I love this description of morality, but am curious about your opinion on the arbitrary decisions comment: do you feel that cultural tuning (often underpinned by cultural heritage and available food options) is an invalid way to select “acceptable” meats? No judgement, your comment just got me thinking
I see you got into an extensive discussion with the other poster, I’m looking forward to digging into that.
While it hasn’t shifted my own opinion, I want to thank you for a very well elucidated commentary, this was extremely insightful and responded to my question well. I sense the passion underpinning it.
I will definitely take a look into the Peter Singer article. Thank you again, take care :)
I hear you! Food is an intensely personal and political topic, I can see how ppl get up in arms about it. I was genuinely curious about the phrasing of your comment, and you shared a very logical breakdown of what was behind it - it was well reasoned and you used solid parallels. I actually enjoyed it!
Absolutely, I’ll keep your offer in mind once I’ve read the article - it’s always nice to find a considered fellow lemming :) Cheers!
Not the person to whom you were replying, but I appreciated your comment.
These are really fun philosophical topics, that I’ve enjoyed talking about in person several times. I don’t think that human rights are universal, because I don’t personally believe that morality exists external to culture.
If these behaviours were human rights violations in, say, Denmark, then they do not cease to be human rights violations just because they are taking place in a different country with different cultural attitudes.
This implies that certain cultures’ mores are more correct than others’, which probably feels right to you because those countries’ norms align more closely with yours. I feel the same way, but I don’t think it’s a FACT.
I absolutely also agree that FGM is bad, but being a human rights violation in Denmark doesn’t ipso facto prove that it’s true. I.e. in the U.S. it’s now illegal for many industries/schools/orgs to promote DEI, but that doesn’t mean that other countries should do the same. I’m sure Denmark has some bad takes too, though I don’t know the country well enough to think of any.
Just starting an argument online for fun while on the throne, don’t take me too seriously, friend!
Is there no sense in which we can say, actually no: a culture in which slavery is okay is a flawed culture; it is better to have a culture that does not promote this sort of thing?
I would certainly prefer that the arc of time bend towards people and the environment having more protection/freedom/rights than the other way around, but without an external directive I don’t believe that it’s meaningful to use labels like “correct” in this context. For your specific examples, I would rather say something like “Nazi Germany and the Confederacy were below the contemporaneous and current commonly-held threshold for human rights.” That’s a self-important mouthful, which I already regret typing out.
Any evaluation of another culture is necessarily done through the lens of the evaluator’s opinions and preferences, which are (by default) a product of their home culture. I hope I’m explaining my view clearly; I certainly am not arguing that those societies were not abominable places to live, led by awful people.
This implies that certain cultures’ mores are more correct than others’, which probably feels right to you because those countries’ norms align more closely with yours.
As a vegan, I don’t think is the case! I think our cultures norms around animals does not align closely what feels right to me at all.
…
For example there some Indigenous or Inuit cultures in rural Canada or Greenland that still partly live their traditional ways of life. I think those cultures are actually better than ours.
I feel like these two statements are in contradiction? You state that some traditional cultures are better because they align with your beliefs, which was my argument. Again, I’m not saying that those cultures are NOT an improvement over my own in this particular regard, based on my own view of morality, just that my opinion on the subject is my own and not “The Correct Opinion”.
Again, I mean absolutely no disrespect and am just trying to stretch my smooth and rarely-used brain a bit. Feel free to simply ignore me.
everyone makes such distinctions. including vegans. they don’t care that animals are displaced by agriculture, killed in the protection of crops, or their harvesting.
people can’t eat grass or silage. but that’s entirely besides the point. vegans don’t avoid plants that were protected from pests and scavengers. they decide to treat some animals differently for just as arbitrary reasons.
A) raise cattle which, as there are not enough grassy pastures, I will have to grow food to feed, causing harm to lots of smaller animals and insects
B) eat the food I was already growing, and I will have to cause about 1/4th the harm
C) grow my own food and use fencing and netting to prevent as much harm as I can
D) starve to death
If you can’t do C because you don’t have the space or time, then I wouldn’t blame someone for picking “reduce harm as much as I can without starving to death.” Paying money to people who are engaging in factory farming is not on that same level.
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I love this description of morality, but am curious about your opinion on the arbitrary decisions comment: do you feel that cultural tuning (often underpinned by cultural heritage and available food options) is an invalid way to select “acceptable” meats? No judgement, your comment just got me thinking
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I see you got into an extensive discussion with the other poster, I’m looking forward to digging into that.
While it hasn’t shifted my own opinion, I want to thank you for a very well elucidated commentary, this was extremely insightful and responded to my question well. I sense the passion underpinning it.
I will definitely take a look into the Peter Singer article. Thank you again, take care :)
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I hear you! Food is an intensely personal and political topic, I can see how ppl get up in arms about it. I was genuinely curious about the phrasing of your comment, and you shared a very logical breakdown of what was behind it - it was well reasoned and you used solid parallels. I actually enjoyed it!
Absolutely, I’ll keep your offer in mind once I’ve read the article - it’s always nice to find a considered fellow lemming :) Cheers!
Not the person to whom you were replying, but I appreciated your comment.
These are really fun philosophical topics, that I’ve enjoyed talking about in person several times. I don’t think that human rights are universal, because I don’t personally believe that morality exists external to culture.
This implies that certain cultures’ mores are more correct than others’, which probably feels right to you because those countries’ norms align more closely with yours. I feel the same way, but I don’t think it’s a FACT.
I absolutely also agree that FGM is bad, but being a human rights violation in Denmark doesn’t ipso facto prove that it’s true. I.e. in the U.S. it’s now illegal for many industries/schools/orgs to promote DEI, but that doesn’t mean that other countries should do the same. I’m sure Denmark has some bad takes too, though I don’t know the country well enough to think of any.
Just starting an argument online for fun while on the throne, don’t take me too seriously, friend!
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I would certainly prefer that the arc of time bend towards people and the environment having more protection/freedom/rights than the other way around, but without an external directive I don’t believe that it’s meaningful to use labels like “correct” in this context. For your specific examples, I would rather say something like “Nazi Germany and the Confederacy were below the contemporaneous and current commonly-held threshold for human rights.” That’s a self-important mouthful, which I already regret typing out.
Any evaluation of another culture is necessarily done through the lens of the evaluator’s opinions and preferences, which are (by default) a product of their home culture. I hope I’m explaining my view clearly; I certainly am not arguing that those societies were not abominable places to live, led by awful people.
I feel like these two statements are in contradiction? You state that some traditional cultures are better because they align with your beliefs, which was my argument. Again, I’m not saying that those cultures are NOT an improvement over my own in this particular regard, based on my own view of morality, just that my opinion on the subject is my own and not “The Correct Opinion”.
Again, I mean absolutely no disrespect and am just trying to stretch my smooth and rarely-used brain a bit. Feel free to simply ignore me.
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Well, at least we can agree on the distinction being arbitrary.
everyone makes such distinctions. including vegans. they don’t care that animals are displaced by agriculture, killed in the protection of crops, or their harvesting.
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people can’t eat grass or silage. but that’s entirely besides the point. vegans don’t avoid plants that were protected from pests and scavengers. they decide to treat some animals differently for just as arbitrary reasons.
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>You’re acting like the options are (a) cause as much suffering as you like
no. I’m saying that everyone makes decisions about which animals get treated which ways. eating a burger doesn’t cause any harm, anyway.
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>Letting animals be tortured and slaughtered en masse
eating beans doesn’t stop this. vegans are letting them be slaughtered as well.
My options are
A) raise cattle which, as there are not enough grassy pastures, I will have to grow food to feed, causing harm to lots of smaller animals and insects
B) eat the food I was already growing, and I will have to cause about 1/4th the harm
C) grow my own food and use fencing and netting to prevent as much harm as I can
D) starve to death
If you can’t do C because you don’t have the space or time, then I wouldn’t blame someone for picking “reduce harm as much as I can without starving to death.” Paying money to people who are engaging in factory farming is not on that same level.
the animal is already dead. all the harm took place long before I decided what to eat.
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And there you go:
“Holier-than-thou vegans with pamphlet level arguments they force upon everybody are a problem.”
People don’t share your dietary choices. Deal with it.
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And, there you go, as per the original comment above: “Holier-than-thou vegans with pamphlet level arguments they force upon everybody are a problem.”
🙄
You are only “more moral” on the same level as Jehova Witnesses are somehow “more moral” than other religions.
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By quoting a pamphlet 🙄 And I don’t remember asking you anything.
That’s an interesting fallacy, I haven’t heard it before. I’ll have to note it down, “dismissal from imaginary pamphlet”
It’s sort of Appeal to Authority, but in this case it’s an Appeal to Hypothetical Authority?
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