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/lit/ - Literature

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6555991 No.6555991 [Reply] [Original]

From a philosophical standpoint, why should be/not be vegan? I've been on a vegan diet for 4 weeks but my body is starting to fight against it. I'm worried that if I were to suddenly revert to my old ways then the guilt would be more painful than the craving. Eastern philosophy got me into this mess to be honest.

>> No.6556000

vegans are weak fags

>> No.6556003

Why are you asking us?

>> No.6556007

Teleologically, it isn't part of our nature not to eat animals or animal byproducts. It is more outside of our nature, in fact, than eating meat is inside of it.

>> No.6556011
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6556011

>>6555991
Meat is a really super duper way to put nutrients in your body. If your body is rebelling against your new diet, you may be missing some important macronutrients that you were getting more of before via meat!

>> No.6556013

>>6555991
I have no points from a philosophical standpoint, but, from an evolutionary standpoint, you are rejecting what allowed our species to evolve. Eat some steak, faggot.

>> No.6556015

>>6556000
You get vegan bodybuilders

>>6556003
Because there isn't a philosophy board

>>6556007
This is the kind of response I'm looking for. However, how does what's inside our outside our primordial nature constitute what's right or wrong? Shouldn't we strive to be above our primal selves in terms of morality?

>> No.6556017

>>6556011
These would most likely be protein. You may also be missing some micronutrients. Going vegan can be rough on a body if that body isn't prepared for it. Philosophically, you'd need to be more specific about what you think before anyone else can really do anything but shit ideas out at you.

>> No.6556018

>>6556015
>You get vegan bodybuilders
You also have some pretty fast one legged people.
In general though the handicapped are slow.
Just like how vegans usually are pale, skinny and malnourished.

>> No.6556019

>>6556018
You don't know anything about nutrition.

>> No.6556022

>>6556019
I do, you are wrong

>> No.6556035

>>6556022
That is true. You can probably spell the word right since I wrote it out for you.

>> No.6556039

>>6556017
Okay, I'll try and formulate how I feel about the issue. Most of the animals we eat live really shitty lives and are pretty much being bred to be killed/exploited. It seems like suffering on a mass scale and not only does it have adverse effects on animals, but also the environment. Huge chunks of the Amazon are cut to feed pigs and industrial fishing is destroying our ocean's ecosystem. I know I can't stop any of this as one person, but I don't wish to be part of the problem and therefore have chosen to lessen the economic demand of these industries, even if only by a micro fraction. I feel that I'd be putting my life before animals and the future of humanity to continue to eat meat. I'd heavily appreciate if you destroyed my opinions because all of the reading I've found about this has been by vegans themselves.

>> No.6556040

>>6556035
Don't waste your precious energy arguing with me, my pale vegan friend.

>> No.6556042

> pick a vegetable out of the ground to eat
> the vegetable dies
> pick a fruit off a tree
> the tree still lives

Fruitarianism is the only logically consistent non-omnivore diet.

>> No.6556050

>>6556039
I read Defending Beef once. There's some common sense there, even if the book isn't super rigorous about actually defending beef. Just think about how we convert land to something arable, and you'll know that making food has always been and will likely always be nasty business, with a few pollutants and leftover shit that we'll throw into the ocean or a nearby river, and that animals that can graze on pasture during crop rotation and that we can eat later are part of the solution rather than the problem.

>> No.6556054

>>6556042
But animals have much more advanced nervous systems and are sentient. It isn't illogical to place them above plants in terms of morality. Most people feel this way, you'd get a different reaction from kicking a dog's head to kicking a lettuce head.

>> No.6556057

>>6556050
This includes using fucktons of water to grow soy and rice out of season and in places that require heavy irrigation rather than . . . swamps/marsh, which is where these crops naturally grow? And while mass production of chicken for meat leads them to being huddled together and fed massive amounts of antibiotics, this isn't the case for all animals all the time. Look up who makes the brands of the food you choose to support with your dollar and how they make it and if you approve of it, rather than just blanket banning all meat.

>> No.6556059

>>6556042
Maybe we should redefine death as the end of consciousness if only to stop idiots from shouting "plants tho!"

>> No.6556062

>>6555991
I had diarrhea too about a month (3 years now) in, try eating more calcium rich veggies

>> No.6556063

>>6555991

AFAIK there is no sensible way to determine universal morality. Personally I'm most sympathetic to Hume's ethical philosophy which simply states that we feel sympathy for other things the way we feel hunger. This makes sense in an evolutionary way too. If there is no God then morals are probably just something nature made to make us co-operate better. Anyway, if your "hunger" for being a good person is getting in the way of your well-being you may just need to chill the fuck out, man.

Some other thoughts:

1) If you're doing the vegan thing right, you shouldn't feel such cravings, should you? Maybe reconsider what you're eating while staying vegan?

2) What difference does it make if you are completely free of animals products? I mean, you might influence some people, but let's be honest, you're not going to change the world with this. You might say that at least you're free of responsibility. But are you really? You co-operate with people who depend on animal products all the time, even if you're just listening to a teacher who had bacon for breakfast. What's this with purifying your person then? Is that really about the animals or you? My point is that perhaps the details about what exactly you eat and wear isn't that important. If you want to save the animals get active about it. Write books, start doing activism ...

>> No.6556073

>>6556015
Bodybuilders are also weak fags.

>> No.6556075

>>6556073
Did you just finish watching Fight Club ?

>> No.6556078

Philosophically speaking, guilt is for the weak. Might makes right.

>> No.6556082

Try vegetarianism or pescatarianism. You are deluding yourself if you think you can adopt every single maximally ethical lifestyle in existence. The important thing is to find a balance between discipline and luxury. Ensure that your "ethical footprint" is positive, so to speak, without causing undue suffering.

I'm a vegetarian, for example, but I take a lot of baths and waste a lot of water. My friend is a meat eater, but she does charity work and drives an electric car. Give and take.

>> No.6556084

>>6556063

>AFAIK there is no sensible way to determine universal morality.

Yeah, if we ignore Kant and pretty much every philosopher after him

>> No.6556086

>>6556078
Why do you bother posting ?

>> No.6556088

>>6556075
I don't watch American films, the accents are too grating. I'm a powerlifter.

>> No.6556092

>>6556084
>Kant attempted to create a universal moral framework, therefore he did
Leave.
>>6556086
What's the matter? Are you too weak to embrace moral nihilism?
>>6556082
>ethical lifestyle
No such thing.

>> No.6556094

Utilitarians get out


REEEEEEEEEE

>> No.6556099

>>6556013
lol r u serious?

>> No.6556104
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6556104

>>6555991
why do you want to be vegan?

it's simply your choice. simply disregard the matter of ethics and pursue whichever interests you.

>> No.6556109

>>6556078
Thanks for your input Thrasymachus

>>6556082
That's if you accept utilitarianism, with deontology it's not extraordinarily difficult to live a life without committing any morally impermissible actions.

Also "giving and taking" is really easy if you redefine 'giving' as 'reducing the amount of taking you do'

>> No.6556115
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6556115

>>6556104
simply simple

>> No.6556138

>>6555991
IMO being a vegan is pretty silly
Why attempt to severe one of the most basic connections we have to the natural world.
We are omnivores by design many other mammals so why deny the proper course
it's like celibacy or self mutilation all and all pointless but your decision

>> No.6556140
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6556140

>>6556000
You need to kill weaker to survive. I can do that too, or even used to but now I do not need anymore. My country has developed enough so I can get over that. Because my ancestors were not "weak fags" and I'm not either, I choose deliberately to offer a helping hand to the kind we have made our bitches and humiliated for ages.

His holiness, 13th Dalai Lama eats meat himself. He, at the same time, propagates the vegan lifestyle but his country didn't develop enough yet. Tibetans live in the mountains. And the only way to survive there is eating animal flesh. They are poor, they are weak like animals and so they kind of fight each other. Just like we used to as Neanderthals.

>> No.6556142

Because the resulting iron deficiency will make it more difficult to philosophize.

>> No.6556149

>>6556138
Actually, self mutilation (for example, self harm) serves the purpose of reducing stress, feelings of hopelessness and derealization by affecting your body in a way that connects it to the external world. It also reduces the chance of one committing suicide iirc.

>> No.6556154

>>6556138
>Why attempt to severe one of the most basic connections we have to the natural world.

Why not attempt to if it's an ethically superior position? inb4 stirner.jpg

>> No.6556160

Because domesticated species have evolved dependency on man, and would not survive in the wild without us. To turn vegan is akin to forming a symbiotic relationship, and then suddenly becoming a faggot

>> No.6556161

OP here, I've tried to conflate a lot of this into one position. I'm thinking I'll turn back to meat. I wrote this as a note to myself and not a post, so it might seem ridiculous.

The Utilitarian Ethical Barrier
Utilitarianism in it's truest form leads to suicide as an animal free diet, a diet that does not directly or indirectly kill animals, would lead to starvation. Even then, suicide is not utilitarian of course as those around a person would grieve.

Vegans are responsible for animal deaths too. The closest a vegan can come to the ethics they aspire to is activism; writing books and protesting. Even then, a question arises: Is there better causes to be active for, to expend time on?

The plant industries kill animals also. Other industries, that vegans directly contribute to, kill animals. Vegans write the paychecks of meat-eaters, thus killing animals this indirect way as well. It is impossible to be a human and not kill animals, especially in a crowded modern western society. Such a society requires animals to be sustainable.

The closest anyone has come to an ethical lifestyle is with Jainism and they illustrate the effects of an ethical lifestyle: defenceless against all attackers, physically weak, socially desolate, filled with anxiety about whether they just stepped on a bug or not.

The lifestyle I would recommend is to put humans above all else.

>> No.6556169

Denying the consumption of meat on moral grounds is illogical, because it places the "rights" of some animals over others irrationally. Consider the dog, whom you find adorable and could never eat even if starving in the desert. Now consider the cow, whom you find somewhat cute and ate without a second thought for most of your life. Now consider the fly, whom you find disgusting and murder daily for offenses no greater than minor annoyance.

Why do you grant rights to the dog but not the fly? You can make an argument that mammals are more "intelligent" or "sentient" than insects, but is that a reasonable justification for tyranny? If you choose that line of reasoning, where is the line drawn? How many neurons must a species have on average in order for you to give them rights? What if a species is on the edge — can you not kill a normal animal but you can kill a retarded animal? Humans have been shown to favor those biologically close to us, starting with mammals, of course. How can you be sure your affinity to the warm-blooded is not just a result of bias?

For every domestic animal you refuse to consume, dozens or hundreds of smaller animals die from the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and harvesting equipment. Is this just? Again, why do the cute animals have rights while the ugly animals do not?

Consider your daily commute. Do to the human race's insistence on driving, millions of animals are killed every year. In all likelihood, just you kill dozens or even hundreds of animals every year. But you don't care, because generally the animals you kill are not cute. They are small flies or tiny ants that deserve to die if they get in your way, but your dog gets to ride shotgun.

I have found that the only rational relationship one can maintain with animals is a fairly benign nihilism. If a spider happens to find its way onto my skin, I gently put it down outside. But if house centipedes are invading my home, then I gas the fuckers. If a cat just wants a bite of my sandwich, then I feed him and give him a little pet. But if a dog wanders onto the interstate and I can't move over, then he's going under my tires without hesitation. I do not cause harm to any animals that are not immediately causing me trouble. But the second one does so much as annoy me, I have no problems with killing it, whether it's a fly or a dog. Because I force myself to be logical, I give all animals equal rights, which in this case, is no rights. I do not exist to kill them, but if I best exist through killing them, then I have no moral constraints.

That said, I do refrain from some activities that other "normal" people might do. For example, I do not enslave any animals, i.e. make them my pet. I do not torture any animals — I never pick the wings off a fly just to watch it suffer. Such things are not necessary to ensure my life is comfortable. But I do eat animals.

>> No.6556170

>>6556140
>His holiness, 13th Dalai Lama
He's not holy.

>> No.6556174

>>6555991
>Falling into moralistic propaganda.
If you wanna save animals become active about it. Become active about how they are treated before they are killed. Become involved in funding for artificial meat etc..
Instead of doing something you are just trying to save your consiounce. Tell me are plants not living organisms? You dont mind killing them?

>> No.6556183
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6556183

>>6556161
>The lifestyle I would recommend is to put humans above all else.
>spook_town.wmv

>> No.6556185

>>6556161
>Utilitarianism in it's truest form leads to suicide as an animal free diet,

That's *if* you accept a hedonistic moral framework

>Vegans are responsible for animal deaths too.
>The plant industries kill animals also.

There's a moral distinction between indecent and accident

>The closest anyone has come to an ethical lifestyle is with Jainism and they illustrate the effects of an ethical lifestyle

Again, you're blindly accepting hedonism

>>6556174
>What about the plants

Plants do not have experiences, I hope you don't think murdering a human is morally equivalent to picking a dandelion

>> No.6556188

>>6556185
> I hope you don't think murdering a human is morally equivalent to picking a dandelion
But it is. Morality is a spook.

>> No.6556190

>>6556185
But what about ecosystems, with mammals and all, that are intentionally wiped out in order to make room for crops? What about housing and transport that uses animal products?

>> No.6556191

>>6556185
plants have epigenetic memory and respond to stimuli like everything else we term living

>> No.6556192

>>6556170
Fine then, just Dalai Lama

>> No.6556194

>>6556161
Well, I agree partially.
The way I see it, Your view is not more logical.
Why deny the fact you feel pity? You are gonna be killing animals whether you want it or not why not spare some as a result of pitying them(yes its biased)?
Should I kill an animal just to be fair and "logical"? Should I override my emotions and harm living creatures just to be fair and "logical"?

>> No.6556195

>>6556188
Sorry Stirner, but the person you murdered applied metaphysical predicates to your action

>> No.6556196

Like 40% of all food just goes in to waste anyway.

Its not like your purchase or non purchase of meat will in any way change the volume of meat production.

There are other things you can do to support animal rights that will be substantially more functional.

>> No.6556199

>>6556195
So what?

>> No.6556249

A lot of misinformation in this thread so as a vegan I'll break it down:

1) environmental reasons
2) why should I directly implicate myself in the deaths of sentient creatures when there is no need?
3) related to that raising meat generally causes more consumption of wheat and thus the byproducts of deaths in harvesting.
4) Plants most likely can't feel pain and if they can eating meat would cause more pain for them than eating plants without the middleman.
5) Being vegan isn't the ethical endpoint. It's clearly not mutually exclusive to charity work etc so that point doesn't really make sense.
6) Veganism is generally healthier than eating meat. Most of the developed world has top much protein in their diet anyway and besides there's plenty of adequate sources (some better per unit weight than meat) for every essential vitamin (bar b12 which is cheap to buy) and nutrient.

Sorry if that's rushed but I wanted to give some alternate views here. Also the argument from nature is fucking stupid and I hope I don't have to explain why. I encourage everyone to read animal liberation by singer or maybe just the first few chapters of practical ethics to have this explained clearer.

OP it sounds like you're just not sure where to get your nutrients from on a vegan diet. Read something like Becoming Vegan which goes through vegan nutrition and see if you were just managing your diet poorly.

>> No.6556293

>>6556249
Like a recycling freak.
This is a post modern plague. Every problem becomes about individual morals and ethics instead of a political social question.
If you dare question these popel about their lack of political activity for this supposedly so important cause they will accuse you of being a hypocrite since you eat animals.

Well guys, as long as your found a pretense that allows you to believe your conscience is clear.

>> No.6556295

>From a philosophical standpoint, why should be/not be vegan?

I don't think there's any real, defensible argument specifically AGAINST. The strongest truly tenable argument there would likely be to say that there simply isn't anything wrong with eating meat if you want to, because animals don't hold moral worth.

Peter Singer has had a lot to say on the matter. Actually, I just watched a video that pretty nicely sums up exactly what his position is in a short and digestible form.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45nYyUn6Ya8

>> No.6556308

>>6556295
That's a pretty misleading representation of Singer's preference ultilitarianism

>> No.6556310

>>6556249
>1) environmental reasons
There is no reason to care about the environment.
>2) why should I directly implicate myself in the deaths of sentient creatures when there is no need?
There is no good reason why you shouldn't.
>3) related to that raising meat generally causes more consumption of wheat and thus the byproducts of deaths in harvesting.
Who cares?
>4) Plants most likely can't feel pain and if they can eating meat would cause more pain for them than eating plants without the middleman.
Who cares?
>5) Being vegan isn't the ethical endpoint. It's clearly not mutually exclusive to charity work etc so that point doesn't really make sense.
Morality is a spook and ethics is, therefore, pointless.
>6) Veganism is generally healthier than eating meat. Most of the developed world has top much protein in their diet anyway and besides there's plenty of adequate sources (some better per unit weight than meat) for every essential vitamin (bar b12 which is cheap to buy) and nutrient.
Who cares?

>> No.6556312

>>6556249
Why is sentient life more important? Cause you cannot understand its signals of suffering(i.e. biological decay? Cause a little mammel can make a face and noizes you recognize?
Why make a distinction between sentient and non sentient beings?
Why is sentient life more deserving of life?
If that is not the case and its about suffering why not just make sure animals live a nice life and are killed without shock or trauma?

>> No.6556319

>>6556310
Look at this deluded stirnerian. You realize you are a walking /lit/ joke?

>> No.6556324

>>6556249
4) if we invent a way where animals don´t feel pain, you feel comfortable to eat them?

>> No.6556330

>>6556319
I'd rather be a walking joke than some ideology-ridden cheeky bastard.

>> No.6556335

>>6556330
You ARE a walking joke.

>> No.6556338

>>6556335
And you ARE an ideology-ridden, spook enabling, idol worshipping cheeky bastard.

>> No.6556339

>>6556330
Teen detected. Do you enjoy being a stereotype? XD

>> No.6556342

>>6556339
>if you're aren't a dogmatist you're a teen
Go on, prove to me that there is an objective right and wrong in this world. Show me proof.

>> No.6556344

>>6556342
So you're saying there's objectively no such thing as objectivity.

>> No.6556347

>>6556310
mostly agree

>environmental reasons
i understand caring about your immediate environment, but everything beyond that is hopeless to concern yourself with. you might argue some holistic or connected viewpoint, that what happens there affects here and so on, but i'm not concerned about it. i'll likely die before anything serious occurs.

>why should I directly implicate myself in the deaths of sentient creatures when there is no need?
why should that concern you when there is no need?

>related to that raising meat generally causes more consumption of wheat and thus the byproducts of deaths in harvesting.
.

4) Plants most likely can't feel pain and if they can eating meat would cause more pain for them than eating plants without the middleman.
..

nevermind, >>6556310, i completely agree with you.

>> No.6556353

>>6556344
You probably/maybe can't prove anything, so there's a good/slim chance.

>> No.6556365

>>6556160
IMO this is the strongest argument for continuing to eat meat, though at far less of it (particularly cattle due to water consumption and so on). I think there's a strong argument against it though I won't articulate it here since I don't like spamming pure ideology on 4chan.

Personally I think any being capable of sentience should be afforded basic rights in terms of how they are to be treated and what actions would be harmful when inflicted on them. This doesn't mean I have a naive perspective of nature or that I value a physics professor the same way I do a chicken (this is a tricky thing for rights theorists to explain in a clear and logical way). Following my reasoning it is unethical to eat animals as a luxury, and it is unethical also to support a dairy industry which brutalizes its cows as a matter of routine. The chicken industry is less conspicuously unethical (in my region), though my decision not to support these industries mostly comes down to the fact that I don't trust (with reason) low-paid workers resentful of their occupation to treat large flocks of chickens in a way I consider ethical. I have no real objections to small-scale dairy farming and egg production.

I've been vegetarian for around 6 years now, and vegan for around three. I've always been healthy so it's hard to observe any major changes, though I haven't once been ill in those years and have only had one or two colds.

>> No.6556367

>>6556104
>it's simply your choice
It's not, and shouldn't be merely a 'lifestyle' choice. You see those dogs the Chinese boil alive? Do you consider yourself better and more civilized than a bunch of low life chinks? Then at least take the matter for what it is.

>> No.6556375

>>6556015
>However, how does what's inside our outside our primordial nature constitute what's right or wrong?
There's nothing 'primordial' about what I mean. Our nature is the way in which we are; spontaneous and natural existence within this way of being is unobjectionable. We may be above animals intellectually and in our capacity to conceive of morality, but it does not follow from this that we cannot eat them, any more than it follows from all human beings sharing roughly the same moral capacity that no human killing another human can ever be justified. I would draw a moral line between murder/cannibalism and salughter/animal meat on the grounds that human beings are distinctively different from other animals.
>Shouldn't we strive to be above our primal selves in terms of morality?
Yes, but I see no reason to believe that eating meat in and of itself is wrong. In addition to this, you should reconceive primality. My primal self wants to hunt a deer, cook it, and eat it; this is morally different from my expressed self going to McDonald's and buying chicken wings, but not because of the matter involved; it's a formal difference that determines the moral value of my actions in these situations, if you follow me.
In neither case is my eating meat morally wrong. When I hunt, cook, and eat the deer, I don't exploit it any more than any other animal with its degree of consciousness of mind and morality. It had a nice life in the woods, for all I know, and if I hadn't thought so I wouldn't have been OK with doing what I did.
This is ethically different from the chicken that was born a caged commodity on a farm with millions of other nameless birds, fattened, harvested, and ultimately processed and shipped to McDonald's for my consumption as a consumer in capitalist society.
TL;DR veganism against capitalism and exploitation is justified, veganism against eating animals and animal byproducts is not. Also, if you feel like you enjoy whatever health benefits you may be reaping, that's fine too.

>> No.6556379

>>6556161
>Jainism
Jains can be flustercucks. They justify harming themselves and, indirectly, other people for spiritually selfish reasons as long as they can technically get karma for their actions despite mainly contributing harm to the world.

>> No.6556382

>>6556375
>veganism against capitalism
I mean by this veganism as a protest of the way capital exploits animals, obviously.

>> No.6556394

>>6556367
>It's not, and shouldn't be merely a 'lifestyle' choice.
it is, and it is.

>You see those dogs the Chinese boil alive? Do you consider yourself better and more civilized than a bunch of low life chinks?
>better
better at what?

>more civilized
i'd enjoy being able to boil dogs alive, they have so much freedom!

>> No.6556399

it makes no sense to speak in normative terms. the question should be what incentives are there for being so and how could they meet a desirable goal (given that its a plausible one)

>> No.6556402

>>6556399
> should be
i mean this entirely suggestively

>> No.6556425
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6556425

>>6555991
Homo sapiens are omnivorous silly faggot

Why should a Homo sapiens care what it eats anymore then a bear?

>> No.6556468

>>6556365
>I don't trust (with reason) low-paid workers resentful of their occupation to treat large flocks of chickens in a way I consider ethical

everything in the world is full of low paid workers. that is the argument to stay in home all day in bed.

>> No.6556481

>>6556099
Yes, it is proven that our transition to eating meat, especially cooked meat, accounts for our transition to intelligent beings.

>> No.6556533
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6556533

Does eating meat give you pleasure?

>> No.6556547
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6556547

>>6556310
good consumer

>> No.6556607

>>6555991
>Eastern philosophy got me into this mess to be honest.
Topkek, another western life ruined by a basic ruse.

(Glad I'm not 'western', lol.)

>> No.6556609

>>6556310
>Veganism is generally healthier than eating meat.
Actually, no. It's pretty conclusively proven that the obesity epidemic (along with diabetes, heart disease, etc) is caused by eating too many carbohydrates. You should be eating veggies and meat instead.