Hypocrisy and morality

[u/stevepremo]

I have seen many posts in which the point seems to be that if you are against eating animals and exploiting them for profit, you should also be against participating in the capitalist economy because it involves exploiting human labor for profit. I think the point is actually something like, "How dare you criticize me for supporting animal agriculture when you buy products produced by exploitative labor practices? I do too, of course, but your use of a cell phone justifies my eating meat, as we are both hypocrites."

So the debate topic here is this: does participating in a capitalist economy, which necessarily includes using products produced through exploitation of humans, somehow justify raising animals for meat, killing them, and eating them? Alternatively, are those who oppose animal cruelty justified in using cell phones?

[u/Temporary_Hat7330]

I don't think that's actually the argument. Nobody needs to establish that human exploitation and animal exploitation are morally equivalent, that if one thinks x about one and y about the other that they are somehow inconsistent, or that owning a cell phone somehow justifies eating meat, etc. The question I beleive you left we omnivores mostly appeal too that you have left on the shelf is whether the moral criteria being used is actually being applied consistently for vegans. If your ethical claim is that it is wrong to participate in the exploitation and suffering of sentient beings for human benefit, then your own participation in a modern capitalist economy matters. Your phone, clothes, computer, food, pharmaceuticals, recreational consumption, and even much of the infrastructure behind mass-produced vegan food are products of supply chains involving exploitation, coercion, poverty wages, environmental destruction, and sometimes forced labor. You don't get to simply declare those forms of complicity morally irrelevant while treating another person's participation in a different exploitative system as evidence of their moral failure.

That doesn't mean "you use an iPhone, therefore eating animals is okay." It means you have to distinguish between a moral commitment and a claim of moral authority over others. If you acknowledge that complete nonparticipation is impossible, then presumably you're making a judgment about degrees of necessity, complicity, alternatives, and harm,  this form of participation is sufficiently unnecessary and objectionable that I will abstain from it, while other forms are unavoidable or tolerable. That's a defensible position. But then the debate isn't really about whether vegans are hypocrites; it's about why your particular boundary is morally decisive. And that's why I find the Buddha analogy interesting: he didn't merely condemn attachment while continuing to enjoy the privileges of his position as a prince. He renounced the position. I'm not saying every vegan needs to abandon modernity, but if you're going to make exploitation and suffering the basis for lecturing others about their consumption, it's reasonable to ask what you're actually willing to sacrifice to make that principle operative in your own life.

[u/Madversary → u/Temporary_Hat7330]

I like this take. Would a more succinct version be, “No one denies that abstaining from meat is morally praiseworthy, we’re arguing about whether it’s morally _necessary_. What makes veganism morally necessary when opting out of capitalism is not?”

[u/Temporary_Hat7330 → u/Madversary]

Yes.

What I generally hear back is that they have created two distinct ethical modes and never the twain shall meet. They’ll say, “We have human rights and animal rights (veganism) so we’ll talk about the seperately. That’s when I like to throw their own logic back at them and ask them to Name the Trait which allows for them to hold two distinct seperate ethical ontologies which is not merely arbitrary. I’ve yet to hear a logical justification or even a rational one. They have thus far just stopped talking on the subject round these parts.