Moral basis

Hi folks.

I'm an ex-veggie, and I've not been able to find anyone who has *ever* given any conscious thought to the morality of what they eat. I guess it's only veggies who think about that! So, here's my question: how do you veggies reconcile yourselves to pest control? The whole moral basis of vegetarianism is that buying a product which led to the deaths of animals is as bad as killing the animal (which I accept), so surely buying cabbage (say) makes one responsible for the deaths of hundereds of pigeons, caterpillars (sp!) and so forth. Buying anything made in a factory brings the guilt for the deaths of animals whose habitats the factory was built on. Anyway, this was the type of thinking that led to me being an EX veggie... Has anyone else thought about this? Even vegans are killing animals... just in a way that lets them feel a bit more smug and self-righteous.

 

Well obviously it's impossible to be entirely 100% vegan.......this world we live in just won't allow it. And I don't think there is a vegan alive who doesn't realize that. but we do the best we can with what we are given.....simple as that.
It's about limiting the amount of suffering *as much as possible*. I am highly proud of my efforts to reduce suffering and animal cruelty as well as the efforts of everyone else, vegetarian or vegan.

 

I was interested in your reasoning right up until you said....

Sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder. Don't you think it's possible that people might be vegan because they're trying to lead their lives as compassionately as possible? Why do you feel the need to attack people straight out by applying such negative labels? I'm a bit confused, becuase it sounded for the first part of your post as though you were interested in having an intelligent dialogue, but then you went on to insult people for no apparent reason.

Anyway, it's not a perfect world. Walking on the sidewalk kills bugs. Breathing kills microbes. You can't avoid death, it's inherent in nature. That doesn't mean that you can't do your best to reduce the suffering in the world though, and for many people vegetarianism or vegamism are big steps in the right direction.

 

> You can't avoid death, it's inherent in nature.

Quite. So, the point of being veggie is to minimize the amount of death you cause, consistent with your convenience. So it's still o.k. to kill animals, it's just a case of how much inconvenience it would cause one not to kill. Right?

 

I believe that's essentially correct, yes. There's no bottom line or moral absolute. Nobody can live a life that's entirely pure and free from exploitation. So it comes down to how much you're personally willing to sacrifice in order to reduce suffering.

Remember as well it's not just about 'killing'. Factory farming is a cruel process. Many people (not me) are veggie simply because they oppose the manner in which animals are treated. Such people don't opposed the killing of animals, they oppose the abuse of animals.

 

I see. So we agree! I thought this would have to be the position of any intelligent veggie. I just can't imagine how you can survive without meat... ;-D (bear in mind that I did just that for five years, so don't take me too literally!)

 

You must have the wrong friends... Many of my friends regularly buy at the 'Green store' (chain of stores that sell organic food), buy organic food at the regular grocery store, purchase free-range eggs, etc. I am not a vegetarian but I also prefer free-range eggs & organic foods.

Lol, are you trolling? We have to eat something you know But the organic foods I prefer aren't treated with harsh chemicals, they use more natural ways of pest control (sometimes other animals, like ladybugs against lice... yes the ladybugs eat the lice and of course the lice are killed but at least we don't poison our planet in the process ).

Anyone who truly doesn't want to kill *anything*, *ever*, try looking into Jainism, the dedicated Jain monks will sweep the street they walk on to sweep aside any insects rather than stepping on them.

 

What i find most anoying is that i would love to be vegan but my body just wont alow it! I have to eat meat and dairy products to get the minerals and vitamins i need, other wise i lose blood pressure and waist away to nothing. I also know a friend who finds it hard to lose weight because of not eating red meat...

 

So, if you're growing some foods for yourself and family, and pesky pigeons start eating them to a point where your livelihood is threatened, would you find it morally acceptable to kill the birds? (not directed at and 'you' in particular; just wondering what people think)

Presumably the thinking veggie says 'yes' here. So, then, there's nothing wrong with eating the dead birds, right? They're already dead, so no harm done.

Now what about (for example) cock chicks in a veggie egg production unit? What do you do with them? Sell them to someone who will kill them? Kill them? Feed them all their natural lives, keeping them (somehow!) away from your hens?

 

you have to kill and displace a lot of critters to make carrots .....killing a dear is more humane than driving a plow through the earth and kliilns spyders voles mice woodchucks rabbita ect ...the vegan lie .....ya gots to kill ta live kids

 

If you're an ex-veggie, did you stop?

Whenever possible, eat organic.

I disagree with you. The moral basis is not that indirect killing (or killing from ignorance) is the same as direct killing (or consciously sacrificing lives), the moral basis is that there is so much killing in this world, one should try as much as they can to reduce the amount of killing.

And buying cabbage does not make one responsible for a bunch of deaths ... that doesn't make any sense at all. The person who put pesticides on those plants is responsible for the deaths, and by buying those products, it doesn't mean that we condone that kind of conduct. It just means that we are either (1) ignorant of that conduct, or (2) unable to get food that isn't already toxified.

I didn't build the factory there. How does that make me guilty in any way? I don't think sin or guilt are things that are passed down through the generations by any means.

Sure, I don't approve of the factory being there BECAUSE it took so many lives, so I don't buy from the factory. But if I did, that doesn't mean I am responsible for those animals' deaths. I mean, I wasn't even born when most of these factories went up!

Perhaps you should think about it more. I don't think anyone here has reached a "pinnacle" of thinking, or is any more advanced than anyone else. I think it's just different viewpoints. And (not to accuse you) it's good to be wary of rationalizing (that is, making up excuses or trying to find loopholes so that you don't have to feel guilty). We all do it, and it is best to try and fend it off.

As far as Elle's post, I agree with her completely there. It's not about being perfectly vegan, it's about being as vegan as we possibly can in today's world. We were born into this world with it already having several millennia of half-truths and hypocracies.

No, that isn't really the point of being veggie. Some people (myself included) are veggie not just because of animal deaths, but because of the torture they are put through. Look at the milk industry: Cows are impregnated so often that their fertility rates start reaching their fecundity -- that is, they have as many babies as their bodies can physically handle -- and they are given steroids to boost milk production, and their babies are taken away from them at birth to either be given the same treatment, or to be slaughtered and made into tender meat.

It's also not about convenience either. Many vegans and even some veggies purposefully go WAY out of their way to avoid animal products.

There are two forms of indirect link to animal suffering: through ignorance, and through lack of caring. We are all ignorant (to varying degrees), so we can't all be PERFECT, but it's our goal to be as perfect as we can. That means, even if we don't really care, we care anyway.

As soon as I know a food that I eat isn't vegan (which doesn't happen often) or that the process of making it is non-vegan, I stop eating it. Even if I really like it. I dont' buy leather or wool, etc. Everything that I know I can do to help the situation and end the suffering, I do. So it's not a question about "convenience" unless you don't have the willpower (or in some cases, physical power) to be a full-fledged vegan.

Well, it's hard to not take it literally when you just literally said it. It seems to me that your argument doesn't actually address the core issues; it's just a rationalization that you're using to justify eating meat.

While it is true that death is inherent in nature ... does that mean it should be welcome, or that it should be abundant? Or at least as unnecessarily abundant as it is today?

I'm interested in what you think about animal cruelty: If you think you've found that "pinnacle," then how do you justify agreeing with people that unnecessarily torture animals for your benefit? It's obviously not something that you are ignorant about, which means you've sacrificed it either because you don't care, or because it's too inconvenient for you to handle. So what exactly is your position about that?

(Actually I want to stick a little disclaimer here ... I don't mean any offense, I just want to see what path of logic you're coming from.)

This is a prime example of why someone can't (because of physical reasons) be vegan. =( Sometimes, one can be justified in not being vegan, because they CAN'T be vegan (or they can, but not for very long, hehe).

Well ... if the food is just for myself and my family, the garden can't be THAT big. Get some wire mesh (like chicken wire fencing) and surround the garden with it. If you don't have enough money, maybe grow different crops. There are many ways to circumvent the problem without killing the birds.

Besides, if you kill the birds, more will just come back. Killing doesn't solve anything in this example.

If the birds are already dead (whether you killed them or not), then it would be acceptable (from my point of view at least) to eat them. That's an old American Indian philosophy, use all the parts of what you kill. That means, eat the meat (or give it to another animal for eating) and try to find a use for the bones (as tools or decoration ... something).

As for the cock chicks, the first rational thing would be to remove them, and the second rational thing would be to find a home for them where they won't be abused. If that's impossible (which it may be, but I don't know enough about chicken farming to know whether or not it is), then you should try to keep it and raise it yourself.

If you literally can't keep it, and you can't find someone who can take care of it ... that means the chicken is basically wild. It has no caretaker and nobody can do anything with it. That DOESN'T mean it's "as good as dead," that means it should be released in the wild. Chickens CAN survive out in the wild, just have the chicken released in a suitable habitat.

You haven't got a clue what you're talking about. Have you ever heard of a herbivore: They eat plants without killing animals for their food. They exist today, and they have existed since practically the dawn of life on this planet.

It is NOT impossible to live without intentionally killing other animals. It MAY be impossible to live without killing animals by accident or through ignorance (look at ants for example), but that doesn't mean you should go around doing as you please, slaughtering and unnecessarily torturing animals.

Also ... eating berries is more humane than killing a deer. Remember, before humans gained the ability to think real hard, we lived as nomads that had no agriculture, no way to catch animals to eat them, we survived by roaming around and eating berries and leaves and such. And the funny thing is ... WE SURVIVED doing this.

Ultimately ... I want to know what some of your other opinions are on this. ("you" meaning everybody, but particularly jim_w, I'd like to know your stance on the unnecessary animal cruelty today, as well as the process for obtaining milk (which is also unnecessary))

 

Sorry, but that's simply not true. If we were all prepared to follow our moral convictions to their absolute conclusion, then we'd go and live in on a commune and grow our own food as ethically as we could, avoiding killing any animals in the process. Come to that, we'd never use motorised transport in order to avoid killing animals on the road. We don't NEED to use cars or to buy intensively farmed veggies - we do so because we draw a line of convenience.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing - it's good that people do the best they can. But we should be aware that this is the reality lest we delude ourselves that we're morally superior.

 

That is a very good argument, I had to think about it for a while. Here's my response:

You say that we are not all prepared to follow our moral convictions to their absolute conclusion ... I don't think this is the case. I think that the degree to which we follow our moral convictions is based off of how strong our convictions are.

For example ... a person who doesn't have strong moral convictions to veganism is less likely to buy more non-vegan products, whereas a hardcore vegan who is EXTREMELY convicted to veganism might buy only vegan products, and be even more extreme than that, possibly even to a radical point, like setting oneself on fire to demonstrate a point.

I think that, if a person really has a moral "conviction," then they will follow it out to their absolute conclusions. I mean, I do. I have a conviction not to eat meat, so I NEVER eat meat. I have a conviction not to buy products that contain animal byproducts, so I NEVER by them (unless I am fooled or conned into it, or am otherwise ignorant of it, see my last argument about ignorance vs. care).

I also have a conviction that, if all morality breaks down and it comes down to survival of the fittest, then survival is more important. That IS the natural way of doing things, after all. That means that I am less likely than certain other vegans to starve rather than eat meat. That doesn't mean I'd eat meat because it's an inconvenience, it's because of a conviction.

And ... yeah, that's my viewpoint.

Also, there are often reasons not related to convenience that people do not follow through to the absolute end of a moral conviction. For example, I don't go and live in a commune and grow my own food naturally, because I can't. I'm in college, I have no money or land, and I also don't necessarily have a conviction that living in a commune and growing my own food naturally is the best possible scenario. I do think it's better than what we have now, and I do plan to eventually try and make that a reality, but I quite literally *can't* do it right now. I can't do it, because of a nice thing called "currency" that people demand in exchange for land. =\

As far as motor vehicles go, I try not to use them unless I have to. I have a bicycle, and I use that to go to places both on-campus and off-campus whenever I can. Sometimes, I can't ride a bicycle to certain places (like my home which is 300 miles away from my college dorm), so I have to drive in a car. When I get enough money to buy a car for myself, I'm going to either (1) buy a car that runs off of hydrogen fuel cells, or (2) buy a diesel-powered car, and then modify the tank to take vegetable oil as fuel, which is actually cheaper than oil and also environmentally friendly.

Beyond that, here's a question of morality: If you can save either a rich man, or 10 poor men, which do you save? Some argue that life is irreplacable, some argue that the money of the rich man can be used to benefit society more than 10 poor people can. It's a matter of viewpoint.

Similarly, you can't always get upstream by swimming directly upstream; the best path isn't necessarily the shortest. What I'm trying to say is, progress isn't always direct; a person can take one step back and two steps forward and still end up at the same place. If all of us here were not educated, would we even be able to discuss morality here? But in the process of learning, we've all been immoral.

And I'm not saying what I want to say very well, so here's one last attempt:

How can we become more moral? Learn morality. How can we learn morality? One good way is to go to college. Sometimes, in the process of becoming more moral, we have to be immoral (such as driving a car to go to college). But the end result is the greater good. If we had not gone to college, we would not be able to know what is moral and what isn't.

Similarly, my ultimate goal is to try and make the world a better, more moral place. Sometimes in order to make it more moral, I have to be immoral, because it is necessary. Some things (like eating meat) are NOT necessary, so I don't do them.

This stems from the idea that you have an idea, a "thesis," and an opposing idea, an "antithesis," and by comparing them, you can come up with a "synthesis." The sysnthesis is always closer to the truth than either the thesis or the antithesis. But you have to have the things that are far from the truth, in order to come closer to the truth (if you didn't have an antithesis to compare the thesis against, you couldn't get to the synthesis).

That's my ultimate point. It's not a matter of convenience, it's a matter of conviction and of progress.

 

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I'd still argue that in many regards, it comes down to convenience.

For example, many veggies/vegans are absolutely committed to the idea that taking animal life is wrong. Now it's statistically inevitable that they'll kill an animal on the road at some point if they drive. The convenience of being able to drive is too great a sacrifice to make, so they continue to drive. They judge the abstinence from animal products to be a sacrifice that doesn't inconvenience them more than is tolerable, so that's a sacrifice that they do choose to make.

Now I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. Moral perfection is unattainable and so it's not something that I expect of anyone. But here's the thing - until we acknowledge that our argument is not made from an absolute position, then we'll always be vulnerable to these sorts of critiques from meat eaters.

Living in the modern world inevitably involves participation in some form of activity that somewhere down the line is ethically questionable. Without living in a forest and foraging nuts and berries, there's not a whole lot we can do to escape that. So it becomes a matter of where we choose to draw our personal moral line - and ultimately, that's a decision that's based on the extent to which we're willing to inconvenience ourselves.

You list a number of things that you're prepared to do to minimise the impact of car use. These are all admirable and will, to an extent, inconvenience you. You're not prepared to inconvenience yourself to the extent of abandoning motorised transport altogether though - so you've made a choice of convenience.

Again, I don't think that's a bad thing. We all do what we can. But I think the original poster was correct in his fundamental assertion - even if he wasn't correct in the deduction that this reasoning somehow undermines the consistency of the vegan/vegetarian ethic.

*edit*

Nearly forgot....

I don't see these things as being mutually exclusive. The fact that we're influenced by convenience doesn't undermine the fact that we're motivated by conviction and moral progress. Convenience is simply an obstacle which we will, to a greater or lesser extent, overcome.

 

hikaru_zero has clearly never been a farmer...

killing animals is implicit in any kind of farming. going to the supermarket and buying veggie products doesn't mean you can abdicate responsibility for how those products were grown/processed. It's easy for people who've never been involved with the countryside and farming (as I hadn't been 'till recently) to smugly say killing animals is wrong, but wait 'till a fox starts eating your egg-laying hens.

and last but not least, hik's comment about releasing cock chickens into the wild:
AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
that's all I have to say about that. ;-)

seriously though. farming == death. life == death. the only reason anyone is able to live as a veggie is that modern life is totally removed from the countryside and the means of food production. this means that people don't have to give any thought to where their food comes from, and lets them make morally infantile decisions.

the good doctor seems to be on the right track; arguing for a moral absolute is foolish, and convenience has to come into it. It was this line of argument that convinced me (as a veggie) to wear leather shoes. But when I started planning to farm, I slowly realized that trying to farm in a vegetarian way is utterly impossible. The only way it could ever work would be to hire people to do all the killing for you. This is clearly just a cop out, so I bit the bullet. I now work as a butcher, and happily kill things (with my own hands, no less!) to eat.

 

If you're so convinced by the validity of your argument, it might be an idea to discuss it without the need to resort to insulting people, eh?

If this assertion was correct, it would make you wonder how Hindus managed to survive so long as vegetarians in India. I don't think anyone could argue that they were sophisticated urbanite removed from the source of food production.

You seem to be arguing that absolutes are impossible in areas of complex morality, but then you insist on attempting to reduce vegetarianism to just such an absolute; and that's despite being repeatedly told that many vegetarians and vegans don't adopt such a position, but rather seek to simply reduce the amount of death and suffering that they cause.

I mean, you could argue that cars use will inevitably lead to human deaths on the road. That doesn't mean we suddenly throw our hands up, say "what the fuck", and start mowing down every pedestrian we can see.

Again, I entirely agree. But why should we not attempt to minimise the suffering that we cause? And who's abdicating responsibility anyway?

Why thank you. But I was never arguing that realism or convenience should be a reason for abandoning any effort to reduce killing and cruelty.

 

My dad ended up with a load of roosters....due to the fact that there was a lot of them hatching (apparently something to do with what they are eating...they are all free range) and also that the hens kept getting taken by foxes when they were nesting wheras the roosters went up in the trees...no eggs or chickens to take care of you see. So my folks eat meat but can't actually bring themselves to kill for their own consumption so the animals on their place have long long lives as lawnmowers and bug catchers...anyhow dad decided to take a few of the roosters off to another of his farms, this was more in the forest....next time he went down all there was was feathers....he thought that they had a bit of a chance as they knew how to get into trees and he didn't want to chop their heads off...and have you ever seen what roosters do to one another when they get overpopulated? Tis worse than a bunch of teenage girls on a bitch fest....anyhow maybe the foxes more in the forest were just hungrier!!


my point being...ummm...there are people I know who eat meat and still find themselves having all the same life and death dilemmas that you say only vegetarians go through, they just resolve them in their own ways....

 

(quote)
If you're so convinced by the validity of your argument, it might be an idea to discuss it without the need to resort to insulting people, eh?
(quote)

you're right; I apologize for my tone in previous posts. Clearly I'm not familiar with how folk round here express themselves, and I should have been more careful with my words.

(quote)
If this assertion was correct, it would make you wonder how Hindus managed to survive so long as vegetarians in India. I don't think anyone could argue that they were sophisticated urbanite removed from the source of food production.
(end quote)

As far as I know, only preists/monks are vegetarian in hinduism/buddhism. And I thought even hindu preists only abstained from beef... Maybe I'm wrong on that; my expertise (such as it is ;-) is in Buddhism, not Hinduism.

(quote)
You seem to be arguing that absolutes are impossible in areas of complex morality, but then you insist on attempting to reduce vegetarianism to just such an absolute; and that's despite being repeatedly told that many vegetarians and vegans don't adopt such a position, but rather seek to simply reduce the amount of death and suffering that they cause.
(end quote)

Yes, of course. But what I'm trying to say is that the policy of doing as little harm as possible breaks down when you actually try and produce food. My thesis is that vegetarianism is (indeed, must be) the perogative of an elite who can afford to distance themselves from the messy facts of life.

(quote)
Again, I entirely agree. But why should we not attempt to minimise the suffering that we cause? And who's abdicating responsibility anyway?
(end quote)

Ditto. I try and reduce suffering as much as possible, as does any meat-eater who's not an amoral monster. However, once you start looking at it from the point of view of the farmer, that minimun level of suffering leads to quite a lot of meat to eat. What with edible pests, unwanted males in egg/milk production and so on, our 'veggie' farmer is getting a good amount of meat in his diet.

Here's the rub for me: Is a man who eats only unwanted cocks and shot pests a vegetarian? Given that all those creatures had to die anyway in order to support his veggie diet, is eating them any worse?

 

Cheers dude. It's much nicer having conversations rather than arguments. People stop listening to each other once the shouting starts

No, there's a very large vegetarian tradition within Hinduism, which is one of the reasons so much Indian cuisine is veggie.

I think you're taking a reasonable argument and turning it into an extreme. Yes, the fact that the West is, in effect, a wealthy elite makes dietary choice and distance from the sources of food production much more viable. But that doesn't mean that there's any reason why we shouldn't still try and reduce the suffering involved in our diets. Being removed from the source of production may enable people to blind themselves to certain facts, but that doesn't preclude the possibility of still attempting - with open eyes - to live a more ethical lifestyle.

Hence veganism.

I agree to a point, which is why I don't see vegetarianism as an absolute.

Look at it this way though - most veggies don't replace meat with dairy. In fact, I probably eat less dairy now than I did when I ate meat. So, on balance, the suffering involved in my diet has reduced.

 

That's good to hear. :-D

I totally understand the idea of trying to reduce the suffering one causes, but I'm not convinced that (cleanly and humanely) killing an animal causes it much suffering... Honestly. The beast's alive one minute, and bleeding on the floor the next. It never knows shit about it. Of course, as soon as you start factory-farming and slaughtering en masse, that goes out the window. But, for a well-managed system where the farmer & slaughterman care for the animal well, where's the harm? The beast never would have lived in the first place if it wasn't for the farmer, so is he really hurting it?