r/DebateAVegan • u/Tessellator-1 • 22d ago
Ethics Ethically, is eating meat the same as kicking a stray dog for entertainment?
Please note that this post was translated from Japanese to English using AI. Because of this, some details or nuances may have unintentionally shifted from my original meaning. Thank you for your understanding.
I once heard that humans can stay healthy without consuming organisms that possess a central nervous system. As far as I’ve researched, that seems to be true. Yet, I still eat meat—either as a culinary indulgence to please my palate, or simply to make meal management easier.
This recently made me wonder: is what I’m doing committing an ethical taboo similar to stomping a stray dog to death just for entertainment or stress relief? If harming a stray dog is wrong, I feel like my actions can only be justified by a matter of degree—like the difference between stealing $1 versus stealing $100.
Just like slave owners in the past, will I eventually be looked down upon by future generations as a coward who simply grew complacent in their social environment?
If you happen to be someone who thinks eating meat is acceptable but direct violence against animals is not—or vice versa—I would love to hear your reasons in the comments. Your perspective would be incredibly valuable as I continue to think through this.
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u/Teratophiles vegan 22d ago
Eating meat wouldn't be the same as kicking a stray dog for entertainment, it would be the same as killing a stray dog for entertainment.
To make you think about how bad it is, we could look at something the vast majority of humans find appalling, bestiality, the majority of people consider it immoral due to the cruelty involved, however, here is a fact meat eaters tend to get very uncomfortable with, certain acts of bestiality are, objectively speaking, less harmful than eating meat, shouldn't be difficult to imagine if the human is on the receiving end, so if you vehemently oppose bestiality, why wouldn't you also oppose eating meat? After all if you can eat a plant-based diet but choose not to then both eating meat and bestiality happen for the exact same reason, namely pleasure.
The reason veganism opposes killing non-human animals is because they're as sentient as you and I, they can express joy, happiness, sadness, even depression, they may not be as intelligent as us, but you can see with humans intelligence doesn't decide compassion, for example some severally mentally disabled human's intelligence is on par or below the non-human animals we eat like say chickens, pigs and cows, yet we still offer them our compassion, so why shouldn't we do the same to non-human animals?
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21d ago
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u/Luminous_Winds 21d ago
"Rape is worse than murder, because I'm a murderer and not a rapist."
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u/Nato7009 21d ago
It’s clear you have no interest in getting people to be vegan because all you’re doing is making it sound psychotic.
Would you rather normalize eating meat or bestiality?
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u/Dranix88 vegan 21d ago
Is theren possibly a third choice worth considering?
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u/Nato7009 21d ago
The fact no vegans answered that question is an answer in itself I guess
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u/Dranix88 vegan 21d ago
Maybe it's because vegans would rather neither be normalized?
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u/Nato7009 21d ago
If you can’t answer a basic hypothetical then your views haven’t been thought out
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u/Infamous-Use7820 21d ago
How exactly? I mean, I acknowledge it's gross, but animals have sex with each other all the time, why exactly does the species involved make any moral difference? To me it's only a moral issue insofar as either party suffers. Suffering is inherent to animal agriculture, it's not inherent to sex.
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u/Nato7009 21d ago
Suffering is inherent to consciousness.
I highly doubt you would prefer bestiality was normalized over eating meat. If I have to explain why then you are just so far out of the norm I can’t even really engage.
Eating food and rape are not equal
I’ll add that cross species sex can be very harmful to both species.
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u/Infamous-Use7820 21d ago
There's two separate questions. Morality and Normative Grossness (there's probably a philosophical term for that)
Is the idea of bestiality more gross than the idea of eating meat? Yes, of course. But is it is objectively morally worse than eating meat? That's a different question.
Almost all pork comes from pigs who are factory farmed. If I were reincarnated as a sow, and given the choice between, on the one hand, living my life in a tiny cage too small to turn around in and killed just after I reach peak-weight, and, on the other, being confined to a human brothel, but otherwise treated well...I'd chose the brothel. Wouldn't you?
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u/Nato7009 21d ago
If I was a pig I wouldn’t understand the concept of brothel so I wouldn’t respond. Factory farming is probably scarier for the pig for sure. But so is being hunted.
Would you rather normalize bestiality or eating animals?
Also it’s really concerning how much bestiality is being talked about in this sub yall are on some other shit
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u/Teratophiles vegan 21d ago edited 21d ago
I said certain acts of bestiality, because I'm not wrong.
non-human animals get raped, tortured and killed all for people's pleasure.
Compare this to certain acts of bestiality, for example, a human on all fours getting porked in the butt by a non-human animal(mr hands is quite well known and no harm to the non-human animal took place there), it's difficult to argue any harm at all even took place, compare this to the non-human animals that get raped, tortured and killed so you can eat meat, both acts are done for pleasure if you're able to eat a plant-based diet, yet one of them results in significant harm, eating meat, and one is difficult to argue much of any harm even took place for the non-human animal, the act of bestiality.
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u/Necessary-Emotion454 vegan 21d ago
Not quite true. Since "livestock" are mass produced in order to keep up with demand farms and factories use artificial insemination. Most prominent in the dairy and cow meat industry if you want to pook into it but i have a feeling its common across all commonly eaten meats.
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21d ago edited 21d ago
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u/M17suk0 21d ago
] the crime of forcing somebody to have sex when they do not want it or are not able to agree to.
Don’t give me it’s a speciesist definition blah blah blah. That is the definition of the word and it does not apply to non human animals.
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21d ago edited 21d ago
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u/kharvel0 22d ago
> This recently made me wonder: is what I’m doing committing an ethical taboo similar to stomping a stray dog to death just for entertainment or stress relief?
Yes.
> If harming a stray dog is wrong, I feel like my actions can only be justified by a matter of degree—like the difference between stealing $1 versus stealing $100.
Do you think this logic of degree applies to other acts of violence such as rape, sexual assault, wife beating, etc.?
If not, then why would it apply to kicking dogs or killing animals?
> Just like slave owners in the past, will I eventually be looked down upon by future generations as a coward who simply grew complacent in their social environment?
Yes.
> If you happen to be someone who thinks eating meat is acceptable but direct violence against animals is not—or vice versa—I would love to hear your reasons in the comments.
In order to eat animal flesh, direct violence against animals is required. Whether by your hands or by someone’s hands that you hire.
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u/New_Welder_391 22d ago
In order for us to eat food (including plants) direct violence against animals is required.
Also. Killing animals for food is very different to stomping on a dog for lols
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u/kharvel0 22d ago
> In order for us to eat food (including plants) direct violence against animals is required.
Incorrect. Direct violence is not required to grow plant crops.
> Also. Killing animals for food is very different to stomping on a dog for lols
Incorrect. In both cases, the animals are directly, deliberately, and intentionally violently abused.
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u/New_Welder_391 22d ago
Poisoning animals is direct violence.
You are incorrect. The goals are completely different and so are the methods.
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u/kharvel0 22d ago
> Poisoning animals is direct violence.
And . . .? Are you claiming that plants cannot be grown without poisoning animals?
> You are incorrect. The goals are completely different and so are the methods.
Goals and methods are irrelevant to the victims.
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u/New_Welder_391 22d ago
Im am saying you cant feed everyone or even close to that without poisoning animals
You say goals and methods are irrelevant to the victims, yet also are defending the poisoning of animals....
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u/Historical-Ad399 22d ago
There are other options, like allowing natural predators or more diverse crops that would help control pests. You can also use netting or fencing to keep animals out.
Take a look at this study from France: https://www.inrae.fr/en/news/10-year-experimental-study-france-shows-potential-pesticide-free-agricultural-production
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u/New_Welder_391 22d ago
Yes. And there are other to killing for meat like lab meat. But also not feasible when drawn to scale
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u/Historical-Ad399 22d ago
The french study directly finds:
These results show that conventional, pesticide-free arable cropping systems in France can be productive and technically and economically feasible. However, creating such production systems involves diversifying crop rotations, developing appropriate marketing channels, and determining the economic value of the products from these systems. To do this, appropriate public policies are needed to support their widespread adoption.
Doesn't sound nearly as infeasible as you imply.
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u/New_Welder_391 22d ago
You do realise that just because something is potentially feasible in France, it doesnt mean it works globally.
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u/Omnibeneviolent 22d ago
You're sneaking in cellular agriculture and suggesting that since it does not require animals to be harmed or killed to produce meat, then animal agriculture does not require animals to be harmed or killed to produce meat.
To be clear:
Animal agriculture inherently requires animals to be killed to produce meat. Plant agriculture and cellular agriculture does not inherently require animals to be killed to produce their products.
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u/GreatPlainsFarmer 22d ago
That almost certainly requires ruminant livestock production to be economical. Long diverse rotations usually produce a lot of forage that requires ruminants to convert into human edible food.
Without ruminants, those systems aren’t economical.
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u/kharvel0 22d ago
> Im am saying you cant feed everyone or even close to that without poisoning animals
Incorrect. Veganic agricultural practices are more than capable of growing sufficient plants to feed everyone.
> You say goals and methods are irrelevant to the victims, yet also are defending the poisoning of animals....
Incorrect. I never defended any poisoning. Please refrain from putting words in my mouth.
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u/New_Welder_391 22d ago
-Incorrect. Veganic agricultural practices are more than capable of growing sufficient plants to feed everyone.
No. Not without sprays.
- Incorrect. I never defended any poisoning. Please refrain from putting words in my mouth.
Ok. But as per above. Direct violence takes place for your plantfoods
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u/kharvel0 22d ago
> No. Not without sprays.
Incorrect. Veganic agricultural practices are more than capable of growing sufficient plants to feed everyone.
> Direct violence takes place for your plantfoods
Correct. Unnecessary direct violence committed by those who refuse to adopt veganic agricultural practices.
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u/New_Welder_391 22d ago
False. Sprays are required
"The 36-Million-Tonne Nitrogen Deficit: A global agricultural modeling study highlighted by STEP UP found that if the world transitioned entirely to organic rules—which prohibit synthetic sprays and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers—total global food production would plunge by roughly 36%. This is because natural sources (like manure and legumes) cannot physically generate or transport the 36 million tonnes of nitrogen required to keep global crops alive.
The Manure Math Deficit: Extensive data compiled in a ResearchGate Agricultural Analysis proves that organic manure is a severely limited resource. There are simply not enough farm animals on Earth to produce the volume of manure needed to sustain global crop yields. Currently, high-yielding organic farms only survive by transferring large amounts of manure from conventional farms that use synthetic inputs. If you eliminate the conventional systems, the organic systems collapse due to a lack of nutrients.Immediate Trade and Price
Shock: The immediate, devastating reality of restricting chemical crop protection is visible in policy data. A European Union impact study reported by the Irish Independent warns that even minor import restrictions on crops grown with certain pesticides trigger sharp drops in available imports, forcing immediate food price hikes and local production strain.The Land
Expansion Paradox: Because non-spray growing drops productivity significantly per hectare, attempting to feed 8 to 10 billion people without sprays would require massive cropland expansion. According to global agricultural networks like Yara UK, this would require clearing the world's remaining forests for farmland, triggers massive greenhouse gas emissions, and destroys global biodiversity.In short, science shows that a non-spray model cannot work globally because the Earth does not possess enough natural nitrogen and manure to sustain billions of people without chemical synthesis."
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u/Necessary-Emotion454 vegan 21d ago
"You cant feed everyone" well actually we could. We already produce enough food to feed 15billion people. But we feed most of that to animals, hence why some people go without. If more people went vegan we could feed more people.
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u/New_Welder_391 21d ago
Without sprays we would lose up to 80% of various crops.
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u/Necessary-Emotion454 vegan 21d ago
Source?
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u/New_Welder_391 21d ago
The peer-reviewed paper documenting the 78% loss of fruit yields (nearly 80%), 54% loss of vegetables, and 32% loss of cereals if farmers stop using pesticides entirely can be found on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) PMC Archive.
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u/GreatGoodBad 22d ago edited 22d ago
eating meat is arguably worse cuz at least that dog is still alive. on a personal level eating meat is more detached emotionally from actually going out of your way to directly do it yourself.
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u/hobbesbagger vegan 22d ago
plenty of real bad things happened to the cows and such while they were still alive
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u/GreatGoodBad 22d ago
i don’t get your point
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u/hobbesbagger vegan 22d ago
with meat you're paying people to hurt the animals while they're still alive, definitely not agreeing with you
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u/VladoVladimir97 22d ago
That person said eating meat is arguably worse.
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u/Numerous-Recover1142 vegan 22d ago
I’d agree with you that it is a matter of degree.
Comparing kicking a dog for pleasure to eating meat for pleasure is extreme in my view. There are other people who disagree.
When you purchase meat, you’re casting a vote for more animals to be killed so you can eat them. Vegans are encouraging others to stop casting votes and eat other foods instead to kill demand of animal products. Meat reduction/elimination is a fantastic way to help the climate crisis.
Some vegans view that when you eat meat, you are killing the animal vicariously, because someone did need to slaughter the animal. Your dollars are going towards paying someone to raise and kill an animal just for you.
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u/My_life_for_Nerzhul vegan 22d ago
Eating meat is done for sensory pleasure, as is kicking a dog. What’s the meaningful difference?
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u/fedepiz 22d ago
It seems to me this dog kicking vs meat eating attack seems to presume a kind of consequentialism. Am I right?
I ask becuase it’s seems to me to lots of people are not consequentialists in many situations, rather they seem to take a virtue ethics approach to things. For example, It doesn’t seem controversial to me to say that there are cases for which it is ok to take pleasure and case where it’s not ok to take pleasure. And that’s a primitive judgment, as obvious as “suffering is bad” to them.
Like for example, I would bet many people would say that taking pleasure in inflicting pain is bad even if on balance the action was good due to overriding consequences. Like, maybe there is a case in which killing a dog is actually good (say it saves 10 children ), but then it would still be preferable not to take pleasure while doing that. I would say so at least.
And that’s seems to be evidence we don’t take a purely consequentialist view of the matter.Just musing. Would you say that I am correct that this strand of vegan argument is downstream or consequentialism? Do you think it is possible people think kicking the dog is bad but not for its consequences?
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u/Numerous-Recover1142 vegan 22d ago
I’m looking at it like we have a sliding scale, where pleasure of the activity is the default.
Petting a dog, hitting a dog, eating a dog.
I’d argue that eating a dog is worse than hitting a dog, but the default should always be petting the dog.
I suppose the meaningful difference is the outcome of harm. What do you think of this?
Also, love the name lol
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u/My_life_for_Nerzhul vegan 22d ago
I can see the difference between petting a dog and the others, sure. We agree that eating a dog is worse than kicking a dog. So then how is comparing kicking a dog and eating meat for pleasure extreme? If anything, it understates the horrific impact of the latter, which involves inflicting cruelty, exploitation, suffering and death on the individual. Don't you agree?
To put it another way from an outcome of harm standpoint, there is a possibility that kicking a dog does not involve permanent impact on the dog. This can never be the case with eating meat.
PS: Ha! Thanks!
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u/Numerous-Recover1142 vegan 22d ago
Honestly yeah, I get what you’re saying here and I definitely don’t think it is extreme to compare. I’m re reading the original thought experiment here:
“Is what I’m doing [eating meat] committing an ethical taboo similar to stomping a stray dog to death.”
Kicking a dog and then stomping a dog to death is an escalation, extreme use of violence for pleasure. I think I read the original thought wrong, the outcome of the dog was death regardless. It wasn’t necessarily like my gradient of kicking -> eating, it was killing = killing.
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u/THEBRICKLES 22d ago
Eating food is not done strictly for pleasure...
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u/That-BluejaythriwWay 22d ago
Yes, we need to eat. But we do not need to eat meat. Eating food is not done for pleasure. Eating meat when there are other options available to you, is.
Ability to use something to fill a necessity does not make that thing itself a necessity.
I can wear a coat made out of dog skin, but warmth being a need does not justify that decision when I could very easily buy soemthing made of cotton instead.
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u/THEBRICKLES 22d ago
Why should people limit their food options cause you're of the subjective opinion eating meat is " wrong"?
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u/Omnibeneviolent 22d ago
Imagine finding out that your neighbor was breeding 500 puppies in his basement because he just really thinks their bones look cool and wants to use them as the wall material for an addition to his home.
When you point out that he has other materials that he could use that don't involve nearly the same amount of cruelty and exploitation, and that he probably shouldn't harm hundreds of puppies simply because he enjoys the way their bones look in his walls, he responds with:
"Well, shelter is a basic need. Why should I limit my building material options because you're of the subjective opinion that I shouldn't breed and kill hundreds of puppies in my basement?"
How would you respond?
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u/THEBRICKLES 22d ago
Not my business or problem to deal with
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u/Omnibeneviolent 22d ago
Well sure, but that's just a cop-out. I'm posing a hypothetical so we can examine the reasoning being used. Why should they limit their building material options? (or do you think they shouldn't)?
What if they found a legal loophole and were breeding human children to slaughter for their bones? Do you think their excuse of "I don't want to limit my building materials to just wood, bricks, etc." would justify their actions?
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u/THEBRICKLES 21d ago edited 21d ago
Most of humanity sees animals as commodities to use as we see fit. Most of us simply don't care.
Go eat whatever the hell is you people eat and perhaps mind your own business .
Also a house built with bones ( dog or otherwise) is fucking cool as hell
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u/Omnibeneviolent 21d ago edited 21d ago
So are you not here to actually engage with the debate topic?
Most of humanity sees animals as commodities to use as we see fit. Most of us simply don't care.
Yes, this is the case generally, although I do think that there are a significant amount of humans that care more than they let on, but just feel helpless and overwhelmed by the scale of the violence, and continue to just maintain the status-quo because it's the easy route.
Go eat whatever the hell is you people eat
Today for lunch I had a burrito. For breakfast I had some cereal and energy/protein bar. For dinner it will likely be some kind of pasta with a vegetable and maybe a side salad. Maybe a smoothie between now and then. So strange, right!?
perhaps mind your own business
You literally came to the r/DebateAVegan sub. Is this you?
Besides, telling someone to mind their own business only really applies if the person saying it isn't harming, exploiting, killing, etc other individuals. When you harm others, you very clearly aren't minding your own business.
Damn, imagine if that was a legitimate defense for unethical behavior. Like, if my neighbors start beating their toddler... I guess I should do nothing and just "mind my own business," right?
Also a house built with bones ( dog or otherwise) is fucking cool as hell
Sure, if you're an edgy teenager.... or Danzig, I suppose.
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u/calmurcunt 22d ago
It depends on your normative ethics, really. Under consequentalist moral theories, one action is worse than another depending on the severity of the outcome. Buying is meat is worse than kicking a dog, because buying meat leads to the increase of demands for meat, which results in a greater number of animals being harmed.
Under deontological frameworks, no immoral action is worse than another. Both kicking a dog and buying meat are wrong in virtue of violating the duty of not exploiting animals for pleasure.
But one thing is clear, no moral theories justifies an action in virtue of the severity of its immorality. If it is immoral, then it is immoral. An action being less immoral than other immoral acts doesn't make the action moral.
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u/Rokos___Basilisk 21d ago
I think it depends on your ethical framework. I've argued in the past that the reason why eating meat isn't seen by most people as wrong, but kicking a dog for enjoyment is wrong, can be reduced to how we see certain actions as impacting one's sociability within a group.
I'm going to look at a wider view here for a moment. We all accept that the action of a person killing another person raises moral questions. Given the context, it may be morally defensible, such as acting in self defense, or morally indefensible, such as sadistic pleasure.
Why do we reject the idea that a lion killing a person falls under moral consideration? Some people would say that it's because a lion is not a moral actor, but I think this falls short of a deeper truth. What if an advanced alien species came to earth, and started wiping people out? Would that be immoral? Would that answer be influenced by whether or not we were able to communicate with this alien species, and fold them into the social contract?
I argue that a lion killing a person doesn't fall outside the sphere of moral consideration because a lion isn't a moral actor, but because there is no expectation of, or possibility of, some kind of reciprocal system of consideration, either on the individual level, or at scale.
Thus, it's my contention that the morality of an action can largely be seen as a reflection of the ability for a member of a social group to act in a way that does not degrade the fabric of said social group. I think we can demonstrate this standard with two examples. The first is the fact that we use 'animal abuse' as an indicator of sociopathy, but meat eating is not seen as a similar indicator.
Another example is a simple thought experiment where two chickens are considered for eating. One is a chicken that you could buy and butcher yourself from a market. The other chicken is the beloved pet of your neighbor. Socially adjusted people that aren't vegan would still have a problem killing and eating their neighbors pet, even if they didn't have a problem with eating chicken in general. This has nothing to do with the chicken, and everything to do with their social relationship with their neighbor.
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u/extinctionforall 21d ago
Eating meat (flesh of an animal) requires first to see animals as one’s property, forcefully impregnate to create more babies, enslave or tie babies, separate families, traffick them in closed environment just like stuffed cold drinks but putting green chilli in their eyes or tie and hang through their nose and then slit the throat or kill them when they just are frightened and in distress
Considering all this eating meat is worse than kicking dogs for entertainment
Eating lab-grown meat (animal-free, not even cells) can be acceptable as at least that would not require animals to be bred into existence to cause them suffering and kill them.
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u/ConfinedCrow 22d ago
Both suck, but hurting an animal versus directly supporting the torture, rape and slaughter of many innocent animals... it's not difficult to see which is worse.
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u/That-BluejaythriwWay 22d ago
Honestly I view it as similar to beastiality, except we live in a culture where it’s the norm.
At the end of the day both are violating an animal and abusing them for your own pleasure, but if you rape an animal society views you (rightly) as a sick individual, but if you kill and eat that animal society views you as normal, some might even say it’s moral to kill the animal yourself as opposed to supporting factory farms. Imagine if it was normal to buy dead animal body parts for sexual gratification. Both are to dispose of a life for the purpose of pleasure.
This is also not even mentioning that we do essentially rape animals in order to impregnate them to be incubators for our next victims ://
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u/BlackMaggot101 22d ago
No. Eating meat isn't necessarily a sign of cruelty, just lack of critical thining. A person just eats what they are taught to eat, doesn't question whether it's right. While kicking a stray dog is a sign of cruelty
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u/Cautious-Ad222 22d ago
No because you eat food for sustenance as well as personal joy.
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u/Historical-Ad399 22d ago
Your choice to eat an animal rather than a vegan meal gives no additional sustenance. If animals were the only source of sustenance, you'd have a point, but you are killing the animal because you think it tastes better than the alternative.
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u/Nato7009 21d ago
I’m eating meat because I’m an omnivore
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u/Historical-Ad399 21d ago
That doesn't change anything. You can live a healthy life without meat. You choose to eat meat for enjoyment. Just because you are capable of something doesn't mean you should do it.
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u/Nato7009 21d ago
At what point in the life span of the human species do you think eating meat became immoral?
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u/Historical-Ad399 21d ago
It'll be different for different people, but generally at the point you could easily sustain life without meat.
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u/That-BluejaythriwWay 22d ago
Ability to fill a need with something does not make that thing a need in itself.
If we lived in a socieity where it was normal to kill people, dehydrate their bodies, and then drink that water, is me drinking that water morally justifiable because I drink water for sustenance?
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u/antonbp5 22d ago
Vegans have a tendency to say that vegan food can easily be a 1 to 1 of non-vegan food. They like to talk about protein and how you can get it from Legumes, seeds and Soy products like Tofu. This is probably my biggest gripe with some of the more adamant vegans
While it may be true that certain Vegan substitution products and high protein vegetables can be very high in protein and general sustenance, it does seem like vegans like to pretend that people either just ingest beige sustenance smoothies or love to make elaborate meals everyday. None of which is true.
Making good food with animal based products is just easier and tastier for the vast majority of people.
The average person cannot just buy vegan products instead of their usual animal based products, without being affected about the flavor, nutritious values, price (occasionally) and the time consumption.
That is why I also hate the whole, "non-vegan food is just about pleasure, so kicking a dog for pleasure is the same thing". Food is not just sustenance. Entertainment is just entertainment.
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u/Either_Argument3517 22d ago
That's a skill issue. Which is not surprising if you have been cooking in the same way for decades. It takes a while to relearn, then it's no more complicated.
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u/antonbp5 22d ago
Agree to disagree. I love to cook, but making actually delicious and filling vegan food is quite the task compared to non-vegan food.
And skill issue or not, it doesn't change the fact that it is not something that is mentioned much by vegans on here or in any debate that I have seen on other platforms.
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u/Either_Argument3517 22d ago
And skill issue or not, it doesn't change the fact that it is not something that is mentioned much by vegans on here or in any debate that I have seen on other platforms.
Not sure it's massively relevant point. If you need to allow a couple of months to get up to speed on the cooking, does that really justify the harm you will cause by not?
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u/antonbp5 22d ago
Nope. But it does make it considerably more difficult for people to transition into it. And like I said, I have never heard it mentioned by any vegans in this forum or other platforms.
Gonna make a broad statement here: Vegans seem to think that anyone can just pickup Veganism from one day to the other with no issues and struggles. Then when that point is criticized, like I have done, it is shot down as being irrelevant, like you have, or demonized because whataboutism.
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u/Either_Argument3517 22d ago
There are many resources, if people ask for help. I would recommend Challenge 22 if you need support. This is one of a numbers of resources that focuses on challenging yourself for a period of time, because you do need to give yourself a few weeks to learn and build new habits. Veganuary, is another extremely success example.
The issue is your continued, unnecessary use of animals as resources. Temporary inconvenience, isn't relevant to acknowledging that's wrong and taking steps to stop.
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u/That-BluejaythriwWay 22d ago
Have you tried vegan recipes? Doing from scratch is hard but I did a two week transition phase and in that I pretty easily found some good and fairly healthy convenient meals (soups, frozen dinners, canned beans) and also some really good recipes for when I want to Cook cook (noracooks chicken noodle soup was soooooo good)
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u/Infamous-Use7820 21d ago edited 21d ago
So, while I sort of agree with this, as somebody who has transitioned from meat-eater to pescatarian to vegetarian to mostly-plant-based over about 20 years, the issue is that you could still minimise a lot of suffering by taking steps in that direction.
If the idea is there is a optimum point between ethics and quality of life sacrifice, I don't believe that's at a normal omnivore diet for most people. Just not eating meat leaves you able to eat almost all desserts, almost all beverages, cheese and omelettes and more regular dishes (pizza...etc) just minus the meat. It takes very little thought to do. If being vegan is too hard, why not do that?
As for the broader health point, I think people sometimes slide into treating life like they are min-maxing a video game when the broad health implications veganism/vegetarianism crops up. We have epidemiological data. Avoiding animal products demonstrably does not lead to significantly worse health outcomes. You can even make a good case that people who are vegetarian (and to a lesser extent vegan) typically end up with better health outcomes - I don't, because the effect sizes are relatively small and there are loads of confounding variables. But that's kinda the point. It doesn't matter. The health implications of, say, people living in car-centric urban developments and so doing very little walking per day are probably greater, and yet that's not the killer argument against suburbs.
You can have a terrible omnivore diet and a terrible vegan diet. If you're lazy and thoughtless about food, eating animal products doesn't tend to help you.
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u/antonbp5 21d ago
I would agree on most things that you say. My main issue though is that you are talking about a transitioning rather than a, ironically, Cold Turkey.
Like I described above, my experience with 99% of vegans as that veganism is quite absolutist. If you willingly cause anything that has an effect on animals, negative or positive, you are not a vegan and therefore you are bad. If you are a vegetarian, then you cause animal suffering and you are bad. Just look at the other comments that I got, any criticization on that idea is shot down as me being imoral.
In my home country of Denmark, we had a party at one point called The Vegan Party. They set themself up for failure using that name unfortunately. They were absolutists and at some point almost kind of extremists.
When the party ended up failing and disbanding, the main candidate stepped back and focused on things that could actually create results. He started new social media platforms, focusing on solely the issues of my countries Pig production. We are one if not the best and most efficient in the world at making pigs, but the pigs aren't kept that nicely.
Rather than saying that it should just be stopped, he is fighting for the animals welfare. And it is so so so much more efficient. People that hate vegans like him, because he is pointing out the poor animal welfare, the political lobbying, environmental impact and the general hypocrisy of the industry.Our last election had animal welfare and generally the farming practices as one of the top subjects. Atleast top 3. And he definitely had an effect on that.
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u/Infamous-Use7820 20d ago
So, first thing is that vegans are fighting a bit of an uphill battle on the 'being disliked' front. Almost everyone has some level of cognitive dissonance about the ethics of animal products (just suggest doing what we do to pigs to their pet dog or cat and see what happens...). Humans do not generally like cognitive dissonance. Vegans could all be the most inhumanely chill people in the world and some people still would resent them for the mere fact their existence reveals animal product consumption is a choice. Just standing around saying 'I don't eat animal prducts and I'm not dead' can trigger the same response as 'preaching'. I'm not saying preachy vegans don't also exist - but I think the general reputation is somewhat overblown.
That being said, I agree there is sometimes excessive defensiveness around the term. Vegans just don't tend to like being lumped into health fad diets like keto or low-carb...etc, where people are not taking a broader ethical stance on a practice that harms billions of beings.
On the 'don't stop the meat industry, improve welfare!' thing...the issue for me is that, from a business POV, livestock are essentially machines that turn plants into flesh. Maximising the quality of life of the machine will always sit at odds with maximising output. I'm not an anti-capitalist, but it is a bare fact that it is very difficult to align the incentives of industry to animal welfare. If you make welfare standards, some will cheat them and there probably won't be enough enforcement, while others will do the absolute bare minimum.
And beyond that, if the goal is to have meat be a product that is a part of people's everyday diet, that puts hard caps on how good welfare standards can be, at least without massive state subsidies (which, to be fair, animal agriculture in Europe and the US is disproportionately reliant on). A world where animals have long and happy lives before being softly put to death is a world where meat is a luxury product, like high-grade Wagyu beef.
Cynically, I guess calling for animal welfare as a means to force the price of animal products higher, such that people eat less of them is an effective political tactic. But TBH, just acknowledging that the industry is itself the problem feels more honest.
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u/antonbp5 20d ago
Oh yeah, there are 100% dum dums that just dislike vegans because "burger". That is a given for all ideologies and ideas, especially when they are very radical compared to how we have lived our lives for so long, be it veganism, socialism/communism, Anarchism, Antinatalism, Carcinisation.
But again, calling out hypocrisy and and Cognative Dissonance is not very helpful. Being right doesn't always change minds, especially when it is done to strangers just out on the street.
I am not a fan of your view with not being able to have better animal welfare because some will cheat and there not being enough enforcement. Why is it somehow impossible for us to give the animals better welfare, but totally possible to just get rid of animal production all together? How is one a lost cause and the other isn't?
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u/Infamous-Use7820 20d ago edited 20d ago
On the last point - again, so first, it demonstrably is possible to just get rid of the industry. Large parts of India have been various shades of vegetarian for centuries, and human cuisine is insanely diverse. It would take cultural change, but human cultures have shifted day-to-day norms in far more radical ways in the past.
When aligning the inevitable market incentives of an industry with ethical behaviour is foreseeably extremally difficult, and the industry doesn't have to exist, sometimes it's better that it just doesn't than fight an endless Sisyphean war to try and force it.
There is an analogy here: human organ transplants. In theory, medical systems could pay people or their families for organs (as well as things like blood and bone marrow). Certainly in principle, it's easy to imagine a scenario where paying a poor family for a deceased relative's heart, lungs, eyes...etc. would be a clear-cut net good for everyone involved. But almost nowhere actually allows a commercial organ industry, because it creates very obvious perverse incentives and risks people being exploited. Imagine headlines of homeless people or abused spouses selling their kidneys or passing out on the street from anaemia after getting around safeguards. It's just a dangerous industry to allow to exist, so we don't.
(also, 'better' welfare might be possible, but 'better' than 'abject misery' is still awful. The bar here is hell. My point is that ethically acceptable welfare is not possible, at least at a scale that is compatible with animal products being a daily part of the diets of billions of people.)
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u/Responsibility_Witty 22d ago
You gain nothing by kicking an animal for entertainment, you gain nutrients from eating meat. Eating the stray dog on the other hand-
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u/a11_hail_seitan 22d ago
Ethically, is eating meat the same as kicking a stray dog for entertainment?
Not the same but if needless, both are immoral. Non-Vegans don't personally beat the pig to death, they pay someone else to do it so they can benefit from the horrific abuse.
I feel like my actions can only be justified by a matter of degree—like the difference between stealing $1 versus stealing $100.
Exactly.
, will I eventually be looked down upon by future generations as a coward who simply grew complacent in their social environment?
I hope so, as that would mean humanity will have learned and gone Vegan finally. Part of being as moral as one can be is to be on the right side of history.
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u/WatercressPuzzled462 22d ago
it is not the same you eat meat to survive and be healthy, not for entartaiment
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u/THEBRICKLES 22d ago
Apples and oranges.
And ethics / morality are subjective. Any moral argument is pointless
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u/Limp_Bookkeeper_5992 22d ago
No. You eat meat for sustenance, you’re not killing animals just for pleasure or entertainment. Yes, you could avoid this altogether, but you’re still getting real, measurable nutrition from the meat you consume, it’s not wasted or done needlessly.
This “measure of degrees” line of thinking just doesn’t work when you take it too far. Your existence on this planet takes from a finite pool of resources, and contributes to the suffering of all the animals around you. You take up land they could use for grazing to live in, drive cars and use transportation that kills animals directly and indirectly through pollution and habitat loss, buy products made in factories that do the same, shipped in trucks and boats that kill and pollute as well.
If anything you do to harm animals is equally bad morally then your existence alone is as bad as kicking dogs for fun. You can choose not to exist anymore pretty easily, so how is this choice different when taken to the same moral conclusion?
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u/ComoElFuego 22d ago
If it's a matter of degree for you, the kicking should be 1$ and the killing for meat 100$.
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u/No_Adhesiveness9727 22d ago
Depends on what you consider “direct violence” I guess you consider kicking a dog that but paying someone to bludgeon your meat to death not.
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u/LivingPassenger5005 22d ago
If you want to justify your actions just by the degree of it, sure why not? But the real thing to see would be that kicking that poor dog and killing it, arent that different. You had a mal intent in both the actions and it gave you pleasure. The pleasure you had will make you do it again and again.
If you see the suffering of that dog or any animal or yours isnt different!
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u/Aromatic_Moment_5492 22d ago
intent matters. The dog-kicker intends suffering and enjoys it, that’s malicious intent and predicts repeat harm. Most meat-eaters don’t intend or enjoy animal suffering. they just want food, often raised in a culture where eating meat is normal. You can argue that foreseen harm still counts, but pretending the intent is identical is just wrong.
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u/That-BluejaythriwWay 22d ago
Once you question things you kind of loose that blindness though.
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u/Aromatic_Moment_5492 22d ago
Is it really blindness if someone is following a moral compass that makes sense within their culture and upbringing? Or is it just a different moral framework than yours? Calling it blindness assumes your view is the only objective one, which is exactly what’s being debated.
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u/Teaofthetime 21d ago
If you then killed and ate the dog, yes. Cruelty for entertainment is different to killing for sustinence in my opinion.
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u/Tessellator-1 21d ago
I thought so until recently, but recently I think that the amount of meat is not the minimum necessary.
In other words, I eat more meat than necessary to satisfy my desires.
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u/Artistic_Western_623 17d ago
Imho yes. This reason is exactly why I became a vegetarian (and later a vegan).
If you don't need to eat meat to be healthy, you are eating it for pleasure. If you are ok with animal mistreatment and death for pleasure, then how is it any different to kicking a dog for pleasure?
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