Veganism

Most people would agree that unnecessarily causing other humans to suffer and/or unnecessarily killing other humans is morally unethical.   So why do so many of us support these practices when it comes to animals?  Aren’t they similar enough to us to deserve our compassion?  Certainly most, if not, all of them are sentient beings with the capacity to feel pain and a strong desire to live their lives, just like us.  So how can we justify eating them or wearing them on our bodies when we don’t need to?  

They taste good.

Yes, they definitely do, which is really just to say that their tastiness gives us pleasure.  But what if I gained pleasure from setting a cat on fire?  Would that be ok?

Most people dont set cats on fire. We live in democracy. Majority rules. Majority hungry. Wants meat.

Sure, but certainly the majority of what people think can be (and has very much been in history) deeply unethical, hasn’t it?   Nazi Germany, enslavement of blacks, and legalized “rights” of a husband to rape his wife, just to name a few.  I don’t see how we can categorically claim that the majority will of the people and/or legality of an action necessarily defines what is and what isn’t ethical.   

Maybe you dont believe in democracy. Also, animals arent people, so comparison of black people to animals doesnt work. I dont see how examples you pointed out taste nice or solve hunger. Also, animals will never invent anything. They just chew grass. If we dont eat them, something else will. 

I do believe in democracy.  I’m simply saying that the majority will of the people doesn’t necessarily align with ethical behavior, as I believe my previous examples clearly demonstrated.  Our desire, as members of a democratic society, to compel one another to behave ethically through legislation, voting, etc, is often driven by ethical considerations, but these societies will also probably always fall short of this goal to some extent.   

As far as comparisons of human examples to animals, I do believe it is worthwhile because we all have that basic desire to live, and to do so without unnecessary suffering.   Your point about animals not inventing anything doesn’t seem relevant to me because you could probably say the same about 99% of humans.  Of all the hundreds of people I’ve personally encountered in my life, I don’t know that any of them were inventors, but even if some were, I certainly wouldn’t claim that the rest of us deserved to die or suffer for not being inventors.

Regarding your point about hunger, if you’re arguing that people need animals to combat hunger, this most certainly is not the case in many, if not most areas of the world, though I acknowledge there may be certain areas where non-meat sources of food may be too scarce to avoid eating animals.   But even if that reality currently exists in some areas, the gradual increase in global demand for more plant based foods would naturally result in the gradual shift toward more global supply as well.  Satisfying this increase would be more than attainable since the decrease in animals being bred specifically for human consumption would free up many of those tracts of land that are currently used for crop production for the animals themselves.  Additionally, the amount of crops that could be used for human consumption on the freed up land could drastically increase because of the relative inefficiency in converting crop feed to high quality edible animal protein.  For example, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition states that for every 1kg of animal protein produced in the U.S., 6kg of plant protein is used in that production.  Furthermore, they report that the amount of grains that are fed to U.S. livestock could feed roughly 840 million people on a plant based diet, which is just under 3 times the amount of the entire U.S. population.  https://ajcn.nutrition.org/article/S0002-9165(22)03370-6/fulltext

As far as your point about other animals eating them if we don’t, I honestly don’t know how many would eventually fall victim to another non-human predator.  But even if they eventually did, there’s little doubt that the animal agriculture industry substantially shortens their natural life span, thus depriving them years of their life.  For example, cows are typically slaughtered at around 3 or 4 years of age versus their normal average life span of approximately 20 years.  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751731119003264
Pigs are usually slaughtered at around 6 months of age https://www.wifss.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/FDA/feed/animalclass_swine_FINAL.pdf 
versus a life span in the wild of about 4 to 8 years 8 https://ipm.ucanr.edu/home-and-landscape/wild-pigs/pest-notes/#:~:text=Wild%20pigs%20usually%20live%20to,and%20average%20about%20175%20pounds.
And chickens are typically slaughtered anywhere between 6 weeks to 1 and 1/2 years https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/How-old-are-chickens-used-for-meat#:~:text=Information&text=The%20age%20of%20chickens%20used,to%201%20%C2%BD%20years%20old.versus a natural life span in the wild of around 3 to 7 years. https://www.almanac.com/raising-chickens-101-when-chickens-stop-laying-eggs#:~:text=Chicken%20lifespans%20vary%20widely%2C%20with,10%20to%2012%20years%20old.

Who would choose to eat grain over meat? Only meat satisfies hunger, since the hunger is for the meat not for the grain. Meat makes people happy. You want to impose suffering on humans to save a couple of animals. Guess what happens when you release 300 million cows in the wild? They make a mess and end up dying or being torn apart by wolves, a death indeed worse.

It’s been a fun discussion, Best.Korea.  Thank you.

When I cited the example of 6kg of plant protein being used to produce 1kg of animal protein, I didn’t mean to imply that humans would simply eat the exact same grains as livestock do.  I was simply pointing out how the potential exists to be able to produce a far higher quantity of plant based foods than animal foods in that same space of land.  

As for your comment that “only meat satisfies hunger”, I think you know that’s not the case, but even if you truly believe this, then I’ll point out that there are plenty of dietetic organizations across the globe that clearly say that plant-based diets are completely sustainable and healthy when done properly.  https://vomad.life/nutrients/.  And I, for one, have been nearly vegan for over 30 consecutive years and I’ve never had any health problems and I’ve always felt terrific. 

On your comment about 300 million cows being released into the wild, there probably wouldn’t be any large scale “release”.   As demand for meat decreases, less and less animals are bred to be consumed, and they would simply decrease in numbers over time because of this.   But even if there were to be some that were let in to the wild, I still think they would choose this over the certainty of slaughter, even if they were to later die from natural causes or other predators.  To suggest that someone shouldn’t be allowed to roam free because it’s too dangerous is odd when the alternative is a certain, and sooner, and in most cases, a much crueler death.   At least roaming in the wild gives the animal a fighting chance to survive.  It’s what almost all creatures will choose when confronted with danger, to flee that danger.  It’s that basic instinct of survival that unites us.

As for your comment, “you want to impose suffering on humans to save a couple of animals”, I don’t think anyone can honestly argue that that choosing a delicious vegan meal over that of a meat-based meal entails “suffering” that’s in any way comparable to the horrific torture that animals endure.  To be clear, we’re talking about tails being cut off, beaks being cut off, babies ripped away from the mother, cages so full that some get trampled to death, cages so small that it’s impossible to turn around or stretch out, gas chambers where they burn from the inside out, electric shots to the head, slitting of throats…why would we put anyone through that, human or animal, if we don’t need to?

Thanks for listening, Best.Korea.

Thank you for the debate.