On 3/14/2012 8:32 PM, Rupert wrote:
> On Mar 15, 4:06 am, George > wrote:
>> On 3/14/2012 6:51 PM, Dutch wrote:
>>
>>>> > wrote
>>>> On Mar 14, 10:04 pm, > wrote:
>>
>>>>> One compelling argument that you have definitely seen was given in great
>>>>> detail in the vegan shuffle argument.
>>
>>>> Perhaps you can tell me which one you have in mind.
>>
>>> The "shuffle". The vegan's core belief is that by going vegan one is no
>>> longer complicit in animal suffering. When the fallaciousness of that
>>> belief is pointed out to them they start shuffling. This takes various
>>> forms, such as a retreat to the "less suffering" position or a switch to
>>> the "injustice" position.
>>
>> The shuffle shows that "vegans" are incoherent. They don't have a valid
>> reason for not consuming animal parts. If it's because they think doing
>> so violates animals' "rights", they lose: their consumption causes the
>> violation of animals' rights. Point this out, and they switch to
>> reducing suffering, but it's possible to follow a meat-including diet
>> that causes less suffering than the diets most "vegans" follow. Suggest
>> that they consume meat that involves less suffering than what is caused
>> by *their* "vegan" diets, and they flip-flop back to the rights argument.
>>
>
> I will gladly switch to consuming meat that involves less suffering
> when I am convinced that there is a practical means of doing so.

You aren't honestly open to being convinced of it. You rule it out by
axiomatically.


> You have made some suggestions but what's holding me back is that I
> am not convinced that they really would involve less suffering.

And because of the way you play the game, you will never find out,
because you won't even make an effort to determine how much suffering
you cause. You don't care. You're happy and smugly satisfied that
you're "better" than omnivores.


>> Everything is wrong with what "vegans" claim for themselves *solely* by
>> reason of not consuming animal parts. They still violate animal rights
>> in exactly the same way meat consumers do, and any given "vegan" does
>> not cause less animal suffering than all meat consumers merely by reason
>> of not consuming animal part - they aren't causing zero harm, they
>> aren't minimizing, they aren't "doing the best they can", and they're
>> not even doing better than all meat consumers.
>>
>
> There is no good reason for saying that not "doing the best they can"
> given the limited information that is available.

They aren't "doing" anything. Their entire conclusion is based on what
they're *not* doing: consuming animal parts. They assume that what
they're not doing is all they need to know. That has been proved not to
be a sound basis for the conclusion.

*Some* improvement could be had for very little effort, but they won't
undertake *any* effort to learn how they might improve. The decision
not to consume animal parts is not the starting point in a quest to
cause less harm - it's the ending point.


> You also haven't
> pointed out any specific example of a meat consumer who is doing
> better than a vegan.

Meat consumers don't make any of the fatuous claims of "vegans". They
don't accept the fake moral issues that "vegans" want to inject into diet.


> For most meat consumers it is very unlikely that
> they are doing better than a vegan.

Why are you comparing yourself with meat consumers to show that you're
virtuous? Don't you know that's invalid?

1. Your diet causes the "rights" of animals to be violated.
2. You almost certainly are not consuming the least-harm "vegan"
diet that you could, let alone the least-harm overall diet.

What does the level of harm caused by "most meat consumers" have to do
with what *you* are doing?

Nothing, that's what.


> You've given absolutely no good reason at all for thinking that vegans
> are not genuinely concerned about animal suffering.

I most certainly have. I have shown beyond all dispute that their
decision not to consume animal parts absolutely does *NOT* lead to the
conclusion they wish to believe, yet they do nothing more than that. It
*can't* be about animal suffering, because they don't do anything after
their assumption has been falsified, which of course it has.