On Mar 8, 4:53*pm, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 3/8/2012 12:48 AM, Rupert wrote:
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> > On Mar 7, 9:32 pm, George > *wrote:
> >> "glen" or "mark" or "little cocksucker" - the friend of Lesley Simon,
> >> the Whore of Ballaghaderreen, County Roscommon - has it. *He shares
> >> moral responsibility for the animal CDs caused in order to put food on
> >> his plate. *This cannot be rationally disputed.
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> >> His relationship with the hands-on killers of animals has these elements:
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> >> * the relationship is voluntary - no coercion applied to the principal
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> >> * the principal is an active participant, i.e., actively engages in
> >> * * the relationship such as, for example, going to the grocery
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> >> * the principal is fully aware of the agent's actions
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> >> * the relationship is not instrumentally necessary for the principal to
> >> * * achieve a legitimate goal, e.g. the acquisition of food
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> > If I am to remain employed at the University of Münster, I do need to
> > buy the products of commercial agriculture in order to obtain food.
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> So? *There is no need to remain so employed; that's a *want* that you have.
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> > I really don't think there's any way around that. So presumably you
> > would claim that remaining employed at the University of Münster is
> > not a "legitimate goal".
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> You are making a choice. *You must bear all moral responsibility for the
> consequences of your choice.
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> You keep losing sight of the fact that I am not telling you to cause
> zero animal deaths or harm. *I'm instructing you to stop making the
> false conclusion you make about the meaning of not putting animal bits
> in your mouth. *You are not following a "cruelty free" diet, and you are
> not "minimizing" the harm you cause. *You must admit that your
> conclusion about your moral position due to adhering to the false belief
> system of "veganism" is false.

No, I'm not following a cruelty free diet, and I'm not doing literally
everything that is within my power short of suicide to minimise the
harm that I cause, and I never made either of those claims. I claimed
that I am doing just about everything within my power without making
major disruptions in my life - making every reasonable effort, as I
frequently have put it in the past - to reduce the amount of harm that
I cause, just as you claim that you are making every reasonable effort
to reduce the externalities you impose on others through your
contributions to environmental degradation. Even if you think that
these externalities will never cause any premature deaths, which is
actually highly unlikely, you cannot avoid the conclusion that they
involve violations of property rights. You are engaging in activities
which you know full well contribute to processes which will lead to
violations of other people's property rights. And you are responding
to the situation in the same way as me, you are not doing literally
everything within your power to avoid engaging in the activities, but
merely making every reasonable effort to reduce the harm they cause.
You do not claim that you are doing literally everything within your
power, you claim that you are making every reasonable effort, and this
is correct (for all I know). Likewise I do not claim that I am doing
literally everything within my power and never have, but I have
claimed that I am making every reasonable effort, in the sense that I
am doing just about everything I can without making major disruptions
to my life to reduce the amount of suffering caused by my diet. The
two cases are analogous.

It should also be noted that by remaining employed I thereby gain
opportunities to alleviate suffering in other ways which would not
otherwise be available to me.