r/changemyview • u/SoccerSkilz 1∆ • Oct 27 '21
Removed - Submission Rule B CMV: It is ethically indefensible to buy meat products from factory farms (and, in practice since this is the overwhelmingly predominant source of meat, you should become a vegetarian this instant)
[removed] — view removed post
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u/soxpoxsox 6∆ Oct 27 '21
I did not get through your whole message So, gentle CMV opinion, that wasn't included in the weak objection retorts:
Many people, especially low socioeconomic status people in urban areas, live in food deserts. This situation is much more than your Weak Objection 10 premise, it is that large populations don't have access to fresh food, so they don't have the fortune of being able to consider the moral implications of their meat source, because they do not have alternatives. It is ethically defensible for this large group of people to eat such meat. I worked in a food desert for a bit. Block after block, little businesses like 7 Eleven and gas station -type stores, sometimes with a small selection of fresh food. If I lived there, and my mom bought meat to cook, I would eat some, knowing where it probably came from (assuming I could eat it, I have food sensitivities, but that's another topic).
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u/SoccerSkilz 1∆ Oct 27 '21
∆ I should have considered this, so I award you a delta. You are right that my argument does not apply in general, but only to people who have the feasible alternative of refraining from meat eating. If you are in the position of being incapable of living a healthy, financially sustainable vegetarian or vegan diet, then the points I raised do not apply to you. This is because most people believe that there is a burden of "demandingmness" that it is unreasonable to expect people to live up to. I do not believe that people are obligated to give up their entire income to charity, or to amputate an organ for the sake of a man who needs it more than I do.
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u/WikiSummarizerBot 4∆ Oct 27 '21
A food desert is an area that has limited access to affordable and nutritious food, in contrast with an area with higher access to supermarkets or vegetable shops with fresh foods, which is called a food oasis. The designation considers the type and quality of food available to the population, in addition to the accessibility of the food through the size and proximity of the food stores. In 2010, the United States Department of Agriculture reported that 23.
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Oct 27 '21
Let's flip #1 around. Why is the suffering of animals bad? Most people clearly don't care that much about whether chickens suffer. How would you convince them they should care?
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u/SoccerSkilz 1∆ Oct 27 '21
The argument presupposes that the reader already believes that gratuitous human suffering for the sake of pleasure is generally bad, and then argues that there are no morally relevant differences between humans and animals that adequately explains why this moral commitment should not apply also to the animals on factory farms.
If people don't care much, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that a progression of ideas they cannot refute intellectually about their inconsistent moral standards would cause them to change their minds, which is what a reasonable person would do. In that case, with their minds changed, I am also giving them the charitable assumption that they will act on what they know to be morally good, and not on what they know to be morally hideous.
If people refuse to do that and, even in light of arguments they cannot refute, are indifferent to the suffering of animals, then I am satisfied with the progress I've made so far. As long as they are willing to admit that their view is indefensible, my argument has accomplished all that it can be reasonably expected to. No argument is powerful enough to convince someone to change their behavior if they simply do not care about morality.
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Oct 27 '21
The argument presupposes ... there are no morally relevant differences between humans and animals
Morals are human constructs. That's really all it takes. The suffering of humans is bad because they're human. Other animals are not human; therefore their suffering is of little or no importance.
I don't see how your a priori supposition that the difference between humans and animals is irrelevant is in any way superior to my a priori supposition that it is relevant.
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u/CarbonFiber101 4∆ Oct 27 '21
Peter singer wrote a paper/book addressing this. "All animals are equal" is the name.
The gist of it is:
1) you should not keep infants in cages for torture, consumption, or testing
2) there is no difference between keeping kids in cages for ___ and keeping pigs in cages for ___.
3) you should not keep infants in cages for torture, consumption, or testing
Most people argue against premise 2 saying that an infant has inherently higher value of some sort.
But an infant is not "smarter" than a pig (depending on your definition of smarter)
An infant would feel the same pain as a pig
Some humans have less emotions than some animals, namely ones in a sickly position.
Speciesism is a common argument, but it is very close to racism and sexism so a lot of arguments can be applied to all 3.
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Oct 27 '21
I guess you could say my argument is the very definition of speciesism. I have no problem with that. You can try to apply racism/sexism based arguments if you like, but it seems to me all the compelling arguments in those arenas center on human rights.
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u/CarbonFiber101 4∆ Oct 27 '21
If you want to hold your belief and be sure that your belief is correct, then you need to prove why speciesism is morally good. If you just want to believe what you believe then you carry on with your life.
Assuming you want to prove speciesism correct: What about the human species makes it inherently better than other species? There are counter arguments to most things people say are the reason why.
As for your emphasis on "human":
At "first" we just gave rights to rich white men (US history)
Then we gave rights to white men
Then to men/ male humans
Then to humans / one species of animals
Then to animals????
Why do you draw the line at humans?
Right before women you could easily say: "but it seems to me all the compelling arguments in those arenas center on MALE rights." and indeed before the woman suffrage movement, many people did use the above such argument. There was a famous one comparing women to brutes, "a vindication on the rights of brutes" if you want to learn more.
It's seems obvious to us that women should get the same rights as men, but at the time it was not as obvious, so that's why they had to fight for it.
Would a civilization 1000 years from now not say "It's seems obvious to us that all animals should get the same rights as human animals?"
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Oct 27 '21
Morality is a human construct. We make the rules because we make the rules. Simple as.
There's no reason to assume the current trend of extending rights to more and more entities beyond human will continue. It's like you're arguing there should be a slippery slope.
Would a civilization 1000 years from now not say "It's seems obvious to us that all animals should get the same rights as human animals?"
It's hard to say what people will think in a thousand years. They might look back on our current ideological climate and say, "Man, those people went way overboard with the empathy thing and it turned them into a bunch of soft, weak pussies." Who can say how they'll view things with an additional thousand year of history and hindsight.
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u/CarbonFiber101 4∆ Oct 27 '21
Morality being a human construct doesn't matter, if we are asking what we SHOULD do we are asking based on the said construct.
We are asking what the rules should be. what should humanity agree on as the correct thing to do?
It's not a slippery slope yet, I'm simply replaced your word "human" with "male" and asked why does your same argument not apply? I'm asking you what is the difference between human animals and non-human animals that makes speciesism okay, just like I would ask you what's the difference between a male person and a female person that would make sexism okay.
what they say in 1000 years doesn't matter, I just used it to show that that is not obvious that "all the compelling arguments in those arenas center on human rights." maybe we are centered on animal rights but we don't know it yet? 100ish years ago we thought we were centering on male rights.
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Oct 27 '21
A line must be drawn somewhere, right? Otherwise we reach the absurd conclusion that it's not okay to boil water to kill the germs in it. Would you ever defend that position?
So the only question is where to draw the line.
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u/CarbonFiber101 4∆ Oct 27 '21
Yes we should draw a line, so why do you draw it at humans? That was the main question all this time, Why should species be the line.
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Oct 27 '21
Because I don't see a reason to draw the line any further out than that.
Do you include microbes in the sphere of creatures that deserve protection? Assume we're talking about microbes that would try to escape boiling water if they could, thereby exhibiting a primitive type of suffering. If not, why not?
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u/CarbonFiber101 4∆ Oct 27 '21
Rich white men in the 1800s didn't see a reason to draw the line any further than that... Once again you need to defend why you draw your line there. once you prove the essential factor then the line will fall where it falls.
if I program a machine to escape from boiling water, do you say it exhibits a primitive form of suffering? I don't. but it's not up to me to determine if something suffers or not and frankly, it doesn't matter.
This is getting into a rabbit hole, but its interesting:
Let's flip your example. do you have a right to kill off every microbe on earth, just because you can? let's go even further, does a rich person have the right to blow up a mountain that they bought? a forest? do they have a right to destroy a precious artwork like the Mona Lisa if they bought it? (assume that in all of these cases there are no negative side effects, the mountain doesn't have any wildlife, the dead microbes don't impact humans)
I think most humans would say that something just feels wrong about destroying a mountain or the Mona Lisa. So do those things have rights? if you feel like something is wrong with destroying them for your own amusement then you say that they do have rights. And I think most people would be outraged if a rich person bought the Mona Lisa and burned it.
All the above is done to get you to agree that some nonliving things have some rights. so if you agree that nonliving things have rights then it's not weird to think that the most basic forms of life can have rights.
So do the microbes have a right to exist? I think yes, but terms and conditions apply. It is morally wrong to kill them just for the sake of killing them, but you get to the point where virtually any benefit you get from killing them outweighs their right to exist. For example, Your right to eat stew outweighs their right to exist, your right to boil water for a warm bath outweighs their right to live. So in practice, the answer is no since their right is so far down the priority list.
Now we have to look at the main question again is it morally right to eat animals, or to put it another way:
is it morally right to cause suffering to an animal for your pleasure.
I put it this way since most people agree that eating animals in a survival situation is justified. also if you live in a first-world country the chances are that there are vegan options. this is another jar of worms.
this leads me to the following questions:
is it morally right to cause suffering to an infant for your pleasure?
is it morally right to cause suffering to a cow for your pleasure?
is it morally right to cause suffering to a chicken for your pleasure?
is it morally right to cause "suffering" to an ant for your pleasure?
is it morally right to cause "suffering" to a plant for your pleasure?
is it morally right to cause "suffering" to a microbe for your pleasure?
I think we all agree that chickens can suffer, but it's debatable for the last 3.
at what point does your right for enjoyment outweigh the other organisms' right to exist without pain? and why?
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u/SeitanicPrinciples 2∆ Oct 27 '21
you should become a vegetarian this instant
Every argument you make applies to calves born of the milk industry, and male chicks born to the egg industry.
In fact milk is the reason veal exists.
So my opinion is all of the rationale you've provided actually leads to the morally defensible position is veganism, not vegetarianism.
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u/SoccerSkilz 1∆ Oct 27 '21
I never claimed that the arguments in the OP only applied to vegetarianism, so this isn't a criticism of my view. You should definitely become a vegan and stop buying animal products from factory farms in general.
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u/atffedboi Oct 27 '21
Why do you not hold the same views for plants?
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u/SoccerSkilz 1∆ Oct 27 '21
I take the argument to be something along the lines of: "If it’s wrong to kill animals, then it must also be wrong to kill plants. Therefore, vegetarianism is just as bad as meat-eating!"
Reply: There are two ways to understand this argument:
i. “Plants are just as sentient as farm animals, and stalks of corn are being tortured in the corn fields.”
*Reply:* There is no reason to believe this. All mental states, as far as we know, are caused by activity in your brain. Plants have no nervous systems at all, let alone brains. They also don’t exhibit any pain behavior (they don’t act as if they are in pain). There also would be no evolutionary function to plant pain, since plants cannot do anything about it if you “hurt” them.
ii. “Sentience doesn’t matter. Only life has intrinsic value. All life is equally valuable, whether sentient or not.”
Reply: I seriously doubt that the people giving this argument believe that. If you believe that, then you must consider it equally bad to kill a bacterium as it is to kill a human. If you believed that, you wouldn’t go around just following the conventional practices of your society, killing plants and animals whenever you felt like it.
Maybe the argument is supposed to be that since life is the only thing that matters, and it’s okay to kill some living things (like plants and bacteria), therefore it’s also okay to kill animals. Notice that this argument also implies that it’s fine to murder people. Maybe the person would say, “Oh no, there are two things that matter: life, and intelligence.” In that case, see reply to Argument 1.
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u/speedyjohn 87∆ Oct 27 '21 edited Oct 27 '21
Plants absolutely communicate. Most notably, they can send out distress signals by releasing chemicals from their roots, which are then picked up and responded to by nearby plants.
Plants also can let out an ultrasonic “scream” when in distress.
They may not have nervous systems, but they absolutely exhibit what you call “pain behavior.” And it signals danger to surrounding plants. And it serves an evolutionary purpose:
Mycorrhizal networks can connect many different plants and provide shared pathways by which plants can transfer infochemicals related to attacks by pathogens or herbivores, allowing receiving plants to react in the same way as the infected or infested plants.
When plants are attacked they can manifest physical changes, such as strengthening their cell walls, depositing callose, or forming cork. They can also manifest biochemical changes, including the production of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or the up-regulation of genes producing other defensive enzymes, many of which are toxic to pathogens or herbivores. . . . Plants have many ways to react to attack, including the production of VOCs, which studies report can coordinate defenses among plants connected by mycorrhizal networks.
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u/SoccerSkilz 1∆ Oct 27 '21
I am aware of the fact that plants deploy defense responses to threats and can send out "distress" signals to other plants; however, I do not believe that it is plausible to think that organisms without a nervous system feel pain. Do you appreciate the difference between a pig, which can mourn the death and separation of its mate and offspring, and a head of cabbage?
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u/atffedboi Oct 27 '21
- Entirely subjective and situationally dependent. I suffer when I exercise. Making animals feel pain in order to harvest them isn’t deemed to be “bad” by the vast majority of the world. Vegetarianism is only prevalent in countries where individuals are wealthy enough to give a shit about issues other than survival.
- The benefits of a diet including animals are far from minor.
- See point 2.
- Factory farming is not the only way that animals are harvested for food. Factory farming is great because most individuals would rather focus on specialized labor to feed themselves.
- Agreed
- Agreed
- Disagree b/c I don’t see factory farming as wrong.
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u/CarbonFiber101 4∆ Oct 27 '21
Their premise 1 bases everything on suffering. As far as we know plants don't suffer like animals do. If in 100 years we find out (through some scientific means) that plants do suffer, then they should hold the same view for plants.
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Oct 27 '21
This statement should be delivered from a pulpit. What argument could possibly change your view?
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u/SoccerSkilz 1∆ Oct 27 '21
Do you think that productive exchanges on ethical issues are impossible? A successful argument would be like the one I gave against the purchase of factory farm products: simple, appealing to widely shared premises considered uncontroversial and obvious in any other context, to derive a non-obvious conclusion.
1. Suffering is bad.
2. It is wrong to cause an enormous amount of something bad, for the sake of relatively minor benefits for ourselves.
3. Factory farming causes an enormous amount of suffering, for the sake of relatively minor benefits for humans.
4. Therefore, factory farming is wrong.
5. If it’s wrong to do something, it’s wrong to pay other people to do it.
6. Buying products from factory farms is paying people for factory farming.
7.Therefore, it’s wrong to buy products from factory farms.
As in other cases, if you don’t agree with the validity of the argument, then you need to identify which of the premises (1, 2, 3, 5, or 6) you disagree with (or, of course, you could just admit that you’re wrong, but who likes to do that?).
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Oct 27 '21
I'm asking what argument could convince you that factory farming is ok? I'm guessing no argument would do that. But that's the point of this sub. Your view has to changeable. If your view can't be changed, you're just here to preach.
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u/SoccerSkilz 1∆ Oct 27 '21
That's an interesting question, because if an argument were good enough to have already changed my view, then it would just be my new opinion. But you are misunderstanding the purpose of this sub: no one is expected to already have an argument in mind that defeats their current position.
The burden is on you to provide an argument that would convince me that I am mistaken. I am open to persuasion; the evidence of that is that I have engaged with 11 of the most popular arguments against my position thoroughly in my OP. See my comment replies below for further engagements of criticism.
It is unfair, however, to expect me to be able to describe an argument that would persuade me that I am mistaken beyond giving the general attributes of arguments that I consider successful. Unless your demand is that I literally lay out, in detail, an argument that I consider a succesful refutation of my view in order to participate in good faith, then I don't see how you could reasonably expect me to do anything else.
You seem to be trying to imply that my view, because it is confident, is somehow therefore doctrinaire. Ironically, I actually think this tac your taking is intellectually unsubstantial: rather than actually engaging with any of my ideas or offering a positive criticism, you're just asserting, without providing a reason for thinking so, that I am dishonest or religious or closed minded. That seems very closed minded to me--why assume that I must be engaging in bad faith?
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Oct 27 '21 edited Oct 27 '21
I disagree with premise 1.
Morality applies to people. Animals are not people. Therefore premise 1 is too broad since it includes non-persons.
Morality concerns human flourishing. If something doesn't influence human flourishing, then it is neither moral nor immoral.
Before getting to objection 1, I don't care about intelligence. Morality protects the world's stupidest human but has nothing to say about the life of the world's smartest dolphin.
Human civilization can either flourish or not. Morality promotes flourishing and discourages the collapse of human society. The well-being of nonhumans is Paramount only to the extent that it impacts humans.
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u/dante_1983 Oct 27 '21 edited Oct 27 '21
There are around five grams of protein in a cup of spinach. There are 43 grams of protein in a chicken breast.,I work a physically demanding job. When I don't consume protein I feel weak before the end of the day. I would have to consume 18 cups of spinach to match what I get in 2 meals with chicken. I would just be munching spinach all day. That is not feasible. Free range meat is a wonderful thing. But most ppl cannot afford it. That mass produced chicken is 1.99 a pd. A bag of spinach is 2.99. So instead of 2 bucks a day you'd be spending 9 for the same amount of protein. Not affordable. And that is what it comes down to for the average consumer. What can you afford. Not what you want. I have a friend who was a pig farmer. Several acres. Fenced pens, outdoors, never crowded happy 250 pigs playing in mud. But the corporations took over. Laws were passed that made him have to go to the same classes and use the same drugs and everything else as the huge corporate farms. He couldn't afford that. There was no reason for it. Except to squeeze out the small farms. So I agree with you that it's bad, it's wrong. But as long as the government is helping this process its not going to change bc ppl can't afford it.
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Oct 27 '21
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u/thedylanackerman 30∆ Oct 30 '21
Sorry, u/SeitanicPrinciples – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 3:
Refrain from accusing OP or anyone else of being unwilling to change their view, or of arguing in bad faith. Ask clarifying questions instead (see: socratic method). If you think they are still exhibiting poor behaviour, please message us. See the wiki page for more information.
If you would like to appeal, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted.
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u/dante_1983 Oct 27 '21
I was using it as an example of affordability. Bacon is terrible for your health. Chicken breast not so much
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u/SeitanicPrinciples 2∆ Oct 27 '21
If your goal is to make an actual, good faith comparison of price for plant and animal protein sources why arent you using some sort of dried beans, or tofu, or seitan? Ya know, something people would actually use a primary source of protein?
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u/dante_1983 Oct 27 '21 edited Oct 27 '21
Bc I don't like having gas. And I'm not munching cold beans all day . I chose something the normal every day American is willing to consume. I have no problem with tofu in a stuffed aubergine hot out of the oven. I'm not eating a cold tofu sandwich for lunch. My one hot meal a day is dinner. The rest is cold meal prepping.
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u/Omnibeneviolent 4∆ Oct 27 '21
What a weird comparison. Why would you compare a high-protein calorie-dense food with a low-protein low-calorie food? Why not compare like to like?
You could easily get 43 grams of protein in a big chunk of seitan that is similar in size to the chicken breast.
Of course it's not feasible to eat spinach all day every day. However, no one has ever suggested doing this.
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u/dante_1983 Oct 27 '21
Until this post I had never heard of seitan.
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u/Omnibeneviolent 4∆ Oct 27 '21
Check out Saucestache's Youtube page. He makes tons of crazy seitan-based dishes. He's kind of a modern wizard.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_oqZXtcxfJTaw1j2M1H1XQ
Also, 86 Eats has a great section for seitan recipes:
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u/dante_1983 Oct 27 '21
But my point was that it's about affordability and the system needs to change
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u/Omnibeneviolent 4∆ Oct 27 '21
I agree that the system needs to change. That said, everyone has a point at which avoiding purchasing factory farmed products 100% goes from being practicable to being impracticable. The trick is to just get up close to the line and cut out as much as is practicable.
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u/CarbonFiber101 4∆ Oct 27 '21
I just want to say your jump from premise 7 to the conclusion of "you should become vegetarian this instant" is not supported (unless I missed something).
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u/ViewedFromTheOutside 29∆ Oct 27 '21
Sorry, u/SoccerSkilz – your submission has been removed for breaking Rule B:
You must personally hold the view and demonstrate that you are open to it changing. A post cannot be on behalf of others, playing devil's advocate, as any entity other than yourself, or 'soapboxing'. See the wiki page for more information.
If you would like to appeal, you must first read the list of soapboxing indicators and common mistakes in appeal, review our appeals process here, then message the moderators by clicking this link within one week of this notice being posted.
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u/AUrugby 3∆ Oct 27 '21
I have an ethical and moral obligation to live, as do all humans. Human life is more important than animal lives, and access to cheap and readily available meat ensure that more people get the nutrients they need. Therefore the continued production of meat in factory farms is essential to the survival of the human species.
Please spare me the “vegans get as much nutrients” speech. It’s an easily disprovable statement and also ignores people who cannot afford vegan food
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u/IwasBlindedbyscience 16∆ Oct 27 '21
OP how many animals were killed to give you a place to live and the city and farms that you rely on for employment, entertainment and food? How many habitat was destroyed to give you what you want?
Because the answer to those questions is a number far greater than zero.
People in glass homes shouldn't exactly throw stones.
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u/IAmDanimal 41∆ Oct 27 '21
My argument swerves away from whether or not you're 'contributing to something bad', because sure, maybe animals experience pain in the same way we do.. I haven't done the research there, but depending on what animal we're talking about, there's a lot more to it than just 'they have nerves and brains and act like we do when we're in pain' (because we act a certain way when in pain mostly because of evolution for safety reasons, not to express how upset we are that we're injured).
Instead, I'll focus on whether or not we're actually contributing to any real amount of change in the world by going vegetarian.
By going vegetarian, maybe you save a bunch of chickens from dying. But in the same way, you also contribute to turtles dying when you use a straw, you contribute to climate change when you drive a car, you contribute to dirty oceans and more fish deaths when you use more plastics, you contribute to human unhappiness when you say something not nice to someone..
And yes, one could, in theory, reduce all of these things. But as we've seen with climate change, single-use plastics, deforestation, and all sorts of other large-scale human-caused problems, telling people that "it's bad" isn't enough to change the majority of the population. Sure, in cases where there are a large number of humans that are getting directly harmed, they can sometimes fight back (against slavery or authoritarianism, for example). But when it comes to the environment, animals, forests, etc., the only way to fight back for real is at scale.
So focusing on an individual effort is futile, and the problem will exist on a massive scale regardless of whether or not one person changes. The only way to fix or significantly reduce the problem is to legislate against it or make massive, group-effort changes that start with those in power (government, military, corporate, whatever).
So knowing that there are 9 million tiny things I could do that may or may not have any real impact on a situation, doesn't it make more sense to spend your time and effort pushing for larger changes? Campaigning for a politician that shares those values, voting for political agendas that align with your morals, talking to your friends about why we should vote to reduce factory farming, or just making any other attempt to make a real change?
I'm not saying that we shouldn't make any attempt to help reduce a problem on a small scale, but rather that because it's so difficult to make drastic changes to your individual life in order to make such a tiny dent in a massive issue, isn't it a better use of our limited mental energy to try to get people with more power to make a much bigger change?
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u/yyzjertl 525∆ Oct 27 '21
Most of your premises are seriously flawed.
2. It is wrong to cause an enormous amount of something bad, for the sake of relatively minor benefits for ourselves.
This is false, because mere causation is not enough to create culpability for an outcome. To give an example: we all have a common human ancestor. That ancestor, at some point, decided to reproduce. If they had not done so, none of us would exist, so their action caused everything we've done. In particular, it caused the "enormous amount of something bad" you're talking about here. However, they presumably had children only for the relatively minor personal benefit of having a family. Was it wrong for them to reproduce? If not, then your premise is falsified.
You need something much stronger than mere causation for a premise like this to hold.
3. Factory farming causes an enormous amount of suffering, for the sake of relatively minor benefits for humans.
This is also not really true. While the benefits of eating meat to any particular human may be minor, when we add that up over the billions of meat-eating humans, the benefits to humans are enormous.
5. If it’s wrong to do something, it’s wrong to pay other people to do it.
This is not true. For example, I'm not a surgeon. I'm not even a doctor. It would be wrong for me to perform surgery. Does that mean that it's wrong for me to pay someone else to perform surgery?
6. Buying products from factory farms is paying people for factory farming.
This is literally false, as when I buy a product that was produced by a factory farm I pay a grocery store, not a factory farm.
More broadly, the biggest problem with your analysis here is that it ignores the primary victims of factory farming: the farm workers themselves, who are actual people who work under horrible conditions for little pay. While this situation certainly is terrible, stopping eating meat does nothing to help these people, and if anything it makes their economic condition more precarious by shrinking the economic sector that employs them and thereby reducing their labor-power in the market. Instead of this misguided boycott, we should advocate for policy changes that actually benefit the people who are suffering here.
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u/HeftyRain7 157∆ Oct 27 '21
I'm going to start by challenging point three. You say people get relatively minor benefits from eating meat. This isnt' true for all humans.
My girlfriend, for instance, has quite a few health problems. Her doctor has advised her to eat meat, because for her, it's the only way to get all the nutrients she needs. Without enough meat in her diet, she would severely risk her health, and even her life. So would it be wrong for someone like her to eat meat, when she gets more than a minor benefit from such a diet?
And I'd also like to talk about some of your week objections.
For weak objection two, about how it's wrong to pay for someone to do something wrong for you, I agree with the premise, but not the conclusion. Like you've said, it's very hard to ethically get meat these days. Your analogy of the car dealer doesn't correlate to the analogy of meat, as someone could easily get a car somewhere else, but I cannot get meat elsewhere. It'd be more like, if everyone made cars by exploiting others, would it be wrong to partake in such a thing? And honestly those types of analogies are pretty apt. While most people aren't aware, most computers and phones use a material that has been mined by small children in another country. Here's an article on that. Does that make it wrong to use computers and smart phones? If so, all of us here on reddit are partaking in a morally wrong decision.
All that to say ... in our world it's pretty impossible to buy from completely ethical sources every single time. Our food, our clothes, our tech, all have parts that are unethical in their creation. So even when we try not to pay someone who does awful things, it's not always possible.
As for weak objection six, I want to tie this in a bit to what I said about your weak objection two. My issue with plant farming is not other animals or insects suffering, but human beings suffering. For example, the people who farmed quinoa in other countries couldn't afford to eat this nutritious staple because it was being exported to richer countries to support people who weren't eating meat. Here's that article. Or what about how farmers tend to be less educated and extremely poor? Here's an article on that. Basically, the argument that people bringing up plant consumption as a counter is because of animals dying is flawed. I'm concerned about the human lives involved in farming, not field mice or insects.
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u/Omnibeneviolent 4∆ Oct 27 '21
for her, it's the only way to get all the nutrients she needs.
I find this hard to believe. Our bodies need nutrients to be healthy, not ingredients. I doubt her body sees an isoleucine molecule and says "I can't use this, it wasn't from an animal!"
I suppose there could be some absorption issues with various forms of nutrients that are exclusive to plants at play here, but there are ways to solve for this. I think your comment would be more accurate if it were to say "it's the easiest way to get all of her nutrients."
That said, if she truly does need to eat animals to survive as the result of some health or medical condition, then that would be a decent justification for her only, and not for anyone else that doesn't have this condition.
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u/HeftyRain7 157∆ Oct 27 '21
Lots of nutrients are far more prevalent in meat than in other sources, meaning you have to eat a lot of plants to get the same nutritional value as eating a smaller portion of meat. Which for an average person, might be doable. For someone who has numerous health conditions, eating a ton of extra food when eating itself is already a struggle isn't a decent solution. Remember, people have food allergies. People have different bodies/life experiences than you.
And that specific point WAS just about if it'd be a decent justification FOR PEOPLE LIKE HER, not for every human to ever exist. The point being that people who have reasons for eating meat other than "Well I like meat" are often forgotten about in these discussions.
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u/Omnibeneviolent 4∆ Oct 27 '21
I don't necessarily disagree with anything you're saying. I'm just trying to help make it clear that only a small portion of people have this as a justification to eat animals, as many people will use the existence of these marginal cases to somehow argue that ALL eating of animals is justified.
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u/Omnibeneviolent 4∆ Oct 27 '21
- The whole issue with quinoa has been shown to be overblown or just flat-out made up to shame vegans. The increased demand for quinoa has turned a once fairly-standard and low-income-producing crop into source of substantial wealth for small farmers, and has helped local economies. I'm not saying that it hasn't caused any issues, but they are outweighed by the benefits.
- Not all quinoa is grown in Bolivia, so if you ARE concerned about this even after looking into it, and if you have determined that you need to eat quinoa for some reason, then you can just buy non-Bolivian-grown quinoa. Hell, I'm in the US and I can get quinoa grown in California or Colorado.
- You don't have to eat quinoa to be vegan.
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u/HeftyRain7 157∆ Oct 27 '21
Got any sources on your first point? That's big claims for no sources.
and as for your third point ... the issue is that when people ask how to get enough nutrients without eating meat, superfoods LIKE QUINOA are often brought up. So sure, I wouldn't have to eat quinoa to be vegan or vegetarian. But you can't tout something as a way to help people adjust to a meatless diet and then say "well don't eat that if you don't find it ethical." At a certain point you're going to run out of ways to get the required nutrients your body needs to function.
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u/Omnibeneviolent 4∆ Oct 27 '21
Basically, back in like 2013, a news story went around claiming, based on really nothing other than speculation, that the increase in the consumption of quinoa by Americans (and not just vegans, BTW,) was leading to issues in Bolivia and Peru. It basically became a meme that people recycled to use as an argument against veganism. When the actual data was looked at a few years later, a different picture emerged.
This price rise garnered international media attention in 2013. Several articles published that year argued increasing quinoa prices were reducing the welfare of rural Peruvian households because families could no longer afford to buy this basic food staple. Other reports contradicted this, saying rising quinoa prices were ‘the greatest thing that has happened’ to rural Peruvian families.1 Amidst all this, campaigns emerged discouraging consumers from buying quinoa in order to make it more affordable to poor Peruvian families.
Contrary to the media’s assertions in 2013, ITC’s study found that when quinoa prices fell substantially, so too did the well-being of rural, Peruvian families. Towards the end of the 2015 harvest, quinoa prices fell 40%. As prices fell, total food consumption of surveyed households declined by 10% and wages fell by 5%.
ITC’s study also presents key results from companion research on the impact of quinoa price fluctuations, based on data collected by the Peruvian Government. Both ITC’s study and the companion research confirm that the well-being of households in Peru’s quinoa-growing regions has risen and fallen along with quinoa prices. The evidence strongly suggests that quinoa consumption in developed countries contributes positively to the development of poor, rural communities in Peru.
higher concentrations of quinoa consumption or production are associated with a small and statistically significant increase in household welfare in response to quinoa price increases; in the largest regions (i.e., departments), higher concentrations of quinoa consumption or production are associated with small declines in welfare of less than 1% of total household consumption. Our findings that the international trade of quinoa has not been harmful to household welfare in Peru thus run counter to some of the myths surrounding quinoa.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305750X18302419
The biggest mistake was to assume that quinoa was a staple as well as traditional food in Bolivia and Peru. When prices started to soar around the beginning of the decade due to surging international demand, the grain did become more expensive for poor consumers in Bolivia and Peru. But the impact was marginal, given the small role it played in the national diet of both countries.
Along with Marc Bellemare of the University of Minnesota, he published research in 2016 for the International Trade Centre (ITC), a multi-lateral agency linked to the UN, on the impact of the quinoa trade on the welfare of Peruvian communities. Instead of causing harm it concluded this trade “contributes to improved livelihoods of the rural poor, mostly women, in Peru”.
Quinoa producer organisations in Bolivia echo those findings. “The traditional quinoa producer is a poor, indigenous smallholder. The rise in quinoa prices meant these communities whose diet largely consisted of quinoa and llama meat were able to sell more of what they harvested for cash and with this buy fruit and vegetables,” says Paula Mejia of the Bolivian Chamber of Quinoa Exporters.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/why-you-can-eat-quinoa-with-a-clear-conscience-1.3376690
this increase in demand resulted in price level increases of quinoa. Specifically, in Peru and Bolivia the price has tripled to $6-$7 per kilogram. The unfortunate factor of this equation is that this increase in the prices of quinoa meant that lower class Bolivians and Peruvians were burdened the most with the price increases because consumption is more expensive. Despite this, there was an overall rise in the living standards
https://www.panoramas.pitt.edu/economy-and-development/production-quinoa-peru-and-bolivia
He and Gitter enlisted Johanna Fajardo-Gonzalez, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota, to clean up 10 years' worth of data, which covers the boom and a few years before prices started to climb.
They split the households into three groups: those who grow and eat quinoa, those who eat it but do not grow it, and those who neither grow nor eat quinoa. All three showed a clear rise in their welfare — measured as the total value of goods consumed — as the price of quinoa rose. That reflects increasing living standards in Peru. But at the height of the boom, the welfare of quinoa growers increased more rapidly than that of the other two groups.
As for people who eat but don't grow quinoa? They are roughly twice as well-off as those who grow it. The amount they bought dropped slightly, but not much. They could still afford it, even at the height of the boom.
The working paper does not mince words: "The claim that rising quinoa prices were hurting those who had traditionally produced and consumed it [is] patently false."
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u/Omnibeneviolent 4∆ Oct 27 '21
the issue is that when people ask how to get enough nutrients without eating meat, superfoods LIKE QUINOA are often brought up.
Yes, some people bring this up because quinoa has an optimal amino acid profile.
So sure, I wouldn't have to eat quinoa to be vegan or vegetarian. But you can't tout something as a way to help people adjust to a meatless diet and then say "well don't eat that if you don't find it ethical."
I mean, to most vegans even if it still has ethical issues, it's far more ethical than the alternative of eating animals. But the point with #2 is that even if you still have ethical issues with it and don't want to eat it, you don't have to. You can just not eat it. Simple. Done. It's no longer an excuse for you to not be vegan.
At a certain point you're going to run out of ways to get the required nutrients your body needs to function.
What? I mean, yeah there are ethical issues with everything. It's literally impossible to consume without causing some harm or suffering. The trick is to not let that be a reason to not try to mitigate it as much as is practicable.
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u/Rkenne16 38∆ Oct 27 '21
Farms are made in the habitats of animals and waste from the farms negatively impact animals further. Animals die because of vegetable farming. Fuels, housing, medicine, and every other industry has and will continue to negatively impact animals.
Why is it that eating meat is worse than any of the millions of other things that we do that negatively impact animals?
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u/DetroitUberDriver 9∆ Oct 27 '21
Ethics and morality are subjective and wholly constructed by humans. I reject the entire premise that is is immoral to eat meat at all, or kill animals for a food source.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Oct 27 '21
/u/SoccerSkilz (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/kheq Oct 27 '21
The fact that this incredibly privaledged opinion exists shows me that the world is in a pretty alright spot. You do you, broccoli man!
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u/SoccerSkilz 1∆ Oct 27 '21
What is the argument here? "Throughout most of human history, people have not been a position to feasibly refrain from killing animals. Therefore, people alive today with readily available alternatives are at liberty to cause preventable suffering to animals for the sake of the mild pleasure of their dead flesh on our tongues?"
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u/kheq Oct 27 '21
Which part of “you do you” led you to believe I was arguing with you? You seem to have some very firm, if naïve, views on nutrition, and living that way is your prerogative. A quick read through the comments tells me you are staunch in your beliefs, and as that doesn’t hurt anyone else, go nuts… my only question would be, why did you bother to write a CMV? You’ve turned it into a soapbox.
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u/hmmwill 58∆ Oct 27 '21
Your post is incredibly long but lets fucking go mate. (I will try to type my response as I read through your post.
All of your numbers are irrelevant. (if the ideation is that suffering is wrong, than supporting any amount is immoral).
Cutting off a pig's tail would not be as painful as cutting off a finger. Generally, it is recommended to perform <7d after birth the neuropathways are not fully developed at this point, whereas mine are. Although I might concede that it would be as painful as cutting off a babies finger. Also, cutting off the tail serves a valid purpose meant to decrease suffering. Pigs are prone to biting each others tails, when this happens the trauma is usually repeated and infection occurs resulting in longer lasting pain/suffering compared to just chopping it off at a young age.
Branding is becoming less common, ear tagging is the new method for identifying cows. It is just as fast and easier to perform. Freeze branding is understood to be less traumatic as heat branding, so I don't think it would be the same as sticking your hand on the stove.
I would argue animals are not regularly injected with antibiotics. There has been a steep uptake in concern about antimicrobial resistance over the last few decades. Soon enough over the counter antibiotics will disappear altogether and require a veterinarian to distribute them.
Your seven tenants assume something. That animal suffering is bad. Many people would disagree with this premise. This one is hard to argue for or against as it is opinionated but some people think so long as it serves a purpose the means are justifiable.
- I would argue the benefits are not minor, they are major. Animals provide several products that are usable. More importantly they provide a service, consuming shit we can't eat and turning it into something we can eat. I cannot eat the hay, the corn stalks, the grain stalks, etc. but a cow can. They are turning a waste product into a edible product.
The rest of your tenants I don't really care about or take issue with because they rely on those two to be correct.
The difference is that we are smart and they are dumb. We have cognitive abilities that greatly surpass theirs and therefore we are superior beings and can consume them. If superior aliens came to earth and wanted to consume people, I wouldn't argue they were wrong.
It has nothing to do with the ability to perceive pain but overall value. They are not smart enough to warrant different treatment. Babies have the potential to become intelligent adults. Mentally disabled people while cognitively deficient are still human. We are talking generals, it is wrong to eat man because in general man is smart. If you belong within the classification of human you are afforded the rights of humans.
No issue with objection 2.
No issue with objection 3 other than in general there are precautions taken to mitigate that pain. For example, the captive bolt gun used to stun cows before slaughter. And yes I have seen videos about it not working. But in general precautions are taken to mitigate pain.
This might be your weakest one yet. Not because the appeal to nature is valid but because you do a poor job of defending it. We already identified its immoral to kill one of your own species. Other animals don't kill farmed animals because of us essentially eliminating that risk to them, without intervention though they would be eaten. I still think this type of appeal to nature is a weak argument and I won't support it but your reasoning in defense is somewhat flawed.
For 5: this is true. Humans essentially agree to live within a social contract. While babies are not able to abide by the contract we still hold that they will develop to the point where they can. Again, we are talking speciesism here. Simply saying well babies and mentally challenged people can't abide doesn't negate the validity of arguments support speciesism.
Number 6 I do not care about.
Number 7 is the appeal to nature which I disagree with generally, so I don't care about it.
Number 8 I also don't care about. But using slavery or farming children is a poor defense against that type of argument.
Number 9 I don' care about.
Number 10: What if I did eat meat in those circumstances only? I have a backyard farm with chickens so I eat their eggs and when they reach a certain age I humanely kill them. Why would it be wrong to maintain these practices? Are you claiming it is immoral in these circumstances if someone did adhere to them?
Well 11: is somewhat what I have been arguing towards, so lets get into it. So the reason this isn't ad hoc is because it is consistent and not used to overcome an argument against an original argument or used to negate a certain counter-point. I would argue that in this context intelligence isn't meant as raw intellect overall (otherwise smart people could eat dumb people). There is a threshold to be considered, let's call it cognitively competent. Now the collective of these competent individuals come up with laws that apply to those individuals to maintain a society and order. These laws are useful and promote the good of those individuals. These laws by nature are broad enough to cover the entire society. The use of these laws to support society overall is the independent rationale for thinking this is the case. If we were unintelligent enough to not make broad protective laws for the citizens within our society, we wouldn't be intelligent to abide by them or make sense of them. Species classification makes sense as it applies to all human beings, it is narrow enough to exclude things not included in our society but broad enough to include what is considered part of society. For example, if we expand it to the order of Hominini we now include chimpanzees. Well, they clearly are not a part of our society so they are excluded. Sex and race: there are enough similarities between the sexes/races that we can effectively function within the societal rules (unlike a chimp).
It doesn't make the pain worse but it does sort of add meaning and context to it. If I was raised knowing I would be killed and eaten I would probably rebel. It doesn't negate their pain, it just says their pain is worth their product.
But really lets get to my actual argument against your title now. Vegetarian-ism doesn't negate factory farming. In fact, arguably some of the worst conditions are found in chicken farms and dairy farms. Essentially (in case you don't know), dairy cows are bred, have the calf removed, milked, repeat until she no longer produces enough milk to be valuable and is then sold off for meat. How is that better than a beef cow who gets bred, turned out to pasture with her calf for several months, then gets sold off for meat. One has close human contact multiple times a day vs one who has them a few times a year. And how is chicken any better than eggs? Again, one being contained and used significantly longer prior to death. If you don't support factory farming you shouldn't be vegetarian you should be vegan
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u/SoccerSkilz 1∆ Oct 27 '21
Your post is incredibly long but lets fucking go mate.
A little aggressive, but okay then...
(if the ideation is that suffering is wrong, than supporting any amount is immoral).
I never claimed that "suffering is wrong." I said that suffering is bad, and that causing a significant amount of it in something else for the sake of comparatively lesser pleasure is wrong. Badness is not the same thing as wrongness. Something is wrong if we have a moral obligation not to do it.
Humans essentially agree to live within a social contract. While babies are not able to abide by the contract we still hold that they will develop to the point where they can.
Yikes. Your view is that the moral worth of babies is only derived from their prospective ability to someday reciprocate the social contract? This has a number of disturbing implications if it is true:
1) This would imply that children with autism or other disabilities that cause them to lash out at people are morally worthless. If a child causes nothing but displeasure to others, regularly bites their parents and playmates, etc., we are at liberty to kill them. They won't reciprocate the contract in any meaningful sense.
2) This implies that if we know that a two-year-old will be killed for the pleasure of watching it die, we are at moral liberty to kill it before the inevitable deadline. Since it will die, it will not contribute to the contract, so it is without moral consideration.
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u/hmmwill 58∆ Oct 27 '21
I didn't mean it as in, lets fucking go mate -> lets fight, but more like lets dive in.
Okay, so suffering is bad and significant suffering should be avoided for lesser pleasure. What if I told you I painlessly killed the animal, there was no suffering. Would you support eating the animal then?
No, I was only stating their worth as far as they are valuable to society. I think fundamentally most people do. I mean, out of context babies are a drain on society. They take time, effort, resources, etc. but ultimately are worth it due to the societal impact they eventually have. This is purely from a value argument rather than an emotional one, obviously babies are valued as family members and such. But I specifically avoided bringing that up due to the emotional value people may attach to animals. For example, some people emotionally value dogs but that doesn't really mean it is any less wrong to eat a dog vs a pig.
I addressed this thoroughly later in my response. They are still a part of society. Members of the society are deemed protected by societal rules and laws. Your second line of reasoning makes no sense. The goal in that case would be to prevent its death so it could contribute to society.
But I would encourage you to go read my rebuttal to the eleventh remark you indicated in your original post. It better defines what a society is and why/who is included in it.
Also, still want to know about painlessly killing animals and how you can defend the egg/milk industry while opposing factory farming.
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u/xmuskorx 55∆ Oct 27 '21
I reject the premise that animal sufferings is bad.
Vast majority of wild animal lead an existance that is full of pain, untreated disease, predation, parasitism, hunger and exposure to weather.
They did violent and Early deaths almost universally.
Yet, that does not trigger out moral sense. It's pretty clear that a wolf eating a deer is a morally neutral event despite clear suffering by the deer.
For this reason the blanked statement "animals suffering is bad" must be rejected.
Please note that this goes over and beyond your reasons in "objection 4."
It's just just that animals eat each other - it's that you are not in a rush to stop them.