Veganise Me

I just received a comment on another post that expressed this view. I’ve found that many people hold onto this idea and use it to justify continuing to consume animal products. Here is how I responded.

First of all, there’s absolutely no way to know that animals don’t think. Just because they don’t communicate in any verbal human languages does not mean they don’t think. For all we know, cows are smarter than Einstein, but they choose to never talk and to instead eat grass all day. Anyhow, there is actually plenty of scientific evidence that animals do think. Pigs can play video games for a food reward. Rats can solve mazes. Gorillas can communicate with humans using sign language. And even if we could prove that animals couldn’t think, the important thing is that they certainly do feel. Babies and mentally handicapped people don’t think anything like human adults can. Should we kill and eat them too? The ability to think like a human should not be the grounds for moral consideration. What shapes most moral codes? Usually, they are tied in with feelings. They often have an ultimate goal of maximizing happiness and/or minimizing pain and suffering – both which deal with emotional or physical feelings. Let’s say there is someone who can only think and not feel at all (kind of like an android or complex computer) – no pain, no emotions, no desires – murdering this “person” wouldn’t be so bad (as long as they had no family who could feel emotions and grieve) precisely because there could be no fear, disappointment, or pain, but switch that hypothetical situation around – if someone could not think at the level of a human being but could feel 100%, death would still be a terrifying, painful experience. And that is why we base morals on feelings.
It is obvious that animals feel pain and emotions. This requires far less proof than the claim that animals can think. Anyone who has ever lived with a cat or dog knows that animals have emotions and can feel pain. Animals also have families and care for their offspring, just like humans do. They also show great distress when they or their offspring are in danger, just like humans do. There is even an account of a cat who kept returning into a burning building to carry each of her kittens to safety, even though she was already badly burned.
The thing is we don’t need meat to live. The only reason we kill is for taste. Is it truly worth putting a sentient being through hell (and I do mean hell – http://www.watchearthlings.com) just to have a few minutes of pleasure?

Here is an excellent post that elaborates on the issue of the value of human vs. nonhuman life – http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/peter-singer-and-the-welfarist-position-on-the-lesser-value-of-nonhuman-life/

Last month, I came across this comment on a Philadelphia Vegan Examiner post.

sooo… i don’t understand the “exploited animal” thing.

is a dog that serves as a seeing eye animal, a dog that is well feed/cared for/loved, and then put to sleep at the end of his/her life exploited?

what is the role of an animal? are pets okay? are they not supposed to play a role in our society at all? we domesticated animals to serve a purpose in our society, was that wrong?

i guess what i don’t understand about vegans is what they think animals are for. i mean, i think everyone earns its keep. like on a farm. horses work, chickens give eggs, dogs herd and protect.

Here is my response. I may want to elaborate more on this in the future, but I think I already hit one of the most important points that I would have wanted to make in that post.

Vegans are concerned because animals are exploited for unnecessary commercial products. The fact is that we can live healthfully and abundantly without consuming any animal products.

You can’t compare seeing-eye dogs and dogs as pets to animals exploited for food or clothing products. Dogs in these cases are usually seen as more than property – a beloved member of a family, like a child. Do you consider it “exploiting” your children because you force them to live under your care until they’re adults? Vegans are divided on the issue of seeing-eye dogs, but at least the dog is performing a very noble service that GREATLY helps a person and GREATLY enriches his or her quality of life for many years. Farm animals are usually treated terribly, kept in awful conditions, and killed in pain and dread just so someone can have a momentary gustatory pleasure that’s not even healthy – like a burger or a sausage.

As to your question – “why are animals here?” Let me ask you why are you here? Why am I here? Why is anyone here? There is no objective answer to this question. Wouldn’t it be best if we all let each other (including our fellow earthlings) decide the peaceful course of his or her own life?

Also, chickens don’t “give” eggs as much as you don’t “give” eggs to anyone when you ovulate. They are your eggs, not anyone else’s. Eggs are just part of a chicken’s menstrual cycle, and the nutrients found in eggs are there for the baby chick to eat as he or she grows. Not all dogs herd and protect. What about chihuahuas? Should we find them another purpose – kill them for meat perhaps? Most horses only work because we’ve forced them to and “broken” their spirits into being terrified to do anything but what we tell them. It’s almost as if you’re saying if something doesn’t have a clear purpose for human benefit, then we need to give them one no matter how much it infringes on their right to live life as they want. What would you say about a severely mentally handicapped human who can’t do much of anything and has no living family? What is that person here for? They can’t work a job and contribute to society. They don’t have a family to make happy. In fact, they’re probably a drain on society because tax dollars have to support them. But why do we allow them to live in society and still support them? Because life is valued by many as sacred. And vegans extend that reverence for life that most humans have for other human life to include animals as well. Believe it or not, some people used to say, what good are black people for anything other than to pick cotton as slaves? It’s the view that we can define another sentient, emotional being’s life that gets us into trouble.

Vegans get asked a wide assortment of questions, since at present, our lifestyle APPEARS to diverge so much from the mainstream. Some questions can be answered with a quick Google search or off the top of one’s head, but others are serious issues that require much prior thought. These are the kinds of questions I would like to address. I will address questions from both the serious, contemplative nonvegan and the nonvegan who seeks to be exceedingly annoying and attempts to invalidate veganism with a single objection to the lifestyle. The first question I will present in this series is one I personally received from a nonvegan of the former type.

If you could have a pet cow that you could milk yourself (painlessly) to get butter, cheese, milk – would you eat dairy products? Continue reading

We all know that people have many different motivations for being veg*n, such as concern for animals and/or the environment or health reasons. But I know few who become vegan, citing political beliefs as their main motivation. So I’d like to post @jordanbsanders ’s reason for being vegan.

Leafy recently posted a debate between animals-as-property abolitionist Gary Francione and libertarian philosopher Jan Narveson. I was appalled at Narveson’s stance that if it is in humans’ interests (even in the trivial interests of entertainment or fashion), it is entirely morally acceptable to torture an animal in any conceivable way. To him, it’s “weird,” but we shouldn’t ever stop anyone from doing it. I presume his reasoning is that he wouldn’t want to interfere with a person’s “freedom” to torture another feeling being.

For context, this was originally posted on a private forum with about twenty (non-veg*n) members.

The longer I remain vegan and think about my motivations for being so, I’ve realized that they stem from larger societal issues. This is the point where this post might start offending people, and I truly do not mean it to. Any examples I provide or situations I describe are not directly pointed at anyone, least of all anyone here. I don’t know anyone here very well (or even decently well), so this is just a statement of how I feel. (More direct disclaimer: Every thing said in this post is directly from my point of view. The topics herein contained are stated as facts. Their factness may remain debatable to some, but from my point of view, they are fact. I believe wholeheartedly that there is no such thing as objective/absolute truth so read what I say with that lens. )

I don’t much like labels, but one of the most fitting labels for me is Libertarian. While I will not completely identify myself with that political party, I agree with basically all of their tenets. To me, it all means one thing – freedom. You should be free to do whatever you want to do, however you want to do it, for as long as you want to do it so long as you don’t infringe on another’s right to do the same. Any restriction on this is an outside party/force trying to control behavior for his/her/its/their own purposes. Manipulation of a population is a heinous crime and is the antithesis of freedom. That being said, if humans are guaranteed this (and I know they aren’t but ultimately, that is what I hope for), why are animals not?

The answer to that question boils down to one simple belief. Humans are superior to animals. If one believes this, I counter with a simple, “why?” If it is because we possess greater mental capacity, I might remind you (generic you, not the reader) that the one (and practically only) advanced ability that humans have over animals is the ability to recognize “complex” patterns. Yet, I find it disheartening that this ability receives very little reward in our society. The people who make the most money are not the ones who have mastered this defining characteristic of our species, but are the ones who have mastered their physical bodies to play games. We are “superior” to animals yet our largest forms of entertainment of at the same level of the entertainment of animals. If we are that similar to animals, then perhaps a higher authority has deemed humans as a “superior” species. Regardless of one’s belief in said higher power, I personally must go back to what I said in the last paragraph – manipulation of a population is a heinous crime and is the antithesis of freedom. If this “higher power” has decreed that we are “superior” that that power is manipulating us by infusing an alien belief structure into us. While it is generally easier to remain ignorant of this lack of self-definition, I do not feel that I can accept that.

So, all of that being said, I feel that animals are neither superior nor inferior to humans. Humans are animals. In that light, the meat industry is akin to slavery in that a group of people are restricting the life of other individuals to make a significant gain from the life of that individual whereas on the other side of the coin, the individual is not allowed to live a natural life. This is a grave injustice. It is sickening to me the more I think about it. I cannot support something which betrays my most base moral code…the prevalence of justice (what can I say, I’m a Libra).

I sincerely hope that this post was not taken as a sermon. I have no right to tell you that what you feel/believe is wrong. In fact, I am a moral relativist, but that does not quell the fire of my own beliefs. There are about a billion other related topics about which I have an unyielding blaze of criticism/commentary, and I hope that I can one day discuss these things rationally with rational people such as are here. I welcome any critiques of my post/thoughts and would love to start a dia/tria/more-alogue about the subjects and any related (or non-related) ones.

Here is Part 2, as promised. (Part 1 here) Friend posted this a couple weeks later, and then I commented on it. Let me know if my arguments make any sense!

Friend

Let me start by assuring you that I never come to conclusions on an issue–never toe a moral line–without an almost excessive amount of deliberation, and even then, my mind is never fully made up. That is why I love discourse like this between two people who can civilly debate in the hope that both will come out better than they started.

It is for this reason that I’ve decided against my original idea of posting a contiguous essay (the first draft of which clocked in–unfinished–at over 11 pages), because I do not simply want to be seen as trying to bury the issue in words. I’d much rather argue fairly brief, focused points that I hope will garner response, which, in turn, can be responded to.

I also have to say that, though we disagree, I have incredible respect for your position. It really is nothing short of courageous to be empathetic beyond the realm of your species. I consider myself an extremely open-minded person and have always found it easy to empathize with those of other genders, races, cultures and religions, but the extra-species gap is one I haven’t bridged.

I do want to state that my perspective of our species is not grounded in any sort of us-and-them morality. I very much understand your closing point–that we as humans are animals. But at the same time, we both know that we as humans are far removed from anything else in the animal kingdom. Which is how I’d like to begin. Continue reading

I posted the following as a note on Facebook a while ago.  It was around the time that in California, Prop 2, a VERY modest farm animal welfare reform passed, but Prop 8, a ban on gay marriage passed as well.  It’s not the most well-designed and thought out piece on the issue. It was really just a quick expression of my feelings, so please pardon any incoherence. Here it is…

November 6, 2008 -

My friend, whom I have known since I was about 3 or 4 years old, sparked quite a bit of conversation this morning with his status….

Friend

And don’t get me started on how, in California, animal rights apparently outweigh human civil rights.via Twitter

Lindsey

I wouldn’t call what those animals got in return for the passing of that proposition “rights.” Just a BIT less horror and discomfort in their short, tortured lives for the overfed gluttons of this country. Even if you do endorse the exploitation of animals, don’t you believe that they somehow deserve at least a little less inhumane treatment?
Perhaps you aren’t implying you are against what Prop 2 did, but I don’t think you can compare the two propositions – since Prop 2 really didn’t give those animals any rights. They are still innocent, emotional, sentient beings who remain prisoners and cannot live their lives as they will.
But I do think that’s crazy that the human civil right to which you refer got overturned.
I guess as we treat our animals, so we treat our people we feel are sub-humans.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not for more animal rights and less human rights. I am for more human AND animal rights equally.

[personal comments removed]

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