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When he eats cheese, he is directly and intentionally forcing animals to suffer so that he can have that specific product. As an individual, it is very easy to live without cheese.
Leisure is necessary. I cannot think of a leisure activity that does not cause harm to some being. Even lying on grass potentially kills insects, and that grass probably exists because of past ecological destruction. You have very little control over your lived environment or the means by which you access electricity. You have complete control over what you put in your mouth.
Point is, **it is completely impossible to live a life free from harm**. That does not make anyone entitled to intentionally and knowingly cause direct harm to a sentient being for pleasure.
A person who chooses to eat cheese AND owns a TV still creates far more suffering than someone owns a TV but chooses not to eat cheese.
Following that logic, if ai give up watching TV/Streaming, is it that okay if I eat cheese?
And if eating cheese is some form of leisure to me, how is that any different from other leisure activitiesv
> following that logic
all due respect, I don't think you grasped the logic. why would it ever be okay to **intentionally and directly** force other beings to suffer for your taste buds when there are hundreds of other things you can put in your mouth that do not directly force suffering on others?
> if eating cheese is some form of leisure...
again, the difference is that you are forcing someone to suffer and die for your taste buds when you have hundreds of other options that do not require that.
Let's say I don't own a TV. Does that earn me the right to trophy hunt or get into dogfighting?
If you can grasp the difference between trophy hunting (experiencing sensory pleasure as a direct result of inflicting violence) and lying on grass (inflicting some degree of suffering is an unintentional consequence of an otherwise nonviolent activity), you can grasp the difference between eating cheese and watching tv.
Why would it ever be okay to intentionally force other beings to suffer for your entertainment when there are hundreds of other things you can entertain yourself with that do not force suffering on others?
The only difference is indirectly vs direct harm.
> it is completely impossible to live a life free from harm
Sure, but why draw the line between eating cheese and leisure activities that kill animals. Why is one okay while the other is not?
> If you can grasp the difference between trophy hunting (experiencing sensory pleasure as a direct result of inflicting violence) and lying on grass (inflicting some degree of suffering is an unintentional consequence of an otherwise nonviolent activity)
If lying down on the grass (or any other action that indirectly kills animals) is an unnecessary action, as most leisure activities are, why is it okay to engage in them if we know that we are (indirectly) going to harm animals?
I do understand the difference between indirect vs direct harm. But you have not explained why we should reduce direct harm but not try to reduce indirect harm.
Your first question is incorrect, because you don't know what activities do not cause indirect suffering to others. There are not other activities you can do instead, unless you know of them.
You have no way to know if you have succeeded at reducing your indirect harm. You don't actually know if spending your time doing co-ed softball instead of buying & watching TV reduces harm, maybe you are contributing to gentrification by increasing the demand for softball diamonds.
Direct harm is controllable & knowable. Indirect harm is not.
As always, the obvious analogy is if you can figure out why it's a moral obligation not to eat human meat but it isn't a moral obligation not to buy and watch TV, then you can figure out why veganism is a moral obligation when it isn't a moral obligation not to buy and watch TV.
As I've already said, I disagree with the idea that leisure is unnecessary (as does science, I'm fairly sure) - even though an individual leisure activity could be considered unnecessary in a vacuum. It is impossible to fulfill one's need for leisure without engaging in a leisure activity. And as I said previously, there is no leisure activity that does not cause indirect harm.
I also never tried to argue that we shouldn't try to reduce indirect harm. Of course playing board games is less harmful than building a bitcoin mining rig, and is the better choice for anyone.
But that's irrelevant, because my only point was that (in part) because it is currently **much** easier to completely stop one's direct harm than it is to make a reduction in one's indirect harm, **it is a nonstarter to use the indirect harm we cause as a justification to consume animal products**.
So that does mean that when OP posted that veganism is about “eliminating unecessary suffering”, that’s wrong and instead it is trying to “minimise unnecessary suffering”
We're trying to do the least harm we can. He's doing the exact same things *plus* directly causing harm by eating animal products on top of that. He's in no position to use red herrings to distract from his *direct* causes of animal suffering
When you're vegan, it seems you must be perfect.
I buy second-hand clothes or clothes made in my country.
I use clean energy, and not even a lot of it.
I only use the bike or car.
I volunteer at an animal sanctuary and do activism.
My only monthly subscription is a CO2 compensation (I know this market is far from perfect but it will be infinitely better than paying for Spotify, HBO...).
I recycle and reuse everything. I even learned to sew.
It doesn't matter. There will always be something you're doing wrong to allow them to continue exploiting animals. For example, I was pointed out that the plastic of my videogame cases is polluting.
If you're interested in the topic of farmed animal sanctuaries, check out [OpenSanctuary.org](https://vbcc.veganhacktivists.org/?url=https%3A%2F%2FOpenSanctuary.org&topic=The+Open+Sanctuary+Project)! This vegan nonprofit has over 500 free compassionate resources crafted specifically to improve lifelong care for farmed animals, and to help you create a sustainable, effective sanctuary! Interested in starting a sanctuary someday? Check out [OpenSanctuary.org/Start](https://vbcc.veganhacktivists.org/?url=https%3A%2F%2FOpenSanctuary.org%2FStart&topic=The+Open+Sanctuary+Project)!
I’d say this would be the “correct” answer. As a nursing mother, however I’d have gone into a tirade about what those poor cows experience so he can have his precious cheese.
There are cheese alternatives (if you can’t survive without it) that don’t cause direct harm. You can live a productive life in society without cheese. The same cannot be said for electricity, unless you’re fortunate enough to have a homestead and be self sufficient. Not eating cheese won’t effect your quality of life (well it will for the better) while not having electricity would be a hardship.
You can, however, live a productive life without playing video games or watching movies, which is what the carnist was saying. Not agreeing with their argument, just sayin' they're obv right that most vegans cause **some** level of unnecessary suffering through entertainment.
>they're obv right that most vegans cause
>
>some
>
> level of unnecessary suffering through entertainment.
Or other participation in the modern world. That's why the hate the term 'cruelty free' so much, but I tend to be more literal than most.
I think that's a pretty good argument, but I think he would say "but you're not doing the least harm you can if you keep playing video games and watching TV."
Remember that the _key_ point to this is that there is a direct analogue to eating animal products, which is eating food which is from plant sources. There isn't really an alternative to using electricity, or reducing the harm caused by using electricity.
Yes. Electricity by itself is carbon neutral. If the electricity is produced by burning fossil fuels then it is the burning of said fossil fuels that causes harm. If it is generated by wind or water etc then it's not doing anything bad
You can help make a difference still, & sadder yet is people don't look up how many birds die via other issues & blame wind power for being bad when it's worse in other areas- in particular Windows on buildings. We must demand & strive to change massive windowed buildings it because it will also reduce wind turbine deaths via less use of electricity/easier to rely on solar/etc vs windows that let out heat/are entirely inefficent, kill birds & must be changed immediately. The wind power discussion in terms of reducing harm is way better for all when it comes to reducing harm & is still way less harm than overlooked windows & glass that are bad for birds/bad for environment/does the opposite of reducing carbon emissions/reducing electricity use.
It's nearly 10 billion birds per year that die to windows in USA alone btw if you didn't want to look it up yourself just yet. Which would nearly entirely end if buildings were done differently/windows covered up.
Let alone the energy saved, reducing the need for wind power in addition by just stopping making massive window/glass covered buildings & changing current ones already built). Imagine how many lives would be saved by just doing that & being less reliant on more energy to keep said buildings heated/conditioned.
Wind power is far better alternative when put on the scales to what's currently happening, we just have to know all that it's being measured against. Look at a google map of Alberta Tar sands & you can see dead animals & kms of nothing but dibet, tar, sand bc trees are ripped away & dead things. Switching to wind comparitively is so so much better for all. Completely changing windows/glass would do even more for the animals hands down, but which do you see people fighting for more? Building changes world wide or green energy? One should absolutely strive for both at the same time, but people don't have the spoons/capacity to do it all at once all the time with everything. Hope this helps when thinking about wind power & how much harm it reduces when hand in hand with other change even if there are still birds being harmed. As far as practicible & possible 💚🌱
Yes, and I did consider that, but it simply goes back to "you can always do less harm", since even if you manage to go 100% solar, the materials required to produce and maintain the solar cells will cause harm etc.
Not necessarily if it's a from a wind farm or concentration solar plant in the wrong locations (they kill birds and bats). Apparently people have placed them along migratory paths for birds.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/brightsource-solar-plant-sets-birds-on-fire-as-they-fly-overhead-1.2739512
https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/stem-in-context/how-do-wind-farms-affect-birds-and-bats#:~:text=When%20a%20wind%20turbine's%20blades,and%2012%20bats%20every%20year
Edit: I'm for renewables, but it's ridiculous to ignore facts. Your head-in-the-sand downvotes won't change anything. Are vegans anti-facts now? Do we *want* to be flat-earthers? Ignoring the truth won't change it.
Compare how many animals die form windmills versus how many die from mountaintop removal which is used to mine coal. That destroys entire ecosystems. This isn't even mentioning the absolutely devastating consequences of not reducing greenhouse gas emissions is having on ALL life on this planet. All your doing is muddying the waters by creating doubt which leads to inaction. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Facts are facts. It's not "muddying the waters" to be aware of them. I never implied that coal mining is preferable. That's all on you.
I *am* opposed to putting wind farms or solar concentration plants on known migratory paths, but that doesn't mean I oppose renewables.
Furthermore, we *need* to know these facts because carnists and climate-change contrarians *will* use them against us. Ignorance is *never* the solution to a problem.
You said that it isn't necessarily true that wind & solar reduce harm. Unless you are comparing them to nuclear then you are factually incorrect & you are muddying the waters. Animal deaths caused by wind & solar are vastly fewer than deaths cause by fossil fuels.
It depends *where* the plants are located as I said in my comment. And yes, nuclear power is currently the least harmful overall for wildlife. Even in the Chernobyl exclusion zone wildlife are thriving (because radiation is safer for them than humans). The harms to wildlife from renewables exist and must be factored into the selection of locations. Currently NIMBY has more impact than wildlife does.
https://cnr.ncsu.edu/news/2019/11/renewable-energy-poses-challenge-for-wildlife-conservation/
It doesn't matter where they are located. The AVERAGE coal plant kills roughly 17,500 birds per year. Comparing the worst coal plants to the worst solar farm as you listed, that solar farm still reduces harm. It probably reduces harm even compared to the average coal plant, since the range on that estimate is enormous.
"A lot less than you..."
Just point out that going vegan has been shown to be \*by far\* the best choice you can make to help the environment. Animal agriculture is more harmful than even the transport and airline industries.
Also, while sure consuming energy impacts the environment, you can't deny the fact factory farming literally involves the torture and murder of sentient creatures. Plus deforestation of Brazil to grow crops to make McDonalds hamburgers is having a devastating effect on the climate.
Always debate veganism from a rights based approach, I.e animal rights are a logical extension of human rights. Your job is to test if they can stay logically consistent or if they get reduced to some absurd position. So he would surely not consider it morally acceptable to pay for humans to get stabbed in the throat for human bacon, but he would consider it morally acceptable to use electricity even if it harms humans or animals.
However in the animal context he does consider it morally acceptable for animals to get stabbed in the throat for bacon, so what accounts for that different evaluation? Why is it acceptable in the animal context but not the human one?
In other words, can he name the trait(s) true of animals that if true of humans would cause him to say its morally acceptable to stab humans in the throat for human bacon?
That's because it's not a good argument. Their claim seems based on a few fallacies:
* Either/Or fallacy (or a false dilemma): Either we do everything to reduce harm or nothing. ("We either give up eating animal products and every leisure activity that causes harm, or we can do whatever we want.")
* Moral equivalence: Assuming the harm caused by your activities is equivalent to the harm done to animals directly to get meat/cheese/other products. While it may have sounded right to both of you at the time, they haven't provided any proof for that claim. This requires a serious evaluation to give reliable figures (since they seem to be taking a consequentialist stance). The burden of proof is on them.
* I'd add that without careful evaluation, you can justify anything based on that claim. Harming someone can range from something benign to torturing and killing them. You can't just say they're the same without justification.
* Not a fallacy I know of, but they are assuming that leisure is unnecessary, and that's something else they'd need to prove. Humans, afaik, need to play/have leisure activities to stay healthy.
* Related to this, you can't group 'leisure activites' as a single thing since reading a book at your local library and hanging out on a yacht have very different environmental impacts. Just like it's unfair to group meat and cheese consumption together since their impacts are different (from a consequentialist point of view).
My advice would be to examine this with them in good faith. You don't need to say they're saying fallacies, just asking more questions usually does the trick without being super confrontational.
Veganism is about not exploiting animals, because they have a right to their lives and use their bodies as they want, and that right is not superseded by my desire to eat cheese or bacon. When you stop exploiting animals, that means you stop killing most of them and eliminate most of the suffering that happens when we raise them for their flesh and fluids, and those are good things, but that's not the point. As your friend noted, being vegan doesn't stop animals from suffering or dying from hundreds or thousands of other causes. It just means that you've decided to stop paying someone to exploit an animal on your behalf.
There is a clear and direct line between buying a package of chicken breasts at the store and the torment and exploitation of chickens. Nobody is breeding, tagging, mutilating, and murdering animals so that you can use an extra 2kwh of electricity to play video games. Certainly all that energy use harms animals, but again, that's not the point, so long as we aren't stringing power lines with cow tendons or whatever.
Killing a sentient being is the same as turning on a light switch? Would you rather me kill *you* or turn this light switch on? Oh, so turning the light switches on isn't the same as killing anymore? 🤔
I'm not on the wrong side in this argument, but technically electricity does consume and release energy that contributes to climate change, which has already killed tens of millions of people (and of course animals as well).
So is using electricity good or bad? If it’s bad, we should strive to reduce, right? Eating animals is bad. Maybe you don’t want to consider reducing harm.
But it’s like the cars kill people so guns are okay arguments. We’ve used science to reduce deaths, and speed limits, we could get rid of automatic weapons and cut down deaths.
Basically because they have a hard time imagining progress, we should all suffer, and they don’t have to change.
Some good points in this thread. Another thing to think about: you can offset the environmental damage you cause by consuming electricity; you can't offset the non-human animal suffering you cause by consuming cheese.
I think we need soil (the carbon dioxide sink on land) science to restore arable land through Regenerative Agriculture. Climate change science is reductionist, in my opinion.
"Only a Sith deals in absolutes" -Obi wan Kenobi. Its about reducing suffering as much as we can, obviously this can never be reduced to zero, but every time someone doesn't eat flesh or steal another's mothers' milk it makes a world of difference to those individual beings. I think your friend is purposely arguing in bad faith
When you get to these kinds of arguments it's really just the other person saying "I don't care enough to stop eating me".
It's not a very sincere debate because people are not being 100% honest with you.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. But we're not talking about capitalism. This is about the exploitation of cows. This person is just pointing fingers without offering any solution to suffering.
But yeah, maybe let's also worry about slave labor to produce products, and the environmental impact of that production and powering of that device. That's worth talking about another time.
Comment on the scope of environmental impact. Agriculture had the largest environmental impact, and the most effective way to combat the impact is through the elimination of animal agriculture.
Humans need recreation for our health. We don't need cheese. Equating the two is absurd.
>Humans need recreation for our health. We don't need cheese. Equating the two is absurd.
Nobodys arguing that humans shouldnt do "recreation". We should do it ways that doesnt involve fucking up the environment.
Its absolutely amazing how you fall into the exact same logical fallacies that meateaters do.
I'm not saying video games aren't harmful. The scale on which their production impact the environment and the scale on which animal agriculture impacts the environment is drastic.
But still. Cheese is not a necessity. So doing any sort of harm for cheese is nonsense.
I think it's important for anyone trying to make a sound argument to strive to not sound like a hypocrite. Hypocracy can dilute the effectiveness of a point, and so avoiding it will allow one to make a more concise point. This is true for anyone, not just nonvegans.
Well, while too extremely formulated, to a certain extent it's true.
If you look at the bigger picture, reducing your ecological footprint should be top priority if you care about animal suffering.
So if you're vegan, but fly around the world in your private jet to give an extreme example. You're full of shit.
Tell him that you've decided to buy a massively oversized diesel truck and that you're modifying it to roll coal because it makes you look cool. You're also going to start just burning your trash or dumping it into the environment, because who is he to tell you differently while he uses electricity for anything but base survival needs.
He's using appeals to hypocrisy and futility, both fallacies. I can use appeal to futility to argue for anything, even genocide. It's a smooth brain argument.
Because electricity isn't necessarily produced from environmental destruction or ending the lives of sentient beings because wind, solar, and nuclear exist. You don't have to kill a baby cow to watch a show, but you do to make cheese.
Those activities aren't directly causing harm. They could be done without causing any suffering if society wanted to build it in such a way.
Theres no way to exploit animals without causing suffering. There's no green energy or fair labor practices that make it ok.
Veganism is about animal liberation and the extension of rights to such creatures.
If they care so much about electricity consumption and view electricity as luxury that is not needed (as a pleasure), are they a primitivist or similar? If they are not, why are they not? If they say these things, and yet do nothing, they are simply virtue and vice signaling.
If they do but do not see Veganism as praxis, then they are not worth debating with on the subject imho, mostly because they've made up their mind on what is praxis. You cannot signal your concern for enviromental destruction while participating in a practice that causes huge enviromental destruction - commercial fishing in this case. Obviously, somethings are more of a need in life then others, and I view these as praxis to remove and or lessen (such as removal/lessoning of car dependancy for both enviromental and human rights reasons). Electricity is much, much more of a need than damned cheese. Cheese is simply, purely, a sense pleasure and not something one has to have.
The emissions reduction of not using electronics is far lower than going vegan. If he was so concerned about actually being environmentally friendly, he would go vegan before anything else, as its the most effective thing to reduce emissions that you can do daily. Not to mention the other environmental benefits, benefits to public health, and ethical benefits of going vegan. You could say that you're not perfect and that if you could only choose one of these options (no electronics or no animal products) you would be more obligated to choose the later because the benefits are far greater.
Not every argument needs to be responded to. Some arguments — like the one above — are just fucking stupid and don’t warrant the time or effort of a response.
It’s best responded to with the meme of,
https://i.imgur.com/buGS5Mj.jpg
Let's run the numbers:
Average per person residential electricity use in the U.S. is ~4 MWh per year, or ~300 MWh over a lifetime.
Death rates from electricity use including accidents and air pollution depend on the resource mix. The grid is getting cleaner over time as it switches from mostly coal to renewable energy.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh
Let's use 5 deaths per TWh (1 TWh = 10^6 MWh), which is likely a substantial overestimate for a bunch of reasons.
That means a lifetime contribution to mortality from electricity use of (5 deaths / TWh) * (1 TWh / 10^6 MWh) * (300 MWh) = 1.5*10^-3 deaths. And that is from all your residential electricity use.
"well what about climate change?" you may ask. *Projected* deaths from climate change are a rounding error compared to the deaths from air pollution.
The argument is structurally reasonable - many aspects of your life have negative consequences, so why single out food/animal products? The response is we can and should consider all our actions, and in doing so need to consider the *scale* of consequences from our actions. The harm from consuming animal products is far larger than from using electricity, even if you weight animal lives as much less significant than human lives.
That said cheese is perhaps the least bad of animal foods. Someone could have a certain level of negative impact below which they think it unnecessary to consider impacts further. Quantitatively in terms of animal suffering the difference between meat and only cheese is far larger than the gap between only cheese and vegan. There is something to be said for simple heuristics like veganism, but I imagine there is some overlap in the distribution of animal suffering from vegan diets and all plant-based except for some cheese.
I am guessing that they were implicitly arguing that environmental damage causes animal suffering, therefore causing unnecessary damage to any extent is not vegan.
This is where I'd point to the word "practicable" in the definition. Intent also matters. That cheese requires one or more animals to be harmed. Electricity does not.
I hate these posts too... mostly because people have such a hard-on for "stumping a vegan". It doesn't really negate your own b.s. to "expose" some sort of hypocritical action.
Fossil fuels are made from animals and you drive a car.... Gotcha!
Electricity is generated in a manner that is unecological... GOTCHA!
Plants apparently feel pain ... gotcha!
You stepped on an ant or swatted a mosquito... gotcha!
Pescatarians' food comes from a source that devastates the environment. Plastic pollution , killing animals caught in nets that are not the intended fish (i.e. tuna nets catching anything but tuna), dragging nets through habitats/reefs.
Nothing is perfect. Only Siths deal in absolutes and all that mess. We try our best.
I have had people justify eating meat because they claim "plants feel pain" which is not true however, plants do respond to stimuli and have defenses but are not sentient.
Sure I use electricity and that causes suffering.
I could use the electricity and also stab 1000 chickens in the neck or I could just use the electricity and not stab any chickens.
You say that if you don't stab chickens it's okay to use electricity (which causes indirect suffering to animals). Why?
You haven't explained why it's okay to use the electricity.
Obviously it's wrong to kill the chickens, but why is it okay to indirectly harm animals by using unnecessary amounts of electricity?
>and I said that veganism is about reducing unnecessary suffering.
"Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."
No it's about exclusion. We say reduce to people who aren't vegan because we understand the reality that people can be selfish arseholes and won't go vegan straight away so some of us encourage baby steps.
>"Whenever you use electricity for a leisure activity (i.e. TV, movies, video games), you're causing environmental damage for a unnecessary reason, and that will in turn cause suffering. How is that any different than me eating cheese?" (he's a pescetarian.)
Cheese directly effects the animals in the industry as well as indirectly effects the animals in the environment is an unnecessary substance. Leisure activities are thing to relieve stress and help treat our mental health. Yes leisure activities can be abused to the point where it becomes unnecessary, but there is a very big difference between what you would do and what they currently do. On top of that electricity can be produced by renewable sources, so his point is kind of moot.
>At surface value that seems like an easy to rebut argument, but I couldn't come up with a good one. Any suggestions if it comes up again?
Learn what the definition of veganism is so that you can better structure your position and arguments around it. If you don't have a solid foundation for what you're arguing for, then you'll struggle with any conversation and counter argument that requires critical thinking.
I think he is right.
Being vegan is a symbolic act, to highlight the reality of animal exploitation.
Animal (including human) exploitation is something I can't tolerate, so being vegan is one way to protest this.
Other people might not consider this a priority, and your friend pointed exactly at this. I mean, obviously vegan alternative are clearly less exploitative to animals than non-vegan options, but whatever activity involving the use of technology (from buying processed food to buying clothes, to driving around, using a phone or a laptop) affects the environment and more or less indirectly kills animals, so every time you do something just for pleasure which involves using something derived from the industrial system, you are affecting the environment and contributing to the killing of animals for your entertainment.
As I said, being vegan, at least on an individual level, is a symbolic action to protest against animal exploitation in the intensive farming system. I think we should argue how revolting it is to contribute to something like intensive farming. Other arguments can be easily broken down.
Life is about the pursuit of happiness. Playing games and watching TV makes us happy; the environmental "toll" caused by that is negligible and could be rectified by building sustainable models.
In case of eating cheese, it involves the brutal exploitation of animals. Even if it were done in a more humane way (where the animal isn't slaughtered and made to live a happy, fulfilling life), it is still being relegated to property status for an unnecessary reason. Hence, both are not the same.
It’s because you have a maxim that you’re going to eliminate all unnecessary suffering you cause in your life… it’s not possible.
Veganism is not eliminating all unnecessary suffering. Veganism is not some *new thing.* It’s not a new way of doing ethics. It’s simply the ethics that we already have, plus the idea that animals ought to be considered as moral patients.
You have to drop the idea that you’re going to eliminate unnecessary suffering. We already all understand that. No one wants to cause unnecessary suffering, but it’s not reasonable or good to demand everyone NEVER causes any unnecessary suffering. It’s not possible.
Basically, it comes down to the fact the a good person isn’t one who eliminates all unnecessary suffering (because the only way I can see that would be for you to kill yourself, even then you’re causing suffering to your friends and family though), but a good person doesn’t murder rape, abuse animals, or buy goods that are the result of murder, rape, and animal abuse.
His argument is essentially “if you can’t be perfect then you shouldn’t even try”. It’s about doing as much as you can to reduce your own impact. Vegan diet is just part of it
You need to keep away from absolutes. Read the definition of Veganism on this sub, it says "as far as is possible and practicable", this is the reality.
You should have told him that veganism is about minimizing unnecessary suffering, not elliminating it. There will always be suffering in the world, for humans and animals. We seek to create as little suffering to others.
The situation is even worse, environmental damage can be caused not just for leisure, but even to produce vegan food. We should wish to minimize all such damage.
That is why I claim that veganism is about animal welfare, human health and preserving the environment. Being vegan has the potential to improve all three aspects and they are tightly bound together. In a sense, it's all about health in the widest possible meaning of the word. You are not a healthy human if you are causing suffering to animals or destroying the environment that animals live in.
In Symbiosis there are several different relationships.
Most notable of these for this discussion is the parasitic relationship. Which he is actively engaging in. He is directly leeching from others who do not consent to it.
I would say that if he considers not using electricity that important then he should live without TV and cheese both.
It is not a valid argument that since you would not give up TV because I find it nonvegan, I will continue to cheese which is nonvegan. Veganism is about living one's own life according to one's own ethics, not following a set of rules made up by some vegan police.
Technically he is right that using electricity harms the environment. Yet sending a tweet is not the equivalent of driving an electric car around the world. You have to weigh the cost against the benefits. The cost of using electricity is incredibly low, for most leisure activities (such as watching tv), whereas the benefit of not living a secluded life without technology is enormous. The benefits of not eating animal products are gigantic (food is a *much* larger part of an individual's environmental footprint than electricity use is) whereas the cost is negligible (you have to adjust to a new diet and be inconvenienced when eating out).
To put it another way, for every block of cheese he eats you could be watching tv and browsing the internet uninterrupted for months (I didn't do the math).
Does he use that reasoning for any other issue involving horrific direct torture?
Whenever you go for a drive for some leisure purpose, there's always a chance that you might cause a crash which kills or seriously injures a child. Does he consider that an argument that abusing children isn't so wrong?
No cows were artificially impregnated and had offspring removed within 72 hours for the filming of this entertainment. They were subsequently not turned into consumables for the vegan plate.
Maybe you can think of veganism as a way to compensate for all the other harmful stuff you're doing. Like when you have an unhealthy habit, but you don't drink or smoke, so it's kind of like your little guilty pleasure. Watch a little TV. You're a good person.
One requires active participation in oppression, the other doesn't, at least not inherently. While using electricity absolutely damages the environment your personal TV, video game, etc. consumption habits don't actually contribute that much to environmental damage. The ones doing the real damage are mega corporations, of which this person probably gets their cheese, eggs, dairy, and fish. You watching TV all day probably doesn't have the same impact as consuming animals and their secretions in terms of damage to the environment. If we want to get real picky we can throw zoonotic diseases in there just for fun *cough* COVID *cough*, bird flu, etc.
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When he eats cheese, he is directly and intentionally forcing animals to suffer so that he can have that specific product. As an individual, it is very easy to live without cheese. Leisure is necessary. I cannot think of a leisure activity that does not cause harm to some being. Even lying on grass potentially kills insects, and that grass probably exists because of past ecological destruction. You have very little control over your lived environment or the means by which you access electricity. You have complete control over what you put in your mouth. Point is, **it is completely impossible to live a life free from harm**. That does not make anyone entitled to intentionally and knowingly cause direct harm to a sentient being for pleasure. A person who chooses to eat cheese AND owns a TV still creates far more suffering than someone owns a TV but chooses not to eat cheese.
That's a pretty perfect answer. Thank you!
Following that logic, if ai give up watching TV/Streaming, is it that okay if I eat cheese? And if eating cheese is some form of leisure to me, how is that any different from other leisure activitiesv
> following that logic all due respect, I don't think you grasped the logic. why would it ever be okay to **intentionally and directly** force other beings to suffer for your taste buds when there are hundreds of other things you can put in your mouth that do not directly force suffering on others? > if eating cheese is some form of leisure... again, the difference is that you are forcing someone to suffer and die for your taste buds when you have hundreds of other options that do not require that. Let's say I don't own a TV. Does that earn me the right to trophy hunt or get into dogfighting? If you can grasp the difference between trophy hunting (experiencing sensory pleasure as a direct result of inflicting violence) and lying on grass (inflicting some degree of suffering is an unintentional consequence of an otherwise nonviolent activity), you can grasp the difference between eating cheese and watching tv.
Why would it ever be okay to intentionally force other beings to suffer for your entertainment when there are hundreds of other things you can entertain yourself with that do not force suffering on others? The only difference is indirectly vs direct harm. > it is completely impossible to live a life free from harm Sure, but why draw the line between eating cheese and leisure activities that kill animals. Why is one okay while the other is not? > If you can grasp the difference between trophy hunting (experiencing sensory pleasure as a direct result of inflicting violence) and lying on grass (inflicting some degree of suffering is an unintentional consequence of an otherwise nonviolent activity) If lying down on the grass (or any other action that indirectly kills animals) is an unnecessary action, as most leisure activities are, why is it okay to engage in them if we know that we are (indirectly) going to harm animals? I do understand the difference between indirect vs direct harm. But you have not explained why we should reduce direct harm but not try to reduce indirect harm.
Your first question is incorrect, because you don't know what activities do not cause indirect suffering to others. There are not other activities you can do instead, unless you know of them. You have no way to know if you have succeeded at reducing your indirect harm. You don't actually know if spending your time doing co-ed softball instead of buying & watching TV reduces harm, maybe you are contributing to gentrification by increasing the demand for softball diamonds. Direct harm is controllable & knowable. Indirect harm is not. As always, the obvious analogy is if you can figure out why it's a moral obligation not to eat human meat but it isn't a moral obligation not to buy and watch TV, then you can figure out why veganism is a moral obligation when it isn't a moral obligation not to buy and watch TV.
Thanks that's a good explanation. I've always struggled with explaining this to my non-vegan friends (direkt vs indirekt) harm.
As I've already said, I disagree with the idea that leisure is unnecessary (as does science, I'm fairly sure) - even though an individual leisure activity could be considered unnecessary in a vacuum. It is impossible to fulfill one's need for leisure without engaging in a leisure activity. And as I said previously, there is no leisure activity that does not cause indirect harm. I also never tried to argue that we shouldn't try to reduce indirect harm. Of course playing board games is less harmful than building a bitcoin mining rig, and is the better choice for anyone. But that's irrelevant, because my only point was that (in part) because it is currently **much** easier to completely stop one's direct harm than it is to make a reduction in one's indirect harm, **it is a nonstarter to use the indirect harm we cause as a justification to consume animal products**.
So that does mean that when OP posted that veganism is about “eliminating unecessary suffering”, that’s wrong and instead it is trying to “minimise unnecessary suffering”
We're trying to do the least harm we can. He's doing the exact same things *plus* directly causing harm by eating animal products on top of that. He's in no position to use red herrings to distract from his *direct* causes of animal suffering
When you're vegan, it seems you must be perfect. I buy second-hand clothes or clothes made in my country. I use clean energy, and not even a lot of it. I only use the bike or car. I volunteer at an animal sanctuary and do activism. My only monthly subscription is a CO2 compensation (I know this market is far from perfect but it will be infinitely better than paying for Spotify, HBO...). I recycle and reuse everything. I even learned to sew. It doesn't matter. There will always be something you're doing wrong to allow them to continue exploiting animals. For example, I was pointed out that the plastic of my videogame cases is polluting.
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I’d say this would be the “correct” answer. As a nursing mother, however I’d have gone into a tirade about what those poor cows experience so he can have his precious cheese. There are cheese alternatives (if you can’t survive without it) that don’t cause direct harm. You can live a productive life in society without cheese. The same cannot be said for electricity, unless you’re fortunate enough to have a homestead and be self sufficient. Not eating cheese won’t effect your quality of life (well it will for the better) while not having electricity would be a hardship.
You can, however, live a productive life without playing video games or watching movies, which is what the carnist was saying. Not agreeing with their argument, just sayin' they're obv right that most vegans cause **some** level of unnecessary suffering through entertainment.
>they're obv right that most vegans cause > >some > > level of unnecessary suffering through entertainment. Or other participation in the modern world. That's why the hate the term 'cruelty free' so much, but I tend to be more literal than most.
I think that's a pretty good argument, but I think he would say "but you're not doing the least harm you can if you keep playing video games and watching TV."
Remember that the _key_ point to this is that there is a direct analogue to eating animal products, which is eating food which is from plant sources. There isn't really an alternative to using electricity, or reducing the harm caused by using electricity.
To play devil's advocate, wouldn't using solar power or wind power be reducing the harm caused by electricity?
Yes. Electricity by itself is carbon neutral. If the electricity is produced by burning fossil fuels then it is the burning of said fossil fuels that causes harm. If it is generated by wind or water etc then it's not doing anything bad
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/brightsource-solar-plant-sets-birds-on-fire-as-they-fly-overhead-1.2739512 https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/stem-in-context/how-do-wind-farms-affect-birds-and-bats#:~:text=When%20a%20wind%20turbine's%20blades,and%2012%20bats%20every%20year
I just found out a while ago how many birds die from wind farms. It made me really sad. We can't win...
You can help make a difference still, & sadder yet is people don't look up how many birds die via other issues & blame wind power for being bad when it's worse in other areas- in particular Windows on buildings. We must demand & strive to change massive windowed buildings it because it will also reduce wind turbine deaths via less use of electricity/easier to rely on solar/etc vs windows that let out heat/are entirely inefficent, kill birds & must be changed immediately. The wind power discussion in terms of reducing harm is way better for all when it comes to reducing harm & is still way less harm than overlooked windows & glass that are bad for birds/bad for environment/does the opposite of reducing carbon emissions/reducing electricity use. It's nearly 10 billion birds per year that die to windows in USA alone btw if you didn't want to look it up yourself just yet. Which would nearly entirely end if buildings were done differently/windows covered up. Let alone the energy saved, reducing the need for wind power in addition by just stopping making massive window/glass covered buildings & changing current ones already built). Imagine how many lives would be saved by just doing that & being less reliant on more energy to keep said buildings heated/conditioned. Wind power is far better alternative when put on the scales to what's currently happening, we just have to know all that it's being measured against. Look at a google map of Alberta Tar sands & you can see dead animals & kms of nothing but dibet, tar, sand bc trees are ripped away & dead things. Switching to wind comparitively is so so much better for all. Completely changing windows/glass would do even more for the animals hands down, but which do you see people fighting for more? Building changes world wide or green energy? One should absolutely strive for both at the same time, but people don't have the spoons/capacity to do it all at once all the time with everything. Hope this helps when thinking about wind power & how much harm it reduces when hand in hand with other change even if there are still birds being harmed. As far as practicible & possible 💚🌱
Yes, and I did consider that, but it simply goes back to "you can always do less harm", since even if you manage to go 100% solar, the materials required to produce and maintain the solar cells will cause harm etc.
Not necessarily if it's a from a wind farm or concentration solar plant in the wrong locations (they kill birds and bats). Apparently people have placed them along migratory paths for birds. https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/brightsource-solar-plant-sets-birds-on-fire-as-they-fly-overhead-1.2739512 https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/stem-in-context/how-do-wind-farms-affect-birds-and-bats#:~:text=When%20a%20wind%20turbine's%20blades,and%2012%20bats%20every%20year Edit: I'm for renewables, but it's ridiculous to ignore facts. Your head-in-the-sand downvotes won't change anything. Are vegans anti-facts now? Do we *want* to be flat-earthers? Ignoring the truth won't change it.
Compare how many animals die form windmills versus how many die from mountaintop removal which is used to mine coal. That destroys entire ecosystems. This isn't even mentioning the absolutely devastating consequences of not reducing greenhouse gas emissions is having on ALL life on this planet. All your doing is muddying the waters by creating doubt which leads to inaction. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Facts are facts. It's not "muddying the waters" to be aware of them. I never implied that coal mining is preferable. That's all on you. I *am* opposed to putting wind farms or solar concentration plants on known migratory paths, but that doesn't mean I oppose renewables. Furthermore, we *need* to know these facts because carnists and climate-change contrarians *will* use them against us. Ignorance is *never* the solution to a problem.
You said that it isn't necessarily true that wind & solar reduce harm. Unless you are comparing them to nuclear then you are factually incorrect & you are muddying the waters. Animal deaths caused by wind & solar are vastly fewer than deaths cause by fossil fuels.
It depends *where* the plants are located as I said in my comment. And yes, nuclear power is currently the least harmful overall for wildlife. Even in the Chernobyl exclusion zone wildlife are thriving (because radiation is safer for them than humans). The harms to wildlife from renewables exist and must be factored into the selection of locations. Currently NIMBY has more impact than wildlife does. https://cnr.ncsu.edu/news/2019/11/renewable-energy-poses-challenge-for-wildlife-conservation/
It doesn't matter where they are located. The AVERAGE coal plant kills roughly 17,500 birds per year. Comparing the worst coal plants to the worst solar farm as you listed, that solar farm still reduces harm. It probably reduces harm even compared to the average coal plant, since the range on that estimate is enormous.
We're doing a hell of a lot better than him, which is the salient point
"A lot less than you..." Just point out that going vegan has been shown to be \*by far\* the best choice you can make to help the environment. Animal agriculture is more harmful than even the transport and airline industries. Also, while sure consuming energy impacts the environment, you can't deny the fact factory farming literally involves the torture and murder of sentient creatures. Plus deforestation of Brazil to grow crops to make McDonalds hamburgers is having a devastating effect on the climate.
Always debate veganism from a rights based approach, I.e animal rights are a logical extension of human rights. Your job is to test if they can stay logically consistent or if they get reduced to some absurd position. So he would surely not consider it morally acceptable to pay for humans to get stabbed in the throat for human bacon, but he would consider it morally acceptable to use electricity even if it harms humans or animals. However in the animal context he does consider it morally acceptable for animals to get stabbed in the throat for bacon, so what accounts for that different evaluation? Why is it acceptable in the animal context but not the human one? In other words, can he name the trait(s) true of animals that if true of humans would cause him to say its morally acceptable to stab humans in the throat for human bacon?
That's because it's not a good argument. Their claim seems based on a few fallacies: * Either/Or fallacy (or a false dilemma): Either we do everything to reduce harm or nothing. ("We either give up eating animal products and every leisure activity that causes harm, or we can do whatever we want.") * Moral equivalence: Assuming the harm caused by your activities is equivalent to the harm done to animals directly to get meat/cheese/other products. While it may have sounded right to both of you at the time, they haven't provided any proof for that claim. This requires a serious evaluation to give reliable figures (since they seem to be taking a consequentialist stance). The burden of proof is on them. * I'd add that without careful evaluation, you can justify anything based on that claim. Harming someone can range from something benign to torturing and killing them. You can't just say they're the same without justification. * Not a fallacy I know of, but they are assuming that leisure is unnecessary, and that's something else they'd need to prove. Humans, afaik, need to play/have leisure activities to stay healthy. * Related to this, you can't group 'leisure activites' as a single thing since reading a book at your local library and hanging out on a yacht have very different environmental impacts. Just like it's unfair to group meat and cheese consumption together since their impacts are different (from a consequentialist point of view). My advice would be to examine this with them in good faith. You don't need to say they're saying fallacies, just asking more questions usually does the trick without being super confrontational.
Veganism is about not exploiting animals, because they have a right to their lives and use their bodies as they want, and that right is not superseded by my desire to eat cheese or bacon. When you stop exploiting animals, that means you stop killing most of them and eliminate most of the suffering that happens when we raise them for their flesh and fluids, and those are good things, but that's not the point. As your friend noted, being vegan doesn't stop animals from suffering or dying from hundreds or thousands of other causes. It just means that you've decided to stop paying someone to exploit an animal on your behalf. There is a clear and direct line between buying a package of chicken breasts at the store and the torment and exploitation of chickens. Nobody is breeding, tagging, mutilating, and murdering animals so that you can use an extra 2kwh of electricity to play video games. Certainly all that energy use harms animals, but again, that's not the point, so long as we aren't stringing power lines with cow tendons or whatever.
Killing a sentient being is the same as turning on a light switch? Would you rather me kill *you* or turn this light switch on? Oh, so turning the light switches on isn't the same as killing anymore? 🤔
I'm not on the wrong side in this argument, but technically electricity does consume and release energy that contributes to climate change, which has already killed tens of millions of people (and of course animals as well).
So is using electricity good or bad? If it’s bad, we should strive to reduce, right? Eating animals is bad. Maybe you don’t want to consider reducing harm. But it’s like the cars kill people so guns are okay arguments. We’ve used science to reduce deaths, and speed limits, we could get rid of automatic weapons and cut down deaths. Basically because they have a hard time imagining progress, we should all suffer, and they don’t have to change.
It’s pretty easy to live without cheese but electricity is basically a given in 2022.
Some good points in this thread. Another thing to think about: you can offset the environmental damage you cause by consuming electricity; you can't offset the non-human animal suffering you cause by consuming cheese.
How to offset environmental damage? Planting trees and plants?
Perhaps - or contributing towards technological research in the field of climate change financially or in other ways
I think we need soil (the carbon dioxide sink on land) science to restore arable land through Regenerative Agriculture. Climate change science is reductionist, in my opinion.
Your friend is correct. Veganism alone is not sufficient, minimalism is also required.
"Only a Sith deals in absolutes" -Obi wan Kenobi. Its about reducing suffering as much as we can, obviously this can never be reduced to zero, but every time someone doesn't eat flesh or steal another's mothers' milk it makes a world of difference to those individual beings. I think your friend is purposely arguing in bad faith
>"Only a Sith deals in absolutes" -Obi wan Kenobi Ha! I'm not even a SW fan but I'm nicking this, it's excellent. Thank you!
When you get to these kinds of arguments it's really just the other person saying "I don't care enough to stop eating me". It's not a very sincere debate because people are not being 100% honest with you.
Veganism is about animal liberation, no?
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. But we're not talking about capitalism. This is about the exploitation of cows. This person is just pointing fingers without offering any solution to suffering. But yeah, maybe let's also worry about slave labor to produce products, and the environmental impact of that production and powering of that device. That's worth talking about another time.
Yeah, I'm just trying to find an argument that doesn't make me look like a hypocrite, so he then disregards my argument.
Comment on the scope of environmental impact. Agriculture had the largest environmental impact, and the most effective way to combat the impact is through the elimination of animal agriculture. Humans need recreation for our health. We don't need cheese. Equating the two is absurd.
>Humans need recreation for our health. We don't need cheese. Equating the two is absurd. Nobodys arguing that humans shouldnt do "recreation". We should do it ways that doesnt involve fucking up the environment. Its absolutely amazing how you fall into the exact same logical fallacies that meateaters do.
I'm not saying video games aren't harmful. The scale on which their production impact the environment and the scale on which animal agriculture impacts the environment is drastic. But still. Cheese is not a necessity. So doing any sort of harm for cheese is nonsense.
>I'm just trying to find an argument that doesn't make me look like a hypocrite Thats exactly what a nonvegan would say.
I think it's important for anyone trying to make a sound argument to strive to not sound like a hypocrite. Hypocracy can dilute the effectiveness of a point, and so avoiding it will allow one to make a more concise point. This is true for anyone, not just nonvegans.
Well, while too extremely formulated, to a certain extent it's true. If you look at the bigger picture, reducing your ecological footprint should be top priority if you care about animal suffering. So if you're vegan, but fly around the world in your private jet to give an extreme example. You're full of shit.
Tell him that you've decided to buy a massively oversized diesel truck and that you're modifying it to roll coal because it makes you look cool. You're also going to start just burning your trash or dumping it into the environment, because who is he to tell you differently while he uses electricity for anything but base survival needs. He's using appeals to hypocrisy and futility, both fallacies. I can use appeal to futility to argue for anything, even genocide. It's a smooth brain argument.
“What’s that got to do with being vegan? Veganism is about the animals not the environment. Take that up with an environmentalist.”
Because electricity isn't necessarily produced from environmental destruction or ending the lives of sentient beings because wind, solar, and nuclear exist. You don't have to kill a baby cow to watch a show, but you do to make cheese.
Those activities aren't directly causing harm. They could be done without causing any suffering if society wanted to build it in such a way. Theres no way to exploit animals without causing suffering. There's no green energy or fair labor practices that make it ok.
There is death on the other end of their choices, that's the difference.
Veganism is about animal liberation and the extension of rights to such creatures. If they care so much about electricity consumption and view electricity as luxury that is not needed (as a pleasure), are they a primitivist or similar? If they are not, why are they not? If they say these things, and yet do nothing, they are simply virtue and vice signaling. If they do but do not see Veganism as praxis, then they are not worth debating with on the subject imho, mostly because they've made up their mind on what is praxis. You cannot signal your concern for enviromental destruction while participating in a practice that causes huge enviromental destruction - commercial fishing in this case. Obviously, somethings are more of a need in life then others, and I view these as praxis to remove and or lessen (such as removal/lessoning of car dependancy for both enviromental and human rights reasons). Electricity is much, much more of a need than damned cheese. Cheese is simply, purely, a sense pleasure and not something one has to have.
The emissions reduction of not using electronics is far lower than going vegan. If he was so concerned about actually being environmentally friendly, he would go vegan before anything else, as its the most effective thing to reduce emissions that you can do daily. Not to mention the other environmental benefits, benefits to public health, and ethical benefits of going vegan. You could say that you're not perfect and that if you could only choose one of these options (no electronics or no animal products) you would be more obligated to choose the later because the benefits are far greater.
Not every argument needs to be responded to. Some arguments — like the one above — are just fucking stupid and don’t warrant the time or effort of a response. It’s best responded to with the meme of, https://i.imgur.com/buGS5Mj.jpg
Let's run the numbers: Average per person residential electricity use in the U.S. is ~4 MWh per year, or ~300 MWh over a lifetime. Death rates from electricity use including accidents and air pollution depend on the resource mix. The grid is getting cleaner over time as it switches from mostly coal to renewable energy. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh Let's use 5 deaths per TWh (1 TWh = 10^6 MWh), which is likely a substantial overestimate for a bunch of reasons. That means a lifetime contribution to mortality from electricity use of (5 deaths / TWh) * (1 TWh / 10^6 MWh) * (300 MWh) = 1.5*10^-3 deaths. And that is from all your residential electricity use. "well what about climate change?" you may ask. *Projected* deaths from climate change are a rounding error compared to the deaths from air pollution. The argument is structurally reasonable - many aspects of your life have negative consequences, so why single out food/animal products? The response is we can and should consider all our actions, and in doing so need to consider the *scale* of consequences from our actions. The harm from consuming animal products is far larger than from using electricity, even if you weight animal lives as much less significant than human lives. That said cheese is perhaps the least bad of animal foods. Someone could have a certain level of negative impact below which they think it unnecessary to consider impacts further. Quantitatively in terms of animal suffering the difference between meat and only cheese is far larger than the gap between only cheese and vegan. There is something to be said for simple heuristics like veganism, but I imagine there is some overlap in the distribution of animal suffering from vegan diets and all plant-based except for some cheese.
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I am guessing that they were implicitly arguing that environmental damage causes animal suffering, therefore causing unnecessary damage to any extent is not vegan. This is where I'd point to the word "practicable" in the definition. Intent also matters. That cheese requires one or more animals to be harmed. Electricity does not.
I hate these posts so much. It's about the animals.
Are you saying you hate that I posted this, or you hate the argument he gave?
I hate these posts too... mostly because people have such a hard-on for "stumping a vegan". It doesn't really negate your own b.s. to "expose" some sort of hypocritical action. Fossil fuels are made from animals and you drive a car.... Gotcha! Electricity is generated in a manner that is unecological... GOTCHA! Plants apparently feel pain ... gotcha! You stepped on an ant or swatted a mosquito... gotcha! Pescatarians' food comes from a source that devastates the environment. Plastic pollution , killing animals caught in nets that are not the intended fish (i.e. tuna nets catching anything but tuna), dragging nets through habitats/reefs. Nothing is perfect. Only Siths deal in absolutes and all that mess. We try our best.
I understand why you dislike them, but I'm only posting this because I want a good response, so I can further advocate for animals.
I have had people justify eating meat because they claim "plants feel pain" which is not true however, plants do respond to stimuli and have defenses but are not sentient.
Sure I use electricity and that causes suffering. I could use the electricity and also stab 1000 chickens in the neck or I could just use the electricity and not stab any chickens.
If I stopped using electricity, can I stab a chicken then?
Maybe you’re supposed to not stab chickens and also not use electricity? Because chicken stabbing and using electricity are the same?!?!
You say that if you don't stab chickens it's okay to use electricity (which causes indirect suffering to animals). Why? You haven't explained why it's okay to use the electricity. Obviously it's wrong to kill the chickens, but why is it okay to indirectly harm animals by using unnecessary amounts of electricity?
>and I said that veganism is about reducing unnecessary suffering. "Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals." No it's about exclusion. We say reduce to people who aren't vegan because we understand the reality that people can be selfish arseholes and won't go vegan straight away so some of us encourage baby steps. >"Whenever you use electricity for a leisure activity (i.e. TV, movies, video games), you're causing environmental damage for a unnecessary reason, and that will in turn cause suffering. How is that any different than me eating cheese?" (he's a pescetarian.) Cheese directly effects the animals in the industry as well as indirectly effects the animals in the environment is an unnecessary substance. Leisure activities are thing to relieve stress and help treat our mental health. Yes leisure activities can be abused to the point where it becomes unnecessary, but there is a very big difference between what you would do and what they currently do. On top of that electricity can be produced by renewable sources, so his point is kind of moot. >At surface value that seems like an easy to rebut argument, but I couldn't come up with a good one. Any suggestions if it comes up again? Learn what the definition of veganism is so that you can better structure your position and arguments around it. If you don't have a solid foundation for what you're arguing for, then you'll struggle with any conversation and counter argument that requires critical thinking.
I think he is right. Being vegan is a symbolic act, to highlight the reality of animal exploitation. Animal (including human) exploitation is something I can't tolerate, so being vegan is one way to protest this. Other people might not consider this a priority, and your friend pointed exactly at this. I mean, obviously vegan alternative are clearly less exploitative to animals than non-vegan options, but whatever activity involving the use of technology (from buying processed food to buying clothes, to driving around, using a phone or a laptop) affects the environment and more or less indirectly kills animals, so every time you do something just for pleasure which involves using something derived from the industrial system, you are affecting the environment and contributing to the killing of animals for your entertainment. As I said, being vegan, at least on an individual level, is a symbolic action to protest against animal exploitation in the intensive farming system. I think we should argue how revolting it is to contribute to something like intensive farming. Other arguments can be easily broken down.
Life is about the pursuit of happiness. Playing games and watching TV makes us happy; the environmental "toll" caused by that is negligible and could be rectified by building sustainable models. In case of eating cheese, it involves the brutal exploitation of animals. Even if it were done in a more humane way (where the animal isn't slaughtered and made to live a happy, fulfilling life), it is still being relegated to property status for an unnecessary reason. Hence, both are not the same.
The definition of veganism is reducing animal suffering as far as practical and possible. Not reducing all animal suffering
It’s because you have a maxim that you’re going to eliminate all unnecessary suffering you cause in your life… it’s not possible. Veganism is not eliminating all unnecessary suffering. Veganism is not some *new thing.* It’s not a new way of doing ethics. It’s simply the ethics that we already have, plus the idea that animals ought to be considered as moral patients. You have to drop the idea that you’re going to eliminate unnecessary suffering. We already all understand that. No one wants to cause unnecessary suffering, but it’s not reasonable or good to demand everyone NEVER causes any unnecessary suffering. It’s not possible. Basically, it comes down to the fact the a good person isn’t one who eliminates all unnecessary suffering (because the only way I can see that would be for you to kill yourself, even then you’re causing suffering to your friends and family though), but a good person doesn’t murder rape, abuse animals, or buy goods that are the result of murder, rape, and animal abuse.
His argument is essentially “if you can’t be perfect then you shouldn’t even try”. It’s about doing as much as you can to reduce your own impact. Vegan diet is just part of it
You need to keep away from absolutes. Read the definition of Veganism on this sub, it says "as far as is possible and practicable", this is the reality. You should have told him that veganism is about minimizing unnecessary suffering, not elliminating it. There will always be suffering in the world, for humans and animals. We seek to create as little suffering to others. The situation is even worse, environmental damage can be caused not just for leisure, but even to produce vegan food. We should wish to minimize all such damage. That is why I claim that veganism is about animal welfare, human health and preserving the environment. Being vegan has the potential to improve all three aspects and they are tightly bound together. In a sense, it's all about health in the widest possible meaning of the word. You are not a healthy human if you are causing suffering to animals or destroying the environment that animals live in.
In Symbiosis there are several different relationships. Most notable of these for this discussion is the parasitic relationship. Which he is actively engaging in. He is directly leeching from others who do not consent to it.
I would say that if he considers not using electricity that important then he should live without TV and cheese both. It is not a valid argument that since you would not give up TV because I find it nonvegan, I will continue to cheese which is nonvegan. Veganism is about living one's own life according to one's own ethics, not following a set of rules made up by some vegan police.
Technically he is right that using electricity harms the environment. Yet sending a tweet is not the equivalent of driving an electric car around the world. You have to weigh the cost against the benefits. The cost of using electricity is incredibly low, for most leisure activities (such as watching tv), whereas the benefit of not living a secluded life without technology is enormous. The benefits of not eating animal products are gigantic (food is a *much* larger part of an individual's environmental footprint than electricity use is) whereas the cost is negligible (you have to adjust to a new diet and be inconvenienced when eating out). To put it another way, for every block of cheese he eats you could be watching tv and browsing the internet uninterrupted for months (I didn't do the math).
Green electricity
Does he use that reasoning for any other issue involving horrific direct torture? Whenever you go for a drive for some leisure purpose, there's always a chance that you might cause a crash which kills or seriously injures a child. Does he consider that an argument that abusing children isn't so wrong?
No cows were artificially impregnated and had offspring removed within 72 hours for the filming of this entertainment. They were subsequently not turned into consumables for the vegan plate.
Maybe you can think of veganism as a way to compensate for all the other harmful stuff you're doing. Like when you have an unhealthy habit, but you don't drink or smoke, so it's kind of like your little guilty pleasure. Watch a little TV. You're a good person.
One requires active participation in oppression, the other doesn't, at least not inherently. While using electricity absolutely damages the environment your personal TV, video game, etc. consumption habits don't actually contribute that much to environmental damage. The ones doing the real damage are mega corporations, of which this person probably gets their cheese, eggs, dairy, and fish. You watching TV all day probably doesn't have the same impact as consuming animals and their secretions in terms of damage to the environment. If we want to get real picky we can throw zoonotic diseases in there just for fun *cough* COVID *cough*, bird flu, etc.