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The environmental/social argument doesn't hold water for me because it frames it according to the "personal responsibility" model. What I mean by this is that the argument is that one can, acting as an individual, by their choice to be a vegan, they can effect society-wide change in order to positively benefit the cause of animal welfare or the environment. This isn't convincing for me, because the marginal effect of a single individual in a society of 8 billion is minimal. At the scale necessary to effect material change, individual actions are replaceable: if you choose not to consume animal products, then someone else will. In effect, the animals exploited, the greenhouse gases emitted, are already baked into the system by the time you make your choice; the animals, raised in order to be food, are already dead. Now this doesn't mean that I oppose one's individual preference to be a vegan. In fact, I have already easily transitioned into a 4/3, 5/2 vegan/pescatarian diet simply because I prefer it that way. I've found that I like eating vegan food more than I like non-vegan food, and that I like eating seafood more than land food. I also agree with the argument from the standpoint of personal ethics. But to claim that individuals making the choice to become vegan because doing so will help X or Y social cause is somewhat specious to me, because socially effective changes require social-scale decisions, social-scale actions. In essence, it's not comparing apples to oranges. The correct tool for dealing with the cause of animal welfare would be to put pressure on manipulating the system of animal protection, the correct tool for dealing with the root cause of CO2 emissions from factory farming would be to put pressure on ending the system of factory farming. It requires a legal response, a response on the order of a conscientious social movement, not an individual response. EDIT: Essentially, I disagree with the framing of the topic. I think it should be "Why we should encourage veganism" or "Why we should stop society-wide animal cultivation". EDIT2: And well, Ytlaya already made my argument upthread. Woops! 
DrSunshine fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Aug 31, 2022 |
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Aug 31, 2022 03:05
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 03:59 |
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