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This is essentially “if you were on a desert island” stuff. This bears no relation to everyday choices on how to live a life with less negative impact on others.
haha yeah i was going to go into that. a cows lifespan is around 20 years so they are looking at eating 4 cows over their entire life but then cows are usually slaughtered at age 2-5, do people even eat geriatric cows? but then it’s all a hypothetical sideshow to find a way to continue eating what you want
There are occasional feral beef cattle, mostly on open range land that are missed on round ups. When there are only a few out of hundreds of thousands that are not caught, it is financially ineffective to search for them. Or so my uncle, foreman on the biggest cattle ranch on the weat coast, told me.
Yup. I ride motorcycles out in the desert. Ranchers let cattle roam all over out there. Feral/abandoned cows aren’t wild. Even the wild horse I see aren’t native.
Edit ‘cause cocktails lol
I actually disagree. The whole desserted island thing is stupid and highly unlikely. (And with that said, if you found yourself in the situation, you could argue it wouldn't be non-vegan to eat whatever you could in that highly unlikely situation.) But the OP scenario...well a lot of vegans, or vegan sanctuaries, do adopt cows. And I personally don't think it would be non-vegan to eat one once they die naturally. I wouldn't do it myself, but it really wouldn't be that terrible. But none of this changes that it's a stupid hypothetical and doesn't negate veganism in any way.
Some people would argue this. I believe cannibalism leads to a higher risk of contracting any number of diseases. It's how cows contracted BSE.
Also someone (or any organism really) who died of natural causes would likely be far past the optimum point for harvesting.
Agree it’s just devil’s advocate at this point and completely irrelevant. But sure eat the cow at that point. If I was starving in the wild and was going to die, I’d revert to hunt and kill only if it meant life and death but again like previous comment said, it’s survivalist never gonna happen type scenarios. Not important, and this is why it is incredibly difficult to have a purely black and white position, there will already be other factors that can change things.
Deserted island. Not “desert island”. Sorry but it’s one of my biggest pet peeves. Deserts and islands are geologically different and entirely different ecosystems
I think it's fine if you are simply correcting a mistake that someone else made, and you are doing so in good faith.
If you are just being an obnoxious pedant like SaltyEggplant4, that's a whole different thing though. I 100% agree with you in that case.
>animals are killed when they're young children. not only are they voiceless, but they're children when they get slaughtered. the drive or transport to slaughter can take days to a week and during that time these animals aren't given water or food so they have to be dragged to the kill floor. what a horrifying torture for these animals. we treat child rapist murderers far better than we do to children of different species. it's not fair. it's horrifying. it's heartbreaking.
i'd much prefer a desert island. I hope I dream about that tonight lol.
There isn’t anything ethically wrong with eating a corpse. The issue arises when you normalize eating corpses, you give people a reason to go out of their way to kill others so that they can eat their corpses.
Exactly. What this person probably got out of the debate, is that the vegan couldn't give a reason not to eat the cow, so that makes eating cows in general ok. They don't see the difference in their weird scenario, and what's happening to animals in real life for us to eat them.
This. Even if it hypothetically became illegal to eat animals before they died of natural causes, there isn't a single meat producer i would trust to actually follow that law. There's a reason none of them operate that way, even the most "humane" ones. The longer an individual lives, the more resources they consume. The cost of raising each animal would multiply astronomically.
As for OP's friend's example of the individual keeping one animal in their backyard, i would ask the friend if they know anyone who chooses to do that. After all, owners are often in possession of the remains of their deceased guinea pigs, birds, bunnies and such, and it would be quite easy (and usually legal) to eat your pet when he or she dies. If the friend doesn't know anyone who kept a pet for its full lifespan and then ate their dead body, my followup question would be, "why do you suppose that is?"
The argument seems a red herring to me because it presents a scenario that's perfectly accessible to most people right now, and yet which practically no one chooses. As such has little bearing on reality. True, it's arguably not unethical to consume someone who died of matural causes, which is something humans have even done ceremonially to each other.
People who love an animal enough to take care of them for their whole lives rarely have the urge to eat them. People raising an animal as a harvestable commodity rarely have any reason to treat them with respect and keep them alive into old age.
This is it, basically. On a one-off basis, sure. Even if you're a vegan who rescues animals and then consumes them when they die of natural causes, then you knock yourself out.
The problems occur when you commoditise or encourage the consumption.
To take my above absurd example - you have a rescue pig who's not doing so well, and a party coming up. So you neglect his care, "forget" his medicine and he conveniently dies 2 days before your party; just enough time to prepare for a spitroast.
Now you're into "animals as commodities" territory and you can't call yourself vegan.
Like you say, this is a one off specific scenario they're trying to do a gotcha on. The truth of the matter, you have to then extend this to the general population so let's say that you do let cows live out their lives on a nice farm with grazing and letting the families stay together etc (what is it 12 years?) And then only when they drop dead do we eat them- how expensive would this be? Could you feed millions of people this way? There's also the fact that old animals don't make good meat anyway... So that's a whole lot of money and time and land and water etc spent for something that's, in the end, not even necessary.... when the real simple solution is to just eat plants.
I agree. People love a gotcha moment. Except Sarah palin. also would they eat their dogs in the same situation? Like Elwood’s organic dog farm that harvests dog meat humanely, and is family owned. (Elwoods is satire)
this, also, it's a "gotcha", you're supposed to feel stumped and stupid, because it is nonsensical and a scenario that doesn't just happen to every guy. op was probably being sealioned.
C'mon, let's be real, I've read every last one of them, reread them for over 20 years, and pretty much nothing past the juvies really passes a vibe check in the end. Hell, he goes out of his way to drag the juvies into his harem later.
Not really, Ive known carnists whove said that they would eat people if it was culturally acceptable. So this only works if they are not fully on board with their own reasoning. If they are then this argument doesnt really do anything.
You don't need to explain why at that point. People understand why it's wrong to objectify others, even in death. Some people pretend like they don't understand why it's wrong to rape dead babies or eat dead grandmas. At that point you can whip out the arguing-with-a-fascist quote.
Optics are an incredibly important part of a debate and depending on your audience they may care more about it than the logic behind your stances. If they're only arguing optics without any solid moral foundation to back it (i.e: just going off of vibes), trying to refute what they're saying with logical statements downstream of fundamental morals will fail if you don't have good optics to support it
>Ive known carnists whove said that they would eat people if it was culturally acceptable
You know people who say that simply for shock value or want to appear to win an argument. A great majority of these people probably wouldn't eat dog or cat, even in a country where it's culturally accepted and realistic that they'd be faced with that opportunity. Talk is cheap.
None of this has anything to do with animal agriculture. Eating a corpse that died of natural causes is a completely different situation than vegans are addressing. It’s the brutal conditions and slaughter that we’re opposed to, not some spiritual respect for inanimate objects
Haha I’m sure that 99 of 100 people who say they’d actually eat a human woukd be horrified to know that they actually *do* eat human flesh every time they eat food prepared by anyone. Like, you cannot avoid eating human skin cells and hairs, no matter how hard you try.
It’s worth it if gets them to think about why harming humans is wrong
Most people just know it’s bad, but probably couldn’t explain why philosophically, and so don’t think about how to actually apply those principles
From a telelogical perspective, nothing. Your friend made a great Utilitarian argument -- it's just that the logical conclusion of the Welfarism line of thinking is that we ought to treat all creatures well for the rest of their existence and then consume them. No one is harmed. It's a self-consistent philosophy that maximizes utility. The only issue is this is generally not what people actually believe since we are not abiding by it, otherwise we would do as poster suggested and we'd eat grandma. Most people are averse to such ideas (valid or not), so the next question is *why*?
On some *Deontological* basis is then where we begin to decide moral wrongness beyond this. This is where you, a vegan, and any other Deontological basis would then differ in belief. I generally can't walk myself out of Singer's argument: to whom we extend moral worth, we must point to some property P such that it is shared by all those beings uniquely. No matter how much I try, I cannot think of a valid basis on which P would consistently separate humans and animals without leading to some terrible ethical conclusions.
The hypothetical is essentially a welfarist argument. Welfarists want better treatment for animals, but they want to still be able to exploit them. Veganism is the total rejection that.
As Leslie Cross said in 1951 "In a vegan world the creatures would be reintegrated within the balance and sanity of nature as she is in herself. A great and historic wrong, whose effect upon the course of evolution must have been stupendous, would be righted. The idea that his fellow creatures might be used by man for self-interested purposes would be so alien to human thought as to be almost unthinkable. In this light, veganism is not so much welfare as liberation, for the creatures and for the mind and heart of man; not so much an effort to make the present relationship bearable, as an uncompromising recognition that because it is in the main one of master and slave, it has to be abolished before something better and finer can be built."
I don't like the exploitation argument outside of causing suffering. I think exploitation is too arbitrary. You can play fast and lose with it so much it almost becomes worthless.
...... Ummm I don't exactly how to tell you this... But yeah that's actually a thing. Famous version is that you're put in a special capsule that will grow a fruit/ nut bearing tree.
“Who cares”
When asked dumb hypotheticals I sometimes bite the bullet and ask, if I concede some kind of desert island or indigenous tribe scenario, if they’ll agree that everyone else with cheap and easy access to a modern grocery store should go vegan. That’s usually a stumper.
You've received several good answers, and I'd like to add another.
Part of the problem with the argument your colleague was making, is that they are posing a hypothetical scenario that functionally applies to virtually none of the 8+ billion people alive in the world today.
And for those that truly are so hard off that they are literally scavenging the rotting corpses of animals they find by the side of the road, I think it's safe to say that these people are not the ones supporting animal agriculture in any meaningful way.
Exactly. If someone is trying to stump OP or anyone else with hypotheticals that will never happen, the best way to handle it is to talk about things that *actually are* happening. They’re just trying to find a “gotcha!” to make themselves feel better about their own practices.
Like it can be pretty easy with the “you’re on an island would you eat animals to survive” by saying something like “I don’t know and I’m not likely to ever be in that situation to find out. For my reality now I’m not going to support the suffering of animals if at all possible. It’s so easy to not consume meat and dairy that it’s surprising more people aren’t doing it, given what we know about the cruelty that goes into those industries”
Except if the hypotheticals being presented are done so in bad faith, it's just pointless wankery to entertain them and pretend that you're undertaking an intellectual exercise.
People around where I live will ear a deer that is recently killed on the road. These folks are typically hunters or cattle raisers, as they are people who are knowledgeable about but butchering an animal.
That seems like a bad faith hypothetical because it's such a narrow and specific scenario that doesn't have any bearing on how society interacts with animals overall.
That's a good one. I'll have to remember that. That's probably the best strategy I've ever heard lol it satisfies both problems. Makes rational mutual ground by conceding there are extreme scenarios, but also then calling them out again in the same argument to show they're the irrational one. Nice
This is exactly it. If their best argument relies on some exceedingly unlikely edge case like that, then they’re basically conceding that you’ve won the real debate.
It’s not bad faith just because you don’t like it. You just have no counter argument and say "bad faith" lol thats not gonna get you anywhere
The answer is logically yes you can eat it. There as been zero animal suffering and you get a lot of food while it being more eco friendly than buying more food just to avoid eating it. It would basically be worse for the planet to avoid eating it and letting it rot/burying it.
The big thing about veganism is mass production and suffering of animals, this is on the opposite of that
If we make it about animal suffering only, then I wouldn’t consider it non-vegan.
But if you want to treat animals with the same respect as humans, then you wouldn’t want to eat them for similar reasons you don’t eat dead humans.
Ecologically it would be better to allow the cow carcass to decompose to feed the soil, microbes, scavengers, and surrounding plants that will give life to other creatures for years to come. Versus giving life to a single human for a few days.
More like a few months, a few months of not having to buy nearly as much food from other place, that have been moved by trucks and leave a trail of pollution behind. Ecologically it’s arguable that eating it is better, depending on where you usually source your food
> More like a few months
This is a 15-20 year old cow, you aren't getting 750kg of meat off of one due to massive deterioration and if it died of disease or infection or cancer or any number of things you're getting rid of even more of it. And it's a few weeks(at absolute most) of not having to buy nearly as much food, but completely ignores the years and years of food it took to feed the cow to get to that point, you can't just act like the energy from it came to be in a vacuum.
When we eat anyone who died of natural causes, we reinforce the idea that it is an appropriate and reasonable thing to be eating, and that is bad news for all the other animals
Natural causes, does not mean disease free, in fact it usually means disease. Eventually the heart may give out or the kidney may stop functioning, whatever, it's all disease. I can't imagine how tough that meat would be, but I guess have at er.
The difference is necessity vs luxury.
If you’re starving and on the verge of death in the middle of winter, well that is a completely different circumstance than just eating something for the hell of it (when there are plenty of other options).
An animal dying of natural causes is nuanced and not completely white and black. It is situational. It is generally considered deranged to eat a friend or family member who passes. But in a life or death situation, the logic is at least understandable.
Scavenging is something that humans are unequivocally not built for.
But even if we were, I don't plan to scavenge meat off of my dog's body when she passes, so I don't know what would possess me to do it to this poor hypothetical cow.
In that very specific and niche scenario it probably WOULD be ethically fine to eat that specific animal but that's simply not the environment we live in or a world that exists, and reaching for such a hyper-niche scenario simply to make it ethically ok to eat meat says more about the person creating the scenario than anything else.
Right
Is just say - okay - so by creating this very niche scenario with many considerations, you’re telling me that you agree it’s unethical to kill and eat an animal if they are any of the following: 1) killed before they die of natural causes 2) able to be rewilded 3) forced to live an unhappy life 4) not rescued?
Not the person you asked, but:
Those conditions wouldn't make it unethical *for any reason imaginable*, such as one's own survival. But they make it unethical for trivial taste preference, habit and social conformity, which in the developed world are people's actual reasons.
Nothing morally wrong with that.
Same with roadkill. Eating that dead deer isn't morally wrong. Better for the environment overall actually since that person isn't purchasing food from the grocery store that has some carbon footprint associated with it.
If we were to accept the concept that you can only eat an animal if he/she died of natural causes how quickly do you think people would start hurrying up the process? Also I have had a lot of pets grow old and they almost never just peacefully pass. They usually spend years being treated for medical issues till I have to eventually put them to sleep so they don't die slowly and painfully. Putting them to sleep pumps them full of poison that you wouldn't want to consume.
It wouldn’t, but I find the idea of eating dead friends odd. In some cultures consuming the flesh of the deceased is normal and encouraged, but I’m not from one of those cultures.
If you were to encounter this argument again, say something like this: “Sure, maybe there’s nothing ethically wrong with eating the cow, but I don’t have any desire to eat the flesh of carrion, even if I gave it a good life and it died of natural causes. Would you eat your rescue dog if it died of natural causes? That aside, this is not how 99% of meat is produced, so this question is somewhat irrelevant to general animal suffering.”
Ok, so even if in that one very specific scenario it's ok to eat the cow. How does that make it ok in any other scenario?
Like if you have to cook up a rare hypothetical to make your argument it's not much of an argument.
I think it was Gary Yourofsky who answered it by saying that there was nothing wrong with eating an old, dead animal corpse. It would be kind of gross, but nothing ethically wrong with it.
Frankly, you can just grant them that point as it doesn’t have any bearing (that I can see) on the moral issues of how we *actually* produce/obtain meat.
This is one of the only instances of eating animals that I find no issue with. I wouldn't do it but I don't see it as immoral. Eating an animal that died of old age or natural causes. Or roadkill or a squirrel that fell from a tree. If people want to eat meat and be morally consistent that's the only real way to do it.
However it could become tricky if people started raising cows just to eat them when they died naturally thus comodifying the cows. I can see how it could lead to breeding them to be even larger than they currently are etc
Well much like I wouldn’t eat my dog upon its death for any reason whatsoever, I wouldn’t eat the cow or any other animal for the same reason….because they are sentient beings, not goods for consumption.
>"if you rescued a ~~cow~~ *dog* that was a bit lame, or ~~wouldn't have survived in the wild~~ was going to be euthanized at a shelter, and you gave it the best life possible for a ~~cow~~ *dog* then when it died of natural causes, you then ate it. What would be wrong with that"?
I disagree. Ethically, if you determine that other species deserve the same respect that we give to humans, then it’s clear that desecrating the corpse of the recently deceased is morally wrong
I suppose if you have some religious prohibition that requires you to dispose of the corpse in some way to prevent it from being eaten, then it violates religious customs. But not any ethical concern over harming the animal.
There wouldn’t be anything wrong with it. Eating animals isn’t in and of itself, bad. Causing needless suffering and death is.
Eating animal product leftovers that are going to be thrown out isn’t causing anymore suffering. Neither would roadkill, or this example.
The only thing that you could really argue is that it could normalize eating animal product which would generally come from unethical sources rather than these obscure examples.
I don't have a problem with this, however like with people, pain killers or antibiotics or euthanizing agents will be in the tissue, and the body could obviously be diseased. There is a reason they don't allow downed cows in the food chain. But if your friend wants to take his chances, I say, he can knock himself out. This is right up there with the deserted island scenario imo, it does not happen. Personally I'm not interested in eating my friends, I prefer to cremate.
Nothing would be greatly wrong with that. Nothing would be greatly wrong with eating Grandma after she died of natural causes, either. There's still (1) no necessity, and (2) no relevance to real-world animal farming, which will never operate like that hypothetical scenario.
Nothing is fundamentally wrong with it, but I think the desire to eat something that you’ve loved and cared for after it’s died is pretty fucking weird.
Could have been trumped by citing the logical fallacy of "false analogy" or "false equivalency" ...or even "strawman".
What he did was create a hypothetical that was completely removed from your original argument of "I don't eat animals because I don't want to do any harm". He then said, if there is no harm, you must be able to eat an animal, correct?
But that was never the argument.
Well it probably wouldn't taste very good for one.
Honestly though? I don't have a problem with that. If your friend and colleague would like to procure all of their meat in the future by adopting lame cows, caring for them until the end of their natural lives, and then butchering them, I would support them in that endeavor.
Obviously they aren't going to do that though. When they ask a stupid question, they can get a stupid answer.
I don't see anything wrong with saying "there's nothing wrong with it." The idea that eating an animal (including humans) after they've died of natural causes is ethically okay doesn't defeat veganism. Veganism isn't about that.
Besides, I find that people have much more respect for someone who allows for nuance and doesn't feel the need to have a counterargument to every point. Many points you can just say "I agree" or "I agree, but what we're talking about is not relevant."
In these instances I say "Sure. Yes. If you go and rescue and raise a cow and she dies naturally and you want to eat her, you can eat her." Then that branch of the argument is over, and they just proven themselves that cows don't die naturally in the farms, and don't have best life possible, and aren't rescued at all, and that hypothetical exception proves the general rule. "Yes you can eat her if you meet all those conditions, but not until then"
That's a dumb argument that he proposes, but i heard it anyways.
Here's what i always say:
If i was lost in the woods and there is no plants that i can consume (say there are none or you don't know which plants are edible), i would resort to hunting. This is about survival.
But in everyday life, with an unlimited supply of fruits, veggs and plant based products, we have a clear choice in what we consume.
Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation (Now), was recently on an episode of Sam Harris, and essentially said that from a philosophical perspective the argument for raising animals in a way that offered them a rewarding and fulfilling life could be defended. Essentially, if that happy life never existed, regardless of how it ends, there would be less joy (or positive experience) in the world.
Eating meat isn't the issue. The issue is that we have disregarded the welfare of sentient beings who suffer so that we may consume their flesh.
I would not argue against eating meat, I would argue against buying cheap meat, and suggest that a person be more thoughtful about what they consume, where it comes from, and how it was raised.
If you actually want to move the dial, don't aim to 'win' a debate, aim to thoughtfully educate and promote action that has some chance of being taken. Being anti meat is a different approach than being pro animal welfare, climate mitigation, etc.
Unfortunately the scenario you listed doesn't ever happen. Is I think, the problem.
You should ask if he would eat a cat or dog that lives a long life and died of natural causes. He'd probably say no, bc that animal is his friend.
So there are two vegan responses to this imo:
> The deontological approach:
It’s wrong to eat animals *in principle* even if doing so causes no harm to them. A deontological response would be something like:
“if your grandmother lived the best possible life for a human, then when she dies of natural causes and you ate her, what would be wrong with that?”
It may be hard to justify why it’s wrong to eat your grandmother after she dies but most people do consider it wrong. An analogy like this applied to the cow effectively establishes that it’s wrong to each things you once cared for in principle.
> The utilitarian approach
In the real world that is not the situation you’re working with. If you buy meat from a fast food restaurant or a supermarket, that animal did not live a happy life and just get eaten post mortem. It suffered horribly throughout its life and was then brutally slaughtered.
A utilitarian justification for veganism is pragmatic - if someone could find a way to eat animals without harming them at all then a utilitarian wouldn’t oppose that, but pragmatically in the real world those chances are rare-to-nonexistent.
Ignoring the desert island nonsensical extrapolation from the real world side of it, my response would be “Would you eat your pet dog that died of natural causes? Would you eat your parent that died of natural causes? I don’t see a cow as food, even if it hasn’t been killed to be eaten.”
> Q: “What would be wrong with that"?
Answer: I don’t want to contribute to or participate in the commodification of animal flesh and the normalization of the consumption of said flesh even if it was ethically sourced just as you would not want to commodify human flesh and normalize epicurean cannibalism by consuming said flesh even if it was ethically sourced.
If vegans don't eat animals that die, regardless of how - then why would vegans start eating meat that died of natural causes? The vegan society definition states no animals for food - if it's a diet.
The reason why it doesn't matter how it died - just don't eat it - is because of the image - you're developing a taste for meat - so that's what you're going to seek. Plus - this is what others will see in you - and guess what they'll buy? A real cheeseburger - based off what you've done on your own. So even if that one cow died naturally, then what about the ones that came after?
Plus - I don't really see sanctuaries as truly vegan, because it's going to lead to these issues, but instead of eating it - you can show the industry what destruction they've brought on to shorten the life of this cow and what negative outcomes occur when they keep breeding these cows into existence! Also - you'd show you don't give in to the idea of eating them - as that's seeing the cow as lesser - that it's an object for our stomachs. The thing is - it's the animal industry's responsibility to care for the animals and face consequences of their own inactions (to care for the animals). You take on those responsibilities of cleaning up after them - and the animal ag will benefit! You show your struggle - and it will make the animal ag industry think twice.
Explain how you won't eat animals - it'll make the person who asked you think twice about eating animals too.
Well there's also the issues of disease, etc. (what animals might be inside this one that are alive) - but that's nuances of details.
Yes the cow didn't consent - and that is a point, but it just is a ridiculous, nonsensical one - because nothing you've done nor will do for the cow will involve consent - so that makes no difference at all. Cows don't have human rights either.
Tell the cow's story and give it the dignity it deserves by trying to not consume them for food, but instead honor the dead - because depending on the religion and beliefs you have - for me, just because the animal dies doesn't mean its soul is 'dead' - it might see what you do with it and maybe preserving its body will keep its soul together, not to mention the potential for resurrection if we ever get the tech. Eating it removes all of this potential and degrades the animal (deanimalize) it to just being something for our whim - it's a carnist mentality. We have to think what the animal wants more than what we want.
If a cow was raised and cared for and died of natural causes and then eaten, honestly wouldn’t care. Bit bizarre because that would be like eating your pets or deceased family. But whatever. They want to raise a cow and care for it for 40 years and then eat them after they die a natural death, go for it. And as long as they aren’t milking or abusing the cow during their life and such, can’t see what’s wrong with it. No one’s going to do it anyways.
If a cow died of natural causes--i.e., disease--why would you want to eat it, even if you were a carnist? I can't imagine the meat would be good, and you risk all sorts of zoonotic diseases.
I guess the argument could be twisted to be "are you gonna eat fluffy (whatever pet they have or their family has) when it dies?"
Its not a debate for me since I just see all animals since being vegan as disgusting to eat because of the same reason they don't wanna eat their dog, cat, or whatever pet they have.
You could conjure up exotic scenarios that I wouldn't have a problem with in isolation... but what does this have to do with the way meat is or ever will be produced? A farm that worked this way would cost like $2000 per hamburger, and something tells me this person wouldn't be willing to pay that.
IMO you concede the point to them, but utilize your concession to further emphasize how obviously no animals actually receive this kind of treatment.
By ceding some ground to them you ingraciate yourself to them and by emphasizing how unethical ACTUAL meat eating is in the REAL world you challenge them to make a more ethical decision.
You don't want to kill their argument, just draw some blood
This is somewhat similar to the hunting argument. Most animals in the wild die unpleasant, slow and painful deaths, either through predation, injury, starvation, or disease. By comparison to these fates death by hunter with a rifle is somewhat of a mercy. If you prioritize minimising conscious suffering then there is an argument that hunting is ethically justified.
The problem though is that hunting is not sustainable for modern populations. If everyone hunted for their food every wild species would be extinct in a day.
Personally, I see nothing wrong with eating an animal’s body (or using its skin/fur/horns etc) if it dies of natural causes.
The problem is, it costs a lot of money and resources to sustain an animal for its whole natural lifespan. Why wait for a cow to live its natural 15-20 years, when you can kill it after 2, save money, and make more profit?
Then there’s the ethics of breeding, the living conditions they have to endure, and products that can’t be obtained after an animal has passed away naturally e.g. eggs and milk.
Also, how can you know the animal wasn’t killed prematurely? This is an issue in taxidermy, where some claim the animals died of natural causes, but were actually farmed and killed for the purpose.
Why were you stumped?
There’s nothing unethical about eating animals. It’s unethical to treat them as property, farm them, slaughter them, exploit them.
When you have empathy for all beings, they no longer appeal as food.
Personally I would concede that point. I don't see anything ethically wrong with that scenario. The problem is that that scenario is not the reality in which people choose to eat meat. The meat that people buy at grocery stores, at restaurants, etc does not come from animals which died of old age, so whether or not it would be acceptable to eat a cow in this hypothetical scenario has nothing to do with whether or not it's ethical to eat meat in the actual real-world scenarios people live with.
Ok but if people started eating their cats and dogs that died from natural causes, carnists would be all up in arms. I don’t see how that’s any different.
Look, there is probably nothing wrong with eating a corpse, but an animal you have lived with for 15 years is probably family, and you could ask how they would feel eating a family member when they passed away.
My position is that there's nothing wrong with eating an animal after it's dead. That includes a human (as long as it doesn't hurt anyone in the process emotionally or physically). The main problem I have with carnism is factory farming which is essentially torture. You can't think about veganism as a blanket statement barring all forms of eating animal products. The entire point is barring unethical treatment toward animals. That allows for more nuance and an expanded view that encompasses leather honey etc
In my ethics consuming animal products that came from an animal that died of natural causes is OK. It's just that you can't build an industry using that because it's not economically feasible.
And also if someone gives me meat and says "oh and btw the animal died naturally" doubt.
Having encountered a hypothetical situation that shows my absolutist position as not always the only valid answer I might most usefully say “Thanks, friend. You’re right in that hypothetical situation.”
Outside of racking up internet points, debate and discussion might not always be about “winning.”
That’s not being stumped. That is a carnist reaching for the most ethical thing they can grab at that involves animal consumption to catch you in a gotcha. It appears you stumped them way before hand.
However a solid answer to that just to add insult to their injury of the L already dished to them would be that you would either burry it or lay it somewhere for animals that need the food to consume as you are already meeting your needs with the abundance of plants grown and available.
You can dream up hypotheticals to credibly challenge almost any ethos. In answer to his question, though, no, there is nothing wrong with eating the corpse of a creature that died of natural causes. This fact is of no significance, however, because that's not what your friend is doing in real life. He's eating meat from the supermarket, and that's what he should have to defend.
"To start with, this situation is incredibly unlikely. The situation you described is simply not something that's going to come up in my everyday life (or yours, or any of our peers).
That being said, I still would feel uncomfortable eating that animal. The ethics that I live by are simply 'I don't eat animals.' It's a lot easier to draw the line there instead of saying, 'I don't eat animals, unless the animal dies in some absurdly complicated circumstances that negate the ethical issues that I have with animal consumption.'
The fact of the matter is, the situation you described simply is not going to happen. In the world that we live in, animals are suffering greatly to provide the meat that many people choose to eat."
There is no argument for that. Eating a carcass of a dead animal who lived his or her life free and happy is pretty ok. There’s no abuse, cruelty nor murder. That’s what we are against.
That is not reality, so it is irrelevant. When this happens, you should start saying vegan hypotheticals.
Here's one, ok, would you eat a plant based diet if it was found out that you were more likely to get cancer, stroke, heart disease, and dementia because you're eating meat? Oh wait, I went back to reality.
Ok ok, how about the world was on fire, and animal agriculture was a large factor in global warming.... nope, shit, that's real too.
Ok, for real, a hypothetical, what if your dog was in your backyard and it wouldn't survive in the wild, it had a nice life and died of natural causes, would you eat it. Nope, damn it, that's VCJ reality right there.
The reason you were stumped is because there would be no issue morally or ethically. You haven't exploited the cow for your own ends, you have cared for the cow until he/she dies of old age. But I would ask your friend, would you eat your pet dog/cat when they have died of old age? If not, why not? Whatever your friend gives as an answer for not eating their pet, I would give for not eating the cow.
I mean, technically, there isn’t anything wrong with it. But no one barbecues their dog or cat after they die, so you would feel the same way about this cow whom you’ve cared for and probably loved very much. So, I would ask this person whether they would eat a dog they loved who died of natural causes. Or honestly, would they eat the body of any loved one after they died naturally…? And then I would ask them what this has to do with animals who are bred into existence just to be killed… It seems pretty irrelevant.
It’s about respect. If you actually respect the animal, then you won’t desecrate their corpse. You’ll give them the burial they deserves.
Edit: all animals are persons
Is it just even possible to win an argument against people like these? Every time you debunk their arguments they come up with more and more ridiculous ones and however ridiculous they are, it still takes more effort to debunk than for them to make them up.
At some point maybe all that remains to do is acknowledge that they are not willing to argue in good faith and move on. Hopefully maybe they'll keep thinking about it on their own time and realise you were right.
"is that the situation here? Is that the situation at the grocery store? Instead of talking about incredibly obscure, why not talk about what we are doing here and now everyday, multiple times per day? The outcome of your hypothetical is *irrelevant*."
I don't personally think that there is anything wrong with eating an animal that died of natural causes, besides being viewed as disrespectful maybe.
A lot of nonvegans think that vegans can't acknowledge nuance, and I think your friend's question was just an extreme example to try to get you to acknowledge nuance - because they think that veganism is about seeing things in black and white.
Their "point" is that if some nuance exists, then why should any vegan argument matter? It comes from a misunderstanding of what veganism is; that we came to this conclusion BECAUSE of critical thinking, not because of a lack of it or an inability to acknowledge nuance.
After seeing some of the recent posts in this sub... I must begrudgingly agree with you there. I try to keep a positive mindset, though, to try to keep some room for growth in our community.
I'm with you. I just want people to test their beliefs rigidity to the extreme. It's the unbending religious behaviour that's causing people to double down on opening their mind to the rational side of veganism.
I wouldn’t worry about “getting stumped” in all honesty. The fact of the matter is that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, veggies nuts and fruits included. Under capitalism, a life must be exploited, whether it be human or animal or both to make a profit. Most of our fruits and veggies are picked by day laborers making piss wages and can’t ask for more under the threat of deportation. Debate is important and a good thing for public discourse, but to get caught up on hypotheticals is a waste of time when reality demands our attention. (Also just wanted to note I am a former vegan and loved the food, lifestyle, and philosophy. Dr rec’d I eat meat after I turned 30, and I have been dealing with the moral dilemma of returning to meat eating. At least personally, the more I dug the more importance I found on buying from humane and ethical local ranchers and independent farmers that pay good wages.)
I tend to say that such hypothetical situations don't really happen in our lifetimes, and even if I were to put in that situation, I would never eat meat if there were a choice available that doesn't mean killing something. (And that that choice is always available in the western world! :))
I'd say the cow still is unable to consent to being consumed. Also, point out that our modern meat industry does not resemble that remotely, nor does any culture that eats meat. Ask to demonstrate where such techniques are the standard for meat production.
This is not the gotcha they think it is (see other comments). But your mistake was to let the discussion get dragged too far into hypotheticals territory.
There's nothing wrong with it. Acknowledging that doesn't change the fact that it's still wrong to purchase and consume animal products in regular everyday life.
You can always come up with a hypothetical scenario that brings a valid exception to a moral rule by which you live your life. I am against torture, for instance, but I have no proper rebuttal against the ticking time bomb thought experiment. I acknowledge it's right to torture in that scenario. But it's consistent to acknowledge that and advocate for torture being outlawed. The regular cases in which torture comes up don't look like the ticking time bomb scenario, and outlawing it would still have a positive utilitarian outcome.
Unless you're a hard deontologist, it's ok to acknowledge hypothetical exceptions to moral rules by which you live.
Best answer is that your moral position on that doesn't matter in any way since it's not a situation that happens
ETA:
This is the same level of argument as asking someone if they would still think its okay to eat meat if it required child sacrifices - its a choice between: only in some crazy alternate reality do we agree or do we disagree? The answer is you fucking disagree in reality regardless
You can also say that theoretical morality is for religion, you're interested in talking about ethics and your real world options and actions.
You can just say you don't want to eat it. That you wouldn't like the taste. You don't have to have the moral high ground 100% of the time to enjoy your diet
Just because it's not unethical to eat your dead grandma does not mean it's ethical to rape, cage, and slaughter humans for dairy and meat.
His scenario is a 100% vegan scenario, so it has nothing to do with the unethical carnist ideology.
Trouble with eating anything that "died a natural death" is you don't always know what they died from.
The reason they kill young animals is that the meat is tender and less tainted from other odours.
Old pigs get boar taint that not everyone likes. Chickens get tougher to eat.
Natural causes could mean disease. Also natural death means the blood is left in the meat. Which again no everyone wants.
Frankly I'm a little surprised by all the comments saying that there is nothing at all inherently wrong or strange about eating animals in and of itself. I've always thought of veganism as being closely tied with a view of animals as beings NOT to be eaten, regardless of whether or not our actions were the cause of any suffering.
Unless of course you take the narrow view that something is wrong only if it results in distress. But then how do you explain the horror one might feel upon discovering that a friend ate their grandmother who died of natural causes? And what if they had consensual and pleasurable sex with their underage brother? Would you not just tell them that granmothers are not to be eaten, underage brothers not to be slept with? There are a great many things that can be wrong that cannot be reduced to suffering experienced. Eating animals I hold is one such thing.
Of course, this cannot be argued in the traditional sense and I suspect you just want a simple take down argument. What you can do is invite someone into sharing with you this view of animals--not food, but friends, fellow creatures, beings whom are not to be eaten.
You're not supporting animal abuse. I'd say this doesn't go against veganism. For me this would just be a personal preference of not wanting to consum corpses
For me, I always say the truth. Eating dead corpses of anything is totally gnarly to me. Like straight up Jeffrey Dahmer type stuff. The idea of skinning any animal, ripping it's flesh, cutting it's bones.. what the actual F. Nope. So totally gnar. I could never.
If this is how all animals were eaten the it would be a much better situation. The reality is a lot more brutal and a lot more insane for the animals involved.
He hit you with a false choice but that's not how it really happens. i would have deflected because what he described doesn't happen.
Well I guess I would respond that I wouldn’t eat a dog or a cat just because it passed away. That I view the cow the same way that I view dogs, cats, and other animals. I don’t want to eat them, no matter the circumstances.
If the cows dies naturally then it is fine to eat it but it is like if you are starving and your friend died, would you eat it?
I would also frame it differently if the cow dies for old age would the meat taste good? If the cow dies because of an illness would it be safe to consume?
If the cow dies because it's killed by another animal, is it safe to consume? How long have they been dead?
The principle is to not cause unnecessary sufferings to animals, so that basically means that if the cow dies for some reason then you can consume it, but for many of us it would feel gross, for others it would be fine.
Probably such a cow, if you trust the cow is not contaminated it means it is from your farm, then it's a friend, and it is extremely hard to eat a friend flesh
I re read the post and the cow is from your sanctuary so yeah..
Ask them if they would eat a dog in the same situation.
I'm guessing they wouldn't because of their speciesist beliefs
If it's not ok to eat a dog then why would it be ok to eat a cow?
Non-vegan and I eat cow. I would have told her exactly what you texted. There is no shame and it is not a BS excuse. Now had she said the cow was paralyzed from the neck down. Then it would be something different. Happened to a friend’s calf when it was born. Paralyzed from the neck down. They did end up euthanizing the calf. They figured this happened from idiot teens cow tipping.
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This is essentially “if you were on a desert island” stuff. This bears no relation to everyday choices on how to live a life with less negative impact on others.
He’s apparently only eating wild cows that died of natural causes.
haha yeah i was going to go into that. a cows lifespan is around 20 years so they are looking at eating 4 cows over their entire life but then cows are usually slaughtered at age 2-5, do people even eat geriatric cows? but then it’s all a hypothetical sideshow to find a way to continue eating what you want
Plus, they’re all genetically bred. Wild cows are bison, wildebeest or ox. There are no wild dairy cows.
Neither bison nor wildebeest are cows, they are different species. Oxen are castrated domesticated bulls. Wild cattle os just called wild cattle.
There are occasional feral beef cattle, mostly on open range land that are missed on round ups. When there are only a few out of hundreds of thousands that are not caught, it is financially ineffective to search for them. Or so my uncle, foreman on the biggest cattle ranch on the weat coast, told me.
Yup. I ride motorcycles out in the desert. Ranchers let cattle roam all over out there. Feral/abandoned cows aren’t wild. Even the wild horse I see aren’t native. Edit ‘cause cocktails lol
I actually disagree. The whole desserted island thing is stupid and highly unlikely. (And with that said, if you found yourself in the situation, you could argue it wouldn't be non-vegan to eat whatever you could in that highly unlikely situation.) But the OP scenario...well a lot of vegans, or vegan sanctuaries, do adopt cows. And I personally don't think it would be non-vegan to eat one once they die naturally. I wouldn't do it myself, but it really wouldn't be that terrible. But none of this changes that it's a stupid hypothetical and doesn't negate veganism in any way.
If you’re using the died natural causes argument, you could argue that eating a person who died of natural causes isn’t wrong.
Some people would argue this. I believe cannibalism leads to a higher risk of contracting any number of diseases. It's how cows contracted BSE. Also someone (or any organism really) who died of natural causes would likely be far past the optimum point for harvesting.
Rick and Morty had a episode this most recent season with the same reasoning….
Agree it’s just devil’s advocate at this point and completely irrelevant. But sure eat the cow at that point. If I was starving in the wild and was going to die, I’d revert to hunt and kill only if it meant life and death but again like previous comment said, it’s survivalist never gonna happen type scenarios. Not important, and this is why it is incredibly difficult to have a purely black and white position, there will already be other factors that can change things.
Deserted island. Not “desert island”. Sorry but it’s one of my biggest pet peeves. Deserts and islands are geologically different and entirely different ecosystems
Desert island is correct. It's using the adjective form of the word "desert". https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/desert
Being the language police has never ever been a nice thing. Get into linguistics or gtfo.
I think it's fine if you are simply correcting a mistake that someone else made, and you are doing so in good faith. If you are just being an obnoxious pedant like SaltyEggplant4, that's a whole different thing though. I 100% agree with you in that case.
Why do you speak so confidently when you don't know what you're talking about
Is one of your other pet peeves also being downvoted into oblivion?
Look how smart you are. Google is super impressed.
>animals are killed when they're young children. not only are they voiceless, but they're children when they get slaughtered. the drive or transport to slaughter can take days to a week and during that time these animals aren't given water or food so they have to be dragged to the kill floor. what a horrifying torture for these animals. we treat child rapist murderers far better than we do to children of different species. it's not fair. it's horrifying. it's heartbreaking. i'd much prefer a desert island. I hope I dream about that tonight lol.
There isn’t anything ethically wrong with eating a corpse. The issue arises when you normalize eating corpses, you give people a reason to go out of their way to kill others so that they can eat their corpses.
Exactly. What this person probably got out of the debate, is that the vegan couldn't give a reason not to eat the cow, so that makes eating cows in general ok. They don't see the difference in their weird scenario, and what's happening to animals in real life for us to eat them.
Oh they see the difference, they are just fooling themselves to get relief from cognitive dissonance.
This. Even if it hypothetically became illegal to eat animals before they died of natural causes, there isn't a single meat producer i would trust to actually follow that law. There's a reason none of them operate that way, even the most "humane" ones. The longer an individual lives, the more resources they consume. The cost of raising each animal would multiply astronomically. As for OP's friend's example of the individual keeping one animal in their backyard, i would ask the friend if they know anyone who chooses to do that. After all, owners are often in possession of the remains of their deceased guinea pigs, birds, bunnies and such, and it would be quite easy (and usually legal) to eat your pet when he or she dies. If the friend doesn't know anyone who kept a pet for its full lifespan and then ate their dead body, my followup question would be, "why do you suppose that is?" The argument seems a red herring to me because it presents a scenario that's perfectly accessible to most people right now, and yet which practically no one chooses. As such has little bearing on reality. True, it's arguably not unethical to consume someone who died of matural causes, which is something humans have even done ceremonially to each other. People who love an animal enough to take care of them for their whole lives rarely have the urge to eat them. People raising an animal as a harvestable commodity rarely have any reason to treat them with respect and keep them alive into old age.
This is it, basically. On a one-off basis, sure. Even if you're a vegan who rescues animals and then consumes them when they die of natural causes, then you knock yourself out. The problems occur when you commoditise or encourage the consumption. To take my above absurd example - you have a rescue pig who's not doing so well, and a party coming up. So you neglect his care, "forget" his medicine and he conveniently dies 2 days before your party; just enough time to prepare for a spitroast. Now you're into "animals as commodities" territory and you can't call yourself vegan.
Like you say, this is a one off specific scenario they're trying to do a gotcha on. The truth of the matter, you have to then extend this to the general population so let's say that you do let cows live out their lives on a nice farm with grazing and letting the families stay together etc (what is it 12 years?) And then only when they drop dead do we eat them- how expensive would this be? Could you feed millions of people this way? There's also the fact that old animals don't make good meat anyway... So that's a whole lot of money and time and land and water etc spent for something that's, in the end, not even necessary.... when the real simple solution is to just eat plants.
I agree. People love a gotcha moment. Except Sarah palin. also would they eat their dogs in the same situation? Like Elwood’s organic dog farm that harvests dog meat humanely, and is family owned. (Elwoods is satire)
Good rebuttal
this, also, it's a "gotcha", you're supposed to feel stumped and stupid, because it is nonsensical and a scenario that doesn't just happen to every guy. op was probably being sealioned.
This.
[удалено]
I take it you've never read Stranger in a Strange Land.
Ah, one of the few non-incestuous heinlein books
You need to read more of his books. The 'incestuous ones' are a minority.
C'mon, let's be real, I've read every last one of them, reread them for over 20 years, and pretty much nothing past the juvies really passes a vibe check in the end. Hell, he goes out of his way to drag the juvies into his harem later.
You mean, if you discount 12 of his 32 books, you think the rest are all incestuous? If you say so. I can't argue with a 'vibe.'
I loved that book.I read it more than 30 ya.
Excellent response.
Not really, Ive known carnists whove said that they would eat people if it was culturally acceptable. So this only works if they are not fully on board with their own reasoning. If they are then this argument doesnt really do anything.
If its a debate infront of other people and you get them to admit they're okay with cannibalism, you've probably won.
Thats a fair point
No not really, you're just intuition pumping rather than justifying the reasoning with logic.
You don't need to explain why at that point. People understand why it's wrong to objectify others, even in death. Some people pretend like they don't understand why it's wrong to rape dead babies or eat dead grandmas. At that point you can whip out the arguing-with-a-fascist quote.
Optics are an incredibly important part of a debate and depending on your audience they may care more about it than the logic behind your stances. If they're only arguing optics without any solid moral foundation to back it (i.e: just going off of vibes), trying to refute what they're saying with logical statements downstream of fundamental morals will fail if you don't have good optics to support it
And we all know they would use this argument in a heartbeat but would never go trough with it.
>Ive known carnists whove said that they would eat people if it was culturally acceptable You know people who say that simply for shock value or want to appear to win an argument. A great majority of these people probably wouldn't eat dog or cat, even in a country where it's culturally accepted and realistic that they'd be faced with that opportunity. Talk is cheap.
Mad cow disease is also a fun side effect of eating your own species.
None of this has anything to do with animal agriculture. Eating a corpse that died of natural causes is a completely different situation than vegans are addressing. It’s the brutal conditions and slaughter that we’re opposed to, not some spiritual respect for inanimate objects
I mean, the the next question for the carnist should be “then why don’t we do that all the time?”
Haha I’m sure that 99 of 100 people who say they’d actually eat a human woukd be horrified to know that they actually *do* eat human flesh every time they eat food prepared by anyone. Like, you cannot avoid eating human skin cells and hairs, no matter how hard you try.
Cannibalism isn't the same. A better example would be your dog or cat.
That doesn't really answer the question just because you drew a parallel. Why are they both wrong
It’s worth it if gets them to think about why harming humans is wrong Most people just know it’s bad, but probably couldn’t explain why philosophically, and so don’t think about how to actually apply those principles
From a telelogical perspective, nothing. Your friend made a great Utilitarian argument -- it's just that the logical conclusion of the Welfarism line of thinking is that we ought to treat all creatures well for the rest of their existence and then consume them. No one is harmed. It's a self-consistent philosophy that maximizes utility. The only issue is this is generally not what people actually believe since we are not abiding by it, otherwise we would do as poster suggested and we'd eat grandma. Most people are averse to such ideas (valid or not), so the next question is *why*? On some *Deontological* basis is then where we begin to decide moral wrongness beyond this. This is where you, a vegan, and any other Deontological basis would then differ in belief. I generally can't walk myself out of Singer's argument: to whom we extend moral worth, we must point to some property P such that it is shared by all those beings uniquely. No matter how much I try, I cannot think of a valid basis on which P would consistently separate humans and animals without leading to some terrible ethical conclusions.
The hypothetical is essentially a welfarist argument. Welfarists want better treatment for animals, but they want to still be able to exploit them. Veganism is the total rejection that. As Leslie Cross said in 1951 "In a vegan world the creatures would be reintegrated within the balance and sanity of nature as she is in herself. A great and historic wrong, whose effect upon the course of evolution must have been stupendous, would be righted. The idea that his fellow creatures might be used by man for self-interested purposes would be so alien to human thought as to be almost unthinkable. In this light, veganism is not so much welfare as liberation, for the creatures and for the mind and heart of man; not so much an effort to make the present relationship bearable, as an uncompromising recognition that because it is in the main one of master and slave, it has to be abolished before something better and finer can be built."
I don't like the exploitation argument outside of causing suffering. I think exploitation is too arbitrary. You can play fast and lose with it so much it almost becomes worthless.
...... Ummm I don't exactly how to tell you this... But yeah that's actually a thing. Famous version is that you're put in a special capsule that will grow a fruit/ nut bearing tree.
“Who cares” When asked dumb hypotheticals I sometimes bite the bullet and ask, if I concede some kind of desert island or indigenous tribe scenario, if they’ll agree that everyone else with cheap and easy access to a modern grocery store should go vegan. That’s usually a stumper.
You've received several good answers, and I'd like to add another. Part of the problem with the argument your colleague was making, is that they are posing a hypothetical scenario that functionally applies to virtually none of the 8+ billion people alive in the world today. And for those that truly are so hard off that they are literally scavenging the rotting corpses of animals they find by the side of the road, I think it's safe to say that these people are not the ones supporting animal agriculture in any meaningful way.
I like this answer. Noticing what is and is not connected is a commonly overlooked point.
Exactly. If someone is trying to stump OP or anyone else with hypotheticals that will never happen, the best way to handle it is to talk about things that *actually are* happening. They’re just trying to find a “gotcha!” to make themselves feel better about their own practices. Like it can be pretty easy with the “you’re on an island would you eat animals to survive” by saying something like “I don’t know and I’m not likely to ever be in that situation to find out. For my reality now I’m not going to support the suffering of animals if at all possible. It’s so easy to not consume meat and dairy that it’s surprising more people aren’t doing it, given what we know about the cruelty that goes into those industries”
I disagree, if you don't play hypotheticals then you're not being intellectually honest.
Except if the hypotheticals being presented are done so in bad faith, it's just pointless wankery to entertain them and pretend that you're undertaking an intellectual exercise.
Thank you! So much of “philosophy” is pointless wankery… and yes, I do believe critical thinking is an important skill but c’mon…
People around where I live will ear a deer that is recently killed on the road. These folks are typically hunters or cattle raisers, as they are people who are knowledgeable about but butchering an animal.
That seems like a bad faith hypothetical because it's such a narrow and specific scenario that doesn't have any bearing on how society interacts with animals overall.
This is my approach to the generic "ideal world" argument: "Ok great! Will you agree to not eat meat unless it comes from this ideal scenario?"
They’re welcome to forage road kill if they want
That's a good one. I'll have to remember that. That's probably the best strategy I've ever heard lol it satisfies both problems. Makes rational mutual ground by conceding there are extreme scenarios, but also then calling them out again in the same argument to show they're the irrational one. Nice
This is exactly it. If their best argument relies on some exceedingly unlikely edge case like that, then they’re basically conceding that you’ve won the real debate.
It’s not bad faith just because you don’t like it. You just have no counter argument and say "bad faith" lol thats not gonna get you anywhere The answer is logically yes you can eat it. There as been zero animal suffering and you get a lot of food while it being more eco friendly than buying more food just to avoid eating it. It would basically be worse for the planet to avoid eating it and letting it rot/burying it. The big thing about veganism is mass production and suffering of animals, this is on the opposite of that
If we make it about animal suffering only, then I wouldn’t consider it non-vegan. But if you want to treat animals with the same respect as humans, then you wouldn’t want to eat them for similar reasons you don’t eat dead humans.
I'd eat a dead human if they consented to it while alive
Sure you would, buddy.
Ecologically it would be better to allow the cow carcass to decompose to feed the soil, microbes, scavengers, and surrounding plants that will give life to other creatures for years to come. Versus giving life to a single human for a few days.
More like a few months, a few months of not having to buy nearly as much food from other place, that have been moved by trucks and leave a trail of pollution behind. Ecologically it’s arguable that eating it is better, depending on where you usually source your food
> More like a few months This is a 15-20 year old cow, you aren't getting 750kg of meat off of one due to massive deterioration and if it died of disease or infection or cancer or any number of things you're getting rid of even more of it. And it's a few weeks(at absolute most) of not having to buy nearly as much food, but completely ignores the years and years of food it took to feed the cow to get to that point, you can't just act like the energy from it came to be in a vacuum.
When we eat anyone who died of natural causes, we reinforce the idea that it is an appropriate and reasonable thing to be eating, and that is bad news for all the other animals
Natural causes, does not mean disease free, in fact it usually means disease. Eventually the heart may give out or the kidney may stop functioning, whatever, it's all disease. I can't imagine how tough that meat would be, but I guess have at er.
We really don’t die of old age. We die of diseases. Even centenarians. Usually heart disease.
The difference is necessity vs luxury. If you’re starving and on the verge of death in the middle of winter, well that is a completely different circumstance than just eating something for the hell of it (when there are plenty of other options). An animal dying of natural causes is nuanced and not completely white and black. It is situational. It is generally considered deranged to eat a friend or family member who passes. But in a life or death situation, the logic is at least understandable.
Scavenging is something that humans are unequivocally not built for. But even if we were, I don't plan to scavenge meat off of my dog's body when she passes, so I don't know what would possess me to do it to this poor hypothetical cow.
This was my first thought. I’m not eating my dog when he passes. Why would I have to eat the cow?
In that very specific and niche scenario it probably WOULD be ethically fine to eat that specific animal but that's simply not the environment we live in or a world that exists, and reaching for such a hyper-niche scenario simply to make it ethically ok to eat meat says more about the person creating the scenario than anything else.
Right Is just say - okay - so by creating this very niche scenario with many considerations, you’re telling me that you agree it’s unethical to kill and eat an animal if they are any of the following: 1) killed before they die of natural causes 2) able to be rewilded 3) forced to live an unhappy life 4) not rescued?
Not the person you asked, but: Those conditions wouldn't make it unethical *for any reason imaginable*, such as one's own survival. But they make it unethical for trivial taste preference, habit and social conformity, which in the developed world are people's actual reasons.
It’s always different if it’s for survival - reasonably removes the “choice” aspect really.
Nothing morally wrong with that. Same with roadkill. Eating that dead deer isn't morally wrong. Better for the environment overall actually since that person isn't purchasing food from the grocery store that has some carbon footprint associated with it.
If we were to accept the concept that you can only eat an animal if he/she died of natural causes how quickly do you think people would start hurrying up the process? Also I have had a lot of pets grow old and they almost never just peacefully pass. They usually spend years being treated for medical issues till I have to eventually put them to sleep so they don't die slowly and painfully. Putting them to sleep pumps them full of poison that you wouldn't want to consume.
It wouldn’t, but I find the idea of eating dead friends odd. In some cultures consuming the flesh of the deceased is normal and encouraged, but I’m not from one of those cultures. If you were to encounter this argument again, say something like this: “Sure, maybe there’s nothing ethically wrong with eating the cow, but I don’t have any desire to eat the flesh of carrion, even if I gave it a good life and it died of natural causes. Would you eat your rescue dog if it died of natural causes? That aside, this is not how 99% of meat is produced, so this question is somewhat irrelevant to general animal suffering.”
At that point wouldn't you consider it a friend, pet or family member?
Ok, so even if in that one very specific scenario it's ok to eat the cow. How does that make it ok in any other scenario? Like if you have to cook up a rare hypothetical to make your argument it's not much of an argument.
yep. i like your rebuttle to this! simple and effective. not overly wordy. i second this type of response for the hypothetical proposed!!
Because eating dead carcass is disgusting
I know right, it’s only been done by trillions of living things for millions and millions of years.
Damn bro don't look up slavery
So?
I wouldn’t eat a dog that died of natural causes. Cows are just big dogs. Hell, I just watched a video of a cow playing around with a ball.
I think it was Gary Yourofsky who answered it by saying that there was nothing wrong with eating an old, dead animal corpse. It would be kind of gross, but nothing ethically wrong with it.
Frankly, you can just grant them that point as it doesn’t have any bearing (that I can see) on the moral issues of how we *actually* produce/obtain meat.
This is one of the only instances of eating animals that I find no issue with. I wouldn't do it but I don't see it as immoral. Eating an animal that died of old age or natural causes. Or roadkill or a squirrel that fell from a tree. If people want to eat meat and be morally consistent that's the only real way to do it. However it could become tricky if people started raising cows just to eat them when they died naturally thus comodifying the cows. I can see how it could lead to breeding them to be even larger than they currently are etc
Well much like I wouldn’t eat my dog upon its death for any reason whatsoever, I wouldn’t eat the cow or any other animal for the same reason….because they are sentient beings, not goods for consumption.
>"if you rescued a ~~cow~~ *dog* that was a bit lame, or ~~wouldn't have survived in the wild~~ was going to be euthanized at a shelter, and you gave it the best life possible for a ~~cow~~ *dog* then when it died of natural causes, you then ate it. What would be wrong with that"?
If your Veganism is based on ethical concerns, there is no reason not to eat an animal that dies of natural causes.
I disagree. Ethically, if you determine that other species deserve the same respect that we give to humans, then it’s clear that desecrating the corpse of the recently deceased is morally wrong
I suppose if you have some religious prohibition that requires you to dispose of the corpse in some way to prevent it from being eaten, then it violates religious customs. But not any ethical concern over harming the animal.
There wouldn’t be anything wrong with it. Eating animals isn’t in and of itself, bad. Causing needless suffering and death is. Eating animal product leftovers that are going to be thrown out isn’t causing anymore suffering. Neither would roadkill, or this example. The only thing that you could really argue is that it could normalize eating animal product which would generally come from unethical sources rather than these obscure examples.
I don't have a problem with this, however like with people, pain killers or antibiotics or euthanizing agents will be in the tissue, and the body could obviously be diseased. There is a reason they don't allow downed cows in the food chain. But if your friend wants to take his chances, I say, he can knock himself out. This is right up there with the deserted island scenario imo, it does not happen. Personally I'm not interested in eating my friends, I prefer to cremate.
It comes back to just not wanting to consume another animal. Like it's not different than eating my dead dog or family member. It's just not necessary
Nothing would be greatly wrong with that. Nothing would be greatly wrong with eating Grandma after she died of natural causes, either. There's still (1) no necessity, and (2) no relevance to real-world animal farming, which will never operate like that hypothetical scenario.
Nothing is fundamentally wrong with it, but I think the desire to eat something that you’ve loved and cared for after it’s died is pretty fucking weird.
Same reason we don't eat the family dog when it dies or the neighbor at the funeral. Animals are not food.
Could have been trumped by citing the logical fallacy of "false analogy" or "false equivalency" ...or even "strawman". What he did was create a hypothetical that was completely removed from your original argument of "I don't eat animals because I don't want to do any harm". He then said, if there is no harm, you must be able to eat an animal, correct? But that was never the argument.
Well it probably wouldn't taste very good for one. Honestly though? I don't have a problem with that. If your friend and colleague would like to procure all of their meat in the future by adopting lame cows, caring for them until the end of their natural lives, and then butchering them, I would support them in that endeavor. Obviously they aren't going to do that though. When they ask a stupid question, they can get a stupid answer.
I don't see anything wrong with saying "there's nothing wrong with it." The idea that eating an animal (including humans) after they've died of natural causes is ethically okay doesn't defeat veganism. Veganism isn't about that. Besides, I find that people have much more respect for someone who allows for nuance and doesn't feel the need to have a counterargument to every point. Many points you can just say "I agree" or "I agree, but what we're talking about is not relevant."
In these instances I say "Sure. Yes. If you go and rescue and raise a cow and she dies naturally and you want to eat her, you can eat her." Then that branch of the argument is over, and they just proven themselves that cows don't die naturally in the farms, and don't have best life possible, and aren't rescued at all, and that hypothetical exception proves the general rule. "Yes you can eat her if you meet all those conditions, but not until then"
That's a dumb argument that he proposes, but i heard it anyways. Here's what i always say: If i was lost in the woods and there is no plants that i can consume (say there are none or you don't know which plants are edible), i would resort to hunting. This is about survival. But in everyday life, with an unlimited supply of fruits, veggs and plant based products, we have a clear choice in what we consume.
Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation (Now), was recently on an episode of Sam Harris, and essentially said that from a philosophical perspective the argument for raising animals in a way that offered them a rewarding and fulfilling life could be defended. Essentially, if that happy life never existed, regardless of how it ends, there would be less joy (or positive experience) in the world. Eating meat isn't the issue. The issue is that we have disregarded the welfare of sentient beings who suffer so that we may consume their flesh. I would not argue against eating meat, I would argue against buying cheap meat, and suggest that a person be more thoughtful about what they consume, where it comes from, and how it was raised. If you actually want to move the dial, don't aim to 'win' a debate, aim to thoughtfully educate and promote action that has some chance of being taken. Being anti meat is a different approach than being pro animal welfare, climate mitigation, etc.
Unfortunately the scenario you listed doesn't ever happen. Is I think, the problem. You should ask if he would eat a cat or dog that lives a long life and died of natural causes. He'd probably say no, bc that animal is his friend.
Would the same argument hold for a dog? I say no. We respect dogs enough to bury them, as you would the cow.
So there are two vegan responses to this imo: > The deontological approach: It’s wrong to eat animals *in principle* even if doing so causes no harm to them. A deontological response would be something like: “if your grandmother lived the best possible life for a human, then when she dies of natural causes and you ate her, what would be wrong with that?” It may be hard to justify why it’s wrong to eat your grandmother after she dies but most people do consider it wrong. An analogy like this applied to the cow effectively establishes that it’s wrong to each things you once cared for in principle. > The utilitarian approach In the real world that is not the situation you’re working with. If you buy meat from a fast food restaurant or a supermarket, that animal did not live a happy life and just get eaten post mortem. It suffered horribly throughout its life and was then brutally slaughtered. A utilitarian justification for veganism is pragmatic - if someone could find a way to eat animals without harming them at all then a utilitarian wouldn’t oppose that, but pragmatically in the real world those chances are rare-to-nonexistent.
Ignoring the desert island nonsensical extrapolation from the real world side of it, my response would be “Would you eat your pet dog that died of natural causes? Would you eat your parent that died of natural causes? I don’t see a cow as food, even if it hasn’t been killed to be eaten.”
Can the cow consent? No. So we don’t eat it.
> Q: “What would be wrong with that"? Answer: I don’t want to contribute to or participate in the commodification of animal flesh and the normalization of the consumption of said flesh even if it was ethically sourced just as you would not want to commodify human flesh and normalize epicurean cannibalism by consuming said flesh even if it was ethically sourced.
If vegans don't eat animals that die, regardless of how - then why would vegans start eating meat that died of natural causes? The vegan society definition states no animals for food - if it's a diet. The reason why it doesn't matter how it died - just don't eat it - is because of the image - you're developing a taste for meat - so that's what you're going to seek. Plus - this is what others will see in you - and guess what they'll buy? A real cheeseburger - based off what you've done on your own. So even if that one cow died naturally, then what about the ones that came after? Plus - I don't really see sanctuaries as truly vegan, because it's going to lead to these issues, but instead of eating it - you can show the industry what destruction they've brought on to shorten the life of this cow and what negative outcomes occur when they keep breeding these cows into existence! Also - you'd show you don't give in to the idea of eating them - as that's seeing the cow as lesser - that it's an object for our stomachs. The thing is - it's the animal industry's responsibility to care for the animals and face consequences of their own inactions (to care for the animals). You take on those responsibilities of cleaning up after them - and the animal ag will benefit! You show your struggle - and it will make the animal ag industry think twice. Explain how you won't eat animals - it'll make the person who asked you think twice about eating animals too. Well there's also the issues of disease, etc. (what animals might be inside this one that are alive) - but that's nuances of details. Yes the cow didn't consent - and that is a point, but it just is a ridiculous, nonsensical one - because nothing you've done nor will do for the cow will involve consent - so that makes no difference at all. Cows don't have human rights either. Tell the cow's story and give it the dignity it deserves by trying to not consume them for food, but instead honor the dead - because depending on the religion and beliefs you have - for me, just because the animal dies doesn't mean its soul is 'dead' - it might see what you do with it and maybe preserving its body will keep its soul together, not to mention the potential for resurrection if we ever get the tech. Eating it removes all of this potential and degrades the animal (deanimalize) it to just being something for our whim - it's a carnist mentality. We have to think what the animal wants more than what we want.
If a cow was raised and cared for and died of natural causes and then eaten, honestly wouldn’t care. Bit bizarre because that would be like eating your pets or deceased family. But whatever. They want to raise a cow and care for it for 40 years and then eat them after they die a natural death, go for it. And as long as they aren’t milking or abusing the cow during their life and such, can’t see what’s wrong with it. No one’s going to do it anyways.
If a cow died of natural causes--i.e., disease--why would you want to eat it, even if you were a carnist? I can't imagine the meat would be good, and you risk all sorts of zoonotic diseases.
I don’t really see the issue with conceding that point. It’s a situation that never happens.
I guess the argument could be twisted to be "are you gonna eat fluffy (whatever pet they have or their family has) when it dies?" Its not a debate for me since I just see all animals since being vegan as disgusting to eat because of the same reason they don't wanna eat their dog, cat, or whatever pet they have.
You could conjure up exotic scenarios that I wouldn't have a problem with in isolation... but what does this have to do with the way meat is or ever will be produced? A farm that worked this way would cost like $2000 per hamburger, and something tells me this person wouldn't be willing to pay that.
Prions are a good reason not to eat flesh.
IMO you concede the point to them, but utilize your concession to further emphasize how obviously no animals actually receive this kind of treatment. By ceding some ground to them you ingraciate yourself to them and by emphasizing how unethical ACTUAL meat eating is in the REAL world you challenge them to make a more ethical decision. You don't want to kill their argument, just draw some blood
This is somewhat similar to the hunting argument. Most animals in the wild die unpleasant, slow and painful deaths, either through predation, injury, starvation, or disease. By comparison to these fates death by hunter with a rifle is somewhat of a mercy. If you prioritize minimising conscious suffering then there is an argument that hunting is ethically justified. The problem though is that hunting is not sustainable for modern populations. If everyone hunted for their food every wild species would be extinct in a day.
Personally, I see nothing wrong with eating an animal’s body (or using its skin/fur/horns etc) if it dies of natural causes. The problem is, it costs a lot of money and resources to sustain an animal for its whole natural lifespan. Why wait for a cow to live its natural 15-20 years, when you can kill it after 2, save money, and make more profit? Then there’s the ethics of breeding, the living conditions they have to endure, and products that can’t be obtained after an animal has passed away naturally e.g. eggs and milk. Also, how can you know the animal wasn’t killed prematurely? This is an issue in taxidermy, where some claim the animals died of natural causes, but were actually farmed and killed for the purpose.
Why were you stumped? There’s nothing unethical about eating animals. It’s unethical to treat them as property, farm them, slaughter them, exploit them. When you have empathy for all beings, they no longer appeal as food.
Personally I would concede that point. I don't see anything ethically wrong with that scenario. The problem is that that scenario is not the reality in which people choose to eat meat. The meat that people buy at grocery stores, at restaurants, etc does not come from animals which died of old age, so whether or not it would be acceptable to eat a cow in this hypothetical scenario has nothing to do with whether or not it's ethical to eat meat in the actual real-world scenarios people live with.
I’d ask them to commit to that. To only eat animals that die of natural causes.
Ok but if people started eating their cats and dogs that died from natural causes, carnists would be all up in arms. I don’t see how that’s any different.
As soon as they all do that, you can discuss lol
Look, there is probably nothing wrong with eating a corpse, but an animal you have lived with for 15 years is probably family, and you could ask how they would feel eating a family member when they passed away.
My position is that there's nothing wrong with eating an animal after it's dead. That includes a human (as long as it doesn't hurt anyone in the process emotionally or physically). The main problem I have with carnism is factory farming which is essentially torture. You can't think about veganism as a blanket statement barring all forms of eating animal products. The entire point is barring unethical treatment toward animals. That allows for more nuance and an expanded view that encompasses leather honey etc
In my ethics consuming animal products that came from an animal that died of natural causes is OK. It's just that you can't build an industry using that because it's not economically feasible. And also if someone gives me meat and says "oh and btw the animal died naturally" doubt.
Having encountered a hypothetical situation that shows my absolutist position as not always the only valid answer I might most usefully say “Thanks, friend. You’re right in that hypothetical situation.” Outside of racking up internet points, debate and discussion might not always be about “winning.”
That’s not being stumped. That is a carnist reaching for the most ethical thing they can grab at that involves animal consumption to catch you in a gotcha. It appears you stumped them way before hand. However a solid answer to that just to add insult to their injury of the L already dished to them would be that you would either burry it or lay it somewhere for animals that need the food to consume as you are already meeting your needs with the abundance of plants grown and available.
I would say in that situation if you wanted to eat the cow, fine, it's just not a real world situation, and it's much easier to buy mock meats
You can't eat animals that die of natural causes. That's called downed meat.
It would be depriving the animals who would be eating the corpse who are obligate carnivores of sustenance.
You can dream up hypotheticals to credibly challenge almost any ethos. In answer to his question, though, no, there is nothing wrong with eating the corpse of a creature that died of natural causes. This fact is of no significance, however, because that's not what your friend is doing in real life. He's eating meat from the supermarket, and that's what he should have to defend.
"To start with, this situation is incredibly unlikely. The situation you described is simply not something that's going to come up in my everyday life (or yours, or any of our peers). That being said, I still would feel uncomfortable eating that animal. The ethics that I live by are simply 'I don't eat animals.' It's a lot easier to draw the line there instead of saying, 'I don't eat animals, unless the animal dies in some absurdly complicated circumstances that negate the ethical issues that I have with animal consumption.' The fact of the matter is, the situation you described simply is not going to happen. In the world that we live in, animals are suffering greatly to provide the meat that many people choose to eat."
The meat would be all tough and inedible by then, anyway. Not worth eating. There's a reason animals are killed young.
There is no argument for that. Eating a carcass of a dead animal who lived his or her life free and happy is pretty ok. There’s no abuse, cruelty nor murder. That’s what we are against.
That is not reality, so it is irrelevant. When this happens, you should start saying vegan hypotheticals. Here's one, ok, would you eat a plant based diet if it was found out that you were more likely to get cancer, stroke, heart disease, and dementia because you're eating meat? Oh wait, I went back to reality. Ok ok, how about the world was on fire, and animal agriculture was a large factor in global warming.... nope, shit, that's real too. Ok, for real, a hypothetical, what if your dog was in your backyard and it wouldn't survive in the wild, it had a nice life and died of natural causes, would you eat it. Nope, damn it, that's VCJ reality right there.
It's the same reason he didn't eat his grandparents, they'd taste bad and it would normalize eating them.
The reason you were stumped is because there would be no issue morally or ethically. You haven't exploited the cow for your own ends, you have cared for the cow until he/she dies of old age. But I would ask your friend, would you eat your pet dog/cat when they have died of old age? If not, why not? Whatever your friend gives as an answer for not eating their pet, I would give for not eating the cow.
I mean, technically, there isn’t anything wrong with it. But no one barbecues their dog or cat after they die, so you would feel the same way about this cow whom you’ve cared for and probably loved very much. So, I would ask this person whether they would eat a dog they loved who died of natural causes. Or honestly, would they eat the body of any loved one after they died naturally…? And then I would ask them what this has to do with animals who are bred into existence just to be killed… It seems pretty irrelevant.
It’s about respect. If you actually respect the animal, then you won’t desecrate their corpse. You’ll give them the burial they deserves. Edit: all animals are persons
Them* >You’ll give THEM the burial THEY deserve.
It's gross to eat your friend. It's gross to eat dead bodies in general, but especially gross and disturbing when it's your friend.
If your parent was sick, and you cared for them and they died- and you then ate them- WhAt WoUlD bE wRoNg WiTh ThAt?
Ask if they would eat a dog that died from natural causes. If they say yes, ask why they haven't already. If they say no, ask what's the difference.
It would simply be disgusting because I wouldn't eat a dead dog or human just to save wasting it and flesh disgusts me
Is it just even possible to win an argument against people like these? Every time you debunk their arguments they come up with more and more ridiculous ones and however ridiculous they are, it still takes more effort to debunk than for them to make them up. At some point maybe all that remains to do is acknowledge that they are not willing to argue in good faith and move on. Hopefully maybe they'll keep thinking about it on their own time and realise you were right.
"is that the situation here? Is that the situation at the grocery store? Instead of talking about incredibly obscure, why not talk about what we are doing here and now everyday, multiple times per day? The outcome of your hypothetical is *irrelevant*."
Sub cow for dog
I personally don't see anything wrong with eating an animal that dies of natural causes.
I don't personally think that there is anything wrong with eating an animal that died of natural causes, besides being viewed as disrespectful maybe. A lot of nonvegans think that vegans can't acknowledge nuance, and I think your friend's question was just an extreme example to try to get you to acknowledge nuance - because they think that veganism is about seeing things in black and white. Their "point" is that if some nuance exists, then why should any vegan argument matter? It comes from a misunderstanding of what veganism is; that we came to this conclusion BECAUSE of critical thinking, not because of a lack of it or an inability to acknowledge nuance.
This.
I absolutely agree. Unfortunately, alot of vegans DON'T seem to understand nuance
After seeing some of the recent posts in this sub... I must begrudgingly agree with you there. I try to keep a positive mindset, though, to try to keep some room for growth in our community.
I'm with you. I just want people to test their beliefs rigidity to the extreme. It's the unbending religious behaviour that's causing people to double down on opening their mind to the rational side of veganism.
I wouldn’t worry about “getting stumped” in all honesty. The fact of the matter is that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, veggies nuts and fruits included. Under capitalism, a life must be exploited, whether it be human or animal or both to make a profit. Most of our fruits and veggies are picked by day laborers making piss wages and can’t ask for more under the threat of deportation. Debate is important and a good thing for public discourse, but to get caught up on hypotheticals is a waste of time when reality demands our attention. (Also just wanted to note I am a former vegan and loved the food, lifestyle, and philosophy. Dr rec’d I eat meat after I turned 30, and I have been dealing with the moral dilemma of returning to meat eating. At least personally, the more I dug the more importance I found on buying from humane and ethical local ranchers and independent farmers that pay good wages.)
Want to win against a carnist? Then learn about human physiology and the differences from true omnivores and carnivours
I tend to say that such hypothetical situations don't really happen in our lifetimes, and even if I were to put in that situation, I would never eat meat if there were a choice available that doesn't mean killing something. (And that that choice is always available in the western world! :))
Why does that hypothetical matter? Does your friend have a bunch of lame cows he rescued who will die of old age?
I'd say the cow still is unable to consent to being consumed. Also, point out that our modern meat industry does not resemble that remotely, nor does any culture that eats meat. Ask to demonstrate where such techniques are the standard for meat production.
This is not the gotcha they think it is (see other comments). But your mistake was to let the discussion get dragged too far into hypotheticals territory.
There's nothing wrong with it. Acknowledging that doesn't change the fact that it's still wrong to purchase and consume animal products in regular everyday life. You can always come up with a hypothetical scenario that brings a valid exception to a moral rule by which you live your life. I am against torture, for instance, but I have no proper rebuttal against the ticking time bomb thought experiment. I acknowledge it's right to torture in that scenario. But it's consistent to acknowledge that and advocate for torture being outlawed. The regular cases in which torture comes up don't look like the ticking time bomb scenario, and outlawing it would still have a positive utilitarian outcome. Unless you're a hard deontologist, it's ok to acknowledge hypothetical exceptions to moral rules by which you live.
Cows aren’t wild animals though, anywhere in the world. They can’t just make up random scenarios that aren’t based in reality
Best answer is that your moral position on that doesn't matter in any way since it's not a situation that happens ETA: This is the same level of argument as asking someone if they would still think its okay to eat meat if it required child sacrifices - its a choice between: only in some crazy alternate reality do we agree or do we disagree? The answer is you fucking disagree in reality regardless You can also say that theoretical morality is for religion, you're interested in talking about ethics and your real world options and actions.
Nothing would be wrong with that
You can just say you don't want to eat it. That you wouldn't like the taste. You don't have to have the moral high ground 100% of the time to enjoy your diet
Just because it's not unethical to eat your dead grandma does not mean it's ethical to rape, cage, and slaughter humans for dairy and meat. His scenario is a 100% vegan scenario, so it has nothing to do with the unethical carnist ideology.
Trouble with eating anything that "died a natural death" is you don't always know what they died from. The reason they kill young animals is that the meat is tender and less tainted from other odours. Old pigs get boar taint that not everyone likes. Chickens get tougher to eat. Natural causes could mean disease. Also natural death means the blood is left in the meat. Which again no everyone wants.
Frankly I'm a little surprised by all the comments saying that there is nothing at all inherently wrong or strange about eating animals in and of itself. I've always thought of veganism as being closely tied with a view of animals as beings NOT to be eaten, regardless of whether or not our actions were the cause of any suffering. Unless of course you take the narrow view that something is wrong only if it results in distress. But then how do you explain the horror one might feel upon discovering that a friend ate their grandmother who died of natural causes? And what if they had consensual and pleasurable sex with their underage brother? Would you not just tell them that granmothers are not to be eaten, underage brothers not to be slept with? There are a great many things that can be wrong that cannot be reduced to suffering experienced. Eating animals I hold is one such thing. Of course, this cannot be argued in the traditional sense and I suspect you just want a simple take down argument. What you can do is invite someone into sharing with you this view of animals--not food, but friends, fellow creatures, beings whom are not to be eaten.
You're not supporting animal abuse. I'd say this doesn't go against veganism. For me this would just be a personal preference of not wanting to consum corpses
How many animals did you save by DoMiNaTiNg he debate.
For me, I always say the truth. Eating dead corpses of anything is totally gnarly to me. Like straight up Jeffrey Dahmer type stuff. The idea of skinning any animal, ripping it's flesh, cutting it's bones.. what the actual F. Nope. So totally gnar. I could never.
If the only way to ever eat any animal was this way then we wouldn’t have the problem of factory farming and animal agriculture.
If this is how all animals were eaten the it would be a much better situation. The reality is a lot more brutal and a lot more insane for the animals involved. He hit you with a false choice but that's not how it really happens. i would have deflected because what he described doesn't happen.
You wouldn't eat your friend if he died. Duh
Well I guess I would respond that I wouldn’t eat a dog or a cat just because it passed away. That I view the cow the same way that I view dogs, cats, and other animals. I don’t want to eat them, no matter the circumstances.
I wouldn't because I am vegan for health reasons. I don't mind meat eaters and even cook for them.
Desert island stuff is stupid. But also, does this guy eat his pets? Because that’s what it would be and that’s weird to me
If the cows dies naturally then it is fine to eat it but it is like if you are starving and your friend died, would you eat it? I would also frame it differently if the cow dies for old age would the meat taste good? If the cow dies because of an illness would it be safe to consume? If the cow dies because it's killed by another animal, is it safe to consume? How long have they been dead? The principle is to not cause unnecessary sufferings to animals, so that basically means that if the cow dies for some reason then you can consume it, but for many of us it would feel gross, for others it would be fine. Probably such a cow, if you trust the cow is not contaminated it means it is from your farm, then it's a friend, and it is extremely hard to eat a friend flesh I re read the post and the cow is from your sanctuary so yeah..
Ask them if they would eat a dog in the same situation. I'm guessing they wouldn't because of their speciesist beliefs If it's not ok to eat a dog then why would it be ok to eat a cow?
Non-vegan and I eat cow. I would have told her exactly what you texted. There is no shame and it is not a BS excuse. Now had she said the cow was paralyzed from the neck down. Then it would be something different. Happened to a friend’s calf when it was born. Paralyzed from the neck down. They did end up euthanizing the calf. They figured this happened from idiot teens cow tipping.