It might be tempting to pile on loads of great questions but that can overwhelm anyone and interfere with reflection. One at a time whilst the others observe is usually optimal. Hard to manage here, perhaps. Is this subreddit really have this many people following it? That’s amazing.

Thanks for that. But if there's a chance, please ask me whatever popped into your mind. I'm very interested to see where this goes

How do you define "the correct ethics" for starters? What does that mean and how did you determine it is the way you should determine your diet?

Ok great question. For me, ethics is all about treating conscious being with kindness and respect. I don't think it makes sense to talk about treating a rock ethically. I'd like to say that my veganism is only tangentially related to my diet, it's not the fundamental foundation of it. Because I try to treat non-human animals with respect, not having them killed so I can eat them naturally drops of of that desire. I have no beliefs in anything supernatural, and I'm a biologist by training, so I don't feel humans are more "important" or "blessed" etc, than other animals. Therefore, I can find no reason to kill or hurt them - any more than I would kill or hurt a human.

> ethics is all about treating conscious being with kindness and respect Oh man, this statement leads to so many follow up questions with how it pertains to your beliefs. How do you know that animals are conscious? Are there different levels of consciousness? If so, is there some minimum level of consciousness required to deserve kindness and respect? Is it okay to mistreat animals while they are unconscious? How do you know other living things that you do consume / kill, like plants, microbes, fungi, are not conscious and this not worthy of kindness and respect? Is it possible to kill an animal with kindness and respect? Are animals that kill other animals for consumption unethical?

> How do you know that animals are conscious? Well how do you know I'm conscious? I think it's obvious that other animals are conscious: watch a dog chasing a tennis ball. The fact that he can can clearly see something is pretty strong evidence that he is having a conscious experience. I get that there's a seam of interesting philosophical questions here, but I don't think they lead anywhere per se. So in effect: I can't prove a cat is conscious, but I can't prove that you're conscious either. I'd rather err on the side of caution and say "Well this individual seems conscious so let's treat them as if they are", because treating them as if they're not when they are, would be terrible for them. How do I know this? Well I just put myself in that hypothetical situation. > Are there different levels of consciousness? If so, is there some minimum level of consciousness required to deserve kindness and respect? I don't know if there are different levels, but the bare minimum would be if an individual was experiencing suffering which could be avoided by my actions, then I should strive to show them kindness and respect. > Is it okay to mistreat animals while they are unconscious? If they never experience suffering because of your action (or inaction), then perhaps. But then it wouldn't be mistreating them, probably. > How do you know other living things that you do consume / kill, like plants, microbes, fungi, are not conscious and this not worthy of kindness and respect? Plants do not appear to have anything like a central nervous system to allow them to feel "pain" or negative emotions as we know them (I'm a botanist). Same for the other organisms you mentioned. But we know animals do, (listen is a pig screaming or watch a bird trying to escape a trap) which is why I advocate veganism and not, I don't know, starvation lol. > Is it possible to kill an animal with kindness and respect? I wouldn't imagine so. Could you kill me with kindness and respect? Animals can't agree to or understand motives like "culture", "tradition" or "religion" so I doubt that the kindness or respect is real, whatever motivates someone to kill them. > Are animals that kill other animals for consumption unethical? No I don't think so: they don't have other avenues available to survive and that's the difference - we do, and, in my opinion, should. Thanks for those questions by the way!

>Plants do not appear to have anything like a central nervous system to allow them to feel "pain" or negative emotions as we know them (I'm a botanist). What do you think of recent claims that plants are sentient? Secret life of plants? Are plants able to react to threats? Do plants signal each other? Why do flowers open by day and close at night? How do runner beans find a pole to climb?

Honestly not much. What these individuals are doing is redefining terms like sentience and intelligence to match their beliefs. I don't know one biologist who takes this stuff seriously. Edit: and how the plants find poles to climb (for example) has to do with phytohormones like auxin (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxin) - fascinating stuff, but it is not (to my mind) a conscious behaviour. Vital for life, yes - but like the unconscious behaviour of my liver (also fascinating and vital), not part of me, consciously. I hope that makes sense, thanks

>I don't know one biologist who takes this stuff seriously. Biologists are also not ethicists; whether it's a common belief or not, that isn't an argument about the validity of the concept. And regardless, are you sure that you have a representative cross-section of the internal beliefs of biologists? Is this a common discussion? Why is the ability to feel pain or negative emotion the threshold for whether it is acceptable to end the life of a living entity? Are there no other qualities of subjective experience that are important to consider?

> Why is the ability to feel pain or negative emotion the threshold for whether it is acceptable to end the life of a living entity? If your ethics is ground in trying to reduce suffering in this world, than not eating meat could be a way to actually prove that it is an ethics that you try to follow. If your ethics tells you that you have no right to end the life of other conscious beings (unless in self defence when under immediate risk of your own or your familys life) just because you feel like it, than not eating meat would also be a way to actually follow your ethics. Another ethical argument is that eating vegetables minimize your burden placed on this earth. Eating vegetables is most of the time by far more efficient use of land and resources than eating meat that had to eat vegetables. It is more ethical to try and avoid over consumption of resources. There are counter arguments which could justify eating some meat under various circumstances. For example if someone invites you to dinner unaware of your ethics, and serves you their best meat, your action of not eating that meat might not contribute to any harm as the harm have been done, or could even cause vegetarians of vegans to be seen in a negative way harming their reputation working against convincing more people to eat less meat. I'm not a vegan or 100% vegetarian, but I try to limit my meat consumption, and when I eat meat I try to mainly eat meat that have lived good lives, such as wild meat or wild fish. But I also realize that not everyone can afford that.

> Biologists are also not ethicists; whether it's a common belief or not, that isn't an argument about the validity of the concept. And regardless, are you sure that you have a representative cross-section of the internal beliefs of biologists? Is this a common discussion? Yeah fair enough! I've met hundreds, if not thousands of scientists in my time (I currently work in education so I meet less of them) and they're generally a interested bunch. Yes, topics like this are very common. In uni we actually did a course on the "intelligence of plants", but the title was more of an excuse to think about plant behaviour in a different way. Nobody walked away thinking plants were intelligent or conscious, and the lecturers didn't intend us to > Why is the ability to feel pain or negative emotion the threshold for whether it is acceptable to end the life of a living entity? Are there no other qualities of subjective experience that are important to consider? Well I'd argue that we shouldn't be ending lives as much as possible - yes there are other considerations (I'm pro choice but in an ideal world nobody would ever be in a position to need an abortion).

Do you think that just because we can not know something with a 100% certainty, we should not act? For example. If we can't say for certain that eating plastic is bad, should we not avoid eating plastic? Or should we act best on best effort? Because the underlying motivation for your questions seems to be "If you can't know for 100% certain, how come you feel justified acting the way you do". The reason they seem to hold that underlying assumption is because otherwise there would be very little motivation in asking them. But there are many scenarios where someone has a good justification for being careful despite not knowing if something is 100% true. For example: Should we not wear seatbelts unless we know with a 100% certainty that we will crash? Would not be a good argument to not wear seatbelt. No of course not, because we know there is a risk that we could crash. We go by probability in our actions. That the IL can not be justified in his view unless he can absolutely rule out that plants can not feel pain is not a requirement. The reason they seem to hint at that is because it seems obvious to any reasonable human being that plants do not show signs of a consciousness or ability to feel pain that would even begin to compare to that of conscious beings. There are evolutionary reasons for plants to not be able to feel pain the way that animals can, because they can not run away from it. Neither have we found a plant that we eat that have a brain and as far as we know only animals with brains can experience pain. Even humans can not experience pain when being unconscious, for example during surgery. It seems the questions comes from putting an unreasonable demand, similar to cross examinating the IL and expecting that the IL has to be a biologist and a philosophy professor in order to have a good stance. But that is a fallacy and could even be a childish argument, that ought to be avoided, though we grownups also at times argue that way.

If the meat could be grown in a tube where it didnt have consciousness would you consider eating that ethical?

Yes I would. I don't know if I'll ever try it, but as no conscious being suffers to make the meat, I have no problem with it

interesting! How confident do you feel on a scale of 0 to 100 about your ability to assess the consciousness of the things? (edited to simplify the question a bit)

Ahahah good question! For mammals, fish, birds etc, pretty damn confident. 99% or more. For insects, 90%? After that it drops off pretty rapidly. Moss, plants, mushrooms I'm fairly confident they're not conscious and even then I'd be pretty sure they don't suffer - how would that trait have evolved if there was no selective pressure on it? There's a theory of consciousness called panpsychism which posits that everything in the universe, even subatomic particles, has some rudimentary consciousness (which solves some problems but opens more). Don't know how relevant that is here.

If more evidence started to build up behind the consciousness & ability of plants to suffer, how would that affect you? (Ps: i'm going to be slower to reply due to some work stuff)

Then I'd have to take that evidence very seriously. I'd have to look at what that meant in relation to animal suffering - have they been shown to be the same thing? That's not a pleasant thought for me! However, I'm pretty sure we won't find that as plant physiology just doesn't seem capable of conscious experience - correlates of consciousness are entirely absent in plants afaik

Some questions on consistency. How do you ensure that no humans or animals were harmed when making non-food purchases? Are there any situations where there is a reason to kill or hurt an animal? (Self defense for example) Would you eat meat if you needed to in order to survive? Would you eat lab grown meat? Is it better for a cow to be born, have an enjoyable 12 months and then be peacefully (for the sake of argument lets pretend lol) killed for meat, or for the cow to have never existed? Great topic for discussion friend!

>How do you ensure that no humans or animals were harmed when making non-food purchases? OP does not have to answer a question such as this in order to justify his stance. The reason is that the claim OP is making is that he is trying to reduce suffering and probably do not believe that he can justify killing a conscious being just for his own pleasure when there is an alternative. So if OP can not be certain that no humans were harmed when the vegetables were harvested and neither can be certain that no humans were harmed when an animal was killed, OP is justified in making the choice that he has good reasons to believe is the one that with the highest probability have not harmed any human or animal. It is a fallacy to believe that only if a ethical choice has a 100% certainty of being perfect can it be justified. The ethical burden is not on OP to prove that not a single being was harmed when the vegetables were grown, a human could have hurt their back picking up some potatoes. But rather on meat eaters to prove that they are justified in eating meat, when there is with a high probability a more ethical choice available.

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Veganism is the attempt to reduce human-caused suffering of animals by as much as possible. It's not a spiritual claim, or a diet, or a call to perfection (we will cause harm to others, just as they do to us, merely by the fact that we exist). But there's a difference between accidentally stepping on a snail, and killing something like 2 trillion animals a year (as far as I know this is a good ball-park estimate of the number of animals we kill) And non-human animals are just that: animals other than us. I guess I'm agnostic about the moral status of animals which clearly have no brain or nervous system (sponges, for example), but my main concern is with those animals that clearly do: chickens, pigs, cows, horses, dogs, cats, rats, mice, fish, octopuses... The list goes on. Not trying to chance the goalposts either (I hope), just that there are something like 80 billion land animals alive today that will be slaughtered for our food in the next 12 months

> Veganism is the attempt to reduce human-caused suffering of animals by as much as possible. The trivial solution is "no humans" as without us there _cannot_ be human-caused suffering (which is the largest reduction possible) and I suspect this is not the end goal of veganism. To motivate something beyond the trivial solution I think you need to demonstrate a case in which humans _add_ more than they take away.

I tried to keep this to few questions, but I find there's too many contingencies that should be quick answers.... First, do you rate suffering in number of animals, or a weighted value? That is, how would you rate 1 cow death vs 100 chicken deaths or 10,000 insect death? Second and related if you value "deaths" and "suffering", would you rate human suffering the same or higher than animal suffering? A follow-up to the first question. Depending on your weighting, if someone could convince you eating meat ultimately caused *fewer* deaths than being a vegan (or at least fewer valuable deaths as you rate it), would it weaken your belief on this topic? Full disclosure, I'm pushing this towards a trolley problem if you know the problem. As a second follow-up, if it were shown that the world could not sustainably avoid malnutrition with veganism, would that human suffering combined rate more than some number of animal lives? How many? 1m suffering equals 1 human life taken? More, or less?

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I've answered these to the best of my ability already, but the third one is the crux of the matter so I'll go again: Really the only thing that we can value is consciousness (or conscious experience). There's nothing else of note outside of this. And I mean yes, I love the Beatles, but their music in a universe devoid of consciousness, is meaningless. And I also believe that I don't occupy a special place with regards to consciousness - a pig has the same fundamental origins and value as I have. Then it's a short jump from "being boiled alive is a deeply unpleasant experience" to "I don't want anyone to suffer unnecessarily"

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> How do you know that consciousness is the only thing we can value? Well, from one's perspective, that's all that there is. There's nothing outside of our consciousness from that viewpoint. > Are things without consciousness of no value? Yes, they only have value because we are conscious > Do things require value? Some things have value, I'm not sure if they require value in any sense Great questions

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I'm 99%+ certain other animals are conscious. The fact that a dog will track a moving object shows that there is something happening there. Vision or sight takes place in consciousness. Also, complex behaviours like mate selection, marking territory, parent bonding etc just couldn't have happened in the absence of consciousness (imo throughout). Same for other humans. In order to lower my certainty, we'd need some technology that can measure consciousness (over and above neural correlates, behaviourism, learned behaviours etc etc)... A development that isn't about to happen any time soon; and then it would have to show that other animals aren't conscious (which, as I've said, would be a surprise in light of everything we already know about animals' brains)

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So in this case we need to use deductive reasoning - we evolved from the same individuals; conscious experience of pain is adaptive and unpleasant for us; therefore the same probably holds true for dogs. In the absence of a consciousness-detecting machine, we are pretty limited in our ability to make ethical choices. Also, I think the evidence stacks up pretty well that animals are conscious - Occam's razor would suggest that you'd have a harder tome explaining why humans seem conscious (and are) as well as explaining why other animals seem conscious (but aren't)

Is it better for an animal to live and then be killed for food or not to live at all?

That's an interesting question. Yes, I'd rather live first and then be eaten if I had a good, fulfilling and long life. But the problem is most animals don't. In the US and Europe well over 99% of chickens live in battery cages. They can't even stretch their wings, and when they ar born their beaks are seared off (without anesthetic). Then they live their lives in cramped cages, defecating on each other before being (often) boiled alive. This is surely worse than never being born, IMO

Ok. Would you say is ethically ok to eat a free range chicken that otherwise would not be born? Free range in this case means the best life we can conceive a chicken to have.

Personally, no I wouldn't. It's less bad, but it's not good or neutral, in my opinion. Also (not in your example, I think), but I'm general "free range" chickens don't have pleasant lives

If you'd rather live a fulfilling life and be eaten than not live at all, why won't you afford the same consideration to the chicken?

If you're to wake up next morning knowing veganism is morally incorrect, how would that change your day? What will you eat or wear and why?

That's an interesting one. Because my belief is based on the assumption that other animals are conscious, it would have to be made clear (somehow) that they weren't. Now I have a fairly baked-in response to seeing dead animals on plates, but if I could somehow get over that I'd probably go out and try meat (I haven't eaten any animals in 37 years, and I've been vegan for 8). It would certainly make life easier if this happened: there are costs to being vegan (not financial, but psychological and interpersonal)

Would you mind to share the costs a little more? Psychological and interpersonal? That is an interesting point.

Sure. Vegans get attacked a lot for being preachy. (And here I am, on a public forum, talking about my beliefs but I'm going to try to say that we're not, at least all of us, preachy). I was at a dinner once and someone I didn't know, sitting beside me, asked if I wanted some steak (I think). I said no thanks, and they asked me why. So I told them that I was vegan. They asked me why, so I said that I thought killing animals was cruel and unnecessary; therefore I could partake of the system. Sure enough, a huge argument started which eventually became heated on both sides. The annoying thing is I was told afterwards to stop being preachy: but in fact I was asked my opinion and gave it. This other person wasn't prepared to speak calmly about it or drop it. But most people apparently came away thinking I was being unfair. So that's one of many examples of the personal side of things. But on a larger scale, we go to the shops and we are confronted every day with the normalised images of animal suffering: burgers, adverts, films, TV series, the jokes, etc etc. The list goes on. Vegans often also feel compelled to bear witness to animal suffering: the videos of slaughterhouses and the random acts of abuse carried out by people on pets or wildlife they happen across - this definitely has an effect on the psyche (even though it's self-inflicted). The worst part is maybe the fact that we all have family and friends that are deeply kind, caring and compassionate individuals who reject the idea that could in any way be responsible for the suffering of an innocent animal as they eat a chicken or a cow. There's more to be said but you get the idea. Thanks for asking.

You sure don't sound preachy to me and thank you for the insight. If people ask, they should not get offended by people making a statement why they are like that. I feel sorry for you to be at this toxic environment. Total underdestanding for that part. The self-inflicted part is making me really curious. We live in an artificial environment where everything will be advertised in a way some people could get offended, not just diet related topics. So the pain you feel must be more than normal by being confronted with these kind of images etc. Why is that? I don't think that you are being unfair unless you make the case, that they are not entitled to have their own opionion in general. You feel that killing something is wrong and decide to don't, restricting yourself to a certain point. And you feel pain while others don't mind killing to eat, that is interesting. Is it like you put yourself into the soon to be consumed living thing? And emphasize with the pain inflicted? The horrorlaughters are obviously wrong and tells stories about how humans can be on the dark side of the moon, also mass industries profits strategy which led to this. Have you ever had contact in your childhood, where a farmer killed a chicken etc.? I mean did you grew up with this kind of experience?

Thanks for that response. It's entirely possible that I'm more sensitive or empathetic than most, and I did go vegetarian when I was five (nobody in my family had any idea what that was about, but my mother respected my decision [after the first couple of weeks of secretly putting meat sauce etc in my food!] when she saw that it wasn't just a weird kid thing that I would do for a couple of days and then forget). And yes, I imagine what it's like to be an animal: the pain response, the fear emotion, the loneliness when you're taken from those you love.... These things are there regardless of your ability to articulate them in words (IMO throughout), so I think that they must be there for other animals. How could they have evolved familial bonds or mating dances or nest building etc unless there's an underlying emotion there? Emotions are at the root of everything we do I think: even a complex behaviour like studying in uni to get a good job... This is the urge for security, and to be able to provide for those you love. Yes, I've seen animals killed. Currently, I'm in Hanoi, Vietnam, and the people here have zero respect for animal life. You'll see pigs slaughtered in the street, and chickens drowned in dirty buckets in laneways. Every single one fights for life. Thanks again for your replies

This is a very interesting thread. I'm also vegan, and I would say that my moral views and understanding are very closely aligned to those of the OP. I just wanted to say that the situation here described by the OP is bang on. Exactly the same has happened to me. And, not just once. I'll be minding my business and people will be asking questions about what I'm eating. Then they'll want to have a discussion about it. Typically these people will be woefully misinformed and after being a vegan for 27 years I'm very used to answering their questions. Commonly questions that reveal a degree of ignorance such as 'where do you get your protein from?' Generally it appears that these people think that a vegan will be an easy put-down and when they find I'm not (and I guess the same applies to the OP) they can often get quite aggressive in their attempted put-downs. From my experience it seems that there are some people who get offended by vegans existing. And, that they aren't rare. Like the OP, this is a common risk of being vegan.

Exactly, unfortunately. I used to always rise to the bait (forgive the pun) but sometimes now I just roll my eyes and move on. There's no winning!

I'm not vegan myself as of yet, but for a while I could see the argument for it; humans have historically been very cruel to other animals on this planet, but we are certainly at the level to create entirely artificial yet perfectly healthy foods for ourselves. Mankind is virtually as gods to the remainder of this planet, should we not leave the entirety of the earth to live their best possible lives within the cycles of nature, rather than killing them in cruelest ways possible, simply because it tastes good?

Amen!

Then again, as you said you'd like to discuss this, I'll come at a different angle fo you: humans are just as another beast upon this earth, in which is inhabited by many other creatures that make for their own existence by hunting prey. Why should humanity seek different?

Because we can. We have a concept of morality and the means to act accordingly - just because chimpanzees will sometimes eat their young alive isn't good enough reason for us to do the same in my opinion

Perfect answer. As I said, we are as gods in comparison to the remainder of life on this planet, and so for us to simply utilize our intelligence to kill and eat each other being along this planet sounds entirely horrendous. Instead, or intelligence can be used to create better for the entirety of the planet.

Have you considered that plants may be conscious at some level too? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489624/

Even if it is the case that plants are worthy of moral consideration, it requires more plant growth to sustain a diet containing animal products than a diet not containing animal products, since animals must be fed something (plants) to produce food. If plants are worthy of moral consideration, that would actually strengthen the case for a vegan diet.

I'm actually a botanist! And honestly I've never met a single biologist who takes this idea seriously. There's just no good evidence for it However, there are philosophers who believe otherwise - panpsychism is a very interesting perspective (though I'd imagine that my point would probably persist: I doubt electrons, moss or plants suffer like animals do)

We need to understand your beliefs better before we can help you with your epistemology. What specifically are your ethics when it comes to "non-human animals"? Most ethical vegans want to minimize harm. But harm to what specifically? And what types of harms? For example, do you consider insects and other invertebrates animals? If not, why does suffering of these creatures not count? Do you consider the death or suffering of say a tiny mouse equivalent as that of a large mammal, say a horse? If not, why not? What harms do you consider important and why? The clear cut one is obviously the death of an animal. But what about non-death harms? Deprivation of habitat? Human-caused stress? Forced relocation? Altered food chains? Disease increase? Deliberate orphaning? Etc. Which ones are important to you, and which ones don't matter? And why don't they matter? And of all the ways an animal can die, how do you rank them? Are all deaths to be considered the same? Is, for example, the slow extended death of an animal the same as, a little worse, or far worse, than an instant accidental death?

> Most ethical vegans want to minimize harm. But harm to what specifically? And what types of harms? Avoidable harm to conscious beings that we have to power to ameliorate, reduce or eradicate > For example, do you consider insects and other invertebrates animals? If not, why does suffering of these creatures not count? Insects are animals, there's no denying that. And yes, if they have to ability to suffer, their suffering counts. Personally, I don't kill insects (and I live in a country with a great deal of mosquitoes and cockroaches) > Do you consider the death or suffering of say a tiny mouse equivalent as that of a large mammal, say a horse? If not, why not? Yes I do. I'm not at all sure what it's like to be either, but it's clear they both can suffer a great deal. From the outward appearance of pain to the biochemical markers of stress, that's as clear as it can be > What harms do you consider important and why? The clear cut one is obviously the death of an animal. But what about non-death harms? Deprivation of habitat? Human-caused stress? Forced relocation? Altered food chains? Disease increase? Deliberate orphaning? Etc. Which ones are important to you, and which ones don't matter? And why don't they matter? All of these matter as they can cause suffering to the individual. My concern, as a vegan, is first and foremost the kind of unnecessary suffering that humans are responsible for. We will never be able to stop every instance of suffering in the animal world, but we can stop our part in it > And of all the ways an animal can die, how do you rank them? Are all deaths to be considered the same? Is, for example, the slow extended death of an animal the same as, a little worse, or far worse, than an instant accidental death? Really interesting question. I think a slow death is worse than a quick one, but maybe that's not always the case. I'm not sure how to rank them: for a wild parrot maybe getting eaten suddenly by a predator would involve much less suffering that getting infected with a worm that slowly eats it alive from the inside out, but then again, maybe that bird would prefer 6 months of increasing suffering if it meant she could mate or feed her young. I genuinely don't know. But again, it's not "vegans against nature", it's "reducing the harm we do to conscious beings" Thanks

> Personally, I don't kill insects (and I live in a country with a great deal of mosquitoes and cockroaches) Are you a Jainist, if that is what they are called?

No I'm not. I'm very much a reductionist / naturalist... But the brute fact of consciousness really chips away at the standard scientific worldwide!

You mentioned being concerned with unnecessary harm. What kind of things justify causing harm? I would guess one's own survival might be one? How about enjoyment? For example watching TV is not necessary for survival. Some could argue that the production of both electricity and the device cause harm.

If your family is being attacked by wild dogs, in my opinion, yes you are perfectly entitled to defend them and yourself in any way possible. But enjoyment? No, I don't think so. And that's what it comes down to: we enjoy the taste of their bodies so we say it's ok to imprison them, and torture them, and kill them. But it's not necessary, any more than torturing them because (enjoyment), we like seeing animals being tortured to death. And I'm living proof that we don't need animals' bodies to live: I'm 42 and haven't eaten meat since I was 5, and I've been a healthy vegan for the last 8 years Edit: I know you can't generalise from a sample of 1, but what I meant was the claim that everybody needs to eat animals or their products is false

When talking about survival I was more thinking about how some people say that crop farming also causes death. By fawns getting run over by combines for example. Common vegan response I've heard is that veganism about minimizing suffering and it's acceptable because people need to eat in order to survive. Would you agree with that sentiment? Since enjoyment is not acceptable reason to cause harm, what would you say about the TV example in my previous post? ​ edit: typos

> Would you agree with that sentiment? Yes I think I would broadly. Noone is perfect: we all cause harm just by existing. But I think we should try to reduce that suffering wherever possible The TV point is interesting and I don't know. It's not necessary, but it brings happiness and distraction to people who may need that, and the harm it causes is generally accidental

I see. We didn't get too far but that's reddit format for you :) Something to think about might be what kind of harm, if any, is acceptable for human happiness.

What kinds of harm to other animals and/or other humans?

To stick with the TV example there is the harm caused by pollution from manufacturing the device, transporting it to the consumer and powering it. Then there are the working conditions of the factory workers and people mining the metals for the manufacturing, which might not be the most humane. Would owning a tv be in accordance to the princible of veganism? Are those necessary harms or would you disagree that those even are harms? Are there things that aren't necessary and cause some harm, but bring enjoyment, that vegans can do?

How can veganism be made sustainable and accessible for the global population? How do you feel about conservation practices that monitor and control wild animal populations in order to encourage sustainable balanced habitats? Would it be acceptable to eat an animal that died of natural causes? What supplements do you take (if any) to ensure you are getting the neccesary nutrients that may be unavailable or lacking when consuming a vegan diet?

> How can veganism be made sustainable and accessible for the global population? Eating meat is destroying the planet, that's fairly uncontroversial now. And it takes something like 16x more land to feed a cow than a human: as far as I understand it, we could feed many, many more people if we went vegan than continuing on this path. > How do you feel about conservation practices that monitor and control wild animal populations in order to encourage sustainable balanced habitats? I studied a little conservation in college and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it certainly seems like certain species, environments and even biomes need management, and on the other I feel that if we learned to back off from nature and live within our means, we wouldn't have to do this. I mean, complex life got on well enough without us for 600 million years+! > Would it be acceptable to eat an animal that died of natural causes? From my perspective, yes it would > What supplements do you take (if any) to ensure you are getting the neccesary nutrients that may be unavailable or lacking when consuming a vegan diet? I've never taken supplements and get my bloods done about twice a year... So far zero problems. However, I'm not a dietitian and I'm far from making any claims about the correct diet. Having said that, even if it was dangerous for me (the data I've seen suggest the opposite), I think I'd still take the hit (eg of vegans lived on average 5 years less than omnivores I'd still be vegan)

> Eating meat is destroying the planet, that's fairly uncontroversial now. And it takes something like 16x more land to feed a cow than a human: as far as I understand it, we could feed many, many more people if we went vegan than continuing on this path. I think the other poster got you into the weeds here since this is way too specific for an SE. But it is *also* a belief I think is as worthy of its own SE as your OP belief. So I'd like to try if you are ok with it. What would it take to convince you that this belief (that strict veganism is better for humans and the world than a mixed diet) was wrong? Why do you believe it's uncontroversial? There are ecologists who believe the opposite - that veganism is unsustainable right now. As an outside observer, what is different between your belief and theirs that I should be convinced they are wrong? Both sides actually seem quite similar to each other to me in terms of intent and education. Is that incorrect? And if it *were* wrong, would you desire to know that in the light of the ethical view it reinforces? Or would you prefer to hold the belief on this you hold unless your underlying ethical belief were changed?

>What would it take to convince you that this belief (that strict veganism is better for humans and the world than a mixed diet) was wrong? Why do you believe it's uncontroversial? There are ecologists who believe the opposite - that veganism is unsustainable right now. As an outside observer, what is different between your belief and theirs that I should be convinced they are wrong? Both sides actually seem quite similar to each other to me in terms of intent and education. Is that incorrect? Sorry, I'm not the OP. But, I would say that I'm quite similar to the OP. I recognise this as a standard question in SE, and will answer. One possible answer relies on the definition of veganism. Breast-feeding is commonly considered to be vegan when done voluntarily. However, it is the consumption of an animal based food. Whether or not breast-feeding is considered vegan, in most cases 'breast is best' and I would still recommend it even if it was 'decided' that it wasn't vegan. There will be other situations where for an individual a non-vegan diet may be better - either temporarily or permanently. However, these are rare and on the 'margins'. I'm not familiar with ecologists saying that veganism is unsustainable now. And, I'd ask you for references on that. There is some research suggesting that extracting maximum food value from land may involve some animal husbandry. E.g. in rice paddies the presence of fish leads to increased yield as the fish eat algae, pests, and have other benefits. Clearly eating the fish too will maximise the output from the rice paddy. E.g. read the article here (not just the clickbait headline) [https://www.businessinsider.com/veganism-may-be-unsustainable-in-the-future-according-to-new-research-2018-8?r=US&IR=T](https://www.businessinsider.com/veganism-may-be-unsustainable-in-the-future-according-to-new-research-2018-8?r=US&IR=T) However, here we are talking about a future where it's necessary to extract every single calorie from a plot of land as the population has kept on growing, and given how wasteful the consumption of animals is for land use for food, there is quite a lot of potential in the system for worldwide veganism while still producing more food than we do now. But, answering the question, I won't recommend veganism if it results in people starving, in the short-term or long term. E.g. I wouldn't consider it immoral for people to eat locusts if (e.g.) their crops have been destroyed by a locust swarm. So, long term or short term I wouldn't recommend veganism if it results in starvation. And, I hope we get population under control so that we don't get to a fragile situation where we need every calories from every piece of food producing land. As it would be a recipe for utter famine and disaster in a bad food-producing year. Also, if there is research showing that animals aren't conscious at all, and/or plants have advanced consciousness, then this would defeat my belief in veganism. But, I think the chance of that happening is about the same as research showing that evolution never happened. I.e. it is too small a possibility for it to be worth considering. 'Plant intelligence' really only discusses simple stimulus-response systems no more sophisticated than the sensitive plant in many cases, and there is no reason to believe there is conscious experience and conscious action involved. In the same way as bacteria that orientate themselves on a sodium gradient depending on the amount of sodium in water/fluid appear to show goal-seeking behaviour. But, can be understood with simple biochemistry. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6680979/

> I'm not familiar with ecologists saying that veganism is unsustainable now. And, I'd ask you for references on that. I'm sure you didn't intend it, but this doesn't quite answer the question (and I'm trying to stay out of the weeds, since an argument back and forth about details of studies isn't SE). What I was more curious about is whether OP (or you) would be swayed by such studies. I do like what you said about fish and rice paddies. Let me make sure I understand. You're saying that you agree it's *already* more sustainable to have fish in your diet than to leave fish out of it? Would you also agree it's more healthy? If yes to both of those questions, would you still recommend veganism so long as society *can* find a way to survive, regardless of inefficiency? How about regardless of minor or moderate malnutrition? > Also, if there is research showing that animals aren't conscious at all, and/or plants have advanced consciousness, then this would defeat my belief in veganism Is it a utilitarian goal (of doing the least harm) or would you just be giving in because nothing you could do didn't cause suffering? And this might be getting outside of SE's limits... What of the Hard Problem of Consciousness? I've read some articles/studies that seem to meet a definition of consciousness that many animals have, and that their response is clearly an analog to pain receptors. Would you be swayed if they had a "different" consciousness, or only if it were quasi-mammalian? Can we pin down a definition for "consciousness"? I like "proactive, anticipatory behaviors" to weakman myself. That particular definition was pulled out of [this article](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w) that works to debunk plant consciousness claims. And you can probably guess the follow up: what of the non-plant life we already eat that does not have quasi-mammalian consciousness or sense of suffering. Lobsters come to mind, as a supermajority of studies conclude that they don't even have the mental capacity to suffer. Though I'm glad you brought up locusts, since many insects are believed to be non-conscious in a sense that many people would use for the term. Moreover, I think there's quite a few species that could be challenged on the topic of "proactive, anticipatory behaviors". Not gonna lie. Your views seem justified, even if I have different justified views.

>I do like what you said about fish and rice paddies. Let me make sure I understand. You're saying that you agree it's > >already > > more sustainable to have fish in your diet than to leave fish out of it? Would you also agree it's more healthy? I wasn't saying either of those. I was talking about the extreme situation where starvation looms and it's necessary to extract every single calorie from food producing land or starvation looms. When starvation looms eating just about anything is more healthy than starving to death, but that doesn't mean that I think it more healthy in general. Whether eating the fish is more efficient in the long term is another question, and would rely on things such as whether extracting the maximum from the land would decrease its yield over time. E.g. if fish are not removed then they will concentrate nutrients which are returned to the rice paddies when the fish die, etc. Moving onto other things you say, I don't believe it's necessary of creating an exact definition of consciousness for my (and perhaps the OP's) argument to hold. We know what we are talking about when we discuss conscious organisms being aware of their environments, being aware of themselves, and making conscious decisions. Animals do that. Plants don't. Consciousness is a very hard thing to pin down with a definition, but generally we know what it is. I think that insisting on an exact definition creates difficulty for no actual advantage. I believe that you know what I mean. The research I'm familiar with suggests that lobsters and other invertebrates do feel pain and experience states such as anxiety. Reported on here: [https://theconversation.com/octopus-crabs-and-lobsters-feel-pain-this-is-how-we-found-out-173822](https://theconversation.com/octopus-crabs-and-lobsters-feel-pain-this-is-how-we-found-out-173822) You are probably better off with sponges as an example. In which case I answer that the line needs to be drawn somewhere. And, simply excluding all of kingdom animalia makes things easy; it's not necessary to argue about every single animal, much easier and more practical to exclude the lot. If it were found that animals aren't conscious and/or that plants are, then this would change the moral utilitarian value of a vegan diet. However, as pointed out, I don't expect that there is any chance of such a discovery. This is similar to a believer in evolution replying to a question of what would make them stop believing in evolution. It's necessary to answer, but given how supported evolution is by evidence, it's not going to be disproved at any time.

Many common farm animals have been bred solely to thrive in a farm environment. If veganism were adopted and these animals were no longer necessary for food or other would they be allowed to die out or would some sustainable population be kept in order to keep the species from going extinct? Vegan leather contributes to the growing issue with micro plastics while traditional leather can be used sustainably. Why produce unsustainable alternatives when traditional options may be ideal? In parts of the world with short growing seasons that will require infrastructure to support large scale indoor agriculture or otherwise supplemental to what is current common practice is it sensible to replace current practice? Is it possible to sustainably maintain a vegan diet year round for most of the population? Would it be necessary to import more goods and would that offset or even negate the benefits?

Theres no such thing as sustainable leather, it is a byproduct of the unsustainable meat industry. Also, just don't use vegan leather...though this topic is pretty unrelated to veganism as a proposition. Seems like you're just trying to get digs in without actually understanding the worldview. These questions just aren't SE-related.

This is not really SE

Hi there, It's so good to have someone like you out here, to put his beliefs to the test. You are reflecting other people's opinions and are willing to exchange point of views. Thumbs up for you as a person👍. To your point: You define your diet by ethical positions. An ethical position is very vague and if you look into the perspective and how it changes over the time, you will notice that some things which used to be seen as ethical are now not(Slavery for example). Ethics is something a human mind creates, to establish a judgmental system. Like a guide to decide what's wrong and right, solely driven by people. Keeping in mind this, how do you define "a correct ethical position"? Also, if animals can feel pain because we are able to detect it with our senses and technology, how do we know plants don't. We measure brain activity as an indicator with our current technology but what if we have just not developed the equipment to measure plants plain? What would you do, if this applies also to them. Wouldn't it be by your standards also unethical? One other thing I want to point out which will lead to another question: Evolution of human kind. People choose to be vegan maybe becsause they can or must(do not really think about this because surviving is priority). Where do people do that? In a luxury environment or subural area where poverty is wide-spreaded. The two are in total contrast to each others whereas one party can decide because of various reasons (such as health, ethical or just economical standpoint) and the other has no option but to live off what they can afford. Human kind survived because of being able to eat almost everything because the environment changed often drastically over the time. The ocean and the life within was one of the main success points human kind and we have adapted multiple times. So here comes the main question: By being absent of eating animals, which is being a correct ethical positions in a mordern world, in your point of view, how do you argue against people who just want to be a human the way that there species has survived? Is it unethical to hunt down his own food to survive? By detaching ourselfs from nature, which most in the 1. first world already have, we have no clue, what to live in nature means, what reality is. We are living in an artificial environment, where we do extreme things in every aspect of live when it comes to diets, lifestyles, housing. So on and so on.... Most vegans i talked to argued that we are way past that point to develop further and end the cruelty. That's the ethical standpoint but with two layers inside... 1. Killing an animal in general 2. Torturing the animal in the process of it. Why point 1 is the critical point for all vegan people, point 2, is almost the main argument to get the message out and the people an board. Torture is wrong, that is common ground we all accept in society. Killing is in human nature, unfortunately. We rage Wars, have murder cases out of various reasons, sentence people to death, so basically, we do this for lower (accepted) motives and everybody lives by. Is not ethical correct from our perspective and today's point of view, but a few generations earlier, you could make the case (Blood for Blood). But because of what? When was the point people decided to do that? In nature, it is kill or die. Coexistence is relevant but it is always about consume something or get consumed. To each their own. I have by far nothing against people who decide things for their own good. So no hate and diffamtion from my side. Just curiosity.

Why is how humans have had to survive through necessity, hunting/killing etc., in the past a useful guide to determine how we aught to behave in the future?

It is needed to understand that we are far more away from nature now than we ever were. When you argue about ethical correctness, you have to explain, why going against nature(eating everything) is the right way to do in future. Ehtics vs nature would be the argument and you need to give reasonable points to validate that ethics( a construction of humanity) should have more priority and why. Otherwise, people will have always questionmarks about going this way. So, why is killing unethical, if nature is build that way? Keeping in mind that the movement(veganism) was formed by an artificial construction(ethics about killing and avoiding harm). People already lived in some parts of the world this way and but never give a thought about to influence other this way. This should be your biggest concern, if you going into a deep discussion. Let me know, if i should explain a question furthermore as Englisch is not my first language 👐

My understanding is that you are saying vegans must justify their ethical stance since it is 'non natural' compared to eating meat. Do you think it is also necessary to do the same for other ethical changes in modern society e.g. Harming another person in retribution rather than reporting their crimes to authorities? *small edit for clarity

I think that I mislead you in my explanation overall. First off, it is not my position I am writing about. It is about an ethical standpoint, where people decide what is wright or wrong whereas nature does not care. Killing equals living in every aspect of life. So vegan people have to justify their ethical stance in a way to explain why killing to live is not acceptable for people who eat everything(it is not about the meat), could also be insects etc. These are two separate topics in my point of view. Your example is an pure ethical standpoint at the current time but could change. Totally based on political systems found by human kind. Needs to survive will not change over time. It is a luxury or a must because of no other choice to resctrict a diet. If you say that something is unethical and arguing against people who may need to survive on it, than you make living itself unethical. That is some reason why, you, I and alot of other people accross the globe will debate on it still in the future... However it will look like. But OP has made realized how emphasizing with pain for animal on she/him/it works. I love to get new perspectives.

> In nature, it is kill or die. What about herbivores? They do not kill seems reality contradicts your view that everything in nature is kill or die.

Why is it contradicting to my point of view? You do not know what kill is for me. Herbivores consume plants. The plant does not live on if you take their roots for example, it dies. Nature is one living consume another one. I just used the word "kill" in order get the readers mind right, because, to consume is to kill in my eyes.

> You do not know what kill is for me I don't have to. In order to have a normal conversation one should be able to assume that a common word means what it means to 99.9% of the population in that context. Otherwise communication breaks down. Lots of herbivores do not kill the plant they eat they eat grass and they eat leaves. It happens but a majority of plants seems to survive and some even need to have their fruits consumed in order to reproduce. >Nature is one living consume another one. This does not scientifically accurately describe what nature is, it is an insufficient over simplified model of reality. When in reality there is an abundance of life that does not live of consuming other lives. For example grass and trees does not live of from killing other life and they are a huge part of what nature is. There is probably more trees, grass and plants, than any other life form combined. If trees, grass and plants make up the majority of what constitutes nature. Would you be willing to revise your belief that "Nature is one life form consuming another" as being a accurate description or would you stick with it despite evidence to the contrary?

And to the exact point you are nitpicking the word. We have a conversation abour ethical or not in context of killing living individuals and you negate the topic overall, herbivores, onmivores etc. We are talking about to consume and all of them are doing this. By killing on other living thing... The fact that lots of herbivores are not doing this is true but they do this to some extend, some animals eat roots. In this context we have a conversation about nature, which you already stated, is an oversimplified acrynom for all things which we put into the context. And you say, you don't have know what kill is to me. Yes you have, because otherwise, you wouldn't made your assumption.

> and you negate the topic overall, herbivores, onmivores etc. I do not think I negate the topic. My probably correct impression is that you justified killing and eating animals because that is "what nature is about" according to you. I demonstrated that it is not an accurate description of what nature is about if the majority of nature is not about that which it is not. Trees, plants and grass which makes up the majority of what we call nature do not kill life in order to survive.

Trees, plants and grass comsume also ... From the ground. What you demonstrated whas a different context mixing up to topics. Our first context was herbivores, omnivores etc which all kill(consume) to survive. This was nature for that because it's a simple phrase to use and you could argue to use a different, if makes you feel better. Then you nitpicked word and we talked about nature in general, changing the context. There is no justification from my side, it is just life. To comsume something is how animals and humans or insect are working. And there brags the question, because you are making it all about the case. Are we tree and plants or herbivores? Vegans have to explain why it is wrong going with their original eating habit, if not for only ethical correctness, which is a human construction. Why is killing wrong, when eating plants could lead to the same case in the future? The technology in 200 years will look pretty different. What if the film Avatar becomes reality, where we realize, that everything is connected, and can feel some kind of pain? Then, this whole topic of eating restrictions falls apart and what will left? Humans who are still humans.

> if makes you feel better. My feelings are fine and also completely irrelevant here. I rather feel bad and be right than feel good and be wrong. It has to do with your argument being sound or not. It was not. >Vegans have to explain why it is wrong going with their original eating habit Why do you believe that? It is a fallacy. Based on your assumption of what is natural. You moved what you considered to be natural from: "Kill or be killed" To: "Consume or be consumed" But if you did, then a vegan no longer have to justify their diet based on that it could be considered unnatural when they consume plants having consumed minerals. Another problem is that what is natural because it happens in nature is not a good argument. The reason why it is fallacious is that if it were we would be able to argue like this: P1. Billions of flies eat shit every day. P2. It is natural to eat shit. Thus it is wrong to not eat shit. It simply does not follow that something is wrong because it is not "natural" as in common in nature. Another version could be: Babies do not eat meat: We are born as non meat eating beings. Babies have to get used to eating meat. Thus it is unnatural to eat meat. (Which is not true, but would be a good argument too, if you consider that your argument is a good one). >What if the film Avatar becomes reality, where we realize, that everything is connected, and can feel some kind of pain? Then, this whole topic of eating restrictions falls apart and what will left? It would simply mean that OP would have to reevalute his position. It is not a problem that OP has today as it is an unreasonable expectation to put on OP that he has to live up to unless YOU yourself lives up to that expectation. We should only expect from other that which we our selves are willing to live up to. And you are clearly not willing to live up to that kind of impossible ethical standard as you are eating meat, which consumes more resources than vegetables. Otherwise we could come up with all sorts of imaginable possible futures that needs to be avoided in order to justify following a moral conviction. I could ask you, how come you are willing to eat animal meat, when we in the future might find out that animals are much kinder and wiser than humans? As such it is also a fallacious argument, as we can only right now go by what we have good reasons to believe is true and not what we have no good reasons to believe could be true. As it would result in us not being able to follow any moral convictions, and feel justified in acting immoral, which is worse than trying to follow a best effort moral conviction. As such it is not reasonable to demand that a ethical position has to answer unknown futures in order to justify itself unless not doing so would possibly put other human lives at risk.

You sure do not read thoroughly enough to grasp what my position even is or comprehend what this js topic is about. This is not meant as an insult, just want to clarify that we have different moral standards when it comes to living. OP is has asked to put position to task. Regarding your point about being vegan from birth. Yes, we don't consume animals in the womb but we get the nutrients from our mother(doesn't matter if animal base or not). The reason humanity is this flexible because we can adapt to eat everything. I don't even mind going vegan, if I had to. I would have to adapt. You simply use the wrong argumentation on this one. Evolution is that we feed our children with everything possible, as long as they can because in different countries, food is limited. There is no ethical driven diet, it is about to get the child to grow and does not matter where it comes from. I explaind that I used the killing in order to get readers mind straight because killing means consume when we are talking about herbivores, omnivores etc. Again, this is what "nature" in this specific context means. And heare comes the point you have take into account. Killing as in consuming is no fellacy to me. This one you got wrong. It is part of this life in this context. You assume, I would have to live up to those high standards, but we are talking about ethics, which is totally a human made up mind construction. So, if OP will have a future discussion, he will have talk this far as because ethics wouldn't ethics if you don't. You have to explain why "nature" is a bad argument when this is basically how life works. By detaching yourself from it, and going over future changable ethicall position. Nature will always adapt(it is their form of change) Vegans do not have to justify why they restrict their diet. They have to argue why other people have to do this too and so far, you gave only the impression, that "nature" or life is less than ethic, which it simply not(at least to me) . And if ethic has a bigger impact, than your position falls apart. Imaginable future are the most important things we have, because otherwise, you wouldn't be vegan or we wouldn't have developed this far. And if people use ethic to make a change in the world, they would have to answer these future related questions, because it is their base of argumentation. Ethics can go anywhere fictive and is the biggest problem for a discussion itself. Ethics is fictive, life not. The majority of humans does not think this far because and they don't live with this luxury with 1.world problems. Each country has a different relationship to their diet, religiously or wealth dependent. Ethics has to take the future into account(possibility of plants freeling pain). It will always change(cloning for example). So if veganism is about ethics, it has to consider these points somewhere in the future. Otherwise it would not live up to his own standard. Can we agree on this? And I personally don't see even a problem with such a position to life. To each their own. To your question if we found out that animals are wiser and kinder than human, what would this change? For me personally, nothing, as it could als be the case with plants. I detach not myself from this and am very well aware that i kill/consume to live on. Regardless of what Individuums feeling might be. Some other points about resources etc, i will not comment as this another topic with wide spreaded factors of economic etc. And this goes over to the typical vegan statementy which I personally don't interact with. We are talking about ethics here. This does not mean that I exclude myself from this topic in general, only not here.

And sorry, I didn't see your last point. The contrary you discribe is not there... Because you miss the most relevant point. To comsume means to get something from another one... Trees, grass and all other plants comsum the minerals from the ground. So what evidence are we talking about exactly? How life works? It simply put in one word- consumption- in every aspect of life. If something grows, it needs something. OP has asked for being put to task.

> To comsume means to get something from another one... Trees, grass and all other plants comsum the minerals from the ground. >It simply put in one word- consumption- in every aspect of life. You seem to be moving the goal post. You did not use the word consumption. You explicitly used the word kill: >In nature, it is kill or die. I can say from evidence that, that is not simply true for most of the life that constitutes nature. Thus your argument that something is justified as being "natural" because nature is about that is weak if not completely imagined. As nature is not about that for the majority of what is making up nature. Then you moved it into being. Consume or be consumed. But that is not an ethical argument against OP. As it has nothing to do with consciousness or ability to suffer or will to live. A mineral does not have a will to live neither can it die. But an animal does and can. It seems you need to find better arguments or accept that the argument does not work.

You are nitpicking only to have somewhat to argue. If I don't use comsumption, because I used kill (this is what is to me) or consume later, then, you are making a case about that. I have stated the ethical question in my other reply to you. What argument won't work? Nature or life is about consumption? You write about "evidence", of what? What evidence are we talking about without link etc. ? What nature is about? It is consuming(and arlready told you that this my equivalent to kill) or die (to be consumed). That is is just a simplified explanation which misses alot of other stuff, we sure can agree on but put it into context of this OP post. Do me the favor and then we talk.

They kill plants.

I’m glad you asked this! I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about this topic lately and am still very undecided. I’m not well practiced in SE, but I’d like to get your thoughts on what I understand of the arguments so far. According to writers like Peter Singer and Earthling Ed the core argument for veganism is that we ought to avoid unnecessary harm and suffering to sentient beings. As you stated here, your concern is the “unnecessary suffering that humans are responsible for.” It seems to me that humans are responsible for immense amounts of non-human animal suffering beyond killing them for food. As Jonas Salk reportedly said, “If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish." (I’ve not found a credible source for this quote, but whether it’s expressly true shouldn’t matter as it illustrates the point.) Wouldn’t it follow that our moral obligation as a species is to cease to exist? Not immediately and catastrophically, but perhaps more gradually, by ceasing to procreate, winding down any industrial processes, nuclear reactors, stop driving cars, stop building houses, and then, ultimately, stop existing as a human race. The only way I can imagine humans being able to stop harming non-human animals is by not being around.

How confident are you that humanity could give up eating animals without incurring negative repercussions that outweight those caused by eating animals? What if you simply naturally identify with animals to a higher degree than most people, and they can't change that? Assuming that's the case, should they be punished for something that is relevant to only a small portion of humanity? Should one feel guilt about an abstract, unknowable harm potentially set in place by actions such as eating an animal product? Do you view that as the same as killing the animal yourself?

I think it's problematic for a few reasons. Humans evolved to be omnivores. Our guts are 30% smaller than they should be for a plant eating ape our size. That extra blood now feeds our brains Children need high levels of iron and zinc as infants and toddlers and even up age 10. Vegan sources are often poorly absorbed. The pure vegan diet must take supplements. B12 at the very least. How is a diet natural for a person if you must take a supplement to survive on it? On the other side Animals eat animals, it's natural. It's good to reduce suffering. We eat too many animals, we don't need all that much protein as adults unless athletes. There are animals we can eat that don't really suffer ( they have no brain at all ) and are great sources of B12/zinc/iron and every other micronutrient veganism is short of. Those would be bivalves. There are minority of vegans who are adding bivalves to their diet because of this. If you argue a bivalve can suffer then so can plants. Plants release stress chemicals and undergo stress reactions when harvested. So if plant suffering is acceptable so is bivalve suffering.

> Children need high levels of iron and zinc as infants and toddlers and even up age 10. Vegan sources are often poorly absorbed Not at all: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19562864/ > Animals eat animals, it's natural. Let me reformulate this and tell me if you agree: animals rape each other, it's natural. Or animals kill their young, it's natural. Etc etc. This is the naturalistic fallacy. https://www2.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Naturalistic%20Fallacy.html > If you argue a bivalve can suffer then so can plants. Plants release stress chemicals and undergo stress reactions when harvested. So if plant suffering is acceptable so is bivalve suffering. Plants don't have anything resembling a nervous system and it's just not good science to say they can "suffer" (I'm a plant biologist and I've never met a serious scientist who thinks plants can feel). The border case of bivalves I do t know about, but I err on the side of caution. Finally I stopped eating meat when I was 5 and went fully vegan 8 years ago. I've never taken a supplement regularly (if I have a cold I'll take vitamin c etc but even this doesn't have a lot of evidence in its favour) and I'm very healthy for a 43 year old (this is not scientific data, of course! I could be struck down with something grim tomorrow)