Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.
Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?
Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.
Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?
I have a second one (and I say this as a 30-something who’s been vegetarian since middle school): if you judge it unethical to eat meat because you think the animals deserve life than you should also find items designed to look or feel like meat unacceptable.
You wouldn’t buy a pseudo human appendage at the meat market because it’s not just the reality that’s important it’s the entire idea that is abhorrent.
Most vegans are against causing death and suffering to animals, not against how things taste. The abhorrent part is the killing, not the taste(for most vegans).
Also i think your definitions are self limiting without a reason. Seitan tastes like “meat”, yet it is not. You cant just assign exclusivity on specific tastes. Those tastes can exist outside the realm of meat. But it is easier to talk about those things by referencing something that most people are familiar with(meat or sausage or burger).
Would you be ok if we assigned 16 digit numbers to specific tastes and then used that number to describe products that have that taste? Is the use of the word “meat” that is problematic to you?
meat substitutes go out of their way to mimic the taste of meat. Some even add characteristics that are supposed to mimic blood in the meat. To me, that is symbolically adding back in the violence and harm you are originally opposed to. If you just really like Jack fruit and it happens to taste similar to beef in some preparations I don’t think you’re a part of my ethical quandary.
Take robot or AI childporn as another example if cannibalism isn’t bringing home the intuition. It’s not harming children (at least directly) but it could reasonably be argued that it’s perpetuating and normalizing a violent and problematic practice.
It could be argued but i am not so sure about that. You could start arguing about how “i fucked my stepmother” porn normalizes abuse but would you? I think these are philosophical or psychological subjects that ultimately have no real studies behind them.
I’d like to believe that people are aware of the fundamental differences. These products are trying to appeal to non vegans who dont want to eat meat for health reasons. These people arent vegan in the first place. Is the existence of vegan meat equivalents make it harder or easier to convert these people into veganism? I think it makes it easier.
It doesnt “normalize” abuse, abuse is already normalized. It is trying to change people and change takes time. In your AI childporn example, childporn isnt normalized and i could see AI childporn normalizing it and increasing real life child abuse.
In the end, the animals dont care why they arent being killed. Me being vegan and not eating meat is as impactful as someone who isnt vegan and is eating a vegan meat equivalent. And this is the goal of veganism. Veganism isnt a religion, it isnt about purity, it isnt about you or your concepts of righteousness. It’s about reducing death and suffering.
If you adopt a utilitarian perspective I agree (and I also totally agree that this is a matter of philosophy, clearly the norms do not support my hot take). If only the end matters and not the reasons, I agree that the ethical quandary falls away.
I tend to think utilitarian ethics are quite useful for states or organizations, but I don’t think individual ethics are typically the utilitarian kind (though we are surely influenced by utilitarian analysis for example a lot of vegans are vegan for straight up environmental reason and therefore wouldn’t even need to contemplate the ethics of fake meat beyond environmental impact). I think there’s a more innate sense of ethics that makes me not want to eat something as vital and curious as a cow or a chicken. I’m not trying to reduce the total amount of harm in the world, I just don’t want to be the cause of the death of another entity when I can help it. Eating a vegan burger that looks and feels like a beef burger feels like symbolic support of a practice I don’t support. Perhaps if all beef were pseudo beef that would change things.
Burgers look absolutely nothing like a dead animal. Carnists have already done the work to remove the imagery of the act of violence from eating meat. Most vegans wouldn’t eat e.g. a vegan rotisserie chicken because that actually does look like a murdered animal.
Also, you can’t be vegan for environmental reasons. Veganism is explicitly about ethics
So, murder is wrong therefore simulated murder (movie, play, video game) is wrong? I’m not seeing the connection.
Usually things are wrong because of the harm thru cause. No harm? No foul.
But almost all the meat people eat (and vegan meats imitate) doesn’t look like a dead animal. Find me a vegan who wants to eat a vegan suckling pig and you’ll have an actual example, but no vegan would want that because the murder part is staring them in the face
So if I think that it’s bad that a sentient individual is killed for my taste plesure, I should also think it’s bad if a non-sentient plant is seasoned to mimic meat and pressed into its form? How does that make sense?
Consider my cannibalism example (which is not actually cannibalism) or the example of whether AI child porn would be acceptable (I think most would find that it is not).
It’s not cannibalism, if it’s not human flesh so I don’t see why that would be bad but even the idea that eating meat from the same species is worse than eating from another is weird to me (on a moral level). Just seems like more human supremacism.
Yes but I like the cannibalism example because it usually does a good job bringing forward the intuition I’m getting at with the hot take.
Another one is robot child sex worker—not hurting anyone directly (unless you believe in robot rights) but I think most people would deem it a problem. Looks like a duck sounds like a duck sort of thing.
But fake meats don’t hurt anyone at all, not even indirectly. With your other examples one could argue that it’s desensitizing to the real thing. But eating seitan instead of meat is a conscious decision that probably even reinforces how unethical it was to begin with to kill an animal for this.