The pandemic has thrown into high relief some of the longstanding issues surrounding working conditions in meatpacking facilities. John Oliver explains why g...
Because I enjoy the flavors of fennel, clove, and maple together with a nice protein source. The point is to move away from the torture and suffering of animals, not to completely alienate oneself from the foods we've come to know and love.
Again, small stuff like terminology isn't what's important. Cue the "no ethical consumption" quote, but one literally requires a cow to go through a brief, painful life, consuming 16x as much food to produce the same amount, and be slaughtered by humans who are also suffering massively from their work environment. The other also has some downfalls of capitalism in its making, but nothing was forced to die for me.
every living thing requires something else to die in order to keep living, it's just how we compartmentalize "death" & rank organisms in the hierarchy of worthy consideration
for instance, Jains in addition to being veggie, do not eat carrots or potatoes & other root vegetables because they believe that such plants have a higher "spirit" than other leafy greens... these ethical concerns are after all not universalizable. but I do agree that animals under human care should not be tortured or unduly harmed
You're right about the ethics, which is why ethics is one of the weaker points to make for veganism, but its only one of many reasons why veganism is the better choice (water scarcity, deforestation, waste pollution, ocean dead zones, methane production, zoonotic illnesses, mass use of antibiotics and antidepressants in livestock, slaughterhouse working conditions, etc.). If you are truly concerned for animal welfare, you should watch some slaughterhouse footage and see for yourself whether you should be supporting it with your money.
the same argument can also be said about wearing shoes or buying gasoline, both of which use petroleum which is itself a concretion of animal-derived material
if you've ever watched footage of humans working in factories or seen humans working in agricultural fields picking lettuce, there is plenty of torture and pain endured just to harvest innocent painless plants
Don't you agree that ethical considerations should center around humans? and then radiate out to our relations with animals & the natural world, but always first within those concentric concerns
I don't see why ethical considerations should centre around humans, if your understanding of ethics is that causing pain for pleasure is bad then there's no discernible difference between the pain response of humans and non-human animals.
In regards to humans working in fields, when you buy meat there's both the exploitation of the farm workers who produce the meat, as well as the farm workers who produce the feed for farm animals so it's an extra layer of exploitation.
no, ethical considerations center around humans because humans are the nexus of ethical behavior & ethical standards... we do not look to non-human animals as models for ethical behavior, nor do animals look to humans, they are separate domains.
animals need other organisms to die in order to sustain themselves, just as humans do... the key is where the lines are drawn for humans' most intense ethical attachments & spiritual affinities. those rest and have always rested solidly with fellow human persons. this is expressed in our legal system as well as in our normative standards for interpersonal & intersubjective conceptions
animals deserve an exceeding amount of respect & care & those under human control should not be subjected to undue pain or torture from humans. legal conventions already protect against animal cruelty, and I agree they don't go far enough
animals & other living things are killed all the time in the production of food both unintentionally and intentionally... killing agricultural pests & removing predators & varmints on farm land are both key to successful harvests
but fantasizing about what choices the consumer can look forward to in the vegan "free market" is itself commodity fetishism, except we are patting ourselves on the back for engaging in it.
There's this scientifically questionable idea that more field mice are hurt than livestock animals. Assuming this is true...
If you eat a pig that had a grain to mean conversation ratio of 8 to 1, or a cow that's like 20 to 1, won't less field mice die if we eat the plants directly? You realize that most grain in the US goes to feed livestock, right?
Edit: "won't less field mice die if we eat the plants directly. OMG I feel dumb
i am not talking specifically or only about plants, but organisms in general. But I am talking specifically about death & sustenance of life & how the two are inextricable... which in this spiritual & ethical sense might, in the most profane way, be the only real liberation for any living thing
why does vegan food have to imitate meat & animal-derived shapes & flavors if the point is to move away from such conventions?
Because I enjoy the flavors of fennel, clove, and maple together with a nice protein source. The point is to move away from the torture and suffering of animals, not to completely alienate oneself from the foods we've come to know and love.
fennel and clove & maple flavor can go in lots of things without calling them "sausage" and "cheese"
this seems a lot more about building a better mouse as far as privately-produced commodities & consumerism are concerned
Again, small stuff like terminology isn't what's important. Cue the "no ethical consumption" quote, but one literally requires a cow to go through a brief, painful life, consuming 16x as much food to produce the same amount, and be slaughtered by humans who are also suffering massively from their work environment. The other also has some downfalls of capitalism in its making, but nothing was forced to die for me.
every living thing requires something else to die in order to keep living, it's just how we compartmentalize "death" & rank organisms in the hierarchy of worthy consideration
for instance, Jains in addition to being veggie, do not eat carrots or potatoes & other root vegetables because they believe that such plants have a higher "spirit" than other leafy greens... these ethical concerns are after all not universalizable. but I do agree that animals under human care should not be tortured or unduly harmed
You're right about the ethics, which is why ethics is one of the weaker points to make for veganism, but its only one of many reasons why veganism is the better choice (water scarcity, deforestation, waste pollution, ocean dead zones, methane production, zoonotic illnesses, mass use of antibiotics and antidepressants in livestock, slaughterhouse working conditions, etc.). If you are truly concerned for animal welfare, you should watch some slaughterhouse footage and see for yourself whether you should be supporting it with your money.
the same argument can also be said about wearing shoes or buying gasoline, both of which use petroleum which is itself a concretion of animal-derived material
if you've ever watched footage of humans working in factories or seen humans working in agricultural fields picking lettuce, there is plenty of torture and pain endured just to harvest innocent painless plants
Don't you agree that ethical considerations should center around humans? and then radiate out to our relations with animals & the natural world, but always first within those concentric concerns
I don't see why ethical considerations should centre around humans, if your understanding of ethics is that causing pain for pleasure is bad then there's no discernible difference between the pain response of humans and non-human animals.
In regards to humans working in fields, when you buy meat there's both the exploitation of the farm workers who produce the meat, as well as the farm workers who produce the feed for farm animals so it's an extra layer of exploitation.
no, ethical considerations center around humans because humans are the nexus of ethical behavior & ethical standards... we do not look to non-human animals as models for ethical behavior, nor do animals look to humans, they are separate domains.
animals need other organisms to die in order to sustain themselves, just as humans do... the key is where the lines are drawn for humans' most intense ethical attachments & spiritual affinities. those rest and have always rested solidly with fellow human persons. this is expressed in our legal system as well as in our normative standards for interpersonal & intersubjective conceptions
animals deserve an exceeding amount of respect & care & those under human control should not be subjected to undue pain or torture from humans. legal conventions already protect against animal cruelty, and I agree they don't go far enough
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animals & other living things are killed all the time in the production of food both unintentionally and intentionally... killing agricultural pests & removing predators & varmints on farm land are both key to successful harvests
but fantasizing about what choices the consumer can look forward to in the vegan "free market" is itself commodity fetishism, except we are patting ourselves on the back for engaging in it.
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There's this scientifically questionable idea that more field mice are hurt than livestock animals. Assuming this is true...
If you eat a pig that had a grain to mean conversation ratio of 8 to 1, or a cow that's like 20 to 1, won't less field mice die if we eat the plants directly? You realize that most grain in the US goes to feed livestock, right?
Edit: "won't less field mice die if we eat the plants directly. OMG I feel dumb
growing plants kills many animals, as well as the plants
if we're concerned about things dying, then I think the best choice is to not eat
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not killing living things in order to survive is definitely something humans can't do
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i am not talking specifically or only about plants, but organisms in general. But I am talking specifically about death & sustenance of life & how the two are inextricable... which in this spiritual & ethical sense might, in the most profane way, be the only real liberation for any living thing
Congrats, you defeated the strawman vegan. Would you like to face off against a strawman campus SJW next?
defeated? i thought we were only discussing how this isn't about personal aesthetics & individual consumerist flights of fancy