Brief Introduction

[DaBankasDaBonuses]

1. I'm not a Utilitarian. I may use the concept weighing up, which can have the adjective 'utilitarian' attached to it, but that does not mean I believe ethical facts ultimately derive from a universal summation of pleasure/pain. Someone who believes murder is *inherently* wrong can weigh up two scenarios and choose the route with the least murder without foregoing the deontological basis of his morality.
If you are a Utilitarian, I can understand why you think the way you do. There is a single path to the greatest outcome and there is no liberty in between.
I do not hold this view. My ethical prejudices are informed by my upbringing. I, and most others around me, feel that there is an *ethically meaningful* and *qualitative* difference between murder and forgetting to turn a light bulb out. This meaningful difference leads me to believe that the two offenders should be treated in qualitatively different ways. Additionally, we believe we are morally obligated to avoid one whereas the other is merely a virtue.

2. I arrive at the conclusion that animal products (as a whole) are significantly harming the environment in my view. This significance is borne out by looking at empirical facts and allowing my faculties of common sense to take over. This does not mean it is an objective fact. It merely explains why I have my prejudices about what I would like to happen.

3. The 'estrangement' of the set-up rape is small despite the time gap because the perpetrator knows with near certainty that the outcome will occur. He comprehends the consequences with near total accuracy in his head as he sets up.
The responsibility is entirely his. There is no intermediary such as climate systems standing between them.
My impact on climate change is not known. What we have are models predicting what the global GHG's will do to the climate assuming current trends continue, that no great technological discoveries are made etc. Not only is the net effect of global CO2 output only known within soft boundaries, my specific contribution pales in comparison to the margin of error on these climate graphs.

This is enough to convince most people that there is a qualitative difference between the two scenarios. If you are a Utilitarian, I don't expect it to convince you. For most people these differences are important.

P1. X doesn't have a visible effect on the planet.
P2. Only things that have a visible effect on the planet are worth doing.
C1. X is not worth doing.

My position would be closer to this:
P1. X doesn't have a significant effect on the planet
P2. Sum total of X's do
P3. Things which have significant effect on the planet are worth caring about
C1. Sum total is worth caring about
C2. X alone is not
P4. Sum total can be reconciled by government
C3. It's worth using government to reduce sum total
P5. It's only necessary to completely remove single X if that is necessary to reduce levels of sum total
P6. Drastically reducing sum total can occur while single X still exists to some degree
C4. It is not necessary to completely remove single X

4. There may be scientific articles than tell us the mean pleasure a person gets from eating a portion of meat and the mean suffering which results from eating that portion of meat but there is a spectrum of pleasures in the former and great uncertainty in the latter. It doesn't allow us to conclude in a normative way: vegan is better than non-vegan.
All you can conclude is eating portion of meat is worse for the environment than doing exactly the same but not eating that same portion of meat.

5.

As long as you look at the science and not fantasy land or absurd non-sensical anecdotal examples that represent only a bunch of people on the planet, animal products are the biggest risk to our future - by far.

They're not non-sensical examples. They are possible routes to go down looking to the future that don't result in serious environmental harms.
It's perfectly conceivable that licenses and permits could be given to people to shoot/be given shot venison, game birds etc by the government that would allow them to stay below agreed climate/environmental targets.
If this is possible and if this is acceptable then veganism is not compulsory by definition.

6. This ties into the last sentence above. If you think of morality in the utilitarian way then I can understand why you are reluctant to draw a line like myself and most others wish to. In other words 'there is only one truly acceptable path and that is the path of maximum utility'.

7. Most of my response here would be a repetition of different points I've already made.
To explain our difference of position, let me summarise by saying this:
If someone does not believe we are morally obligated to restrict our personal greenhouse gas emissions, they aren't necessarily compelled to be vegan for environmental reasons.

[DaBankasDaBonuses]

Likewise, it can be made by appealing to long existing moral principles that only recently (less than a hundred years) made veganism the conclusion of empirical consideration of those principles.

If you are referring to the golden rule, this historically applied to humans and not all sentient creatures.

When it comes to scientific matters, appeal to tradition will get you nowhere very fast. It is not more reasonable to hold a two thousand year old empirical belief that arose from superstition before the advent of the scientific method than to believe objective peer reviewed research in the hard sciences published less than a decade ago and confirmed over and over again ever since.

If you accept that explaining the origins of a belief make it less likely to be true, I would simply say the same about veganism and the modern fixation with pleasure/pain as derived from self-obsessed consumer culture. Also the fact that people have widely different moral beliefs in the West so appealing to their self interest is the only assured route left.
Also, where are these scientific papers which conclude the foundations of ethics?

As far as the practical consequences of my beliefs are concerned, myself and the vast majority of the political community align on this question and are willing to use the barrel of a gun to enforce our preferences.

So if you disagree with others about ethics, you will not be reasoned to change your mind, and you believe you can not reason with them (only suggest that they do without any real argument), so you turn to violence or threat of violence. Basically, instead of preferring to turn to reasoned debate based on an objective moral framework, you want people to murder each other until whoever is victorious gets to dictate morality?

I do prefer to argue where possible, I just understand the limits of what we can conclude in an objective sense about morality. The only reason I mentioned violence was because I was pre-empting a response along the lines of 'but if you don't claim there's objective morality, how do you expect people to follow this path'.

[thebestofenergy]

1. I'm not a Utilitarian. I may use the concept weighing up, which can have the adjective 'utilitarian' attached to it, but that does not mean I believe ethical facts ultimately derive from a universal summation of pleasure/pain.

But that's what you used.
Your stance was that whether we ought to to do something depended on the damage it caused. That is about ethical reasoning.

Listen, James, I'm going to ask you a favor from now on in these responses.
Can you quote the stuff I say, and then respond directly to it?
Because otherwise you're not responding to certain points, or responding to strawman points, and I have to track them down and repost them - which is annoying and time consuming.

Someone who believes murder is *inherently* wrong can weigh up two scenarios and choose the route with the least murder without foregoing the deontological basis of his morality.

Yes, but that's not what you did, so why does that matter?
You weighed up the damage caused vs. whether we should do it.

If you are a Utilitarian, I can understand why you think the way you do. There is a single path to the greatest outcome and there is no liberty in between.

I'm not a utilitarian. And if I was, it wouldn't matter at all to this conversation.
But if you don't ever use utilitarian reasoning to weigh things up in a utilitarian way, you're either a liar or you cannot reach conclusions about situations that are presented to you - which means you have a very poor moral framework.

I do not hold this view. My ethical prejudices are informed by my upbringing.

Why hold something that is most likely incorrect and completely up to chance?

Do you also hold scientific beliefs that were given to you when you were a child, such as Santa existing?

It's irrational and naive to base yourself on what was imparted on you when you were young.

I, and most others around me, feel that there is an *ethically meaningful* and *qualitative* difference between murder and forgetting to turn a light bulb out.

First of all, https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/bandwagon
You and others believing something might as well be words in the wind.
You're never going to convince anybody with half a brain that X is a reasonable stance by simply saying that you believe it. I don't even know why you're still doing that.

Secondly, obviously there is a difference between switching a light bulb off and murdering someone. It's obvious, again, to anybody.
It's another irrelevant point.

This meaningful difference leads me to believe that the two offenders should be treated in qualitatively different ways. Additionally, we believe we are morally obligated to avoid one whereas the other is merely a virtue.

What I am about to say might be shocking for you, but it is very important that you understand it.
A comparison is not an equation.

Do you know the difference?

You can compare keeping a light bulb on when unnecessary with murdering a billion people when unnecessary, on the basis that both are harmful and unnecessary - without them being the same. (crazy, right?)
You can also compare an ant nest with a castle being build by humans - saying something like: the ants build their fortress piece of dirt by piece of dirt, like the humans build their fortress piece of stone by piece of stone.

Is the ants' nest the same as a human castle? I would say no.
Is it comparable on a certain basis? Yes.

A valid comparison doesn't require the parties to be equal. Do you understand?

2. I arrive at the conclusion that animal products (as a whole) are significantly harming the environment in my view. This significance is borne out by looking at empirical facts and allowing my faculties of common sense to take over. This does not mean it is an objective fact. It merely explains why I have my prejudices about what I would like to happen.

You skipped a part. Again, and again. You keep dodging things.
You keep dodging questions. From now on, if you don't answer them - since you keep doing that - , I'll just assume you're admitting you're wrong and that it's safe to assume you are.
It's unfair that others answer everything you say, and you do not. This forum isn't a Youtube comment section. You are supposed to address everything - and if you can't, say so. It's indicative to anybody reading of how dishonest you are when it comes to acknowledging your faults.

I asked 'how do you justify your hypocrisy in doing the opposite.'

You didn't answer. Why didn't you?

I asked this many times, do you realize that?
Please, read this: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2115#:~:text=Posts- ... Discussion

'This significance is borne out by looking at empirical facts and allowing my faculties of common sense to take over.'

Do you understand that looking at empirical facts and weighing whether or not people should give something up has to do with utilitarianism?
If it doesn't, explain the process of arriving at that conclusion with logical steps.

3. The 'estrangement' of the set-up rape is small despite the time gap because the perpetrator knows with near certainty that the outcome will occur. He comprehends the consequences with near total accuracy in his head as he sets up.

And, once again, that makes no difference unless you can prove so.
There is no reason to believe estrangement makes an action any better.

Also, you're assuming for it to be a small gap.
I can set someone up to be raped 10 years from now.
Is it any better then?

You can comprehend the consequences of your impact with near total accuracy too, if you weren't biasedly lazy to not look it up properly. You can determine how much you emit as a total, and understand statistically what those emissions do.

What if I instead set someone up to be raped in 10 years leaving the details to my henchmen? Say I want payback on my business competitor, and I want to get to him through his daughter, but I'm too busy to organize it myself. So I don't know the details. It's OK then, isn't it?

The responsibility is entirely his. There is no intermediary such as climate systems standing between them.

And even if there was, if the consequences were certain (which was your point), they would be just as bad.
You keep repeating the same stuff over and over.
I now believe you do not know how to respond to things.

You say A.
I ask how you arrive to A.
You say A with more words and beating around the bush instead of explaining why A is true directly.



Is the fact that an intermediary is present meaning that it's less bad? Directly own up to a stance you hold, or stop beating around the bush.
So me setting up a rape to happen with my henchmen as intermediary is less bad?

My impact on climate change is not known.

It is, actually. Thanks to something called statistics.
You can easily calculate it.
Just because you're too lazy to do it, doesn't mean you can't know it.

What we have are models predicting what the global GHG's will do to the climate assuming current trends continue, that no great technological discoveries are made etc. Not only is the net effect of global CO2 output only known within soft boundaries, my specific contribution pales in comparison to the margin of error on these climate graphs.

Again with the 'my share' part. Why are you so obtuse?
Are you willing to change your mind?

I have already shown you why that line of logic is inane at best, and purely dishonest at worst.
Even if you divide the totality of the effect by number of people on the planet, you're still having a big effect on the future of a generation. Stop ignoring things.

I even showed you how you contradicted yourself and you lied before. Yet you're pretending like it never happened. (see the section in bright violet, you can't miss it)
What would you think about debating someone that does that?

This is enough to convince most people that there is a qualitative difference between the two scenarios. If you are a Utilitarian, I don't expect it to convince you. For most people these differences are important.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/bandwagon Again. Congratz, you don't know how to argue anything about morality without making this fallacy.

Your friend made it seem like you had decent knowledge about ethics, so this is surprisingly disappointing to see.
You don't even have a way to defend your moral framework. The only thing you do is claim it's subjective and appeal to that fallacy for any kind of leverage.
I hope you realize that it discredits everything you're trying to put forward when it comes to morality.

P1. X doesn't have a visible effect on the planet.
P2. Only things that have a visible effect on the planet are worth doing.
C1. X is not worth doing.

My position would be closer to this:
P1. X doesn't have a significant effect on the planet
P2. Sum total of X's do
P3. Things which have significant effect on the planet are worth caring about
C1. Sum total is worth caring about
C2. X alone is not
P4. Sum total can be reconciled by government
C3. It's worth using government to reduce sum total
P5. It's only necessary to completely remove single X if that is necessary to reduce levels of sum total
P6. Drastically reducing sum total can occur while single X still exists to some degree
C4. It is not necessary to completely remove single X

'P1. X doesn't have a significant effect on the planet
P2. Sum total of X's do
P3. Things which have significant effect on the planet are worth caring about
C1. Sum total is worth caring about
C2. X alone is not'

There is already a contradiction at the beginning.
I have explained how if the total is worth caring about, then it follows that you have to care about X - because the sum of Xs is simply all the Xs put together (so you have to change Xs for the sum to be different, and it's either worth doing it for all the Xs or not at all).

If the sum is relevant, so are its parts. Since you use the bandwagon fallacy when it suits you, why don't you use it here? Most people would agree with that statement.

If to fix X there needs to be Y effort, to fix the collective of 1000X there needs to be 1000Y effort, and to fix 1000^10X there needs to be 1000^10Y effort. You can change laws for the collective, but people in the collective still need to do the effort themselves to change accordingly, so there is the amount of Y effort needed regardless - after the law for meat being gone is put in place, people will have to put effort to give it up and replace it (and the law wouldn't happen/work to begin with if the vast majority of people are opposed to begin with).
So if X is big enough to justify Y, it doesn't matter at what scale it is, it does. It's a very simple mathematical concept you don't seem to understand.

Also, for C2. to be correct P3. has to be: ONLY the things which have significant effect on the planet are worth caring about. (otherwise you can't arrive at C2. logically)
The reductio of that premise is that, again, littering, raping, murdering, and throwing rocks down from a highway bridge are not worth caring about.
Hope that clarifies enough why P3. is absurd.

'P4. Sum total can be reconciled by government'

Wrongly assumed premise. It cannot be without many Xs changing to begin with. I explained it to you before. Did you forget?

The rest of the logical steps are wrong because C2. goes logically against P2., the correct P3. leads to insane conclusions, and P4. is erroneous.

4. There may be scientific articles than tell us the mean pleasure a person gets from eating a portion of meat and the mean suffering which results from eating that portion of meat but there is a spectrum of pleasures in the former and great uncertainty in the latter. It doesn't allow us to conclude in a normative way: vegan is better than non-vegan.
All you can conclude is eating portion of meat is worse for the environment than doing exactly the same but not eating that same portion of meat.

Yes, it does. You even concluded it yourself.
You can empirically and objectively determine how much you affect yourself and others with your purchasing of animal products. You can determine the deforestation done, the waste of land usage, the emissions released and climate change, and you can even estimate the increase risk of pandemics.

We do not have to know things with absolute certainty/precision - down to the millimeter of deforestation - to be able to know things with a good enough degree of certainty (one of the principles of science).

You can determine the damage you cause with a good enough degree of certainty. And it's very obvious it outweighs your personal pleasure from eating animal products in how it affects yourself and others.

On top of that, you have to consider your taste buds would get adjusted to plant-based food if you gave up animal products, and you would find new foods that you like.

So, at worst, you would sacrifice a little bit of personal pleasure, and at best you would be equal or even better off without the cognitive dissonance that you're doing something wrong.
And on the other side, you would make a positive impact on others.

Have you tried being vegan for a few weeks? For all you know, you could miss the animal products less than you think.

You dodged another thing:

It apparently far extends beyond sensory pleasure, but you don't even explain how, and how it outweighs the environmental damage you cause. Until you can do that, it's a mute point.

For the last time, stop dodging.

5.

As long as you look at the science and not fantasy land or absurd non-sensical anecdotal examples that represent only a bunch of people on the planet, animal products are the biggest risk to our future - by far.

They're not non-sensical examples. They are possible routes to go down looking to the future that don't result in serious environmental harms.
It's perfectly conceivable that licenses and permits could be given to people to shoot/be given shot venison, game birds etc by the government that would allow them to stay below agreed climate/environmental targets.
If this is possible and if this is acceptable then veganism is not compulsory by definition.

They are non-sensical examples when you understand that they cannot be replicated for everyone. An Inuit catching fishes is pointless to mention when talking about how to make *others* do less damage.

Again, check: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

'They are possible routes to go down looking to the future that don't result in serious environmental harms.'

They are not, and I explained it.
'as soon as the demand for animal products gets higher than very, very minimal, practices that systematically damage the environment by either undoing a balance of fauna (which has trickle down effects) or agglomerating animals (which causes deforestation and risk of pandemics) inherently have to happen as a result in order for the demand to be satisfied - at which point, eating plants is better'

Also, you haven't given any explanation as to how you would make billions of people do whatever practice you're thinking of. You hadn't even mentioned a practice that could be done yet. All you're saying is that there is a way without saying exactly what it is and in what amounts, how you get there, and how it would be feasible for billions of people - and finally, how it's better than veganism.
If you have to convince everybody to drastically change the way they do things and their dietary habits, I'd bet veganism is the simplest and best way forward.
Unless you're talking about lab grown meat - but that isn't there yet, and it is vegan by definition.

'It's perfectly conceivable that licenses and permits could be given to people to shoot/be given shot venison, game birds etc by the government that would allow them to stay below agreed climate/environmental targets.
If this is possible and if this is acceptable then veganism is not compulsory by definition.'

How many times do I have to post the explanation I gave above for you to stop ignoring it like a child?

If you think billions of people can go hunting, and without environmental damage, you're way, way more delusional than I thought.

Unless you are talking about 1 bird being eaten every year per person, and the person being vegan for the rest of the year, then sure. But at that point it's pretty much veganism, and fits within the definition I gave above.

And if you believe that's the animal products allowance that should happen, I'm looking forward to you starting to do the same right now.

6. This ties into the last sentence above. If you think of morality in the utilitarian way then I can understand why you are reluctant to draw a line like myself and most others wish to. In other words 'there is only one truly acceptable path and that is the path of maximum utility'.

'Most others' you wish. Most people don't have a deranged moral framework like you do, thankfully.
Most people don't wait for the government to pick themselves up, they don't think that consequences being estranged makes something better. Nor do they think animals don't have moral value. Most people think the opposite way you do.

It seems like you resort to bandwagon fallacy whenever you can't argue something.
At least you can admit that in any sensible moral framework, this statement:

'as soon as the demand for animal products gets higher than very, very minimal, practices that systematically damage the environment by either undoing a balance of fauna (which has trickle down effects) or agglomerating animals (which causes deforestation and risk of pandemics) inherently have to happen as a result in order for the demand to be satisfied - at which point, eating plants is better'

is true, right?

If you don't weigh things up and draw arbitrary lines whenever you wish to based on imaginary stuff, then sure, that's fair - but you then cannot criticize anything whatsoever.

But if you do weigh things up to see which option is better while trying to be fair (as you say: like most people do), then that stance makes sense and is true.

7. Most of my response here would be a repetition of different points I've already made.
To explain our difference of position, let me summarise by saying this:
If someone does not believe we are morally obligated to restrict our personal greenhouse gas emissions, they aren't necessarily compelled to be vegan for environmental reasons.

And again, here you skip most of what I say. It's against the rules.

7 billion people causing a worse future for multiple generations of 7 billion people, and you being part of them, means you causing a worse future for multiple generations of 1 other person. (that is basic statistics and math)
Any reasonable person can eventually admit that pleasure from eating animal products (when they could eat something else and get pleasure from that instead) is less important than fucking over multiple generations of 1 other person.

When the blame is big enough, even the tiny share matters enough.

You don't address this with any other points you have made.


I think you mean 'they shouldn't be compelled' instead of 'they aren't compelled'. Otherwise, they obviously aren't. It's a repetition of the first sentence.

Let me pair that with another stance:

'If someone does not believe we are morally obliged to not deprive someone of water, they shouldn't necessarily be compelled to be vegan for environmental reasons.' (same as your sentence, but you put an actual consequence of emissions - one of the many - instead of just emissions)
'If someone does not believe we are morally obliged to avoid littering, they shouldn't necessarily be compelled to not throw garbage on the street outside.'
'If someone does not believe we are morally obliged to not rape someone, they shouldn't necessarily be compelled to not indulge their sexual urge.'

If you are full-blown with moral subjectivism, yes, you can claim that. Just like you can't criticize anything whatsoever.

--------------------

EDIT:
After some thought, I don't think there is really a point in continuing to answer you. It's too much effort I'm putting, for too much ignoring and dodging on your part - and repetition of the same things I have addressed countless times.
I have pretty much made the same post many times explaining things over and over in different ways, while you keep repeating the points that have been refuted.

Hopefully readers that have gotten this far have read enough to form an opinion.
I keep repeating my rebuttal points, and it's not going anywhere, because they're either ignored or the original point is repeated again.
If someone wants to pick this up ( @Red , @brimstoneSalad ), feel free to.
At this point people probably won't be reading this anymore, and whoever is has probably made up their mind, and the person I'm talking to doesn't look like they're willing to change theirs considering the amount of ignoring and dishonesty I have called out.

[teo123]

I am happy for my government to put these restrictions on animal practices for the benefit of humans but I reject the conclusion that I should be morally compelled to never harm an animal.

The government will do everything, while I can continue being a total piece of shit.
When I have written my parody of anti-vegetarians on my blog, I honestly hoped it is a straw-man. But it is not, as you seem to actually believe that.

For instance, how could someone secretly set up a factory farm in their basement?

Like I have said earlier... If the government bans meat altogether, global meat consumption will decrease, but the little meat consumption which is left will have a very large impact in terms of pandemics. It is illegal to eat bats in China. And most people do not do that. However, bats which are eaten tend not to receive modern veterinary care. Thus, when people eat bats, those bats can easily be infected which some disease without people realizing that, and that disease in bats can cause a global pandemic, as has happened with COVID-19. Making meat illegal obviously leads to black markets with horrible consequences. While factory farmed meat will sooner or later cause a very deadly pandemic of a bacteria resistant to antibiotics, this obviously happens relatively rarely, compared to pandemics caused by meat in black markets. There have been quite a few pandemics widely agreed to have been caused by black meat markets, but there has never been a pandemic of a bacteria resistant to antibiotics widely agreed to have been caused by factory farming. It is hard to do a cost-benefit analysis, but government banning meat is probably a step in the wrong direction, rather than in the right direction.

Again, not all animal consumption is identical. There are much more forgiving means of eating meat.

Right, not all animal consumption is as harmful as factory farming or as wet markets. But the possibility of improving a system does not justify a participation in it. You cannot pretend that the meat you buy in supermarkets comes from humanely raised animals. That is living in a phantasy.

Before the 'conservative pragmatism' is brushed aside, I'll reiterate that a new ethical trend should be put under greater scrutiny and suspicion than an already established order. A two thousand year moral order which still exists in my moral community is worth more than a new one - all else being the same.

Again, the reason vegetarian and vegan philosophy are new... is because factory farming and animal testing are new problems. People did not care much about animal ethics back then... when it was not so much of a problem. Expecting societies to be traditionally concerned about the problems caused by the way meat is produced today is absurd beyond belief. You cannot use conclusions people reached thousands of years ago now that the premises have changed drastically.

[brimstoneSalad]

Likewise, it can be made by appealing to long existing moral principles that only recently (less than a hundred years) made veganism the conclusion of empirical consideration of those principles.

If you are referring to the golden rule, this historically applied to humans and not all sentient creatures.

Oh the ignorance of historical illiteracy.

Animal ethics has been an issue since before Yeshua ("Jesus") the or maybe a Nazarene (arguably a sect of Jews, according to records vegetarians) cleansed the temple of money changers commercializing animal sacrifice, and said he wanted mercy not sacrifice and burnt offerings.
The debate about vegetarianism was very real in ancient Greece, where common understanding was that animals has anima (basically a soul).
The ideal of vegetarianism is recorded in most scripture the world over, including the old testament where man was vegetarian in the garden (and after until the covenant with Noah), and would be again after the end times when the kingdom of God is restored. Scripture of all major world religions goes through pains to rationalize and justify the cruelty of a world where we commit violence for food (and some don't justify it at all, but forbid it to varying degrees).

But yeah, maybe you're as short sighted to think the golden rule is all I'm talking about.
Well, historically (again to your ignorance), practice has largely excluded people outside of one's race/nationality and even sex too. It was "do unto other white men as you would have those white men do unto you, but keep black people as slaves, women as chattle, whatever."
These delineations were arbitrary, and that's a serious issue. As the moral circle has expanded, we've begun to employ reason to understand how unjustifiable these arbitrary exclusions are and gain a better grasp on morality.

An objective morality does away with arbitrarity; that is by considering all others, regardless of race, gender, species, etc.
Regardless, I showed the derivation of an objective golden-rule morality already.

If you accept that explaining the origins of a belief make it less likely to be true,

No, I'm saying specific sources, namely science, have a higher chance than the trial and error and guessing of superstition and tradition.

I would simply say the same about veganism and the modern fixation with pleasure/pain as derived from self-obsessed consumer culture.

Do you think about what you say before you say it?
That's not remotely coherent and has nothing to do with the conversation.

Also the fact that people have widely different moral beliefs in the West so appealing to their self interest is the only assured route left.

There's no assurance to appealing to what reasonably seems to be in people's "self interest", because people are self destructive and often irrational. If appeal to self interest worked and people were rational the world would look very different.

And no, that's complete bullshit that people have "wildly" different moral beliefs. There is a bit of a culture war going on right now, but even among conservatives those beliefs are widely shared as I already demonstrated. People are interested in animal welfare because most of them recognize the moral importance of animals. A large part of that comes down to people expanding their moral circles to pets and realizing that non-humans have feelings too.

Also, where are these scientific papers which conclude the foundations of ethics?

Well hello strawman. You don't seem to be making any effort to engage with understanding in this conversation. Or you're too dumb to understand the concept that an extant moral axiom can in its implications be better understood via deduction using empirical knowledge provided by hard science.

If people believe:
A. Harming animals without established need is wrong
B. We need to eat meat to be healthy

The science says nothing about A, but the science says !B. That is: Science is neutral on moral axioms but shows that we don't need meat to be healthy.

The deduction from premise A minus premise B should be pretty obvious. This should not be difficult for you to understand.

I do prefer to argue where possible, I just understand the limits of what we can conclude in an objective sense about morality.

No, the limits are based on your personal cognitive dissonance.

Your desire to continue eating meat and not change your behavior is stronger than your desire to understand and employ objective moral argumentation. Your desire to be right (ego) may also play into it. Ergo, you can not and will not understand.

The only reason I mentioned violence was because I was pre-empting a response along the lines of 'but if you don't claim there's objective morality, how do you expect people to follow this path'.

Sounds more like a threat. If we are in the majority and try to take away your meat, you'll pull out your guns and murder us until you're back in the majority.
Clear enough.

What you've done is highlighted the importance of objective morality. Moral discourse, if you will open your mind to engage in it and stop worrying so much about what you might not be able to eat, has a certain function. Among other things, it helps keep us from murdering each other by appealing to a higher interest beyond self interests when our interests don't happen to align. If you could recognize even that as a potential of moral discourse, then you might be able to start understanding what morality is.

[teo123]

So, @DaBankasDaBonuses, do you also think there is no objective reality, that facts are not objective? Because, in our experience on this forum, people who believe morality is subjective always also believe facts are subjective.

[teo123]

Also, @DaBankasDaBonuses, you say you trust the traditionally accepted statements about ethics over modern ones, everything else being equal, right? Well, on Internet forums about linguistics it is a common knowledge that "If some etymology was proposed before the second half of the 19th century, it should be prima facie considered wrong.". Do you then think that it is wrong?