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What if human predation fulfills a cultural or locational need? How do you convince the Native American tribes that their attempt at recapturing their cultural heritage of hunting and fishing is morally and ethically wrong? How do you handle societies that still require hunting due to not being a component of a globalized supply chain? To the isolated societies that function still as hunter-gatherers (diminishing as they are), what would you say? I struggle with coming to full agreement with anyone who proposes high level of veganism because it always makes me feel like that is a modern, intellectual denial of our part in nature that has come about in no small part due to industrialization. We have challenged and disrupted the natural order of ecosystems, but I don't inherently agree that we should remove ourselves entirely from the order. Are humans somehow superior to the animals they hunt or rear for food production? If what differentiates us from the rest of the carnivores and herbivores is that we can recognize ourselves in each, why can't a human choose to be a carnivore? Because of our higher degree of self awareness placing us into a position of greater moral or ethical superiority in relation to our fellow animals?
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Oct 18, 2022 07:32
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TychoCelchuuu posted:So, is your concern really for people in this situation? Or are you using this as an excuse for people in other situations (like, say, yourself) not to go vegan? In this case the thought is legitimate. I live in an area with several local tribes whom maintain and utilize their granted fishing and hunting rights as genuine forms of cultural reclamation and I was curious about the response. How do you treat a tribe that say defends it's cultural and historical whaling rights (which it does utilize sustainably and only taking a very limited number of whales per year)? It's a question I've grappled with. I know the thread is an attempt to convince others that it is a moral imperative to cease the killing and consumption of animals (specifically those in European affluent societies), but the edge cases to me are more interesting and telling than the straightforward answers. I don't disagree with getting traditions changed (or that even some are wrong or destructive!), but how you go about that is a different matter. I, functionally, have been an atheist my entire life and have certain beliefs around faith and disagreements with human cultures at large, but I still appreciate the arguments and thoughts of individuals who do have faith. I don't necessarily go out of my way to dissuade them of their beliefs because fundamentally I know we are at an impasse on a deep fundamental level. Frankly, I view veganism as being in a similar struggle: how do you convince others (arguably a large portion of living human society) that cannot at fundamental base level agree with a core tenet of your belief? TychoCelchuuu posted:1. There's no such thing as "the natural order of ecosystems." To be frank I was tired when wording this and I was fretting if I nailed the language. It's less that there's a strict "natural order" but more that we as fellow animals come from a place of having killed to consume and exist in as a part of the cycle of living consumption. Some animals kill other animals to continue to exist, and we have done so for thousands of years. Why does the elevation of our consciousness and intellect push us morally away from sustainably and thoughtfully consuming other animals when many other species do so as well, with far less potential for thought? Is the omnivore who chooses not to eat meat morally superior to the obligate carnivore? TychoCelchuuu posted:2. Even granting there's such thing as the natural order of ecosystems, we're loving up those natural orders... And I don't disagree, and I should have included the caveat that industrial scale farming (and to be frank industry in general) is a blight and a unending pit of suffering. That in itself isn't an argument I find compelling for the total cessation of animal consumption, but rather the industrial harvesting of fellow animals.
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Oct 18, 2022 16:18
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TychoCelchuuu posted:There is much more to say on the topic: for instance, the question " Is the omnivore who chooses not to eat meat morally superior to the obligate carnivore?" is rather misguided, because we don't judge people who lack the capability to exercise morality (e.g. infants) for their behavior, and for the same reasons we don't judge carnivores. If a lion could be an ethical vegan and chose not to, then we could have a beef with the lion. But the lion can't do that: the lion can't even understand the topic, let alone make a choice. Just like it would be ridiculous to get angry at a baby for throwing up on you but perfectly acceptable to get angry at me for throwing up on you, it would be ridiculous to judge a wolf for eating a goat but perfectly acceptable to get angry at me for eating a goat. Stripping it down to a base level, I am trying to to grapple with the morality of the act and why the ability to choose makes it more moral. Morality is a human construct defining the outlines of acceptable society and thought, and if "tradition" can change and alter, why is our conception of morality as definitive? If, hypothetically, presented with the choice of starvation (either by a quirk of genetics or the lack of other resources) or killing another animal to live and survive, is it immoral to kill another animal to survive? If say a lion could choose not to eat meat but ultimately die that may be a selfless act but is it the more moral one? And there are people who grapple with this because of quirks in their biology when processing fats and proteins! Does the morality of taking a sentient life to live ever exist as a necessity or is always an undue harm on other life forms?
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Oct 18, 2022 18:01
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