Initial Notes on Veganism

Topic: [[Veganism]], [[Atheism]] and [[Morality]]

People "know" they should be a vegan, especially for morality's sake but they still choose not to be.

[[Animal Liberation - Peter Singer]]

Veganism is a philosophical position for him

• So if he's given an animal product by mistake - he doesn't have an aversion to it. The animal has already suffered and it'll go to waste if he doesn't eat it. The purpose for him is to reduce suffering, and once the suffering has already happens, at-least it can be used to fuel your pain.

If you're interested in philosophy, when you have an argument presented to you, it can change the way that you think and will affect. This is more important than seeing a video of an animal being treated badly.

• However, ethics doesn't work unless it has a grounding in your emotions.
• Most vegans have an emotional response, rather than via a philosophical argument.

Most people are looking towards veganism in an attempt to save the environment.

• If you know how important the agricultural industry is to the rise of climate change, you will know that veganism is the best way to save the environment.

Arguments for veganism

• If you're going to do something that causes suffering, you have to be able to justify. The arguments in favour of eating meat disappear.
• We already know it's not okay to torture animals and make them suffer. Torturing a dog is not different from torturing a pig.
  • Present a meta-ethical position about suffering.
  • If you're against racism and sexism, you should also be against speciesism too.
    • This doesn't mean seeing or treating people as "equal", it means reducing the suffering each group has to go through. [[Peter Singer]].
    • Being anti-racist doesn't mean all races are equal, it means despite the difference, we recognize that we're all worth the same morally.
    • In the case of animals, we wan't to include them morally as well. "You don't have to give men abortion rights to avoid being a sexist."
• What is it about an animal that allows you to kill them or torture them and put them through factory farms? What do humans have that animals lack?
  • Is it intelligence? Can we throw people with a lower IQ into factory farms?
  • Self-awareness? Is a dog self-aware, then a pig probably is too to a certain extent.
  • People who think that people with lower intelligence or self-awareness can be thrown into factory farms are at-least consistent. But the conversation shifts to being a good person, rather than the case for veganism.
  • Most atheists consider suffering as the basis for their morality. Understanding that animals can feel suffering just as much as people can, can make the case for veganism.
    • Holocaust: 12 million were killed.
    • The same number of animals are tortured and killed in one hour every day. Not for social progression, but because "they taste nice".
    • Our suffering is analogous to the suffering of animals.
      • Suffering is bad no matter who is suffering - this is why we are activists for racism and sexism. And therefore, it applies to animals as well.
• Do consciousness and suffering go hand in hand?
  • The ability to feel pain/pleasure: if a creature has "preference", then they have some kind of moral worth. Preferences motivate action, desire motivates action - all these depend on pleasure and pain.
  • "There isn't such a thing as pleasure chasing, there is only pain avoidance."
    • All pleasure is about negating pain. Pleasure is not the absolute, but the search for the lack of pain is.
  • There must be a line where animals are no longer animals and become vegetables or plants.
• We have to figure out the calculation that minimizes the most suffering.
• [[Veil of Ignorance]] - John Rules
  • Build a system to help you even If you didn't know if you were going to be born black or white, or upper class, middle class, where you would live, etc.
  • Design society before you know where you're going to be in it.
  • Apply it to the same thing - design a society where you don't know what species you're going to be. Would you still have an agricultural industry?
    • Ofcourse you wouldn't. In fact the odds are against you - chickens outnumber humans 3:1. Would you run the risk of being a chicken and getting slaughtered against the risk of not having a KFC?
• Let's say that plants can feel pain
  • The vast majority of plants that are destroyed are not fed to humans, but to livestock. Where does the protein get its protein from?
  • If you think that plants can feel pain, the best way to minimize their suffering or pain is to go vegan, and not feeding them to the livestock.
• No suffering, no problem. is a simple motto. Not universal to all vegans, though.
  • A lot of vegans give a lot of weight to preference. Because animals want to live, they have a preference to live, so we should just intrinsically support that preference.
  • This isn't the best argument because "potential pleasure" isn't a good enough argument.
  • Collateral damage - other animals around the animals that get killed also suffering.
• How do animals that kill other animals fit into this paradigm?
  • Why do lions not get judged for dining on the gazelle?
    • Lions also murder other lion populations and impregnate other females to propagate their genes. Should we also do that?
    • Just because we don't hold children morally responsible for hitting us, doesn't mean that we are not held morally responsible when we hit them.
    • Moral system - rational thought processes, not mimicking the animal world.
    • You'd be APPALLED if you found out that a farmer was raping his pigs, but you wouldn't mind if he tortured, skinned, and put bolts through their brains?
• The problem is people pick and chose morals whenever it's convenient for them, and aren't consistent about them.
• Not everyone wants to live in accordance with their moral principles.
  • "I accept that it's the moral thing to do but I'm an immoral person."
    • All I can tell you is what I believe what I think the moral thing to do is. I can't really tell you why you should be moral.
• This is probably one of the most moral/ethical problem of our time. And our biggest ethical blindspot.
• People know that if you think about it, there is a right answer. People know that being vegan is the right option.
  • Eating animals: should we stop? The title of a book, and people assume that the conclusion is yes. Why is that? Because we know it's wrong, and anyone who gives enough thought to it will conclude that it is the wrong thing to do. People just don't want to give it enough thought.
• Meatless mondays
  • It might be reducing animal suffering, but it isn't enough. (The case against vegetarianism)
  • Would you want to put your name behind "giving up your slaves over the weekends"? No, because you're against the idea as a whole, even though it might reduce individual suffering.
  • It is wrong and needs to stop. If you want to be ethically consistent, you have to put your foot down. Even if it is absolutist or fundamentalist.
    • You wouldn't accept compromises when it comes to slavery or apartheid for example.

[[Philosophy in theology]] #religion

• What is it like studying theology as an atheist?
  • There is a bit of detachment when it comes to studying religion.
  • It is just writing - it can be engaged with in the same way philosophical texts.
  • It's just like studying history while being an atheist. Yes, history is influenced by religion, but they are still independent.
• Religious morality is the problem, not religion.
  • You wouldn't assume an atheist is less moral. You may think that they have less grounding for the morality.
  • If you think that you need religion to be moral, why is that the case? Why should you listen to God?
    • Commands can't have truth value.
    • The same problems that you get trying to ground morality in God, the same problems you get trying to do it without God.
  • The only people who are convincing people that if you are an atheist you can go around without being a moral person/morality are the religious. That's because of the way religious people are branding atheists. Atheists can ground morality almost better than those with religion, because they have actually thought about it, and don't blindly believe in God.
• People who are atheists are some times more theocratic or "religious" in their atheism. [[Richard Dawkins]]. People just look for religion in other aspects of the world trying to "fill" that space religion was in.
  • That just goes to show that religion has monopolized the idea of social cohesion. People aren't striving for religion, they're looking for connection with their creatures, and to do something productive for the world. Some people believe that's trying to go vegan, or throwing yourself into a football team. You've been brainwashed into thinking that as soon as someone tries to find support in a community and do good for the society is religion.
    • If that's what religion is, then any social becomes religious. And if everything is religious, then nothing is religious. That's watering down the meaning of religion then.
• What is the essence of religion? What makes a religion a religion?
  • Scholars too find this hard to figure out and define.
• If you grow up in a society that makes you think that your worth or meaning comes from God or religion, then when you give up that belief, of course you're going to be looking to fill that gap.
• You can find moral worth grounded in what is reality.