The Ethics of Life

What would you do if?

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Compassionist
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The Ethics of Life

Post #1

Post by Compassionist »

"Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil." - Albert Schweitzer, "Civilization and Ethics", 1949.

I totally agree with the above. It makes me so sad that we live in an evil world where the evil ones (carnivores and omnivores) prosper and the innocent ones (herbivores and autotrophs) perish. Although, some would argue that even herbivores are evil as they consume plants. Plants are not sentient but they are alive. Although, consuming fruits does not harm the plants as fruits are grown by the plants for consumption by birds and animals. I tried being a fruitarian but it was impossible to get all the nutrients from fruits alone so I became a vegan. I am so sad that an estimated 79% of the humans currently alive are omnivores, 20% are vegetarians and only 1% are vegans. We should all be pacifist vegans and live ethically. How can we persuade everyone to become a pacifist vegan?
Last edited by Compassionist on Sat Dec 26, 2020 5:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The Ethics of Life

Post #2

Post by Divine Insight »

Compassionist wrote: We should all be pacifist vegans and live ethically.
There are several problems with this. To begin with it's clearly nothing more than a personal opinion. You have no way of demonstrating eating animals is unethical. It's only unethical based on your own personal ideals of what you believe ethics should be.

There are both religious and secular objections that can be raised in opposition to your opinion on ethics.

The religious objections should be obvious. If one believes in a creator God, then it was God who designed animals to prey upon one another. Therefore if it's within the ethics of "God" then who are we as mere humans to object to God's sense of ethics and morality?

Also, many religious figures were themselves not vegans. Look at the Christian Christ, he was helping men to fish. So he was definitely giving his thumbs-up to eating fish. There is no indication in the Christian Gospels that Jesus was a vegan or preached veganism in any way.

So there's no reason for a religious person (at least not a Christian) to embrace your idea of what you believe to be ethical when it doesn't match up with what they believe are the ethical standards of their God.

From a purely secular perspective, secularists could argue (not saying that they all will argue this), but they could argue that competition and animals eating animals is clearly natural, and that we evolved from a species that was indeed at least omnivorous. Some will even argue that biologically our bodies actually need the nutrients contained in meat products. I've heard such arguments being made.

So what you end up with is asking everyone to simply embrace your ideals of what you personally think ethics should be. And to try to argue for that conclusion in any absolute way will indeed place you in debates with the people mentioned above.
Compassionist wrote: How can we persuade everyone to become a pacifist vegan?
On a practical note, companies and farmers who are in the business of producing meat products are not only going to object to your plan, but they too will argue against your ideals of ethics. After all, unless they want to confess to being unethical people they have no choice but to argue against your ideals for ethics. They will argue that animals and humans have been eating meat from the dawn of time. No point in trying to make ethical objections to such a natural state of affairs now.

What about me? Could I be persuaded to become a vegan?

Yes, I could. However, I'm currently not a vegan and one of the main reasons I'm not is because it actually takes quite a bit of effort to try to find good vegan foods. Especially at the same prices that I can buy meat-related products for.

So the bottom line for me is that until you can convince food suppliers to start supplying easy vegan food products at reasonable prices, I'm not likely to become a vegan.

If all I could get at the story were vegan food products, then I would quickly become a vegan whether I wanted to or not.

So that's the key. If you want the world to become vegan you've got to change the food suppliers. And all I can say is good luck with that. As I pointed out above, the producers and marketers of meat products are not about to agree with your ideology when it comes to ethics. They'll simply argue that you are an ethical extremist and continue to produce and sell their meat products.

They will most likely even claim that you are living in a fantasy world, not the real world. They have to do this to protect their own ideology on ethics. They can't allow that what they are doing is unethical. That would be the same as declaring that they are unethical people.

So you've got your work cut out for you to be sure.

Turn the grocery stores into Vegan Stores and everyone will become a vegan.

As it is now my grocery store has extremely limited vegan products. And the vegan products they do have are EXPENSIVE. And that shouldn't even be the case. Supposedly vegetable based meals should be less expensive than meat. But strangely that's not the case.

Vegan meals are considered to be a higher-priced luxury for people who want to eat vegan. So that's probably a good place to start. Try to get at least some companies providing vegan meals at low cost. That would certainly help.

You need to have an impact on the producers and vendors. Trying to appeal to the consumers to just become vegans on their own isn't likely to be very effective on a practical level.
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Re: The Ethics of Life

Post #3

Post by Compassionist »

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my post. I appreciate your time and efforts. I am a pacifist vegan because I value all sentient life and want to prevent the suffering and the death of sentient organisms. Being a vegan is better for the long-term health of humans, it is better for the animals and it is better for the environment. Please see the Dominion documentary and read the 9 reasons why veganism can save the world article and Every argument against veganism addressed.

I don't know anything about what is available in the shops where you live. Eating a vegan diet is actually cheaper where I live (United Kingdom). I buy fruits and vegetables and grains and cook my own food. It is more expensive to eat in vegan restaurants but I rarely eat out so it doesn't affect me. I agree that veganism is bad for the business of factory farmers and slaughterhouse owners but they could grow fruits and vegetables and grains instead which would be better for the environment.

I am not convinced there is a loving God. A loving God would not have made such a world where suffering and death are guaranteed. It's possible there is an evil God. It's also possible that God is imaginary. I am agnostic about the existence and nature of Gods.

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Re: The Ethics of Life

Post #4

Post by Purple Knight »

Divine Insight wrote:So what you end up with is asking everyone to simply embrace your ideals of what you personally think ethics should be.
I see nothing wrong with this; this is what every moral person does.

Therefore I must approach it from a perspective of assuming their moral truth unless it self-contradicts.

Pacifism is a tricky philosophy because it only works if everyone is pacifist. If there is a lone aggressor, he wins the day so outstandingly (precisely because no one resists his aggression) that he will produce many more new aggressors, either by evolution or by a combination of not being a suicidal idiot and imitation (people imitating successful strategies and discarding harmful ones).

This is why pacifistic veganism pretty much dictates that there will be carnivores, for there is no possible world in which the fox stands to benefit more than the pacifist world inhabited exclusively by bunnies. For the pacifist world to work, the fox must be precluded from popping up there, or at least, his survival strategy must be prevented from advantaging him.

Well, this world would be a world of grudger bunnies who are always on the lookout for a fox as well as ready and able to fight him. This is not a pacifist world, but as long as there are no foxes (and no one makes a mistake, which I admit is a massive assumption) it is equivalent to a pacifist world.

I now assume that a vegan who wishes the least harm to animals possible must prefer the sustainable world of grudger bunnies who will fight the fox, to the unstable world of pacifist bunnies who will allow the fox to live and hunt them, should one turn up.

Well, this is not pacifism. This is pacifism with one exception: Fight non-pacifists but only to preserve near-perfect pacifism. Perfect pacifism has been overturned because it causes more harm than the near-perfect version.

----

I will now address veganism.

With the idea that one should fight at least the aggressors confirmed via reductio ad absurdum of its negation (one should never fight anyone, ever), and the idea that no one should eat animals assumed, we come to the unpleasant subject of the mountain lion.
Compassionist wrote:I totally agree with the above. It makes me so sad that we live in an evil world where the evil ones (carnivores and omnivores) prosper and the innocent ones (herbivores and autotrophs) perish.
Should I slay the mountain lion and save however many deer and bunnies he would eat throughout his life?

Should I slay the bunny to save the plants he consumes?

It seems to me that the only possible, logical endpoint of these two assumptions, taken together (both of which I have derived from the OP) is to simply kill everything but autotrophs, and then ourselves.

Unfortunately this would lead to a new oxygen crisis and an end to life on Earth, at least how we know it.

This is simply what comes of the idea that one should not do what life on our planet has evolved to do for hundreds of millions of years, when taken to its logical conclusion.

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Re: The Ethics of Life

Post #5

Post by Menotu »

Compassionist wrote: “Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.� – Albert Schweitzer, “Civilization and Ethics�, 1949.

I totally agree with the above. It makes me so sad that we live in an evil world where the evil ones (carnivores and omnivores) prosper and the innocent ones (herbivores and autotrophs) perish. Although, some would argue that even herbivores are evil as they consume plants. Plants are not sentient but they are alive. Although, consuming fruits does not harm the plants as fruits are grown by the plants for consumption by birds and animals. I tried being a fruitarian but it was impossible to get all the nutrients from fruits alone so I became a vegan. I am so sad that an estimated 79% of the humans currently alive are omnivores, 20% are vegetarians and only 1% are vegans. We should all be pacifist vegans and live ethically. How can we persuade everyone to become a pacifist vegan?

I just read an article from the BBC today talking about how going vegan won't (my words) create paradise. In other words, there's always someone/group somewhere that will be negatively impacted by what others do.
Even the most altruistic actions will somehow hurt another because the world's not perfect.
Even before humanity existed, animals ate plants and other animals ate the plant eaters. The only way to have balance was to have periodic die offs, gene issues, disease, etc.

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Re: The Ethics of Life

Post #6

Post by Compassionist »

Purple Knight wrote:
Divine Insight wrote:So what you end up with is asking everyone to simply embrace your ideals of what you personally think ethics should be.
I see nothing wrong with this; this is what every moral person does.

Therefore I must approach it from a perspective of assuming their moral truth unless it self-contradicts.

Pacifism is a tricky philosophy because it only works if everyone is pacifist. If there is a lone aggressor, he wins the day so outstandingly (precisely because no one resists his aggression) that he will produce many more new aggressors, either by evolution or by a combination of not being a suicidal idiot and imitation (people imitating successful strategies and discarding harmful ones).

This is why pacifistic veganism pretty much dictates that there will be carnivores, for there is no possible world in which the fox stands to benefit more than the pacifist world inhabited exclusively by bunnies. For the pacifist world to work, the fox must be precluded from popping up there, or at least, his survival strategy must be prevented from advantaging him.

Well, this world would be a world of grudger bunnies who are always on the lookout for a fox as well as ready and able to fight him. This is not a pacifist world, but as long as there are no foxes (and no one makes a mistake, which I admit is a massive assumption) it is equivalent to a pacifist world.

I now assume that a vegan who wishes the least harm to animals possible must prefer the sustainable world of grudger bunnies who will fight the fox, to the unstable world of pacifist bunnies who will allow the fox to live and hunt them, should one turn up.

Well, this is not pacifism. This is pacifism with one exception: Fight non-pacifists but only to preserve near-perfect pacifism. Perfect pacifism has been overturned because it causes more harm than the near-perfect version.

----

I will now address veganism.

With the idea that one should fight at least the aggressors confirmed via reductio ad absurdum of its negation (one should never fight anyone, ever), and the idea that no one should eat animals assumed, we come to the unpleasant subject of the mountain lion.
Compassionist wrote:I totally agree with the above. It makes me so sad that we live in an evil world where the evil ones (carnivores and omnivores) prosper and the innocent ones (herbivores and autotrophs) perish.
Should I slay the mountain lion and save however many deer and bunnies he would eat throughout his life?

Should I slay the bunny to save the plants he consumes?

It seems to me that the only possible, logical endpoint of these two assumptions, taken together (both of which I have derived from the OP) is to simply kill everything but autotrophs, and then ourselves.

Unfortunately this would lead to a new oxygen crisis and an end to life on Earth, at least how we know it.

This is simply what comes of the idea that one should not do what life on our planet has evolved to do for hundreds of millions of years, when taken to its logical conclusion.
Thank you for your detailed reply. I am not saying non-human animals should be pacifist vegans. I am saying that humans should be pacifist vegans because that would be ethical. Please see https://www.carnismdebunked.com Thank you.

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Re: The Ethics of Life

Post #7

Post by Compassionist »

Menotu wrote:
Compassionist wrote: “Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.� – Albert Schweitzer, “Civilization and Ethics�, 1949.

I totally agree with the above. It makes me so sad that we live in an evil world where the evil ones (carnivores and omnivores) prosper and the innocent ones (herbivores and autotrophs) perish. Although, some would argue that even herbivores are evil as they consume plants. Plants are not sentient but they are alive. Although, consuming fruits does not harm the plants as fruits are grown by the plants for consumption by birds and animals. I tried being a fruitarian but it was impossible to get all the nutrients from fruits alone so I became a vegan. I am so sad that an estimated 79% of the humans currently alive are omnivores, 20% are vegetarians and only 1% are vegans. We should all be pacifist vegans and live ethically. How can we persuade everyone to become a pacifist vegan?

I just read an article from the BBC today talking about how going vegan won't (my words) create paradise. In other words, there's always someone/group somewhere that will be negatively impacted by what others do.
Even the most altruistic actions will somehow hurt another because the world's not perfect.
Even before humanity existed, animals ate plants and other animals ate the plant eaters. The only way to have balance was to have periodic die offs, gene issues, disease, etc.
Please see https://www.carnismdebunked.com Going vegan is not create a paradise but it would create a more peaceful world and it would prevent the suffering and death of many sentient organisms.

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Re: The Ethics of Life

Post #8

Post by Purple Knight »

Compassionist wrote:Thank you for your detailed reply. I am not saying non-human animals should be pacifist vegans. I am saying that humans should be pacifist vegans because that would be ethical. Please see https://www.carnismdebunked.com Thank you.
I'm curious as to why. I don't see any difference between tossing a large bunny to a pet burmese python and eating the bunny myself.

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Re: The Ethics of Life

Post #9

Post by Compassionist »

Purple Knight wrote:
Compassionist wrote:Thank you for your detailed reply. I am not saying non-human animals should be pacifist vegans. I am saying that humans should be pacifist vegans because that would be ethical. Please see https://www.carnismdebunked.com Thank you.
I'm curious as to why. I don't see any difference between tossing a large bunny to a pet burmese python and eating the bunny myself.
We should engineer all living things to be able to photosynthesise then no living thing would need to eat another living thing. Our technology is not advanced enough to do that but I hope that one day we will do that. In the mean time, being a vegan is the best we can do.

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Re: The Ethics of Life

Post #10

Post by Bust Nak »

Compassionist wrote: How can we persuade everyone to become a pacifist vegan?
Conceptually it's simple - produce immitation meat that is both cheaper and taste as good as the real thing. Technically, it's getting closer to reality.
it would create a more peaceful world and it would prevent the suffering and death of many sentient organisms.
That would turn many of those sentient organism, e.g. cows, pigs and chickens into pests in competition with our protein producing farmland. Don't count on less suffering.

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