Philosophical Vegan Forum

brimstoneSalad wrote:This is one of those things I typically don't talk about, because it looks pretty weird to non-vegans, and it's kind of beyond the scope of our current most pressing problems.

In theory, sure it's possible -- even to genetically engineer them to eat plants -- but we're not quite there yet.

I'm more concerned with killing off disease carrying parasites like mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas.

I agree; there are far more pressing concerns that the population has to tackle. I also think a hypothetical rapid-transitioning into a completely herbivorous human society would be bound to upset the balance of the ecosystem. But what the world would look like after a very gradual transition would be interesting to ponder over- but I do not think an omivorous diet is the main evil in our world. There's a lot worse out there.

viddy9 wrote:

Jebus wrote:

People may have already read it, but I've always liked this piece on the topic: http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-radical-plan-to-eliminate-earths-predatory-species-1613342963

This is a really interesting read. Thanks!

Narahs_stark wrote:I also think a hypothetical rapid-transitioning into a completely herbivorous human society would be bound to upset the balance of the ecosystem.

Why do you think this? It would only change methane output and waste production; it could do nothing but help the ecosystem. Remember that animals are mainly fed farm output. The only that aren't are grazing animals, which are completely unnecessary from an ecological perspective: they don't improve the ground the graze on, they harm it.

There's a pretty good article debunking Allan Savory pseudoscience here:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2014/aug/04/eat-more-meat-and-save-the-world-the-latest-implausible-farming-miracle

We could end this whole thing overnight, it wouldn't damage the environment.

Narahs_stark wrote:but I do not think an omivorous diet is the main evil in our world. There's a lot worse out there.

Why not? In terms of the billions upon billions of sentient being suffering and having their interests violated, the high degree of their sentience (as opposed to insects, etc.), and the magnitude of their suffering and violation of their interests, what in the world do you think is worse?

But most importantly, it's certainly the worst thing happening in the world that we can directly do something about very simply: by just not supporting it. We can end our share of the suffering. I don't think anything with such an impact is easier. Most other things are harder problems that we can't do as much about (warlords, economic problems, lack of education, fundamentalist religion, disease).

viddy9 wrote:

HomogenizedCowPuss wrote: and thus the natural path of life on Earth, getting rid of all carnivores would not help this cause, but actually in a way hurt it.

This reads like a fallacious appeal to nature. Just because something is natural, doesn't make it right. While it's true that carnivores aren't morally blameworthy for ripping other animals to shreds in horrific, painful situations, it's still true that what they're doing is morally wrong. To the animal getting eaten, it makes no difference whether the carnivore knows any different.

If we followed the natural path of life on Earth, we wouldn't intervene in nature at all, and we would allow humans - and animals - to succumb to the Darwinian horror-show. When somebody has a heart attack, they would die without intervention: that would be their natural path of life. Yet, we give them heart surgery, and later aspirin. When an elephant falls into an open drain, we rescue her to alleviate her suffering. If we were in a wildlife reserve and a lion was about to eat a family member, we would surely try to save our family member, or wish that the lion hadn't eaten the family member. We wouldn't dismiss it as "the circle of life".

Nature doesn't have a plan, and it can't be harmed by what we do or not do. Sentient beings can - alleviating their suffering should surely be our priority.

It sounds like an appeal to nature because you are missing my point entirely, and from the tone of your post I'm thinking that it was purposefully so.

Do not address me again unless you are doing it to have an honest discussion. And if you did quote me to have an honest discussion there is no need to cut up my post and take fractions of sentences out of context. I didn't join this site to engage in piss wars and trolling.

Jebus wrote:

HomogenizedCowPuss wrote:The reason I support veganism is because people don't need to eat animal products to survive and not eating them will drastically lower our negative environmental impact

OK, why do you care so much about the environment? For yourself, for humans, for animals? What do you think about people who care about reducing suffering in the world?

Because its the only one we've got an every species in existence on it is the only instance of it and I think that's beautiful and worth preserving whether or not they sometimes have to eat each other to survive. I think its better that they all survive in their diversity because it paints a more complete picture of what life is and how it develops than to try to alter it just because we can't take the facts of it. I also think there is a major difference between breeding animals in inhumane conditions just to eat them in such a high frequency that it destroys the environment and creates food shortages and animals behaving as the have always done, and doing what they do for survival in the context of a complete ecosystem. The former has everything to do with ethics, the second nothing.

HomogenizedCowPuss wrote:

viddy9 wrote:

HomogenizedCowPuss wrote: and thus the natural path of life on Earth, getting rid of all carnivores would not help this cause, but actually in a way hurt it.

This reads like a fallacious appeal to nature. Just because something is natural, doesn't make it right. [...]

It sounds like an appeal to nature because you are missing my point entirely, and from the tone of your post I'm thinking that it was purposefully so.

You may believe that, but viddy9 is still entitled to an explanation. Defend your views and show how they are not an appeal to nature fallacy, because they look that way to me as well, and several other forum members. This is not the place to just make assertions without backing them up with reasoned arguments.

HomogenizedCowPuss wrote:Do not address me again unless you are doing it to have an honest discussion. And if you did quote me to have an honest discussion there is no need to cut up my post and take fractions of sentences out of context. I didn't join this site to engage in piss wars and trolling.

There's no evidence viddy9 was doing that. Your last post here also looks like an appeal to nature fallacy.

HomogenizedCowPuss wrote:Because its the only one we've got an every species in existence on it is the only instance of it and I think that's beautiful and worth preserving whether or not they sometimes have to eat each other to survive.

Why?

Your arguments sound like the same arguments Nazis and white supremacists make.

White people are the only ones we have. They're dying out! People are interbreeding and destroying the purity of the race! This pure Aryan race is unique, does that make them beautiful? Does somebody thinking, subjectively, that something is beautiful make it morally good and necessary to preserve despite the harm that causes? Should we strive to preserve the pure race as Hitler did and this "beautiful" religion of Nazism because it's unique, even if they sometimes kill Jews and other 'races' who are 'contaminating' them in order to survive as a pure race?

Replace species with anything else and try to make the same argument.

How about disease?

HIV is the only unique virus of its kind! It's being cruelly eradicated. This AIDS is so beautiful and unique in all of its uniqueness. Shouldn't we preserve it and stop people trying to kill off this beautiful Unique virus that's an essential part of the human ecosystem? Isn't it worth preserving despite that it spreads virulently and destroys the human immune system, resulting in millions of people dying, to survive (it's just trying to survive and thrive!)?

So what if they're unique? It matters nothing at all. If something is harmful and evil, it should be eliminated to alleviate suffering. Whether that's the idea of racial purity, the religion of Nazism, diseases, or even whole species. The fact that it is harmful and evil in some arbitrarily unique way does nothing to defend that evil.

If I torture you, but I do it in a creative and unique way, does that make it OK?
Are you going to sign up to be tortured to death by the one and only torture machine invented by a creative genius like Picasso?
How about throwing yourself to the carnivores to help them survive in their uniqueness -- will you volunteer, or are you putting off that suffering upon others to preserve this species because you personally like to look at it or because of your appeal to nature fallacy?

HomogenizedCowPuss wrote:I think its better that they all survive in their diversity because it paints a more complete picture of what life is and how it develops than to try to alter it just because we can't take the facts of it.

I'm not taking you out of context. This is your same bad logic used against you. The same applies to memes, destructive religions, ISIS, Nazism, and diseases like HIV, the bubonic plague, leprosy, Cancer.

Leaving these horrible things, physical and conceptual, in tact -- in their diversity -- surely paints a more complete picture of what life was at its worst. It's just a nasty horrible picture that ignores progress and what life CAN be.
What life is, is whatever we make it. We can languish in the past, or we can move into the future.
We can understand the facts of it, but we can also understand -- as a fact -- that some of these things are simply evil, and the only good thing to do is to change them and make the world better. Make life better. You really want to halt all moral progress to preserve the beautiful misery and suffering of the worst parts of life? Why? Because you like looking at it, or what?

HomogenizedCowPuss wrote:I also think there is a major difference between breeding animals in inhumane conditions just to eat them in such a high frequency that it destroys the environment and creates food shortages and animals behaving as the have always done, and doing what they do for survival in the context of a complete ecosystem.

The only difference you have articulated is an appeal to nature fallacy.
In consequence, both result in suffering. The source is the difference -- one human, caused by us, the other "natural", which can be stopped by us.

HomogenizedCowPuss wrote:The former has everything to do with ethics, the second nothing.

Bald assertion. You need to substantiate that.

Causing suffering yourself and alleviating suffering something else is causing are both ethically relevant actions.

You can stop somewhere around neutrality, and be complacent, if you just stop causing suffering. But you can't say that saving others from suffering is ethically meaningless. It's the difference between abstaining from doing bad, and actually doing good. Ethics isn't just about the former.
The former is possibly more relevant right now because it's more immediate and pressing and we have more control over it. And I think I've said that. But that doesn't make the latter meaningless.

We should probably stop brutally killing animals for enjoyment before we go out and hypocritically stop predators from doing the same for survival. That's the best argument you can make (which you didn't make). But once we have stopped killing animals ourselves, arguing against helping others is probably reverting back to causing harm on your part.
This is an issue for a distant future, but dismissing it with appeal to nature fallacies isn't productive.

And making bald assertions and failing to present coherent arguments and then saying things like this:

HomogenizedCowPuss wrote:Do not address me again unless you are doing it to have an honest discussion.

Goes against the spirit of this forum, and the forum rules.
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and such.

How about you don't address viddy9 again until you're ready to have an honest discussion and back up your claims rather than repeating the same assertions without evidence or argument?

HomogenizedCowPuss wrote:I didn't join this site to engage in piss wars and trolling.

You can throw a fit and then take your toys and go home, or you can grow up and realize that you might not have presented the best argument if so many people didn't understand you, and try again to engage in a real discussion.

Everybody thinks you're making some kind of an appeal to nature fallacy here and that it makes up the basis of your argument. Contrary to your assertions and claims to have been taken out of context, you haven't said anything to indicate otherwise.