Veganism and Morality

lol

I saw this TV show once that had a lady who drank light from the sun every morning so she didn't have to eat much, and she thought she could gradually progress so eventually she wouldn't have to eat plants.

If only we had green skin to be able to do it...

I don't really want to get into any of this too much right now, but I just wanted to say a few quick things.

Firstly - morals and ethics are different things.  However, both are simultaneously internally objective - that is, they are objective on an individual basis - and externally subjective.

Secondly - this relates a little more to something you said in another thread, but the idea is continued here, albiet in a slightly different way.  Pain, as you rightly pointed out, is believed to be different in humans and dogs (I think that was the example you used?).  Actually - what constitutes pain is different from human to human, from human A to dog B, from dog B to dog C.  All living beings, who have central nervous systems, feel pain in different ways - not just from species to species, but from individual to individual.  Having said that the concept of pain is NOT subjective - there are ways of scientifically measuring pain reception.  Only the actual sensation of pain is subjective (or, more accurately as with morals - internally objective; seeing as I do not have any level of control over how or why I feel pain...)

We don't take the idea of language (anymore, although it was the popular 'difference' for a very long time...) because many prominent ethicists have done huge amounts of work on the area and it's time to put it to rest - it has been proven that language is not the distinctive factor.  Bernard Rollin addresses the argument very thoroughly in "Animal Rights and Human Morality" (2006)

Regarding "utility" I just want to say; utilitarianism is not the be-all-and-end-all of ethics philosophy, and, in fact, most ethicists and 'normal' people reject utility.  I don't really want to go into it too much more right now, but may do so another time.

if you were to kill another human so they couldn't feel pain would you consider that "moral"

as stated everyone has there own set of morals,not every person is ever going to agree on everything in the world.
im vegan because i dont want to eat animals and thats my choice no one else's i in no way tell my meat eating friends they are un moral for eating dead animals we simply think differently.

plants may feel some kind of pain like when a tre gets a cut it seeps sap who's to say that tree isnt bleeding.
but also meat eaters wil also think they are morally higher then vegans
so either way people are going to think there morals are higher then the next person.
for instance some people liek to think they are helping the environment more by doing certain things yet they will still sit at the computer or watch tv and have all the new technology out or drive a fuel guzzling car, but because they now use energy saving light bulbs they are saving the planet more then the next person.
but in saying that i do tell people I think its wrong and cruel to eat animals. but thats my choice. i like MY morals

morals and ethics are a hard topic to prove who is right and who is wrong,
we should all just accept everyones choices and move on.

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I agree. No one likes to see another animal in pain. With pain comes fear, stress and survival instincts. Being able to talk could not be a factor. By that logic, it would be fine to kill and eat autistic children.

your arugment:
1.we avoid pain because pain is a precersor to injury/death
2.animals avoid pain for the same reason
3.therefore, we should not cause pain to animals
4.therefore, we should not eat animals.

1-3 is perfectly valid, 4 is not. It does not follow that in killing an animal it has to feel pain. While you may be correct in saying that right now, in current practices, it is the case it need not be. Its easy to imaginge another world where animals are killed painlessly and immediately.

On a side note, i think most people on here either through directly admiting or the arguments they present agree that the veg*n choice is a subjective choice. This means you cannot present it as the correct choice. You can say "if you beleive S then Veg*n is the right choice", that is absolutely undeniably true. But it is ONLY this weaker argument that is true and if you try to talk to other people who are not veg*n you MUST use this argument or they will think you are pretentious and conceted. Also, please try to use on the forums too

I saw that too! They then put cameras in every room in her house. She was caught eating a mars bar xD

Hey Scott, for the record, I think you're spot-on about point 4.

But whether or not it's easy to imagine a world where animals are killed painlessly, I don't know. But I know the story doesn't end there. What about their families? Their grieving companions? If I shot your partner painlessly and immediately, she might not suffer, but surely you will. There is still needless suffering in this equation.

If we COULD eat animals without CAUSING pain and/or suffering, the argument becomes very different. Indeed, eating road kill doesn't cause pain or suffering (not that it sounds very appetizing!), similarly, eating meat found in a dumpster is not contributing to the cycle of suffering either (they call it freeganism).

However, most people in our society don't eat roadkill, and aren't freegans. Most people buy their processed animal flesh shrink-wrapped from the supermarket. Before it was at the supermarket it was at the abattoir being dismembered, before that, she was a terrified and confused animal who perhaps wasn't stunned properly before she had her throat slit and was left to bleed to death. Before she entered the abattoir she was crammed tightly onto a truck and left without food or water for extended periods. Before that she was locked in a tiny metal cell so small that she couldn't turn around. She was denied social interaction, mental stimulation, and the freedom to express basic natural instincts which give quality of life. She was forcibly impregnated time and time again until her frail body could no longer take the physical stress of repeated gestation. Perhaps she became lame from denial of exercise, or perhaps her reproductive system simply shut down. Before that she had her tail cut off without anaesthetic, parts of her ears cut off with scissors (again, without anaesthetic), and also had her teeth painfully broken as a baby before she was prematurely and stressfully torn away from her mother. She was brought into this world solely to be killed. Her welfare and quality of life came second to the profit she could yield, and for this reason the laws were long ago bent so that animals raised for food like her could be subjected to extreme acts of cruelty -- without the threat of legal prosecution.

THIS is the reality for tens of billions of animals raised every year to feed people. Nobody can deny the suffering this causes. This is what we object to. This is why we are vegetarian, and vegan.

(But if you want to eat road kill, go right ahead )