i think most people would agree that animals, if given the choice, would rather not be enslaved and eaten. the only morally acceptable reason for subjecting them to this would be if it were somehow necessary for own survival, much the same way killing of another human can be excused if it is in self defense or defense of an innocent person, but millions of healthy vegans (i can provide lots of accounts if needed) are proof positive that one can thrive without any animal foods. here’s the moral argument laid out:

1. If eating animals is necessary, meat eating is not immoral.
2. Eating animals is not necessary.
3. Therefore, meat eating is immoral.

this argument is both valid and sound.

imho, making the morally superior choice is required of all responsible, educated, sensitive human beings :).

~erin

Yes, you get some resistance when you do that - it’s natural for people to defend their lifestyles and to avoid cognitive dissonance - but I’ve found that the more I discuss the subject, the better I become at responding to those defenses while keeping the other person engaged and the conversation friendly and productive.

Of course one has to be respectful of others: we don’t know exactly what it’s like to be them, and everyone has their fears and unique experiences and hot button issues. Nonetheless, it is possible to persuade people to make changes to their lifestyles in a civil and cordial manner.

Sometimes it helps to be patient. For many people, giving up meat, dairy, and eggs at first sounds impossible and off the wall. It often takes a while to acknowledge that what we eat is largely arbitrary and the result of habit and taking the path of least resistance, and that one can have a perfectly satisifying, diverse, and healthy diet without eating flesh, milk, and eggs.

So by discussing veganism - and animal rights and all those related issues - with others, I’ve been able to reduce the amount of exploitation and human-caused animal suffering in world.

If you never inform others about veganism, the violence in slaughterhouses, and the moral transgressions inherent in killing animals for pleasure, they may remain ignorant and avoid thinking about those topics their whole lives, and never change. That’s a missed opportunity. Often, one conversation, or one book that you lend someone, can make a profound difference.

Granted, not everyone feels comfortable doing one-on-one outreach, or even writing letters to the editor. But there is probably some form of activism for everyone; perhaps for you it’s handing out veg restaurant guides or vegan starter kits, or urging your city council to ban rodeos, or requesting that your school cafeteria provide more vegan options - or starting a petition to do that - or simply sharing delicious vegan food and recipes with friends and co-workers.

For more ideas and a compelling explanation of why your activism makes a difference, check out “Striking At The Roots” by Mark Hawthorne.

I just feel that the chain of logic is too long. Are meat farms declining? Are the excess grain being given to the poor or just dumped back into the sea to pollute it? Is anyone doing anything to make sure that all these ethical concerns that vegans are known for, really take effect or are they just words with no meaning?

I hope I didn’t sound too harsh, but I’m confused and i need help. ^_^

A plantbased diet is actually the most ‘earth-efficient’ diet there is - apart from a hunter/gatherer diet. As sternwood pointed out meat and dairy production requires much more food and land than a vegan diet does. George Monbiot, a British climate change etc. debater, points out in an article from 2002 that the West cannot continue consuming the amount of animal products that we do now and feed everybody in the world. I think the problem will continue to become more urgent as the world population grows.
Many people in the developing countries are vegan, not by choice, but because this is how they can afford to eat.. many more don’t have enough to eat full stop. Many are also in a situation that they have to rely on some animal products and meat simply to survive. In the west we are spoilt for choice when it comes to eating - & many many people eat in excess or foods that don’t actually feed their bodies.
So seen from that perspective being vegan is actually also specicism… it is in the highest interest of the whole of humanity, not just the few of us who are lucky enough to live in a part of the world where most people can afford to choose what they eat… So since we have the privilige to choose, this is what many people have done, just like many (more) people have chosen to carry on eating the way they always have done.

In any case, most vegetables and some fruits are produced on annual plants, which will die at the end of a life cycle anyway. In fact, most vegetables and fruits are seed pods that are meant to be eaten by animals so the seeds will be dispersed and the plant propagated. In modern agriculture, this is replaced by replanting with seed stores instead of using the fruit for this purpose. The exception to this are root or leafy vegetables, who propagate via their flowers, or tree fruits where one doesn’t have to kill the tree to eat the fruit.

Even if you accept the “plants feel pain” argument, the fact is that if you stopped livestock production entirely you would save many edible plants that are used for feed for these animals. The majority of corn production in the US, for example, is used to feed livestock. As has been pointed out in “Diet for a Small Planet” the food and water used to create one pound of beef could feed many families.

I don’t regard being a vegetarian as being morally superior to meat eaters. In fact, it is a humbling experience to realize that you are not superior to other animals and I often kick myself for being a meat eater in the past. Some of the pro-meat-eating comments reflect the age-old belief that animals are merely “dumb” and are meant to serve only human beings’ survival. Some justify it by saying that they just like to eat meat, like the taste of it, and this is the reason the animal has to die. For something as trivial as your taste buds.

All I have to say is that is utter bullshit. Yeah I am a spiciest but its in my survivals best interest to favor my species. Opposing a dietary habit provides you no moral suppority.

-Veganism is simply one way (of many) to help reduce animal cruelty and environmental destruction. A reply to this sentence as follows. I guess the increased need of farmland to produce ediable food for humans and the waste that would cause would not harm the enviroment.

To Emma: Good on you for dealing with those issues! That compassion you have is golden. Don’t worry too much about the soybean thing; remember that 80% of the soybeans produced are used in feedlots, so you’re already doing SO much more than most people! You don’t have to be perfect. It’s really good that you’re looking into this!

To Kenzan Okamoto:

Aren’t most if not all life-saving medical treatments derived from animal research? Wouldn’t millions of people who would otherwise have been dead today alive because of animal research?

Maybe, but the converse is also true on just about a larger scale, as a large amount of animal research is either useless or dangerous to human health (partly because of the huge differences between humans and other animals). There are many alternative, cruelty free, and more reliable medical practices available.

Isn’t meat, historically, throughout our evolution, part of our natural diet?

This does not justify the continued practice of it.

Isn’t it true that there was no time in human evolution where we were 100% plant eaters?

If we never tried anything we’ve never done before, what a stagnant world that would be! Besides, many societies have been, and still are, largely or all vegeterian.

Isn’t Veganism a choice, rather than a superior moral stance?

Veganism is simply one way (of many) to help reduce animal cruelty and environmental destruction. Inasfar as it achieves these goals, opposing the eating of meat is as much a “superior moral stance” as is opposing sexism, racism, murder, rape, you get the picture…

My passion for the suffering of the voiceless lets me deal with my own feelings and reactions to pain in the world. I have become open to learning about things that I love that suffer. Little by little my mind is opened to the harshness in the world that isn’t obvious in my own life. So I guess what I’m saying is veganism is one way to learn compassion. I don’t think it’s easy. It’s easy to love animals, harder to love people sometimes.

Also how do people feel about soybeans? I eat so much soy and I hear people say that “they’re cutting down the rainforests to plant soybeans”.

Thanks again for all of your collective passion.

And just one comment to Kenzan Okamoto.. it may be true that there has never been a time in history where humans didn’t eat meat, I don’t know…. but there probably hasn’t been a time in history either where humans didn’t exploit or kill each other and that doesn’t make that acceptable practice - not in my eyes at least. The history of the earth and humanity has been evolving from the start and we shouldn’t automatically reject something just because not all people have practiced it in the past… not much evolution would happen if we stop ourselves from questioning ourselves and life and resist change….