Interview With a Vegan: Speciesist Vegan

If you think humans are better than other animals, you’re a speciesist, and you might as well be judging humans on the color of their skin.

At least, if you believe anti-speciesist vegans. 

Speciesism, they say, is no more acceptable than other forms of discrimination; looking down on organisms because of their biological classification is just as arbitrary and loathsome as doing the same to humans because of their gender or sexual orientation. We’re not nature’s most impressive creation — we’re just nature’s most arrogant, our delusional sense of self-importance blinding us to the reality that we’re just one of many kinds of sentient creatures who happen to inhabit this planet, none more or less valuable than the rest. 

Many who go vegan for ethical reasons believe that anti-speciesism is a key component of any serious vegan philosophy, and that vegans who don’t accept it are vegan for the wrong reasons and are part of the problem. For this reason, vegans who can’t quite get into the idea that species is a meaningless division which shouldn’t really be considered at all tend to be private about this view. 

But not Speciesist Vegan, the anonymous vegan writer who uses his blog — also named Speciesist Vegan — to discuss why he thinks anti-speciesism doesn’t make sense, as well as why there is still an argument for veganism anyway.

The blog is only about a month old but is already one of the most fascinating vegan blogs I’ve read. Which is why I did this interview. 

And in case you prefer your speciesist veganism in small doses and can’t commit to the full interview just yet, CarpeVegan has the abridged version.

SpeciesistVegan

Many vegans say that speciesism is a form of discrimination akin to racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, ableism, classism and heterosexism. You, however, are speciesist, yet maintain an opposition to prejudice against different groups of humans. What makes speciesism different than those others?

Well, to state the obvious, all the -isms you mentioned in the first sentence concern intraspecies relations and speciesism deals with interspecies relations. 

Basically, for various reasons, but largely because I AM a human and not some other type of animal, I feel that humans have more moral worth than other animals. I hope it will be more clear why by the end of this interview.

And just to be clear, it’s not like I don’t see any similarities between how some people treat animals and how some people treat (or used to treat) other humans who are different from them. There are plenty of analogies to be drawn. I just have a general distaste for moral argumentation by analogy. Even if there are some legitimate parallels that can be made between dairy farms and slave plantations, the analogy is offensive to me (and almost all non-vegans). If I have to explain to you why the analogy is offensive, you’re definitely a vegan and your name might be Gary.

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--Tagged under: Veg*an Interviews--

Factory Farming That Even Vegans Could Support

In the entry “How Animals Eating Each Other Royally Screws Veganism” (which I probably should have given a more philosophical sounding title), I pointed out the obvious: vegans are flirting with nihilism when they say there is nothing morally wrong with non-human omnivores eating other animals simply because these flesh-devouring devils don’t have a conscience and thus don’t believe in right and wrong.

If it were inherently wrong to intentionally kill a gazelle, I theorized, then it would be wrong to do so even if you weren’t aware that it was wrong to kill a gazelle. Otherwise, there would be nothing wrong with eating meat if you weren’t aware of its wrongness — a stance that vegans admittedly do sort of lean toward when they say that eating meat is less immoral before you’ve seen Earthlings. 

If zero moral rules apply to creatures who experience zero sensations of right and wrong, then wouldn’t only one moral rule apply someone who experiences only one sensation of right and wrong? In other words, if animals are off the hook because they don’t experience any morality, it would seem to follow that individual moral rules only apply to people who feel those particular rules. You can’t say that everyone who is capable of feeling right and wrong is obligated to follow every plausible moral rule, because there are just too many of them, most of which are compelling to some people but not others. Which would mean that it is not immoral for us to eat meat as long as we do not personally feel that it is immoral to do so. 

Arguably.

The reason I’m dusting off this oldie is that a commenter who recently barraged it with comments disagreeing with my conclusions (wtf?!) did concede one of the points I made: if it is not morally wrong for animals to commit violence because they are not guided by moral considerations, then the actions of amoral human psychopaths also cannot be judged wrong.

Through experience, observation and training, psychopaths do know what is popularly accepted as right and wrong, and they realize they’ll be punished for behavior deemed wrong if they are caught. However, this obedience to rules they do not believe in is no morally different from a dog who is trained, through fear of punishment or through positive rewards, to behave in ways humans like. In both cases, if the amoral being violates the training, they cannot be said to have committed an objective moral wrong, since they have no conscience, do not experience the sensation of wrongness, and so operate outside of morality.

And abolitionist-esque vegans agree!

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--Tagged under: Ethics--

Interview With an Anti-Veganism Vegan: Dave D

That’s an interview with Vegan Represent founder Dave D that I posted to CarpeVegan. 

But don’t worry, I haven’t abandoned Let Them Eat Meat for Carpe Vegan. I promise to post at least two real entries this month. In the meantime, read Forks Over Knives: Is the Science Legit?, which puts my Forks Over Knives review to shame. Writing mine a year earlier doesn’t get me off the hook - I should have used charts.  

Also, since this review is nothing but links… in England, you can’t be fired for your animal rights views. Hopefully this applies equally to people who don’t believe in animal rights. I would hate to move there and then find out I can’t hold down a job because of my controversial pro-animal-use views.

--Tagged under: Veg*an Interviews--

--Tagged under: Vegan Cult--

Forget Sentience: Here’s the Real Reason We Grant Rights

In my entry “Problems With the Argument From Marginal Cases and Using Sentience as a Basis for Rights,” I attempted to debunk the argument from marginal cases, the keystone argument that holds up obligatory veganism and the notion that sentience is the basis for rights.

I’m getting tired of summarizing the argument from marginal cases, so in case you’re unfamiliar with it, here is Jack Norris and Ginny Messina’s take on it from Vegan For Life:

A human rights ethic suggest that no human—not just intelligent humans, but also babies, infants, and those who are mentally challenged—should be abused and used by others for whatever purpose they like. This raises the question about whether rights should be extended to animals. The idea that if we grant rights to humans of lesser intelligence or ability, we should also grant rights to animals is sometimes referred to as the argument from marginal cases. If intelligence and capability are not criteria for the possession of rights, why would animals—who have the capacity to feel fear and pain—be excluded from moral consideration? Some philosophers may reject the argument from marginal cases, but we have never known any of them to provide a compelling reason for doing so. (234 - 235)

Jeez, okay, I’ll try to do better this time.

First, for nostalgia’s sake, let’s look at the points I made in that earlier entry:

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--Tagged under: Ethics--

--Tagged under: Featured Entries--

--Tagged under: Argument From Marginal Cases--

Case For a Baby-Free Argument From Marginal Cases

I talk a lot about the argument from marginal cases on this blog, because it’s the moral equation that glues logical veganism together. This argument is the bridge that makes it possible to think of humans and other animals as morally equivalent. It’s what allows vegans to say “what if you did that to humans?” every time you talk about some aspect of animal use that you don’t think is so bad. If you’ve ever heard a vegan say something about how if you eat animals, you should be cool with eating babies, lurking in the background is the argument from marginal cases. 

Welp, time for yet another argument from marginal cases summary. (Skip this paragraph if you already know what it is.) The argument from marginal cases is an attempt to thwart the meat eater desire to draw a solid line between humans and other animals, that line which permits people to think it’s okay to kill and eat other animals even though they wouldn’t do the same thing to humans. The main philosophical excuses meat eaters make for this line is that other animals operate on a basic cognitive level that often doesn’t go much beyond survival, these animals aren’t living out a story because they can’t really make plans or have ambitious goals, they can’t function as equal members in our society, and they cannot enter moral exchanges with us. To this, marginal-case-thumping vegans say, “But we give rights to babies and the severely mentally impaired, and they operate on a basic cognitive level, don’t have ambitions, can’t function as equal members in our society and cannot enter moral exchanges with us. Therefore, not giving rights to animals too is speciesist.”

I don’t think the argument from marginal cases works overall (I explain why in this entry, and I’ll take another swing at it in my next entry), but I believe the example of babies is especially problematic. My reasoning for this is somewhat obscure and only applies to a subset of vegan beliefs, but unless you don’t like nitpicky minutiae for some reason, I’m sure you want to know it anyway.

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--Tagged under: Ethics--

--Tagged under: Argument From Marginal Cases--

Why Not Buy Some Snake Oil With Your Animal Millions? (On CarpeVegan)

In the beginning of 2010, I interviewed Jed Gillen, author of Obligate Carnivore: Cats, Dogs & What it Really Means to be Vegan, a book that is ostensibly about why vegans should raise their companion animals—even cats(!!!)—as vegans. As I said in the introduction to that interview, I got that book because I was sure this Jed Gillen had to be a ludicrous dogmatist with no grasp on reality, which would have made his book the perfect reference for an entry I was thinking of doing on vegan pets. Vegan cats!

But the book was not what I expected. I thought it would be unintentionally hilarious and absurd. Instead it was intentionally hilarious and even persuasive. I was almost left thinking that if I had a pet, I would want to make that little omnivore or carnivore vegan. The book also made me feel a little nostalgic for my vegan days. I abandoned my vegan pet entry idea and contacted Jed for an interview instead.   

I’ve met up with Jed a number of times since then, and a few months ago he told me that he and his friend Joe Haptas were developing a vegan culture site called CarpeVegan; Jed asked if I wanted to contribute. Of course I did. My first post, “Why Not Buy Some Snake Oil With Your Animal Millions?”, went up today. It takes a look at Erik Marcus’ “Animal Millionaire” concept, a motivating device he invented to inspire vegan activists, which would be fine except that it’s a quasi-pyramid scheme. Fortunately it’s an imaginary one.

Someone commented on my CarpeVegan bio to ask why they wanted me to contribute when people looking for a dose of anti-veganism could just come to my blog. Well, for one thing, some people who read CarpeVegan aren’t looking for a dose of anti-veganism and will be tricked into taking one now. But also, my blog has strayed a bit from its origins of poking fun of vegan leaders and the cultural aspects of veganism. I’ll be doing more of that on CarpeVegan.

Plus my posts there will be a lot shorter.

--Tagged under: Vegan Leaders--

Why Vegans Should Strike Meat Off the Agenda

Yesterday someone posted this comment on my blog: “It is amazing the lengths people will go to to justify causing unnecessary suffering.”

I have gone to some lengths, admittedly, but is this blog a justification for unnecessary suffering? That’s hard to say without knowing the definition of “necessary.” Is survival necessary? Is thriving necessary? Is pleasure and life enjoyment necessary? Necessary for what? Vegans have turned this into an issue because they recognize that buying vegan food and products—and even just existing—causes suffering and death to animals, so to distinguish themselves from the omnivores they criticize for causing suffering and death to animals, they say the key difference is that vegans cause necessary harm, whereas omnivores cause unnecessary harm.

What exactly is “necessary harm”? For vegans, as far as I can tell, this means harms that vegans cause. The way they often try to justify this unabashedly self-serving definition is by saying that vegans reduce their harm “as much as is possible and practicable.” By this they do not mean that they follow a subsistence lifestyle or a freegan lifestyle that maximizes harm reduction. “As much as is possible and practicable” usually means a consumerist vegan lifestyle, with no limitations on air travel, car travel or technology purchases. Whatever harm each vegan consumer causes, which is impossible to measure, is “necessary.” But eat bone marrow from a grass-fed cow, and no matter how much harm you cause elsewhere in your life, that constitutes unnecessary harm.

Why is the harm that vegans cause necessary? The implication is that it is necessary for survival, but since vegans don’t consume as little as they can get away with in order to merely survive, this can’t be right. What vegans have to argue to differentiate their morally acceptable harms from immoral omnivore harms is either that their vegan harms are in a separate and lesser category of harms, or that the harms are the same kind but that vegans cause far less of them. Or both.

I think most vegans would argue that it’s a mixture of the two, while placing their emphasis on the harms being categorically different. This is when vegans pull out the anti-exploitation argument. Vegans may kill animals and cause them suffering though their consumer purchases and just by existing, but at least they don’t raise domesticated animals and then intentionally kill them in order to eat them. Vegans kill and maim, yes. They do not, however, exploit, and that makes all the difference.

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--Tagged under: Ethics--

Michael Greger MD is sort of in the Jack Norris/Ginny Messina camp of science-based vegan nutrition experts, but he’s a doctor rather than a dietitian; he also appears to be convinced that veganism (especially if low fat) is the healthiest possible diet.

Norris and Messina, who wrote the recent Vegan For Life, are optimistic about the health benefits of veganism, and I get the feeling that they think it’s possible that a properly supplemented vegan diet could turn out to be the healthiest way to eat. But their approach is more akin to making the best of a bad situation. Morality shackles give vegans less flexibility in their diets and Messina and Norris try to help them work around nutritional challenges so they never have to go back to immoral foods. Greger, however, promotes nutritionally informed veganism as the best way to eat for health reasons, even if you think animal lives are a complete joke.

Until now, Greger has mostly been known to vegans for his lectures at veg fests, where he would talk about about the latest in nutrition. His schtick was to list vegan foods—white potatoes, tofu, wheat gluten, raw mushrooms, blue-green algae, olive oil, coconut milk, etc.— and ask the audience whether they thought the food was “helpful, neutral or harmful.” Vegans are always devastated to learn that he believes coconut milk, raw mushrooms, blue-green algae and white potatoes are harmful (unless they follow a form of veganism that already restricts some of those foods, in which case they feel vindicated), but Greger ends his lectures on an optimistic note, proclaiming that vegans who supplement B12 and avoid harmful vegan foods are the healthiest people in the world. Vegans really love that part.

Now Greger has started a blog on his website, Nutrition Facts. Like the pro-vegan Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Nutrition Facts is a very sciencey, authoritative, unbiased sounding name that gives no hint that the goal is to promote a complete avoidance of animal products. Even the about page doesn’t mention veganism or Greger’s ethical commitment to ending human use of animals, though it does say that he’s the Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at the Humane Society.

To draw attention to the blog, Greger is posting a new video on it every single day for a year. Today’s video is called “Antioxidant power of plant foods versus animal foods.” If this video happens to be your only exposure to nutrition science, you might come away thinking that antioxidant content is the most and possibly only important consideration when selecting your food sources.

Just be sure not to eat coconut milk.

--Tagged under: Health--

--Tagged under: Vegan Leaders--

Vegan identity building has never been more adorable.

— Via Vegan Poet

Why the Top Priority of Vegans Should be Human Extinction, Not Veganism

“If you don’t want to die, don’t be born!” — Child soldiers in Johnny Mad Dog.

In Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence, lovable curmudgeon David Benatar argues that life always contains suffering and death and so we cause unnecessary harm by having children. Harm is only possible through existence, and though life contains pleasures, the good almost never outweighs the bad. And even if it does, it’s still a harm to be born, because life will inevitably contain some suffering, whereas non-existence contains no suffering and yet the lack of pleasures cannot be missed by the non-existent. It is always wrong, then, to bring harm-experiencing beings into existence. If pregnant, please abort.

The problem and solution, as Benatar sees them, are clear-cut:

Although sentience is a later evolutionary development and is a more complex state of being than insentience, it is far from clear that it is a better state of being. This is because sentient existence comes at a significant cost. In being able to experience, sentient beings are able to, and do, experience unpleasantness. (2) …
In the ordinary course of events [parents] will experience only some of the bad in their children’s and possibly grandchildren’s lives (because these offspring usually survive their progenitors), but beneath the surface of the current generations lurk increasingly larger numbers of descendents and their misfortunes. Assuming that each couple has three children, an original pair’s cumulative descendants over ten generations amounts to 88,572 people. That constitutes a lot of pointless and avoidable suffering. (6 - 7)

Is existence really so bad? In case you’re not convinced, Benatar succinctly describes the mundane tortures that inevitably befall any unwitting human thrust into life on this overrated, loathsome orb:

As a matter of fact, bad things happen to all of us. No life is without hardship. It is easy to think of the millions who live a life of poverty or of those who live much of their lives with some disability. Some of us are lucky enough to be spared these fates, but most of us who are, nonetheless suffer ill-health at some stage during our lives. Often the suffering is excruciating, even if it is in our final days. Some are condemned by nature to years of frailty. We all face death. We infrequently contemplate the harms that await any newborn child—pain, disappointment, anxiety, grief, and death. For any given child we cannot predict what form these harms will take or how severe they will be, but we can be sure that at least some of them will occur. None of this befalls the non-existent. Only existers suffer harm. (29) …
[W]e tend to ignore just how much of our lives is characterized by negative mental states, even if often only relatively mildly negative ones. Consider, for example, conditions causing negative mental states daily or more often. These include hunger, thirst, bowel and bladder distension (as these organs become filled), tiredness, stress, thermal discomfort (that is, feeling either too hot or too cold), and itch. For billions of people, at least some of these discomforts are chronic. These people cannot relieve their hunger, escape the cold, or avoid the stress. However, even those who can find some relief do not do so immediately or perfectly, and thus experience them to some extent every day. In fact, if we think about it, significant periods of each day are marked by some or other of these states. For example, unless one is eating and drinking so regularly as to prevent hunger and thirst or countering them as they arise, one is likely hungry and thirsty for a few hours a day. Unless one is lying about all day, one is probably tired for a substantial portion of one’s waking life. How often does one feel neither too hot nor too cold, but exactly right? (71 – 72).

Boy he sure left out a lot. Nevertheless, it’s safe to say that Benatar does not look on the bright side of life.

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--Tagged under: Featured Entries--

--Tagged under: Ethics--

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