without expecting anything in return, so it seems to me that you simply think "morals" don't exist, which is fine with me - even though I don't share your point of view. Why do you even have to justify animal experiments with the reduction of human suffering though? I take it for your view that had we the possibility to run lab experiments in the same efficiency that we have now but without harming animals, there would be absolutely no reason to take this possibility, since animals won't give us anything in return anyway ... right?
If option a) was exactly as effective as animal testing without animals and option b) was animal testing. This situation is highly unrealsitic, but it would be a coinflip. Both would be equally good.
How are morals about doing something without getting anything in return? Do you believe objective morals exists? If you do, please explain why you believe so and what evidence do you have for it.
This is starting to become an arguement about altruism. I don't believe true altruism exists, but it's almost like arguing about free will.
i'm not buying this vegan to save the plenet crap but i dont supprot human rights. some of that crap on the video is disgusting but thankfully not all meat places are liek that. ... well i hope so lol
On February 09 2011 19:36 feaynnewedd wrote: Insects do not have a central nervous system. Insects have very basic ganglions that enable them to react to their environment. Also, by killing them (swatting, stepping on), you do not make them suffer. If you read my posts, you would know that I am against making animals suffer,and against industrial livestock farming, not against the consumption of meat and killing per se.
so according to you it is better if animal is shot by a hunter, escapes, then is tracked down for a day and half, suffering and bleeding, knowing it'll eventually die, then it dies, hunter tracks it down, and takes the meat so he can feed the family. You prefer this to one shot killing at slaughterhouses.
On February 09 2011 20:20 Ksyper wrote: I'm a meat lover and an animal lover, I understand that none of these animals would have ever existed if it weren't for these farms and I also understand that this is cheapest and fastest way to get meat for people. But watching that was a bit horrifying at times, that guy that was punching the baby cow deserves to be beaten to death if you ask me. Funny how I was eating meat while watching this dough...
Punching the veal is more aggression then necessary but what's more horrifying IMO is you saying that the man should be killed. Seriously? A human-being categorized in the same ranks as an animal we eat everyday?
I'm not going to discuss greenhouse gases, but the US only imports 15% of the oil they use, while exporting over 50% of the oil we produce domestically. It has nothing to do with "arabian dictatorships"
I am not American, I am German, we import all of our oil. But can you please give me a link for your numbers? By the way, non-constitutional monarchies = dictatorships (like Saudi Arabia, Kuweit, Bahrain, UAE, etc.)
A lot of US oil data can be found at the Energy Information Administration, a part of the US Department of Energy. I've lived on this web site for 2 years writing a research paper, not to mention class papers written with this site.
To sum it up, we are living in a world of cruelty. We humans are perhaps the first animals to begin pondering our cruel relationship with our surrounding. We are living our intellectual infancy, developing one step at a time. Those in future might look at 21st century people with disgust for our meat and plant eating habits, similar to how we look at slavery today.
I don't really agree with this philosophy at all. We live in a cruel world, so might as well just be cruel? And people in the past did look at slavery with disgust, the US fought a war over it (yes, that's the reason, its actually that simple, dont let warped history books twist it). Countries simply didn't have democratic institutions to get rid of it at the time - even the US did things such as the 3/5s compromise to prevent slave holding states from having more congressional power to enforce their policies. But this is a HUGE digression...
If you are that well informed, you just plainly lied. In 2009, the US imported 9,669,000 barrels/day, produced 9,141,000 barrels/day and wasn't even in the top 15 of oil exporting countries (the lowest was qatar with about 1,000,000 barrels/day). Consumption was 18,810,000 barrels/day, so I don't there was a lot of exporting.
Thanks for the site, I like it.
For the hypocrite discussion: I smoke pot, but I think that people selling crack to children should go to jail. Does that make me a hypocrite?
I've been vegan for 9 years. And from my experience and research, the health and environmental benefits would be enough to suggest it to anyone even if they don't agree with the animal rights argument.
It may be worth it to do research a few layers deeper than both PETA and Penn and Teller. Regardless, it's all incredibly interesting no matter how you feel.
And I also think that all of the Protoss race would be vegan if they had mouths.
It's pretty easy to justify veganism, if you can argue that you should care about animals. There's pretty much no other good reason to be a vegan. I assumed you're a vegan and you probably watched some of these vegan propaganda videos which influenced your decision. I'm making generalizations here, so if you aren't a vegan just ignore this.
There are also religous, environmental and humanitarian reasons but those are a lot rarer. Just saying
Global warming is a another topic entirely, though I'm not convinced on the actions of humans causing it. If you are talking about other enviromental stuff, well you should be protesting for better enviromental care and not boycott every animal product.
Doing absolutely anything because of religious reasons if borderline retarded and any intelligent person can see that.
Humanitarian reasons are basically just feeling sorry for the animals.
I think you are taking a bit the easy way out here. Do you think that a moral system should be equally valid for any moral agent? If, to take an exotic example, an advanced alien race would fly to planet earth, imprison all of mankind and begin to eat one after the other, do you think that they would be doing something "wrong", in any meaningful sense of the term?
There is no objective morality. Of course I would think that they're doing something wrong, because mankind is suffering. Mankind is what keeps me alive and provides for me. But from the alien pow, they aren't doing anything wrong. I don't really understand what you mean by taking the easy way out. I feel like you're trying to go into arguing semantics.
I am not at all trying to "argue semantics", but I thought you would argue for objective morality, since I thought you said that "killing humans" would be wrong for humans (maybe I mixed up your statements). I only wanted to point out that if a moral system exists for humans I don't see any consistent way to limit it to humans merely on the basis of species. I think if it exists, it necessarily exists for all moral agents with comparable cognitive abilities and has to consider all sentient beings. Do you hold that humanitarianism just means that you are feeling sorry for other humans, too? So if a person feels more sorry for other animals than for humans he is perfectly entitled to hold their happyness in higher regards than the happyness of humans?
Our moral system is meant to keep our society alive and going. Most people agree to "You don't hurt me and I don't hurt you." Humanitarianism is just a way of enforcing this. In the case of animals it is "I don't hurt you and I don't get anything in return." Why would I want to do something that offers me absolutely nothing, but limits my choices? Are you starting see what I mean?
If you hold animals in higher regard than other humans, other humans will not like you. Sure that person is entitled to his opinions, but he/she has to be ready to handle the consequences. Some people are against animal testing, even though it has given us huge leaps in medicine and saved thousands, if not millions of human lives. These same people would rather see all of those saved people die, if it meant that a few rats didn't have to suffer. These people can go fuck themselves.
I see, so then I just misinterpreted your other posts. Well, a moral system is exactly explaining (as in aiming to provide reasons for) why you should do (or not do) something without expecting anything in return, so it seems to me that you simply think "morals" don't exist, which is fine with me - even though I don't share your point of view. Why do you even have to justify animal experiments with the reduction of human suffering though? I take it for your view that had we the possibility to run lab experiments in the same efficiency that we have now but without harming animals, there would be absolutely no reason to take this possibility, since animals won't give us anything in return anyway ... right?
If option a) was exactly as effective as animal testing without animals and option b) was animal testing. This situation is highly unrealsitic, but it would be a coinflip. Both would be equally good.
How are morals about doing something without getting anything in return? Do you believe objective morals exists? If you do, please explain why you believe so and what evidence do you have for it.
This is starting to become an arguement about altruism. I don't believe true altruism exists, but it's almost like arguing about free will.
What are you really trying to prove?
I am not trying to prove anything!? The mere definition of a moral system entails codes of conduct which are set in place in order to promote "good" (whatever that means in a particular context). The vast majority of moral systems in modern meta-ethics is based on a non self-centered notion of "good", so it is a simple empirical fact that moral systems in place aim to provide reasons for actions which do not guarantee you a "return", but instead increase "goodness".
I am a moral realist, in that I think truth statements can be made with respect to moral contentions. I hold this view because I am sure that if there are two possible worlds, and in world 1 every sentient being is better or equally well off than in world 2", then the statement "world 1 is better (i.e. more "good") than world 2" is true. Otherwise I would not even know what "better", "good" or "bad" could even mean. Since I do not see any meaningful way to seperate humans from other animals, except on the basis of their cognitive abilities which does not seem to provide any clear cut-off, I cannot discard the states of other animals (at least not completely).
Okay... I get not eating pork and beef because theres thats really messed up what they do.... But what about egg, dairy, and most especially Fish? I dont think theres as bad humane things to do to them. Especially fish. In the video they just flop around but most of the time they are kept alive anyways..... that video portrays is at horrible is just using that as propaganda. I mean really? The fact that theres a lot of them in a net is a bad thing?
My friend who is vegan has to take all these protein and supplement pills.. Our bodies arent meant to be vegan....
Reading these posts, if people here wouldn't be: 1)ignorant 2)stupid 3)more loyal to their own beliefs and moral standards
Half of you would be at least vegetarians. These posts are really stupid and all meat eaters should be ashamed of them. If you eat meat at least be able to defend your views in a reasonable way when you feel so insecure you have to respond. Only then you can be a 'proud' meat eater. Really, you people all seem to be 'self hating' meat eaters.
Animal farming is one of the most clearcut political and ethical issues, since 3 major lines of argument converge.
1. Aproximately 53 billlion land animals are killed annually worldwide in the farming industry (this is UN statistics from 2003, so it's bound to be more now). It takes infinite naivety to actually believe that a greed driven industry of this scale has any chance to treat the average animal anywhere near decent.
2. The farming industry is one of the top two or three causes of global warming.
3. A consistent finding in epidomelogical studies across diverse populations is that meat eating is associated with poor health outcomes such as CVD and cancer, even when controlled for health awarness.
It's pretty easy to justify veganism, if you can argue that you should care about animals. There's pretty much no other good reason to be a vegan. I assumed you're a vegan and you probably watched some of these vegan propaganda videos which influenced your decision. I'm making generalizations here, so if you aren't a vegan just ignore this.
There are also religous, environmental and humanitarian reasons but those are a lot rarer. Just saying
Global warming is a another topic entirely, though I'm not convinced on the actions of humans causing it. If you are talking about other enviromental stuff, well you should be protesting for better enviromental care and not boycott every animal product.
Doing absolutely anything because of religious reasons if borderline retarded and any intelligent person can see that.
Humanitarian reasons are basically just feeling sorry for the animals.
I think you are taking a bit the easy way out here. Do you think that a moral system should be equally valid for any moral agent? If, to take an exotic example, an advanced alien race would fly to planet earth, imprison all of mankind and begin to eat one after the other, do you think that they would be doing something "wrong", in any meaningful sense of the term?
There is no objective morality. Of course I would think that they're doing something wrong, because mankind is suffering. Mankind is what keeps me alive and provides for me. But from the alien pow, they aren't doing anything wrong. I don't really understand what you mean by taking the easy way out. I feel like you're trying to go into arguing semantics.
I am not at all trying to "argue semantics", but I thought you would argue for objective morality, since I thought you said that "killing humans" would be wrong for humans (maybe I mixed up your statements). I only wanted to point out that if a moral system exists for humans I don't see any consistent way to limit it to humans merely on the basis of species. I think if it exists, it necessarily exists for all moral agents with comparable cognitive abilities and has to consider all sentient beings. Do you hold that humanitarianism just means that you are feeling sorry for other humans, too? So if a person feels more sorry for other animals than for humans he is perfectly entitled to hold their happyness in higher regards than the happyness of humans?
Our moral system is meant to keep our society alive and going. Most people agree to "You don't hurt me and I don't hurt you." Humanitarianism is just a way of enforcing this. In the case of animals it is "I don't hurt you and I don't get anything in return." Why would I want to do something that offers me absolutely nothing, but limits my choices? Are you starting see what I mean?
If you hold animals in higher regard than other humans, other humans will not like you. Sure that person is entitled to his opinions, but he/she has to be ready to handle the consequences. Some people are against animal testing, even though it has given us huge leaps in medicine and saved thousands, if not millions of human lives. These same people would rather see all of those saved people die, if it meant that a few rats didn't have to suffer. These people can go fuck themselves.
I see, so then I just misinterpreted your other posts. Well, a moral system is exactly explaining (as in aiming to provide reasons for) why you should do (or not do) something without expecting anything in return, so it seems to me that you simply think "morals" don't exist, which is fine with me - even though I don't share your point of view. Why do you even have to justify animal experiments with the reduction of human suffering though? I take it for your view that had we the possibility to run lab experiments in the same efficiency that we have now but without harming animals, there would be absolutely no reason to take this possibility, since animals won't give us anything in return anyway ... right?
If option a) was exactly as effective as animal testing without animals and option b) was animal testing. This situation is highly unrealsitic, but it would be a coinflip. Both would be equally good.
How are morals about doing something without getting anything in return? Do you believe objective morals exists? If you do, please explain why you believe so and what evidence do you have for it.
This is starting to become an arguement about altruism. I don't believe true altruism exists, but it's almost like arguing about free will.
What are you really trying to prove?
I am not trying to prove anything!? The mere definition of a moral system entails codes of conduct which are set in place in order to promote "good" (whatever that means in a particular context). The vast majority of moral systems in modern meta-ethics is based on a non self-centered notion of "good", so it is a simple empirical fact that moral systems in place aim to provide reasons for actions which do not guarantee you a "return", but instead increase "goodness".
I am a moral realist, in that I think truth statements can be made with respect to moral contentions. I hold this view because I am sure that if there are two possible worlds, and in world 1 every sentient being is better or equally well off than in world 2", then the statement "world 1 is better (i.e. more "good") than world 2" is true. Otherwise I would not even know what "better", "good" or "bad" could even mean. Since I do not see any meaningful way to seperate humans from other animals, except on the basis of their cognitive abilities which does not seem to provide any clear cut-off, I cannot discard the states of other animals (at least not completely).
I agree with you that a moral system entails a code of conduct. And I agree with you that the vast majority of moral systems are "other" oriented. But there are some important exceptions that are not prima facie incoherent: Aristotle's conception of Eudaimonia is tickling the edges of an ethical//rational egoism. M. Stirner is a straight up egoist of some kind. Nietzsche certainly thinks ethics, if it is to be something wholesome at all, should be a code of conduct that increases the strength of the individual practicing it. And don't forget Ayn Rand's Objectivist ethics (which should get more attention that it does and is getting more attention that it used to).
The human body doesn't need meat. In fact, a vegetarian is less likely to get heart disease/high blood pressure/other complications and will live longer. So the bullshit about top-of-the-food-chain "we need meat to survive" arguments do not hold at all. (Learned from medical school curriculum as of last year)
However, meat just tastes too good to give up... And as such, I did not watch that movie.
One thing I'd like to add, since there are a lot of vegetarians on this thread: Vegetarians are cool, but what really annoys me and a lot of others is the vegetarian that makes you feel guilty about eating meat, and acts like he/she is above you. So... try not to preach! Respect each other's decision.
I've always wondered what the stance is on fish/eggs/dairy products/etc. To some people, fish is okay because they are less similar to animals.
It's always meat eaters that call out the vegetarians. Not the other way around. Ask any vegetarian.
Fish are animals. They are less similar to mammals. It depends on your reasons for being a vegetarian. Eating beef or pork won't destroy the ecosystem. At least not directly. Eating fish often does. Suffering is different. Fish also live in the wild. So different moral principles are applied.
On February 09 2011 20:52 W2 wrote: The human body doesn't need meat. In fact, a vegetarian is less likely to get heart disease/high blood pressure/other complications and will live longer. So the bullshit about top-of-the-food-chain "we need meat to survive" arguments do not hold at all. (Learned from medical school curriculum as of last year)
However, meat just tastes too good to give up... And as such, I did not watch that movie.
One thing I'd like to add, since there are a lot of vegetarians on this thread: Vegetarians are cool, but what really annoys me and a lot of others is the vegetarian that makes you feel guilty about eating meat, and acts like he/she is above you. So... try not to preach! Respect each other's decision.
I've always wondered what the stance is on fish/eggs/dairy products/etc. To some people, fish is okay because they are less similar to animals.
So.... why do vegans take protein supplements and what not? I learned otherwise in some of my classes
Vegans take protein pills because they got false information from critical meat eaters. They need to take B12. But in this case I guess this person just reports the facts wrong.
Consuming less protein is a solution, not a problem.
But you agree that there is food shortage and malnutrition problems in developing countries. The point is that these countries probably could support themselves if most of their farmland was not tied up in producing meat for the west. Farmers could sell to the local population directly, instead of using western corporations as middle men. This would still allow for a limited production of meat in western countries.
I could support myself if I went into the wilderness, and so could many of these homeless people. Its a lack of education and economy that hurts, and people who are disabled or old can't live off the wild either. These countries, and the farmers/people in them, are not forced to make meat for the west. The reason they make grains for the meat for the west is because it makes them more money to do this than to make food to sustain themselves - it's the same reason farmers in Afghanistan make heroin/opium instead of crops - they are better off making drugs and using the cash to buy imported food with money leftover, than to make sustenance and solely live on that.
It's the basic principle of trade. I don't really want to explain it when others have done it better, but look up why 3 people making their own thing is much more productive than 3 people simply trying to sustain themselves.
This is obviously an issue of scale. I want to state for the record that, while i am a vegetarian, i do not condemn meat consumption on a matter of principle. The point is that at this stage, producing meat for the west seems more important then supplying the world in general with adequate amounts of food. This might make sense from an economical perspective, since the west is where the money is, but is detrimental on humanistic grounds.
Quite the opposite is true. Look up how trade works - not to be derisive, but to show that each country doing what it specializes in, is better than every country fending for itself. America will never make rice like Asians can, and Asians can never make beef like we can, and so on. A lot of this depends on the development of the country, which is a process that takes time though.
Maybe i was not quite clear in what i said. I am of course not opposing trade, but i think that supplying the world with food should be more important than supplying the west with meat and that it could easily be done if the west was less hungry for meat.
Well...some people don't eat dairy because it gives them very very bad...you know...that stuff...and also the majority of the Asian (Oriental i.e. Koreans, Chinese, Japanese etc) are lactose intolerant to an extent...but this is just coming from a point of view from a person who has his day completely ruined because someone slipped some lactose in their lunch...
EPT
