Philosophical Vegan Forum

Ugh I know what you are saying "Twizelby shutup, you sound like a meat eater" I know I'm still trying to work out ethical justification for the challenging questions. So I got an interesting question today, "why don't vegans buy crops that do the least harm?" I saw this as a Tu quoque but It is still an interesting question. Are we now obligated to restrict our diet. The only thing I could think of was that it would cause to much harm to one plant species and it makes more sense to diversify so all the farming is not singularly taking place in one region.
I also was reading this So here is the troublesome paper http://letthemeatmeat.com/post/68224615 ... t-harm-and

Essentially they make the argument that threshers hack up more animals than a farm that raises both foraging animals and crops. My thoughts on this are that it just isn't feasible feed 7 billion people on such farming methods. What do you think?

Twizelby wrote:So I got an interesting question today, "why don't vegans buy crops that do the least harm?"

We should.

Palm oil is a great example of a plant crop that has been unsustainably farmed, and resulted in the deaths of many higher animals (Like Orangutans).
http://www.orangutan.org.au/palm-oil
Therefore: Do your best to avoid palm oil wherever you can.

There are few other examples of such destructive crops.

Twizelby wrote:The only thing I could think of was that it would cause to much harm to one plant species and it makes more sense to diversify so all the farming is not singularly taking place in one region.

Species are not harmed by farming, individuals in the species are harmed (and others as consequence), and because plants are not sentient, and have no wants, they are not morally significant as individuals. The only harm under consideration is that to animals.

Twizelby wrote: Essentially they make the argument that threshers hack up more animals than a farm that raises both foraging animals and crops.

I suspect you're talking about Steven Davis' argument.

That argument was very poorly framed, and has been addressed directly here:

http://www.veganoutreach.org/enewsletter/matheny.html

Here's a visual, and a more detailed discussion:

http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc

Also, as an aside, most animals killed in harvesting are killed by predators (such as hawks and owls) who catch the mice and other small animals when their cover has been removed. Death by the machines itself is messy and memorable, but comparatively very rare for the actual volume of food produced.

The only study I've seen done to examine this outfitted mice with radio trackers to determine where they all went, and found mostly displacement and predatory death (The second link mentions this, and goes into more detail).

Twizelby wrote: My thoughts on this are that it just isn't feasible feed 7 billion people on such farming methods. What do you think?

This is also true, however, it's unnecessary to mention that to debunk the claims at hand, and it's not particularly helpful to argue against meat consumption in moderation.

The same reasoning can be applies to another low yield crop like strawberries. Some people could eat only strawberries, or everybody could just eat a few strawberries, and it's still possible to sustain- everybody just can't eat a lot of strawberries.
Merely being unsustainable at that volume does not argue against the same at a decreased volume of consumption.

I appreciate the care and thought you put into all your posts Brimstone. Thanks!

Twizelby wrote:I appreciate the care and thought you put into all your posts Brimstone. Thanks!

I appreciate your appreciation. I'm glad to help.