Hacker News Reader

Comment by nicklo | Hacker News Reader

Do you not find it unethical to serve your in-laws fake meat without informing them?

Wouldn't you be upset if your in-laws served you seitan that was actually chicken?

*edit: I bring this up because many people do not react well to meat substitutes. Gluten and soy intolerance affects many people and serving soy or gluten-based meat substitutes without prior informed consent can induce adverse reactions. I do believe that veganism in morally superior to carnivorism, but that still doesn't grant the right to trick others into consuming meat substitutes without their informed consent.

View on HN

I almost covered this case because I knew someone would (reasonably) ask, but didn't for length.

I checked everyone's dietary restrictions beforehand. I served fake meat without informing them at my wife's request, because she knew her father (who is stubborn southerner) and brother (who is mentally handicapped) would both refuse to like it immediately. (A visit to an all-vegetarian restaurant would later prove her correct).

In all other circumstances where I've served fake meat to others it's been very openly labeled and/or pointed out.

I'm inclined to agree with everything you've said, but Thanksgiving with the in-laws is a special moral situation, vegetarian or not :)

Thanks for clearing that bit up. Glad that dietary considerations were made :)

I'm sure the parent would be upset if secretly served chicken, not because they would feel defrauded, but because they were tricked intol violating their ethical principles.

Secretly serving non-vegetarians vegetarian food is, technically, fraud, but it's not disrespecting their morality. That fraud might be slightly immoral (I don't think it is, but it's a topic for debate), but it's easily offset by the potential for convincing someone to become vegetarian.

as the parent poster in question:

* I think it was absolutely unethical of me. But it's one of those unethical things you do with in-laws, and falls within "white lies" territory as long as am I'm not endangering anyone's health nor causing them to violate moral principles.

* It was done simply to serve food we'd all eat, it was not my goal nor intention to "convert" anyone. Personally, I don't try to convert people beyond example and offering my reasonings when socially appropriate.

* I would consider tricking me into eating meat as worse than tricking someone to eat more non-meat than they would. That doesn't make what I did less of a trick.

Hell, no.

People may be eating what they choose to eat with just as much moral conviction as your vegetarianism. That is not for you to decide.

You have no right to deceive others about what they are putting into their body, let alone in hopes of "convincing" or converting them.

You have no right to physically force your own morality upon others without their informed consent.

Think about what you have just argued for here.

It helps not to get too theoretical when it comes to morality. Someone that eats turkey and not vegetables out of moral conviction? That's not a sane thing to worry about and compensate for. There is a 0% chance of that being the case. If you worried about preferences that obscure/made-up you'd forbid every category of food, every color of food, every texture of food...

On top of that, it's very likely that every ingredient in the "turkey loaf" was something that would not be out of place in an actual turkey loaf. In other words, no ingredients being secretly added, just one being removed.

You happen to be wrong, I am a counterexample (I don't eat soy, and yes, for moral reasons), but I won't explain, because I don't have to. And what I am saying is that I shouldn't have to. Sure, you can decide to believe whatever you want on your own, but when it makes you justify feeding things to me that I have resolved not to eat, that's downright violating.

I meant someone whose morality specifically insists that there be bird meat. Sorry for being unclear.

So again here there is a difference adding a problem ingredient, and there being an ingredient you don't put in. For the former you need to ask about dietary restrictions and respect that. Which they did. For the latter, I don't think you're in much risk of violating anyone's moral system.

You're making a lot of assumptions: I'm not a vegetarian, first of all. My point is simply that tricking someone into eating tofurkey is objectively more moral than tricking them into eating turkey, because both involve equal trickery, but it is incredibly improbable that anyone has moral objections to tofurkey (and in the specific case, this was a certainty). With a stranger it's more complicated because they might have a soy allergy or some compelling reason other than ethics to avoid the fake meat, but that's not relevant to the specific situation.

Fine, but you being vegetarian wasn't part of my objection. You're the one making assumptions. I don't eat tofu for ethical reasons, and I shouldn't have to justify them over your own to prevent you from violating my bodily integrity by deception if I were to eat at your table. Your argument is still deplorable and morally corrupt.

In spite of my better judgement, I'll continue this discussion. What could possibly be your moral objection to soy? Is it GMO related? If it's Monsanto's abusive practices toward farmers, how is eating turkey any different, considering the similar entrapment practices of the poultry industry? If it's because you object to the idea of GMOs, then have you considered that GMO practices could help develop crops for cultivation in hunger-stricken areas, and that GMOs can enable the use of pesticides that are less damaging to the environment? How do you justify that objection when it stifles progress that could save lives? It seems similar to objections to stem cell research.

If it's unrelated to GMOs, I'm genuinely interested in what your objection might be.

There are people concerned about how soy might disrupt the endocrine system, and who don't broadcast this concern the way vegetarians do. Tricking them into eating it anyway is definitely unethical.

If his inlaws have expressed a definite desire to not eat vegetables, then you're correct that it would be unethical.

Most people don't do that. It seems reasonable to assume (until established otherwise) that his inlaws have not done that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com