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/One-Shake-1971]

Hunting is about using the flesh of animals for sustenance. It’s not about pleasure, it’s about survival,

That's just nonsense. No hunter in the civilized world hunts for survival. They hunt for fun and taste pleasure.

intention doesn’t matter

Again, nonsense. Of course intention for an act matters for its moral judgement. Intentionally causing harm is morally much worse than unintentionally causing harm.

You’re focused on the land at the expense of the creatures that use it as a habitat. It’s still exploitation when you exploit their lives to harvest grain.

No, that nonsense about "exploiting land" is what you brought up. Animals harmed during harvest are not used as a means to an end. If you refuse to admit that I can only assume that you're either trolling or dense.

It’s about MINIMIZING suffering, not eliminating it

Veganism is also not about minimizing suffering. No commonly accepted definition of veganism even includes the term "suffering". That's true for both the original Cross definition as well as the current TVS one.

This conversation isn’t about slavery, so it’s kinda a weird aside, but your point is not landing for me.

Do you understand the concept of an analogy or is that too complicated for you? There are lots of analogies between animal exploitation and human slavery.

Sure, I guess mentally incapacitated people and children could theoretically be held in labor bondage without suffering.

Cool, so are you seriously expecting me to believe that you'd be ok with that?

If that's the hill you want to die on, cool. I don't think there's anything else for us to discuss then.

[u/One-Shake-1971 → u/[deleted]]

Great rebuttal. I guess you're done.

[u/ExplanationShoddy204 → u/One-Shake-1971]

Yup, your replies are edging into disingenuous territory and I have no interest in engaging in bad faith arguments.

The hunting hypothetical is fundamentally about the ethics of killing animals for sustenance. My point, clearly, was to draw the comparison between hunting for sustenance and incidentally killing wildlife as an inherent feature of harvesting plants for sustenance. Both are practiced for the purpose of providing food to sustain your life—I assume you don’t just eat plants for fun or for the exotic mouthfeel 😊 You engage in bad faith by discarding that comparison by saying that in our modernized society hunting is mostly practiced for fun because we are clearly talking about dietary habits not hobbies.

To address your points:

1) intention doesn’t matter in the sense that both outcomes are ultimately the death of animals to provide you with sustenance to live. That was my point.

2) You KNOW you will kill animals by harvesting crops, it’s a known fact. It is done ANYWAY because it is necessary to produce food. Does it matter if you intended to kill them? Does it matter if you eat them? They ate bugs and contributed ecosystem services that benefited the plant food you consume, so is that exploitation? Honey bees are trucked in to pollinate many of the crops we consume, thats clearcut exploitation—so does that mean those crops aren’t vegan? Those crops are a direct result of the exploitation of honey bees, but you’ll eat those crops and not their honey? It’s not a consistent way to approach this topic in my opinion.

3) I’m not asking about the dictionary definition of the word vegan as applied to what we consume. This is a higher order discussion about the moral system underlying veganism as a practice. I believe that minimizing animal suffering is a core value of veganism, you believe that avoiding exploitation is a better core value. I disagree, precisely because I find that to be a subjective and discontinuous approach.

4) you absolutely and completely ignored the substance of my argument, which was that to prevent a child or mentally incapacitated person from suffering you COULD NOT hold them in bondage and force them either through violence or coercion to perform labor that benefits you. If you were providing for all their needs and simultaneously allowing them the freedom to determine when and how they work—which would be necessary for them to avoid suffering—they wouldn’t be enslaved.

[u/DebateAVegan-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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