"usual suspect" > wrote in message
...
> Vegans and animal rights activists trivialize the collateral suffering
> and death that results from their own food production. Their objections
> to animal deaths arise only with respect to the actual eating of meat.
> They'd rather labor entirely over the death of the one animal eaten so
> they can bury their heads over the mass slaughter resulting from grain
> and other plant-based food production. They think they're more ethical
> because they assume (wrongly) that those who eat meat are always at
> least "plus one" in the counting game.
>
> It is a very sleazy and shoddy attempt at moral relativism.
>
> Let's suppose a grain field's planting and harvesting results in 1000
> animal deaths. The vegans and animal rights activists are mum on every
> single one of those deaths, but they eat the grains anyway and proclaim
> their own self-righteousness because they didn't eat any meat. The
> vegans and ARAs simply do not care about the first thousand dead animals.

They keep mum on the first 1000 deaths up to the point that someone informs
them of the deaths. At that point, then begin handwaving and temporizing
about doing "all they can" to minimize those deaths, e.g. by buying only
"locally produced" produce.

>
> If that same field were used to raise one head of beef, the vegans would
> offer their "plus one" objection -- that even though they themselves
> were responsible for 1000 collateral deaths, they were personally and
> collectively absolved of the 1001st death because they did not eat the
> meat from it. They forget that they were complicit in animal deaths
> number 1 through number 1000, but those don't matter to them because
> they're uneaten.

This gets back to the basic fallacy underlying the "vegan"
pseudo-philosophy. It's the eating, not the killing, that bothers "vegans".
As John Mercer memorably put it in an earlier discussion on the topic - the
topic that won't go away: "The only distinction is an esthetic one--the
disposition of the corpses produced."

"vegans" aren't concerned in the least about the 1000 deaths, because they
don't eat the corpses.

>
> Such an argument, which I now call "Objecting to the 1001st Death,"
> relies ENTIRELY on moral relativism. It avoids personal culpability for
> one's actions and ultimately becomes a diversion from the issue vegans
> and ARAs raise about animal cruelty.

The wish to avoid or reduce personal culpability actually leads some
"vegans" and omnivores alike to view animal deaths, incorrectly, as
divisible. Many on both sides subscribe to a bizarre and erroneous belief
that one can be responsible for some discrete fraction of an animal death.
Somewhat surprisingly, the argument seems to be found more commonly among
omnivores, most often when they talk about the number of meals that may be
had from the meat from one large animal; they'll talk about a "fraction of a
death" attributable to one hamburger, for example.

The animal deaths are indivisible. If the food production that caused the
1000 collateral deaths yielded food to feed 100,000 people (that would be
some yield!), the eaters cannot say that they only "caused" 1/100th of a
death. They all, collectively, are responsible for all 1000 deaths.
Similarly, if a dressed steer carcass yields 250 pounds of edible beef, and
those are made into 500 half-pound servings, those who eat them cannot say
they only "caused" 1/500th of a death; they ALL caused one full death,
together.

The point is to compare the total numbers. One *could* eat a fish, causing
one animal death; or one could eat a serving of rice that came from a
particular crop whose cultivation and harvest caused 1000 deaths. The rice
eater caused 1000 deaths.

>
> The 1001st animal, the one that appears in meals, is most usually
> slaughtered in a very humane fashion after being well fed and cared for.
> We have many laws and regulations to protect that animal's welfare and
> to protect the public's safety.
>
> Animals 1 through 1000, the collateral deaths, die as a result of being
> run over, sliced and diced, poisoning, predation, burning (some
> croplands like those used for sugar production are burned), and flooding
> from irrigation. Their deaths can be prolonged and agonizing if they're
> wounded and left to die or for scavenging.

As long as one doesn't eat the corpses, one can pretend not to know.

>
> If veganism were about concern and compassion for animals, vegans and
> ARAs would need to genuinely address deaths 1 through 1000 rather than
> trivialize them. They would need to admit that their diet is every bit
> as cruel and inhumane as any other diet. They would have to be more
> candid that a diet based on commercially-grown grains and legumes --
> which they advocate -- is not the most compassionate diet because it
> causes many animals to die or become injured.
>
> Their objections only to the death of the 1001st animal demonstrate,
> however, that their concerns are not about concern for animals as they
> claim. Their only concern is their own smug and back-patting
> self-righteousness and their desire to claim moral uprightness. Their
> objections to meat eating overlook the fact that many meals come as a
> result of the death of the 1001st animal, while only a few meals come
> from the deaths of the first 1000.
>
> Veganism and ARA are not about compassion for animals. "Objecting to the
> 1001st Death" proves it.