Eating cows and other mammals is absolutely a bad thing. Poultry is a gray area. Most seafood is probably safe to eat.
Are you saying this is what vegans believe or it's what you believe? I think eating all of those are bad things, period, and I'm a vegan. The statement you put before "the line that vegans draw around the animal kingdom is mostly arbitrary" makes it rather ambiguous though.
Not three same person, but the demarcation between what should be OK to eat, and what - not - they baked most sense to me, is the capacity to experience pain or emotions.
So I see no substantial moral difference between eating plants or invertebrates, for example - neither can feel harm.
That said, fish and chicken can experience pain or emotions the same as cows and pigs.
OK. They have a brain to feel them with. If you're objecting to imprecise terminology here, I'll give you the point, but I don't think that affects my basic point any (I'm not a biologist, I meant insects and the like - though don't take that as definitive either; maybe someone knows an insect with a brain, too).
Insects also have brains. Some arachnids have the capacity for fairly complex cognition (e.g., the portia spider's hunting behaviors, jumping spiders communicate with eachother and in my opinion, engage in playful behavior).
The issue isn't with your terminology, but rather with what it reveals about the imprecision/inconsistency of your reasoning on these matters.
If you're going to draw a line at eating beings that can feel the harm done to them by eating, it might serve you to explore that boundary more thoroughly.
I'm rather confused.
This statement:
Are you saying this is what vegans believe or it's what you believe? I think eating all of those are bad things, period, and I'm a vegan. The statement you put before "the line that vegans draw around the animal kingdom is mostly arbitrary" makes it rather ambiguous though.
Not three same person, but the demarcation between what should be OK to eat, and what - not - they baked most sense to me, is the capacity to experience pain or emotions.
So I see no substantial moral difference between eating plants or invertebrates, for example - neither can feel harm.
That said, fish and chicken can experience pain or emotions the same as cows and pigs.
octopodes have capacity to feel pain and likely experience emotion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6K1kVUct24
OK. They have a brain to feel them with. If you're objecting to imprecise terminology here, I'll give you the point, but I don't think that affects my basic point any (I'm not a biologist, I meant insects and the like - though don't take that as definitive either; maybe someone knows an insect with a brain, too).
Insects also have brains. Some arachnids have the capacity for fairly complex cognition (e.g., the portia spider's hunting behaviors, jumping spiders communicate with eachother and in my opinion, engage in playful behavior).
The issue isn't with your terminology, but rather with what it reveals about the imprecision/inconsistency of your reasoning on these matters.
If you're going to draw a line at eating beings that can feel the harm done to them by eating, it might serve you to explore that boundary more thoroughly.
That phrase describes the lines I draw in my personal consumption of animals. I said previously that vegans don't eat animals.
Then that means that your lines are abitrary; not vegans' lines.