>Here's a question to ponder: what are morals and these 'should's you describe meant for? For people to share common values so that we get along better, right?

Thats not really how morals are defined. That is just one oversimplified and fairly self serving definition of ethics.

But lets try this with your own view point: Try pondering the question you posed:

>what are morals and these 'should's you describe meant for?

Now since you believe common values help us get along, and you therefore believe that forms the basis of ethical decision, then your question needs to be:

"What common values do other people hold that may be different to mine?"

It may come as a shock to you, that there is whole world of people and even animals and insects, that don't share your views - that see the world through totally different eyes. If they don't contribute to your idea of a common value, does that make them worthless and irrelevant to the world, the world they live in.

By stomping on the cockroach (for no reason beyond what you like and don't like) - you are saying it has no value in your life, and therefore should not exist.

To be honest, this isn't about morality - its about having a basic respect for anything that lives. Why, given the chance, would you not have this respect?

(Edited: formatting)

Ok let's be very clear about this - I stomp on a cockroach because I feel like it. I don't think and ponder that it should not exist anymore than I wonder if tea in a cup should not exist in the cup as I drink it.

I happen to have what you call 'basic respect' for living things, I find a dude snapping the neck of a rabbit 'icky'.

I see that as me having grown up in a city and never having to snap necks to make a meal that evening. If I end up living on a farm, I'm sure I'll quickly get used to snapping necks of chickens and rabbits no problem.

See, your whole argument boils down to 'why aren't you more like me? Isn't being like me better than being like you?'

That's one point of view, I'd much prefer other people be more like me as well, so that I can get along with them better etc. I just recognize that that's simply a self-serving preference.

> See, your whole argument boils down to 'why aren't you more like me? Isn't being like me better than being like you?'

If you want to make that point, please support it with an explanation to why and how I have led you to believe that? because I genuinely don't follow your logic.

>Ok let's be very clear about this - I stomp on a cockroach because I feel like it.

And you call that respect?

That isn't what I call a basic respect for living things. Finding a rabbits neck breaking "icky", also isn't a basic respect. If you could provide a reason for killing, like a health one, I might start to understand.

Let me try another tack thats a bit more 'on topic'. What behavior would a cockroach have to exhibit before you treat it like a human?

(Edited: formatting.. again)

When using vague terms such as 'basic respect' - the onus is on you to be very clear what you mean by it.

Basic as opposed to what, can you also define intermediate and advanced respects while you're at it?

When you introduce vague terminology, the last thing you should do is criticize the person trying to work through your lack of conciseness.

Ironically, it potentially shows lack of 'respect' for my time :)

>What behavior would a cockroach have to exhibit before you treat it like a human?

Human behavior. Awareness of social context. Learning, speech, and advanced decision-making and planning skills. Is that just a poorly-thought-out question?

Humans who lack these skills tend to get boxed up, put in cells, and treated like cattle, too.

I'm trying to provoke some thought about how we ascribe value to living things (and trying to relate it to the views of the person I was responding to). I was also trying to keep the debate relevant to the original article. Does that make any more sense?

Its an interesting set of qualities you ascribe to being human. does lacking all these (or some) of these make you worth less as a human? does it make you a 'cockroach'?

Some cultures certainly treat people with learning difficulties worse than cattle. Others love, support and engage them - understanding the world through their eyes too.

> Why do I have to give eating salmon any thought?

The same reason you would give thought to killing a Golden Retriever for food. Due to indoctrinated beliefs, people think it's alright to kill certain animals for food, but not others, and when asked why, the logical inconsistencies become very apparent. See http://www.carnism.org/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6U00LMmC4

> Am I supposed to justify stomping on a cockroach too? Where does this moralizing end?

Any killing is self-defense in always justified. However, if there's an opportunity to practice non-violence, why not take it?

Ok so your position boils down to 'why not?'

My answer is because I don't feel like it on that day. Sometimes I feel like practicing non-violence, other days I feel like practicing it and letting off some steam.

There is no inherent moral virtue in not picking up a stick when walking through a forest and slashing tall grass as you walk around.

Now if tall grass can express discontent similar to human discontent and you happily ignore it, then the issue is that you're likely to inflict human violence with no second thought.

THAT societies don't like. But don't get it twisted with empty moralizing - we want people to feel bad about violence to prevent violence to other humans within our tribe, that's it.

You've explained the inherent problem I believe to be facing humanity today - apathy and lack of empathy. We can't accept violence if we want to live in a free and peaceful society. All oppression has to eventually fall by the wayside and taking the opportunity to not torture many sentient animals is a good way to help.

> you can recognize that fantasizing about a world that's impossible given human nature is simply a waste of time.

I'm a vegan - I'm not fantasizing, I'm actually living in accordance with my beliefs.

I see where you're coming from - it's an idealistic point of view.

We have violence, violence is bad, if we want peace, we need to get rid of it.

Makes sense.

Is that realistic on any level? No.

So either you can stick to idealistic notions and claim that the world is messed up because people are not like you, or you can recognize that fantasizing about a world that's impossible given human nature is simply a waste of time.

Fantasizing about a better world is a good coping strategy that I use myself. I just don't believe it to be anything but a coping strategy. At the end of the day, I need a strategy to change the real world I'm living in, to my liking.

Telling people 'why not be more like me?' is not a very good strategy :) I dare say you actually lack the nuanced understanding of the world to actually make it the way you want it.

Let's put 100 people of your choosing, the ones with least apathy and most empathy on the planet, on an island. How well are you going to do?

What if they're a bunch of non-apathetic, empathetic idiots? They light themselves on fire trying to make a campfire, they chop off their own fingers cutting up salad, but they are so empathetic towards each other.

A few days later, you're all dead.

The inherent problem is people are dumb - your current beliefs on what's wrong with people falls in the naive category. THAT is the problem - there's no lack of empathy, there's lack of intelligence. Lack of empathy is mostly short sightedness - most people don't think of anything but themselves and their immediate family because they're dumb, not because they are apathetic, they don't have the capacity for much is all.

To play devil's advocate:

I see from another comment that you are Vegan, so how did you make the distinction of what living things are acceptable to eat, and which are not? Plants are just as alive as mammals, fish or insects; so if it isn't 'life' that you are preserving, what exactly is it? some idea of consciousness? intelligence? How does something like Honey fit into your view of this issue?

Further, how do you justify your greater reliance than meat eaters on migrant underpaid labor? Is human suffering for your nutrition preferable to animal suffering?

Isnt this just a game of semantic false moral superiority until there is a nutrition source that is completely death and suffering free?

> Plants are just as alive as mammals, fish or insects

Two things: plants aren't sentient and animals also eat plants - many, many times more plants than vegans do. So if you truly regard plant and animal life to be the same, it would behoove you to immediately stop eating animals! It's very obvious how this argument falls flat on its face when brought to the light of critical thinking.

> how do you justify your greater reliance than meat eaters on migrant underpaid labor?

This is just conjecture, but I'll try and answer anyway. You can be vegan and care about how workers are treated. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Personally, I grow most of my food myself, but obviously this isn't practical for most people. Why not turn this question around and ask, how are slaughterhouse workers treated and what their experience must be like?

> Isnt this just a game of semantic false moral superiority until there is a nutrition source that is completely death and suffering free?

Pretty ironic to hear this from someone who beliefs him or herself to be superior to animals, and justifies their destruction. It's not a game of semantics - in fact, it's not a game at all. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of climate change. You can be coy all you want, but you are actively contributing to the problem by consuming animal products.

>plants aren't sentient

Is a venus fly trap sentient? Is a cricket sentient? Is a starfish sentient? Is a worm sentient? How about trees that communicate with other trees nearby?[1][2]

>and animals also eat plants

Plants also eat animals[3] animals also eat other animals, so i dont understand how this is an argument.

>This is just conjecture

61% of all farmworkers have incomes below pverty level, average life expectancy subtanstially lower than rest of population[4]

cites migrants earning 7500$ per year, 52% having no legal status in US[5]

>Why not turn this question around and ask, how are slaughterhouse workers treated and what their experience must be like?

you could certainly make that argument, but i dont think its likely to mirror agricultural migrant labor

>Pretty ironic to hear this from someone who beliefs him or herself to be superior to animals, and justifies their destruction.

Thats quite a label to apply to someone you've never met and whose never said anything like that.

You seem to believe you are superior to plants though...

[1]https://karban.wordpress.com/research/ [2]http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden... [3]http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/publications/volunteer/young_na... [4]http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/migrants.html [5]http://articles.extension.org/pages/9960/migrant-farm-worker...

You're making straw man arguments. Humans don't breed, enslave and kill billions of starfish, crickets and worms. Do you see what you're doing? Rather than acknowledge we're harming many animals which are no doubt sentient, you're appealing to fringes to bolster an illogical argument. I'm not surprised - many carnists take refuge in the plant-killing argument as a last resort. It's fascinating what lows the human mind will reach to justify cruelty. And so what if animals kill other animals? Do you really think that's a reason to act the same? Why pick this behavior, and not the one in which animals commit infanticide or sniff each other's rear ends?

> You seem to believe you are superior to plants though

The only one I'm superior to is myself when I still paid for the abuse of animals.

>Humans don't breed, enslave and kill billions of starfish, crickets and worms.

But we do breed, enslave and kill trillions of carrots, apples, potatoes, tomatoes, etc

But again, you have made it clear you feel that some life is not as valuable, namely plant life - so it is morally acceptable from your view to kill plants but not animals because of the difference in the value of life.

Thats good for you but i am interested in hearing arguments from someone who doesn't just ignore uncomfortable facts.

The plant-killing argument is extremely trite and appealing to it to justify the animal holocaust just shows you are desperate for any reason to keep engaging in animal abuse. Please - do have the humility to read again and see just how ridiculous your arguments have been. Claiming vegetables are enslaved and killed is just silly and you know it. What's more, I've repeatedly told you more plants are killed for livestock feed, but somehow you choose not to address this apparent contradiction.

you actually completely fabricated what you think my views are, i'm justifying nothing and my position is still unstated.

I'm simply exploring a philosophical question, while you are obviously defending your lifestyle choices.

That philosophical question being how can one type of life be valued more than another, or how do you justify a moral position of life is precious while simultaneously ending life daily for nourishment. this is a quandary literally every human on the planet faces, no one is attacking veganism, or you , or your choices.

How you are missing that this is my argument, and continually projecting me as some one dimensional 'vegans are even worse than meat eaters' is quite confounding to me.

> Two things: plants aren't sentient

I don't think there is any coherent and useful definition of sentience for which no plants are sentient but all animals are sentient.

There is a very clear and obvious distinction between the plant and animal kingdoms. Any attempts to qualify both as the same when it comes to their destruction is just a coy way to rationalize unethical behavior. Like I said, even if it were true that plants feel pain the same as animals, one would still be compelled to go vegan, since animals "kill" more plants than people do by eating them directly.

> There is a very clear and obvious distinction between the plant and animal kingdoms.

Sure, but whether the things which make up that distinction have particular ethical significance is a different question. And I have yet to see any definition of sentience for which both of the following are true:

(1) It does, in fact, apply to all animals and no plants, and

(2) Most people would agree that it has ethical significance.

In fact, I haven't seen any definition of sentience for which even (1) alone is true.

> Like I said, even if it were true that plants feel pain the same as animals, one would still be compelled to go vegan, since animals "kill" more plants than people do by eating them directly.

That seems to a apply a utilitarian standard of ethics, not the categorical one which is usually in arguing that veganism is an ethical compulsion (under the categorical ethics usually applied to argue for veganism, recognizing plants as sentient would make eating either inexcusable, even if it were a survival necessity.)

Once you accept that its a utilitarian matter, determining that something is ethically demanded requires agreeing to a particular ethical calculus -- a method of aggregating utilities and disutilities experienced by different participants. And there's an infinite number of possible functions that can be used, and they can support any possible conclusion.

> under the categorical ethics usually applied to argue for veganism, recognizing plants as sentient would make eating either inexcusable

Veganism is the ethical position that animals should not be exploited for food, clothing and other purposes. If you want to start a Compassion for Carrots organization, be my guest, but please don't form conjecture on others' behalf. You've also not yet provided evidence for plants' sentience, so you haven't actually given reason for considering the abuse of animals to be ethical or acceptable.

>You've also not yet provided evidence for plants' sentience

So you dont care about the morality of ending life, you only care about the morality of ending sentient life - got it.

I'm glad you were finally able to realize the distinction between sentient and non-sentient life. Nice talking with you!

oh so you ignored my central point all along adn instead took my philosophical question of all life vs some life, and decided to defend veganism against a phantom attack.

Well you win, veganism is definitely the superior lifestyle choice, you are a better person than everyone on earth who isnt vegan. There are zero philosophical or moral quandries that exist within veganism, especially with respect to the value of life.

This is exactly what i was getting at, but vastly more well worded

...and harvesting those plants kills millions of rodents per section. A plant diet is quite arguably more devastating to animal life than a meat one.

> A plant diet is quite arguably more devastating to animal life than a meat one.

No, a person could not credibly make that argument. Don't forget that the meat-providing animals have to eat plant material.

So you have the same problems of the vegan diet, plus the inefficiency of the plant-to-meat conversion, plus killing of the meat animals.

A cow grazing a pasture is not killing the mice in that pasture. Its true that winter fodder (hay) requires cutting the field (three times over the summer). But that isn't the same as plowing, planting, cultivating and for some crops, digging to harvest. So grass-fed beef is absolutely several orders of magnitude less devastating to animal life. One cow is killed to feed several people. Instead of millions of rodents killed to provide potatoes.

The worldwide premeditated killings of 60 billion land animals in slaughterhouses and 90 billion marine animals in the waterways are diametrically opposed to the accidental tractor-killings in a field. Slaughterhouses intentionally kill animals for meat, dairy and egg-eaters. How many farmers do you know intentionally crushing gophers, mice and snakes with their John Deeres?

Every single mouse, snake and gopher in the field is killed by plowing, spraying, cultivating and harvesting. By the millions per section. The ground under the shade of a field of corn is essentially sterile. Enough denial; its absolutely disastrous to animal life to farm vegetables and grains.

Okay, but it's even more disastrous to animal life to farm animals. Over 150 billion animals are bred and killed on purpose. A billion is a thousand times more than a million, by the way. Using the argument that some animals are inadvertently killed as a byproduct of crop production, especially when the overwhelming majority of those crops are grown for livestock, is just logically fallacious and dishonest.

Hey a section is one square mile. So Iowa has over 50,000 sections. 90% under cultivation. Most for grain, not for animals. So in Iowa alone, we've about met that number. Add in California, Illinois, Nebraska and so on and we zoom past that number.

Of course we do. There are thousands of rodents for every cow. This is a silly discussion. Its a pity it makes Vegans seem responsible for billions of deaths, but there it is.

And I seriously doubt that 15 farm animals are killed for every man, woman and child on the planet. That's gotta be fiction.

Both everything I and you have said can easily be verified with simple Google searches. You are being dishonest if you think more animals are killed by vegans than meat, dairy and egg eaters, or just trying to start a flame war. Either way, I think you've learned some interesting things through our discussion and I hope you'll consider it with less personal bias in the future.

I hope you've learned something too. That nothing comes free; that just because you don't see the killing doesn't mean you're innocent. That the entire subject has no easy answers.

Beef cows need very much more food than pasture grazing.

Not around here. In Iowa, they're grass fed for most of their lives.

or you still have the exact same singular problem:

You kill things in order to survive.

Full stop.

Meat eaters, vegans, pescatarians, vegetarians, whatever - they all survive by killing other living things and consuming them.

I was wondering the opinion of someone who was making good passionate arguments against the consumption of meat on the basis that it is immoral to kill and eat living things.

I guess wondering how that user feels about this philosophical quandary is downvote worthy though

The definition of veganism is, a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.

It's not about pursuing some ideal in which no one gets hurt. It's also ludicrous to argue that "killing" plants is in any way comparable to killing actual animals. Check out this site, it very accurately and in a straightforward manner discredits all of the arguments you've made against veganism in this thread so far - http://adaptt.org/veganism.html#

I'm responding directly to an argument based on it being morally wrong to kill living things, specifically to kill some living things but not others (cows but not golden retrievers).

I am not making arguments against veganism, i am asking a philosophical question in response to a moral position. Please understand i am not attacking you or your lifestyle

My argument was, again, how do you use a moral justification of 'killing things is wrong' to change from one lifestyle of killing things, to another lifestyle of killing different things?

Why is cow vs golden retriever so important, but golden retriever vs potato completely laughable? You are still ending life to nourish your body no matter what. Both a cow and a potato cause and have external costs as well (i would say methane from cows is less or equally concerning as pesticides)

> Why is cow vs golden retriever so important, but golden retriever vs potato completely laughable? You are still ending life to nourish your body no matter what.

This is what Jainists believe and they actually avoid root vegetables for this reason. I'd like to see you make the same argument for fruit, for example. Do you think "killing" a fruit is the same as killing a cow? Do you really think a fruit's life is "ended" when I bite into it? If so, you're just appealing to ridicule and I'm not sure this conversation is worth having.

> i would say methane from cows is less or equally concerning as pesticides

The methane emitted from cattle farming is literally one of the largest contributors to climate change. To say it's less concerning than the use of pesticides shows a deep ignorance of the contradicting evidence, or confusion.

>I'd like to see you make the same argument for fruit, for example.

Why is cow vs golden retriever so important, but golden retriever vs apple completely laughable? You are still ending life to nourish your body no matter what.

Oh and i doubt you will have that opinion if bees are eradicated worldwide due to pesticides and we all die off

But there used to be millions of buffalo roaming the American Midwest. They produced methane too. So this isn't some new issue, right?

It ends when you finally recognize that killing the cockroach is arbitrary and unnecessary.

Unnecessary for your personal survival? That's true, but it's a very limited perspective to take. Cockroaches are known to affect our species' health adversely (e.g., http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11240940). If you wish to reduce their and other insects' unnecessary suffering without compromising the interests of humans, a better thing to advocate for is that we use more humane pesticides (http://effective-altruism.com/ea/nx/humane_pesticides_as_the...), not that we refrain from killing them.

You move in to a new apartment. Your first night, at 2 am, you hear a noise. You turn on the bedside lamp and see several cockroaches scurry under your bed. What do you do?

I used to live in India, that's the norm. We lived with them. The trick is that there's other things that eat cockroaches, that we also lived with, so it doesn't get too much of an issue. A house is part of an ecosystem, not a sterile environment.

For the record, it's almost guaranteed that any rice you eat in India has had cockroaches in the rice sack. Not a lot you can do about it. That's why we wash and cook things.

That's interesting, thanks.

Now, admitting that I'm largely ignorant about conditions in India, and recognizing that it's a very large country with wide variations--is it not the case that public health in India is generally worse than in more developed nations where e.g. cockroaches would be considered a pest to be eliminated, partially for health reasons? If so, could that attitude toward them be part of the reason for the worse public health? I'm asking out of curiosity; this is not an assertion. :)

Quite possibly. On the other hand... we have immune systems for a reason - I see people in my developed country now who seem to become ill every month, and I do wonder whether our insistence on keeping a close-to-sterile environment has something to do with that. And in any case, there's more pressing issues like the general lack of clean water, even in many cities - all water should be boiled, but that doesn't always happen.

Why would you not seal the sack? Seriously. That is what I do with food if I know there are roaches in the neighborhood. Trust me, no roaches are getting in my food.

They're great huge sacks of rice - you can maybe fold over the top, but short of putting duct tape over it every time you need more rice, there's no sealing to do. I'm sure many people do that anyway, but I wouldn't trust many restaurants to, nor many shops.