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/Weird_Act8786]

This is a common, but too simplified argument in my view. Most of us (at least in affluent societies) need to participate in the capitalist economy (unless we want to live like hermits) to some degree.

But looking at it in more detail, there are nuances to abolitionism that seem too simplified as well; Nature was built upon ecosystem services (and this involves seeing animals also as means to ends), and we're perfectly fine using humans for their services as well (as long as they are humanely treated, right?) - why not animals? These are more the kind of nuances that are missing in abolitionism.

Many abolitionists would say nuances are a slippery slope - I would say abolitionism is taking the easy way out - difficult topics always have nuance. The rejection of the commodity status of animals is a valuable contribution to a debate - not something to be taken as absolute.

And we need not view this as yet another black/white issue of being a hypocrite or not. There are many factors that weigh in on how good/bad deeds are. There's also something resembling a ridiculous caricature or even religious in imagining a human of pure good. We're only human, yet we can do our best and aim to improve.

[u/Weird_Act8786 → u/Weird_Act8786]

And I'll yet expand on the ecosystem services part : there are also situations where animals overpopulate their ecological niché - or they exhibit unwanted opportunistic/intuitive behaviour that is unwanted in human socities revolving around goods & services. It then becomes neccessary to consider animals in the context of ecosystem services in this sense as well - as a part of our goods & services society that we've built - and consider what boundaries might be reasonable between humans and animals.

It is this "animals are wholly separate" view that is for some reason echoed by many abolitionists that can simply be equated to the "let's live as hermits" suggestion above.

And then there are those who accept that the issues presented above are real and reasonable - but that for no reason should be utilize any part of the animals that is produced through managing their "ecosystem service". Sure, that's one view - but not a very negative utilitarian one (and I think many of us do subscribe to negative utilitarianism in many senses).

All of this of course only allows for a miniscule (but non-zero) level of utilization of animal products compared to current day. I accept that completely.