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Comment by Detrytus | Hacker News Reader

I grew up watching my grandmother butchering a chicken for a Sunday dinner. Or my uncle butchering and skinning the calf. Knowing how the sausage is made does nothing for me.

I can understand someone being vegan because they believe eating plants is healthier. I can understand being vegan because you don’t like the taste of meat. But bringing any moral/religious reasons for it always seemed silly to me. There’s nothing more natural than one animal eating another. Humans evolved from mostly vegetarian monkeys to predators

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> Knowing how the sausage is made does nothing for me.

Considering that this is nowadays a substantially less common background, and probably trending that direction indefinitely, this reads more as you being desensitized. It's not like vegans are unaware that people could have a background like yours.

> But bringing any moral/religious reasons for it always seemed silly to me. There’s nothing more natural than one animal eating another. Humans evolved from mostly vegetarian monkeys to predators

Morals and religion aren't about what's natural, they're about what humans desire. Illness, violence, and deception are all perfectly "natural."

I don't find might is right to be a convincing moral argument. The only reason I was born a human instead of one of the 300 billion animals humanity consumes each year is the outcome of a lottery system, simple as that. Consider whether you'd feel the same way when applying a "veil of ignorance" test.

He’s not making a might is right argument.

Yes he is. "Nothing more natural than one animal eating another" is might makes right. It's also an appeal to nature, but in this case it's both.

Weaker animals can eat stronger animals. Pack animals, carrion feeders, bugs, animals feeding their offspring, etc. So almost entirely an appeal to nature argument.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree.

> There’s nothing more natural than one animal eating another

So how do you get from that to human cannibalism == bad?

The naturalism argument has a zillion counterexamples of things that used to be considered natural and now we arbitrarily consider bad.

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