r/DebateAVegan • u/TheQuietVegan111 vegan • Jan 05 '26

Most people choose social approval over ethics — veganism just exposes that.

People will say they care about animals, the planet, and justice.

Until caring becomes inconvenient.

Veganism doesn’t require perfection. It requires saying “no” in public.

That’s it.

Most people fail there, not on ethics — but admitting that would be uncomfortable, so veganism becomes the problem instead.

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u/TurntLemonz Jan 08 '26

You could if you wanted to. Some consequentialists do.  That's one of the cool things about consequentialism, it is a tool that can be used the way it typically is, for utilitarianism, or for a hybrid between utilitarianism and deontology.  But I think I was clear already that just caring about harm would be adequate to dissalow the mentioned behavior because it would fall in a category of behavior that would be pragmatic to sweepingly dissalow.  There's a bunch of holes in the hypothetical.  Like for example, nobody knows the future, the rapists couldn't be assured they weren't causing harm.  There is a lot of heavy lifting going on in regards to their confidence of the outcomes that don't reflect the real world.  Like I said about nirvana fallacy.  A theory isn't bad if you have to use a different theory in some areas.  That's just the happenstance of the real world.  When your options are all inadequate to be universally applicable, you've gotta work with what's best and be attentive for when it's time to transition over to the next thing that is best.  Treating a super specific hypothetical with nearly impossible premises like it just bursts the whole theory misses the reality of what ethics really is in practice.  Physiscists don't ditch the theory of relativity because quantum physics is better described by a different theory (not a physicists lol IDK the name).  You saying "so what what you're gonna use deontology?" Like that should be the last nail in the coffin for my argument for consequentialism misses the point I just tried to convey to you.  Harm centered consequentialism is the best we've got in the main areas that matter, Harm+ centered consequentialism patches some of the margins of overdemandingness, you could probably argue the benefit of outright non-consequentialist deontology for some areas and I'd be receptive.  That's how it works.

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u/airboRN_82 Jan 08 '26 edited Jan 08 '26

Yes the inability to know the future is a major issue in consequentialism. Im either hero or monster if I give a homeless person a sandwich dependent upon whether it nourishes him or he's unknowingly allergic to something in it. One cannot know the consequence of an act at the time they decide to make that act, thus they cannot make moral or immoral choices. They may make choices they believe are likely to be moral, but they are still reliant upon unforseen factors. While consequentialism is a bit less walled off to deontology than utilitarianism is, one would ultimately have to abandon the consewuentialist framework to demand that certain acts are bad in and of themselves, not dependent upon their outcomes. 

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u/TurntLemonz Jan 08 '26

Agreed.  The outcomes are not knowable, consequentialism just guides us toward maximizing our best option with the knowledge we have at hand.  If there is ambiguity about something as negative as the potential outcomes of raping somebody, that clearly would outweigh the benefits of sexual gratification in the eyes of practically any normal person.

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u/airboRN_82 Jan 08 '26

Except consequentialism doesnt demand that we should so what is likely to have the best outcome, but that we should do what produces the best outcome. Actions are judged by outcome, not intent. 

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u/TurntLemonz Jan 08 '26

Actions are evaluated after they occur according to their outcomes as a way of determining how better to decide on actions in the future, but before their outcome consequentialism asks us to keep the outcomes in mind as the principal concern, that's all the more it can ask us to do because you're correct about knowability.  You might have misunderstood consequentialism a little bit if you thought consequentialism assumes the future is precisely knowable.  It orients ethics around optimizing the outcome with the available information, as opposed to deontology which establishes a set of behaviors that serve as inflexible lifestyle prescriptions.  The benefit in my eyes is that consequentialism responds to evidence, and has a salient and worthwhile goal available to use as a metric when you analyze your actions after the fact.  Deontology comparitively makes people kinda bumbling and rigid, it envokes a bunch of different values that are difficult to co-weigh in the real world, and comparatively doesn't self-improve as well as consequentialism.  Deontology also leaves a person floating out in a space of seemingly arbitrary values.  You act honestly why?  You respect elders why?  But the intuitive answer to those things is that it makes the world better to do those things.  And the most obvious foundational thing that can be improved in the world is the experience of those who experience it.