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A Short Reason Why We Ought Morally to Go Vegan

So i really think everyone (or like 99.9 repeating) people ought to go vegan. I used "ought" because i think its a duty we have with all the philosophical wrappings that entails. Here I'm going to just try to explain to those of you who pretty much agree with me philosophically, why you ought take the step and Go Vegan! That means I'm going to give you premises and explain why it follows that you ought go vegan but i will not try to persuade you why the premises themselves are importantly true.



Argument:
1) Causing unnecessary suffering is a harm to all those who can suffer (sentient beings)
2) Where we can avoid unnecessary suffering we ought to (this is every case by definition)
3) Using animals for food, clothing, entertainment and most experiments causes unnecessary suffering
4) Going vegan will stop most of the suffering from these sources
5) Therefore we ought morally, to go vegan



Premise 1: This seems blatantly obvious to me. I think it is actually Logically True, like saying A is A



Premise 2: This makes a point most of us agree to, if i can avoid causing suffering without sacrificing anything of non-trivial importance, it seems clear i ought to.

Premise 3: I'll break this down by category

Food, We can survive on a plant based diet, in fact, we can thrive on one, reducing instances of Cancer, Heart Disease, and other diseases of affluence, therefore its not acceptable to use animal products to fill our dietary needs. This according to the ADA http://www.eatright.org/about/content.aspx?id=8357



Clothing, we can make clothing out of plant source ranging from cotton to hemp. Many vegan "leathers" exist. Therefore we don't need to slaughter animals for their skins or furs nor enslave them for their hair.



Entertainment, this is clearly trivial, there are endless numbers of thing we can, and do, do for fun that either don't cause animals to suffer. Even sports that do use animal products can easily transition to vegan products.
Experiments done for cosmetic testing or using redundant methods, can be eliminated completely. Dissections can be ended in favor of artificial or simulated activities. And the of billions spent on animal experiments some of that money can be refocused into finding effective alternatives, that don't cause us to use one being as a means to another beings end.

Premise 4: Well, as I explained above, we can transition to vegan lifestyles and start consuming a plant based diet, and wearing plant based clothes to stop the first two. We can boycott those industries that abuse animals like circuses and rodeos and instead patronize circuses (like cirque du soleil) or watch sports where all competitors are consenting such as MMA or football. In the area of experiments, we can pressure those who have the power, like universities and governments to find new and better ways to do science that don't infringe on the rights of some beings to harm others. We can also boycott products that are tested on animals or, better yet, make our own.

This argument focuses only on the direct duties we have to animals but there are numerous other benefits from a vegan lifestyle which include longer life spans, and healthier lives. A much small environmental footprint. More than that, it will mean the grain we currently filter through the corpses of animals can go directly to either feed our starving human brothers and sisters, or to allow our forests and jungles to regrow. In fact, we will be able to do plenty of both. So let's do the animals what they are do, our bodies what they would thrive on, and posterity what they deserve and Go Vegan. Right now!

The Vegan Guy

Objective Truth, More Than Just an Opinion

Because i plan to post my opinion on here a lot, and further, because i expect you all to disagree periodically, i want to quickly subvert a common misconception about morality and Truth, or at least how I and 99% of you look at it. I am an Moral Objectivist  (Moral Realist). That means when i say doing X is immoral, doing X is immoral. Not doing X is immoral for you, your society, your culture, your gender, your other distinction, arbitrary or not.

This might be disconcerning for some of you at first glance. (1) If their is a moral Truth then some things are right and some are wrong and isn't that just a drag? (2) More than that, i'm a fan of tolerance, and if you are right and i am wrong or vice versa, then why would we tolerate differences of opinion?

Before i get into the answer to the first and second questions i want to make it clear that you probably really do agree with me, so even if my answers to make swallowing the truth of one Truth easier are still not that convincing, you won't reject Truth all together and become one of those annoying nihilists.


Imagine a person electrocutes  a white male child, just for fun, is it wrong for that person to do this? Presumably you clearly agree, let me work our way down the traditional chain to the point where it gets less and less intuitive (to some of us) that something is wrong. Is it wrong if its a female child? A non-white child? A adolescent chimpanzee? An elephant? A sentient fish (vast majority are btw)? A possibly sentient animal? A non-sentient animal? A plant? Is it okay to destroy a rock? A ecosystem? My point here is that we all agree its wrong to cause unnecessary suffering, at least at some point along the line, where that point is i will discuss in a later post. I could ask a similarly obvious example about slavery or rape, most of us agree that these things are wrong, they are immoral.

So in response to the (1) the fact is we need to bite the bullet here. It might be a drag, i might enjoy not working and having a slave do it for me, but that is immoral. We resigned ourselves to this for good reason, to preserve what is right. Likewise, if morality brings us to a position that we may rather not have to deal with, if we want to stay rational or consistentant, we must deal with it. Might suck but it is what is right.
(2) Tolerance is great. I believe tolerance is important because we are all human, we make mistakes and though we might be pretty sure about right and wrong but "we" have been wrong. Witness how long it took to condemn slavery in our legal thinking or to enfranchise women. More than that, subjective/relative truth cannot value tolerance in the way most of us want. I want to value tolerance even for ideas we disagree with. I am not a Nazi, but i think Nazi's should be able to peddle their garbage because i value freedom of speech. If Truth was relative, then i might think tolerance is good, while you kill me cause i am white. If we accept moral realism we can criticize the person who murdered me. If not we can't. I think what we mean by tolerance is that we should be cautious participants in the moral arena, not that we should boycott participation.

So in conclusion, we can disagree about WHAT is right or wrong, but don't disagree with me about the existence of a right or wrong. I'm not that interested in that debate, at least not till the 99% of us who do believe in morality get onto the same page. Thanks for reading, soon i'll be posting some controversial shit that we can all disagree on it will be a real riot! In the meantime, Go Vegan

The Vegan Guy

On the Importance of Utopian Visions

There will always be poor, there will always be hungry, there will always be drugs, there will always be animal use, there will always be war, there will always be rape, there will always be sexism, there will always be racism, there will always be speciescism and ableism and homophobia, there will always be depression, sorrow, and sadness, Damon Hinz will always feed.  

Every day those of us who want a better world encounter, usually from those we assume are to lazy to try, statements like the above. What's the implicit point of the statement? It seems to me that the suggestion is that attempting to build the new society on the ashes of the old is a futile attempt.

I suppose I should be honest, I really do believe that if we work hard enough anything is possible. If we really want a more peaceful world we will get it, part of the reason this place is so fucked up is because we have been told a better world isn't possible so god damn much. But lets assume that our interlocutor is right, their always will be evil in the world, at least in some sense, does that really mean give up, eat a cheese burger on an egg-washed roll, smoke some meth and enjoy your white privilege?

If we resign ourselves to what we have we certainly will never reach the stars, but if we try, we just might. And let's be honest with ourselves, what can we really lose? I know what will happen if we give up, nothing. But if we try, maybe we can do anything. So i say fuck em and build our world without those to scared to try. The sheep that are so worried about something being hard or risky will settle into any status qua, even ours, so if you are, like me, unwilling to give up on Earth and its inhabitants, keep the struggle alive. Even if there will always be some evil, if we try for more good, then that is what we will get. Haters Gonna Hate but i ain't got time for that.

The Vegan Guy

My New Blog

Welcome folks. Robert's love of blogging was too much for me to ignore, i had to create my own. So here it is. Don't subscribe unless you want to read about veganism, straightedge, libertarian communism, philosophy or my new favorite video game. But hey, you might also be treated to a post about topics as interesting as my riding fixed gears or shredding gnar (on a snowboard, skiing is for old people). I'll write something that i think is interesting on here when i feel like it. Thanks for reading!

GO VEGAN

The Vegan Guy