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You don't get to set the default; I don't need an excuse.
I’m also quite baffled at the assumption that the burden of proof is on omnivores to defend their diet.
It’s honestly incredibly arrogant. there’s so much stacked against it I think it takes a very fanatical type of person to have that level of hubris.
I mean, just off the top of my head:
1.) Humans are omnivores. That’s how our bodies and brains evolved, and that’s the type of diet that interfaces most completely with us.
2.) Not everyone is a utilitarian, in fact I’d be amazed if even 10% of the population subscribe to beliefs that can be considered fully utilitarian. Outside of that belief system, suffering is often complicated to define and also is often considered morally neutral without greater context.
3.) Even if you are a utilitarian, the state of Nature most animals, including ancestral humans, existed in is incredibly rough and brutal and full of pain and suffering. It’s not a given that domesticated animals, even ones with very sad & short lives, would be better off without human intervention. Or that ending animal domestication will lower total suffering in the world. It’s not even close to a given. There’s a sanitized “Disney channel” version of animals’ lives that I feel that animal lovers sort of unconsciously project on a low level, but the truth is staggeringly cruel.
I could go on and on for hours about this. This is one of the few subjects I’ll likely never budge an inch on, I fully understand the other side of this issue and particularly the instinct not cause unneeded pain and suffering.
But whenever I hear hardcore vegans, which is to say any vegan at all, talk about this all I can think is “This ain’t it, chief”.
But how is this relevant to the question of whether humans should raise animals in inhumane conditions?
Well, they wouldn't exist if not for human intervention, which is better for the ones with very sad and short lives.
You would have to think that e.g. pigs in CAFOs are not suffering at all to believe this.
How is it reverent? It’s literally the baseline for consideration of wether or not animal welfare is important or not in the first place.
Because the question isn’t “will animals suffer?”, that’s a total given. Animals rip each other to shreds, stalk each other in the middle of night, devour the sick and helpless, gorge on each others entrails while they are still alive, and on and on and on forever and ever.
Inhumane conditions? The whole goddamn universe is an unending inhumane condition for them.
So the question isn’t “how much will animals suffer” it’s “what type of suffering will animals be subjected to” and “to what end?”.
That’s where you all lose the plot. Even if you were totally right on animals being worthy of moral consideration on the level of humans, you would additionally have to prove that domesticated animals would be better off not existing at all, and that by ending animal domestication you have managed to somehow lower the amount of animal suffering occurring in the world, while simultaneously outweighing the positive utility animal consumption has for humanity.
Which is from where I’m sitting is an utterly ludicrous claim.
Wild animal suffering is completely irrelevant to this question.
Imagine there's a planet in the Andromeda galaxy where ten trillion humans are being flayed alive.
Does that affect whether or not you should mug the next person you see? Clearly not - it's wrong to do that even if there's a lot of bad stuff going on elsewhere. You're not responsible for the torture planet. You are responsible for the mugging.
If you insist on taking for granted the claim that animals are worthy of moral consideration on the level of humans (you brought this up, not me), then the rest of the argument is a cakewalk. What kind of monster would breed humans in the conditions of factory farming just to eat their flesh? Even if humans tasted really good?
You yourself said that many domesticated animals lead short and sad lives. Do you really think that existence is a benefit for them?
I mean even if you think that ... wouldn't it be highly relevant to other questions, like environmentalism? If Wild animals in general suffer and their live lives not worth living, then a good utilitarian would want to pave over all of nature, yes?
I'd certainly not feel bad about this planet being blown up by a stray asteroid. Do you feel the same way about life on Earth in general? Is the main problem with the last 4 or 5 mass extinction events that they didn't go far enough?
I guess you'd have to ask a good utilitarian.
Fair enough, I suppose I just usually associate veganism with utilitarianism on some level.
I guess I'll just phrase it as a full argument:
A. Animals suffer greatly in their natural environment. Nature and evolution have optimized for survival, not happiness.
B. Artificial environments can make concessions to animal happiness that Nature cannot make.
C. If you care about animal welfare, artificial environments that make some attempt at keeping animals happy are to be preferred over natural environments.
D. If you think artificial environments are not a net positive for animals, then natural environments are definitely not a net positive.
E. Thus if you think we should get rid of artificial environments for animals in order to alleviate their suffering, then we should also get rid of natural environments for animals to alleviate their suffering.
I believe that is the encapsulated argument that @MaximumCuddles has been getting at. Vegan's don't seem to reach point E in the argument. The logic is sound, so one of the points must not be valid from the perspective of a vegan. The question is: which points do they think aren't valid? That would narrow down a large moral argument to a specific point of contention.
I am not a vegan, but C is where things start to go off the rails. Factory farms are optimized for profit, not happiness - they do not make concessions to reduce animal suffering except where it starts to impact the bottom line. There is no reason to think that factory farms are better than nature in this respect.
By the time we get to E the argument is fully nonsensical. The claim that we should not actively cause harm that wouldn't exist otherwise should not be construed to mean that we must go and eliminate all harm everywhere, even harm that has nothing to do with us.
A serial killer whose defense is "well in the state of nature these people probably would have been killed anyway" is just as deranged. You remain accountable for your actions regardless of what's going on elsewhere or in other hypothetical situations.
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