XPost: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian, alt.agriculture, alt.food.vegan
XPost: alt.philosophy

Though the following questions are directed toward Derek, anyone who reads them is invited to share their own input as well. _________________________________________________________________

On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 22:41:22 +0100, Derek <dereknash@groupmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 13:08:18 -0700 (PDT), Rupert <rupertmccallum@yahoo.com> >wrote:

On Wednesday, April 13, 2016 at 7:56:52 PM UTC+2, Derek wrote:

The trouble with being an absolutist is that, even though
I can't make any compromises on livestock farming I find it very hard to >>> reject incremental changes to animal welfare which, in essence, keeps
livestock farming alive and thrashing. It's questions like that that put me >>> at a disadvantage. I tend to avoid them.

You think the best strategy is to try to get people to focus on the benefit of an increased sense of self-respect that comes from being vegan?

Yes, I do, even though I don't believe I have the required skill set to put >>> forward a coherent strategy that might work. For me, abstaining from animal >>> products isn't about caring for livestock animals, health, environment or >>> world economics, it's based purely on a sense of dignity. If I reduced the >>> moral value of an animal to that of a utility and used that debasement to >>> bring about a reason to kill and eat it, the result would be that I debased >>> myself further than that of that animal because I should have kept my
self-respect and the dignity that comes with it. It would not feel right to >>> cheat an animal of its life with such a self-interested crime against my own
nature.

All right then, so you think about it in terms of self-respect, that's interesting to know.

Do you ever have any issues struggling with immediate family members not being vegan?

All 4 of my children were brought up as strict vegetarians, or vegans to be >more accurate. Only my eldest daughter remained so after leaving home, and >she brought up my grandson as a vegan who is now 17 and he's never eaten
meat of any kind. When my younger daughter came back to the family home for
a while we used to store her meat in our fridge along with our food. My twin >sons started eating meat before they left home, I believe, although they >never brought any home for fear it might hurt my feelings. I don't criticise >any of them for eating meat to any extent beyond occasional mild argument
for argument's sake. They do occasionally like to test new arguments on me >around the dinner table during family get-togethers and, believe it or not, >we've discovered that the only argument worth any merit which gets off the >ground is Harrison's argument. I do have to agree with them in that eating >meat can have the effect of bringing happy lives into the world if livestock >farmers do their job according to strict welfare rules.

But you're still opposed to it even so.

Of course, this kind
of vague utilitarian thinking is totally at odds against my de ontological >thinking, but I do give them the credit they deserve for coming to their >conclusion independently without having any knowledge of the term >utilitarianism and its various forms.

It's not an "argument" or a "conclusion". It's just a very VERY significant aspect of human influence on animals that you don't want to take into consideration because it works against what YOU want to believe. More normal people just accept it for what it is and factor it in. It's not an attempt at a "trick" to take it into consideration as your hero Goo reassures you that it is.
It's just part of considering the entire situation. The attempted trick is to support elimination by trying to trick people into *refusing* to take something that's so significant into consideration: _________________________________________________________
"Life "justifying" death is the
stupidest goddamned thing you ever wrote." - Goo

"There is nothing to "appreciate" about the livestock "getting
to experience life" - Goo

"Shut the fuck up about "consideration" for "their lives"" - Goo

"When considering your food choices ethically, assign
ZERO weight to the morally empty fact that choosing to
eat meat causes animals to be bred into existence." - Goo

"The meaningless fact-lette that farm animals "get to
experience life" deserves no consideration when asking
whether or not it is moral to kill them. Zero." - Goo

"The opportunity for potential livestock to "get to
experience life" deserves *NO* moral consideration
whatever, and certainly cannot be used to justify the
breeding of livestock" - Goo

"The meaningless fact-lette that farm animals "get
to experience life" deserves no consideration when
asking whether or not it is moral to kill them. Zero." - Goo

"It is completely UNIMPORTANT, morally, that "billions
of animals" at any point "get to experience life."
ZERO importance to it." - Goo

"There is no "consideration" to be given." - Goo

"There is no consideration whatever to be given to any animals' "getting to experience life."" - Goo

"There is no consideration to be given to the lives of non-existent
"future farm animals", Goo. ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Unlike me they intuitively believe
that the best policy is one that can bring about the most happiness in the >world even if, in practice, it brings about a lot of misery, because that >misery isn't part of the original policy and therefore can be disregarded.

As you do with the deaths associated with your own way of life, but your way
doesn't directly contribute to life for the animals you contribute to the deaths
of.

They're all in the 30s now, so it's not that easy to quieten them by
changing the subject or dismissing what they want to say out of hand by >telling them their father is always right.

I'm VERY curious about the TRUTH of what they say when you present them with
Goobal arguments like: _________________________________________________________
"It is not to my son's advantage to have been born versus never existing" - Goo

"Existence - "getting to experience life" - is not a benefit or advantage
to an entity, compared with never existing." - Goo

"*NO* right-thinking person attempts to "balance" the death with some
bullshit about the animal's "getting to experience life."" - Goo

"Animals do not "benefit" in any way from coming into existence, versus
never existing." - Goo

"...existence, or "getting to experience life", is not a benefit compared
with never existing." - Goo

"it is not "better" that the animal exist, no matter its quality of live" - Goo

"Existence - "getting to experience life" - is not a benefit to livestock animals (or any other living entity) and deserves no moral consideration
at all, and gets none from rational people." - Goo

"It is not a "benefit" to come into existence and "get to experience life" instead of never existing" - Goo

"A life - *any* life of *any* quality - is not a "benefit" to an animal versus never existing" - Goo

"Coming into existence is not a benefit compared with never existing - proved." - Goo

"according to me, existence is not a benefit - ever." - Goo

"animals' "getting to experience life" is nonsense." - Goo

"It is not "better" for the animals to experience a good life than
never to live at all." - Goo

""Getting to experience life" has no significance." - Goo

""appreciation for decent AW" doesn't *MEAN* anything" - Goo

""appreciation for decent AW" doesn't mean anything." - Goo

"Existing animals don't figure into it in any way." - Goo.

"It is not "good" for the animals that they exist, no matter
how pleasant the condition of their existence." - Goo

"It is not "good for them" to exist, no matter how pleasant
the existence." - Goo

""Life", by which you mean coming into existence, is not
a benefit at all" - Goo

"It is 100% irrelevant that the poor fowl "get to experience life"." - Goo ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
What do your own kids say when you tell them things like that? If they have kids, what do they say when you tell their kids things like that? TRY to be honest about this.

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