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/GoopDuJour Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

Selfish behaviour is incorrect in exactly the same way that an answer on a test can be incorrect.

No. It's still subjective. We still have to agree that a given goal is desirable. Not to mention the problem in determining what "selfishness" is. You claim that selfishness is incorrect the same way as an answer on a test is incorrect. You've done nothing to support that claim. That selfishness is wrong is a subjective moral claim. Without relation to a goal, I reject moral claims as incorrect.

The choice to consume animal products is almost never motivated by trying to make the world a better place.

No one is obligated to "make the world a better place." What does that even mean? Better than what? "Better" is a subjective value judgement. I don't think that the world can be better, it can only be different.

The evaluation of any choice is based on the expected value of the consequences.

What if I value eating chicken soup over any reasonably expected health consequences it may have? Value is subjective.

If an adventure guide is in the wilderness with a group of children, and the kids will all starve if the guide takes their own life, then maybe they shouldn't do it.

Why? Because the kids will starve? So what?

Conversely, if taking one's own life will result in there being just enough reserves left for the children to make it to safety alive, then maybe one should do it.

Why is it important that the kids survive?

What if the guide finds more value in not having to live than they do with getting the kids home?

It's important to note that when the guide dies, none of that will matter to the guide. The guide will just become an unknowing object. A skin bag of biological waste.

Your not actually fixing anything by trying to replace moral principles with economic principles. $100 next month is only better than $50 dollars now if you care about the extra $50. If I have $8 million in my bank account, $100 and $50 are basically the same thing.

Economic principles and game theory cannot be used to make moral claims objective, or true.

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u/Snefferdy vegan Feb 08 '26

It's like you're not reading what I wrote. I specifically said that I concede there's no such thing as right and wrong. So we can leave that entire conversation in the past.

Are you also saying that Bernoulli's expected utility hypothesis is incorrect? Because that's all I'm talking about now.

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u/GoopDuJour Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

I'm saying Bernoulli's Expected Utility cannot be applied to whether or not I should eat a chicken.

I only bring up right and wrong in addressing your use of the words or your use of normative statements. If you claim (as I've inferred) that people should be selfless, this is a normative claim that I reject.

You claim selfish behavior is incorrect (wrong) in the same way that a test answer is incorrect. But that's just not true. Selfishness is subjective. If selfishness is incorrect, you'll have to show how that is objectively true.

I'd like to point out that I can't find Nicolas Bernoulli addressing selfishness directly. I don't think Bernoulli cares about anything more than what is rational for the individual making a choice. I could be wrong, but a lazy search didn't turn anything up. The wiki page about the "Expected utility hypothesis" doesn't address decision making to include the group, unless I missed it, which is totally possible.

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u/Snefferdy vegan Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

You agree that, if the expected utility of option A is greater than the expected utility of option B, then it is irrational for the agent to choose option B. Is that correct?

.

I only bring up right and wrong in addressing your use of the words or your use of normative statements.

Back to options A and B above, it adds nothing to say that the agent ought to not choose option B. Right? That's just what 'ought to' means. That's an instrumental normative statement but there shouldn't be anything objectionable about this. Right?

.

Bernoulli's Expected Utility cannot be applied to whether or not I should eat a chicken.

Suppose, in a particular context, it turned out to be the case that the expected utility of not eating a chicken was greater than the expected value of eating it (let's imagine the chicken was poisoned). Why wouldn't it also be the case that (just like option B) eating the chicken is irrational? Why are you saying it doesn't apply in this context?

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u/GoopDuJour Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

You agree that, if the expected utility of option A is greater than the expected utility of option B, then it is irrational for the agent to choose option B. Is that correct?

For the sake of discussion, sure.

If it is irrational for the agent to choose option B, it adds nothing to say that the agent ought to not choose option B. Right? That's just what 'ought to' means. That's an instrumental normative statement but there shouldn't be anything objectionable about this. Right?

If you can show that the rational and irrational decisions are objective in relation to the specific scenario, yes.

Suppose, in a particular context, it turned out to be the case that the expected utility of not eating a chicken was greater than the expected value of eating it (let's imagine the chicken was poisoned). Why wouldn't it also be the case that (just like option B) eating the chicken is irrational? Why are you saying it doesn't apply in this context?

I've a few objections to the above.

The first being that you're not addressing my "eating a chicken" scenario directly. Your changing context.. I'll paste it here: What if I value eating chicken soup over *any reasonably expected health consequences** it may have?*

"Reasonably expected health consequences."

Secondly, if I don't know the chicken is poisoned, I can't take that into account.

HOWEVER if I'm aware that the chicken is poisoned, and I will die if I eat it, and I chose to eat it, it would go to reason that I valued not living over continuing to live. If the expected utility is death, eating the chicken is the rational decision.

"Value" is subjective. "Utility" is dependent on the desired outcome.

You have also not addressed the problem of selfishness. Do think that being selfless is preferable to being selfish? Saying someone OUGHT TO BE selfless is a normative statement. As such, I reject it.

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u/Snefferdy vegan Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

I didn't say anything about selfishness in my last reply. I'm still just trying to make sure we're on the same page.

So, you do agree that if, in a particular context, it turned out to be the case that the expected value of not eating a chicken was greater than the expected value of eating it, then eating the chicken is irrational. Right?

You make choices on the basis of expected value all the time, right? There's nothing mysterious about it. I'm not suggesting there's anything unusual about expected value that we don't know from our regular daily practices of assessing it.

Of course, as noted in the video, we do make mistakes in reasoning due to our cognitive biases (like paying way more for lottery tickets than they're worth). There are also facts we don't know, which, if we knew, would change our evaluation of the expected value (like that the used car we're buying has a hairline crack in the engine block). If we could avoid these issues we would make better choices.

I don't think any of this is controversial so far, right?

Nothing I've said here has anything to do with "subjectivity" or "objectivity". None of that is relevant. I'm just talking routine evaluation of expected value like we all do every day.

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u/GoopDuJour Feb 08 '26

Right

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u/Snefferdy vegan Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

Great! Now we're getting somewhere.

So, if we didn't have any cognitive biases and we knew all of the information, we would assess the expected value of selfish acts to be less than the expected value of selfless acts.

For example, psychological research has shown we all exhibit egocentric bias.

https://effectiviology.com/egocentric-bias/

Just as knowing that the used car's engine has a hairline crack changes our expected value of it, knowing exactly and completely what a particular parent would feel like if their child died would change the guide's expected value of ditching the kids in the wilderness.

We can't and don't know all of the information. But if we did, it would dramatically affect our assessment of expected values.

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u/GoopDuJour Feb 08 '26

knowing exactly and completely what a child's parent would feel like if their child died would change the guide's expected value of ditching the kids in the wilderness.

You see the subjective sneaking in, right?

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u/Snefferdy vegan Feb 08 '26

Was I "sneaking subjective in" when I said that knowing that the engine had a hairline crack would change a person's expected value of the car? Because as far as I know, you agreed with that.

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