A bit of a rambling, since I'm basically just thinking out loud.
We'd all obviously find issue with being eaten not because we think it's unethical that the alien wants to eat us (it's unlikely that the ethics question would even come up), but because we don't want to die, as an individual and as a species (I'm trying to say that it's NOT obvious that the issue we would have with such a scenario would have anything to do with ethics, not to make a judgement whether it's ethical or not). And so your argument looks like it's saying "we don't want it to happen to us, therefore it's unethical (for anyone to do that to us, or for us to do that to others)". I know you probably doesn't mean it that way.
Now, whether it's ethical to eat meat itself. As someone else have mentioned, I've always wondered where do you draw the line? Pigs and cows seem obviously out of the questions, but how about cockroach, caterpillar, corepod, hydra[0]? Event certain plants do sense distress signals when they're being attacked.
Do we actually know that it's possible for us, as a society as a whole to survive entirely on non-animal products, food or otherwise? Additionally, even if it might be just historical accident that we have a heavy meat-eating society, and another society that starts out without ever using animal products can advance to where we are right now and have a perfectly functioning society, it doesn't mean that it's ever feasible to actually switch to such a no-animal product society. In our terms, that would be a switch from not just from one programming language to another, but probably from silicon-based chips to germanium-bases chips.
> We'd all obviously find issue with being eaten not because we think it's unethical that the alien wants to eat us (it's unlikely that the ethics question would even come up), but because we don't want to die, as an individual and as a species (I'm trying to say that it's NOT obvious that the issue we would have with such a scenario would have anything to do with ethics, not to make a judgement whether it's ethical or not). And so your argument looks like it's saying "we don't want it to happen to us, therefore it's unethical (for anyone to do that to us, or for us to do that to others)". I know you probably doesn't mean it that way.
I am no philosopher, so I'm sure there are many holes in my argument. :)
> Now, whether it's ethical to eat meat itself. As someone else have mentioned, I've always wondered where do you draw the line? Pigs and cows seem obviously out of the questions, but how about cockroach, caterpillar, corepod, hydra[0]? Event certain plants do sense distress signals when they're being attacked.
That's a really interesting question. I learned recently that some vegetarians consider it acceptable to eat oysters because they don't have a central nervous system. Indeed, this whole argument is about "drawing the line", and it is rather complex and interesting.
> Do we actually know that it's possible for us, as a society as a whole to survive entirely on non-animal products, food or otherwise? Additionally, even if it might be just historical accident that we have a heavy meat-eating society, and another society that starts out without ever using animal products can advance to where we are right now and have a perfectly functioning society, it doesn't mean that it's ever feasible to actually switch to such a no-animal product society. In our terms, that would be a switch from not just from one programming language to another, but probably from silicon-based chips to germanium-bases chips.
You are right that it would take a massive shift, and whether or not it is actually possible is a valid question. Thing is, humans have dealt with massive changes in the past, so if we really wanted to, it seems possible. We aren't really trying, at this point, though.
As a vegetarian, I think it's perfectly reasonable to draw the line at the complexity of an organiams's nervous system. That's about the closest standard we can use to estimate so-called "sentience".
It does become difficult when you look at organisms with more minimal nervous systems, like very small insects. I personally avoid unnecessary death of insects most of the time, however I will kill ants and cockroaches if they intrude into my home. I'm not entirely sure if this makes me a hypocrite. I suspect it might, since ants and cockroaches may be capable of feeling pain and perhaps even emotions.
> That's about the closest standard we can use to estimate so-called "sentience".
The problem is that choosing "sentience" as the line is also entirely arbitrary. Sentience at best is poorly defined and almost impossible to prove or disprove about just about anything. It's understood as an intuitive concept, but sentience, consciousness and similar terms have defied solid definition for centuries. For example, it's a trivial exercise to demonstrate that a mountain might be sentient, but have qualities about itself that cloud our understanding of its sentience.
As more and is understood by both AI and Cognitive Science communities, the ideas of consciousness and sentience are being better understood as perhaps just emergent phenomena and not underpinned by any spiritual or moral reasoning -- i.e. the concepts of sentience, and similar phenomena, may actually go away altogether and be tossed in with the pile of falsely observed ideas, like luminiferous aether, chi and humorism.
I agree that consciousness and sentience are likely just emergent phenomena, but that doesn't necessarily make them any less "real".
Consciousness and awareness are already used as a determining factor of life and whether it is ethical to kill an organism. For example, look at the case of a brain dead hospital patient. Most people would not say it is unethical to take them off of life support even if it's basically equivalent to killing them.
Even if sentience is "artificial" in the sense that it's merely a property large networks of neurons display, it's still a significant notion because it allows us to experience, or at least feel like we are experiencing, sensation and subjectiveness. And I think it's fair to apply that same reasoning to non-human animals, though obviously it is difficult to determine with certainty since you can't obtain the full subjective experience of a different species.
> Most people would not say it is unethical to take them off of life support even if it's basically equivalent to killing them.
Now hold your horses there. There are huge numbers of people, probably millions, who feel morally very righteous that it is unethical and immoral to take somebody off of life support regardless of brain activity.
The axiom they've built their moral structure on is not "sentience is sacred" but "life is sacred", which strictly speaking is a stronger test than any Vegan is willing to adhere to. Strictly speaking, by that test, a Vegan is a practitioner of vast, premeditated plant killings on a vast scale. (let's not let the impossible forced hypocrisy of the axiom get in the way of a good discussion)
I don't agree with one any more than I agree with the other. The problem is not a matter of degree, but a matter of definition. A Vegan doesn't get to claim "sentience is sacred", build up a moral framework around that and then push it on anybody any more than the Rabbi down the street gets to tell me that I shouldn't mix fabrics because it's an abomination to God or the Minister in that weird Lutheran church down the road that believes that women shouldn't wear pants because it's also specifically abominable (Deuteronomy 22:5) or my friend the Imam gets to lecture me on what the Koran says about alcohol.
Even if the animal is sentinel and can feel pain, what's the problem of killing and eating them?
The reason certain behaviours are considered moral/ ethical and are set as a standard is to make sure we (human) can have a reasonable life among one another, and not because the behaviour itself is intrinsically good. A lot of the time, something is immoral because it leads us into a rat race with no winner.
I think the main point I'm trying to make is that I'd love to see a concrete philosophical explanation on many of vegan-related stuffs. But instead, most of the time it's just pseudoscience and empty big words :(.
Are you suggesting that morality has no purpose other than to provide a civilized society? That's one view on morality, but it's not that common nowadays.
To suggest that you shouldn't harm a neighbor solely so that others won't harm you is a very selfish proposition. This is an anemic view on morality and altruism in any modern society. From an evolutionary standpoint, altruism and morality serve merely as constructs and contracts to enable a functioning society, but from a psychological standpoint they're something far greater.
>The reason certain behaviours are considered moral/ ethical and are set as a standard is to make sure we (human) can have a reasonable life among one another, and not because the behaviour itself is intrinsically good.
Ok, then what happens if you decide a certain person or certain group no longer reasonably belongs in the category of "one another"? For example, how some Sunnis view Shiites, and how Hutus view Tutsis. That group is no longer seen as a vital part of civilization and can be treated in any way at all, because behavior cannot be intrinsically good or bad.
>I think the main point I'm trying to make is that I'd love to see a concrete philosophical explanation on many of vegan-related stuffs.
If you want one example of such a philosophical explanation, look at utilitarianism. There are countless other moral philosophies which can be used to argue that "intrinsically good" behavior is a thing to strive for, even if it may be applied with certain nuances.
It may be debatable whether moral vegetarianism actually has the desired effect of a utilitarian standpoint (not eating meat may not necessarily reduce the number of animals killed each year for food), but it is ludicrous to argue that morality plays no role in a vegetarian or vegan's desired end goal of reducing animal suffering and death.
Just to be nitpicking, I said "functional society", not "civilized society". Although the distinction make no effect on your argument.
>Are you suggesting that morality has no purpose other than to provide a civilized society? That's one view on morality, but it's not that common nowadays.
Yes, that's what I meant (roughly). And while your example (don't harm other so you won't be harmed) sounds selfish, how about "help others in needs so you will be helped in time of need" sounds? To quote Wikipedia: "Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc., or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal.". It does not necessary have to be because people are selfish, but because there are many many possible behaviors, and a universal standard (morals) allow us to know what to expect. The complexity of dealing with a large group of people (society) can get really messy real quick, just because of the sheer number of possible possibilities . That's also why many people believes that when it comes to two adult with sounded mind dealing directly with each other, any thing goes.
I'm well aware of utilitarianism, and that's actually (partly) where I got the idea of moral standard as a basis for a functional society, but I digress. It seems like the difference between your and my argument was how we tallied up the happiness sum. I draw the line at "being human", and you have a bigger one that encompasses "sentient being".
> Ok, then what happens if you decide a certain person or certain group no longer reasonably belongs in the category of "one another"? For example, how some Sunnis view Shiites, and how Hutus view Tutsis. That group is no longer seen as a vital part of civilization and can be treated in any way at all, because behavior cannot be intrinsically good or bad.
I was about to say that that there is no difference between, let's say Sunnies and Shiites, except their belief, in the sense that except for historical accident, an eternal war between the two won't end. But I just realized where that argument would lead to (and I don't like that). I guess I will have to think a bit more on vegan-ism :-)
Non-religious moral philosophies, at their core, do generally try to optimize for reducing harm and promoting helpfulness wherever possible.
Even if one does not subscribe to a specific moral framework, or a group of people subscribe to different ones, there are still some activities that they can agree are immoral. That's why it's okay for vegetarians/vegans to think that something is wrong even if they may not have developed it in the context of an existing moral philosophy. To say that something is immoral is merely to say that "I have subjective reason to believe that [something] is causing more unnecessary harm than good for other lifeforms".
I wouldn't lump all non-religious moral philosophies into the same group like that.
There are plenty that do not optimize for reducing harm or promoting helpfulness. Many seek to ensure fairness or equality. Others legitimize strength. Most of the ones I'm aware of set humans as preeiminent to the moral construct and seek to find ways to maximize the human condition.
FYI, Nietzsche was the king of non-religious philosophers in the early 20th century and was interested in neither of those things.
Rand's Objectivism is probably the second best known and it too has no interest in either of those things.
Ultimately the problem is that "morality" as practiced generally comes from some kind of religious backing. "Don't mix fabrics because God said so" and boom, it is immoral to mix fabrics.
This was an easy crutch for people to use for a long time because it saved them the difficulty of actually thinking about things.
Modern social movements away from religion as a basis for morality has put this kind of lazy thinking into a tailspin. Humans have only ever been able to define morality as having some kind of immovable axiomatic underpinning of the kind religion likes to provide. But if religion is out, and we still want to be moral, what do we underpin it with?
If we say "Science" than Veganism is right out, as it's scientifically proven to not be an optimal diet. And sentience, while interesting, holds no more moral preservation requirements in science as does maintaining an environmental temperature close to absolute zero.
It seems the sad answer is that people arbitrarily embrace some new axiom and then define their morality on top of it. Lazy people just copy this defined morality and now you end up with "angels on the head of a pin" internet fights like "how sentient does an organism have to be...?" or "what's the most free license software should morally be distributed under?" or whatever the nonsense debate du jour is.
Problematically, like all new converts, people who've embraced their new religion want to tell everybody about it, and chastise all the unconverted for their immoral unclean ways.
The truth is, the guiding notion of morals have become antiquated, but humans have resisted coming up with some other guiding framework that doesn't require mindless adherence to some arbitrary axiom.
For my money, if I had a gun to my head and had to choose an axiom to build a moral framework off of, I'd go with "ensure that survival, propagation and continued forward evolution of the species".
> Do we actually know that it's possible for us, as a society as a whole to survive entirely on non-animal products, food or otherwise?
Yes, we know that we virtually can't, at least not in a long-term multi-generational societal context. Humans are superbly evolved to eat a little bit of just about everything, and terribly evolved to eat a lot of one kind of thing for a long time. There are millions of years of evolution built into us and inherited from our ancestors that determined that a modern homo sapien is destined to require some animal products in their consumption inventory. Meat was important enough that if we had an herbivorous ancestor, that ancestor is unknown in the fossil record. We purposely spent so much time finding animal sources, despite plentiful plant life nearly everywhere, that we even evolved brains, tools and fire and actually evolved away in-situ nutritional synthesis of various critical nutrients (that all other herbivores enjoy) all almost purely to take on the higher risk task of eating other animals. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7763330
In theory it might be possible to craft a healthy, sustainable, long-term diet that uses no animals whatsoever, and would last generations with no ill effects on population health.
However, there's overwhelming evidence that, in practice, the kind of diet around 90% of practicing vegans practice is not that diet. In numerous serious studies, 70-90% of all tested practicing vegans test as B12 deficient, which is not a sustainable long term dietary deficiency over generations. Theoretically, after just a few generations of this kind of deficiency, if anybody is alive at all, they'll suffer from severe congenital neurological deficiencies that would make sustaining a modern society impossible. B12 sufficiency would be a non-optional part of any non-animal diet, and it appears that practicing vegans are not able to construct an alternative herbivorous diet that provides even single-generational sufficiency.
Other typical deficiencies found in large vegan population studies suggest that humans are generally poorly adapted to long-term, sustained, plant-only diets: with neurological and cardiovascular issues presenting as long-term consequences of the diet.
There's other challenges, some nutrients are pitifully rare or not as bioavailable to humans from plant sources as from animal ones: B12, DHA (and some important varieties of O3FAs, Vitamin A compounds, Arginine, Creatine, Carnosine, Vitamin D, Heme, and the list goes on.
There's other issues to, as the nutritional balance of vegan diets isn't what we're evolved to process, humans suffer from various absorption issues as plant sources provide high quantities of some food components that prevents absorption of some critical minerals: e.g. phytates block zinc for example.
One of the significant challenge for Vegans is the incredible amount of "sciency-sounding", but completely wrong nutritional advocacy advice available in the vegan community. The science is so complex, almost no vegan understands enough of the science of human biology, nutrition and agriculture to properly assemble a diet for themselves (as demonstrated through dozens of studies). Various critical dietary issues are often waived away or minimized (just eat yeast extract!) and major deficits are often covered up under a handful of dietary supplements (many of which are derived from animal sources) for long-term adherence.
The flip side of the problem is that modern food practices also provide animal sources far in excess of what we evolved to need nutritionally. You could probably eat a vegan diet 4-5 days a week, and eat a healthy omnivorous diet just for dinner the other 2-3 and easily satisfy all your animal sourced nutritional requirements and come out extremely healthy with none of the Vegan diet associated health problems. And I don't mean a huge steak for those dinners. I mean just a regular old meal with a few ounces of some animal sourced protein.
Around 1/4 of Indians are vegetarian [1]. That's 300 million people today. The vegetarian traditions of Hinduism date from a few hundred years BC. How do/did these people get B12?
Animal sources of protein. Vegetarianism does not preclude this. Most vegetarian Hindus (Brahmins mostly) are lacto-vegetarians and quite a few are ova-lacto-vegetarians.
Jains are often also pointed to as long-term Vegans in Western Vegan circles, but it turns out most Jains are a particular kind of lacto-vegetarian, with some other peculiar restrictions (no root plants). For example, most Jains will still cook with Ghee.
Some Jains live a Vegan-like lifestyle (there may be up to 500 in all of India), but wax-on and wax-off getting periodic B12 during lacto-vegetarian times (B12 is fat soluble and can stay in your system for up to 3 years). Still, B12 sufficiency is a major topic in modern Jain literature.
However, and this is important, several recent population studies in India have shown that as many as 81% of Indians are B-12 deficient. Current dietary guidelines for Vegetarians in India is driving the need for consumption of at least 4 glasses of milk per day or change to an omnivorous diet to cover the dietary B12 deficiency.
Because of cleaner food handling and the widespread introduction of antibiotics, B12 deficiency has also been demonstrated to be increasing in India and many local urban doctors report seeing multiple patients with B-12 deficiency per week.
In most Western studies, Vegetarians have far lower incidents of B12 deficiency than do Vegans. Vegan populations test as deficient at 70-90% of the population. B12 deficiency is trivially treated with animal protein sources.
We'd all obviously find issue with being eaten not because we think it's unethical that the alien wants to eat us (it's unlikely that the ethics question would even come up), but because we don't want to die, as an individual and as a species (I'm trying to say that it's NOT obvious that the issue we would have with such a scenario would have anything to do with ethics, not to make a judgement whether it's ethical or not). And so your argument looks like it's saying "we don't want it to happen to us, therefore it's unethical (for anyone to do that to us, or for us to do that to others)". I know you probably doesn't mean it that way.
Now, whether it's ethical to eat meat itself. As someone else have mentioned, I've always wondered where do you draw the line? Pigs and cows seem obviously out of the questions, but how about cockroach, caterpillar, corepod, hydra[0]? Event certain plants do sense distress signals when they're being attacked.
Do we actually know that it's possible for us, as a society as a whole to survive entirely on non-animal products, food or otherwise? Additionally, even if it might be just historical accident that we have a heavy meat-eating society, and another society that starts out without ever using animal products can advance to where we are right now and have a perfectly functioning society, it doesn't mean that it's ever feasible to actually switch to such a no-animal product society. In our terms, that would be a switch from not just from one programming language to another, but probably from silicon-based chips to germanium-bases chips.
[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(genus)