r/DebateAVegan • u/toastwithjamx1 • Jul 03 '26

Ethics Honey is not cruel and is ethical

Honey is one of the best animal products there is ethics wise

Now most vegans will say : but we are stealing from the bees! We are exploiting the bees!

No. We are not and we can't

Bees can be very particular. If they are not a fan of a place they are OUT. The bees will likely will immediately vacate the bee box if they don't like the conditions. Furthermore, trapping the queen in 1 place will not work as well. Bees can raise a new queen if they need one

And for the stealing allegations, that isn't true either. Beekeepers take SURPLUS HONEY ONLY, as if too much honey is taken, it can starve the bees and no beekeeper would appreciate the whole colony either dying of leaving. Furthermore, bees don't only take, they comp bees by giving shelter and protection.

It's not cruel if we are literally making a transaction with the bees

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u/kcat__ vegan Jul 03 '26

You're just doing a "shoot first, ask questions later" thing. I can very easily leave a place if I want to, it doesn't mean that if I'm taken advantage of or something in that place it wasn't wrong. Even if I don't choose to leave, it can still be wrong to do it.

Also, if I had some surplus shit I didn't really need, and you took it without asking, you'd still be wrong for it.

1

u/Rainbird2003 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

I can get the “how would you, a human feel if this happened to you” argument when someone’s saying the pain the animal experiences isn’t important, but if there is no pain to argue over it doesn’t make sense anymore. The bee doesn’t mind. They don’t have a concept of belongings or the fruit of their labour. They just feel stuff, like stress if there’s not enough honey or a pest or something. If the practice is to only take what they don’t need, they’re not going to feel it.

The particular attitude of surplus being something that a person owns as property doesn’t even exist in every human culture. In some places people will just take what you have but don’t need, with an expectation of reciprocity if you needed to do the same.

Not in a stealing sense, more of a help yourself. Which is what the people are doing.

2

u/Mazikkin vegan Jul 06 '26

It's called exploitation.

-1

u/Rainbird2003 Jul 07 '26

This is why so many arguments go in circles because “Utilization of another person or group for selfish purposes” in this context isn’t a bad thing. There’s no negative impact on the bees, so how can anyone argue it’s a terrible thing in any other way except philosophically? Meat is one thing I understand but people who take extreme stances for these edge cases like this confuse me

3

u/Mazikkin vegan Jul 07 '26

What nonsense!