It always fascinated me how people (mainly of Western culture, which I'm a part of) lament eating dog meat in some Asian countries while discussing it over a burger. The thing that fascinates me it that most of them are so convinced and comfortable in claiming that it's something totally different, because cows are cattle and dogs are pets, and not even realizing that it's a human construct.
This reminds me of a quote about a sentient horse having an opinion about its rider: (Source: Dirk Gently by Douglas Adams) It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion on them. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day, on top of another creature and not have the slightest thought about them whatsoever.
I just read that book two weeks ago after watching the netflix show. The show and book are quite different, but I loved both ^_^ Very appropriate quote there, too.
@@smurfmemez4112 i think it reconnects us to the animal kingdom.. sometimes humans are so disconnected from the fact that we too are animals, and it gives us a sense of power over other animals, and reinforces this whole concept of speciesism.
godjamGODJAM I know where you're coming from, because a lot of people are against the vegan diet before doing some research. But trust me when I say that little kids can be vegan just like any other human being. I know of some people who were vegan since birth and have a perfect health. Before, when we actually needed to eat animals, because it was a question of survival, I could have understood people, but now, we could live perfectly well without eating them. The conditions in which they are kept are monstrous and I don't believe in "humanely" slaughtered because there is no way that killing a living and sentient being is humane. And by the way, you say you hunt your prey and eat them, but you mean that other people farm your prey, and then kill them for you. Half of the world would at least go vegetarian if they had to kill their own meal; and even if you do hunt your pray, don't you feel any remorse? The only thing that animal has was its life, and you took it away from them. Oh, and before I said SENTIENT beings, because plants are not. They can't understand pain, and surely they can't even feel it. They don't have a nervous system, therefore it's highly impossible that they can actually understand (also because they don't have brains), what that feeling is.
If we hold the life of every living thing as equal we are presented with some very large problems.something that is never brought up in these conversations if that plants are by definition living thus if all life is equal why do animals get better treatment than plants which are certainly living.I mean if we are not allowed to be specious why are we allowed to be kingdomist(not giving creatures from all parts of the kingdoms equal treatment).At the end of the day it comes down to this,should someone who forgot to feed their cat be given years in prison because that is what someone who forgot to feed their child got.(also note that humanity would not have been able to produce the device you typed this comment on if they were not specious.)
+Bibi I don't know what type of farms or ranches you have been to but its clear you have only the idea of feed lots, and not open-pasture grazing with people working hard to give them as much alfalfa as they will come to get when they aren't feeling lazy. And as for the slaughtering process, it is the most humane way that can be done while still keeping up with demand. And I don't know if you have though about how we would grow enough fruit and vegetables to supply 50% of the nation. There is already a massive strain on arable land and fresh water resources which wont be getting better any time soon.
Hayes Bartlett, you do realize that feeding animals is a massive waste of land, don't you? You're worried about growing plants for about 8 billion humans, but not perplexed as to how we're currently feeding hundreds of billions of animals that will be slaughtered each year for human consumption. Odd.
He presented the most common pro-meat-eating arguments and countered them with reason. But it seems like a lot of people in this comment section are not satisfied because it's "pro-vegan". I want to hear some solid arguments from the pro-meat-eating side that he didn't tackle because it seems to me that this video is more about being pro-reason and logic than pro-veganism
This is a link to a great website that is a very good source to answer many health questions pertaining to a plant based diet.. nutritionfacts.org/?fwp_search=omega+3&fwp_content_type=video
koseq7 hemp is dirt cheap. And complete bs about no plants are complete protein sources. Soy, mycoprotein, quinoa and many seeds are complete proteins and there's no reason why you can't combine plant sources
I'd like to point out first, that: ''Omega-3 fatty acids are formed in the chloroplasts of green leaves and algae. While seaweeds and algae are the source of omega-3 fatty acids present in fish, grass is the source of omega-3 fatty acids present in grass fed animals.'' In other words, those are basically formed in plants. Secondly, to lack proteins in a diet one must either not eat anything that contains DNA or starve to death... both are pretty similar in fact. Any plant contains proteins, it is simply a false dichotomy to assume one must eat meat to get sufficient amount of proteins or lack in them by not eating meat. Garton, G. A. (1960). "Fatty Acid Composition of the Lipids of Pasture Grasses". Nature. 187 (4736): 511-12. doi:10.1038/187511b0.
I feel like this video jumped straight from "Animals are not simply at our disposal, their suffering matters" to "Go 100% vegan" If I'm raising livestock via traditional methods (lots of space, natural diet, etc, none of that cruel industrialized farming stuff) Then am I not entitled to eat that animal, just as I'm entitled to eat any crops that I grow? If I did not raise livestock, the animals would lead a (probably short) life of hunger and fear, constantly scrounging for food and being chased by predators. Is it not more humane to give the animal a safe, comfortable life, and a quick, (nearly) painless death?
I'm probably going to become a vegan or a vegetarian when I go to college, or start living on my own. The arguments against meat eating are pretty solid but I don't want to be a burden to my parents by denying meat.
nahuel mendez If stopping capitalism would hurt us significantly more than if we kept doing it, by definition the arguments against stopping capitalism are stronger than the arguments for stopping capitalism.
Noah Fence well if you believe in scientific studies...uncontrolled industrialization will harm us more than stoping the industry. so there's no harm in stoping the animal farming industry....and there's more harm in stopping the modern farming industry is that what you're saying?
"well if you believe in scientific studies...uncontrolled industrialization will harm us more than stoping the industry." One: False dichotomy. You can regulate the industry without stopping it. Two: I don't know what you're trying to argue here. You are literally saying that uncontrolled industrialization will hurt us more than another alternative while simultaneously saying that we shouldn't stop it. What is your point here? "so there's no harm in stoping the animal farming industry" There will be difficulties, but my position is that the benefits outweigh the costs. "and there's more harm in stopping the modern farming industry is that what you're saying?" I never contradicted myself. I was using your premise and challenging it with your logic. I never said whether or not capitalism is a good thing.
1st of all: you dont speak spanish right?...just to know, it would be awesome, but its not that necessary if it isn't your 1st language or you don't speak it fluently "One: False dichotomy. You can regulate the industry without stopping it" in theory its true, in practice the power of wealth crushes the sense of responsibility. "we shouldn't stop it." actually i think we cant "There will be difficulties, but my position is that the benefits outweigh the costs" to me it dosent seem like that ["and there's more harm in stopping the modern farming industry is that what you're saying?" ----------- "I never contradicted myself. I was using your premise and challenging it with your logic. I never said whether or not capitalism is a good thing."] i wanted to know if you think that and try to convince you why that ...considering uncontrolled industry,could not be truth
You can always dabble before going all-in, eat what your parents give you and experiment with dishes for yourself without having to finance it on a college-kid's grocery money. It would give you a better feel for what works for you and what (if anything) you'd want to cut.
I... almost want to cry. To see such a big youtube empire say these things. It means so much to me. Although to be fair, I don't think it will change much. On this issue in particular, people seem to shut down and refuse to think about it or possibly consider changing their mind. P.S. Non-vegan comments: "Vegans are going to have a field day with this one." "Watching this while eating a delicious roast beef sandwich. The cows death was totally worth it." "If non-human animals weren't meant to be eaten, then why are they so delicious?" "ANIMALS AREN'T CONSCIOUS. furious vegan fanatics and animal supremacists in 3..2.." "I WOULD go vegan but meat just tastes SOOOO good XD my pleasure and convenience is more important than the pain and death of another organism" Still looking for those furious vegans, by the way. :P
I'm not an absolutist, nor would I kill myself to save another human, let alone another animal. I'm not crazy, I don't believe in doing 0 harm to animals. That's impossible, just by existing as humans we harm the environment with every step we take. I'm not arguing for 0 harm to animals at all! You're completely right, the only way to completely reduce our harm would be to kill ourselves. Why would I worry about the impossible? I'm really unsure where you even got this idea from. I never said what my own beliefs are. So.... who are you really arguing with? lol Certainly not me!
***** He asked me where I got the idea from that he's a vegan; I gave him the bit that I found strongly hinting at it. Or is there something else you're not seeing the point of? Or did you not even bother readin a 3 comments long discussion before opening your mouth?
Being vegan is so much easier than I thought it would be. I really thought it was this scary impossible thing before I went vegan, but it turned out to be really pretty easy. I feel such a relief -- I was carrying around so much cognitive dissonance before, thinking that I was a compassionate animal lover, but still using animals as a mere means to my own ends. My only regret is that I didn't go vegan sooner!
@@davidfortier6976 People keep saying they get mad at vegans for their toxic personality, but I have been noticing a recent rise in toxicity from meat eaters against vegans(honestly more so). I'm not a vegan myself, but this is some BS. If its about choice, then live and let live. If its about morality, I can't see how veganism is morally bad in any way. If its about other vegans being annoying, then you are partaking in generalization(which most would consider to be a bad thing). This person is just telling their own story, if you don't care, don't comment.
Im seriously considering some of my lifestyle choices now. Philosphy makes u scrutinize yourself and feel good about that even if u come out on the wrong side as it appeals to your reason instead of "pointless taking sides compatmentalism" that prevails everywhere among ppl nowadays.
It's very difficult to talk about these without making people emotional and sort of mad. You did an amazing job in bringing up these arguments in a way that I think if I wasn't vegan already I would have started considering it right after this video! Thank you!
I have been having problems with deciding if I should be a vegeterian/vegan for months tipping from view to view, messig with my own morals, ethics and definitions. Then this video came along and presented every part of my mental process as well as the arguments of my friend and family. It's like this entire course is the collectionof all my countless existential crisises listed, with words for everything, and all the details I was looking for. The feeling of having your thoughts confirmed, and explained throughout history. CrashCourse is awsome!
This isnt necessarily true, if we ate mostly chicken and pork it would be better then all the land clearing that would be required to eat an entirely plant based diet.
But our carbon foot print actually saved million of plants and animals. If you think that CO2 is a pollutant you are miss informed. Don't believe the TV and main stream science, learn to think for yourself... I mean it has been proven long time ago... anthropogenic global warming is a TAX scam and pseudo science. 1. We have increased the levels of CO2 in favor of the planted. They are now close to optimal for plant growth. 2. Warm is better then cold. But the global temperatures have no significant change for the past 20 years contradicting and destroying the climate change computer models. 3. Human global warming thesis claims that our foot print is going to rise the ocean levels and endanger the collar reefs. Every single marine biologist will tell that the rise of ocean levels is extremely good for the collar reefs. I think that Atheists who believe in the anthropogenic climate change thesis are a sign of a something terrible. If a pseudo science thesis like human made climate change can get so popular and accepted, by the people who claim that logic and the scientific method, nullifies the need of religion because of lack of empirical evidence... The we are fucked big time I say. You are idiots and this is really SAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Mastakur ummmmm as someone who has been studying biology and climate sciences for 5 years now, I can say your argument is a load of bologna. Warmth can kill creatures to, several plants prefer colder weathers, more violent tropical storms are created with warmer temperatures. The sea acidifies, coral bleaches and dies, the poles melt and the cold water seeps into warm currents, disrupting them and destroying whole populations of tropical wildlife. Please, leave this whole "thinking" department for those more apt for cognitive functioning....
I loved it. You made the point that we (including me) meat eaters are devoid or moral justification, but you did it softly. Well done. I have thought about this to death. Even though I continue to eat meat, i have concluded that it is terribly wrong of me to do so. I need to stop.
Stephen Smith, making that ethical connection between animal cruelty and food is the most important part.. Here is a link to a great website that has sound nutritional information given by a Vegan Dr it is a good place to start....Again I would like to congratulate you for making the ethical connection between animals and food. Here's that link :) nutritionfacts.org/videos/
Stephen Smith TBF there really are plenty of people who cannot live on a plant based diet only. I think American culture is pro meat to a degree that is a little crazy and we would benefit from pulling away from that but I also don't thing a vegan diet is realistic for everyone. Even plants have their cost. Namely the underpaid labor that goes into getting them to your plate.
he assumed that plants are just non sensory beings and it is ok to eat them.... today due to modern science we know plants can see through photo receptor... all plants can smell as studies show they ripen due to whiff of certain chemicals... they have sense of touch .many studies say plants respond to sounds.. and they feel happy and cry.so they have less senses than humans and animals.. does this means it is ok for you to eat beings who have less senses then animals? if yes then ... would it be ok for you to eat your brother who is dumb blind and deaf.....so i eat animals to survive same like if i would eat less sensory species of plants.
Stephen Smith I'm sorry, but as an omnivore, which us humans totally are by nature. So, it's not "tradition" why we do eat meat, that is a completley biassed idea. Also, must species we eat, like cows and pigs, are animals that we DESIGNED through centuries precisely to fullfil our eating needs, they woudnt even exist if we didnt need them for that. So, I found this episode quite biased and acually outside it's own recomendation of having to think about things rationally to do philosophpy. I think the must rational approach to meat eating would be that we are absolutley designed to do so, we have done it as a species BEFORE we were even human, and althought things have sadly gone out of hand and we should be the must humane possible in using animals for food (and clothing, and a good deal of industrial uses, and beeing killing them by thousands to have almost any commodity we have in this industral age ;-) ) The fact stays that we need them to stay alive and eating meat is not just something about "taste" in principle, although it can be at another level.
Yelling Hayfire That may be true (I can't say since I have very little dog experience), but let the record say that the majority of pigs I've ever encountered are catastrophic morons.
Cody Sprigg That argument says nothing about why things should be objectively meaningful. Complexity does not mean objective, meaningful existence/function in the universe.
You can make arbitrary conparisons to asymptotically degrade the meaning of something. But this is only a perspective trick. You know there is meaning in YOU not suffering. I will see you running from what BAD IS.
Damn, I'm actually thinking about being a vegetarian after watching this. I always figured it's the way of the world to eat meat. How am I different from any other carnivore? And plants are living creatures too afterall. But dismissing this conversation doesn't say much for my ability to be a deep thinker. Alot to consider here, thanks crash course
You seem to be able to grasp deeper subjects and distance your initial instincts from your actual interest in finding out what's true or not, what's moral or not, what we ought to do and what we should stay away from. That's the difference.
Pete in general people would probably be better off pulling back in the sheer amount of meat products they eat. I am not vegetarian or vegan by any stretch of the imagination but I enjoy many meatless meals without having to try hard at all.
Look up the anatomy of carnivores and herbivores and omnivores and you'll have it figured out. For one thing, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to catch another animal that you normally eat and eat it only using your teeth and nails (and stomach) xD That's exactly how I made my mind. I was constantly trying to give myself different reasons not to go vegetarian, because I so much enjoyed bacon and thought that it would be worse giving up on it, than on water xD But, after some time, you realize that it's just you trying to hide from facing your own guilty reflection. I'm still not quite there yet -- I eat some types of seafood, but I will be soon enough:)
Plants are living creatures too, but just because they don't feel pain, can we treat like rocks and dirt? Can we kill a living creature, just because it doesn't feel pain? Are plants lesser creatures than us and animals? What about insects that doesn't feel pain? Can we eat them?
Also, the commends make me very happy! I am really proud of all of you guys going vegan, even if we live in a society that mostly looks down on veganism, ridicules it and tells you to continue eating meat (at least, this is what I experience in the Netherlands)
Strygger all of you carnist are being so literal to deflect from the fact that you pay for murder. None of you actually think plants can feel pain like the innocent animals enslaved by the meat, fish, dairy and egg industries. No one on this earth actually thinks that way, its just a last ditch effort to stay in denial about your destructive lifestyles.
Kiwi Um. That's very closed-minded... Why should I care about animals at all? The video itself said why: beliefs and positions need to be philosophically justified and consistent or there's literally no conversation to be had. So why bother talking about plants? Because of the *exact same reason*. Many of the claims made in the video apply not only to animals, but also to plants or even more primitive forms of life. Clearly you think there's a *morally relevant difference* between plants and animals. Ok, what is it? Here's an example: maybe you think the *MRD* is that plants have no developed nervous system and therefore can't feel pain. That would be a good argument, but it has implications, because the same argument applies to pretty much all non-vertebrates. Do you think it's ok to farm jellyfish and bugs? Because if you still say no, then you're going to have to come up with a different MRD.
Kiwi Um. That's very closed-minded... Why should I care about animals at all? The video itself said why: beliefs and positions need to be philosophically justified and consistent or there's literally no conversation to be had. So why bother talking about plants? Because of the *exact same reason*. Many of the claims made in the video apply not only to animals, but also to plants or even more primitive forms of life. Clearly you think there's a *morally relevant difference* between plants and animals. Ok, what is it? Here's an example: maybe you think the *MRD* is that plants have no developed nervous system and therefore can't feel pain. That would be a good argument, but it has implications, because the same argument applies to pretty much all non-vertebrates. Do you think it's ok to farm jellyfish and bugs? Because if you still say no, then you're going to have to come up with a different MRD.
I think it`s exactly the point. You are given a new perspective on aspect of consuming meat, and you just basically saying "i don't give a damn about morals or philosophy, I just want to write a stupid comment to get some lol's". Somebody is skipping his philosophy homework.
The video doesn't condemn meat eaters, it just asks us to be consistent and question our motivations. Nothing wrong with eating meat. So probably it's you who didn't do his philosophy homework)
I'm watching the previous video on discrimination. Hank: Please share your views - *kindly and respectfully* - in the comments." I scroll down. The comments are turned off. Me: "Yikes."
Ritalin Popper Well, rabbits aren't people and I don't see what makes using them so terribly different from the mice and rats used in medical experiments. Is it just because rabbits are bigger and cuter?
Marlon Moncrieffe I'm against unnecessary animal testing, for things like cosmetics, which was what Hank talked about in the video. Medical research is more nuanced. As a consequentialist, I'm not categorically opposed to it (or anything really), just so long as the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Most people agree on that point, except they don't take drawbacks (animal suffering) seriously and only focus on the benefit for humanity. At this point, I'm somewhat reluctant to believe that it's worth it, especially given the difficulty in extrapolating research data between different species. But yeah, if we're actually reducing a greater harm, by causing a lesser harm, then I'm in favor of that, whatever it is. Those are my values, but I'm ignorant on where the cost-benefit analysis would actually lead me.
I love watching all the meat eaters in the comments regurgitate the exact arguments Hank dismissed in this video. The fact of the matter is that eating meat and animal products which require suffering is morally inconsistent. Philosophically, eating meat makes no sense for a human.
A vegan society kills more animals than a carnivorous society. Plainly, by the numbers, we kill far more animals and insects just through growing crops than we do by slaughtering cattle and other animals for meat, leather, and other products. Poison, Irrigation, harvesting with heavy machines, all these things kill animals and insects, and on a far greater scale than any slaughter houses. If we are looking at this from a Utilitarian Perspective, then we have a moral obligation to choose ranching over farming. This is simply because the suffering of a few animals to provide food, in the form of meat, for us is less than the suffering of a great many animals to provide food, in the form of plants, for us. Going beyond that; without a need to maintain many of the animals we now use for food, we would stop taking care of them, and in many cases their entire species would be wiped out. This comes about as a result of the selective breeding that leaves many unable to even procreate without human intervention.
Micheal Goode That's a good point and I'm glad you brought it up. What you seem to be forgetting is that a large majority of all crops are used as food for livestock. Because fewer crops would be grown, fewer insects and other animals would be killed. Cutting down on animal agriculture would result in fewer animals dying in slaughter houses and fewer animals dying because of poison, irrigation, etc.
We'd still have to add to the farmed vegetables as much protein and such as we would lose from not having meat. That would still leave us killing en masse more small animals like mice, voles, snakes, and insects than ranching.
Micheal Goode I don't think you understand just quite how much of our farmland is used to feed live stock. For every pound of meat someone eats, that animal had to eat 16 pounds of farmed crops (it's somewhere between 13 and 16, you can verify yourself). If everyone stopped eating meat. There would be enough farmed crops to end world hunger many times over.
I'm a bit disappointed by the way he treated this issue. In order to think philosophically about animals, we need to come up with a theory of animal rights. The theory needs to convincing in order for us to agree animal have rights. A major starting point is acknowledging that ONLY humans recognize rights. Animals don't think about the lives of other animals (or plants) before they eat them (as far as we know). From here, we assume - animals have rights because we, people, think they should have rights. Why should they have rights, and what kind of rights? Every right needs to be justified individually. Why do we treat cats and dog differently than other animals? He did not answer that question; but there is an answer to it, of course. Because WE DOMESTICATED them. Simply put, we trained and selectively breeded them generation after generation to respond to our actions and emotions, to the point they are genetically programmed to behave the way we won't us to behave. Wild animals don't do that, because they can't. Pets are different because by centuries of breeding, we made them to be attractive to us. WE made them different. Our civilization put the entire animal world under our control. Is it right that it's under our control? Consider it philosophically. Anyway, THINK about it yourself. Don't just take other's words' for it.
You're bringing up another point, but the quickest way to purchase moral considerability for animals is through Singer's argument, since we all seem to understand without argument that causing suffering is a prima facie wrong.
The problem with that argument is that animals obviously have no problem with causing suffering to other animals; in fact, I've read that animals don't just do it to eat, some of them do it for fun, like cats. So why should we have a problem with it? Once again we come back to the starting point of having to argue about the difference between animals and humans and why we as a species have a problem with causing suffering to other species, while other species don't. This is the biggest problem with Singer's accusation of specie-ism: the basic argument against racism is that racism is wrong because all races are equal. The same can't be said about humans and other species: we are quite obviously different since we're having all those arguments about animals' rights, while other animals don't. Animal rights activists would be much better starting with the argument that animals and humans are quite obviously NOT EQUAL, but that does not justify humans killing, harvesting or eating animals.
Just because animals do things doesn't mean we should. Psychopaths cause other humans suffering for fun, but we know that that is ethically wrong of them. So as a species, some of us don't have problems with hurting others. That doesn't mean we can breed and slaughter psychopaths for our own pleasure. And no, the basic argument against racism is that we shouldn't disparage against others based on things which are out of their control. This is also the argument against homophobia, the argument for women's rights, etc. It isn't that women are exactly the same as men, black people are exactly the same as white people, because on average there are differences. It's that needlessly causing suffering to others based on physical qualities has no basis in reason and is ethically wrong. If we extend your moral net to include all things which are sentient, you have a necessity for animal rights/veganism.
That is a better argument. But let me consider this. "We shouldn't disparage against others based on things which are out of their control." Does that mean I should treat all as equal, even if they are arguably, not equal, simply because the inequality is not under their control? Let's say I believe that people are not born with the same skills, and that some have better logical thinking or abilities to learn than others, and they can't change that. Let's say I have two of those candidates that I need to choose for a job, and one is obviously better skilled than the other; as far as I know, he could have been born with those skills; believing in meritocracy and market principles, I would choose the better skilled one. I did discriminate between them; however, that is justified discrimination in my view. Does that follow that if both of them ask me for a service, I should also deny service to the less skilled person? No, that would be unjustified discrimination, because his lesser skills are irrelevant for the purposes of acquiring the service. So I disagree with this argumentation.
We're talking about ethics, not hiring practices. Pure capitalism often DOES go against the principles of utilitarianism, though. Like when markets fail, bringing suffering to consumers, or like when it results in a stratified society which leads to needless suffering of the lower classes. My quote was, 'It's that needlessly causing suffering to others based on physical qualities has no basis in reason and is ethically wrong'
Thank you so much for making me and so many others to think about animals. Since animals cannot speak for themselves, people should speak up for animals exploited in human society.
Name the trait present/absent in animals which if present/absent in you would cause you to reject your right to non-exploitation. Untill you do so you hold a double standard by denying animals their right to non-exploitation.
Omg! In India, we have all sorts of Godmen, holy men, monks and missionaries who appeal people to become vegetarian but none of them has affected me nearly as profoundly as this video!
Most of it has to do with sentience. Animals, even ones without fully developed brains tend to have neural tissue and the ability to suffer and feel pain, as mentioned in the video. Plants cannot feel pain, although they may have the ability to react to stimulus, something called noceception, this is not the same as the ability to experience pain. And anyway, if your idea is to reduce suffering (operating under the hypothetical that plants could feel pain), going vegan actually means you're killing fewer plants because the extra plants you eat barely compare to the amount of plant food that is grown and used to feed to animals that are used for meat, milk, and eggs.
So if I understand the position correctly: It is immoral to eat anything that can feel pain. Does this mean that eating animals without a brain or developed central nervous system (jellyfish, clams, oysters, sea cucumbers etc.) would be acceptable?
Quite a few utilitarian vegans are ok with eating bivalves. From what I understand, Peter Singer doesn't have a problem with eating oysters. Usually their reasoning is that there's a gradient involved according to the probability that an animal can feel pain. In this sense, the utilitarian position is more nuanced than that of the deontological vegans who would argue that the taking of animal life is immoral regardless.
Brandon Hall some vegans would say so, but strictly from an ethical standpoint. A reason not to eat them is the environmental impact of the fishing industry on the health of the oceans and planet.
They dont have brains so they can't feel pain, they can however react to things like being cut and grow in different patterns or release chemical reactions as a result. Besides, what do you think animals eat? Plants. By going on a plant based diet, there would be lower consumption of plants.
I'm a speciesist. I do however, think that we have gone too far with favoring humans, and I'd like to see a gradual shift towards a more harmonious existence between us and nature. But when push comes to shove, I'll pick humans over other animals all damn day (all else being equal).
It's not between choosing a human or a non-human animal though. It's between hurting the animal, or hurting neither (unless it's a life or death situation.) Animal agriculture is also one of the most destructive practices humans engage in www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969715303697 www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212371713000024 www.fao.org/newsroom/en/News/2006/1000448/index.html
of course you would, it is your species. but push has not come to shove, there hasn't even been a tap. it benefits us in every way not to eat animals, so it is the logical choice to make. if a house is burning, i will save the baby before the puppy. but that hasn't happened, and no one puts a gun to someone else's head so that i'll eat meat.
Thank you both for your respectful replies. The key phrase is 'all things being equal'. Stephanie, you are right, it has not come to that (baby vs puppy). I consider it a reasonable reality that you guys are way ahead of the curve when it comes to balancing humans in nature. I lack a lot of understanding in this. I hope we can share more knowledge some time in the future.
Carson Barlow a lot of people say to watch forks over knives, then cowspiracy, and then earthlings (the first two are on netflix). while those a great documentaries and great sources, they can be a little much to digest at once. i recommend bite size vegan on youtube. she is a sea of knowledge and nonjudgemental.
"as most other humans" is an ad populum argument "as long as there are no negative consequences" i agree with, but the science is in, there ARE negative consequences. Hank's arguments on nonhuman animal rights are compelling, but you don't have to buy them. You just need to look at the science of how animal agriculture contributes to climate change (more than the entire transportation industry, by some measurements) or MOST IMPORTANTLY- your health. for an overview, check out this article www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/plant-based-diet_b_1981838.html
(ive never been the kinda guy to care about other peoples diets or lifestyles for the record, theres nothing wrong inherently for eating meat lol) that said this video helped me make a rational decision to stop eating meat as soon as i can, which id considered for *years* but never got to because of my familys lifestyle and my own hesitation. ive always loved crash course philosophy but this was the first video to make such an immediate change in my actions and not just my beliefs. ty!!
From a utilitarian perspective, if we're counting all animal suffering as equal, what of carnivores? Would it not be preferable for the population of lions to go extinct rather than have the many more animals be killed and eaten to sustain them? As for hunting a carnivore, wouldn't the suffering of the one carnivore that was killed be outweighed by the many more animals that were spared by removing the carnivore from the environment?
Yes. Wild animal suffering is an awfully important and neglected topic. Contrary to the idyllic view of nature, life in the wild is cruel and inhospitable to its inhabitants. This is especially true because most species are r-selected, which means they produce a lot of offspring, most of whom die well before they reach adulthood, often in painful ways. Predation, hunger, thirst, injury, parasitism, cold, heat... None of us would want to endure that, so it makes sense to feel bad for animals who have it imposed on them involuntarily. Now, removing carnivores is a little risky because it may result in an overpopulation of herbivores, who will suffer quite a bit in their lives, even if they're not killed by a predator. A better solution is to reduce the amount of primary productivity (plant life). That way, less herbivores would be able to exist because there would be less food and, consequently, less carnivores will be able to exist. Ideally tho, we can wipe out the whole damn thing eventually. It's not like there's any grand purpose to the whole consumption-reproduction cycle, other than its own perpetuation. But something tells me environmentalist lunatics will oppose it because "nature is sacred" or some other crazy woo. +Mgb 360
+Oleksiy I think there is more to be valued from the environmental cycle than simply an argument of nature as sacred. There are many scientific discoveries we would never have made were it not for the animals that exist in our world. As one example, lets say pigs were not nearly as tasty as they are in reality, and as such were wiped out in the 1800's because they were decided to be a nuisance. Because they have not been wiped out in reality, we now have them and can use them for some very beneficial things. We may, at some point in the future, be able to grow replacement human organs inside a genetically modified pig so that those organs can be transplanted into the human to replace failed organs. Obviously, we aren't there yet, and it leaves a potential for a lot of issues, but it is possible that, in the future, it may be worthwhile to do so. Likewise, if we decided to exterminate all life that wasn't immediately necessary for our survival, it may turn out to be a poor decision later down the line and the consequences of those actions could very well be irreversible.
Mgb 360 Killing the lion would cause an overgrowth of some populations that would lead eventually to death of many other plant eating species because of less and less plants to eat :p
Szkotu Szkocki There always has to be a balance to minimize death, but it's entirely possible that the balance was shifted in a way that killing the lion would be useful. Either way, lowering the total number of creatures so that the balance is lower would be preferable.
I do think there's a difference between animals and humans. The capacity to suffer is what's relevant in moral considerations. That's why we care more about people than rocks. There is also clearly a scale of suffering. Insects or fish seem to be quite limited, while mammals can suffer more. Next comes interests, as you say. A cow possibly has the same capacity for pain as me, although I'm not sure. But even if we share the lowest lows, we don't share the highest highs. This makes owning a person evil, while owning a cow is fine, because the cow has an extremely limited ability to care about or enjoy freedom. I think you actually make a strong argument that primates require a great deal more moral consideration, perhaps comparable to mentally impaired humans. Overall I agree with Singer to a certain degree. The future will look back at factory farming in shame and disgust. The lives of animals _are_ important (if not quite as important as human's) and we should strive to alleviate their suffering.
so we shall care to alleviate the pain of others species before our own?(that not what you said i know but its the argument of many herbivores)...cause i think we live around the globe in such a good society that pain in all kinds of levels does not exist
You can do that in a number of different ways. If you kill a calf and feed a tiny piece of it to your cat and throw the rest away I'd say it's not OK. If you feed it road kill or hunted invasive species I'd have less of a problem with it. So there's no black/white answer here.
I often struggle with that. I have to feed my rescued and neutered cats a bit of meat in their diet. I think the moral imperative here is to prevent species depending on meat from multiplying due to our own impact - like street animals, who tend to multiply very quickly in man-made environment, often because previous generations had been looked after, fed etc. by humans. In fact that's even true for cats, but not dogs, who can thrive on a meat-free diet. In that case I think all you can do is neuter the population, feed them as little meat as possible to allow them to live healthy lives if you look after them, and lobby for the quicker development of affordable lab-grown meat for pet food... but I'm not convinced that there is a good answer. I think the less we interfere with nature, the better, but when we have already done so, we have to try and minimise suffering in the most effective ways possible.
@Spongebob Squarepants You have my sympathy and I too can't wait for lab-grown meat to be available for cat and dog food! It'll save so many lives. I feed my kitties as little meat as I need to, they have a healthy diet altogether but it wouldn't be healthy without a bit of meat (mostly it wouldn't be very palatable to them - most of the taurine etc in meat is added as supplements rather than actually being part of the nutritional content of the meat itself, which really makes you think! I think for dogs you have a bit more leeway though, they can synthesize what they need from a broader diet, can't they, especially with well-designed veggie pet food that's available nowadays....? I'm not saying I know about that as an expert, you should definitely research it, but I have friends who've had very healthy dogs for years on a mostly vegetarian/vegan diet - but those people did really do their research to make sure their dogs were getting everything they needed, and give them a bit of high quality meat). I'm not advocating taking meat out of cats' or dogs' diets altogether - but it doesn't need to be the bulk of what they eat, by all accounts, which at least reduces demand somewhat...
So you base what you apply your morals on with only one factor, being if the organism in question is a moral agent? Even though they can still feel pain and you have chosen to accept letting them suffer for your pleasure?
problably you wouldnt eat fluffy just because you have an emotive bond with it, not because he is A cat but because he is YOUR cat, this doesnt preclude the fact that you could eat any cat
I would probably eat any clean, healthy meat served to me, regardless of species. I wouldn't eat the animal if I had a bond with the individual in life, because I wouldn't personally be able to eat something I'm grieving. My issue expands from my inability to even touch uncooked meat, the texture repulses me. I couldn't kill the animal, or cut up a dead one. But if it was cooked, I could eat it. Dog, cat, whatever. So long as it's not going to kill me...
So you're okay with paying someone to kill an animal for you and you're okay with paying someone to cook an animal for you, but you can't do it yourself
+[Subjektnamen hier eingeben] Real talk? I'm kinda curious how human would taste, ya know, properly cooked and seasoned and all that. Not saying I'd kill someone to find out, but, ya know. Still curious.
we used to have clean, farmed dog meat until these people started being specesist and hating on the farms so now we get unclean, captured stray dog meat being served the results turned out great, didn't it
Animal fighting for sport is obviously different from eating cows. It's still hypocritical to eat cows and pigs but raise dogs and cats, but fighting pits are just raw cruelty.
This is so important!! Most people just ignore this, but it matters so much. I am very much on the Peter Singer side of the debate, human mistreatment of other sentient is such a huge problem. Intelligence should not matter because you don't need to be smart to feel pain or happiness. Another often overlooked topic I'd love to see covered in a Crash Course Philosophy video is the treatment of young people by adults, and the philosophical foundations, or lack thereof, around them. Young people are often discredited and discriminated against for completely irrelevant reasons. Thanks, Crash Course Philosophy! :)
Thank you for talking about this subject! Non-human animals are commonly ignored in this discussion. We are just one species among billions of others. Sure we're smarter but that doesn't make it ok to harm others.
NUMBERS. That is what decides whether hunting is okay or not. And there are NOT enough lions to be going around hunting them, or bears, or giraffes, or wild cats!
i don't think that's the case, humans have been responsable for the extintion of any number of species over their history, hunting animals regardless of their numbers. Moreover, there are a shit ton of cats and dogs around the world, why it wouldn't be okay to eat or hunt them?.
life = life though. I love my computer and I know it would be impossible to have without the exploitation we have exersized over the years, but to claim that harming something that feels as humans do and that is just and fair but simular treatment of other people isn't right is just hypicritcal. I am a proud hypocrite when it comes to this, but I don't think of myself in a bright and just light because of it. Neither should you. Non humans = humans on the life specter. Don't let the 'food chain' get you twisted, life = life
High quality. I remember what you said though, Hank. It went something along the lines of "Some times it causes more suffering in our own life to fight against the grain, and though it's self-interested, It's the best I can do."
Hey Hank, Have you quit meat yet? I know this has been on your mind for a while now. I remember when you put out a vlogbrothers clip on this a couple of years back. As a non-animal eater, I really appreciated the way you didn't deny the reality of meat, even though you still ate it. Knowledge is power and with power comes responsibility, soooo... you can do it!
Personification, pure and simple. Humans like some animals more than others. We like dogs, cats, and other traditional pets because we attribute them to being fun, innocent, loyal, caring, etc. Essentially, we project or notice certain qualities about them that we value. By contrast, we rarely think of cows, chickens, or pigs outside of their purpose as farm animals. When Cecil and Harambe were shot, people were offended because of the circumstance. Harambe was in a zoo, would have lived a long peaceful life, if not for the child that fell in and the reaction of the staff. Cecil was in an animal in a national park, and was hunted purely for sport. He was also a member of a species which was declared endangered later that year. As the video pointed out, you might consider self defense and/or other factors to be justification. However that doesn't apply here. Cecil was killed for a trophy and bragging rights. Harambe was shot, because an irresponsible parent neglected to stop their child from climbing into a gorilla enclosure. As I said, we like some animals more than we like others and it shows in the manner with which we treat them.
Judah Davis because you are putting your commodity before the life of others. There's no justification and you are just being tremendously hypocritical if you are against racism, sexism, but not speciesism. Sorry bout it
@@ivaaferr8141 Yes but you see that is your opinion based on how you feel about other animals. The reason why sexism and racism is wrong is because we humans are of equal value (not on a invidual basis but certainly on a global basis). You assume that animals also are of equal value but why do you think that? You have no God so what do you base your morals on?
You don't always have to be consistent, nor do you always have to be rational. Having one irrational thought doesn't mean you're _'opting out of rational discourse'_, it just means you have an irrational thought.
Ashley Small I agree with this. Those type of standards are absolutely ridiculous and no human could actually live up to it; at the very least pragmatically I could never imagine being consistent at that level. I'd legitimately kill myself before having to deal with the level of absolutism regarding rational thought. Not to say I disagree with veganism, I actually agree with it, I'm just saying. I can be rational, helpful, and morally righteous, but have a taint somewhere and it doesn't invalidate what I've done or invalidate my ability to do rational things.
I presume it's simply towards the idea itself rather then anything specific. Animal exploitation obviously has huge implications behind it but on the basis of it, just because there's something you're not being rational about, doesn't mean you can't be rational about something else. It doesn't mean you can't show morality in some other field; requiring such standards is absolutely ridiculous and is doomed to fail if you apply it _only_ because of the inconsistent thought or rational. There has to be some form of moral weight behind this that makes certain inconsistent morals harder to ignore; as otherwise just making an excuse about work that you're previously championed not making while never admitting the connection would cause you to be completely unable to be rational or at least, have no moral weight in anything further. Which just isn't true and probably would result in us not getting anywhere. TDLR; there has to be a reason besides just being inconsistent that this is important. But I suppose I should let Ashley answer.
Josh F I wasn't being specific. I was talking more generally about absolute rationalism. We're imperfect, and I don't like the height of his standards - or at least how he phrased them. pikamontr You pretty much nailed it.
DISCLAIMER: As written text lacks the ability to put *emphasis* (as exemplified there) on words and phrases which is so important in the conveying of meaning in spoken text, I use *bold text* as a substitute for that ability. Therefore, any abundance of bold text in this post should not be viewed as any emotional instability or otherwise as an indication of irrational behaviour on my part, but instead as an attempt to convey as much meaning as possible with my words in this limited format. A difficult topic, certainly. But nonetheless, here is my attempt at a response. Equal Consideration of Interests, as you call it, should of course go all ways it can. You rightly pointed out that owning or eating a Human Being _[or Fluffy the cat, for that matter -- but I'll get back to her]_ is seen as morally abhorrent, and thus owning or eating a non-Human Animal should be seen the same way according to the Principle of the Equal Consideration of Interests. However, you neglected to consider the case which goes the other 'way round: if, say, the consumption for culinary or nutritional considerations (i.e. "eating") of non-Human Animals by Humans is seen as morally abhorrent, shouldn't the eating of non-Human Animals by *other non-Human Animals* seen the same way? After all, isn't the point of Philosophy, in your words at least, that we should be internally consistent? Why should the catching (and often *torturing*, no less) and subsequent consumption of the flesh of a mouse by Fluffy the cat -- there she is again -- be OK when we view similar treatment of Humans and non-Human Animals alike by Humans as morally abhorrent? Or, alternatively, if we are OK with Fluffy doing what she does to the mouse, why shouldn't we be OK with what Humans do to non-Human Animals? Speaking of that line of thought, the thing about _"This is the way it's always been."_.... Not only has it been this way for the life-span of the Human Race, but it has been this way for the *entirety* of the existence of *Life on Earth*. You could say it's the "natural order of things", in a way, and that there is no reason to change something which has *literally* been the case *for as long as there WERE cases* to consider. I'm not sure whether I'd say this is a good argument myself, but it is certainly one to consider. And, most importantly, to not misrepresent by saying it only applies to the time Humans were on Earth, as supposed to the time Life Itself was on Earth. My own, personal answer is that, just as I wouldn't want non-Human Animals to be tortured by Humans, I'd stop Fluffy _[or Munky, for that matter, who was my cat who died a little under a year ago]_ from torturing mice if I knew of a way to convince them. However, as I am perfectly OK with Fluffy, Munky or any other cat *eating* _[and catching, for that matter, if the kill would be instantaneous]_ mice, I also have no trouble with Humans eating non-Human Animals. I do, however, think that the use of non-Human Animals for needs *other* than consumption of the flesh for eating purposes -- say, testing Cosmetics -- should be moved away from with utmost haste as soon as humanly _[he he]_ possible for the moral reasons discussed in this video and above in this post. I also think the ownership of Animals for the purposes of doing something with them that would kill them should be moved away from as much as possible as soon as possible, and not just for the Philosophical and Moral reasons that apply -- owning and feeding a cow, for example, to the point of raising it so that it's meat may be consumed or new cows can be born is equivalent to many, many miles of driving a really old and heavily CO2-emitting car. Not sure how many miles anymore, but I do remember it's a lot. On the other hand, we are perfectly OK with Humans working for other Humans, as long as the working conditions -- and, should they be housed by the Company, living conditions -- are of a high standard and they get payed for what they do. Similarly, it could be argued that, say, keeping a Cow for the purposes of extracting her milk is justifiable, as long as the "working conditions" and living conditions are of a high quality _[so the Factory Farms are, indeed, completely and utterly unacceptable and should be banned with utmost haste]_ and they get rewarded in some way for their "work" of producing and giving milk.
Post was too long, so I am replying to myself in order to cut the post up into post-able parts. Going back to Fluffy and Munky the cats and why we shouldn't eat them: it's true that most people would have little trouble shooting an assailant in self-defense. However, the troubles -- at the very least for the person who has to actually shoot the gun -- become significantly higher if the assailant happens to be a close friend. That's why, in the U.S. with it's frankly insane Gun Laws _[but that's a discussion for another time]_, the shooting of unknown criminals breaking into one's home is significantly higher than the shooting of drunk friends who attack in a fit of rage; even though I doubt the chances of the former occurring to any given person are significantly higher than the chances of the latter occurring. I also doubt many people see anything wrong with this discrepancy. Personally, I do see something wrong with the discrepancy for shooting someone dead, but not, say, for a discrepancy that also exists when it comes to calling the police with regards to violent behaviour. We simply care more _[in the sense of the actions we take to protect vs. harm them]_ for people we.... well..... care more about _[in the sense of emotional attachment]_. Going back to the Equal Consideration of Interests and how it should apply in all cases: if we conclude that treating a Human friend with more respect than a Human stranger, it becomes clear why should not be surprised or feel it's unjustified when people want to give a proper burial to a non-Human friend, but are perfectly OK with eating an anonymous cow, or pig. Though, yes, the refusal to eat an anonymous dog or other "cute" animal is totally unjustified and should be argued against with utmost fervour. Speaking of dying non-Human Animals, though, here's an interesting aside for thought-bubbles of anyone who might be reading this: my cat, Munky, was Euthanized. And while I was not entirely comfortable with it, the Veterinarian convinced me that she was in so much suffering that it was better this way. However, unlike me, most people see *no problem whatsoever* in Euthanizing Animals. Now, I, personally, also see no insurmountable problems with the Euthanization of Humans who are suffering. I also think that, as Humans are perfectly capable of communicating their own suffering, it should be entirely up to the person themselves to decide if they want to be Euthanized, possibly with some consideration time _[say, a day or three]_ to make sure it isn't a "spur of the moment thing". Then again, this could also be due to the fact that I'm Dutch, and we were, like with many of the more recent advancements in rights of people _[go the Netherlands!]_ the first to instigate proper Euthanasia Laws and are still one of the most advanced when it comes to the right to end one's own life in a dignified manner. However, many other people are considerably less comfortable with Euthanasia of Humans. For those among that group of people who *are* comfortable with the Euthanization of pets and other non-Human Animals, here's my own personal Thought Bubble assignment: how do you justify this discrepancy in the moral assessment of Euthanasia between Humans and non-Human Animals? I'd love to hear some answers. Let's, lastly, discuss Cecil the Lion. As I recall _[though I could be wrong]_, Cecil was part of an Endangered Species _[actually, I learned that his species was added to the list a relatively short amount of time after his death -- which makes this argument still apply unless the addition to the list was done solely _*_because_*_ of Cecil's death and the outcry it caused]_, so killing him and others of his species endangers the species as a whole. I personally think that, along with the Principle of Equal Consideration, one of the *(several)* things that should be taken into account when considering whether something is morally right or wrong, and in exactly *how* right or wrong it is, is in the __ that an action causes. When the action causes *irreversible* loss, the action should be deemed almost completely unacceptable in almost all cases, due to the sheer danger to the world the action causes. When the action *threatens* to cause irreversible loss, the actions should be deemed highly unacceptable in almost all cases. On top of that, Cecil was part of an important study done by several researchers. The actions of Walter Palmer, dentist and recreational trophy hunter, severely damaged the research of those people. So not only was Lion-kind harmed, but so was Human-kind's understanding of Lion-kind. And, if you decide to be speciesist, you should at the very least consider the harm the killing of Cecil did to the advancement of Human Knowledge. Not that I argue for being speciesist, mind you, but it's useful to consider arguments that appeal to those who hold different views from your own -- it makes it a lot easier to convince more people of doing or supporting the right thing. Thus, in conclusion: I think that the difference in outrage over the killing of Cecil vs. killing a cow for food was justified because his death caused considerably more harm, both to Cecil's species and our own, than killing a Cow -- or a Pheasant if you want to limit yourself to Wild Animals, which considering the considerations above and in the video is entirely reasonable -- does to the Cow or Pheasant species. Or the Human species, for that matter, but that should be obvious. Finally, I have a question for you and other Philosophers, and I'd *really* like a good, carefully considered answer to this from a Philosopher who has given it some serious thought -- which, I know, is hard, given that it's about the very core of what you guys do.. You said _"Philosophers want you to be able to justify your actions."_, and you have given arguments based on the same premise in the past. Why, though? Why do Philosophers *require* that we'd *always* be able to justify our actions. Maybe someone says _"In general I want to be rational, but when it comes to eating non-Human Animals I have no problem being irrational. I also believe that I can both desire to be rational in the general case and decide I am OK with being irrational in specific cases"_. Why is this line of reasoning so objectionable to you? Do you have proper Philosophical / Rational / Logical reasoning for why unjustified actions are *always* wrong _[as opposed to _*_usually_*_ wrong]_? Or is it just because _"That's the way Philosophers have always done things"_ or something similar?
despite what vegans claim, humans are naturally omnivores. despite that one graphic, you cannot identify an omnivore by looking at it's teeth or claws; omnivores as a rule always look like either carnivores or herbivores. because of this it is very difficult to have a healthy diet in the absence of meat, and genuinely impossible if you live somewhere like kenya. the issue with this video and veganism in general is that it insists on lumping all animals together. the fact is that a gorilla is not at all comparable to an insect. I feel that it's a pretty straightforward standard to measure whether it's okay to treat an animal like that is if the animal is intelligent enough to object. that is, if it has the capacity to understand the concept of rights. so elephants and apes? no cigar. but chickens and cows? fair game. even if the way animals are treated in factory farms could be considered cruel, all that would mean is that we need to reform the way animals are treated in factory farms. lastly, you should know that a lot of the ideas you vegans have about cows and milk is just wrong. yes, the calves are yanked away from the mother, but only for as long as it actually takes to milk the mother. additionally because of the way we've domesticated cows, when we go without milking them, the milk builds up within them and starts to hurt a good deal. I should know, since there are a lot of farmers where I live. I am thus rather skeptical of the other acts attributed to farmers by vegans, not the least because a lot of them seem to serve no purpose other than to inflict pain.
I couldn't survive eating vegan, even being vegetarian would be very hard for me, but I do think that most of us eat too much meat and care too little about where it comes from and more specifically how it is produced. I dislike the dogmas vegetarians display. IMHO we were meant to eat meat among many other sources of food. There's nothing wrong in killing animals for food, but they shouldn't suffer unnecessarily and we shouldn't waste food or kill just for fur.
But killing just for pleasure is ok? We have zero need for animal products in our foods, zero. So all killing, at least in the western world is for pleasure only. Let's stop that ok?
sajfen It's not for pleasure when it's for food. Sure if you kill an animal and only eat a tiny bit because you think that only this part tastes then I'm inclined to agree. I tried to live vegetarian for a while but it left me constantly hungry, upset my digestive system and left me over all in a very foul mood. I thus wouldn't say that I eat meat just for fun.
edi - animal foods are a form of food waste. It is far more resource intensive to feed plants to an animal to eat that animal and it's byproducts than to eat the plants directly. Also, veganism is very good for your health. It can prevent diabetes and heart disease, among other benefits. Vegans tend to be less likely to be obese and more likely to live longer than meat eaters. By eating meat, you are sabotaging your own health, harming the environment by using more resources than necessary, and condemning animals to lives of suffering that you likely can't bear to even think about. If you can bear to think about it, you might like the documentary earthlings. Please learn to question dominant culture. Hank barely touches the edge of veganism, there are so many angles that reveal it to be good for humans, the environment and animals. We managed to abolish transatlantic slavery - we can overcome cultural norms to achieve a more ethical world.
I only eat like 5 veggies. Corn on the cob, peppers red/yellow, potatoes, onions, dark red kidney or black beans. That's it. Nothing else. How would I possibly survive going vegan/vegetarian. Most green vegetables actually make me gag and throw up in my mouth. So Ya. ..
Veganism isn't about saving animals, it's about not killing them. Also if she wants she can save animals too, have you ever heard of an animal rescue farm?
Christopher Murray My idelness... ? Excuse you, you do not know me and I'm extremely involved with helping animals on the streets. I do my part to be a better human, to be kind to other living beings.
oh, so it's irrational to be happy about causing much less harm to animals, polluting the enviroment in a much lower scale, and eating much healthier? please
www.countinganimals.com/how-many-animals-does-a-vegetarian-save/ here is the article and also not counting the animals killed to make eggs and milk, another not-quite-so-small sum
and why would the scientists create lab-grown meat if there isn't a demand for it? vegans create demand for it, not meat-eaters. also, most people who work in those lab-grown meat are VEGANS themselves! and excuse me but I really doubt your assumptions that the "meat that is laying in stores go to waste", "because of me", allegedly, is hurting the animals more than the person who actually keeps buying meat and thus creates more demand for it.
You seem to know every ounce of information about me, my lifestyle, my biology, my health, and so on. Sarcasm aside, you actually don't. So creating such a vague argument only shows your lack of education on the subject. Look it up my friend. You are watching a show about biological facts. You'll find some people actually suffer illness by not eating meat. Some people's bodies need it, while others do not.
What nutrient exactly does meat contain that can't be found in plant foods (or in case of B12, bacteria)? If you can't name that nutrient, you're talking woo.
You are kidding right? T -cells my friend. Though they can be found in plant based products, (and many Vegans can live just fine with supplements) the amount you need to properly keep healthy is found in grass (which I wouldn't recommend eating because of pollutants) or red meat. Ironically the same species that produces T cells based on the grass they eat.
I actually justify my meat consumption with the reasoning that I don't really value life in itself. The death of a human or non-human animal is only of importance if it affects the life of others; the dead one doesn't care anymore. Therefore, killing a human is pretty much always wrong, because of the social constructs that human has formed throughout their life and therefore the implications it has on others. The death of a human will usually upset others; that is not necessarily the case when killing a non-human animal. I am against the current standards of animal keeping though. I am fine with paying more money for meat and therefore eating less of that stuff, if that means the animals were treated with dignity while living.
Donar Many animals have other animals that they prefer to spend time with. Like dogs having other dogs that they prefer to spend time with. Many animals mate for life. Many animals are parents - if the parents die the offspring will often die because the young isn't protected, and hasn't learned the skills to survive yet.
alejandrinos It would at least not be the concern of anyone, so yes, if would be justifiable. I am against killing for fun though, so I hope you eat that person.
If you are against killing for [an unnecessary reason] then why do you not consistently apply that claim to nonhuman animals? Making USE of the body you unnecessarily killed doesn't justify the killing either. I think you've gotten quite confused in your philosophy. You're focused on second order harm but are completely ignoring first order harm- which is logically inconsistent. Naturally if you care about the decrease in well being in people who grieve over the loss of a loved one, you should also care about allowing the individual themselves to feel well being in the first place and not be killed.
It's a damn shame that due to the discourse of militant vegans with obstinate meat eaters has rendered that discourse in such a bad state that meat eaters feel judged and find this video preachy. This is merely a study of Philosophy, Hank isn't suggesting everyone go vegan, in fact I'm not sure what his position on that is, he could have retired to eating a big old bacon and egg sandwich after shooting this vid for all we know. He's just saying if you claim to value all life but eat meat you are in a moral dilemma. I could very well change my outlook to valuing no life after viewing this video.
I appreciate that you point this out because everyone's response to this video is that they should become vegan. Yet that does not answer all of the problems concerning the treatment of non-human animals. Vegans still have the capacity to not treat non-human animals in the best possible way, some even lack the capacity of treating humans with the same respect simply because they are (surprise) not vegans. So the hypocrisy is entertaining to say the least.
I really would like to see these militant vegans everyone's always talking about. Wierd how they're never on the pages I'm on. If you mean groups like the Animal Liberation Front then I suggest you actually look into what they do. They rescue animals. They don't carry weapons, they don't threaten people. Maybe they do a bit of graffiti sometimes. How is that militant though? Or are the activists that peacefully enter factories to protest militant when they get get arrested for wanting to save an animal from being murdered? Again, let's not use inflammatory terms please. And meat eaters feel judged no matter what because of the cognitive dissonance they experience. I felt guilty when I found out about everything, but I never blamed my vegan friend for the way I was feeling. I was able to admit to myself that my own actions made me feel that way because they didn't align with my views of my own morality and beliefs
I agree...but I also understand why vegans get so angry. Think about it: vegans have so much empathy for animals that, every time they remember the ongoing cruelty, they feel anger and frustration, and they know it's happening on a massive scale, far more than even necessary. They direct their anger to those whom they perceive to be causing it. However, I wish they would tone it down a little. I especially wish they would laud the people who do care and aim to reduce their consumption and be mad that people aren't perfect: I'd rather have people who are trying, but imperfect, than people who are doing nothing at all. Perfection is impossible but we can all aim to do better and better. I say that as an ovo-lacto vegetarian whom vegans seem to dislike strongly. They say I'm "worse than a meat eater." (That itself is a complicated statement. I don't think meat eaters are bad people, although I think killing animals without necessity is a horrible thing. It's complicated. It's hairy. Good people can learn to rationalize bad things. It's how we survive but also how we continue bad things.)
Well, now you don't appreciate any life even with conscience. But at least you are honest about that and don't try to find any fancy excuse like the rest of people.
A written transcript to accompany this video for high school students would come in very handy and make this an awesome educational tool for all learning styles
Then I eat dragon, it's natural to eat meat. Things in meat that are essential for strength: Vitamin B12, Creatine, Vitamin D3, Carnosine, and Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) breakingmuscle.com/fuel/why-all-humans-need-to-eat-meat-for-health Did you know that not a single population in the history of the world has ever adopted a vegan diet? It's deadly with out artificial supplements.
Chris Jones I love that you care about B12 deficiency in vegans and vegetarians. However, perhaps you should lobby for EVERYONE to take B12 supplements or fortified foods, as almost half of the US population is deficient in B12.
i haven't read anything about the ethics or nutritional hazards/benefits of eating insects. i just know a little about all of the studies studying the huge benefits of a plant based whole foods diet
I would say there obviously becomes a grey line at one point. You have to kind of decide what's your line in the sand. Many people go by the development of the central nervous system and the ability to feel pain. So a jellyfish has neither of these, and therefore you'd be HARD PRESSED to find someone who could defend a stance on not eating them (morality wise). So then you'd have to look at insects and make a judgement call with the science we have.
Ara Mahar insects have brains and a nervous system. who cares about eating them, the wholesale slaughter of them for inconveniencing people should put the vegans in a truly ambiguous moral dilemma.
I'll mention him, if it will make you feel better. During the short time the child was in the gorilla's care, Harambe was more watchful of the child than the boy's own mother. R.I.P. Harambe. May you win the next Presidential Election.
I am a vegan since 3 years. Its a beautiful way of living life without causing any harm to the most innocent being. And its very important to spread this message. Its important to stop animal breeding and all stuffs to save our EARTH.
Reaching back to the video on personhood and similar one's, our taxonomy and biology are different. Yes, I eat non-human animals and I see no reason to cease
The highest function of animals is breeding and surviving. The same cannot be said for humans who's highest functions include innovation, domination, and progression to better things. If animals are left alone, they will only live as they've been doing for thousands of years. The same cannot be said for humans.
That's not true. There are many human beings whom are incapable of innovation, domination and "progression for better things", such as the marginal cases (i.e. the permanently mentally enfeebled), and yet, despite this, they still pertain moral value. If you believe that these marginal case human beings are still worthy of consideration, respect and rights, then functionality is irrelevant since value holds independent of this criterion.
@@TheAster3 Yes, there are many who are incapable of those things, just like there are animals born with defects too, who are incapable of survival and breeding. The highest function does not pertain to everything. So yes, while people should take care of animals, their highest functions are nowhere near ours.
@@joshuagordon8590 If you're conceding to the fact that there are human beings incapable of such functionality, then you're stuck in a dilemma: 1) Bite the bullet on the entailment which would commit you to devalue such human beings, similarly to livestock animals. 2) Retract the claim of functionality Whether or not their function is anywhere near ours is moot, and irrelevant to the objection on hand. The objection points out that if your view was true, it could commit you to an absurd entailment.
@@TheAster3 Livestock animals are for eating. Humans who are not able to function at their highest human functions are not for eating, so they are not of the same value as livestock animals.
@@joshuagordon8590 That's just question-begging, you moron. The idea that one party is permissible for slaughter, whilst the other (despite failing to meet your criterion) is not - assuming that it's still permissible to slaughter the former, but not the latter is begging the question since the contention lies within whether or not it is permissible to do such a thing. Do you have a response to the objection instead of simply begging the question for your position?
I like totally get caught up on the value of my own life all of the time, the amount of plants, I have ate and animals. I question the value of my own life over any other existence of anything... Also intelligence is a human made up word, definition and standard... Are humans even really the most intellectual... :( smh It's human-centric ideologies..
If intelligence does not reference a meaningful organization in reality, then what is the thing we call intelligence? By that, I mean the mechanisms whereby an entity is better suited to projecting hypothetical realities and selecting whichever is deemed most beneficial, given the entity's goals. I think human's do posses the greatest ability to do the above. Consequently, The rest of nature doesn't give the slightest care for your quandary. Value, on the other hand, is a bit more abstract and arbitrary and is contingent upon intelligence existing, in that, without some form of intelligence, it is pretty darn hard to value anything. A simple ant can be said to have a set of values, but no where is it considering value in the abstract. According to nature, and by the rules of its game, the only entity patterns worthy to progress to the next slice of time are those that preserve themselves. Energy accumulation for the purpose of information preservation and expansion is the only value that matters at this level. If creating a set of values helps you to not die long enough to reproduce and ensure offspring success, or if it helps you more broadly ensure your species success, then your pattern is acceptable to nature, and is likely to be repeated. At a different level, if you can use intelligence and agency to preserve yourself and also safeguard others in the process, well, that is unique.
7:22 yes it is about harm... to *me*. Eating an animal that is on top of a food chain is a bad idea. Toxins of all their prey will have accumulated in them. Furthermore the only valid reason to eat meat is pleasure. I don't expect the meat of an old sickly cat to be any good. But if you reframe it to a younger kitten that was driven over and died under your porch. I'd guess the meat would be more like a nice rabbit (plus some extra toxins). I mostly eat a whole foods plant-based diet, but mainly for selfish reasons. My health comes first, and that using agricultural area for food instead of animal feed is more efficient and sustainable comes only as a nice byproduct. That my diet puts me in the same category as the moral vegans (that only come off their high horse for the horses sake, and not to be any less obnoxious) in the views of many, I find a unfortunate evil.
The intelligence/sentience gap between humans as a species and any other is a qualitative difference that defines all. The edge cases don't disturb this judgment, they just benefit from the deference and respect we have for humanity as a whole.
"we think nothing of treating animals this way" Yes we do, that's why we buy products that haven't been tested on animals and free range eggs for example
queenofhearts64 "Free range". You probably wanna have a google search on that. Try to see through the propaganda. What is the legal definition of "free range"? You don't know.
queenofhearts64 The legal definition of "free range" isn't as specific as you would think. It's mainly a marketing ploy to raise sales. Trust me, if you were a hen, you'd want people supporting sanctuaries where hens just live in peace without the pressures of being forced to meet the massive market demand for eggs day in and day out.
I don't think that's the point. The fact that the companies are essentially (though maybe not literally) lying isn't the fault of the trusting consumer. The consumer is still choosing by their intention, which is admirable. The next step is for government to ensure a "free range" chicken matches the customer's expectations. (If you disagree that's the government's responsibility, that's another subject entirely. Consider phrases such as "Peanut Free". If it was literally true, and didn't contain any Arachis hypogaea, but it did contain Arachis monticola, which is not a peanut, it'd still kill people with peanut allergies. The law should follow the expectation of the layman reader).
Loved it. Animals are even much more important than us for the world, without bunch of them the world would die, without us it would be perfect again. Animals are the best♥
David Rojas, if the world was void of humans then who would track down and kill all the animals that MURDER other animals. Some really sick, twisted and demented animals (yes, I am referring to cats) kill solely for the satisfaction of watching innocent animals suffer and die.
Haha yeah, the animals which hunt doves or pretty birds just for leaving them roting out there. But well, you know the world worked perfectly without us for a hundred of years, it has its order and the animals themselves are the regulators of the animal population.
So many people follow the moral bandwagon without stopping to critically think about their reaction. It's so easy to get morally outraged at something *before* you actually think about whether you should get morally outraged
"If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."
- Sirius Black
Sirius Black? So clever. So so clever.
People feel less shame in abusing the powerless because there often aren’t consequences for it
"You can judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him."
@@Scorch428 yes, but it can be connected to this philosophy.
If a man considers someone else as inferior, then why should i take a look at him at all????
It always fascinated me how people (mainly of Western culture, which I'm a part of) lament eating dog meat in some Asian countries while discussing it over a burger. The thing that fascinates me it that most of them are so convinced and comfortable in claiming that it's something totally different, because cows are cattle and dogs are pets, and not even realizing that it's a human construct.
I wonder how many in the West would agree to go vegan if the Chinese would agree to also go vegan. It would mean that they would no longer eat doga.
Yeah why don't they leave them alone.
people actually believe that alll Chinese eat dog... the power of media. You can only see what they want you to see.
@@sweetwins5054 I could have worded my comment better. I know that most Chinese people do not eat dogs.
This reminds me of a quote about a sentient horse having an opinion about its rider: (Source: Dirk Gently by Douglas Adams)
It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion on them.
On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day, on top of another creature and not have the slightest thought about them whatsoever.
great quote! never read the book but the netflix show was good.
I just read that book two weeks ago after watching the netflix show. The show and book are quite different, but I loved both ^_^ Very appropriate quote there, too.
Douglas Adams wrote the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Great author and spokesman for atheism.
I love that he didn't need to mention the word "vegan" at all and the message went through so smoothly. This was perfect.
I like the fact he said non-human animals instead of just animals
Well humans are animals so there is that
Yeah, kind of dumb
Why do you like that?
@@smurfmemez4112 i think it reconnects us to the animal kingdom.. sometimes humans are so disconnected from the fact that we too are animals, and it gives us a sense of power over other animals, and reinforces this whole concept of speciesism.
@@LydiaCross good reply
"opting out of rational discourse altogether" is such a great line
I love how educational channels are actually starting to talk about this! People need to hear this and stop being so hypocritical
Peter Rabitt that's why more people have to learn how to adopt a vegan lifestyle
godjamGODJAM I know where you're coming from, because a lot of people are against the vegan diet before doing some research. But trust me when I say that little kids can be vegan just like any other human being. I know of some people who were vegan since birth and have a perfect health.
Before, when we actually needed to eat animals, because it was a question of survival, I could have understood people, but now, we could live perfectly well without eating them. The conditions in which they are kept are monstrous and I don't believe in "humanely" slaughtered because there is no way that killing a living and sentient being is humane. And by the way, you say you hunt your prey and eat them, but you mean that other people farm your prey, and then kill them for you. Half of the world would at least go vegetarian if they had to kill their own meal; and even if you do hunt your pray, don't you feel any remorse? The only thing that animal has was its life, and you took it away from them.
Oh, and before I said SENTIENT beings, because plants are not. They can't understand pain, and surely they can't even feel it. They don't have a nervous system, therefore it's highly impossible that they can actually understand (also because they don't have brains), what that feeling is.
If we hold the life of every living thing as equal we are presented with some very large problems.something that is never brought up in these conversations if that plants are by definition living thus if all life is equal why do animals get better treatment than plants which are certainly living.I mean if we are not allowed to be specious why are we allowed to be kingdomist(not giving creatures from all parts of the kingdoms equal treatment).At the end of the day it comes down to this,should someone who forgot to feed their cat be given years in prison because that is what someone who forgot to feed their child got.(also note that humanity would not have been able to produce the device you typed this comment on if they were not specious.)
+Bibi I don't know what type of farms or ranches you have been to but its clear you have only the idea of feed lots, and not open-pasture grazing with people working hard to give them as much alfalfa as they will come to get when they aren't feeling lazy. And as for the slaughtering process, it is the most humane way that can be done while still keeping up with demand. And I don't know if you have though about how we would grow enough fruit and vegetables to supply 50% of the nation. There is already a massive strain on arable land and fresh water resources which wont be getting better any time soon.
Hayes Bartlett, you do realize that feeding animals is a massive waste of land, don't you? You're worried about growing plants for about 8 billion humans, but not perplexed as to how we're currently feeding hundreds of billions of animals that will be slaughtered each year for human consumption. Odd.
After watching this I understand why someone would become vegan
Try it! Start with vegetarianism it's easier and a good start.
Tehila Tulkoff I cant go vegan or vegetarian because protien
VeoSkrill there are plenty of plant based protein sources. Edamame, tofu, tvp, tempeh, quorn etc
obesity whale 100g of tuna is 114cal and has 25g of protein and it’s easy and less time consuming to eat
@@jahnos581 tuna probably isn't the best thing for your body
He presented the most common pro-meat-eating arguments and countered them with reason. But it seems like a lot of people in this comment section are not satisfied because it's "pro-vegan". I want to hear some solid arguments from the pro-meat-eating side that he didn't tackle because it seems to me that this video is more about being pro-reason and logic than pro-veganism
Arnaldur Ingi Jónsson
Agreed. I'm an omnivore and I liked this video very much.
This is a link to a great website that is a very good source to answer many health questions pertaining to a plant based diet.. nutritionfacts.org/?fwp_search=omega+3&fwp_content_type=video
koseq7 hemp is dirt cheap. And complete bs about no plants are complete protein sources. Soy, mycoprotein, quinoa and many seeds are complete proteins and there's no reason why you can't combine plant sources
I'd like to point out first, that: ''Omega-3 fatty acids are formed in the chloroplasts of green leaves and algae. While seaweeds and algae are the source of omega-3 fatty acids present in fish, grass is the source of omega-3 fatty acids present in grass fed animals.'' In other words, those are basically formed in plants. Secondly, to lack proteins in a diet one must either not eat anything that contains DNA or starve to death... both are pretty similar in fact. Any plant contains proteins, it is simply a false dichotomy to assume one must eat meat to get sufficient amount of proteins or lack in them by not eating meat.
Garton, G. A. (1960). "Fatty Acid Composition of the Lipids of Pasture Grasses". Nature. 187 (4736): 511-12. doi:10.1038/187511b0.
I feel like this video jumped straight from "Animals are not simply at our disposal, their suffering matters" to "Go 100% vegan"
If I'm raising livestock via traditional methods (lots of space, natural diet, etc, none of that cruel industrialized farming stuff) Then am I not entitled to eat that animal, just as I'm entitled to eat any crops that I grow?
If I did not raise livestock, the animals would lead a (probably short) life of hunger and fear, constantly scrounging for food and being chased by predators. Is it not more humane to give the animal a safe, comfortable life, and a quick, (nearly) painless death?
I'm probably going to become a vegan or a vegetarian when I go to college, or start living on my own. The arguments against meat eating are pretty solid but I don't want to be a burden to my parents by denying meat.
nahuel mendez If stopping capitalism would hurt us significantly more than if we kept doing it, by definition the arguments against stopping capitalism are stronger than the arguments for stopping capitalism.
Noah Fence
well if you believe in scientific studies...uncontrolled industrialization will harm us more than stoping the industry.
so there's no harm in stoping the animal farming industry....and there's more harm in stopping the modern farming industry is that what you're saying?
"well if you believe in scientific studies...uncontrolled industrialization will harm us more than stoping the industry."
One: False dichotomy. You can regulate the industry without stopping it. Two: I don't know what you're trying to argue here. You are literally saying that uncontrolled industrialization will hurt us more than another alternative while simultaneously saying that we shouldn't stop it. What is your point here?
"so there's no harm in stoping the animal farming industry"
There will be difficulties, but my position is that the benefits outweigh the costs.
"and there's more harm in stopping the modern farming industry is that what you're saying?"
I never contradicted myself. I was using your premise and challenging it with your logic. I never said whether or not capitalism is a good thing.
1st of all: you dont speak spanish right?...just to know, it would be awesome, but its not that necessary if it isn't your 1st language or you don't speak it fluently
"One: False dichotomy. You can regulate the industry without stopping it" in theory its true, in practice the power of wealth crushes the sense of responsibility.
"we shouldn't stop it." actually i think we cant
"There will be difficulties, but my position is that the benefits outweigh the costs"
to me it dosent seem like that
["and there's more harm in stopping the modern farming industry is that what you're saying?"
-----------
"I never contradicted myself. I was using your premise and challenging it with your logic. I never said whether or not capitalism is a good thing."]
i wanted to know if you think that and try to convince you why that ...considering uncontrolled industry,could not be truth
You can always dabble before going all-in, eat what your parents give you and experiment with dishes for yourself without having to finance it on a college-kid's grocery money. It would give you a better feel for what works for you and what (if anything) you'd want to cut.
I... almost want to cry. To see such a big youtube empire say these things. It means so much to me.
Although to be fair, I don't think it will change much. On this issue in particular, people seem to shut down and refuse to think about it or possibly consider changing their mind.
P.S.
Non-vegan comments:
"Vegans are going to have a field day with this one."
"Watching this while eating a delicious roast beef sandwich. The cows death was totally worth it."
"If non-human animals weren't meant to be eaten, then why are they so delicious?"
"ANIMALS AREN'T CONSCIOUS. furious vegan fanatics and animal supremacists in 3..2.."
"I WOULD go vegan but meat just tastes SOOOO good XD my pleasure and convenience is more important than the pain and death of another organism"
Still looking for those furious vegans, by the way. :P
I'm not an absolutist, nor would I kill myself to save another human, let alone another animal.
I'm not crazy, I don't believe in doing 0 harm to animals. That's impossible, just by existing as humans we harm the environment with every step we take. I'm not arguing for 0 harm to animals at all! You're completely right, the only way to completely reduce our harm would be to kill ourselves. Why would I worry about the impossible?
I'm really unsure where you even got this idea from. I never said what my own beliefs are. So.... who are you really arguing with? lol
Certainly not me!
***** "I... almost want to cry. To see such a big youtube empire say these things. It means so much to me."
Strongly suggests that you are pro-vegan.
***** He asked me where I got the idea from that he's a vegan; I gave him the bit that I found strongly hinting at it.
Or is there something else you're not seeing the point of?
Or did you not even bother readin a 3 comments long discussion before opening your mouth?
*****
_I never said what my own beliefs are._ Suggesting that my conclusions about his standing were wrong.
***** That was a general statement aiming at the videos original message of staying consistent, and not explicitly aimed at you.
Being vegan is so much easier than I thought it would be. I really thought it was this scary impossible thing before I went vegan, but it turned out to be really pretty easy. I feel such a relief -- I was carrying around so much cognitive dissonance before, thinking that I was a compassionate animal lover, but still using animals as a mere means to my own ends. My only regret is that I didn't go vegan sooner!
Piss off.
@@davidfortier6976 Chill man
But plants feel pain too
@@davidfortier6976 People keep saying they get mad at vegans for their toxic personality, but I have been noticing a recent rise in toxicity from meat eaters against vegans(honestly more so). I'm not a vegan myself, but this is some BS. If its about choice, then live and let live. If its about morality, I can't see how veganism is morally bad in any way. If its about other vegans being annoying, then you are partaking in generalization(which most would consider to be a bad thing). This person is just telling their own story, if you don't care, don't comment.
Alright. Going vegan.
Welcome! May I suggest /r/vegan as a resource?
Yay :)
I'm impressed! Very few people are willing to turn the critical lens onto themselves and make changes that would go against the mainstream.
LOL that's all it took to convince you? I expect you'll go right back just as fast.
Reina B congrats!
Im seriously considering some of my lifestyle choices now. Philosphy makes u scrutinize yourself and feel good about that even if u come out on the wrong side as it appeals to your reason instead of "pointless taking sides compatmentalism" that prevails everywhere among ppl nowadays.
I cried...seeing for the first time a non-vegan, unbiased channel discussing this issue with amazing clarity and objectivity.
It's very difficult to talk about these without making people emotional and sort of mad. You did an amazing job in bringing up these arguments in a way that I think if I wasn't vegan already I would have started considering it right after this video!
Thank you!
I have been having problems with deciding if I should be a vegeterian/vegan for months tipping from view to view, messig with my own morals, ethics and definitions. Then this video came along and presented every part of my mental process as well as the arguments of my friend and family. It's like this entire course is the collectionof all my countless existential crisises listed, with words for everything, and all the details I was looking for. The feeling of having your thoughts confirmed, and explained throughout history. CrashCourse is awsome!
Bruh... animals give you existential crises? Seriously? Impossible!
but animals want to live and meat production is polluting the planet
What have you decided?
Yes! So many of these videos were like reframing stuff that bugs me all the time!
Sanne yea but meat tastes nice
Eating less meat reduces carbon footprint too!
HKO2006 Nightcore&Trance
I always respected the environmental argument more than the animal welfare one.
eating no meat meat does that too
This isnt necessarily true, if we ate mostly chicken and pork it would be better then all the land clearing that would be required to eat an entirely plant based diet.
But our carbon foot print actually saved million of plants and animals. If you think that CO2 is a pollutant you are miss informed. Don't believe the TV and main stream science, learn to think for yourself... I mean it has been proven long time ago... anthropogenic global warming is a TAX scam and pseudo science.
1. We have increased the levels of CO2 in favor of the planted. They are now close to optimal for plant growth.
2. Warm is better then cold. But the global temperatures have no significant change for the past 20 years contradicting and destroying the climate change computer models.
3. Human global warming thesis claims that our foot print is going to rise the ocean levels and endanger the collar reefs. Every single marine biologist will tell that the rise of ocean levels is extremely good for the collar reefs.
I think that Atheists who believe in the anthropogenic climate change thesis are a sign of a something terrible.
If a pseudo science thesis like human made climate change can get so popular and accepted, by the people who claim that logic and the scientific method, nullifies the need of religion because of lack of empirical evidence... The we are fucked big time I say. You are idiots and this is really SAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Mastakur ummmmm as someone who has been studying biology and climate sciences for 5 years now, I can say your argument is a load of bologna. Warmth can kill creatures to, several plants prefer colder weathers, more violent tropical storms are created with warmer temperatures. The sea acidifies, coral bleaches and dies, the poles melt and the cold water seeps into warm currents, disrupting them and destroying whole populations of tropical wildlife. Please, leave this whole "thinking" department for those more apt for cognitive functioning....
I loved it. You made the point that we (including me) meat eaters are devoid or moral justification, but you did it softly. Well done. I have thought about this to death. Even though I continue to eat meat, i have concluded that it is terribly wrong of me to do so. I need to stop.
Stephen Smith, making that ethical connection between animal cruelty and food is the most important part.. Here is a link to a great website that has sound nutritional information given by a Vegan Dr it is a good place to start....Again I would like to congratulate you for making the ethical connection between animals and food. Here's that link :) nutritionfacts.org/videos/
Stephen Smith TBF there really are plenty of people who cannot live on a plant based diet only. I think American culture is pro meat to a degree that is a little crazy and we would benefit from pulling away from that but I also don't thing a vegan diet is realistic for everyone. Even plants have their cost. Namely the underpaid labor that goes into getting them to your plate.
he assumed that plants are just non sensory beings and it is ok to eat them.... today due to modern science we know plants can see through photo receptor... all plants can smell as studies show they ripen due to whiff of certain chemicals... they have sense of touch .many studies say plants respond to sounds.. and they feel happy and cry.so they have less senses than humans and animals.. does this means it is ok for you to eat beings who have less senses then animals? if yes then ... would it be ok for you to eat your brother who is dumb blind and deaf.....so i eat animals to survive same like if i would eat less sensory species of plants.
Stephen Smith I'm sorry, but as an omnivore, which us humans totally are by nature. So, it's not "tradition" why we do eat meat, that is a completley biassed idea. Also, must species we eat, like cows and pigs, are animals that we DESIGNED through centuries precisely to fullfil our eating needs, they woudnt even exist if we didnt need them for that. So, I found this episode quite biased and acually outside it's own recomendation of having to think about things rationally to do philosophpy. I think the must rational approach to meat eating would be that we are absolutley designed to do so, we have done it as a species BEFORE we were even human, and althought things have sadly gone out of hand and we should be the must humane possible in using animals for food (and clothing, and a good deal of industrial uses, and beeing killing them by thousands to have almost any commodity we have in this industral age ;-) ) The fact stays that we need them to stay alive and eating meat is not just something about "taste" in principle, although it can be at another level.
All these plant rights activists! (should we tell them that the cows they consume eat A SHITLOAD more plants than vegans do?)
Pigs are actually more intelligent than dogs
Yelling Hayfire That may be true (I can't say since I have very little dog experience), but let the record say that the majority of pigs I've ever encountered are catastrophic morons.
Intelligence shouldn't be a factor - would you eat someone who's mentally disabled?
I'll eat you if you can't defeat me in mortal physical combat
AbsoluteGuppy WHat
Manaphy Colours What?
The Answer? Nothing. All life is equally meaningless.
just a boi Now you're catching on.
Cody Sprigg You're overthinking it. Just roll with the anarchy.
Sartre would you just chill out?
Cody Sprigg That argument says nothing about why things should be objectively meaningful. Complexity does not mean objective, meaningful existence/function in the universe.
You can make arbitrary conparisons to asymptotically degrade the meaning of something.
But this is only a perspective trick.
You know there is meaning in YOU not suffering.
I will see you running from what BAD IS.
I've always wanted to be vegetarian
Good for you, thats not so hard to do)
sadiq Mungus it's better to be vegan and stop all suffering caused by you
sadiq Mungus Why not do it? It isn't really that hard. It's a bit difficult at first, and then it's just like second nature to avoid meat.
+palidine champion that kind of giant change in lifestyle is very difficult though. Becoming a vegetarian is a good start.
... but I guess eating veggies all life didn't seem so appealing to you
Damn, I'm actually thinking about being a vegetarian after watching this. I always figured it's the way of the world to eat meat. How am I different from any other carnivore? And plants are living creatures too afterall. But dismissing this conversation doesn't say much for my ability to be a deep thinker. Alot to consider here, thanks crash course
You seem to be able to grasp deeper subjects and distance your initial instincts from your actual interest in finding out what's true or not, what's moral or not, what we ought to do and what we should stay away from. That's the difference.
Pete in general people would probably be better off pulling back in the sheer amount of meat products they eat. I am not vegetarian or vegan by any stretch of the imagination but I enjoy many meatless meals without having to try hard at all.
Look up the anatomy of carnivores and herbivores and omnivores and you'll have it figured out. For one thing, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to catch another animal that you normally eat and eat it only using your teeth and nails (and stomach) xD
That's exactly how I made my mind. I was constantly trying to give myself different reasons not to go vegetarian, because I so much enjoyed bacon and thought that it would be worse giving up on it, than on water xD
But, after some time, you realize that it's just you trying to hide from facing your own guilty reflection. I'm still not quite there yet -- I eat some types of seafood, but I will be soon enough:)
I am thinking about being a vegetation rather than a vegetarian
Plants are living creatures too, but just because they don't feel pain, can we treat like rocks and dirt?
Can we kill a living creature, just because it doesn't feel pain? Are plants lesser creatures than us and animals? What about insects that doesn't feel pain? Can we eat them?
Also, the commends make me very happy! I am really proud of all of you guys going vegan, even if we live in a society that mostly looks down on veganism, ridicules it and tells you to continue eating meat (at least, this is what I experience in the Netherlands)
Thought about going vegan for a while now, this might settle it.
Do it! Be awesome!
Ok. We will have even more meat then
@@szilveszterforgo8776 wtf?
Szilveszter Forgo
Heard about capitalism? Supply and demand?
Nice! If it's too hard they being vegetarian
Why is everyone down here comparing living breathing animals to vegetables?
Because vegetables are also living and breathing?
Strygger all of you carnist are being so literal to deflect from the fact that you pay for murder. None of you actually think plants can feel pain like the innocent animals enslaved by the meat, fish, dairy and egg industries. No one on this earth actually thinks that way, its just a last ditch effort to stay in denial about your destructive lifestyles.
types10000 but then beef is responsible for one third of the green house gases in the atmosphere >.>
Kiwi Um. That's very closed-minded...
Why should I care about animals at all? The video itself said why: beliefs and positions need to be philosophically justified and consistent or there's literally no conversation to be had.
So why bother talking about plants? Because of the *exact same reason*. Many of the claims made in the video apply not only to animals, but also to plants or even more primitive forms of life.
Clearly you think there's a *morally relevant difference* between plants and animals. Ok, what is it?
Here's an example: maybe you think the *MRD* is that plants have no developed nervous system and therefore can't feel pain. That would be a good argument, but it has implications, because the same argument applies to pretty much all non-vertebrates. Do you think it's ok to farm jellyfish and bugs? Because if you still say no, then you're going to have to come up with a different MRD.
Kiwi Um. That's very closed-minded...
Why should I care about animals at all? The video itself said why: beliefs and positions need to be philosophically justified and consistent or there's literally no conversation to be had.
So why bother talking about plants? Because of the *exact same reason*. Many of the claims made in the video apply not only to animals, but also to plants or even more primitive forms of life.
Clearly you think there's a *morally relevant difference* between plants and animals. Ok, what is it?
Here's an example: maybe you think the *MRD* is that plants have no developed nervous system and therefore can't feel pain. That would be a good argument, but it has implications, because the same argument applies to pretty much all non-vertebrates. Do you think it's ok to farm jellyfish and bugs? Because if you still say no, then you're going to have to come up with a different MRD.
Watching this while eating a delicious roast beef sandwich. The cows death was totally worth it.
I think it`s exactly the point. You are given a new perspective on aspect of consuming meat, and you just basically saying "i don't give a damn about morals or philosophy, I just want to write a stupid comment to get some lol's". Somebody is skipping his philosophy homework.
Сашко Дмитренко Nope, just giving an observation of my dinner and a conclusion based on my enjoyment of it.
The video doesn't condemn meat eaters, it just asks us to be consistent and question our motivations. Nothing wrong with eating meat. So probably it's you who didn't do his philosophy homework)
Sean Drum And opting not to actually engage yourself with the challenges that come with your decision.
Yaroslav Nechaev What is the morally relevant difference then?
I'm watching the previous video on discrimination.
Hank: Please share your views - *kindly and respectfully* - in the comments."
I scroll down. The comments are turned off.
Me: "Yikes."
Wtf? How are the people who do this to the rabits not being arrested??
Ritalin Popper
Well, rabbits aren't people and I don't see what makes using them so terribly different from the mice and rats used in medical experiments. Is it just because rabbits are bigger and cuter?
Just because "rabbits aren't people", doesn't mean we can torture them by hurting their eyes and blinding them. The same applies to mice and rats.
Oleksiy
So you're against using rodents for medical research experiments?
Marlon Moncrieffe I'm against unnecessary animal testing, for things like cosmetics, which was what Hank talked about in the video. Medical research is more nuanced. As a consequentialist, I'm not categorically opposed to it (or anything really), just so long as the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Most people agree on that point, except they don't take drawbacks (animal suffering) seriously and only focus on the benefit for humanity. At this point, I'm somewhat reluctant to believe that it's worth it, especially given the difficulty in extrapolating research data between different species. But yeah, if we're actually reducing a greater harm, by causing a lesser harm, then I'm in favor of that, whatever it is. Those are my values, but I'm ignorant on where the cost-benefit analysis would actually lead me.
Oleksiy so how about we make YOU suffer instead of the poor rabbit? To prove how righteous you really are
I love watching all the meat eaters in the comments regurgitate the exact arguments Hank dismissed in this video. The fact of the matter is that eating meat and animal products which require suffering is morally inconsistent. Philosophically, eating meat makes no sense for a human.
***** I did not mean "meat eater" as a derogatory term. Forgive me if it was interpreted that way.
A vegan society kills more animals than a carnivorous society.
Plainly, by the numbers, we kill far more animals and insects just through growing crops than we do by slaughtering cattle and other animals for meat, leather, and other products.
Poison, Irrigation, harvesting with heavy machines, all these things kill animals and insects, and on a far greater scale than any slaughter houses.
If we are looking at this from a Utilitarian Perspective, then we have a moral obligation to choose ranching over farming. This is simply because the suffering of a few animals to provide food, in the form of meat, for us is less than the suffering of a great many animals to provide food, in the form of plants, for us.
Going beyond that; without a need to maintain many of the animals we now use for food, we would stop taking care of them, and in many cases their entire species would be wiped out. This comes about as a result of the selective breeding that leaves many unable to even procreate without human intervention.
Micheal Goode That's a good point and I'm glad you brought it up. What you seem to be forgetting is that a large majority of all crops are used as food for livestock. Because fewer crops would be grown, fewer insects and other animals would be killed. Cutting down on animal agriculture would result in fewer animals dying in slaughter houses and fewer animals dying because of poison, irrigation, etc.
We'd still have to add to the farmed vegetables as much protein and such as we would lose from not having meat. That would still leave us killing en masse more small animals like mice, voles, snakes, and insects than ranching.
Micheal Goode I don't think you understand just quite how much of our farmland is used to feed live stock. For every pound of meat someone eats, that animal had to eat 16 pounds of farmed crops (it's somewhere between 13 and 16, you can verify yourself). If everyone stopped eating meat. There would be enough farmed crops to end world hunger many times over.
I'm a bit disappointed by the way he treated this issue. In order to think philosophically about animals, we need to come up with a theory of animal rights. The theory needs to convincing in order for us to agree animal have rights. A major starting point is acknowledging that ONLY humans recognize rights. Animals don't think about the lives of other animals (or plants) before they eat them (as far as we know). From here, we assume - animals have rights because we, people, think they should have rights.
Why should they have rights, and what kind of rights? Every right needs to be justified individually.
Why do we treat cats and dog differently than other animals? He did not answer that question; but there is an answer to it, of course. Because WE DOMESTICATED them. Simply put, we trained and selectively breeded them generation after generation to respond to our actions and emotions, to the point they are genetically programmed to behave the way we won't us to behave. Wild animals don't do that, because they can't. Pets are different because by centuries of breeding, we made them to be attractive to us. WE made them different.
Our civilization put the entire animal world under our control. Is it right that it's under our control? Consider it philosophically.
Anyway, THINK about it yourself. Don't just take other's words' for it.
You're bringing up another point, but the quickest way to purchase moral considerability for animals is through Singer's argument, since we all seem to understand without argument that causing suffering is a prima facie wrong.
The problem with that argument is that animals obviously have no problem with causing suffering to other animals; in fact, I've read that animals don't just do it to eat, some of them do it for fun, like cats. So why should we have a problem with it? Once again we come back to the starting point of having to argue about the difference between animals and humans and why we as a species have a problem with causing suffering to other species, while other species don't.
This is the biggest problem with Singer's accusation of specie-ism: the basic argument against racism is that racism is wrong because all races are equal. The same can't be said about humans and other species: we are quite obviously different since we're having all those arguments about animals' rights, while other animals don't.
Animal rights activists would be much better starting with the argument that animals and humans are quite obviously NOT EQUAL, but that does not justify humans killing, harvesting or eating animals.
Just because animals do things doesn't mean we should. Psychopaths cause other humans suffering for fun, but we know that that is ethically wrong of them. So as a species, some of us don't have problems with hurting others. That doesn't mean we can breed and slaughter psychopaths for our own pleasure.
And no, the basic argument against racism is that we shouldn't disparage against others based on things which are out of their control. This is also the argument against homophobia, the argument for women's rights, etc.
It isn't that women are exactly the same as men, black people are exactly the same as white people, because on average there are differences. It's that needlessly causing suffering to others based on physical qualities has no basis in reason and is ethically wrong. If we extend your moral net to include all things which are sentient, you have a necessity for animal rights/veganism.
That is a better argument. But let me consider this. "We shouldn't disparage against others based on things which are out of their control." Does that mean I should treat all as equal, even if they are arguably, not equal, simply because the inequality is not under their control? Let's say I believe that people are not born with the same skills, and that some have better logical thinking or abilities to learn than others, and they can't change that.
Let's say I have two of those candidates that I need to choose for a job, and one is obviously better skilled than the other; as far as I know, he could have been born with those skills; believing in meritocracy and market principles, I would choose the better skilled one. I did discriminate between them; however, that is justified discrimination in my view. Does that follow that if both of them ask me for a service, I should also deny service to the less skilled person? No, that would be unjustified discrimination, because his lesser skills are irrelevant for the purposes of acquiring the service.
So I disagree with this argumentation.
We're talking about ethics, not hiring practices. Pure capitalism often DOES go against the principles of utilitarianism, though. Like when markets fail, bringing suffering to consumers, or like when it results in a stratified society which leads to needless suffering of the lower classes.
My quote was, 'It's that needlessly causing suffering to others based on physical qualities has no basis in reason and is ethically wrong'
FINALLY someone talking about the truth.
Vegan for the animals, before anything else!
And then become an efilist
@@boysteacher3818 there so relation between efilism and veganism.
Thank you so much for making me and so many others to think about animals. Since animals cannot speak for themselves, people should speak up for animals exploited in human society.
Name the trait present/absent in animals which if present/absent in you would cause you to reject your right to non-exploitation. Untill you do so you hold a double standard by denying animals their right to non-exploitation.
Julian W Hee-ayy! it's the Ask Yourself fan again.
BlackMetalCrusader We meat again.
Name the trait that gives animals, or humans for that matter, their right to non-exploitation.
Jontman42 Sentience. Well, it is not like the trait does. We give objects value. I'm just checking if you are consistent.
Why does sentience give this right?
Still don't understand why you aren't vegan or at least vegetarian, Hank. You could send such a powerful message by going vegan!
Especially since you obviously know about the issues and have made multiple videos about it in the past.
Omg! In India, we have all sorts of Godmen, holy men, monks and missionaries who appeal people to become vegetarian but none of them has affected me nearly as profoundly as this video!
hmm. really? what part are u from?
This shows how your brain is limited by the shackles of science , my fren
go vegan
that solves what? the distinction is not quite that clean, even then.
but they cant SUFFER. that was the whole point-- they have no way of feeling pain and that's the distinction.
Marco Onyxheart that's an easy question, the moral differentiating trait between animals and plants is sentience.
Most of it has to do with sentience. Animals, even ones without fully developed brains tend to have neural tissue and the ability to suffer and feel pain, as mentioned in the video. Plants cannot feel pain, although they may have the ability to react to stimulus, something called noceception, this is not the same as the ability to experience pain. And anyway, if your idea is to reduce suffering (operating under the hypothetical that plants could feel pain), going vegan actually means you're killing fewer plants because the extra plants you eat barely compare to the amount of plant food that is grown and used to feed to animals that are used for meat, milk, and eggs.
You can't prove that plants don't suffer.
So if I understand the position correctly: It is immoral to eat anything that can feel pain. Does this mean that eating animals without a brain or developed central nervous system (jellyfish, clams, oysters, sea cucumbers etc.) would be acceptable?
Quite a few utilitarian vegans are ok with eating bivalves. From what I understand, Peter Singer doesn't have a problem with eating oysters. Usually their reasoning is that there's a gradient involved according to the probability that an animal can feel pain. In this sense, the utilitarian position is more nuanced than that of the deontological vegans who would argue that the taking of animal life is immoral regardless.
interesting
Brandon Hall some vegans would say so, but strictly from an ethical standpoint. A reason not to eat them is the environmental impact of the fishing industry on the health of the oceans and planet.
Brandon Hall yet I've seen some reports along the lines that some plants have signs of feeling pain.
They dont have brains so they can't feel pain, they can however react to things like being cut and grow in different patterns or release chemical reactions as a result. Besides, what do you think animals eat? Plants. By going on a plant based diet, there would be lower consumption of plants.
I'm a speciesist. I do however, think that we have gone too far with favoring humans, and I'd like to see a gradual shift towards a more harmonious existence between us and nature. But when push comes to shove, I'll pick humans over other animals all damn day (all else being equal).
It's not between choosing a human or a non-human animal though. It's between hurting the animal, or hurting neither (unless it's a life or death situation.) Animal agriculture is also one of the most destructive practices humans engage in
www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969715303697
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212371713000024
www.fao.org/newsroom/en/News/2006/1000448/index.html
of course you would, it is your species. but push has not come to shove, there hasn't even been a tap.
it benefits us in every way not to eat animals, so it is the logical choice to make. if a house is burning, i will save the baby before the puppy. but that hasn't happened, and no one puts a gun to someone else's head so that i'll eat meat.
Thank you both for your respectful replies. The key phrase is 'all things being equal'. Stephanie, you are right, it has not come to that (baby vs puppy). I consider it a reasonable reality that you guys are way ahead of the curve when it comes to balancing humans in nature. I lack a lot of understanding in this. I hope we can share more knowledge some time in the future.
Carson Barlow a lot of people say to watch forks over knives, then cowspiracy, and then earthlings (the first two are on netflix). while those a great documentaries and great sources, they can be a little much to digest at once. i recommend bite size vegan on youtube. she is a sea of knowledge and nonjudgemental.
stephanie santos Thank you so much for the thoughtfulness of your suggestions.
And that's why I am going vegan.
first last
Im eating vegan taco. Check mate
I've been vegetarian/vegan for eleven years, and it's a fantastic change. I'm glad for the step forward, Ira!
Liar just saying that for more likes
Plants feel pain
@@smurfmemez4112 Nope, they just respond without having any mental capabilities.
Just like you did (sorry couldn't resist)
I wish I could love this video instead of just liking it
same, feed me to my cats when I die. lmao.
Reading the comments under this video make me so happy to see the advancement of Veganism. Keep it up y'all! :D
Ikr sameee
This is precisely why I went vegan in 1973 and have never regretted it.
What a great video, simple to understand, it shows how veganism is very rational.
Very concise video. Spot on from every aspect. Thank you for sharing such valuable information! 🌱
As most other humans, I will do anything pleasurable as long as there are no negative consequences
That's the only argument u need to eat meat
"as most other humans" is an ad populum argument
"as long as there are no negative consequences" i agree with, but the science is in, there ARE negative consequences. Hank's arguments on nonhuman animal rights are compelling, but you don't have to buy them. You just need to look at the science of how animal agriculture contributes to climate change (more than the entire transportation industry, by some measurements) or MOST IMPORTANTLY- your health. for an overview, check out this article www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/plant-based-diet_b_1981838.html
^Literally this times a thousand.^ The negative consequences are everyyyywhereeeee.
*****
Thank you for your well thought out response.
As a vegan, I agree with this statement. So I don't think you understand what you're saying.
Nothing. Cecil, Deer, Ducks, Cows and Chickens all want to live.
Candle Duck there are no cows outside of the agriculture industry, the only way they live is for our consumption.
And as their apex predator us humans have not only the right, but the responsibility to kill and consume those we find tasty.
+Drunken Aussie
Except the ones owned as pets or taken care of in animal sanctuaries.
Nagy2kan
Fair point looking at my comment i probably should not have been so absolute with my wording.
do you choose rationally to thrive towards happyness and freedom from pain, or is it just a biological survival instinct?
(ive never been the kinda guy to care about other peoples diets or lifestyles for the record, theres nothing wrong inherently for eating meat lol) that said
this video helped me make a rational decision to stop eating meat as soon as i can, which id considered for *years* but never got to because of my familys lifestyle and my own hesitation. ive always loved crash course philosophy but this was the first video to make such an immediate change in my actions and not just my beliefs. ty!!
From a utilitarian perspective, if we're counting all animal suffering as equal, what of carnivores? Would it not be preferable for the population of lions to go extinct rather than have the many more animals be killed and eaten to sustain them? As for hunting a carnivore, wouldn't the suffering of the one carnivore that was killed be outweighed by the many more animals that were spared by removing the carnivore from the environment?
Yes. Wild animal suffering is an awfully important and neglected topic. Contrary to the idyllic view of nature, life in the wild is cruel and inhospitable to its inhabitants. This is especially true because most species are r-selected, which means they produce a lot of offspring, most of whom die well before they reach adulthood, often in painful ways. Predation, hunger, thirst, injury, parasitism, cold, heat... None of us would want to endure that, so it makes sense to feel bad for animals who have it imposed on them involuntarily.
Now, removing carnivores is a little risky because it may result in an overpopulation of herbivores, who will suffer quite a bit in their lives, even if they're not killed by a predator. A better solution is to reduce the amount of primary productivity (plant life). That way, less herbivores would be able to exist because there would be less food and, consequently, less carnivores will be able to exist.
Ideally tho, we can wipe out the whole damn thing eventually. It's not like there's any grand purpose to the whole consumption-reproduction cycle, other than its own perpetuation. But something tells me environmentalist lunatics will oppose it because "nature is sacred" or some other crazy woo. +Mgb 360
+Oleksiy I think there is more to be valued from the environmental cycle than simply an argument of nature as sacred. There are many scientific discoveries we would never have made were it not for the animals that exist in our world. As one example, lets say pigs were not nearly as tasty as they are in reality, and as such were wiped out in the 1800's because they were decided to be a nuisance. Because they have not been wiped out in reality, we now have them and can use them for some very beneficial things. We may, at some point in the future, be able to grow replacement human organs inside a genetically modified pig so that those organs can be transplanted into the human to replace failed organs. Obviously, we aren't there yet, and it leaves a potential for a lot of issues, but it is possible that, in the future, it may be worthwhile to do so. Likewise, if we decided to exterminate all life that wasn't immediately necessary for our survival, it may turn out to be a poor decision later down the line and the consequences of those actions could very well be irreversible.
Mgb 360 Killing the lion would cause an overgrowth of some populations that would lead eventually to death of many other plant eating species because of less and less plants to eat :p
+
Szkotu Szkocki There always has to be a balance to minimize death, but it's entirely possible that the balance was shifted in a way that killing the lion would be useful. Either way, lowering the total number of creatures so that the balance is lower would be preferable.
I do think there's a difference between animals and humans. The capacity to suffer is what's relevant in moral considerations. That's why we care more about people than rocks. There is also clearly a scale of suffering. Insects or fish seem to be quite limited, while mammals can suffer more. Next comes interests, as you say. A cow possibly has the same capacity for pain as me, although I'm not sure. But even if we share the lowest lows, we don't share the highest highs. This makes owning a person evil, while owning a cow is fine, because the cow has an extremely limited ability to care about or enjoy freedom. I think you actually make a strong argument that primates require a great deal more moral consideration, perhaps comparable to mentally impaired humans. Overall I agree with Singer to a certain degree. The future will look back at factory farming in shame and disgust. The lives of animals _are_ important (if not quite as important as human's) and we should strive to alleviate their suffering.
If you're not aware of pain, I don't know in what sense you'd be feeling it. But that could be an argument for cows feeling diminished pain, sure.
so we shall care to alleviate the pain of others species before our own?(that not what you said i know but its the argument of many herbivores)...cause i think we live around the globe in such a good society that pain in all kinds of levels does not exist
what do you mean with "before our own" here?
why not just try to do the best in all of the cases?
Place your bets: who's gonna be more obnoxious, vegans or non-vegans?
non-vegans,because MEAT IS GOOD ps.I'm a non-vegan
Vegans are always obnoxious... especially when they fart.
Daniel F. da Nobrega Non vegans. Vegans are harassed so much already. I never see them shouting about it anymore.
Non-vegans are more obnoxious, because of their insistence on not using reasoning.
Which one are you?
Question: Is it morally justifiable to kill animals to feed to other animals, especially when the animals we are feeding require meat to survive?
You can do that in a number of different ways. If you kill a calf and feed a tiny piece of it to your cat and throw the rest away I'd say it's not OK. If you feed it road kill or hunted invasive species I'd have less of a problem with it. So there's no black/white answer here.
I often struggle with that. I have to feed my rescued and neutered cats a bit of meat in their diet. I think the moral imperative here is to prevent species depending on meat from multiplying due to our own impact - like street animals, who tend to multiply very quickly in man-made environment, often because previous generations had been looked after, fed etc. by humans. In fact that's even true for cats, but not dogs, who can thrive on a meat-free diet. In that case I think all you can do is neuter the population, feed them as little meat as possible to allow them to live healthy lives if you look after them, and lobby for the quicker development of affordable lab-grown meat for pet food... but I'm not convinced that there is a good answer. I think the less we interfere with nature, the better, but when we have already done so, we have to try and minimise suffering in the most effective ways possible.
@Spongebob Squarepants You have my sympathy and I too can't wait for lab-grown meat to be available for cat and dog food! It'll save so many lives. I feed my kitties as little meat as I need to, they have a healthy diet altogether but it wouldn't be healthy without a bit of meat (mostly it wouldn't be very palatable to them - most of the taurine etc in meat is added as supplements rather than actually being part of the nutritional content of the meat itself, which really makes you think! I think for dogs you have a bit more leeway though, they can synthesize what they need from a broader diet, can't they, especially with well-designed veggie pet food that's available nowadays....? I'm not saying I know about that as an expert, you should definitely research it, but I have friends who've had very healthy dogs for years on a mostly vegetarian/vegan diet - but those people did really do their research to make sure their dogs were getting everything they needed, and give them a bit of high quality meat). I'm not advocating taking meat out of cats' or dogs' diets altogether - but it doesn't need to be the bulk of what they eat, by all accounts, which at least reduces demand somewhat...
Absolutely. If you are the animals keeper it is under your control, and it would be unethical to force your lifestyle upon it.
No, because they rely on meat to survive, and we don't and we also torture them, they don't.
Non-human animals aren't moral agents, which is how I would justify doing to them what we wouldn't do to ourselves.
im keeping my doggy away from you
So you base what you apply your morals on with only one factor, being if the organism in question is a moral agent? Even though they can still feel pain and you have chosen to accept letting them suffer for your pleasure?
There are humans that aren't moral agents (e.g. the severely mentally handicapped). Is it okay to do things to them that we wouldn't do to ourselves?
Thomas Ingram So if a human lacked moral agency, it would be okay to exploit and kill that human?
No! How did you get to that conclusion?
Go vegan!
:)
Álvaro Sendra González +++ :)
Vegan Geezer yes!
No, YOU go vegan. And leave everyone else to decide for themselves. It's not for everyone. :)
LOL, nope.
What about "Non-Animal Humans?"
Sometimes I can swear my sister is a vegetable, and I think it would be okay to kill her.
I hope you are kidding
Alexander Nasonov Yep, it's a joke.
That is being discussed in Europe right now. Artificial Intelligence Laws. Cutting edge Philosophy.
Don’t choke on the wheelchair
Hey Therion just wanted to say 93, 93 93/93
problably you wouldnt eat fluffy just because you have an emotive bond with it, not because he is A cat but because he is YOUR cat, this doesnt preclude the fact that you could eat any cat
I would probably eat any clean, healthy meat served to me, regardless of species. I wouldn't eat the animal if I had a bond with the individual in life, because I wouldn't personally be able to eat something I'm grieving. My issue expands from my inability to even touch uncooked meat, the texture repulses me. I couldn't kill the animal, or cut up a dead one. But if it was cooked, I could eat it. Dog, cat, whatever. So long as it's not going to kill me...
Would you also eat a factory-farmed human?
So you're okay with paying someone to kill an animal for you and you're okay with paying someone to cook an animal for you, but you can't do it yourself
+[Subjektnamen hier eingeben]
Real talk? I'm kinda curious how human would taste, ya know, properly cooked and seasoned and all that.
Not saying I'd kill someone to find out, but, ya know. Still curious.
we used to have clean, farmed dog meat
until these people started being specesist and hating on the farms
so now we get unclean, captured stray dog meat being served
the results turned out great, didn't it
ernietessein 👌🏼 hypocritical, right?
I'll be really glad when we can grow meat in a lab cost-effectively.
Me too. I would not eat it for health reasons, but it would help more people stop eating meat.
Animal fighting for sport is obviously different from eating cows. It's still hypocritical to eat cows and pigs but raise dogs and cats, but fighting pits are just raw cruelty.
This is so important!! Most people just ignore this, but it matters so much. I am very much on the Peter Singer side of the debate, human mistreatment of other sentient is such a huge problem. Intelligence should not matter because you don't need to be smart to feel pain or happiness. Another often overlooked topic I'd love to see covered in a Crash Course Philosophy video is the treatment of young people by adults, and the philosophical foundations, or lack thereof, around them. Young people are often discredited and discriminated against for completely irrelevant reasons.
Thanks, Crash Course Philosophy! :)
Thank you for talking about this subject! Non-human animals are commonly ignored in this discussion. We are just one species among billions of others. Sure we're smarter but that doesn't make it ok to harm others.
NUMBERS. That is what decides whether hunting is okay or not. And there are NOT enough lions to be going around hunting them, or bears, or giraffes, or wild cats!
i don't think that's the case, humans have been responsable for the extintion of any number of species over their history, hunting animals regardless of their numbers. Moreover, there are a shit ton of cats and dogs around the world, why it wouldn't be okay to eat or hunt them?.
But there are plenty of humans around, so is it ok to hunt them?
NUMBERS? Really?! Interesting... I like the way you think. Quick, someone get me the latest human population numbers.
8-9 billion really isn't that much when you compare it to insects.
So it's okay to murder them, as long as they're in abundance... got it!
What's this?... '7.5 billion humans', you don't say?
Oh no we are hurting animals. Non humans=/= humans
life = life though. I love my computer and I know it would be impossible to have without the exploitation we have exersized over the years, but to claim that harming something that feels as humans do and that is just and fair but simular treatment of other people isn't right is just hypicritcal. I am a proud hypocrite when it comes to this, but I don't think of myself in a bright and just light because of it. Neither should you. Non humans = humans on the life specter. Don't let the 'food chain' get you twisted, life = life
mattloulou123123 Blacks =/= Whites. your point is?
BlackMetalCrusader Brilliant
And men =/= women. Merely being _different_ doesn't by itself justify a difference in consideration they deserve.
Why should humans have some special treatment?
High quality. I remember what you said though, Hank. It went something along the lines of "Some times it causes more suffering in our own life to fight against the grain, and though it's self-interested, It's the best I can do."
PETA's going to have a field day on this
Num Num Tasty is this a copy and paste? Or did you edited the comment from "vegans" to "PETA"?
what are you talking about? why would I c-c c-v another comment ?
Num Num Tasty Because there is another comment exactly like yours under this video.
Hey Hank,
Have you quit meat yet? I know this has been on your mind for a while now. I remember when you put out a vlogbrothers clip on this a couple of years back.
As a non-animal eater, I really appreciated the way you didn't deny the reality of meat, even though you still ate it.
Knowledge is power and with power comes responsibility, soooo... you can do it!
Personification, pure and simple. Humans like some animals more than others. We like dogs, cats, and other traditional pets because we attribute them to being fun, innocent, loyal, caring, etc. Essentially, we project or notice certain qualities about them that we value. By contrast, we rarely think of cows, chickens, or pigs outside of their purpose as farm animals.
When Cecil and Harambe were shot, people were offended because of the circumstance. Harambe was in a zoo, would have lived a long peaceful life, if not for the child that fell in and the reaction of the staff. Cecil was in an animal in a national park, and was hunted purely for sport. He was also a member of a species which was declared endangered later that year.
As the video pointed out, you might consider self defense and/or other factors to be justification. However that doesn't apply here. Cecil was killed for a trophy and bragging rights. Harambe was shot, because an irresponsible parent neglected to stop their child from climbing into a gorilla enclosure.
As I said, we like some animals more than we like others and it shows in the manner with which we treat them.
Jon Leary personification of humans and cats over farm animals etc. in other words, speciesism
But why is speciesism bad Sundar? We can't use the way we feel as the root of our morality.
Judah Davis because you are putting your commodity before the life of others. There's no justification and you are just being tremendously hypocritical if you are against racism, sexism, but not speciesism. Sorry bout it
@@ivaaferr8141 Yes but you see that is your opinion based on how you feel about other animals. The reason why sexism and racism is wrong is because we humans are of equal value (not on a invidual basis but certainly on a global basis). You assume that animals also are of equal value but why do you think that? You have no God so what do you base your morals on?
This is the third time I am watching this video. Every word resonates with me. Thanks for making it . Wish I could like it more than one
You don't always have to be consistent, nor do you always have to be rational.
Having one irrational thought doesn't mean you're _'opting out of rational discourse'_, it just means you have an irrational thought.
Josh F Not sure how you got all that from what I said. You must be reading more into what I said than I actually wrote.
Ashley Small I agree with this. Those type of standards are absolutely ridiculous and no human could actually live up to it; at the very least pragmatically I could never imagine being consistent at that level. I'd legitimately kill myself before having to deal with the level of absolutism regarding rational thought.
Not to say I disagree with veganism, I actually agree with it, I'm just saying. I can be rational, helpful, and morally righteous, but have a taint somewhere and it doesn't invalidate what I've done or invalidate my ability to do rational things.
Maybe. I thought you were applying that logic to the case of animal exploitation. What were you applying that logic towards?
I presume it's simply towards the idea itself rather then anything specific. Animal exploitation obviously has huge implications behind it but on the basis of it, just because there's something you're not being rational about, doesn't mean you can't be rational about something else. It doesn't mean you can't show morality in some other field; requiring such standards is absolutely ridiculous and is doomed to fail if you apply it _only_ because of the inconsistent thought or rational. There has to be some form of moral weight behind this that makes certain inconsistent morals harder to ignore; as otherwise just making an excuse about work that you're previously championed not making while never admitting the connection would cause you to be completely unable to be rational or at least, have no moral weight in anything further. Which just isn't true and probably would result in us not getting anywhere.
TDLR; there has to be a reason besides just being inconsistent that this is important.
But I suppose I should let Ashley answer.
Josh F I wasn't being specific. I was talking more generally about absolute rationalism. We're imperfect, and I don't like the height of his standards - or at least how he phrased them.
pikamontr You pretty much nailed it.
DISCLAIMER: As written text lacks the ability to put *emphasis* (as exemplified there) on words and phrases which is so important in the conveying of meaning in spoken text, I use *bold text* as a substitute for that ability. Therefore, any abundance of bold text in this post should not be viewed as any emotional instability or otherwise as an indication of irrational behaviour on my part, but instead as an attempt to convey as much meaning as possible with my words in this limited format.
A difficult topic, certainly. But nonetheless, here is my attempt at a response.
Equal Consideration of Interests, as you call it, should of course go all ways it can. You rightly pointed out that owning or eating a Human Being _[or Fluffy the cat, for that matter -- but I'll get back to her]_ is seen as morally abhorrent, and thus owning or eating a non-Human Animal should be seen the same way according to the Principle of the Equal Consideration of Interests.
However, you neglected to consider the case which goes the other 'way round: if, say, the consumption for culinary or nutritional considerations (i.e. "eating") of non-Human Animals by Humans is seen as morally abhorrent, shouldn't the eating of non-Human Animals by *other non-Human Animals* seen the same way? After all, isn't the point of Philosophy, in your words at least, that we should be internally consistent? Why should the catching (and often *torturing*, no less) and subsequent consumption of the flesh of a mouse by Fluffy the cat -- there she is again -- be OK when we view similar treatment of Humans and non-Human Animals alike by Humans as morally abhorrent? Or, alternatively, if we are OK with Fluffy doing what she does to the mouse, why shouldn't we be OK with what Humans do to non-Human Animals?
Speaking of that line of thought, the thing about _"This is the way it's always been."_.... Not only has it been this way for the life-span of the Human Race, but it has been this way for the *entirety* of the existence of *Life on Earth*. You could say it's the "natural order of
things", in a way, and that there is no reason to change something which has *literally* been the case *for as long as there WERE cases* to consider. I'm not sure whether I'd say this is a good argument myself, but it is certainly one to consider. And, most importantly, to not misrepresent by saying it only applies to the time Humans were on Earth, as supposed to the time Life Itself was on Earth.
My own, personal answer is that, just as I wouldn't want non-Human Animals to be tortured by Humans, I'd stop Fluffy _[or Munky, for that matter, who was my cat who died a little under a year ago]_ from torturing mice if I knew of a way to convince them. However, as I am perfectly OK with Fluffy, Munky or any other cat *eating* _[and catching, for that matter, if the kill would be instantaneous]_ mice, I also have no trouble with Humans eating non-Human Animals.
I do, however, think that the use of non-Human Animals for needs *other* than consumption of the flesh for eating purposes -- say, testing Cosmetics -- should be moved away from with utmost haste as soon as humanly _[he he]_ possible for the moral reasons discussed in this video and above in this post. I also think the ownership of Animals for the purposes of doing something with them that would kill them should be moved away from as much as possible as soon as possible, and not just for the Philosophical and Moral reasons that apply -- owning and feeding a cow, for example, to the point of raising it so that it's meat may be consumed or new cows can be born is equivalent to many, many miles of driving a really old and heavily CO2-emitting car. Not sure how many miles anymore, but I do remember it's a lot. On the other hand, we are perfectly OK with Humans working for other Humans, as long as the working conditions -- and, should they be housed by the Company, living conditions -- are of a high standard and they get payed for what they do. Similarly, it could be argued that, say, keeping a Cow for the purposes of extracting her milk is justifiable, as long as the "working conditions" and living conditions are of a high quality _[so the Factory Farms are, indeed, completely and utterly unacceptable and should be banned with utmost haste]_ and they get rewarded in some way for their "work" of producing and giving milk.
Post was too long, so I am replying to myself in order to cut the post up into post-able parts.
Going back to Fluffy and Munky the cats and why we shouldn't eat them:
it's true that most people would have little trouble shooting an assailant in self-defense. However, the troubles -- at the very least for the person who has to actually shoot the gun -- become significantly higher if the assailant happens to be a close friend. That's why, in the U.S. with it's frankly insane Gun Laws _[but that's a discussion for another time]_, the shooting of unknown criminals breaking into one's home is significantly higher than the shooting of drunk friends who attack in a fit of rage; even though I doubt the chances of the former occurring to any given person are significantly higher than the chances of the latter occurring.
I also doubt many people see anything wrong with this discrepancy. Personally, I do see something wrong with the discrepancy for shooting someone dead, but not, say, for a discrepancy that also exists when it comes to calling the police with regards to violent behaviour. We simply care more _[in the sense of the actions we take to protect vs. harm them]_ for people we.... well..... care more about _[in the sense of emotional attachment]_. Going back to the Equal Consideration of Interests and how it should apply in all cases: if we conclude that treating a Human friend with more respect than a Human stranger, it becomes clear why should not be surprised or feel it's unjustified when people want to give a proper burial to a non-Human friend, but are perfectly OK with eating an anonymous cow, or pig. Though, yes, the refusal to eat an anonymous dog or other "cute" animal is totally unjustified and should be argued against with utmost fervour.
Speaking of dying non-Human Animals, though, here's an interesting aside for thought-bubbles of anyone who might be reading this: my cat, Munky, was Euthanized. And while I was not entirely comfortable with it, the Veterinarian convinced me that she was in so much suffering that it was better this way. However, unlike me, most people see *no problem whatsoever* in Euthanizing Animals.
Now, I, personally, also see no insurmountable problems with the Euthanization of Humans who are suffering. I also think that, as Humans are perfectly capable of communicating their own suffering, it should be entirely up to the person themselves to decide if they want to be Euthanized, possibly with some consideration time _[say, a day or three]_ to make sure it isn't a "spur of the moment thing". Then again, this could also be due to the fact that I'm Dutch, and we were, like with many of the more recent advancements in rights of people _[go the Netherlands!]_ the first to instigate proper Euthanasia Laws and are still one of the most advanced when it comes to the right to end one's own life in a dignified manner. However, many other people are considerably less comfortable with Euthanasia of Humans. For those among that group of people who *are* comfortable with the Euthanization of pets and other non-Human Animals, here's my own personal Thought Bubble assignment: how do you justify this discrepancy in the moral assessment of Euthanasia between Humans and non-Human Animals? I'd love to hear some answers.
Let's, lastly, discuss Cecil the Lion. As I recall _[though I could be wrong]_, Cecil was part of an Endangered Species _[actually, I learned that his species was added to the list a relatively short amount of time after his death -- which makes this argument still apply unless the addition to the list was done solely _*_because_*_ of Cecil's death and the outcry it caused]_, so killing him and others of his species endangers the species as a whole. I personally think that, along with the Principle of Equal Consideration, one of the *(several)* things that should be taken into account when considering whether something is morally right or wrong, and in exactly *how* right or wrong it is, is in the __ that an action causes. When the action causes *irreversible* loss, the action should be deemed almost completely unacceptable in almost all cases, due to the sheer danger to the world the action causes. When the action *threatens* to cause irreversible loss, the actions should be deemed highly unacceptable in almost all cases.
On top of that, Cecil was part of an important study done by several researchers. The actions of Walter Palmer, dentist and recreational trophy hunter, severely damaged the research of those people. So not only was Lion-kind harmed, but so was Human-kind's understanding of Lion-kind. And, if you decide to be speciesist, you should at the very least consider the harm the killing of Cecil did to the advancement of Human Knowledge. Not that I argue for being speciesist, mind you, but it's useful to consider arguments that appeal to those who hold different views from your own -- it makes it a lot easier to convince more people of doing or supporting the right thing.
Thus, in conclusion: I think that the difference in outrage over the killing of Cecil vs. killing a cow for food was justified because his death caused considerably more harm, both to Cecil's species and our own, than killing a Cow -- or a Pheasant if you want to limit yourself to Wild Animals, which considering the considerations above and in the video is entirely reasonable -- does to the Cow or Pheasant species. Or the Human species, for that matter, but that should be obvious.
Finally, I have a question for you and other Philosophers, and I'd *really* like a good, carefully considered answer to this from a Philosopher who has given it some serious thought -- which, I know, is hard, given that it's about the very core of what you guys do.. You said _"Philosophers want you to be able to justify your actions."_, and you have given arguments based on the same premise in the past.
Why, though? Why do Philosophers *require* that we'd *always* be able to justify our actions. Maybe someone says _"In general I want to be rational, but when it comes to eating non-Human Animals I have no problem being irrational. I also believe that I can both desire to be rational in the general case and decide I am OK with being irrational in specific cases"_. Why is this line of reasoning so objectionable to you? Do you have proper Philosophical / Rational / Logical reasoning for why unjustified actions are *always* wrong _[as opposed to _*_usually_*_ wrong]_? Or is it just because _"That's the way Philosophers have always done things"_ or something similar?
despite what vegans claim, humans are naturally omnivores. despite that
one graphic, you cannot identify an omnivore by looking at it's teeth or
claws; omnivores as a rule always look like either carnivores or
herbivores. because of this it is very difficult to have a healthy diet
in the absence of meat, and genuinely impossible if you live somewhere
like kenya.
the issue with this video and veganism in general is that it insists on
lumping all animals together.
the fact is that a gorilla is not at all comparable to an insect. I
feel that it's a pretty straightforward standard to measure whether it's
okay to treat an animal like that is if the animal is intelligent
enough to object. that is, if it has the capacity to understand the
concept of rights. so elephants and apes? no cigar. but chickens and
cows? fair game.
even if the way animals are treated in factory farms could be considered
cruel, all that would mean is that we need to reform the way animals
are treated in factory farms.
lastly, you should know that a lot of the ideas you vegans have about
cows and milk is just wrong. yes, the calves are yanked away from the
mother, but only for as long as it actually takes to milk the mother.
additionally because of the way we've domesticated cows, when we go without
milking them, the milk builds up within them and starts to hurt a good
deal. I should know, since there are a lot of farmers where I live.
I am thus rather skeptical of the other acts attributed to farmers by
vegans, not the least because a lot of them seem to serve no purpose
other than to inflict pain.
I couldn't survive eating vegan, even being vegetarian would be very hard for me, but I do think that most of us eat too much meat and care too little about where it comes from and more specifically how it is produced. I dislike the dogmas vegetarians display. IMHO we were meant to eat meat among many other sources of food. There's nothing wrong in killing animals for food, but they shouldn't suffer unnecessarily and we shouldn't waste food or kill just for fur.
But killing just for pleasure is ok? We have zero need for animal products in our foods, zero. So all killing, at least in the western world is for pleasure only. Let's stop that ok?
sajfen It's not for pleasure when it's for food. Sure if you kill an animal and only eat a tiny bit because you think that only this part tastes then I'm inclined to agree.
I tried to live vegetarian for a while but it left me constantly hungry, upset my digestive system and left me over all in a very foul mood. I thus wouldn't say that I eat meat just for fun.
edi - animal foods are a form of food waste. It is far more resource intensive to feed plants to an animal to eat that animal and it's byproducts than to eat the plants directly.
Also, veganism is very good for your health. It can prevent diabetes and heart disease, among other benefits. Vegans tend to be less likely to be obese and more likely to live longer than meat eaters.
By eating meat, you are sabotaging your own health, harming the environment by using more resources than necessary, and condemning animals to lives of suffering that you likely can't bear to even think about. If you can bear to think about it, you might like the documentary earthlings.
Please learn to question dominant culture. Hank barely touches the edge of veganism, there are so many angles that reveal it to be good for humans, the environment and animals. We managed to abolish transatlantic slavery - we can overcome cultural norms to achieve a more ethical world.
chickpea Why then does it upset my stomach and leave me hungry?
I only eat like 5 veggies. Corn on the cob, peppers red/yellow, potatoes, onions, dark red kidney or black beans. That's it. Nothing else. How would I possibly survive going vegan/vegetarian. Most green vegetables actually make me gag and throw up in my mouth. So Ya. ..
Best episode thus far I’ve seen on this channel.
This hurts my heart.
I'm so happy I do not eat meat.
I love all animals.
Veganism isn't about saving animals, it's about not killing them.
Also if she wants she can save animals too, have you ever heard of an animal rescue farm?
Christopher Murray My idelness... ? Excuse you, you do not know me and I'm extremely involved with helping animals on the streets. I do my part to be a better human, to be kind to other living beings.
oh, so it's irrational to be happy about causing much less harm to animals, polluting the enviroment in a much lower scale, and eating much healthier? please
www.countinganimals.com/how-many-animals-does-a-vegetarian-save/
here is the article
and also not counting the animals killed to make eggs and milk, another not-quite-so-small sum
and why would the scientists create lab-grown meat if there isn't a demand for it? vegans create demand for it, not meat-eaters.
also, most people who work in those lab-grown meat are VEGANS themselves!
and excuse me but I really doubt your assumptions that the "meat that is laying in stores go to waste", "because of me", allegedly, is hurting the animals more than the person who actually keeps buying meat and thus creates more demand for it.
I went vegan once. Got real ill. Ate meat again, got better. Some people just have to eat meat. Fact. And I'm one of those people.
M Halley that's just you not knowing how to substitute meat
You seem to know every ounce of information about me, my lifestyle, my biology, my health, and so on. Sarcasm aside, you actually don't. So creating such a vague argument only shows your lack of education on the subject. Look it up my friend. You are watching a show about biological facts. You'll find some people actually suffer illness by not eating meat. Some people's bodies need it, while others do not.
+
What nutrient exactly does meat contain that can't be found in plant foods (or in case of B12, bacteria)? If you can't name that nutrient, you're talking woo.
You are kidding right? T -cells my friend. Though they can be found in plant based products, (and many Vegans can live just fine with supplements) the amount you need to properly keep healthy is found in grass (which I wouldn't recommend eating because of pollutants) or red meat. Ironically the same species that produces T cells based on the grass they eat.
that was very interesting indeed, made me think about my choices a lot..
I double take’d so fast when he asked “why not eat her” lmao
I actually justify my meat consumption with the reasoning that I don't really value life in itself. The death of a human or non-human animal is only of importance if it affects the life of others; the dead one doesn't care anymore. Therefore, killing a human is pretty much always wrong, because of the social constructs that human has formed throughout their life and therefore the implications it has on others. The death of a human will usually upset others; that is not necessarily the case when killing a non-human animal.
I am against the current standards of animal keeping though. I am fine with paying more money for meat and therefore eating less of that stuff, if that means the animals were treated with dignity while living.
Donar Many animals have other animals that they prefer to spend time with. Like dogs having other dogs that they prefer to spend time with. Many animals mate for life. Many animals are parents - if the parents die the offspring will often die because the young isn't protected, and hasn't learned the skills to survive yet.
TheSUPERHAPPY1 yeah, I didn't say that animals never have social constructs, but that it's not always the case.
What if you kill a person without friends or family? It's not wrong then?
alejandrinos It would at least not be the concern of anyone, so yes, if would be justifiable. I am against killing for fun though, so I hope you eat that person.
If you are against killing for [an unnecessary reason] then why do you not consistently apply that claim to nonhuman animals? Making USE of the body you unnecessarily killed doesn't justify the killing either.
I think you've gotten quite confused in your philosophy. You're focused on second order harm but are completely ignoring first order harm- which is logically inconsistent. Naturally if you care about the decrease in well being in people who grieve over the loss of a loved one, you should also care about allowing the individual themselves to feel well being in the first place and not be killed.
It's a damn shame that due to the discourse of militant vegans with obstinate meat eaters has rendered that discourse in such a bad state that meat eaters feel judged and find this video preachy.
This is merely a study of Philosophy, Hank isn't suggesting everyone go vegan, in fact I'm not sure what his position on that is, he could have retired to eating a big old bacon and egg sandwich after shooting this vid for all we know.
He's just saying if you claim to value all life but eat meat you are in a moral dilemma.
I could very well change my outlook to valuing no life after viewing this video.
I appreciate that you point this out because everyone's response to this video is that they should become vegan. Yet that does not answer all of the problems concerning the treatment of non-human animals.
Vegans still have the capacity to not treat non-human animals in the best possible way, some even lack the capacity of treating humans with the same respect simply because they are (surprise) not vegans. So the hypocrisy is entertaining to say the least.
I really would like to see these militant vegans everyone's always talking about. Wierd how they're never on the pages I'm on. If you mean groups like the Animal Liberation Front then I suggest you actually look into what they do. They rescue animals. They don't carry weapons, they don't threaten people. Maybe they do a bit of graffiti sometimes. How is that militant though? Or are the activists that peacefully enter factories to protest militant when they get get arrested for wanting to save an animal from being murdered? Again, let's not use inflammatory terms please. And meat eaters feel judged no matter what because of the cognitive dissonance they experience. I felt guilty when I found out about everything, but I never blamed my vegan friend for the way I was feeling. I was able to admit to myself that my own actions made me feel that way because they didn't align with my views of my own morality and beliefs
which means, if you don't value life or don't believe in the universality of morality, there's no moral dilemma.
I agree...but I also understand why vegans get so angry. Think about it: vegans have so much empathy for animals that, every time they remember the ongoing cruelty, they feel anger and frustration, and they know it's happening on a massive scale, far more than even necessary. They direct their anger to those whom they perceive to be causing it. However, I wish they would tone it down a little. I especially wish they would laud the people who do care and aim to reduce their consumption and be mad that people aren't perfect: I'd rather have people who are trying, but imperfect, than people who are doing nothing at all. Perfection is impossible but we can all aim to do better and better. I say that as an ovo-lacto vegetarian whom vegans seem to dislike strongly. They say I'm "worse than a meat eater." (That itself is a complicated statement. I don't think meat eaters are bad people, although I think killing animals without necessity is a horrible thing. It's complicated. It's hairy. Good people can learn to rationalize bad things. It's how we survive but also how we continue bad things.)
Well, now you don't appreciate any life even with conscience. But at least you are honest about that and don't try to find any fancy excuse like the rest of people.
I like that you bring up important/hard topics. Best channel on UA-cam probably
Well, this video just saved me from failing my philosophy exam tomorrow! Thank you.❤
Wow, this must be the best video recently! Thank you so much for your work.
So glad you made an episode on this subject. Great info and go vegan!
OH MY GOD I ALREADY LOVED THIS CHANNEL BUT NOW I LOVE YOU EVEN MORE THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
A written transcript to accompany this video for high school students would come in very handy and make this an awesome educational tool for all learning styles
In the apocalypse when anarchy reigns, I would eat another human easy...
Then I eat dragon, it's natural to eat meat.
Things in meat that are essential for strength: Vitamin B12, Creatine, Vitamin D3, Carnosine, and Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA)
breakingmuscle.com/fuel/why-all-humans-need-to-eat-meat-for-health
Did you know that not a single population in the history of the world has ever adopted a vegan diet? It's deadly with out artificial supplements.
Would you eat a dog?
What about a special South Korean farmed meat dog?
Madame Corgi Yea, totally... I think i'm going to order some lion meat.www.exoticmeatmarkets.com/lionmeat1.html
Chris Jones I love that you care about B12 deficiency in vegans and vegetarians. However, perhaps you should lobby for EVERYONE to take B12 supplements or fortified foods, as almost half of the US population is deficient in B12.
Is it wrong to kill insects too?
Adrian Duran the replies to this comment are deafaning.
i haven't read anything about the ethics or nutritional hazards/benefits of eating insects. i just know a little about all of the studies studying the huge benefits of a plant based whole foods diet
I would say there obviously becomes a grey line at one point. You have to kind of decide what's your line in the sand.
Many people go by the development of the central nervous system and the ability to feel pain. So a jellyfish has neither of these, and therefore you'd be HARD PRESSED to find someone who could defend a stance on not eating them (morality wise).
So then you'd have to look at insects and make a judgement call with the science we have.
Ara Mahar
insects have brains and a nervous system.
who cares about eating them, the wholesale slaughter of them for inconveniencing people should put the vegans in a truly ambiguous moral dilemma.
does insects have a brain and nervous system?
@crashcourse I've been watching your philosophy videos and I just wanted to say "thank you" for all of this hard work!
5:00 Tis but a scratch
really no mention of haranbe?
I'll mention him, if it will make you feel better. During the short time the child was in the gorilla's care, Harambe was more watchful of the child than the boy's own mother. R.I.P. Harambe. May you win the next Presidential Election.
Thought this would be the top comment, I am disappointed.
DID SOMEBODY SAY HARAMBE?
Mateus Sr literally the reason I came to the comment section
Dicks out for Harambee!
I am a vegan since 3 years. Its a beautiful way of living life without causing any harm to the most innocent being. And its very important to spread this message. Its important to stop animal breeding and all stuffs to save our EARTH.
Reaching back to the video on personhood and similar one's, our taxonomy and biology are different. Yes, I eat non-human animals and I see no reason to cease
Pain, suffering, death, environmental destruction, negative health effects. No reason?
I'm an animal rights activist and he couldn't have put this better.
Animals are here with us, not for us ❤
The highest function of animals is breeding and surviving. The same cannot be said for humans who's highest functions include innovation, domination, and progression to better things. If animals are left alone, they will only live as they've been doing for thousands of years. The same cannot be said for humans.
That's not true. There are many human beings whom are incapable of innovation, domination and "progression for better things", such as the marginal cases (i.e. the permanently mentally enfeebled), and yet, despite this, they still pertain moral value.
If you believe that these marginal case human beings are still worthy of consideration, respect and rights, then functionality is irrelevant since value holds independent of this criterion.
@@TheAster3 Yes, there are many who are incapable of those things, just like there are animals born with defects too, who are incapable of survival and breeding. The highest function does not pertain to everything. So yes, while people should take care of animals, their highest functions are nowhere near ours.
@@joshuagordon8590 If you're conceding to the fact that there are human beings incapable of such functionality, then you're stuck in a dilemma:
1) Bite the bullet on the entailment which would commit you to devalue such human beings, similarly to livestock animals.
2) Retract the claim of functionality
Whether or not their function is anywhere near ours is moot, and irrelevant to the objection on hand. The objection points out that if your view was true, it could commit you to an absurd entailment.
@@TheAster3 Livestock animals are for eating. Humans who are not able to function at their highest human functions are not for eating, so they are not of the same value as livestock animals.
@@joshuagordon8590 That's just question-begging, you moron. The idea that one party is permissible for slaughter, whilst the other (despite failing to meet your criterion) is not - assuming that it's still permissible to slaughter the former, but not the latter is begging the question since the contention lies within whether or not it is permissible to do such a thing.
Do you have a response to the objection instead of simply begging the question for your position?
I like totally get caught up on the value of my own life all of the time, the amount of plants, I have ate and animals. I question the value of my own life over any other existence of anything... Also intelligence is a human made up word, definition and standard... Are humans even really the most intellectual... :( smh It's human-centric ideologies..
If intelligence does not reference a meaningful organization in reality, then what is the thing we call intelligence? By that, I mean the mechanisms whereby an entity is better suited to projecting hypothetical realities and selecting whichever is deemed most beneficial, given the entity's goals.
I think human's do posses the greatest ability to do the above. Consequently, The rest of nature doesn't give the slightest care for your quandary. Value, on the other hand, is a bit more abstract and arbitrary and is contingent upon intelligence existing, in that, without some form of intelligence, it is pretty darn hard to value anything. A simple ant can be said to have a set of values, but no where is it considering value in the abstract.
According to nature, and by the rules of its game, the only entity patterns worthy to progress to the next slice of time are those that preserve themselves. Energy accumulation for the purpose of information preservation and expansion is the only value that matters at this level. If creating a set of values helps you to not die long enough to reproduce and ensure offspring success, or if it helps you more broadly ensure your species success, then your pattern is acceptable to nature, and is likely to be repeated.
At a different level, if you can use intelligence and agency to preserve yourself and also safeguard others in the process, well, that is unique.
7:22 yes it is about harm... to *me*. Eating an animal that is on top of a food chain is a bad idea. Toxins of all their prey will have accumulated in them. Furthermore the only valid reason to eat meat is pleasure. I don't expect the meat of an old sickly cat to be any good. But if you reframe it to a younger kitten that was driven over and died under your porch. I'd guess the meat would be more like a nice rabbit (plus some extra toxins).
I mostly eat a whole foods plant-based diet, but mainly for selfish reasons. My health comes first, and that using agricultural area for food instead of animal feed is more efficient and sustainable comes only as a nice byproduct. That my diet puts me in the same category as the moral vegans (that only come off their high horse for the horses sake, and not to be any less obnoxious) in the views of many, I find a unfortunate evil.
The intelligence/sentience gap between humans as a species and any other is a qualitative difference that defines all. The edge cases don't disturb this judgment, they just benefit from the deference and respect we have for humanity as a whole.
"we think nothing of treating animals this way"
Yes we do, that's why we buy products that haven't been tested on animals and free range eggs for example
queenofhearts64 you serious mate?
queenofhearts64 "Free range". You probably wanna have a google search on that. Try to see through the propaganda. What is the legal definition of "free range"? You don't know.
free range eggs are a joke. they only exist to make people feel better about the consumption.
queenofhearts64 The legal definition of "free range" isn't as specific as you would think.
It's mainly a marketing ploy to raise sales.
Trust me, if you were a hen, you'd want people supporting sanctuaries where hens just live in peace without the pressures of being forced to meet the massive market demand for eggs day in and day out.
I don't think that's the point. The fact that the companies are essentially (though maybe not literally) lying isn't the fault of the trusting consumer. The consumer is still choosing by their intention, which is admirable. The next step is for government to ensure a "free range" chicken matches the customer's expectations.
(If you disagree that's the government's responsibility, that's another subject entirely. Consider phrases such as "Peanut Free". If it was literally true, and didn't contain any Arachis hypogaea, but it did contain Arachis monticola, which is not a peanut, it'd still kill people with peanut allergies. The law should follow the expectation of the layman reader).
Loved it. Animals are even much more important than us for the world, without bunch of them the world would die, without us it would be perfect again. Animals are the best♥
David Rojas, if the world was void of humans then who would track down and kill all the animals that MURDER other animals. Some really sick, twisted and demented animals (yes, I am referring to cats) kill solely for the satisfaction of watching innocent animals suffer and die.
Haha yeah, the animals which hunt doves or pretty birds just for leaving them roting out there. But well, you know the world worked perfectly without us for a hundred of years, it has its order and the animals themselves are the regulators of the animal population.
David Rojas "Natural selection sure isn't brutal in anyway.
Thank u for this! I love all your videos but this was the most enlightening, interesting and bold one! ❤️
So many people follow the moral bandwagon without stopping to critically think about their reaction. It's so easy to get morally outraged at something *before* you actually think about whether you should get morally outraged