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Comment by cup | Hacker News Reader

I think its hard to morally justify consuming animal products in this day and age, under a capitalist system where animal welfare is not recognised.

For people that want to eat or use animal products you should consider hunting for your own food, rearing your own chickens or just cutting back.

The ecological problems and the blatant disregard for animals rights are too much and a top down approach doesn't seem possible considering the power these big agricorps have.

It's time for individuals to make the conscious decision to opt out.

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The moral pitch for abstinence from meat in general, or meat one hasn’t killed themselves, is one of the most unsuccessful animal rights campaigns in history. People like meat. Those same people are moving into cities. The population is not going to hunt.

Moral arguments are fun to make, but without a plan they’re just bloviation. Pushing people to prioritise humane legislation, advocating a switch from intelligent animals and related methods, while less emotionally satisfying, are altogether more effective.

Yet here in the Netherlands I see many coworkers and friends moving partly or totally away from meat due to moral concerns. Others choose to pay higher prices for livestock raised in better conditions.

Same in Finland. Lots of people who have no intention of going full vegetarian have nonetheless added meat-free dishes and locally, ethically produced meat for their diets.

Another problem with such moral pitches is that at no place can a clear line be drawn between life that is okay to simply raise & kill for feed, and life that isn't. There's all sorts of attempts to morally distinguish between eating furry animals that have big glassy eyes and birth cute little babies, and other less anthropomorphically-empathetic animals such as birds, fish, or insects. That certainly may be a preference, but it's not a scrutable predicate with any shared sense of objectivity.

Any time someone draws any specific moral line based on life or intelligence, everybody else raises an eyebrow about the legitimacy of that line.

Even taking it all the way down, plants have communities, negotiate resource exchange, have fear & pain responses, and are basically just as alive as anything else. They just eat differently and move slower. And yet we eat their live young (care for some sprouts in your salad?)

The fact that a clear line doesn't exist is used too many times as an excuse to continue doing what is obviously wrong. Logically, you could take it the other way to the extreme and say that since there is no clear line, then there isn't an obvious reason not to raise certain humans for their meat either.

The fact that life is not black and white but a lot of grey levels does not imply that there is no such thing as black or white. If one's moral compass and integrity are still intact, then even knowing the constraints, one would usually try to make the grey a little brighter.

How can you both agree that a clear line doesn't exist, while in the same sentence saying "obviously wrong"? If you mean obvious to your specific sensibilities that's fine; but if you mean global consensus or objectively, then that's self-contradictory.

Plenty of people genuinely don't care about the treatment of food animals, or even of humans outside their perceived tribe. It's just as "obvious" and consistent within those entire groups that there's no concern there. "Moral compass and integrity" are less about intact or unintact, and more about "similar to mine".

This is why pure moral arguments don't change anything, because people don't share morals. Now, some do have broader subscription, like not murdering people, and there you can defer to the shared moral. But others (like animal rights) are observably divided, so rallying on violation of local moralisms has no meaning to those outside that moral locality. It's exactly the same as religions yelling at non-adherents for acting in violation to the religion's tenets.

> How can you both agree that a clear line doesn't exist, while in the same sentence saying "obviously wrong"?

Same way as I can say something is obviously a heap of sand without pointing out exactly at which point it turned into one from it's beginnings as some grains of sand (Sorites paradox)

Regarding moral relativism, I don't buy it, but that's not something we can argue about in an HN thread...

You are right that pure moral arguments don't change anything, but I don't think the reason is that people don't share morals, but rather have to do with people being extremely good at rationalizing away the immorality, or never questioning it in the first place. Of course, if you think ethics is a relative concept then this reply won't convince you but the argument that might convince you would not fit this format.

> Same way as I can say something is obviously a heap of sand without pointing out exactly at which point it turned into one from it's beginnings as some grains of sand (Sorites paradox)

But that's not the situation here. You're saying that there is some scale at which something is "obviously wrong" implying a convergent consensus of observance. Tying it to sorites, it would be like you claiming that there's a fuzziness beyond which the heap should be considered "obviously too big" by everyone, while to others there's no such concept as a heap that's too big (or even merely disagree that you've entered "too big" territory yet). You can't argue that it's too big, without pulling in something external that they might share.

> Regarding moral relativism, I don't buy it

It's not that morals are "relative", and I agree that's a terrible label, but more that morals are held as axiomatic. There is no and cannot be justification of morals themselves, they simply are held (or are not held) by a person as the foundational root clauses from which all their other justifications are derived.

So there's no possible way to argue or justify root morals to others who simply don't share them. You'd need to link them to morals that the other does hold for there to be any worthwhile concept conveyed at all. Otherwise it's just yelling that others are not following your particular flying spaghetti monster. If one fundamentally believes that animal suffering matters, and another fundamentally believes that it does not, what possible justification or persuasion would cross that boundary?

> You are right that pure moral arguments don't change anything, but I don't think the reason is that people don't share morals, but rather have to do with people being extremely good at rationalizing away the immorality, or never questioning it in the first place.

Re-read what you said, and consider it in the initial discussion of animal rights. You're saying that there is a morality held in a person that is invoked in an observed situation that is being rationalized away, implying that they fundamentally subscribe to the same morals as you. I think this convergence (and I'd simply call it a projection) is an extreme claim, going against the observed variety among cultures & schools of thought around the world and throughout history. That's simply not an accurate picture of humanity.

In particular, sensitivity and callousness to specific situations of harm are very trained, and degrees of harm in varied directions exist in absolutely everything, all the way down to entropy. Just look at governmental overreach to see how the concept of "harm" can be all encompassing, bringing a justification for involvement wherever they may choose, from economics to surveillance.

> You're saying that there is a morality held in a person that is invoked in an observed situation that is being rationalized away, implying that they fundamentally subscribe to the same morals as you

No, I'm saying something even more extreme. I'm saying that ultimately, morality does not depend on any point of view (mine or anyone else's) in much the same way that what is ultimately true doesn't depend on any point of view. Immorality is simply ignorance doing its thing. I'm in no way free of ignorance, but I am actively trying to reduce it.

> I think this convergence (and I'd simply call it a projection) is an extreme claim, going against the observed variety among cultures & schools of thought around the world and throughout history. That's simply not an accurate picture of humanity.

Yes, there is an incredible and fascinating variety in humanity. Situations, points of view, emotions, agendas - all can be extremely complex and nuanced and very dependent on conditioning or "starting conditions". Yet, I think you'll find that compassion is something that is understood in any culture (as is fear), and the ability to empathize with someone else's situation (be it in another culture or another species) is not as far fetched as you make it seem.

You've obviously given some thought to your claims (which these days is refreshing), and as someone who always wants to get to the truth of things, I'll gladly give up everything I believe in if it is incorrect, but then again my understanding wasn't acquired overnight, so if you're also as keen to dig deeper and see what comes up I'll be happy to correspond further.

I don't know if you'll read this as it's been a while, but you're just repeating what I said.

Your morals are axiomatic, and as ground truth they can't be supported by anything other than their supposed self-apparentness.

Your second half simply restates my "sensitivity and callousness to specific situations of harm are very trained", as that's all we're talking about here: How various harm "feels" when you see them carried out. This empathizing you base things on is hugely selective even within you. You aren't empathizing with the plight of plants or insects, for instance. If you empathized with everything equally, then you'd be crippled by any amount of perceived harm, which is pervasive. Everybody is empathetic & compassionate, but to different situations. This has a ton to do with culture and normality.

People constantly misconstrue their sensitivities with morals.

Simply striving to reduce (not eliminate) meat consumption seems to work quite well. Smaller portions, one veggie day per week, or eating oysters and mussels (not capable of feeling pain).

And eat less chicken. A lot of them need to suffer to supply the same amount of meat as a cow for example.

Moral arguments for veganism aren't made because they're more emotionally satisfying than arguments for animal welfarism, that comes across as pretty condescending to suggest. A lot of vegans don't support welfarist approaches. More effective in what metric/s? Do you have sources to back that claim?

The entire argument he was responding to defined the problem as a moral one.

I think the staggering amount of meat products consumed daily speaks for itself - animal rights isn’t exactly a new concept.

I know it might be hard for you to understand, but some people gasp are able to abstain from eating meat even though they enjoy it. Maybe it's not just due to the moral argument, but a lot of times it is a large player. For myself, I have gone plant based for my health first and foremost, which is a common thread I find among fellow vegans. It is certainly still important to make morality important. I think your assumption that people can't overcome their desires for a greater good leaves a cavernous amount of room for people to surprise you. I'm not sure that's such a bad thing, either.

Wrong. It’s you who is rationalizing not living morally-consistently as yet another BS excuse. Most people are just too selfish, weak and exhibit too much cognitive dissonance to do anything but rationalize their unsustainable behavior because it costs them immediately nothing. In that case, meat needs to be heavily taxed like cigarettes and alcohol because too many people can’t or won’t give up something that is threatening the future of the planet, creates lakes of shit and is the opposite of humane. People treat their dogs and cats better than other feeling animals whom they don’t need to kill.

I suggest you watch videos on YouTube by the SHARK to see what’s really going on at CAFOs and other facilities.

The planet can’t take it (methane and CO2) and it directly causes “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” suffering and pain proportional to purchases.

I used to eat piles of meat but have not for about a decade because I became educated about the multifaceted reality of the climate, environmental, ecological and animal welfare aspects.

I don't morally justify it, no matter how barbaric it is.

For me, meat just taste too good.

I love hot dogs, tacos, and pepperoni pizza too much to be vegetarian but what I did was just cut down my meat intake. I eat meat for no more than 3 meals a week

Animals certainly don't care about your inner mental processes. They can only experience consequences of your actions. So your first sentence seems quite meaningless.

TBH, I'm not sure what you're trying to say, here.

The parent's statement was simple: they don't care about the "barbarism" of eating meat. I think it's taken as a given that they therefore don't much care about what animals experience as the consequence of their actions.

So I'm not sure how your comment is relevant or what you meant to achieve by making it.

Could you clarify?

I didn't understand the point of the first part of the comment:

> I don't morally justify it, no matter how barbaric it is.

It wouldn't matter either way even if he tried to morally justify it. Like with people eating foie gras. They justify it by saying that it's their right to eat what they want.

Meanwhile poor geese can't care less, doesn't have any concept of morality, just suffers either way, because the result is the same. People just like eating their ill livers. And it doesn't matter if they justify it or not.

I have no trouble morally justifying it.

Well, maybe no trouble justifying it, but I'd hazard it's likely not a morally sound argument.

Nobody wants to hear it. They just don't.

Opting out simply isn't good enough, because you may just end up translating animal suffering into human suffering if you just eat vegetarian products without knowing how it is sourced.

What is more moral, eating a steak from a cow that was killed for its meat by decently paid, respected workers - or - eating a chocolate bar made with palm oil whose products were farmed using slave and child labor?

This is not a logical line of thought. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as

That is not at all what my line of thought was. My point was that you can't just cut meat out of your diet and think that you are behaving more moral than before. If you increase, say, your chocolate, or palm oil, tea, etc consumption, then you may be increasing human suffering compared to when you were an omnivore.

I don't see this making any sense at all. Why would eating less meat result in more palm oil consumption? For me this sounds like a complete nonsense justification for not reducing the amount of meat in one's diet.

Because you still need some kind of food to replace that meat with?

The point being that not all foods are ethically made. It's not as easy as meat == always the only immoral food choice and not-meat == always good. By reducing meat consumption, if you replace it with other non ethically sourced foods, are yo really helping? And if those new foods take advantage of human workers and slavery, is that better than an animal's suffering?

They aren't saying "Well plants can also be bad, so just stick with meat." It's "if you switch blindly without any research, you may actually ending causing more suffering for people and animals in the world than if you had stuck with meat."

Edit since I can't reply to posts below mine. It's not just about calories. I really think this sentence was overlooked from the parent post way up:

"What is more moral, eating a steak from a cow that was killed for its meat by decently paid, respected workers - or - eating a chocolate bar made with palm oil whose products were farmed using slave and child labor?"

Research conditions of cacao workers if you think this example is a joke or being made up.

According to the suffering and environmental damage line of reasoning, the reason meat is strictly worse is because if you grew plants instead of animals you'd have 8x as many calories to eat. I might be off, it may be some other factor, but I do know it's much larger than 2x.

Sorry for being impatient and calling your argument nonsense; the main problem I see with that is the fact that these issues are orthogonal. You won't be trading meat to palm oil chocolate and unethical bananas. Portraying these two as issues that should be weighed against each other is not representative of the actual outcomes, and thus feels to me like unnecessary spreading of uncertainty.

Why are you comparing average meat to the most unethical plant foods? Only an insane troll would stop eating meat to replace the calories with the worst possible plants, and obviously average plants are much less bad than average meat.

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