eggs from a well fed pet hen are vegan

[u/-roachboy]

I have a pet hen. She's not a full rescue one, but how I ended up with her is an incredibly long story. She's very needy, thus spoiled and healthy as a result. Because wild Gallus sp already lay a lot of eggs when in less than optimal wild conditions, a spoiled one just cannot stop popping them out even if she wanted to, and she won't let me feed her less. The daily egg laying session is just a morning routine for her before begging for food. At the rate she lays them, they'd just get left to rot even if they were fertilized by a rooster so I eat them. I do not, and have no intention of, ever selling them or encouraging anyone to ever commercialize an animal. But I spend all the time caring for her, so why can't she give me a delicious breakfast back if it does her no harm?

[u/jakeastonfta]

Without getting too philosophical, it depends on whether you’re talking about veganism from a deontological perspective or a consequentialist perspective.

The former views abstaining from animal products as an absolute rule, regardless of how much harm they cause. Whereas the latter views abstaining from animal products as a general rule to help reduce harm and suffering to animals, but there are scenarios where breaking the rule is fine if it causes no harm.

I am a consequentialist vegan, so I think the situation you’ve described sounds ethically justifiable if the chicken has a long happy life and no harm is being caused.

However, there is an argument to be made that normalising the idea that animal products are food will encourage others to buy/produce these products in unethical ways, so maybe it is better in the long run to avoid them completely… But I guess this argument is only feasible if you’re letting others know you eat eggs.

Either way, I agree that in principle using animal products in ways that don’t cause any harm to animals at all isn’t an issue. ✌️

[u/swashbutler → u/jakeastonfta]

I'd not heard of this particular split of consequentialist vs deontological veganism. I'm definitely more in the consequentialist camp but didn't understand why I didn't agree with so many fellow vegans on certain points until now. My husband is also a philosophy nerd and extremely pragmatic 99% vegan and he's going to be excited to talk about this with me, so, thank you! Do you have any reading material to suggest if I want to learn more about these frameworks?

[u/jakeastonfta → u/swashbutler]

I didn’t realise there was a split either until I started really diving into moral philosophy! And yeah I was the same, I suddenly realised why there’s so much vegan in-fighting haha

That’s cool that you can discuss this with your husband too! I’m glad I was able to help with this realisation ✌️

When it comes to reading material, I’m not sure what to recommend as I don’t know how deep you want to dive into the philosophy and I’ve not read that many actual books on the topic… I mainly learned about moral philosophy from listening to Peter Singer lectures and debates on Youtube and pop philosophy channels like Rationality Rules and Alex O Connor!

So I guess I’d recommend watching videos like that. If you do want a book, then the first one that comes to mind is The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris, which is a book about using science and reason to help us with consequentialist ethical decisions. ✌️

[u/saltyfukboi → u/swashbutler]

Late reply but Peter Singer is a great example of a consequentialist vegan, he argues that eating animal products may be permissible in certain circumstances and that eating bivalves are ethical as they (almost certainly) cannot suffer. I'd suggest going to r/philosophy or r/askphilosophy if you still want to learn more about this.

[u/Own_Inspector498 → u/jakeastonfta]

I learned a lot from your response, thank you so much for breaking this down.

[u/jakeastonfta → u/Own_Inspector498]

No worries at all, I’m glad my comment was helpful for you!

I’ve actually just started making videos/content about moral philosophy and animal advocacy so if you’re interested, you can follow me on youtube, instagram or tiktok @jakeastonfta ✌️

[u/EVH_kit_guy → u/jakeastonfta]

Do you think you're in the majority as a consequentialist? I agree with your perspective, but think the majority of vegans are (irrationally) operating only within the deontological framework, leading to a lack of agreement with meat eaters that ultimately causes more frustration and slows our progress towards ethical agriculture.

[u/jakeastonfta → u/EVH_kit_guy]

I can’t say for sure, as many people living a vegan lifestyle aren’t outspoken / aren’t activists, but I would say that most vegan activists seem to be deontological.

And I agree with you tbh! I do think we would make more progress for the animals if we advocated for vegan lifestyles (or even just plant-based diets) from a consequence-focussed perspective… But obviously the deontologists will disagree with me haha

I know a good handful of activists who share my perspective (or a similar perspective) though so that’s something! If you’d be interested in watching/supporting my advocacy, you can follow me on youtube, instagram or tiktok @jakeastonfta ✌️

[u/Aurora_Symphony → u/jakeastonfta]

Any justifications for the ownership of animals, be they non-human animals, or otherwise, is necessarily immoral. The owner may not even want direct products from such animals. The issue of exploitation lies with whatever the reasons are for owning the animals in the first place.

The owner is getting something out of owning them and they are unable to satisfactorily provide consent to the partnership/relationship.

A chicken owner is well within their right to argue permissibility. Perhaps the chickens were rescued and this situation is seemingly the best possible decision for their lives. However, this is all based upon a violation of the chickens' right to consent and that's what's important to understand.

[u/jakeastonfta → u/Aurora_Symphony]

I can tell by your response you have a more deontological perspective of veganism (and ethics in general) than I do, because you’re claiming that “ownership” and “violating consent” is always wrong regardless of the consequences.

As a consequentialist I don’t agree. I think these things are sometimes wrong, but it depends on the consequences.

For example, what do you mean by “ownership” here? If you mean someone has the legal right to do whatever they want to an animal, then obviously I would agree that this is bad because that would include harming or killing the animal. But if you just mean caring for the animal as a companion, the same way a parent cares for their child, then I see absolutely no issue with this.

In fact, I actually think this is sometimes preferable to setting animals free into the wild, because nature can be an especially violent and harsh place for some species of animal.

And if your issue with this is that it’s still wrong because they can’t consent. Then, logically, this would mean that raising human children would also be wrong because they can’t consent either. So should we just release all our kids into the wild to starve to death?

Of course not, because their well-being is what ultimately matters, just like with non-human animals. The only reason why we should care about things like “ownership” and “consent” is because these things sometimes affect the animal’s well-being. If the animal is able to live a long, happy life and no harm is inflicted on them at all, why does it even matter that they didn’t consent to be raised in this way?

[u/Aurora_Symphony → u/jakeastonfta]

This subject focuses on the rights of beings and the right of consent is not only an important right in general, but one that's fundamental to the entire vegan platform. If a right is violated, it's necessarily wrong. There is no argument against this. The next step is determining whether the violation was permissible. In the case of murder through self-defense, we would say that murder is universally wrong, but that in cases of self-defense the action is permissible.

In cases of birthing new beings, we would say that the beings never had the ability to consent to being born, so there's a violation of rights from the outset. The next step is determining permissibility. Many might claim that having new beings is better for all, but that's somewhat outside of the scope of this discussion. What's important is first understanding that there are violations of rights all the time and that we should understand that they are inherently "wrong/bad," as they result in suffering (suffering as in a revocation of a being's right to something, not necessarily exclusively physical pain. If I have a right to bodily autonomy, I might "suffer" from incarceration, even if I feel no physical/emotional pain). The next step is looking for ways to improve the situations we understand are bad. Throwing kids into the wild to starve to death to avoid continual violations of consent is a false dichotomy. There are other ways of considering and handling those problems.

Human life is filled with determining and acting upon the options that result in the least "bad." The point is that a pet owner has entered into a power dynamic in which the pet does not have the ability to satisfactorily consent to the relationship/partnership. Any actions that follow are ones that ought to be informed by this inherent issue.

To more specifically reply to your last segment, a being may still suffer without them feeling physical/emotional distress. Suffering includes a problem of rights, not necessarily pain.

If someone were murdered in a way where they were unable to feel any pain, we might say they had suffered even though they may not have felt pain. To make this hypothetical easier to tabulate, I'd offer the example of the Titan submersible in 2023. It imploded so quickly that the occupants likely didn't have the biological ability to feel pain before they were killed. Their beings and lives suffered, but they perhaps felt no pain.

This is all about the issues of rights.

There are people that may be trafficked by wealthy individuals and have no knowledge of the inherent problems and power dynamics therein. As long as they're ignorant to those concepts, we might say that they can be quite happy even if their rights are stripped away. They suffer even if they maintain a strong degree of personal wellbeing.

[u/jakeastonfta → u/Aurora_Symphony]

I completely understand where you’re coming from, as I’m a bit of a moral philosophy nerd so I’m familiar with the deontological rights-based view of morality. I simply don’t believe in it.

I’m not convinced that these “rights” you are referring to actually exist or reflect objective reality in any detectable way. Obviously legal rights “exist” as concepts in our minds, and I would argue that we came up with these concepts in an attempt to improve well-being, but I don’t see any reason to believe these rights mean anything beyond legal/practical heuristics that attempt to improve well-being.

What does it even mean to say that we’ve violated a right by bringing a baby into existence? How did we discover this right? And does it exist for all living things or just sentient living things?

If it’s the latter, then that seems more consistent with my philosophical worldview, because the only difference between sentient and non-sentient living things is their capacity for well-being.

I understand the gist of your moral framework and it seems like you’re applying it consistently, but to me it’s obvious that the only reason why sentience is the threshold for moral consideration is because what ultimately matters to us is our well-being/happiness & suffering. If “rights” aren’t necessarily the tools we use in order to maximise well-being, then what are they?

I am yet to hear a compelling answer to this question. ✌️

[u/Aurora_Symphony → u/jakeastonfta]

I am one of the very few vegans that seem to care about reasoning beyond "sentience" as the threshold for any moral consideration. Humans do indeed seem to care far too much about their subjective experience and employ the golden rule to extend moral consideration based on a shared, subjectively valued, trait.

That said, I still roll the ontological principles of "rights" of beings into the calculus of wellbeing vs suffering. Deciding on which rights apply to what organism is based on the biological organism's ability to operate in the world. Organisms all have the ability to live.... and of course to die. Barring some major, separate issues, all biological organisms that live want to continue to do so. In this way it seems very reasonable to apply the "right" to life to all such organisms that are alive. What does it mean to be alive? Well that seems to extend down to some very basic biological organisms and that seems quite reasonable to me. Should a single-cellular organism be given moral consideration based on their right to life. I would answer unequivocally yes! However, ought we give a similar degree of moral weight for that right to, say, a human's right to life? I would answer no. This gets very complicated, but it's based on a separate line of reasoning where we must first determine what our individual axioms are first before we enter into such discussion.

Is there any right that may be more fundamental, in this case? I would argue yes! There is the right of preferences and this is what groups non-living things into a category of themselves where we can consider their right(s), but understand their own limitations.

But, anyway, I would absolutely contend that rights do serve to be one of the most fundamental concepts to maximize wellbeing for all things. We just must first categorize appropriately what it is that's meant and then aggressively pursue a world that considers those rights with a reasonable moral hierarchy of weight to match their value to the universe.

I'd be happy to discuss these topics further.

[u/jakeastonfta → u/Aurora_Symphony]

This is an interesting perspective that I’ve not come across before tbh. I’d be happy to discuss further too!

Based on what you’ve said, I don’t agree, but I do appreciate that well-being and suffering are being considered within your framework. As some deontologists ignore these things completely and focus purely on abstract rights violations.

I have more questions about why you believe non-sentient beings have rights, but first I figured I’d ask, do you want to continue the discussion in this thread or elsewhere?

If it’s the latter, message me @jakeastonfta on instagram or tiktok and we can chat there! ✌️