Thank you again, Alex. Though I'm easily old enough to be your grandfather, you've helped me no end in recent years sorting through these difficult thoughts, and I do appreciate the clarity you bring.
This is the coolest and most wonderful thing I've heard today, I just love the idea of cross-generational communication and how each individual human can greatly influence another despite gaps in age or view point or whatever. I myself, am a little less than a decade younger than Alex (17) and Alex has greatly impacted my philosophical view points, convinced me to become vegan as soon as I leave my parents house, as well as given more clarity to how I express what my philosophical view points are and may have been previously.
What about the PETA-Issues though? Will this Channel take a Stance on that? Or ‚at least’ recommend some good Video about it, like that of Illuminaughtii??
Regarding the utilitarian perspective on the "cabin in the woods" experiment: wouldn't a utilitarian perspective be incomplete if it focuses solely or mainly on minimizing suffering, without simultaneously aiming at maximizing happiness and well-being? If the answer is "yes," than the answer to the question posed in the experiment must be that it would be morally wrong, because as soon as soon as you take someone's life away, regardless of whether suffering is involved or not, you are, by extension, violating their well-being. Happiness cannot exist without consciousness. Well-being cannot exist without being.
Happiness cannot exist without consciousness, this much is true. However, this also happens to be true of suffering as well. So, without consciousness, there are no more happy experiences, but there's also no more painful ones either. In any case, since classical utilitarianism is about both the maxmization of pleasure and the minimization of suffering, and killing someone could be said to minimize suffering, then it's not clear why killing someone humanely would be morally wrong. Also, preventing future happiness doesn't really cause suffering and preventing future happiness is obviously not going to produce happiness -- so from the classical standpoint there's no way to assign preventing future happiness a moral value of good or bad -- it lives in a moral grey area. You could say that people want to have future happiness or just that people prefer not to die and killing them would be bad because you're depriving them of something they want. But saying this would take you away from the standard of good being whatever maximizes pleasure to good being whatever satisfies peoples desires, which is a kind of utilitarianism, but then it becomes tricky to apply desire or preference satisfaction to animals because it's not obvious that all animals have preferences -- but fairly obvious that even if they don't that they can still feel pain and pleasure. lastly, I do want to point out that included in the thought experiment was the fact that the people being killed were bred into existence and given a net positive life, which means that before they died they had a good life according to the classical utilitarian framework.
@@trevorhill1688 I think that the argumentation that providing net positive lives justifies killing breaks down on many different levels since it does not factor in opportunity costs. Examples: 1. We don't just provide this net positive life from nothing. Habitat destruction of wild animals is an intrinsic part of animal agriculture because of the trophic pyramid. So for every livestock animal with a net positive life far more wild land vertebrates have to suffer instead even more than they would normally in the wild. 2. The life could just be positive by the tiniest amount imaginable for the reasoning to work. How could filling the world with lives that are barely worth living be ethical. Remember that resources are finite and the world can't provide for infinite amounts of sentient beings. 3. On the day of the planned killing all of the net positive live is already in the past. At that point in time all you do is killing without providing anything positive. 4. In humans killing is unethical even if we are the sole providers of their net positive lives (for example in children or handicapped people). The reason is that we try to build a society in which every human can expect to have a net positive life. So even if you did provide for them, killing them would decrease their expected wellbeing. The same reasoning could become true for animals.
Can anyone remind me, what the "cabin in the woods" experiment is trying to do with the dead body? What is the utility that the experiment is trying to achieve through said killing?
@@trevorhill1688 hey i think you‘re very wrong there. Classical utilitarianism, as it was founded by Bentham and Mill, is about the following: the moral action is the the one that brings the most utility to the affected beings, generally. If someone is dead, there is no utility whatsoever, therefore the max possible utility is not reached in the wood cabin example, therefore killing the person is wrong.
@@lendrestapas2505 Bentham conceptualized utility as being about both maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. So, say a person is to realize net negative utility for the rest of their life -- then, by killing someone at their maximum pleasure point, then are we not acting in a way that is consistent with maxmizing utility, in general? Or, maybe more in line with the hypothetical, we can't guarantee that a person's life, which had been a net positive up to that point, will remain this way. However, we can avoid any possible suffering by killing them humanely-- guaranteeing a life of net positive utility. The fact they can no longer experience utility is morally irrelevant if killing them is the action that will maximize utility moving forward. That is, there is no future action that can be taken that will make their life better than what it already is. Indeed, going a step further, if every action they take moving forward only leads to pain, then the only action that can be taken to ensure utility is maxmized is to end one's life.
"Veganism is an ethical philosophy, justice movement, and way of living which seeks to place a higher value on animal life, liberty, and wellbeing than is placed on substitutable classes of goods, services, products, or uses which may be derived from animals. That is to say, that if one is reasonably able live in such a way so as to divest from systems which engender the commodification, exploitation, oppression, victimization, harm, and/or killing of other sentient beings, then to do so would be in accordance with the principles of veganism."
@@Shinnja Yes; varying depths of the richness of a conscious experience -such as an increased lifespan and increased capacity for wellbeing- are considered moral values on my view. That being said, none of these differences are meaningful with respect to whether or not these individuals deserve to be harmed or exploited gratuitously. If one can reasonably divest from engendering cruelty or oppression against innocent victims, then I would absolutely consider it a moral obligation to do so, and I cannot identify any morally relevant difference with respect to farming humans compared to farming domesticated farm animals which would justify treating them in the same manner when one could by all means divest from doing so.
@@colinharbinson8284 This fails to acknowledge the crucially distinguishing fact that veganism is *an **_ethical philosophy_** and **_social justice movement._* Thus, we are advocating for the end of animal oppression in both lifestyle and activism.
afaik vertical farming is just a lie. I don't see vertical farming as improvement and it might cause more damage as it requires electricity etc. And most plants are not grown over soil and uses some plastics etc. Also in computer industry most of the time vertical scaling has never worked so I find it hard how it can improve the industry we have atm.
@@cutevegan7163 not if we use renewable energy from our sun lmao you really think it wouldn’t be better then the current industry are you out of your mind? If we got rid of animal agriculture we can reduce the land we use by 70 percent the animal agriculture uses almost 50 percent of all land on earth animal agriculture isn’t responsible for just 18% of greenhouse gas emissions it’s responsible for 51 percent.. to say vertical farming is a myth is absurd. It’s more like cognitive dissonance we give most of our resources to the 70 billion land animals we fatten up for consumption and vertical farming is going to be a necessity in order to have plant production all year round, because weather isn going to affect it.
Agreed, it's an evolving situation but if incramental improvement allows us to save the planet while limiting suffering and normalization then I think we should start down that path. Better than sitting around pondering while everything collapses around us, haha
Alex you should try to get in touch with the Political Twitch Streamer "Destiny" that doesn't want to give Animals any moral consideration and even takes the position animals aren't sentient
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists The difference is no one is breeding babies for the sole purpose of eating them. There's so much wrong with this argument.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists It's not as good as taking care of them and not eating them though, not to mention the "..and then eat them" implies killing them and how do you propose to morally justify the action of killing a living, sentient being?
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists how do you take good care of something you kill? Is killing something for the satisfaction of your taste craving taking care of it?
Alex, i recommend you read the book "the open society and itś animals" by Dr. Janneke Vink from the OU(produced by Palgrave Macmillan). It is specifically about this topic (the enfranchisement of animals and rights in liberal democracy) and Prof. Singer wrote a nice word on the book on the backcover ;) Kind regards
Interesting thanks! An example of why I tend to focus on "moral consideration for all sentient beings" as an ethical foundation rather than rights. Rights can be useful tools/concepts in defending sentients or helping us flourish - but that's it.
@@davidevans3223 And if you wanna keep informing yourself, Veritsaium has covered you for Science, Genetically Modified Sceptic for Religion, and Hbomberguy for Everything else.
@@slevinchannel7589 I believe animal's have the right to exist unlike vegans sadly life for everything has linites no need for suffering and veganisum isn't least amount of animals killed or green and defiantly not healthy here's a proven fact by using science that vegan brain's don't work properly you can also see how people react when asked to destroy a robot same reaction to animal's but willing to kill bug like creatures. ua-cam.com/video/mioR_WrkRaU/v-deo.html
@@davidevans3223 I dont know if that’s just your bad grammar, but it just sounded like you said Vegans have no Right to Live, which is f-ed up af. Did you just seriously said Humans have no Right to Live if they are Vegan? WTF? It’s also, according to actual Scientists not ‚real’ „proven fact“ but „MADE UP“ that Vegans brains dont function properly, mate. That’s very obviously someone’s hate-bias. Yeah? Like British said the literal same thing about all Scottish People? What White thought about the Black? A Vegans Brain functions just fine, mate; i tell you this much as a Non-Vegan who knows Science damn-well.
@@slevinchannel7589 no I didn't mean vegans don't deserve to live only they don't agree animal's deserve to exist many call for ending the pet trade because some get abused funny they haven't called for people to stop breeding at least yet. But you don't have a clue what you're talking about I posted a link to indisputable science and it's a single source there's many all come to the same conclusion. An actual study was done in Kenya and after a short while the vegan fed kid's IQ went down. Maybe one day you'll wake up and I can tell you're vegan you're so angry and out of control vegans are nuts it's lack of nutrients some manage better than other's but some exspode I debate and offend many people only vegans lose the plot and I'm talking about calling Muslim prophets evil etc they can still just disagree vegans clearly get angry. If you look at the vegan research paper's you'll see vegan babies are smaller fact smaller is less formed is deformed not natural diet not natural babies. They also have stunted growth weaker bones lot's of issues normal people don't have and the brain is the most complicated thing we know of in the universe and you claim it's not important how it's maintained. We didn't evolve to be the greatest land hunters to eat seeds we are hunters for a reason
So happy to hear from you, Alex. You always motivate me to keep learning and thinking critically. Thank you for defending the animals and helping me transition into veganism almost a year ago now💗
@@davidevans3223 You say that, yet you watch. You can get there, friend. Nowadays it's really quite easy to live within your morals and be vegan. When you're ready, we'll be here.
We have historically allowed for that sort of starvation killing in society though. It was known as “The Custom of the Sea”. For example, the crew of the 1820’s whaleship Essex was stranded at sea, and drew lots to see who would die and be eaten. When they were rescued, they were not prosecuted for their murder and cannibalism, because the desperation of their circumstances was understood. (this next bit is a little off topic:) It could also be argued that starvation makes people psychologically unfit to make moral decisions, and therefore perhaps they cannot be held culpable for their actions. To put it another way, sometimes people plea insanity as a defense for murder, and historically we have allowed that defense too.
The way I see it from a utilitarian perspective, it is not just about minimising harm but also maximizing pleasure. If you assume that the non human animal would continue to live a positive life, the act of killing the non human animal would deprive the non human animal of the pleasure in essence doing a great amount of harm compared to not killing them. An example of this line of thinking would be mercy killing being the opposite of the before mentioned.
Definitely this. By killing them prematurely you are ignoring the likely possibility that they will continue to live a nice life. On the other hand, I would say ending an animal's life (in a way that does not cause any MORE suffering) prematurely due to poor health conditions (terminal cancer for example) would be a good example of reduction of suffering and, if desired, I see no problem in eating the fresh carcass either. Same goes for an animal that dies of natural causes - eating that body certainly would not be wrong. Perhaps this could even be applied to the idea of cannibalism lol
@@skylarsoup existing in the wild is very frequently a horrible existence, perhaps it's better for an animal to die instantly to a gunshot than be ripped apart by a predator?
Is it our moral obligation to protect innocent animals from being killed by other animals? Is it our moral obligation to protect some human from being killed by an animal, if we are so capable?
@@yonatanbeer3475 Perhaps you are right. The point really though is taking into consideration the average lifespan that the animal would have if humans did not interfere with their life at all. If we end their life before that average, considerably before it, or prematurely kill an otherwise healthy animal that is likely to live past that estimate, we are committing an immoral act (imo). There are also philosophical discussions about whether we should interfere with the “wild” and prevent animals from killing their prey in such violent and painful ways. I don’t think I’ve looked into that discussion enough to have thoughtful insight on that yet. However, my convictions from other aspects of the animal welfare issue lead me to tentatively believe that we should refrain from interfering.
Perhaps he started the upload earlier but it takes a long time for his computer to upload the video. He may have been asleep while the computer was working.
Alex, your argument is not consistent. A human's right to life, as you said, has caveats, like when they threaten another life. An animal's right to life has the same caveats. It is a threat to the lives of every human in existence when animals congregate in every crop field grown for human consumption, preventing the nourishment of all of humanity. If there were humans doing the same thing causing the potential starvation of all human life, their right to life would not protect them from being killed.
Animals kill animals to eat. So be careful and remember we are animals . And also we kill so many living creatures to protect crop fields . So being vegan helps nothing . I use to be vegan. And I am a farm owner, I know it as a fact what I say is true.
@@Squeakyboywhy would we extend that right to an animal that will also willfully take over the land of other animals, without ever even understanding what it’s doing. It’s just looking for food. Seems pretty regressive to me to forfeit your intelligence and status as an apex predator for a creature that would ostensibly consume you if given ample opportunity in the case of a carnivore.
Surely this necessitates the defense of agricultural land from invasive animal herds, that doesn’t necessitate killing, there are other means to minimize this threat. Situationally necessitated killing is definitionally final resort, either through a need to act quickly and decisively or through a lack of preferable options. I think in moments that satisfy that definition, Alex has on repeat occasion acknowledged the necessity for consistency in that regard, conceding that an animals right to life no longer takes priority in the formulation of a ‘moral decision’.
Alex, it's 6:53 am. I watched this last night, well, about half, then got interrupted, then forced myself to bed around 11:30, as I needed to be up by 4:30. Still was half hour late, lol. You have affected my life, in good ways, since I first subbed. You were deciding the name of your channel! You're exactly as I predicted! GREAT!👍🥰💖✌
What about the PETA-Issues though? Will this Channel take a Stance on that? Or ‚at least’ recommend some good Video about it, like that of Illuminaughtii??
I don't know whether animals have a right to life. What I do know is that there is no morally defensible position I can take which allows me the "right" to murder them needlessly without their consent. Therefore a "right to life" de facto exists and all this mental gymnastics attempting to decide if animals have a "right to life" is mostly - if not entirely - needlessly distracting. This also includes the hypothetical situation in which the only means for my survival is to kill them for food. Even if I make the choice to kill for my survival, I could not hope to defend such a position from a moral framework.
His argument isn't even consistent. A human's right to life, as he said, has caveats, like when they threaten another life. An animal's right to life has the same caveats. It is a threat to the lives of every human in existence when animals congregate in every crop field grown for human consumption, preventing the nourishment of all of humanity. If there were humans doing the same thing, their right to life would not protect them from being killed at the expense of all human life.
I think it's a "simple" risk/benefit equation. We know that car traffic will kill humans unavoidably, but we still drive cars because the utility gained from doing so is greater than the lives lost are worth. We've all accepted this, so why shouldn't we apply the same logic to animal deaths from crop farming?
Hi! I understand your logic but I have one more thing that should be taken into consideration. The people in traffic know the risks that they expose themself to and that it is possible that they get hurt. Everyone makes that individual choice because they see that the risk is worth the benefits that they get. On the contrary side, animals do not choose to be exposed to the risk of being killed, it is the humans that choose that their lives are worth it. The important difference I would conclude is that humans choose to be exposed to a risk that would affect them because of the benefits they get but animals are not the source to why the risk exists, neither do they get to decide to risk their lives or get the benefit of the risk being taken by humans. (I hope my English is not too bad haha I’m Swedish)😊
@@juliarasklind9171 Interesting point, but not true. Plenty of humans die from car accidents who don't have any idea about the risks involved. Like children that run onto the street chasing after a ball. And while tragic, we still don't stop all traffic because of this.
Rights based ethics is simply unworkable. There’s virtually always going to be conflicting rights in a way that means you can never take any significant action ever without violating some rights
"Rights" are a historical human construct and a societal agreement, it is incredibly useful, but not possible to universalize among ALL animal species (provided that a specific biological make-up of each animal species, the existence or the lack of consciousness, different proclivities and dimensions of suffering, etc., form completely different basis for the formulation of said species' "rights"). So yeah, I agree, the concept of "animal rights" is unworkable as a basis for inter-species ethics. For humans alone, I think it's the only proper ethical framework, but only in the form of negative rights (right to NOT BE aggressed upon, as opposed to a right to BE SAFE from aggression).
@@josephbilling3886 I'd say more something like "according to their subjective interests", but I'm unsure of rights based thinking anyways. I assume you made a joke.
@@thelionofjudah5318 Similar. I tried vegan, but it was just too bland. I got tired of eating peanut butter sandwiches, tortillas with refried beans, and oatmeal day in day out. I know there's more "variety" in veganism, but my wallet can't afford variety. Yes anyone can eat vegan and survive, but if you don't have the capacity to double your food budget overnight, you'll get bored fast.
@@othmane0313 Did Alex talk about Peter Singer not being vegan in any of his videos? If so, could you give me a link with timestamp? I watched almost all of Alex's videos and didn't catch that. Yes, I think it matters because he confuses veganism with reducing suffering (as shown in this video) and that's a very insufficient approach in advocating for animals.
@@hester234 ua-cam.com/video/7Tyew0JXNUg/v-deo.html here, i found one. This was filmed before this video btw. However I'm pretty sure he knew even before this. I mean, that post of his admitting his consumption of meat got really controversial within the vegan community and i would doubt Alex, who even had Singer on his podcast, didn't know. He's a utilitarian and I think he's been one even before going vegan or reading Singer so it's not surprising that he doesn't take a rights-based approach to veganism. Why do you think it's an insufficient approach?
I've only just discovered Alex on UA-cam and I'm blown away by not only his intelligence, rational and logical thinking but also by the manner in which he conducts himself when debating with others and creating his videos. He's one of the most honest and respectful debaters I've ever seen. The video where he re-watches one of his own videos from a few years back where he criticises himself and talks about how his opinions, skills and thinking etc have changed/evolved since then is unbelievably refreshing to see! Most people in that position would try to hide and forget it rather than be honest and confront it transparently.
The human right to life isn't a right to live. It's a right to not be unjustifiably killed if you observe social contracts and laws, so you can enjoy and partake in society. As a vegan, I would like to see an animal right to life as one that protects all animals against unnecessary influence or interference from humans throughout their natural life. This video highlights how difficult definitions are in law!
"Exploitation" is an important part of the definition for many vegans. I took a moment to look for definitions just now. Apart from some meanings that have to do with things like promotion and publicity, they generally range from using, to making useful to using in a selfish manner. All of these are applicable. There is a great deal of exploitation that can be done without seeming to cause suffering. Animals can be conditioned to apparently gain a sort of satisfaction from serving human masters. In fact, humans are among the animals who can be conditioned to derive a sense of gratification from serving human masters. As you suggested, we can put humans in the hoof/paw/talon prints of other animals. It's not just a matter of causing suffering; it's a matter of denying happiness and liberty. It's the idea of being forced to exist as the means to someone else's ends. We shouldn't accept such status for humans and we shouldn't accept it for non-humans. We don't have to have an utterly pacifist stance in order to be vegan. We can hold non-violence and non-exploitation as ideal, while knowing that reality doesn't care about our ideals. If it comes down to a question of survival, are we really going to be scratching our beards trying to justify not dying? If we find ourselves in such a desperate situation, our normal ethical views might not be applied. On the other hand, I view the idea of rights as somewhat problematic to begin with. The implication is that one must be entitled to whatever liberties one enjoys. Of course, limitations must be applied if we're to have ethics or a functional society, but the idea that humankind has blessed all other species with the "right" to simply be what they are is just silly. We have clearly taken more than we give.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists we don’t expect our children to be tortured and killed by insects. It is expected that people will torture and kill these animals. Also many vegans are anti-natalist (they are not linked, but can coexist). I know that if/when I raise children, they will be adopted.
You can always hit second-hand shops for leather boots. If the product already exists, and the producer is seeing no gain from you from the slaughter they perpetrated I would argue it's more ethical to use them since the other option is slaughter for no reason.
Well done! I think it was on Carnism Debunked's Instagram that I recently saw, carnists will call you a hypocrite if you feed pets meat, and they'll call you an animal abuser if you have your pets on a vegan diet. I'd be inclined to have my pets on a vegan diet, the reason the carnists make these accusations are pure sophistry.
Keep in mind that morality doesn't revolve around what's convenient for humans to believe. Just because it would make things morally difficult for us doesn't mean that non human animals don't have a right to life in the same way humans do. I'm not necessarily saying that they do, but I wanted to make you aware of that. I get that it's hard for us to come up with moral bases to ground our empathy on. Sometimes it really is just empathy, and maybe there is no inherent right to life for any animal. But since all living creatures have a shared experience of being in this universe, we sort of owe it to each other to at least try to understand one another. And maybe also to be kind. Pain may be meaningless, but it's real in the moment, and every living thing understands that. And since we're all part of the same great big thing, we should try to be kind to the rest of this great big thing, since we'll be a different part ourselves soon enough. I probably sound high, but I'm just tired and bad at organizing my thoughts. anyway
I like this take. At the very least we ought to allow them the chance to live without human interference until they die of natural causes. Simply because our ways of life cause environmental damage and kill nonhumans in the process does not mean that we cannot move in a direction where that is not the case. Ending an animal's life (in a way that does not cause any MORE suffering) prematurely specifically due to their poor health conditions (terminal cancer let's say) would be a good example of reduction of suffering and, if desired, I see no problem in eating the fresh carcass either. Same goes for an animal that dies of natural causes - eating that body certainly would not be wrong. Other than that, though, if a human body can sustain itself without eating meat then why would we choose to end a life prematurely if we have a better choice? Killing them for the sole reason that we wish to consume them is not sufficient though. As humans, we have propped ourselves up onto a highly dominant pedestal amongst other animals and, while we can choose to use this power and ability for critical thought for good, more often than not it feels like we abuse this power in many situations. CERTAINLY we do when it comes to our diets and often in animal experimentation as well.
@@skylarsoup Your thoughts are partially based on a false premise (at least in my opinion) - that dying of natural causes is not subject to moral discussions. Dying under natural circumstances is not per se a good or morally accepted thing and mustn't always be favoured, especially not from an Utilitarian perspective. Of course, there are lots of animals that die because they reached the end of their lifespan; but life of most animals is ended prematurely because of either health issues (as you mentioned, I'll grant you that; but you make it seem like this is an exception) but also because of injuries, horrible starvation or simply because they are eaten. Some may be lucky to die instantly, others are most likely in horrible pain, fight for their lifes but are eventually being eaten alive. That doesn't mean that we should intentionally harm animals but we are obliged to put things into perspective and act accordingly - that means that damaging some animals to create more well-being for humans and other species can be less problematic due to the fact that many of those animals indirectly killed by humans' actions suffer anyway and will die in pain anyway. Since animals are not as conscious of their own actions as we humans are and don't make any plans for future well-being, I'm not so sure that ending a wild animal's life prematurely at the age of two years and three months as a collateral damage of various human actions is (grosso modo) morally so much worse than the animal's life being put to an end in the process of getting swallowed by a larger animal at the age of two years and nine months. Maybe life of an average animal (talking from an Utilitarian point of view) is NOT as valuable as we may think, especially since they lack the ability to significantly improve their situation and to increase their happiness by taking considerate actions, unlike humans. People always seem to reject the notion that life of a wild animal basically sucks, at least there is plenty of data and evidence that supports the thesis that it indeed sucks. Of course not all, but many animals are in pure stress most of the time, always looking for something to eat and taking measurements to reassure their survival. If well treated, placed in a fitting environment and with plenty of space, most animals live a far healthier, less stressful and longer life in some sort of captivity. (Sorry for some grammar mistakes)
@@Eliminativ I definitely understand that. Another way of looking at it though begs the question: should humans, as more sophisticated and intelligent animals, take it upon themselves to use that sophistication to improve the lower animal’s life to the greatest extent possible? And if we should, does depriving them of their full lifespan (in captivity even, when given arguably a much nicer life than if they lived in the wild as you said) undermine that ‘greatest extent possible?’ Killing then for age and health reasons I have absolutely no issue with. But for any other reasons, refraining from killing would be the easiest thing one can do.
Just coming off watching 'The Promised Neverland' on netflix, which seems relevant as a whole cabin-in-the-woods scenario. I never quite got the 'right to life' argument. Like, I do acknowledge that in a harm reduction scenario of eliminating factory farming conditions means that meat/milk/egg production will be necessarily lower. And the environmental argument that our ecological footprint is already way too large, and that we shouldn't even think about expanding the land area of less intensive methods of animal agriculture (the 'regenerative agriculture'/free range argument). So after some exposure to the vegan argument (environmental, and I guess welfarist), I have internalised it as 'eat meat as infrequently as possible'. I have 'settled' on a reducetarian 'don't cook and buy' in my own meals, but not caring too much if someone else gives or cook for me (fear of social ostracism I guess). I'm not quite sold on the 'right to life' argument, but 'The Promised Neverland' cabin-in-the-woods scenario has given me an insight into what vegans mean when they ask "is it ethical to kill an animal that had a happy life'. I probably won't shed a tear for insects that can be put to sleep with cold and never suffer from the effects of overcrowding, but I'm also not sure where I draw my line anymore. Appreciated this discussion here on what exactly a 'right to life' and harm reduction might actually mean in practicable terms.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists Sorry I didn't see your reply here. I will answer you from a meat eater's point of view, since you would probably have heard the vegan's point of view if you follow this channel. I think when people say "what about if the animals are treated better", "or what if backyard hens", etc, they miss the fact that those are the exceptions, not the rule. There are much bigger issues that we could talk about first. The cheapest meat you get at the supermarket or fast food restaurants, the milk that might travel the world as milk powder, eggs, etc, aren't likely to come from one of the 'nice' places that we imagine our food comes from. A lot of it will come from pretty unpleasant places. People will then say "Alright then, I will only eat meat from one of the 'nice' places". I don't know about you, but I'm a cheapskate, and I'm not that prepared to pay the premium that animals that are treated 'nice' cost, at least not regularly. And if you do only buy animal products from these 'nice' places, I think you probably won't have much issue with people saying that we should eat less meat (since these places cannot produce as much anyway). Not sure what you meant about the 'if we stop breeding animals' and the insects part. But I'm guessing you mean, "what if animals go extinct if we stop breeding them?". Well, it kind of already happened. For example, the chicken you eat now might be different from the chicken your grandparents might have eaten. A lot of traditional 'heritage' varieties of animals aren't bred anymore because they are not commercially viable. Instead, they have been replaced with faster-growing varieties that are much more profitable. Maybe these varieties might still survive in very small farms or villages somewhere. But again, these are more the exceptions. tldr: Unfortunately, most of these places aren't nice. Many people have this romantic idea of what animal agriculture is like. Me too, my grandmother told me about raising her own chickens and slaughtering them herself. But most of the chickens you see in the market aren't raised like how my grandmother raised them. We like to imagine a happy life and a quick painless death (the cabin in the woods/promised neverland scenario), but in reality, most farms aren't like that at all.
You were talking about right to life and crop deaths. I think your analogy isn't the best. If we would see it in a human context we already have it. We have "right to life", but at the same time we accept deaths in work, on roads and other accidental deaths, some people would agree it is fine to protect your property (food) if killing is the only practical way. So animal can have the same right to life, no problem.
@Pagan If we wouldn't accept deaths the we would stop all the traffic, most of the work and progress in order to save as many lives as possible. We don't do that, we understand that some things will very likely cause deaths, but the benefits are more significant.
@Pagan We are accepting, because we keep doing that. Advancing new technologies just shows that we would like to solve the problem, same could be told with plant agriculture. Even if we don't have the power, we could minimize those deaths, but only do it to a certain level. Read my previous message again, I don't think you understood it correctly.
@@meateaterscringe9863 I really like your take here and I believe it is the correct position. There are tons of modern convivences that we understand will predictably cause X number of human animal deaths. (Transportation, Construction and countless other activities) We are responsible for those deaths, its a given, because they create greater wellbeing for all of us. We seek to reduce those deaths of course, especially easily avoidable deaths. But because those deaths happen, I don't think it follows that "Human Animals don't have rights". Thanks for taking the time to walk through this, it's been helpful to me.
@@meateaterscringe9863 I broadly agree with your points, but I have just one quibble. I would say that "understand" is the wrong word, here, because deciding whether we accept a risk is a question of values, not of facts. Recall David Hume's argument that we cannot derive an "ought" from an "is".
Rather than saying "the right to life" is actually shorthand for something much more complex, I'd say rights themselves can be forfeited under certain circumstances or some rights may have higher priority than others. Threatening someone else's life is forfeiting one's own right to life (at least while that threat is active). If you were to say, for example, someone has a right to not suffer, you can still morally justify causing them to suffer by tackling them in order to save them from getting instantly killed from e.g. getting hit by a train, as long as you say the right to life is higher priority than the right to not suffer. Would you be able to morally justify violating their right to not suffer otherwise? (Or perhaps there are reasons my example of having a right to not suffer would be problematic, or why it needs to be more complex than that, but the point I'm trying to make is that as soon as you have more than 1 right, which includes multiple people who all have the same right, things get awfully complicated if you try to encode the priority and invalidation of these rights within the rights themselves, as opposed to having this happen outside of those definitions.) With this approach, it's probably not too unreasonable to say animals have a right to life, just with a lower priority.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists While perhaps an interesting idea, that doesn't appear to have much to do with what I said in my comment. My comment doesn't even say that I'm a vegan or that I actively support veganism (although it's perhaps not unreasonable to suspect as much). I certainly can't stop you from copy-pasting the same reply to a bunch of comments, but I imagine people will respond a lot more positively to you if you stick to replying to comments where the reply actually directly addresses something the other person said (or at least justify what you're asking them specifically the question). It will probably also be received better if you were to phrase it less aggressively. Try imagining how you'd feel if someone uses the same "if we do what you feel we should, then why not also do this absurd or dumb thing as well" about something that you believe (although it isn't perfectly reliable, as different people interpret things differently, and it isn't actually as absurd as I suspect you think it is). Also, if you want someone to actually engage in discussion about that (and you're not just asking a rhetorical question as a justification to continue eating meat), I would probably suggest reaching out to Alex or other ethical vegan skeptics/philosophers on Twitter or somewhere (especially in response to a request for questions, like the request Alex mentioned in the beginning of this video).
I was about to formulate a separate comment along these lines, but you have articulated this well. I would question Alex’s assumption that a right has to be by, definition, inviolable. A right is an ideal, but like all ideals will fall short under certain (often highly unlikely and hypothetical) circumstances. Like you said, once you superimpose other rights on top of this, the correct moral stance has to be determined from the sum-total or interaction of those rights. In the case of having to kill certain animals to produce crops, the kind of animals that tend to be killed are pest species of low sentience. If plant food is farmed organically, this risk is lowered still further. One then throws in the factor of ‘intent’ - something that Sam Harris is fond of. I might run an allotment organically - pick off slugs, caterpillars etc. by hand, grow plants that produce chemicals that deter pests etc. Any animals that are killed by virtue of harvesting the plants would be inadvertent. There’s a difference between deliberately killing a cow for beef, versus inadvertently killing an insect because I washed it down the plughole when cleaning off my lettuce. So, in terms of Alex’s options, I would say you do have to operate his ‘rule-book’ analogy, but in practical terms, that rule book of exceptions is not as thick as he makes out. The problem with these questions is that they seek an absolutist and often binary position to be taken - a systematic ‘catch-all’ answer. In conclusion, I would say that animals have a right to life in pretty much the same way as humans do. It’s an ideal to hold, and to work towards in as practicable a way as one possibly can.
@@Moteridgerider Indeed! Very well formulated. Anything else would sound a bit speciesist. So my specie has the right to life but other species don't. I guess Alex of all people should know that.
You are one of the most rational and well spoken people I've ever come across. Sometimes I feel like everyone has lost their mind, but your uploads remind me, there's people who are intelligent and rational, in a world of mass ignorance. Great video as always ☺️
Four responses: 1. When I became a vegan a few months ago, I rejected the notions that animal suffering is decisive, and that animals have rights. Instead I realized I believed that it was wrong to do harm to animals unnecessarily. Harm includes suffering but goes beyond it. My veganism does not require me to believe that animals and humans are on the same ethical and metaphysical plane. They do not have rights, but we do have at least the minimal moral obligation not to harm them if we can help it. I suppose I'm a very naughty vegan indeed. 2. I just saw a brand new academic book called Why It's Okay to Eat Meat. It's by a philosopher. Wouldn't it be interesting to see a vegan philosopher respond to its argument? 3. Wasn't there a recent lecture on Islam on this channel? I thought its argument very poor, but still I'm surprised the video seems to be gone. 4. The Right to Sex is just out in the US and I bought it last week. It looks quite good.
In response to 1, I would agree. Humans and animals are indeed not on the same ethical and metaphysical plane, as many animals are indeed more morally important than humans. This is because, if you cause pain to a human adult, the human will be able to cope with it by rationality. The dog has no such luxury. Ergo, causing pain to a dog is actually worse than causing pain to a human.
@@killgriffinnow can you really rationalise being harmed by someone? And if does finding it really makes it really easier to cope with it? I also find more cruelty in harming animals but for different reasons - animals usually are in similar positions to children where they can’t protect themselves. And on this level I find hurting animals and hurting children very similar. They’re helpless which makes hurting them even more cruel.
@@killgriffinnow I have never considered that before, thanks for sharing. Any chance you know of any debates or papers on this subject you could steer me in the direction of?
In response to #3, he tweeted that he deleted it after getting threatening emails from I forget who. It appears he deleted all tweets surrounding the video though so you’ll have to just take my word for it I guess
I understand that we strive to be consistent in our logical choices across the board but you didn't do exactly that. Rights can be different to different subject while in principle the same. The right to life is just one of those. We know the similarities between humans and animals which give us enough reason to grant animals the right to not being unnecessarily abused, exploited and murdered but we do have differences that warrant our actions still fully vegan. For example in crop deaths, if we were able to reason with animals, we would have to think differently of crop deaths. Or lets take taxes for example, we understand what they are for, yet they also fuel a lot of horrible people with power to continue abuse. You see, animals do indeed need a right to life and it does need to be a different one than that for humans, since we are not the same life form.
I agree with you humans have survived immense evils for us to evolve and by not eating animal's we created by selective breeding evolution we are just as bad as the people who wiped out the elephants asking we don't change imagine for a minute a mammoth being resurrected imagine seeing somthing that didn't exist now we wipe out species dally vegans probably don't get it but life is mostly good and monoculture is a waste of potential
People don't understand legal theory, and the problem of giving legal personality to a non-human entity without the cognitive abilities to understand them. You can't give animals rights, you only can set obligations to humans against animal cruelty
@@Bob13454 we have every right to eat as many animals as we please it's not morally wrong we are hunters by nature we can't survive naturally as herbivores impossible
Small note about the sponsor: the claim that VPNs increase security is greatly exaggerated for the most part. Most of the web is already secure. It'd be catastrophic otherwise, given the amount of critical services we access online (e.g. banks). There's also a Tom Scott video on the subject ua-cam.com/video/WVDQEoe6ZWY/v-deo.html
I don't understand how you can say animals don't have a right to life in a way that is not speciesist. I think you either have to name traits that differentiate humans from animals that justify that difference in rights, or accept that not all humans have a right to life either.
Hey Alex, One thought about the segment which starts around 7:18 It is also not possible to have construction, or agriculture done without humans dying in the process. Does this tamper with their right to life too? I'm pretty interested in your point on that 🙂
@@josephbilling3886 I absolutely agree with you. But isn't it the same for the non-human animals then? If you see it this way you'd have to grant animals a right to life too. Alex wasn't doing that.
@@ahalya2364 Not necessarily. In construction material has to be transported. When transportation vehicles are involved in accidents or may even cause them, innocent and uninvolved people die. Happens on a daily basis. Knowing that we won't stop construction but also won't stop granting humans a right to life.
@pepe moke Well said. I'll go off topic. I would like to add that the right to life is just an abstract concept. Trying to justify veganism is simply due the fact that we live in a non vegan society. I love listening to Alex, but I don't think we should be indulgent towards non vegans concepts. At the end of the day our language is so complex that we can play with words all day long and be able to justify non being vegan. We can justify domestic abuse, rape, wars, etc... We can say veganism is a kind of "cancel culture". We can discuss health all day and arrive to the conclusion that eating animal is not unhealthy (and it isn't per se'!). We have just to be radical. And yeah big pro vegan corporations will make money out of it. But fighting capitalism is not possible without being vegan. Being vegan is just the simplest and first step. And don't tell me people don't do it for their health cause people don't care about their health. They are just lazy. Talking to ourselves won't take us anywhere. The only thing to do is make people feel guilty of their own actions. Forcing them to watch what's going on, without inducing in endlessly conversation where concepts get muddled up and allow almost everybody to not being vegan. Do we understand that being vegan is not a cool thing to do? Do we understand that going to a restaurant and say "I do not eat animal products" is basically due to the fact the eating animal products in the way we do it is just collective psychosis. It is just sickening. I don't think we should be "politically correct". I think we should just use the argument at our own advantage. It is very selfish of us not doing that. Being lenient with anyone who doesn't care about our own future and doesn't want to end the animal holocaust is just misleading everybody else from the main issue here. P.s. I understand that I may seems polarized, then I am happy to be. animalclock.org/
@@TheElelphanti Hope you got me right here. My argument was to say that unpreventable non-human animal deaths caused by crop production do not interfere with non-human animals right to life. Just like uninvolved humans dying f.e. during construction does not interfere with these humans right to life. I'm vegan btw 💚🌱
Alex, thanks for your great job. I'm adapting some of your work towards animal rights and veganism to brazilian public, here in my channel. You're helping us a lot and I'm just trying to spread the message to portuguese listeners.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists Wtf. You're in for a ride trying to decypher this, but those ramblings might just be the mother of all non sequiturs. Several, in fact.
Yes. 😆 Thank you for making this video. It’s eye-opening for many that a vegan themselves can present these interesting perspectives about the reach veganism has in our lives and our societies. While I FIRMLY disagree, I think it’s very important that we, vegans, as a community tackle these questions and answer them clearly and firmly. Excellent content, again thanks ♥️
Alex, you might want to read up on the criticisims that "Why we sleep" has received. There seem to be some actual factual errors and rather carelessly made claims about the current state of sleep in that book. I myself still think that the book overall makes a great point, but atleast kowing about the criticisms -which a quick google search will direct you to- would most likely be for the better.
I’d love if you applied these types of arguments to the issue of abortion, Alex. It would be interesting to get your thoughts on that (especially the “right to life”), possibly approaching the issue from the same perspective as you do here.
If entire human race stopped eating cows, chickens, pigs etc. then there would be no point in raising them and in few generations they would be either exinct or be a nuisance among rich people. Only pigs have a cousin that lives in the wild (hogs), but if humans were to "free" f.e. chickens nearby predators would have a feast and they would die in a generation or two. Some people advocate rising animals such as chickens just to rise them, while fellow *humans* are starving - first of all, let's take care of our own, and then let's start to wory about existance of chickens. People who live their entire life in USA have it easy, I live in Poland and during ZSSR rule (1945-89) you had to eat what was available, and veganism was not even an option. Out of all the food options meat is harder to preserve than some vegan tofu, so the humane thing would be to send all the products that doesn't spoil (aka "not meat") to people who don't have anything to eat. When we solve the problem of global hunger, I'll be open to talk about vegetarianism/veganism. PS. I chose chickens as an example, because they are the least inteligent of the bunch and thus consumption of them is most justifiable out of all domesticated farm animals.
Not a vegan, but I think the point is that people in wealthier countries are able to be vegan. I don't think even the most hard-core vegans would tell a member of a hunter-gatherer society that they shouldn't eat meat, people who have limited options (i.e., poor people).
@@scottplumer3668 I catch your drift, but wouldn't the more productive way was to consume more meat in wealthier countries and ship the rest (like f.e. crops) to countries in Africa? Plus I the sole purpose of for instance chickens is for our eating pleasure, and without human consumption of meat they would go exinct. Natural selection doesn't favor chickens very much, they aren't smart or fast and in if left to their own devices they would end up as a great snack for foxes etc. If you want to artificially keep them alive you can't use land that they are living on to make crops, so you have to create new field, thus destroying natural habitat of other animals and at that point it's just playing favoritism. There is no viable economical option without more animal deaths with veganism at the forefront. At least not one I know. If someone wants to eat vegan, because of their conscience I'm all for it, but paradoxically society need meat-eaters in order for farm animals to exist :P
So we can never avoid killing non human animals in crop production, but the same goes for humans. There will always be humans killed in connection with crop production. Starving also can have exceptions regarding both nonhuman and human animals. Like never kill anyone for food even if starving, but possibly you can eat them if they are already dead, like in plane crash cannibalism, etc. Then there's the speciesism issue of course, so there's probably a gradual line in where we think some species of animals (and even plants) are more deserving of rights than others. So as far as "rights", they are something we give and agree upon, not something that someone somehow inherently has.
What I love about Alex’s videos is that he explains them with such simplicity that whether you’re a philosophical novice, or expert, you enjoy the video nonetheless. Good work once again, Alex!
the point at 3:00 about "bringing an animal into existence and killing them without suffering could be permissible" is wrong because: coming into existence is always a serious harm. you cannot exist without suffering, to be forced to exist, even with the best life, is to be forced to suffer. ideas of "net-positive" lives are incoherent as in-and of themselves intrinsics, because unborn lives dont require pleasure. the only way for a life to be "net positive" is for that life to as consequence, prevent more bad/suffering as a product of its existence. so maybe doctors which prevent chronic pain or something like this for example. but these lives are rare and few and far between i suspect. so in an animal context these "net positive lives" are even less coherent as animals cannot do anything like this. The act of birthing any animal (and human) intentionally is exploitation and net-negative as you cannot birth them for the sake of themselves.
Right, but in that case we need simply understand that ALL birth carries with it an equal implicit exploitation and work from there. It’s not strictly relevant unless you want to make a case that certain beings inherently and unavoidably suffer more than others during their life.
interesting, you may have a point. so producing life in on itself is a net negative? which in most cases would equate to a wrong/ evil. I don't necessarily disagree, but I'm not sure many can agree, or am I mis-representing it?
@Titus Telesco if it's his veganism advocacy you're bothered about, I am a meat eater too, but I like his logical and philosophical arguments. Yes I am a hypocrite for eating meat, and I atleast admit it. Logical arguments doesn't add up justify eating meat. Atleast have courage to admit some things that don't support your reasoning. And I am not advocating for or against veganism. It's up to you if you want to do it, nor I'm gonna judge you for it. But don't feel self righteousness by justifying your actions using falsehoods. Nothing fruitful can come from forcing some ideas on others. It should come from individual enlightenment. If that doesn't happen, our planet is heading towards a dangerous charter
I have bad sleeping habits, but the choice to fix it is far from as simple as the choice to take a pill with no downside. Aside from things like insomnia and headaches that affect my sleep schedule, it is unpleasant to go to bed when I'm not in the right mindset to do so, it's much more enjoyable (in the moment) to sleep in than to wake up early (even when well-rested), I prefer being awake at night above being awake in the morning, I often get distracted when I should be going to bed and realise a few hours have passed when I think about it again, etc. In as far as it's a choice at all, it's really more of a decision between short-term pleasure (of doing something else instead of going to bed, or staying in bed instead of getting up) and long-term pleasure (of being healthy, well-rested, able to concentrate better, etc.). So it's more like a pill that tastes really terrible. Or actually the inverse: a pill that tastes amazing, but you _shouldn't_ take it. Hold on... that's just the same as unhealthy food.
All of this is easily solved by simply recognizing that rights are given. Do animals have a "right to life" is the same as asking "Does person X have beauty?". This is the wrong way to put it because there is no such thing as rights or beauty within the object of the discussion. It lies within the mind of the subject who judges the object. It's a preference, it's how we feel about the object. That's why even the trait of suffering isn't adequate. It is the fact that I suffer that makes it "wrong" to kill someone painlessly. We are constantly projecting our feelings onto the external without realizing it. And because this is actually true, it solves all inconsistencies. I simply feel negative about killing a person painlessly, and I don't feel negative about killing a pig painlessly. These are just facts about me.
I've been able to function quite comfortably on 5-6 hours of sleep all my life but my partner struggles on less than 10. We are all wired differently. If I oversleep, and by that I mean more than 6 hours, I end up with a migraine for the rest of the day.
I want to sleep 8 hours a night but I always wake up after 6 hours of sleep, even if I sleep really early, then I will just wake up early 6 hours later.
But you can't farm everything vertically they are also very high in the amount of energy they need. So in some cases they are a good solution for example in big cities but certainly not for the whole world
Alex its been so long man we missed you, I have not finished the video yet, but the two books you picked, and have not read yet, are on my list too, actually I was just contemplating reading ''the right to sex'' today lol, and the history of christianity by diarmand macculloch has been on my list as well, since hearing about it in the christopher hitchens and tariq ramadan debate. welcome back man
I actually think the term right to life muddies the waters and does not fit in a consistent ethical framework. It is more ‘right not to be done that which you reject (including suffering) unnecessarily’. Otherwise, why wouldn’t a plant have a right to live. A right to live would need to be universal and apply to all living things. My definition allows for some reasonable distinction between beings that cannot suffer and those that can, and therefor con be applied without caveats universally.
right to life only applies to humans, not other living organisms. Animals and plants don't have the right to life because they are not capable of of being responsible moral agents that humans are.
The breaching of consent of non-human animals is the issue with the “reducing suffering” thing. That’s why I lean a whole lot more towards the avoidance of animal exploitation rather than suffering. Hence why I’m so diametrically opposed to the coercive, exploitative factors of capitalism. All individuals should have equal opportunity for a say in how their own life goes, even if Determinism is real. Idk. What are your thoughts on such a take?
im 18 and still majorly trying to figure out ethics and.. everything lol, so i could be wrong here, but here are my thoughts: exploitation can be a tricky thing to fit under utilitarianism upon first glance because of situations like the one he mentioned, with the more extreme example of killing someone when no one suffers as a result. (this isnt exactly exploitation since the killer had no motive, but i think it would fall into that same category, feel free to tell me if you disagree) the important thing to remember here is that morality is purely constructed; you're not uncovering truths when talking about ethics, you're building systems of law. as a utilitarian, i think that the exploitation, even without direct suffering of the subject is wrong because of the precedent it sets. if even one person is justified in randomly killing someone under ethical code, even without pain, realistically that's going to instill fear into everyone around as they could be snatched up and painlessly snuffed out. i think that psychological stress in such a large number of people is enough to say that it's immoral. that seems to apply in all of these theoretical (and sometimes not theoretical) examples of: "what if this normally wrong thing doesnt cause suffering in one instance, is it still wrong?" now you could say "what if no one knew" but my point in emphasising that ethics is just a code of laws is to not go too far beyond the practicality. removing certain justifications behind a construct and then asking if the construct still applies can be very insightful, but removing every single one until there's nothing but a shell of our intuition holding the thing together seems futile. but im curious, can you think of other types of practical exploitation where this doesnt apply? (and I'm sorry if this was difficult to read or doesn't make sense, of course i have my own subjective thoughts/experiences/biases/meanings gluing these ideas together so feel free to ask for elaboration on anything)
If Alex's definition of ethical vegan is applied (that is, setting aside exploitation), what is the distinction from a particularly attentive dietary vegetarian who eats eggs and drinks milk? After all, if you remove factory farming from the equation, taking a portion of eggs and milk doesn't have to harm animals. In fact, even if you substitute a human as he suggests for the purposes of determining if something is vegan, though it would be a rather bizarre thing to do, it wouldn't inherently have to violate a person's rights. Taking it a step further, eventually these well cared for animals would die of old age or could be euthanized in a situation where their age was causing them undue suffering (this is considered an ethical act with regards to beloved pets and, in some countries, with humans). Thus allowing a very rare, but not unheard of, vegan steak dinner and uncommon meals of vegan fried chicken. Some vegans might consider this taboo, but not unlike eating a similarly sourced human corpse, it's not necessarily unethical in and of itself. Of course, the current state of animal treatment bears no resemblance to this rosy picture, but it certainly can be accomplished. At that point, a sufficiently wealthy and driven vegan could even be a complete carnivore. That seems pretty divorced from what people mean when they say vegan, but perhaps such a person would be paradoxically more vegan than an inattentive or intermittent vegetarian in our society today.
I like that stance. I am a vegan but I could be okay with those situations. There are some arguments against doing this that are pretty interesting, though. On the egg one: If people started buying chickens and keeping the spare eggs, it could create a market for hens. The most successful hen producers would be the ones who min max their hen output. I think this could lead to a myriad of unfortunate situations, and possible slip into something that resembles modern day factory farms. I'm not 100% on this though - maybe the free market wouldnt allow this to take place if everyone on the planet was an ethical vegan? Because we wouldnt buy from companies that exploit animals like this? Idk, kinda confusing! For now, I'm erring on the side of caution. I'll just keep eating plants cause its not really a big deal for me, I'll be fine without eggs lol. If someone wants to eat eggs with this mindset, I probably wouldnt argue them on it.
On the dying of old age thing - The reason I'm iffy about this too is for the same reason we have restrictions around the sale of body parts/bones (endangered species). While there's no ethical problem with bleaching the skeleton of a deceased endangered animal and selling it, it might not be a great thing to allow incase a market arises. I could imagine a slippery slope situation where people start killing animals for food long before their natural lifespan because they need a little extra cash that summer for X. I think I'm okay with your points on a philosophical level, but less okay with them on a practical level. I could probably be persuaded tho. These seem to be some of the best arguments against veganism that Ive come across (or at least the ones I find most convincing)
Hey, Alex, Let’s say that we had the data to suggest that 1 human being was killed in crop production for all food products (this seems plausible, if not highly likely-it is easy to imagine that a single person might end up dead due to the use of harmful pesticides, dangerous equipment, poor working conditions, transportation of inputs and outputs, etc.). If we afford human beings a right to life, are we therefore obligated to starve? It seems to me the same problems with affording animals a right to life occurs in a human context. Cheers!
Anthropocentrism suggests that, as humans, our first and primary consideration must be to our species. We have to live in order to worry about other species. Consider this: if you see someone fall off a pier and they are going to drown, you can jump in to save them. However, the waves will push you into the pier and rocks. If you try to keep yourself between the drowning person and the obstacles, you will likely be hurt and you both will drown. The best way to rescue the person is to peep them between you and the obstacles. Allow them to take the hits so you can remain conscience and capable of finding a way to get them and yourself back on dry land. If you don't build a house because you worry about the birds, squirrels, and whatever that might live there, then where are you going to go to work on birdhouses and birdbaths for them? You have to help yourself first before you can successfully help others.
A small video quality feedback: The camera focus is on mic, not on your face. Not complaining... Your videos quality is amazing. Just thought you would want some feedback.
"I think sometimes we need to take a step back and just remember we have no greater right to be here than any other animal." - David Attenborough I think when you just look at some of these videos of some amazing animals in the world you do realise that they do have a right to life. Killing them in any circumstances that would be necessary for survival would be cruel but killing a human creates bigger effects, laws and family as well as the life span of that person and taking away their life. Animals do not have such things associated as much with their life as ours. Yeah animals have a life and their deaths may affect animals but in the long run a humans life to be lost is more devastating and that's just how it is.
If there was an alien species who had to eat humans to survive, and they gave the same reasoning that you gave now, would you support their self-given right to kill and eat humans?
@@adamskythief8238 I'm only saying that when it comes down to it in a dire need of survival then the human is more important than the animal. It's not right it's not fair but it's his it is
@@555droid6 it would actually be a arbitrary choice to kill another sentient being if you had to for survival because thats just our opinion that ,makes us think we are more worthy of life.if aliens came down to earth im sure they would be intelligent enough to understand that intelligence doesnt give you the right to abuse someones basic rights, even going further they would probably already be a vegan civilization seeing how much destruction and ethical problems with causing so much harm for no logical reason. we will always have moral agencies despite us having to kill for survival, which I would find a way to not do that, thats just hypothetical and even so you dont need to kill for survival we aren't obligate carnivores in the slightest. and to say we are more important is concerning what was that last thing to cause so much death, extinction of species, deforestation, climate change, natural habitat destruction since us? oh yea the astroid that almost whipped out our planet, same thing that we are doing now, we play no role in the earths survival. we've only destroyed it even more. and we are the special ones?no, we are a virus, unreversable damage has been done.and not until we fix this mess, and leave animals alone, can we even give ourselves any moral consideration why do we get this unknown higher right to life when innocent animals have done nothing to us, and nothing to effect our planet. not animals are innocent but we are the only species that have moral agencies and can make choices off a objective right and wrong. that doesnt give us higher value, that just gives us even more of an obligation to help these creatures.
@@Veganweedwizard we are not higher than they are and we can not be valued more than them. But when it comes down to it you would kill the animal to survive rather than the human
@@555droid6 but if it came down to a pig it would choose a pig like it’s a total selfish decision using your emotions to justify actions is going down a wrong path
Interesting. In this period in Italy we are trying to get a referendum going about "the right to die" (in a dignifing way for people with specific illness, injuries, etc)
@@BassGoBomb One of our main problem is the Church, but we are fed up about its constant interference in the Italian politics. I don't know if there is any article in English, but one of the main guys in this civic battle is Marco Cappato, if you are interested.
I’m not even sure that humans have a right to life. Instinctually I would like to say we do, but what really separates the value of a human life from an animal life? We are animals and the characteristics that distinguish us from other animals don’t always exist.
What about the PETA-Issues though? Will this Channel take a Stance on that? Or ‚at least’ recommend some good Video about it, like that of Illuminaughtii??
I wonder what do you think about Jordan Peterson? I just saw a talk of Peterson with Dennis Prager. The amount of absurdism of Prager reminded me to the unreasonable hater of Atheism you made a great reaction to some time ago. Surprized it is actually the same guy. Overall I like Peterson while I disagree with some ideas he has. He helped me a lot with getting out of my constructed victimhood blaming others and start ordering my life. At the same time as a German I know his analysis about the "fail of renewable energies in Germany" is wrong. I just would like to know what do you think about Peterson? Best wishes David :-)
@@inkwellflood8276 JP's a quack. Watch his debate with Matt Dillahunty in Toronto (full version on youtube). Peterson says such turds as "you can't quit smoking without god" and "you're not really an atheist because you're not an ax murderer" and seems to think if you can imagine something (god) then it's real... He has the most loosey-goosey definition of Christianity I've ever heard.
@@zenon3021 I can imagine, i think he's best sticking to the psychology he's good at on the practical side, rather than invisible friend preaching. I don't listen to anyone ramble on about gods if possible, it's always the worst side of their logic.
discussions of "rights" like this remind me of a line from the movie "Dances with Wolves". in response to the murder of a number of natives, John Dunbar (no relation) says: " Who would do such a thing? The field was proof enough that it was a people without value and without soul, with no regard for Sioux rights". On hearing that line for the first time, I thought to myself that "Sioux rights" is not a thing to the perpetrators. Did the murdered Sioux have the right to life? I would like to think so, but "apparently not" seems to be the correct answer here.
In my opinion murder is wrong not because it causes harm but because it permanently prevents someone from experiencing anything at all. Also I wouldn’t say that it would be immoral for a person who can’t survive without eating other living people to not eat other people. It wouldn’t be immoral for a person to kill other people if the mafia would kill him if he doesn’t. Self preservation of life isn’t immoral even if it serves harm to others.
12:03 Jains are a weird case. Jains say they won't hurt a bug, or eat garlic (for some reason), but have no problem eating dairy products or using milk in meaningless religious rituals. I think westerners have a very warped perception of Jains (and eastern religions in general), and give them way more credit than they deserve. I understand you don't mean harm though. Just thought I'd point that out. Love your content.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists well yeah a lot of anti natalists think that way. but these two ideas are both a bit more complicated than how you described them.
In my view, veganism isn't explicitly focused on suffering. It also takes into account the _potential_ to experience well-being and suffering. Otherwise, one could also use this line of reasoning to painlessly kill a baby animal (or human) as long as there are no extrinsic factors of suffering, even though a baby will undoubtedly live on to experience states of well-being throughout it's lifetime. But just because an act itself doesn't induce suffering directly or indirectly doesn't inherently make it an ethical or unethical act. The welfarist argues that an animal that lives a good life and experiences minimal suffering, but is ultimately painlessly killed, is justified. What's not being considered here is the fact that had you hadn't killed the animal, they would have contiued to live and experience states of well-being. The single act of depriving an animal of the remainder of their overall "happy" lives could even be argued to be even more unethical than killing an animal that has and will continue to live in extreme suffering.
@@alexatkins6033 i agree with what he sead above and my opinion on abortions is as long as the part of the brain that makes you conscious hasnt started to develop yet you can get a abortion however after that starts to develop you cant get a abortion unless it is nessacary to save your life. However you can sign up to have it put up fot adoption upon birth.
@@alexatkins6033 Caring about the unborn leads to some really weird places. We shouldn't worry about potential people who haven't come into existence yet, but once a person is born then they matter and their future matters. So depriving a living being of the rest of their life is wrong, but abortions are fine in my opinion
I dont really enjoy arguments for the potential of something because we could take that in all sorts of directions. We could equally consider possibilities where an animal had the potential to experience suffering had they continued to live, which happens in all scenarios. I think the argument for future potentials only makes sense if you ask if the situation was justified or not given the circumstances in the present. Its unjustified to deprive an animal of future well being for the sake of taste pleasure or some other trivial reason. However it may be justified to deprive future well being in situations where your own life and well being are at stake.
@@alexatkins6033 Imo the rights and moral worth of an adult woman supersedes that of a foetus. I think the life of the mother should be weighted over that of the foetus in situations where you have to save either one or the other. With regards to abortion, the future potential of an embryo to experience well being does not supersede the current and future reality of a woman experiencing the physical, psychologial, social and financial consequences associated with pregnancy and birth. Particulary since at a certain stage a foetus has not developed a cortex and cannot be said to meaningfully experience conciousness or pain. So I think abortion is justified in that context.
I'm too addicted to become a vegan, but I'm in a similar spot as you were when you had that debate with Stephen: I have no moral arguments against veganism. Unlike you, though, I've more or less simply accepted that I'm just not that good of person. That said, your videos _have_ affected me. I grew up in rural Greece into a culture that looked down on anyone who wasn't an omnivore. Pickiness was for snooty snobs. _We_ ate _everything._ Nowadays, thanks to your videos, I'm waaaay more mindful of what I eat. I've completely given up beef, goat and octopus, for example. I've also reduced my meat consumption down to 1-2 days a week. Most of my days are vegetarian, some are vegan, some are omni. Thanks, mate.
Good discussion, but you missed a key point: if we eat animals, there is absolutely no way to afford a "right to life" to the animal, because, by definition you are killing said animal. However, if we eat plants, there *is* a possibility to avoid the killing of any animals at all and thus affording them the right to life. Just because our current mass produced food system involves killing some animals to produce plants doesn't mean it's inherent. For example, if I am a farmer that grows my own plants and raises my own animals, I can harvest the plants without killing animals (very possible), but I cannot eat one of the animals without killing them. It's like the electric car argument - sure, the main source of current electricity generation may be from dirty sources (like coal), but there are clean sources of generation that can be used and more of these adopted going forward. Whereas with gas cars, you are going to pollute no matter what. In any case, your point that eating plants harms exponentially less animals than eating meat makes a very strong case for veganism, so thank you for pointing that out 😀👍
@@sumehrain8250 It isn't dumb at all. A vegan will tell you you can't kill a cat, dog, catle etc but they will have no problem building a house and killing all kinds of bugs and insects in the process of building the house.
There aren't different types of vegans. All vegans are "ethical" vegans since veganism is an ethical position. An ethical position this video misrepresents.
I am not so sure that is true. What if literally the only reason someone is vegan is because they believe vegan food is healthier for themselves than it is eating meat? I certainly would not consider this person an ethical vegan.
@@thecheekyscamp6466 Veganism by definition is avoiding all animal products. The reason you do it doesn't matter for the definition. Most vegans are more than likely ethical vegans in some way but to claim that you cannot be vegan without being an ethical vegan is very wrong.
@@beaverones41 no it isn't. The vegan society who coined the word also defined it. Alex even shares that definition in this video. The fact that some people have for some reason decided to co-opt the term to describe strict vegetarianism doesn't make it so. The word has a meaning. And that meaning is defined by the vegan society. Actually I think the use of the word vegan on foods (also touched on in this video) is part of the cause of this. The word vegan is used in that context to denote that a food is suitable for vegans since it contains no animal products. But this has just fed into the misunderstanding of what veganism actually is.
@@thecheekyscamp6466 The definition is still to only eat food that are not derived from animals, it has nothing to do with why you are doing it. The vegan society does not get to decide what veganism is. I do agree a huge majority of vegans are probably ethical vegans but to say it is impossible to be a non ethical vegan I think is just wrong.
whenever you upload i get so excited :D. you are so sophisticated when you approach the topics of animal rights/veganism, truly doing "gods" work here :P.
The reason why we are still not in the position to discuss an animal's right to live is 'cause society is not conscience driven but only abiding by the moral code in fear of the consequences of breaking it. in the case of someone who murdered their neighbor 'cause they were hungry, the collective is not even concerned about the justice to individual as much as being interested in its own survival. All the talk about the right to life is a facade, the real issue is what it means for their own lives moving forward. Society protects you from having to be constantly worried that at any given time anyone can come barging into your home and kill you for their survival. The world is human-centric for this reason today too, we do not wish any tyrant can brainwash their people against another group and justify genocide against them. Through massive cooperation we ensure everyone's survival, not 'cause we truly care about humans but 'cause if we don't do anything about it now, eventually the problem will come knocking at our own door! From this point of view, Humans don't really have the Right to Life either but we are able to maintain an illusion as long as there is massive cooperation with each other. You have the duty to adhere to the moral code dictated by the society and in return you get to live a comfortable life that the system promises. A give and take. That's the best form of freedom we can have for ourselves 'cause most humans have not evolved to be naturally conscientious. So in this context, the chances of us recognizing an animal's right to live is pretty slim, the best we can do is ensure there is reduced suffering.
So many youtubers endorse VPNs and that's just one thing I'm not convinced is necessary. I don't really care if I get targeted ads. (Actually, I'd prefer an ad for something I'm interested in over some random beauty commercial most of the time). And I use adblock to minimize the inconvenience of ads. I also don't really need to watch things from other countries. Other than that, why does it matter?
Someone's probably written this already, but I don't think the right to life comparison tracks very accurately here. Seems to me that there are 6 identifiable situations: 1. Killing a human intentionally to eat them 2. Killing or harming a human intentionally to eat their food 3. Killing or harming a human indirectly/accidentally/incidentally to get food 4. Killing a nonhuman animal intentionally to eat them 5. Killing or harming a nonhuman animal intentionally to eat their food 6. Killing or harming a nonhuman animal indirectly/accidentally/incidentally to get food Most people, generally, don't like 1 or 2, but are fine with 3. We don't eat other humans, don't kill or harm other humans directly for food, but we do harm others, and are even responsible for human death, with our consumption -- food, clothes, electronics, and so on. None of us are innocent here. Most people are also fine with 4, 5, 6. But in my opinion, 1, 2, 3 map onto 4, 5, 6 quite accurately with the average vegan. We refuse to kill nonhumans intentionally for food, refuse to kill or harm them intentionally to get their food (milk, eggs, for example), yet, like point 3, are willing to indirectly / accidentally / incidentally kill or harm nonhumans in order to be able to eat. Because, as you say, being a fruitarian isn't very sensible (or possible in much of the world). Importantly, I must also say that we should all be doing more, in cases 3 and 6: to avoid collateral / incidental harm and death to both humans and nonhumans. Most of us don't do all that well, if we're honest.
Agree with Alex on this one: non-human right to life is, I'm afraid, as nonsensical as it is impractical. For just one of thousands of counter examples: We would have to let many young children die in malarial regions of the world because mosquitos had a right to life.
Is pet ownership moral/ethical? I guess my pets (mostly rescues) now have a net positive life... but my actions to get them to this point may not be ethical by vegan standards.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists That doesn't make sense, maybe it's just me but idk you might need to rephrase your argument for continuing to consume animals products is exactly.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists Does the animal really care about how its body gets used after its killed? Or does it only care about whether its killed or not?
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists What are these nutrients that we can only get from the consumption of meat? I ask because from what I know there are no such nutrients.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists Go watch Game changers it's on Netflix. All types of different proteins are available through eating plants, just when your vegan you need to eat a variety of different protein sources... so you can't just eat one thing that has complete proteins but that just means you don't eat same thing everyday but a variety of different plant foods that are protein rich. See from what I know vegans can get protein from many different, some of them a higher in protein than you would expect them to be. Beans, Tofu and Tempeh are all very high in protein but there are many others vegan protein sources.
I am just starting to learn more about ethical veganism. It seems as though there is a problem with lines being drawn. What denotes suffering? If a chimpanzee can suffer, can a mouse? What about insects? Even plants have been known to give off pheremones when being cut to warn other plants. Is this pain? Are we discriminating based on a different system for experiencing pain? What about people that live in places in which the majority of crops that can be grown are non-edible to humans? Do they have the right to kill the animals there, or should they accept malnourishment or starvation to adhere to the moral guidelines that you have proposed?
@Fek Lar There are many 3rd world countries that are unable to get frozen food shipped to them, and even if they could, the cost would be astronomical compared to raising their own chickens or livestock on grains inedible to us. Also, should the line be drawn for all animals? Is eating cricket paste cooked into your food as a source of protein immoral? I agree with your assessment about plants and probability.
I’m sure many others will have pointed this out... but you didn’t place the “crop deaths” argument into the human context in a way which is analogous... it’s not analogous to say “if I go and murder a human because I’d starve otherwise...” what would be more analogous is to say “if there were human beings living on our crop lands - and the only way of removing them (in order to protect food security) was by lethal force”... I think when placed in this context it’s more clear that crop deaths is not a rights violation.
I'm ok with this so far... except that I don't believe that people have a 'right to life'. I also don't think that animals have a right to life. Doesn't this whole argument hinge on speaking to someone who believes that humans have a right to life?
Nothing is consistent here. You can grant "rights" to different people (and we do) based on different characteristics. And like you already explained, it's a "right" to do X _unless_ Y. Speaking of consistency, the idea that we "need to be consistent" is absurd. Take the trolley experiment. 5 people on one track, and one person on the other. The trolly is going toward the 5, so do you hit the switch and save 4 people? Most will say yes. Now take the same situation, but make it your mother (or closest loved one) on the 1 person track. If the trolley is headed toward your loved one, do you hit the switch or let your loved one die? If the trolley is headed toward the 5, do you hit the switch and kill your loved one but save 4 lives? Be consistent now. We aren't consistent beings. We make decisions based on preferences according to how much the thing means to us.
Thank you again, Alex. Though I'm easily old enough to be your grandfather, you've helped me no end in recent years sorting through these difficult thoughts, and I do appreciate the clarity you bring.
Agreed:)
This is the coolest and most wonderful thing I've heard today, I just love the idea of cross-generational communication and how each individual human can greatly influence another despite gaps in age or view point or whatever. I myself, am a little less than a decade younger than Alex (17) and Alex has greatly impacted my philosophical view points, convinced me to become vegan as soon as I leave my parents house, as well as given more clarity to how I express what my philosophical view points are and may have been previously.
What about the PETA-Issues though?
Will this Channel take a Stance on that?
Or ‚at least’ recommend some good Video about it,
like that of Illuminaughtii??
@Hisham Malik you are cringe for finding that cringe.
@Hisham Malik you are cringe meister.
Regarding the utilitarian perspective on the "cabin in the woods" experiment: wouldn't a utilitarian perspective be incomplete if it focuses solely or mainly on minimizing suffering, without simultaneously aiming at maximizing happiness and well-being? If the answer is "yes," than the answer to the question posed in the experiment must be that it would be morally wrong, because as soon as soon as you take someone's life away, regardless of whether suffering is involved or not, you are, by extension, violating their well-being. Happiness cannot exist without consciousness. Well-being cannot exist without being.
Happiness cannot exist without consciousness, this much is true. However, this also happens to be true of suffering as well. So, without consciousness, there are no more happy experiences, but there's also no more painful ones either. In any case, since classical utilitarianism is about both the maxmization of pleasure and the minimization of suffering, and killing someone could be said to minimize suffering, then it's not clear why killing someone humanely would be morally wrong. Also, preventing future happiness doesn't really cause suffering and preventing future happiness is obviously not going to produce happiness -- so from the classical standpoint there's no way to assign preventing future happiness a moral value of good or bad -- it lives in a moral grey area.
You could say that people want to have future happiness or just that people prefer not to die and killing them would be bad because you're depriving them of something they want. But saying this would take you away from the standard of good being whatever maximizes pleasure to good being whatever satisfies peoples desires, which is a kind of utilitarianism, but then it becomes tricky to apply desire or preference satisfaction to animals because it's not obvious that all animals have preferences -- but fairly obvious that even if they don't that they can still feel pain and pleasure.
lastly, I do want to point out that included in the thought experiment was the fact that the people being killed were bred into existence and given a net positive life, which means that before they died they had a good life according to the classical utilitarian framework.
@@trevorhill1688 I think that the argumentation that providing net positive lives justifies killing breaks down on many different levels since it does not factor in opportunity costs.
Examples:
1. We don't just provide this net positive life from nothing. Habitat destruction of wild animals is an intrinsic part of animal agriculture because of the trophic pyramid. So for every livestock animal with a net positive life far more wild land vertebrates have to suffer instead even more than they would normally in the wild.
2. The life could just be positive by the tiniest amount imaginable for the reasoning to work. How could filling the world with lives that are barely worth living be ethical. Remember that resources are finite and the world can't provide for infinite amounts of sentient beings.
3. On the day of the planned killing all of the net positive live is already in the past. At that point in time all you do is killing without providing anything positive.
4. In humans killing is unethical even if we are the sole providers of their net positive lives (for example in children or handicapped people). The reason is that we try to build a society in which every human can expect to have a net positive life. So even if you did provide for them, killing them would decrease their expected wellbeing. The same reasoning could become true for animals.
Can anyone remind me, what the "cabin in the woods" experiment is trying to do with the dead body? What is the utility that the experiment is trying to achieve through said killing?
@@trevorhill1688 hey i think you‘re very wrong there. Classical utilitarianism, as it was founded by Bentham and Mill, is about the following: the moral action is the the one that brings the most utility to the affected beings, generally. If someone is dead, there is no utility whatsoever, therefore the max possible utility is not reached in the wood cabin example, therefore killing the person is wrong.
@@lendrestapas2505 Bentham conceptualized utility as being about both maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. So, say a person is to realize net negative utility for the rest of their life -- then, by killing someone at their maximum pleasure point, then are we not acting in a way that is consistent with maxmizing utility, in general?
Or, maybe more in line with the hypothetical, we can't guarantee that a person's life, which had been a net positive up to that point, will remain this way. However, we can avoid any possible suffering by killing them humanely-- guaranteeing a life of net positive utility.
The fact they can no longer experience utility is morally irrelevant if killing them is the action that will maximize utility moving forward. That is, there is no future action that can be taken that will make their life better than what it already is. Indeed, going a step further, if every action they take moving forward only leads to pain, then the only action that can be taken to ensure utility is maxmized is to end one's life.
What a beautiful transition into today's sponsor lol
That was smooth!! Ha!!
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists this made me laugh, thanks
My hat goes off to him
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists by your logic is perfectly fine to eat our offsprings as long as we take good care of them.
Almost too smooth... I like to know when I am being advertised at and take that with more of a pinch of salt. For a second there I didn't know.
"Veganism is an ethical philosophy, justice movement, and way of living which seeks to place a higher value on animal life, liberty, and wellbeing than is placed on substitutable classes of goods, services, products, or uses which may be derived from animals.
That is to say, that if one is reasonably able live in such a way so as to divest from systems which engender the commodification, exploitation, oppression, victimization, harm, and/or killing of other sentient beings, then to do so would be in accordance with the principles of veganism."
You've misspelled "paradigm". Or is hippie spelling part of the paradigm shift?
@@Robert399 are you high?
Or if you don't want to eat animals, don't. (Without all the long words)
@@Shinnja Yes; varying depths of the richness of a conscious experience -such as an increased lifespan and increased capacity for wellbeing- are considered moral values on my view.
That being said, none of these differences are meaningful with respect to whether or not these individuals deserve to be harmed or exploited gratuitously.
If one can reasonably divest from engendering cruelty or oppression against innocent victims, then I would absolutely consider it a moral obligation to do so, and I cannot identify any morally relevant difference with respect to farming humans compared to farming domesticated farm animals which would justify treating them in the same manner when one could by all means divest from doing so.
@@colinharbinson8284 This fails to acknowledge the crucially distinguishing fact that veganism is *an **_ethical philosophy_** and **_social justice movement._* Thus, we are advocating for the end of animal oppression in both lifestyle and activism.
Hopefully vertical farming maybe will help us to minimise even more animals dying due to crop production
theres always room for improvement but first we must stop this madness that is going on the individual animals dying unnecessary
afaik vertical farming is just a lie. I don't see vertical farming as improvement and it might cause more damage as it requires electricity etc. And most plants are not grown over soil and uses some plastics etc. Also in computer industry most of the time vertical scaling has never worked so I find it hard how it can improve the industry we have atm.
@@cutevegan7163 not if we use renewable energy from our sun lmao you really think it wouldn’t be better then the current industry are you out of your mind? If we got rid of animal agriculture we can reduce the land we use by 70 percent the animal agriculture uses almost 50 percent of all land on earth animal agriculture isn’t responsible for just 18% of greenhouse gas emissions it’s responsible for 51 percent.. to say vertical farming is a myth is absurd.
It’s more like cognitive dissonance we give most of our resources to the 70 billion land animals we fatten up for consumption and vertical farming is going to be a necessity in order to have plant production all year round, because weather isn going to affect it.
Agreed, it's an evolving situation but if incramental improvement allows us to save the planet while limiting suffering and normalization then I think we should start down that path. Better than sitting around pondering while everything collapses around us, haha
@@Veganweedwizard no reason to be so rude.
Alex you should try to get in touch with the Political Twitch Streamer "Destiny" that doesn't want to give Animals any moral consideration and even takes the position animals aren't sentient
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists that's not why people don't eat or kill animals. That's a ridiculous argument.
His opinion falls outside of our scientific understanding. Plenty of animals have passed the "sentience test".
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists The difference is no one is breeding babies for the sole purpose of eating them. There's so much wrong with this argument.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists It's not as good as taking care of them and not eating them though, not to mention the "..and then eat them" implies killing them and how do you propose to morally justify the action of killing a living, sentient being?
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists how do you take good care of something you kill? Is killing something for the satisfaction of your taste craving taking care of it?
Alex, i recommend you read the book "the open society and itś animals" by Dr. Janneke Vink from the OU(produced by Palgrave Macmillan). It is specifically about this topic (the enfranchisement of animals and rights in liberal democracy) and Prof. Singer wrote a nice word on the book on the backcover ;)
Kind regards
hahahahahahha that smooth transition for todayś sponsor :D
Interesting thanks! An example of why I tend to focus on "moral consideration for all sentient beings" as an ethical foundation rather than rights. Rights can be useful tools/concepts in defending sentients or helping us flourish - but that's it.
Don't forget sentient doors without them we would have far more slapped faces than a groper
@@davidevans3223 And if you wanna keep informing yourself,
Veritsaium has covered you for Science,
Genetically Modified Sceptic for Religion,
and Hbomberguy for Everything else.
@@slevinchannel7589 I believe animal's have the right to exist unlike vegans sadly life for everything has linites no need for suffering and veganisum isn't least amount of animals killed or green and defiantly not healthy here's a proven fact by using science that vegan brain's don't work properly you can also see how people react when asked to destroy a robot same reaction to animal's but willing to kill bug like creatures.
ua-cam.com/video/mioR_WrkRaU/v-deo.html
@@davidevans3223 I dont know if that’s just your bad grammar,
but it just sounded like you said Vegans have no Right to Live,
which is f-ed up af. Did you just seriously said Humans have no Right to Live if they are Vegan?
WTF?
It’s also, according to actual Scientists not ‚real’ „proven fact“ but „MADE UP“ that Vegans brains dont function properly, mate. That’s very obviously someone’s hate-bias. Yeah? Like British said the literal same thing about all Scottish People?
What White thought about the Black? A Vegans Brain functions just fine, mate; i tell you this much as a Non-Vegan who knows Science damn-well.
@@slevinchannel7589 no I didn't mean vegans don't deserve to live only they don't agree animal's deserve to exist many call for ending the pet trade because some get abused funny they haven't called for people to stop breeding at least yet.
But you don't have a clue what you're talking about I posted a link to indisputable science and it's a single source there's many all come to the same conclusion.
An actual study was done in Kenya and after a short while the vegan fed kid's IQ went down.
Maybe one day you'll wake up and I can tell you're vegan you're so angry and out of control vegans are nuts it's lack of nutrients some manage better than other's but some exspode I debate and offend many people only vegans lose the plot and I'm talking about calling Muslim prophets evil etc they can still just disagree vegans clearly get angry.
If you look at the vegan research paper's you'll see vegan babies are smaller fact smaller is less formed is deformed not natural diet not natural babies.
They also have stunted growth weaker bones lot's of issues normal people don't have and the brain is the most complicated thing we know of in the universe and you claim it's not important how it's maintained.
We didn't evolve to be the greatest land hunters to eat seeds we are hunters for a reason
So happy to hear from you, Alex. You always motivate me to keep learning and thinking critically. Thank you for defending the animals and helping me transition into veganism almost a year ago now💗
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists what the fuck did I just read…
Lol vegans and critical thinking is an insane as steaming hot ice
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists Thing is our children will "die", there is a difference between being killed and simply dying
Good for you, Cassie. 😃👍
@@davidevans3223 You say that, yet you watch. You can get there, friend. Nowadays it's really quite easy to live within your morals and be vegan.
When you're ready, we'll be here.
We have historically allowed for that sort of starvation killing in society though. It was known as “The Custom of the Sea”. For example, the crew of the 1820’s whaleship Essex was stranded at sea, and drew lots to see who would die and be eaten. When they were rescued, they were not prosecuted for their murder and cannibalism, because the desperation of their circumstances was understood.
(this next bit is a little off topic:)
It could also be argued that starvation makes people psychologically unfit to make moral decisions, and therefore perhaps they cannot be held culpable for their actions. To put it another way, sometimes people plea insanity as a defense for murder, and historically we have allowed that defense too.
The way I see it from a utilitarian perspective, it is not just about minimising harm but also maximizing pleasure. If you assume that the non human animal would continue to live a positive life, the act of killing the non human animal would deprive the non human animal of the pleasure in essence doing a great amount of harm compared to not killing them. An example of this line of thinking would be mercy killing being the opposite of the before mentioned.
Definitely this. By killing them prematurely you are ignoring the likely possibility that they will continue to live a nice life. On the other hand, I would say ending an animal's life (in a way that does not cause any MORE suffering) prematurely due to poor health conditions (terminal cancer for example) would be a good example of reduction of suffering and, if desired, I see no problem in eating the fresh carcass either. Same goes for an animal that dies of natural causes - eating that body certainly would not be wrong. Perhaps this could even be applied to the idea of cannibalism lol
@@skylarsoup existing in the wild is very frequently a horrible existence, perhaps it's better for an animal to die instantly to a gunshot than be ripped apart by a predator?
Is it our moral obligation to protect innocent animals from being killed by other animals? Is it our moral obligation to protect some human from being killed by an animal, if we are so capable?
@@yonatanbeer3475 Perhaps you are right. The point really though is taking into consideration the average lifespan that the animal would have if humans did not interfere with their life at all. If we end their life before that average, considerably before it, or prematurely kill an otherwise healthy animal that is likely to live past that estimate, we are committing an immoral act (imo). There are also philosophical discussions about whether we should interfere with the “wild” and prevent animals from killing their prey in such violent and painful ways. I don’t think I’ve looked into that discussion enough to have thoughtful insight on that yet. However, my convictions from other aspects of the animal welfare issue lead me to tentatively believe that we should refrain from interfering.
@@LeoStaley Certainly a topic to ponder
Alex: Sleep is so important
Also Alex: Uploads new UA-cam video at 3:45am
Perhaps he started the upload earlier but it takes a long time for his computer to upload the video. He may have been asleep while the computer was working.
@@alittax doubt it. You can queue videos and choose which time you want them to be automatically uploaded. Also, different timezones are a thing :P
probably was 8:45 for him depending on where you live lol
Mans forgot about time zones
time zones my dude
Alex, your argument is not consistent. A human's right to life, as you said, has caveats, like when they threaten another life. An animal's right to life has the same caveats. It is a threat to the lives of every human in existence when animals congregate in every crop field grown for human consumption, preventing the nourishment of all of humanity. If there were humans doing the same thing causing the potential starvation of all human life, their right to life would not protect them from being killed.
But we took over their land no? Took their resources, so we forfeited our rights first?
@@Squeakyboy You need to be responsible for the produce to own all rights to it.
Animals kill animals to eat. So be careful and remember we are animals . And also we kill so many living creatures to protect crop fields . So being vegan helps nothing . I use to be vegan. And I am a farm owner, I know it as a fact what I say is true.
@@Squeakyboywhy would we extend that right to an animal that will also willfully take over the land of other animals, without ever even understanding what it’s doing. It’s just looking for food. Seems pretty regressive to me to forfeit your intelligence and status as an apex predator for a creature that would ostensibly consume you if given ample opportunity in the case of a carnivore.
Surely this necessitates the defense of agricultural land from invasive animal herds, that doesn’t necessitate killing, there are other means to minimize this threat. Situationally necessitated killing is definitionally final resort, either through a need to act quickly and decisively or through a lack of preferable options. I think in moments that satisfy that definition, Alex has on repeat occasion acknowledged the necessity for consistency in that regard, conceding that an animals right to life no longer takes priority in the formulation of a ‘moral decision’.
Alex, it's 6:53 am. I watched this last night, well, about half, then got interrupted, then forced myself to bed around 11:30, as I needed to be up by 4:30. Still was half hour late, lol. You have affected my life, in good ways, since I first subbed. You were deciding the name of your channel! You're exactly as I predicted! GREAT!👍🥰💖✌
What about the PETA-Issues though?
Will this Channel take a Stance on that?
Or ‚at least’ recommend some good Video about it,
like that of Illuminaughtii??
Hello Alex
I don't know whether animals have a right to life. What I do know is that there is no morally defensible position I can take which allows me the "right" to murder them needlessly without their consent. Therefore a "right to life" de facto exists and all this mental gymnastics attempting to decide if animals have a "right to life" is mostly - if not entirely - needlessly distracting. This also includes the hypothetical situation in which the only means for my survival is to kill them for food. Even if I make the choice to kill for my survival, I could not hope to defend such a position from a moral framework.
His argument isn't even consistent. A human's right to life, as he said, has caveats, like when they threaten another life. An animal's right to life has the same caveats. It is a threat to the lives of every human in existence when animals congregate in every crop field grown for human consumption, preventing the nourishment of all of humanity. If there were humans doing the same thing, their right to life would not protect them from being killed at the expense of all human life.
I think it's a "simple" risk/benefit equation. We know that car traffic will kill humans unavoidably, but we still drive cars because the utility gained from doing so is greater than the lives lost are worth. We've all accepted this, so why shouldn't we apply the same logic to animal deaths from crop farming?
Hi! I understand your logic but I have one more thing that should be taken into consideration. The people in traffic know the risks that they expose themself to and that it is possible that they get hurt. Everyone makes that individual choice because they see that the risk is worth the benefits that they get. On the contrary side, animals do not choose to be exposed to the risk of being killed, it is the humans that choose that their lives are worth it. The important difference I would conclude is that humans choose to be exposed to a risk that would affect them because of the benefits they get but animals are not the source to why the risk exists, neither do they get to decide to risk their lives or get the benefit of the risk being taken by humans. (I hope my English is not too bad haha I’m Swedish)😊
And because of that it is important to acknowledge the crop farming deaths that occur and actively try to decrease them
@@juliarasklind9171 Interesting point, but not true. Plenty of humans die from car accidents who don't have any idea about the risks involved. Like children that run onto the street chasing after a ball. And while tragic, we still don't stop all traffic because of this.
Rights based ethics is simply unworkable. There’s virtually always going to be conflicting rights in a way that means you can never take any significant action ever without violating some rights
"Rights" are a historical human construct and a societal agreement, it is incredibly useful, but not possible to universalize among ALL animal species (provided that a specific biological make-up of each animal species, the existence or the lack of consciousness, different proclivities and dimensions of suffering, etc., form completely different basis for the formulation of said species' "rights"). So yeah, I agree, the concept of "animal rights" is unworkable as a basis for inter-species ethics. For humans alone, I think it's the only proper ethical framework, but only in the form of negative rights (right to NOT BE aggressed upon, as opposed to a right to BE SAFE from aggression).
Each being should have rights in proportion to the size of its brain
@@josephbilling3886 I'd say more something like "according to their subjective interests", but I'm unsure of rights based thinking anyways. I assume you made a joke.
@@josephbilling3886 facepalm
@@spectralisation Rights don't even work in human context. We constantly violate rights and often rightly so.
I went Vegan a month ago because of you. Thank you for showing me something I turned a blind eye to for too long
I tried vegan and it doesn’t fill me up LOL
@@thelionofjudah5318 Similar. I tried vegan, but it was just too bland. I got tired of eating peanut butter sandwiches, tortillas with refried beans, and oatmeal day in day out. I know there's more "variety" in veganism, but my wallet can't afford variety. Yes anyone can eat vegan and survive, but if you don't have the capacity to double your food budget overnight, you'll get bored fast.
@@jaredjones1752 it actually costs much less to eat vegan than to eat animal products. It's only common sense...
@@afeudale it costs less money but more effort, stress, and sacrifices to what you can eat. Not worth it at all for me personally
Vegan 5 months now, honestly it's going preety great ! So many Vegetables, so many dishes! Never felt healthier
I feel like you'll make a "CosmicSkeptic debunked" with this video in the future (as you have already with another video).
Hopefully
Maybe after he published a video on Peter Singer's weakest points (or when he realises that Peter Singer is actually not a vegan)
@@hester234 He knows that singer is not vegan, but i don't see why that matters.
@@othmane0313 Did Alex talk about Peter Singer not being vegan in any of his videos? If so, could you give me a link with timestamp? I watched almost all of Alex's videos and didn't catch that.
Yes, I think it matters because he confuses veganism with reducing suffering (as shown in this video) and that's a very insufficient approach in advocating for animals.
@@hester234 ua-cam.com/video/7Tyew0JXNUg/v-deo.html here, i found one. This was filmed before this video btw. However I'm pretty sure he knew even before this. I mean, that post of his admitting his consumption of meat got really controversial within the vegan community and i would doubt Alex, who even had Singer on his podcast, didn't know.
He's a utilitarian and I think he's been one even before going vegan or reading Singer so it's not surprising that he doesn't take a rights-based approach to veganism.
Why do you think it's an insufficient approach?
I've only just discovered Alex on UA-cam and I'm blown away by not only his intelligence, rational and logical thinking but also by the manner in which he conducts himself when debating with others and creating his videos. He's one of the most honest and respectful debaters I've ever seen. The video where he re-watches one of his own videos from a few years back where he criticises himself and talks about how his opinions, skills and thinking etc have changed/evolved since then is unbelievably refreshing to see! Most people in that position would try to hide and forget it rather than be honest and confront it transparently.
The human right to life isn't a right to live. It's a right to not be unjustifiably killed if you observe social contracts and laws, so you can enjoy and partake in society.
As a vegan, I would like to see an animal right to life as one that protects all animals against unnecessary influence or interference from humans throughout their natural life.
This video highlights how difficult definitions are in law!
survival of the ... most altruistic ?
But nothing truly has a right to live though.
@@Darkloid21 any and all rights are just concepts we made up in our mind, if that's what you mean
@@simian.friends Yes but also even with it being in our minds.
Rats, mice, mustelids, pests generally will love you, but humans affected where crops are destroyed will think you are bonkers.
"Exploitation" is an important part of the definition for many vegans. I took a moment to look for definitions just now. Apart from some meanings that have to do with things like promotion and publicity, they generally range from using, to making useful to using in a selfish manner. All of these are applicable. There is a great deal of exploitation that can be done without seeming to cause suffering. Animals can be conditioned to apparently gain a sort of satisfaction from serving human masters. In fact, humans are among the animals who can be conditioned to derive a sense of gratification from serving human masters. As you suggested, we can put humans in the hoof/paw/talon prints of other animals. It's not just a matter of causing suffering; it's a matter of denying happiness and liberty. It's the idea of being forced to exist as the means to someone else's ends. We shouldn't accept such status for humans and we shouldn't accept it for non-humans.
We don't have to have an utterly pacifist stance in order to be vegan. We can hold non-violence and non-exploitation as ideal, while knowing that reality doesn't care about our ideals. If it comes down to a question of survival, are we really going to be scratching our beards trying to justify not dying? If we find ourselves in such a desperate situation, our normal ethical views might not be applied.
On the other hand, I view the idea of rights as somewhat problematic to begin with. The implication is that one must be entitled to whatever liberties one enjoys. Of course, limitations must be applied if we're to have ethics or a functional society, but the idea that humankind has blessed all other species with the "right" to simply be what they are is just silly. We have clearly taken more than we give.
Finally made the leap from vegetarian to vegan. Took a while to find a good pair of non leather boots. I do still feed my dogs regular kibble tho.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists what??? Its more about the suffering more than the death itself
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists we don’t expect our children to be tortured and killed by insects. It is expected that people will torture and kill these animals.
Also many vegans are anti-natalist (they are not linked, but can coexist). I know that if/when I raise children, they will be adopted.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists Do you eat babies?
You can always hit second-hand shops for leather boots. If the product already exists, and the producer is seeing no gain from you from the slaughter they perpetrated I would argue it's more ethical to use them since the other option is slaughter for no reason.
Well done! I think it was on Carnism Debunked's Instagram that I recently saw, carnists will call you a hypocrite if you feed pets meat, and they'll call you an animal abuser if you have your pets on a vegan diet. I'd be inclined to have my pets on a vegan diet, the reason the carnists make these accusations are pure sophistry.
Keep in mind that morality doesn't revolve around what's convenient for humans to believe. Just because it would make things morally difficult for us doesn't mean that non human animals don't have a right to life in the same way humans do. I'm not necessarily saying that they do, but I wanted to make you aware of that. I get that it's hard for us to come up with moral bases to ground our empathy on. Sometimes it really is just empathy, and maybe there is no inherent right to life for any animal. But since all living creatures have a shared experience of being in this universe, we sort of owe it to each other to at least try to understand one another. And maybe also to be kind. Pain may be meaningless, but it's real in the moment, and every living thing understands that. And since we're all part of the same great big thing, we should try to be kind to the rest of this great big thing, since we'll be a different part ourselves soon enough.
I probably sound high, but I'm just tired and bad at organizing my thoughts. anyway
Love this, I agree.
I like this take. At the very least we ought to allow them the chance to live without human interference until they die of natural causes. Simply because our ways of life cause environmental damage and kill nonhumans in the process does not mean that we cannot move in a direction where that is not the case. Ending an animal's life (in a way that does not cause any MORE suffering) prematurely specifically due to their poor health conditions (terminal cancer let's say) would be a good example of reduction of suffering and, if desired, I see no problem in eating the fresh carcass either. Same goes for an animal that dies of natural causes - eating that body certainly would not be wrong. Other than that, though, if a human body can sustain itself without eating meat then why would we choose to end a life prematurely if we have a better choice? Killing them for the sole reason that we wish to consume them is not sufficient though. As humans, we have propped ourselves up onto a highly dominant pedestal amongst other animals and, while we can choose to use this power and ability for critical thought for good, more often than not it feels like we abuse this power in many situations. CERTAINLY we do when it comes to our diets and often in animal experimentation as well.
@@skylarsoup Your thoughts are partially based on a false premise (at least in my opinion) - that dying of natural causes is not subject to moral discussions. Dying under natural circumstances is not per se a good or morally accepted thing and mustn't always be favoured, especially not from an Utilitarian perspective. Of course, there are lots of animals that die because they reached the end of their lifespan; but life of most animals is ended prematurely because of either health issues (as you mentioned, I'll grant you that; but you make it seem like this is an exception) but also because of injuries, horrible starvation or simply because they are eaten. Some may be lucky to die instantly, others are most likely in horrible pain, fight for their lifes but are eventually being eaten alive. That doesn't mean that we should intentionally harm animals but we are obliged to put things into perspective and act accordingly - that means that damaging some animals to create more well-being for humans and other species can be less problematic due to the fact that many of those animals indirectly killed by humans' actions suffer anyway and will die in pain anyway. Since animals are not as conscious of their own actions as we humans are and don't make any plans for future well-being, I'm not so sure that ending a wild animal's life prematurely at the age of two years and three months as a collateral damage of various human actions is (grosso modo) morally so much worse than the animal's life being put to an end in the process of getting swallowed by a larger animal at the age of two years and nine months. Maybe life of an average animal (talking from an Utilitarian point of view) is NOT as valuable as we may think, especially since they lack the ability to significantly improve their situation and to increase their happiness by taking considerate actions, unlike humans.
People always seem to reject the notion that life of a wild animal basically sucks, at least there is plenty of data and evidence that supports the thesis that it indeed sucks. Of course not all, but many animals are in pure stress most of the time, always looking for something to eat and taking measurements to reassure their survival. If well treated, placed in a fitting environment and with plenty of space, most animals live a far healthier, less stressful and longer life in some sort of captivity.
(Sorry for some grammar mistakes)
@@Eliminativ I definitely understand that. Another way of looking at it though begs the question: should humans, as more sophisticated and intelligent animals, take it upon themselves to use that sophistication to improve the lower animal’s life to the greatest extent possible? And if we should, does depriving them of their full lifespan (in captivity even, when given arguably a much nicer life than if they lived in the wild as you said) undermine that ‘greatest extent possible?’ Killing then for age and health reasons I have absolutely no issue with. But for any other reasons, refraining from killing would be the easiest thing one can do.
Well plants also share the same experience and by every definition or philosophy of life they are "alive".
Please. Debate Vegan Gains on this. I really think he will destroy your posission on this. Honestly.
Just coming off watching 'The Promised Neverland' on netflix, which seems relevant as a whole cabin-in-the-woods scenario. I never quite got the 'right to life' argument. Like, I do acknowledge that in a harm reduction scenario of eliminating factory farming conditions means that meat/milk/egg production will be necessarily lower. And the environmental argument that our ecological footprint is already way too large, and that we shouldn't even think about expanding the land area of less intensive methods of animal agriculture (the 'regenerative agriculture'/free range argument).
So after some exposure to the vegan argument (environmental, and I guess welfarist), I have internalised it as 'eat meat as infrequently as possible'.
I have 'settled' on a reducetarian 'don't cook and buy' in my own meals, but not caring too much if someone else gives or cook for me (fear of social ostracism I guess).
I'm not quite sold on the 'right to life' argument, but 'The Promised Neverland' cabin-in-the-woods scenario has given me an insight into what vegans mean when they ask "is it ethical to kill an animal that had a happy life'. I probably won't shed a tear for insects that can be put to sleep with cold and never suffer from the effects of overcrowding, but I'm also not sure where I draw my line anymore.
Appreciated this discussion here on what exactly a 'right to life' and harm reduction might actually mean in practicable terms.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists
Sorry I didn't see your reply here.
I will answer you from a meat eater's point of view, since you would probably have heard the vegan's point of view if you follow this channel.
I think when people say "what about if the animals are treated better", "or what if backyard hens", etc, they miss the fact that those are the exceptions, not the rule. There are much bigger issues that we could talk about first.
The cheapest meat you get at the supermarket or fast food restaurants, the milk that might travel the world as milk powder, eggs, etc, aren't likely to come from one of the 'nice' places that we imagine our food comes from.
A lot of it will come from pretty unpleasant places. People will then say "Alright then, I will only eat meat from one of the 'nice' places".
I don't know about you, but I'm a cheapskate, and I'm not that prepared to pay the premium that animals that are treated 'nice' cost, at least not regularly. And if you do only buy animal products from these 'nice' places, I think you probably won't have much issue with people saying that we should eat less meat (since these places cannot produce as much anyway).
Not sure what you meant about the 'if we stop breeding animals' and the insects part. But I'm guessing you mean, "what if animals go extinct if we stop breeding them?".
Well, it kind of already happened.
For example, the chicken you eat now might be different from the chicken your grandparents might have eaten. A lot of traditional 'heritage' varieties of animals aren't bred anymore because they are not commercially viable. Instead, they have been replaced with faster-growing varieties that are much more profitable. Maybe these varieties might still survive in very small farms or villages somewhere. But again, these are more the exceptions.
tldr:
Unfortunately, most of these places aren't nice. Many people have this romantic idea of what animal agriculture is like.
Me too, my grandmother told me about raising her own chickens and slaughtering them herself. But most of the chickens you see in the market aren't raised like how my grandmother raised them. We like to imagine a happy life and a quick painless death (the cabin in the woods/promised neverland scenario), but in reality, most farms aren't like that at all.
Replace "suffering" with "exploitation" in your vegan definition and it'll cover the edge cases you spoke of.
You were talking about right to life and crop deaths. I think your analogy isn't the best. If we would see it in a human context we already have it. We have "right to life", but at the same time we accept deaths in work, on roads and other accidental deaths, some people would agree it is fine to protect your property (food) if killing is the only practical way. So animal can have the same right to life, no problem.
@Pagan If we wouldn't accept deaths the we would stop all the traffic, most of the work and progress in order to save as many lives as possible. We don't do that, we understand that some things will very likely cause deaths, but the benefits are more significant.
@Pagan We are accepting, because we keep doing that. Advancing new technologies just shows that we would like to solve the problem, same could be told with plant agriculture.
Even if we don't have the power, we could minimize those deaths, but only do it to a certain level. Read my previous message again, I don't think you understood it correctly.
@Pagan We do have a choice, but we understand that the consequences are worth the risk.
@@meateaterscringe9863 I really like your take here and I believe it is the correct position. There are tons of modern convivences that we understand will predictably cause X number of human animal deaths. (Transportation, Construction and countless other activities) We are responsible for those deaths, its a given, because they create greater wellbeing for all of us. We seek to reduce those deaths of course, especially easily avoidable deaths. But because those deaths happen, I don't think it follows that "Human Animals don't have rights". Thanks for taking the time to walk through this, it's been helpful to me.
@@meateaterscringe9863 I broadly agree with your points, but I have just one quibble. I would say that "understand" is the wrong word, here, because deciding whether we accept a risk is a question of values, not of facts. Recall David Hume's argument that we cannot derive an "ought" from an "is".
Haven't pressed on a video so fast!
Rather than saying "the right to life" is actually shorthand for something much more complex, I'd say rights themselves can be forfeited under certain circumstances or some rights may have higher priority than others.
Threatening someone else's life is forfeiting one's own right to life (at least while that threat is active). If you were to say, for example, someone has a right to not suffer, you can still morally justify causing them to suffer by tackling them in order to save them from getting instantly killed from e.g. getting hit by a train, as long as you say the right to life is higher priority than the right to not suffer. Would you be able to morally justify violating their right to not suffer otherwise? (Or perhaps there are reasons my example of having a right to not suffer would be problematic, or why it needs to be more complex than that, but the point I'm trying to make is that as soon as you have more than 1 right, which includes multiple people who all have the same right, things get awfully complicated if you try to encode the priority and invalidation of these rights within the rights themselves, as opposed to having this happen outside of those definitions.)
With this approach, it's probably not too unreasonable to say animals have a right to life, just with a lower priority.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists Do I have to explain that one?
@@Belowski69 Try to explain science to muslims is like trying to convince flat earthers that the earth is not flat. A futile effort.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists While perhaps an interesting idea, that doesn't appear to have much to do with what I said in my comment. My comment doesn't even say that I'm a vegan or that I actively support veganism (although it's perhaps not unreasonable to suspect as much).
I certainly can't stop you from copy-pasting the same reply to a bunch of comments, but I imagine people will respond a lot more positively to you if you stick to replying to comments where the reply actually directly addresses something the other person said (or at least justify what you're asking them specifically the question).
It will probably also be received better if you were to phrase it less aggressively. Try imagining how you'd feel if someone uses the same "if we do what you feel we should, then why not also do this absurd or dumb thing as well" about something that you believe (although it isn't perfectly reliable, as different people interpret things differently, and it isn't actually as absurd as I suspect you think it is).
Also, if you want someone to actually engage in discussion about that (and you're not just asking a rhetorical question as a justification to continue eating meat), I would probably suggest reaching out to Alex or other ethical vegan skeptics/philosophers on Twitter or somewhere (especially in response to a request for questions, like the request Alex mentioned in the beginning of this video).
I was about to formulate a separate comment along these lines, but you have articulated this well. I would question Alex’s assumption that a right has to be by, definition, inviolable. A right is an ideal, but like all ideals will fall short under certain (often highly unlikely and hypothetical) circumstances. Like you said, once you superimpose other rights on top of this, the correct moral stance has to be determined from the sum-total or interaction of those rights. In the case of having to kill certain animals to produce crops, the kind of animals that tend to be killed are pest species of low sentience. If plant food is farmed organically, this risk is lowered still further. One then throws in the factor of ‘intent’ - something that Sam Harris is fond of. I might run an allotment organically - pick off slugs, caterpillars etc. by hand, grow plants that produce chemicals that deter pests etc. Any animals that are killed by virtue of harvesting the plants would be inadvertent. There’s a difference between deliberately killing a cow for beef, versus inadvertently killing an insect because I washed it down the plughole when cleaning off my lettuce. So, in terms of Alex’s options, I would say you do have to operate his ‘rule-book’ analogy, but in practical terms, that rule book of exceptions is not as thick as he makes out. The problem with these questions is that they seek an absolutist and often binary position to be taken - a systematic ‘catch-all’ answer. In conclusion, I would say that animals have a right to life in pretty much the same way as humans do. It’s an ideal to hold, and to work towards in as practicable a way as one possibly can.
@@Moteridgerider Indeed! Very well formulated. Anything else would sound a bit speciesist. So my specie has the right to life but other species don't. I guess Alex of all people should know that.
You are one of the most rational and well spoken people I've ever come across. Sometimes I feel like everyone has lost their mind, but your uploads remind me, there's people who are intelligent and rational, in a world of mass ignorance. Great video as always ☺️
Four responses:
1. When I became a vegan a few months ago, I rejected the notions that animal suffering is decisive, and that animals have rights. Instead I realized I believed that it was wrong to do harm to animals unnecessarily. Harm includes suffering but goes beyond it. My veganism does not require me to believe that animals and humans are on the same ethical and metaphysical plane. They do not have rights, but we do have at least the minimal moral obligation not to harm them if we can help it. I suppose I'm a very naughty vegan indeed.
2. I just saw a brand new academic book called Why It's Okay to Eat Meat. It's by a philosopher. Wouldn't it be interesting to see a vegan philosopher respond to its argument?
3. Wasn't there a recent lecture on Islam on this channel? I thought its argument very poor, but still I'm surprised the video seems to be gone.
4. The Right to Sex is just out in the US and I bought it last week. It looks quite good.
In response to 1, I would agree. Humans and animals are indeed not on the same ethical and metaphysical plane, as many animals are indeed more morally important than humans. This is because, if you cause pain to a human adult, the human will be able to cope with it by rationality. The dog has no such luxury. Ergo, causing pain to a dog is actually worse than causing pain to a human.
@@killgriffinnow can you really rationalise being harmed by someone? And if does finding it really makes it really easier to cope with it?
I also find more cruelty in harming animals but for different reasons - animals usually are in similar positions to children where they can’t protect themselves. And on this level I find hurting animals and hurting children very similar. They’re helpless which makes hurting them even more cruel.
@@killgriffinnow I have never considered that before, thanks for sharing. Any chance you know of any debates or papers on this subject you could steer me in the direction of?
In response to #3, he tweeted that he deleted it after getting threatening emails from I forget who. It appears he deleted all tweets surrounding the video though so you’ll have to just take my word for it I guess
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists You're funny
I understand that we strive to be consistent in our logical choices across the board but you didn't do exactly that. Rights can be different to different subject while in principle the same. The right to life is just one of those. We know the similarities between humans and animals which give us enough reason to grant animals the right to not being unnecessarily abused, exploited and murdered but we do have differences that warrant our actions still fully vegan. For example in crop deaths, if we were able to reason with animals, we would have to think differently of crop deaths. Or lets take taxes for example, we understand what they are for, yet they also fuel a lot of horrible people with power to continue abuse.
You see, animals do indeed need a right to life and it does need to be a different one than that for humans, since we are not the same life form.
I agree with you humans have survived immense evils for us to evolve and by not eating animal's we created by selective breeding evolution we are just as bad as the people who wiped out the elephants asking we don't change imagine for a minute a mammoth being resurrected imagine seeing somthing that didn't exist now we wipe out species dally vegans probably don't get it but life is mostly good and monoculture is a waste of potential
People don't understand legal theory, and the problem of giving legal personality to a non-human entity without the cognitive abilities to understand them. You can't give animals rights, you only can set obligations to humans against animal cruelty
@@davidevans3223 Can you rephrase this in an understandable way? Maybe with periods?
@@Bob13454 we have every right to eat as many animals as we please it's not morally wrong we are hunters by nature we can't survive naturally as herbivores impossible
@@davidevans3223 nAtUrE tHo
Small note about the sponsor: the claim that VPNs increase security is greatly exaggerated for the most part. Most of the web is already secure. It'd be catastrophic otherwise, given the amount of critical services we access online (e.g. banks). There's also a Tom Scott video on the subject ua-cam.com/video/WVDQEoe6ZWY/v-deo.html
I don't understand how you can say animals don't have a right to life in a way that is not speciesist. I think you either have to name traits that differentiate humans from animals that justify that difference in rights, or accept that not all humans have a right to life either.
Hey Alex,
One thought about the segment which starts around 7:18
It is also not possible to have construction, or agriculture done without humans dying in the process.
Does this tamper with their right to life too?
I'm pretty interested in your point on that 🙂
It’s impossible to not have these processes without more humans dying so from a Utilitarian perspective the tradeoff is worth
@@josephbilling3886 I absolutely agree with you.
But isn't it the same for the non-human animals then? If you see it this way you'd have to grant animals a right to life too.
Alex wasn't doing that.
@@ahalya2364
Not necessarily.
In construction material has to be transported. When transportation vehicles are involved in accidents or may even cause them, innocent and uninvolved people die.
Happens on a daily basis.
Knowing that we won't stop construction but also won't stop granting humans a right to life.
@pepe moke
Well said.
I'll go off topic.
I would like to add that the right to life is just an abstract concept. Trying to justify veganism is simply due the fact that we live in a non vegan society.
I love listening to Alex, but I don't think we should be indulgent towards non vegans concepts. At the end of the day our language is so complex that we can play with words all day long and be able to justify non being vegan. We can justify domestic abuse, rape, wars, etc... We can say veganism is a kind of "cancel culture". We can discuss health all day and arrive to the conclusion that eating animal is not unhealthy (and it isn't per se'!).
We have just to be radical. And yeah big pro vegan corporations will make money out of it. But fighting capitalism is not possible without being vegan. Being vegan is just the simplest and first step.
And don't tell me people don't do it for their health cause people don't care about their health. They are just lazy. Talking to ourselves won't take us anywhere. The only thing to do is make people feel guilty of their own actions. Forcing them to watch what's going on, without inducing in endlessly conversation where concepts get muddled up and allow almost everybody to not being vegan. Do we understand that being vegan is not a cool thing to do? Do we understand that going to a restaurant and say "I do not eat animal products" is basically due to the fact the eating animal products in the way we do it is just collective psychosis. It is just sickening.
I don't think we should be "politically correct". I think we should just use the argument at our own advantage. It is very selfish of us not doing that. Being lenient with anyone who doesn't care about our own future and doesn't want to end the animal holocaust is just misleading everybody else from the main issue here.
P.s. I understand that I may seems polarized, then I am happy to be.
animalclock.org/
@@TheElelphanti
Hope you got me right here.
My argument was to say that unpreventable non-human animal deaths caused by crop production do not interfere with non-human animals right to life. Just like uninvolved humans dying f.e. during construction does not interfere with these humans right to life.
I'm vegan btw 💚🌱
Alex, thanks for your great job. I'm adapting some of your work towards animal rights and veganism to brazilian public, here in my channel. You're helping us a lot and I'm just trying to spread the message to portuguese listeners.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists Wtf. You're in for a ride trying to decypher this, but those ramblings might just be the mother of all non sequiturs. Several, in fact.
Yes. 😆 Thank you for making this video. It’s eye-opening for many that a vegan themselves can present these interesting perspectives about the reach veganism has in our lives and our societies. While I FIRMLY disagree, I think it’s very important that we, vegans, as a community tackle these questions and answer them clearly and firmly. Excellent content, again thanks ♥️
Whether we acknowledge it or not, animals of course have a right to life.
Alex, you might want to read up on the criticisims that "Why we sleep" has received. There seem to be some actual factual errors and rather carelessly made claims about the current state of sleep in that book. I myself still think that the book overall makes a great point, but atleast kowing about the criticisms -which a quick google search will direct you to- would most likely be for the better.
I’d love if you applied these types of arguments to the issue of abortion, Alex. It would be interesting to get your thoughts on that (especially the “right to life”), possibly approaching the issue from the same perspective as you do here.
If entire human race stopped eating cows, chickens, pigs etc. then there would be no point in raising them and in few generations they would be either exinct or be a nuisance among rich people. Only pigs have a cousin that lives in the wild (hogs), but if humans were to "free" f.e. chickens nearby predators would have a feast and they would die in a generation or two. Some people advocate rising animals such as chickens just to rise them, while fellow *humans* are starving - first of all, let's take care of our own, and then let's start to wory about existance of chickens.
People who live their entire life in USA have it easy, I live in Poland and during ZSSR rule (1945-89) you had to eat what was available, and veganism was not even an option. Out of all the food options meat is harder to preserve than some vegan tofu, so the humane thing would be to send all the products that doesn't spoil (aka "not meat") to people who don't have anything to eat. When we solve the problem of global hunger, I'll be open to talk about vegetarianism/veganism.
PS. I chose chickens as an example, because they are the least inteligent of the bunch and thus consumption of them is most justifiable out of all domesticated farm animals.
Not a vegan, but I think the point is that people in wealthier countries are able to be vegan. I don't think even the most hard-core vegans would tell a member of a hunter-gatherer society that they shouldn't eat meat, people who have limited options (i.e., poor people).
@@scottplumer3668 I catch your drift, but wouldn't the more productive way was to consume more meat in wealthier countries and ship the rest (like f.e. crops) to countries in Africa?
Plus I the sole purpose of for instance chickens is for our eating pleasure, and without human consumption of meat they would go exinct. Natural selection doesn't favor chickens very much, they aren't smart or fast and in if left to their own devices they would end up as a great snack for foxes etc.
If you want to artificially keep them alive you can't use land that they are living on to make crops, so you have to create new field, thus destroying natural habitat of other animals and at that point it's just playing favoritism.
There is no viable economical option without more animal deaths with veganism at the forefront. At least not one I know. If someone wants to eat vegan, because of their conscience I'm all for it, but paradoxically society need meat-eaters in order for farm animals to exist :P
"I cant go Vegan because Cold War" lol, so fucking stupid
So we can never avoid killing non human animals in crop production, but the same goes for humans. There will always be humans killed in connection with crop production.
Starving also can have exceptions regarding both nonhuman and human animals. Like never kill anyone for food even if starving, but possibly you can eat them if they are already dead, like in plane crash cannibalism, etc. Then there's the speciesism issue of course, so there's probably a gradual line in where we think some species of animals (and even plants) are more deserving of rights than others.
So as far as "rights", they are something we give and agree upon, not something that someone somehow inherently has.
Hello Carina
What I love about Alex’s videos is that he explains them with such simplicity that whether you’re a philosophical novice, or expert, you enjoy the video nonetheless. Good work once again, Alex!
Nothing has an inherent right to life
Typical moral subjectivist/nihilist nonsense.
Still no arguments, simpleton.
@@KrwiomoczBogurodzicy facts don’t care about your feelings snowflake
the point at 3:00 about "bringing an animal into existence and killing them without suffering could be permissible" is wrong because: coming into existence is always a serious harm. you cannot exist without suffering, to be forced to exist, even with the best life, is to be forced to suffer. ideas of "net-positive" lives are incoherent as in-and of themselves intrinsics, because unborn lives dont require pleasure.
the only way for a life to be "net positive" is for that life to as consequence, prevent more bad/suffering as a product of its existence. so maybe doctors which prevent chronic pain or something like this for example. but these lives are rare and few and far between i suspect. so in an animal context these "net positive lives" are even less coherent as animals cannot do anything like this.
The act of birthing any animal (and human) intentionally is exploitation and net-negative as you cannot birth them for the sake of themselves.
Right, but in that case we need simply understand that ALL birth carries with it an equal implicit exploitation and work from there. It’s not strictly relevant unless you want to make a case that certain beings inherently and unavoidably suffer more than others during their life.
interesting, you may have a point. so producing life in on itself is a net negative? which in most cases would equate to a wrong/ evil. I don't necessarily disagree, but I'm not sure many can agree, or am I mis-representing it?
We need to protect this skeptic at all costs
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists says the one who follows outdated middle age bs against science
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlistsis that islamic university for radicalism and fundamentalism with specialization in wahabism
@Titus Telesco oh is it so, and we stan him
@Titus Telesco if it's his veganism advocacy you're bothered about, I am a meat eater too, but I like his logical and philosophical arguments. Yes I am a hypocrite for eating meat, and I atleast admit it.
Logical arguments doesn't add up justify eating meat.
Atleast have courage to admit some things that don't support your reasoning.
And I am not advocating for or against veganism. It's up to you if you want to do it, nor I'm gonna judge you for it. But don't feel self righteousness by justifying your actions using falsehoods.
Nothing fruitful can come from forcing some ideas on others. It should come from individual enlightenment. If that doesn't happen, our planet is heading towards a dangerous charter
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists You should probably study more or you'll be kicked out...
I have bad sleeping habits, but the choice to fix it is far from as simple as the choice to take a pill with no downside.
Aside from things like insomnia and headaches that affect my sleep schedule, it is unpleasant to go to bed when I'm not in the right mindset to do so, it's much more enjoyable (in the moment) to sleep in than to wake up early (even when well-rested), I prefer being awake at night above being awake in the morning, I often get distracted when I should be going to bed and realise a few hours have passed when I think about it again, etc.
In as far as it's a choice at all, it's really more of a decision between short-term pleasure (of doing something else instead of going to bed, or staying in bed instead of getting up) and long-term pleasure (of being healthy, well-rested, able to concentrate better, etc.). So it's more like a pill that tastes really terrible. Or actually the inverse: a pill that tastes amazing, but you _shouldn't_ take it. Hold on... that's just the same as unhealthy food.
17:29 yeah but that pill also has sadly a hefty side effect of taking away 1/3 of your conscious life. It's a tradeoff.
All of this is easily solved by simply recognizing that rights are given. Do animals have a "right to life" is the same as asking "Does person X have beauty?". This is the wrong way to put it because there is no such thing as rights or beauty within the object of the discussion. It lies within the mind of the subject who judges the object. It's a preference, it's how we feel about the object. That's why even the trait of suffering isn't adequate. It is the fact that I suffer that makes it "wrong" to kill someone painlessly. We are constantly projecting our feelings onto the external without realizing it. And because this is actually true, it solves all inconsistencies. I simply feel negative about killing a person painlessly, and I don't feel negative about killing a pig painlessly. These are just facts about me.
I've been able to function quite comfortably on 5-6 hours of sleep all my life but my partner struggles on less than 10. We are all wired differently. If I oversleep, and by that I mean more than 6 hours, I end up with a migraine for the rest of the day.
I want to sleep 8 hours a night but I always wake up after 6 hours of sleep, even if I sleep really early, then I will just wake up early 6 hours later.
Vertical farms will eventually eliminate crop deaths.
But you can't farm everything vertically they are also very high in the amount of energy they need. So in some cases they are a good solution for example in big cities but certainly not for the whole world
@@petershaw8237 maybe it will become more efficient in the future
Alex its been so long man we missed you, I have not finished the video yet, but the two books you picked, and have not read yet, are on my list too, actually I was just contemplating reading ''the right to sex'' today lol, and the history of christianity by diarmand macculloch has been on my list as well, since hearing about it in the christopher hitchens and tariq ramadan debate.
welcome back man
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists get the hell out of my sight dumbass troll
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists what do you smoke lol
I actually think the term right to life muddies the waters and does not fit in a consistent ethical framework. It is more ‘right not to be done that which you reject (including suffering) unnecessarily’. Otherwise, why wouldn’t a plant have a right to live. A right to live would need to be universal and apply to all living things. My definition allows for some reasonable distinction between beings that cannot suffer and those that can, and therefor con be applied without caveats universally.
right to life only applies to humans, not other living organisms. Animals and plants don't have the right to life because they are not capable of of being responsible moral agents that humans are.
The breaching of consent of non-human animals is the issue with the “reducing suffering” thing. That’s why I lean a whole lot more towards the avoidance of animal exploitation rather than suffering. Hence why I’m so diametrically opposed to the coercive, exploitative factors of capitalism. All individuals should have equal opportunity for a say in how their own life goes, even if Determinism is real. Idk. What are your thoughts on such a take?
im 18 and still majorly trying to figure out ethics and.. everything lol, so i could be wrong here, but here are my thoughts: exploitation can be a tricky thing to fit under utilitarianism upon first glance because of situations like the one he mentioned, with the more extreme example of killing someone when no one suffers as a result. (this isnt exactly exploitation since the killer had no motive, but i think it would fall into that same category, feel free to tell me if you disagree)
the important thing to remember here is that morality is purely constructed; you're not uncovering truths when talking about ethics, you're building systems of law. as a utilitarian, i think that the exploitation, even without direct suffering of the subject is wrong because of the precedent it sets.
if even one person is justified in randomly killing someone under ethical code, even without pain, realistically that's going to instill fear into everyone around as they could be snatched up and painlessly snuffed out. i think that psychological stress in such a large number of people is enough to say that it's immoral. that seems to apply in all of these theoretical (and sometimes not theoretical) examples of: "what if this normally wrong thing doesnt cause suffering in one instance, is it still wrong?"
now you could say "what if no one knew" but my point in emphasising that ethics is just a code of laws is to not go too far beyond the practicality. removing certain justifications behind a construct and then asking if the construct still applies can be very insightful, but removing every single one until there's nothing but a shell of our intuition holding the thing together seems futile.
but im curious, can you think of other types of practical exploitation where this doesnt apply?
(and I'm sorry if this was difficult to read or doesn't make sense, of course i have my own subjective thoughts/experiences/biases/meanings gluing these ideas together so feel free to ask for elaboration on anything)
If Alex's definition of ethical vegan is applied (that is, setting aside exploitation), what is the distinction from a particularly attentive dietary vegetarian who eats eggs and drinks milk? After all, if you remove factory farming from the equation, taking a portion of eggs and milk doesn't have to harm animals. In fact, even if you substitute a human as he suggests for the purposes of determining if something is vegan, though it would be a rather bizarre thing to do, it wouldn't inherently have to violate a person's rights.
Taking it a step further, eventually these well cared for animals would die of old age or could be euthanized in a situation where their age was causing them undue suffering (this is considered an ethical act with regards to beloved pets and, in some countries, with humans). Thus allowing a very rare, but not unheard of, vegan steak dinner and uncommon meals of vegan fried chicken. Some vegans might consider this taboo, but not unlike eating a similarly sourced human corpse, it's not necessarily unethical in and of itself.
Of course, the current state of animal treatment bears no resemblance to this rosy picture, but it certainly can be accomplished. At that point, a sufficiently wealthy and driven vegan could even be a complete carnivore. That seems pretty divorced from what people mean when they say vegan, but perhaps such a person would be paradoxically more vegan than an inattentive or intermittent vegetarian in our society today.
I like that stance. I am a vegan but I could be okay with those situations. There are some arguments against doing this that are pretty interesting, though. On the egg one: If people started buying chickens and keeping the spare eggs, it could create a market for hens. The most successful hen producers would be the ones who min max their hen output. I think this could lead to a myriad of unfortunate situations, and possible slip into something that resembles modern day factory farms. I'm not 100% on this though - maybe the free market wouldnt allow this to take place if everyone on the planet was an ethical vegan? Because we wouldnt buy from companies that exploit animals like this?
Idk, kinda confusing! For now, I'm erring on the side of caution. I'll just keep eating plants cause its not really a big deal for me, I'll be fine without eggs lol. If someone wants to eat eggs with this mindset, I probably wouldnt argue them on it.
On the dying of old age thing - The reason I'm iffy about this too is for the same reason we have restrictions around the sale of body parts/bones (endangered species). While there's no ethical problem with bleaching the skeleton of a deceased endangered animal and selling it, it might not be a great thing to allow incase a market arises. I could imagine a slippery slope situation where people start killing animals for food long before their natural lifespan because they need a little extra cash that summer for X.
I think I'm okay with your points on a philosophical level, but less okay with them on a practical level. I could probably be persuaded tho. These seem to be some of the best arguments against veganism that Ive come across (or at least the ones I find most convincing)
Hey, Alex,
Let’s say that we had the data to suggest that 1 human being was killed in crop production for all food products (this seems plausible, if not highly likely-it is easy to imagine that a single person might end up dead due to the use of harmful pesticides, dangerous equipment, poor working conditions, transportation of inputs and outputs, etc.). If we afford human beings a right to life, are we therefore obligated to starve? It seems to me the same problems with affording animals a right to life occurs in a human context.
Cheers!
Anthropocentrism suggests that, as humans, our first and primary consideration must be to our species. We have to live in order to worry about other species.
Consider this: if you see someone fall off a pier and they are going to drown, you can jump in to save them. However, the waves will push you into the pier and rocks. If you try to keep yourself between the drowning person and the obstacles, you will likely be hurt and you both will drown.
The best way to rescue the person is to peep them between you and the obstacles. Allow them to take the hits so you can remain conscience and capable of finding a way to get them and yourself back on dry land.
If you don't build a house because you worry about the birds, squirrels, and whatever that might live there, then where are you going to go to work on birdhouses and birdbaths for them?
You have to help yourself first before you can successfully help others.
A small video quality feedback: The camera focus is on mic, not on your face. Not complaining... Your videos quality is amazing. Just thought you would want some feedback.
This guy answers the question that I never would've asked, or never thought of
"I think sometimes we need to take a step back and just remember we have no greater right to be here than any other animal." - David Attenborough
I think when you just look at some of these videos of some amazing animals in the world you do realise that they do have a right to life. Killing them in any circumstances that would be necessary for survival would be cruel but killing a human creates bigger effects, laws and family as well as the life span of that person and taking away their life.
Animals do not have such things associated as much with their life as ours. Yeah animals have a life and their deaths may affect animals but in the long run a humans life to be lost is more devastating and that's just how it is.
If there was an alien species who had to eat humans to survive, and they gave the same reasoning that you gave now, would you support their self-given right to kill and eat humans?
@@adamskythief8238 I'm only saying that when it comes down to it in a dire need of survival then the human is more important than the animal. It's not right it's not fair but it's his it is
@@555droid6 it would actually be a arbitrary choice to kill another sentient being if you had to for survival because thats just our opinion that ,makes us think we are more worthy of life.if aliens came down to earth im sure they would be intelligent enough to understand that intelligence doesnt give you the right to abuse someones basic rights, even going further they would probably already be a vegan civilization seeing how much destruction and ethical problems with causing so much harm for no logical reason. we will always have moral agencies despite us having to kill for survival, which I would find a way to not do that, thats just hypothetical and even so you dont need to kill for survival we aren't obligate carnivores in the slightest. and to say we are more important is concerning what was that last thing to cause so much death, extinction of species, deforestation, climate change, natural habitat destruction since us? oh yea the astroid that almost whipped out our planet, same thing that we are doing now, we play no role in the earths survival. we've only destroyed it even more. and we are the special ones?no, we are a virus, unreversable damage has been done.and not until we fix this mess, and leave animals alone, can we even give ourselves any moral consideration why do we get this unknown higher right to life when innocent animals have done nothing to us, and nothing to effect our planet. not animals are innocent but we are the only species that have moral agencies and can make choices off a objective right and wrong. that doesnt give us higher value, that just gives us even more of an obligation to help these creatures.
@@Veganweedwizard we are not higher than they are and we can not be valued more than them. But when it comes down to it you would kill the animal to survive rather than the human
@@555droid6 but if it came down to a pig it would choose a pig like it’s a total selfish decision using your emotions to justify actions is going down a wrong path
Interesting. In this period in Italy we are trying to get a referendum going about "the right to die" (in a dignifing way for people with specific illness, injuries, etc)
In Britain we try to to get our Parliament to pass such a law often ... no success, so far ... 'Church' and State... :-(
@@BassGoBomb One of our main problem is the Church, but we are fed up about its constant interference in the Italian politics. I don't know if there is any article in English, but one of the main guys in this civic battle is Marco Cappato, if you are interested.
@@paolagrando5079 Thank you. I am always interested .. I shall go research him.
I’m not even sure that humans have a right to life. Instinctually I would like to say we do, but what really separates the value of a human life from an animal life? We are animals and the characteristics that distinguish us from other animals don’t always exist.
All lives are equal. I cry everytime i wash my hands for all the 10 trillion bacteria that get wiped out each time 😢
What about the PETA-Issues though?
Will this Channel take a Stance on that?
Or ‚at least’ recommend some good Video about it,
like that of Illuminaughtii??
This video didn’t age well… now we know why he’s saying animals don’t have a right to life.
That’s silly.
Either the argument is sound or it isn't. Your comment is just an ad hominem.
He’s still vegan
@@Isibor no he isn’t, he quit veganism
@@matthewsocoollike can u tell me the video he said so please
8:38 this didnt age well lol. Why do you kill fish now?
I wonder what do you think about Jordan Peterson?
I just saw a talk of Peterson with Dennis Prager.
The amount of absurdism of Prager reminded me to the unreasonable hater of Atheism you made a great reaction to some time ago. Surprized it is actually the same guy.
Overall I like Peterson while I disagree with some ideas he has. He helped me a lot with getting out of my constructed victimhood blaming others and start ordering my life. At the same time as a German I know his analysis about the "fail of renewable energies in Germany" is wrong.
I just would like to know what do you think about Peterson?
Best wishes
David :-)
I too would like to see a comprehensive look at Peterson's work from Alex.
He's good and has helped many, mire than most ever will, I'm none religious, i still respect much of his psychology.
@@inkwellflood8276 JP's a quack. Watch his debate with Matt Dillahunty in Toronto (full version on youtube). Peterson says such turds as "you can't quit smoking without god" and "you're not really an atheist because you're not an ax murderer" and seems to think if you can imagine something (god) then it's real... He has the most loosey-goosey definition of Christianity I've ever heard.
@@zenon3021 I can imagine, i think he's best sticking to the psychology he's good at on the practical side, rather than invisible friend preaching.
I don't listen to anyone ramble on about gods if possible, it's always the worst side of their logic.
Hello my friend
discussions of "rights" like this remind me of a line from the movie "Dances with Wolves". in response to the murder of a number of natives, John Dunbar (no relation) says: " Who would do such a thing? The field was proof enough that it was a people without value and without soul, with no regard for Sioux rights".
On hearing that line for the first time, I thought to myself that "Sioux rights" is not a thing to the perpetrators. Did the murdered Sioux have the right to life? I would like to think so, but "apparently not" seems to be the correct answer here.
In my opinion murder is wrong not because it causes harm but because it permanently prevents someone from experiencing anything at all. Also I wouldn’t say that it would be immoral for a person who can’t survive without eating other living people to not eat other people. It wouldn’t be immoral for a person to kill other people if the mafia would kill him if he doesn’t. Self preservation of life isn’t immoral even if it serves harm to others.
12:03 Jains are a weird case. Jains say they won't hurt a bug, or eat garlic (for some reason), but have no problem eating dairy products or using milk in meaningless religious rituals. I think westerners have a very warped perception of Jains (and eastern religions in general), and give them way more credit than they deserve.
I understand you don't mean harm though. Just thought I'd point that out. Love your content.
Off topic but looking good Alex! 👍
He is loosing his looks
@@davidregi7571 you are losing your eyesight
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists well yeah a lot of anti natalists think that way. but these two ideas are both a bit more complicated than how you described them.
In my view, veganism isn't explicitly focused on suffering. It also takes into account the _potential_ to experience well-being and suffering.
Otherwise, one could also use this line of reasoning to painlessly kill a baby animal (or human) as long as there are no extrinsic factors of suffering, even though a baby will undoubtedly live on to experience states of well-being throughout it's lifetime.
But just because an act itself doesn't induce suffering directly or indirectly doesn't inherently make it an ethical or unethical act.
The welfarist argues that an animal that lives a good life and experiences minimal suffering, but is ultimately painlessly killed, is justified.
What's not being considered here is the fact that had you hadn't killed the animal, they would have contiued to live and experience states of well-being. The single act of depriving an animal of the remainder of their overall "happy" lives could even be argued to be even more unethical than killing an animal that has and will continue to live in extreme suffering.
Just curious, what are your opinions on abortion? I'm curious to know if these beliefs influence your opinion
@@alexatkins6033 i agree with what he sead above and my opinion on abortions is as long as the part of the brain that makes you conscious hasnt started to develop yet you can get a abortion however after that starts to develop you cant get a abortion unless it is nessacary to save your life. However you can sign up to have it put up fot adoption upon birth.
@@alexatkins6033 Caring about the unborn leads to some really weird places. We shouldn't worry about potential people who haven't come into existence yet, but once a person is born then they matter and their future matters. So depriving a living being of the rest of their life is wrong, but abortions are fine in my opinion
I dont really enjoy arguments for the potential of something because we could take that in all sorts of directions. We could equally consider possibilities where an animal had the potential to experience suffering had they continued to live, which happens in all scenarios. I think the argument for future potentials only makes sense if you ask if the situation was justified or not given the circumstances in the present. Its unjustified to deprive an animal of future well being for the sake of taste pleasure or some other trivial reason. However it may be justified to deprive future well being in situations where your own life and well being are at stake.
@@alexatkins6033 Imo the rights and moral worth of an adult woman supersedes that of a foetus. I think the life of the mother should be weighted over that of the foetus in situations where you have to save either one or the other.
With regards to abortion, the future potential of an embryo to experience well being does not supersede the current and future reality of a woman experiencing the physical, psychologial, social and financial consequences associated with pregnancy and birth. Particulary since at a certain stage a foetus has not developed a cortex and cannot be said to meaningfully experience conciousness or pain. So I think abortion is justified in that context.
I'm too addicted to become a vegan, but I'm in a similar spot as you were when you had that debate with Stephen: I have no moral arguments against veganism. Unlike you, though, I've more or less simply accepted that I'm just not that good of person.
That said, your videos _have_ affected me. I grew up in rural Greece into a culture that looked down on anyone who wasn't an omnivore. Pickiness was for snooty snobs. _We_ ate _everything._
Nowadays, thanks to your videos, I'm waaaay more mindful of what I eat. I've completely given up beef, goat and octopus, for example. I've also reduced my meat consumption down to 1-2 days a week. Most of my days are vegetarian, some are vegan, some are omni.
Thanks, mate.
Good discussion, but you missed a key point: if we eat animals, there is absolutely no way to afford a "right to life" to the animal, because, by definition you are killing said animal. However, if we eat plants, there *is* a possibility to avoid the killing of any animals at all and thus affording them the right to life. Just because our current mass produced food system involves killing some animals to produce plants doesn't mean it's inherent.
For example, if I am a farmer that grows my own plants and raises my own animals, I can harvest the plants without killing animals (very possible), but I cannot eat one of the animals without killing them.
It's like the electric car argument - sure, the main source of current electricity generation may be from dirty sources (like coal), but there are clean sources of generation that can be used and more of these adopted going forward. Whereas with gas cars, you are going to pollute no matter what.
In any case, your point that eating plants harms exponentially less animals than eating meat makes a very strong case for veganism, so thank you for pointing that out 😀👍
"Do animals have a right to life?"
Well, that depends on how cute they are...
Thats the dumbest shit I've ever heard
And how tasty.
Since we're obviously trolling.
@@sumehrain8250 There are people who actually think like that.
@@sumehrain8250 It isn't dumb at all. A vegan will tell you you can't kill a cat, dog, catle etc but they will have no problem building a house and killing all kinds of bugs and insects in the process of building the house.
This statement is so true it hurts, just look at how society sees sharks.
There aren't different types of vegans. All vegans are "ethical" vegans since veganism is an ethical position.
An ethical position this video misrepresents.
I am not so sure that is true. What if literally the only reason someone is vegan is because they believe vegan food is healthier for themselves than it is eating meat? I certainly would not consider this person an ethical vegan.
@@beaverones41 that same person may wear leather, go to zoos, be into fox hunting... Etc etc
They're not vegan. They eat a plant based diet.
@@thecheekyscamp6466 Veganism by definition is avoiding all animal products. The reason you do it doesn't matter for the definition. Most vegans are more than likely ethical vegans in some way but to claim that you cannot be vegan without being an ethical vegan is very wrong.
@@beaverones41 no it isn't. The vegan society who coined the word also defined it. Alex even shares that definition in this video.
The fact that some people have for some reason decided to co-opt the term to describe strict vegetarianism doesn't make it so. The word has a meaning. And that meaning is defined by the vegan society.
Actually I think the use of the word vegan on foods (also touched on in this video) is part of the cause of this. The word vegan is used in that context to denote that a food is suitable for vegans since it contains no animal products. But this has just fed into the misunderstanding of what veganism actually is.
@@thecheekyscamp6466 The definition is still to only eat food that are not derived from animals, it has nothing to do with why you are doing it. The vegan society does not get to decide what veganism is. I do agree a huge majority of vegans are probably ethical vegans but to say it is impossible to be a non ethical vegan I think is just wrong.
whenever you upload i get so excited :D. you are so sophisticated when you approach the topics of animal rights/veganism, truly doing "gods" work here :P.
Grammar though?
@@slevinchannel7589 ESL :(
@@WTFisMYname24 Means what?
response uploaded
The reason why we are still not in the position to discuss an animal's right to live is 'cause society is not conscience driven but only abiding by the moral code in fear of the consequences of breaking it.
in the case of someone who murdered their neighbor 'cause they were hungry, the collective is not even concerned about the justice to individual as much as being interested in its own survival. All the talk about the right to life is a facade, the real issue is what it means for their own lives moving forward. Society protects you from having to be constantly worried that at any given time anyone can come barging into your home and kill you for their survival. The world is human-centric for this reason today too, we do not wish any tyrant can brainwash their people against another group and justify genocide against them. Through massive cooperation we ensure everyone's survival, not 'cause we truly care about humans but 'cause if we don't do anything about it now, eventually the problem will come knocking at our own door!
From this point of view, Humans don't really have the Right to Life either but we are able to maintain an illusion as long as there is massive cooperation with each other.
You have the duty to adhere to the moral code dictated by the society and in return you get to live a comfortable life that the system promises. A give and take. That's the best form of freedom we can have for ourselves 'cause most humans have not evolved to be naturally conscientious. So in this context, the chances of us recognizing an animal's right to live is pretty slim, the best we can do is ensure there is reduced suffering.
Four legs good, two legs bad-George Orwell.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists stfu
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists be respectful to the innocent animals.
Suggestion... make a channel to defend animals and other to talk about atheism.
I agree, Alex turned me vegan but still I don’t want this channel to be entirely about veganism
I mean, he is smart enough to realize he has the most reach on his main channel.
Looking forward to hearing this video
Haha I suppose you have some disagreements
@@samvandervelden8243
Very few
So many youtubers endorse VPNs and that's just one thing I'm not convinced is necessary. I don't really care if I get targeted ads. (Actually, I'd prefer an ad for something I'm interested in over some random beauty commercial most of the time). And I use adblock to minimize the inconvenience of ads. I also don't really need to watch things from other countries. Other than that, why does it matter?
It's impossible to live without causing suffering and death to other creatures on earth. Its just a matter of how much suffering you cause.
I would love to see an interview of you and Gary Francione (Tom Regan as the creator of the rights based approach is unfortunately already dead).
What is a "right"?
I would say humans and animals have rights or non at all... then again humanity is horrific
I've been wanting to say that you kinda look like Asa Butterfield except for the eyes.
I had to do a double take because I thought the same thing!
Alex has a bit more fuzz though
This didn't age well...
Someone's probably written this already, but I don't think the right to life comparison tracks very accurately here. Seems to me that there are 6 identifiable situations:
1. Killing a human intentionally to eat them
2. Killing or harming a human intentionally to eat their food
3. Killing or harming a human indirectly/accidentally/incidentally to get food
4. Killing a nonhuman animal intentionally to eat them
5. Killing or harming a nonhuman animal intentionally to eat their food
6. Killing or harming a nonhuman animal indirectly/accidentally/incidentally to get food
Most people, generally, don't like 1 or 2, but are fine with 3. We don't eat other humans, don't kill or harm other humans directly for food, but we do harm others, and are even responsible for human death, with our consumption -- food, clothes, electronics, and so on. None of us are innocent here.
Most people are also fine with 4, 5, 6. But in my opinion, 1, 2, 3 map onto 4, 5, 6 quite accurately with the average vegan. We refuse to kill nonhumans intentionally for food, refuse to kill or harm them intentionally to get their food (milk, eggs, for example), yet, like point 3, are willing to indirectly / accidentally / incidentally kill or harm nonhumans in order to be able to eat. Because, as you say, being a fruitarian isn't very sensible (or possible in much of the world).
Importantly, I must also say that we should all be doing more, in cases 3 and 6: to avoid collateral / incidental harm and death to both humans and nonhumans. Most of us don't do all that well, if we're honest.
Agree with Alex on this one: non-human right to life is, I'm afraid, as nonsensical as it is impractical. For just one of thousands of counter examples: We would have to let many young children die in malarial regions of the world because mosquitos had a right to life.
Animals have moral value and shouldn't be exploited for nothing more than the desire that killing them gives a person.
Is pet ownership moral/ethical?
I guess my pets (mostly rescues) now have a net positive life... but my actions to get them to this point may not be ethical by vegan standards.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists That doesn't make sense, maybe it's just me but idk you might need to rephrase your argument for continuing to consume animals products is exactly.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists Does the animal really care about how its body gets used after its killed? Or does it only care about whether its killed or not?
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists What are these nutrients that we can only get from the consumption of meat? I ask because from what I know there are no such nutrients.
@Check proofs of Islam in my playlists Go watch Game changers it's on Netflix. All types of different proteins are available through eating plants, just when your vegan you need to eat a variety of different protein sources... so you can't just eat one thing that has complete proteins but that just means you don't eat same thing everyday but a variety of different plant foods that are protein rich. See from what I know vegans can get protein from many different, some of them a higher in protein than you would expect them to be. Beans, Tofu and Tempeh are all very high in protein but there are many others vegan protein sources.
The way he dropped the sponsor 😂😂😂💓💓💓
I am just starting to learn more about ethical veganism. It seems as though there is a problem with lines being drawn. What denotes suffering? If a chimpanzee can suffer, can a mouse? What about insects? Even plants have been known to give off pheremones when being cut to warn other plants. Is this pain? Are we discriminating based on a different system for experiencing pain? What about people that live in places in which the majority of crops that can be grown are non-edible to humans? Do they have the right to kill the animals there, or should they accept malnourishment or starvation to adhere to the moral guidelines that you have proposed?
@Fek Lar There are many 3rd world countries that are unable to get frozen food shipped to them, and even if they could, the cost would be astronomical compared to raising their own chickens or livestock on grains inedible to us. Also, should the line be drawn for all animals? Is eating cricket paste cooked into your food as a source of protein immoral? I agree with your assessment about plants and probability.
I’m sure many others will have pointed this out... but you didn’t place the “crop deaths” argument into the human context in a way which is analogous... it’s not analogous to say “if I go and murder a human because I’d starve otherwise...”
what would be more analogous is to say “if there were human beings living on our crop lands - and the only way of removing them (in order to protect food security) was by lethal force”... I think when placed in this context it’s more clear that crop deaths is not a rights violation.
Define 'lethal force'
@@sathisharajah by lethal force I mean kill.
It's really nice to see you again Alex. Don't force yourself to push out content, if the quality suffers for it.
Asa Butterfield
I'm ok with this so far... except that I don't believe that people have a 'right to life'. I also don't think that animals have a right to life.
Doesn't this whole argument hinge on speaking to someone who believes that humans have a right to life?
please stop advertising vpns for goodness sake. watch Tom Scott’s video on it.
Thoughtful and objective are the two words that come to mind for your channel.
😎 Nice work
Nothing is consistent here. You can grant "rights" to different people (and we do) based on different characteristics. And like you already explained, it's a "right" to do X _unless_ Y.
Speaking of consistency, the idea that we "need to be consistent" is absurd. Take the trolley experiment. 5 people on one track, and one person on the other. The trolly is going toward the 5, so do you hit the switch and save 4 people? Most will say yes. Now take the same situation, but make it your mother (or closest loved one) on the 1 person track. If the trolley is headed toward your loved one, do you hit the switch or let your loved one die? If the trolley is headed toward the 5, do you hit the switch and kill your loved one but save 4 lives? Be consistent now.
We aren't consistent beings. We make decisions based on preferences according to how much the thing means to us.
Exactly. And there is nothing wrong with that.