On Mar 8, 10:40*pm, George Plimpton > wrote:
> “Veganism” *is* bullshit. Here’s why. It claims to be an ethical
> response to an ethical problem, but 1) there is no agreement that there
> is an ethical problem in the human use of animals per se, and 2) the
> response is ethically empty.
>

People who are confronted with the facts about what actually happens
to animals who are used for human ends generally do agree that there
is a fairly serious ethical problem with it.

> All “vegans” start by committing a logical fallacy, the fallacy of
> denying the antecedent:
>
> * * * If I consume animal parts, I cause the suffering and death of animals.
>
> * * * I do not consume any animal parts;
>
> * * * therefore, I do not cause the suffering and death of animals.
>

That's not true. I am someone who went vegan while fully aware that
this did not mean that suffering and death was not caused in order to
produce my food. There must be many more like me.

> The conclusion is wrong because consuming animal parts is not the only
> way in which animals are caused to suffer and die. Crop agriculture
> kills and maims uncounted millions of wild animals of the field –
> usually not as large as the largest livestock, but millions of bird,
> reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals; even animals as large as deer
> are routinely killed by crop machinery. So, the conclusion is false.
>
> All “vegans” also begin by saying they live a “cruelty free
> ‘lifestyle’”, but this is also bullshit, due to the fact of animal
> collateral deaths elaborated above. Most “vegans” retreat from that
> position to the weaker claim that they at least “minimize” animal
> suffering and death, but that is also bullshit. To minimize, they must
> count, and no one does that. It is conceivable to follow a
> meat-including diet that actually causes less harm to animals than the
> typical “vegan” diet, but even if one looks only at “vegan” diets, it is
> obvious that some food crops cause less harm than others; unless a
> “vegan” excludes everything but the least-harm vegetables from his diet,
> he cannot be said to be minimizing the harm he causes.
>

But it is not possible at present to get reliable information about
the different amounts of harm caused by the different food crops, and
there is no reason to think that doing the research so that reliable
information becomes available would be a wise investment of time and
resources from the point of view of reducing suffering.

> The next retreat is to the claim of “doing the best I can,” but again
> that is bullshit, for the same reason: unless one has undertaken to
> measure the harm, it is unlikely one is doing the best one can; there
> must be *some* change, say less rice and more soybeans, that would yield
> an improvement.
>

There might be some changes that would yield an improvement in my diet
but there is no reason to think that it is within my power to find out
what they are unless I quit my job and take up full-time research into
the problem.

It is reasonable for me to claim that I am doing the best I can given
that I am going to stay employed in my current job.

> In the end, the “vegan” has to retreat to the nastiest, vilest position
> of all: “I’m doing better than you meat eaters.” That makes virtue into
> a comparison with others,

Why?

Vegans *do* generally do better than most meat eaters from the point
of view of reducing harm. To point out this fact is not to make any
claims about what is and is not virtuous.

What evidence do you have that any vegan ever claimed to be virtuous
*simply because* they were doing better than most meat eaters?

> and that is morally repugnant.

It's not really all that morally repugnant, just incorrect.

> It also isn’t
> true, and it also yields perverse results. The claim is morally
> repugnant because virtue never consists in comparing one's behavior with
> others; it consists solely in doing what is right.

That is true. And you have no especially good reason to think that
vegans are not simply trying to do the best they can from the point of
view of reducing suffering, without having any interest in comparing
themselves to how others are doing.

> It isn’t true
> because it is possible, as I said, to follow a meat-including diet that
> is lower harm than the typical “vegan” diet.

This is possible but you've never really demonstrated this claim. If
someone who ate meat was reducing suffering just as much as the
typical vegan, then the vegan shouldn't claim to be reducing suffering
more than that meat-eater, and you have no evidence to show that any
vegan ever did make such an erroneous claim.

> The perversion comes from
> observing that even if the “vegan” is causing less harm than an
> omnivore, his criterion for determining virtue would allow him to
> INCREASE the amount of harm he causes to animals, but as long as it
> remains less than that of omnivores, he would pronounce himself still
> virtuous.

You have no good reason for thinking so. This is a straw man that you
made up.

> How can increasing the harm one causes to animals be called
> virtuous?
>
> “Veganism” is bullshit through and through. It is a false moral pose
> based wholly on self-exaltation.

Plenty of people are vegan simply because they want to try to reduce
suffering, myself included. You've given no good reason why that is a
bad or irrational thing to do.