After reading some discussion on lemmygrad about veganism, I felt the need to share my thoughts in a separate thread, as comments weren’t appropriate for the wall of text I’m about to throw.
Before we start, very important precision. This is not about environmental veganism, only about animal-liberation veganism. Consuming less animal products will be a lifestyle change we must anticipate to limit environmental destruction. This is about the moral philosophy of veganism and its contradictions with materialism.
Intro
Veganism is often rationalised under the form of a syllogism : it is immortal to kill and exploit humans, and non-human animals are equal to humans, therefore, it is immoral to kill and exploit non-human animals.
Now, I must say, if one is to contest the validity of this syllogism as a basis for veganism I encourage them to provide one since it could drastically change my point of view.
Like many syllogisms, there is appeal and validity to it until you question the premises. Let’s review them under a materialistic lens.
Morality and materialism
The first premise is that it is immortal to kill and exploit humans. As leftists, we tend to wholeheartedly agree with such a statement, as it encapsulates our ambitions and dreams, however this cannot be pursued for a political manifest beyond utopian wishful thinking. Historically, killing has been justified as a high moral act whenever the one being killed was deemed worthy of death. The reason it is generally considered immoral to interrupt one’s life is because humans simply have to collaborate to survive, therefore every society has developed a social construct that allows us to live as a social productive species. But whenever a war enemy, criminal, or dissident person is being killed under certain circumstances, the killing becomes justified, morally right.
As materialists, we don’t base our interpretation of morality on a notion of some metaphysical, reality-transcending rule, and even less in relation to an afterlife. Morality is a human construct that evolves with material conditions. In that case, the relationship of human morality with non-human animals becomes more complicated than it seems. Humans do have empathy for other species but are also able to consume their flesh and products, a contradiction that has defined the construction of morality around non-human animals through history. This explains why it seems desirable for a lot of people to stop unnecessary animal cruelty while still wanting to consume their flesh, there is an act of balancing between empathy and appetite.
Equality of species and violence
Now you might have noticed that this framework is definitely human-centric. That brings us to the second premise, which is the equality of all species. By all means, it is absolutely outdated to maintain the idea of “human superiority” on all non-human species in the current times. As materialists, we should realise that humans evolved at the same time as other species, are dependent on the ecosystem, and that there is no fundamental variable that we have to consider as a criteria for ranking in an abstract “order of things”.
That said, the equality of all species doesn’t automatically mean the disappearance of inter-species violence. Firstly, we cannot stop unnecessary violence between fellow living beings that don’t share our means of communication (unless we exerce physical control over them, but that’s even worse). Secondly, there is an assumption that only humans possess the ability to choose to follow a vegan diet, which is extremely strange considering that it makes humans the only specie to have the capacity to be moral. Either non-human animals are excused for their chauvinistic violence against other species because they are seen as too limited, determined by their instinct, but it makes humans actually morally superior to other species. Or the animals must be held accountable for inter-species violence, which no vegan upholds, thankfully. Last option would be to consider that inter-species violence is part of life, which I agree with and think is the materialistic approach, but that means there is no reason to adopt a vegan diet.
Conclusion
So what does that let us with? Morality being a social construct with a material use in a human society, and humans being fundamentally empathetic, it is completely understandable that society will be progressing towards diminishing meat consumption to allow the minimization of animal suffering. But the exploitation of animals as means of food production doesn’t have a materialistic reason to go away (unless we’re talking about climate change, of course). The inter-species violence of humans against cattle and prey is part of nature, because we simply are a productive omnivorous specie just like any other.
This is mostly why I would discourage pushing people to abandon all animal products in the name of ethics. What should be encouraged is acceptance of every specific diet, be it religious diets, or animal-liberation diets. Strict vegetarianism must be a choice of heart that is based on profound empathy, not a superior moral choice or, worse, a moral imperative.
So, I’d like to preface this by saying I myself am vegetarian, and I respect anyone’s choice to be vegan, or to be neither vegan nor vegetarian.
With that out of the way, I do have to disagree with the idea that harvesting animal products such as eggs and milk is inherently exploitive and that it can be a mutually beneficial relationship for both humans and livestock animals.
We must understand that in no way are livestock animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, etc. a product of natural selection. The modern versions of these animals are the descendants of thousands of years of guided evolution by humanity. These animals cannot be returned to the wild, for they have not been wild animals in tens of thousands of years.
I bring this up to first illustrate that these animals’ very existence is intertwined with ours. With this in mind, I’d like to conjecture that livestock animals have far better lives than most wild animals. They have access to guaranteed food, modern medicine, shelter, and protection from predation by other species. In return for these things, we receive products such as eggs, milk, wool, and more.
Secondly, many of these animals produce extra products as a result of the genetic manipulation. Cows make more milk than they need to nurse their young, hens produce eggs even when they are not making chicks, sheep grow wool to the point it needs to be removed to prevent complications.
I don’t disagree that farming these animals on the scale we do today leads to a lot of unneeded suffering on their part, and tons of animal product getting dumped simply because it would be unprofitable to sell it. I’d like to think that in the process of scaling back production of these products, we can offer all of our livestock animals much more humane living conditions. The US doesn’t need to produce 23.5 billion gallons of milk a year, especially considering how many cannot even consume dairy products.
Again, I respect anyone’s dietary choices for whatever reasons they may have, and I do think there is much productive discourse to be had in regards to how we approach our livestock friends.
I would argue that breeding these animals to produce more than they need is a form of exploitation. Sure, on an individual level you can look at a modern cow and say she doesn’t need all the milk she produces. But zooming out, you see a millennia old process of exploiting animals to produce more than they need. Breeding of defects is a thing that exists on a spectrum. Sure, we can’t let these animals into the wilderness, but we can stopp breeding them.
You’re leaving out that chickens are so pumped full of bullshit hormones that they lay so many eggs and so much more often that it is damaging to their health, and that they become prone to health programs and mature faster than is natural and healthy for them, only to be discarded.
Fwiw this isn’t always true. Chickens will produce plenty of eggs without needing to give them any kinds of hormones, which are largely for meat production regardless, not eggs.
Yes, chickens do lay alot of eggs without hormones, but I mean the extensive unhealthy factory farming overload of them.
Do you know what happens to male calves in the dairy industry? Hint: they are unnecessary for dairy farmers. The cows spend their whole lifes artificially inseminated, another word for that is “rape”. Get pregnant over and over, get your calves taken away to be either killed or raised the way their mothers will. All to be sent off to slaughter once milk production slows down. Usually at about 3-5 years old if my memory serves me correctly.
Not to be too judgemental, and i understand this is how my post comes off anyway, but you are still directly responsible for this. Cows were never meant to produce 10L of milk a day for their calves, so much that they’re in pain if not constantly milked.
Far from anything close to ethical. Same goes for chickens and their eggs.
The only reason we slaughter almost all male cattle in milk production is due to the scale of milk production. If we let every single male bovine live, there’d be far too many cattle to sustainably take care of. This is a very recent development, and not something inherent to harvesting milk. This problem would be solved by scaling back milk production drastically, something I do believe is necessary for multiple reasons.
This is untrue, cows have reproductive cycles like any other animal. Cows are only able to be bred about every 21 days. Additionally, farmers choose to wait 50-80 days after a cow gives birth before breeding them again. This article I read recently was very enlightening when it came to that subject as well.
That is precisely what they are meant to do, it’s something humans have bred for over tens of thousands of years. Whether you think that itself is wrong is another discussion. They are here now though, and that’s what they do.
Now, most of what you’re talking about is not inherent to dairy collection, and is only done because it is the most profitable option under capitalism. Same with chickens and eggs, and I ought to know more about that one because I lived with chickens when I was young, they were treated well and we didn’t have a giant grinder that we sent every male chick into.
If there wasn’t any dairy production, the male calves wouldn’t be born only to die soon after. There wouldn’t be these genetically engineered cows who spend their lives in pain due to milk overproduction. “They wait 50 to 80 days” wow great! Let me put it this way:
I keep a woman in my basement, she is well fed, well cared for, she has a roof over her head. I rape her every 10 months (but actually i might give her a couple additionals months to recover- I’m not a monster) and once she gives birth, if it’s a male, i wait a couple months and kill him, if it’s a girl, well there’s my next resource just waiting to be used. I steal her breast milk and sell it for profit. What a kind and upstanding guy i must be. Hey, her and her children were bred for that purpose, no harm done.
If you don’t like that example, just substitute it for a dog or whatever animal you typically care more about than a cow. The point is that it’s inhumane, it’s not necessary, it’s only to fulfill a selfish want from humans who can very well live without milk, without dairy. For fuck’s sake most people are some degree of lactose intolerant.
I maintain my point, they should not even be bred in the first place, the solution is as simple as this: as the number of vegans increases, supply slowly dwindles and less and less of them will be born, until eventually none are left. The same apply for the chicken, why would you consciously breed them continuously into an existence where you know they will live shorter and more painful lives due to what we have bred them into ?
It’s not even a “capitalism” only thing. Yes it’s aggravated by it, but the very exploitation is the problem. Unless in your mind, a communist utopia includes everyone being vegan. I don’t think any country aiming for communism has that very high on their checklist.
This is absurd. You are comparing humans to cattle. In no way is your example equivalent. I will not continue to engage if you wish to argue in bad faith.
Why not engage with the rest of my argument ? What’s so different between raping a human and an animal ? Shouldn’t we know better than trying to argue that raping animals regularly is good so long as we can profit from their bodily fluids ? Are you okay with your daily choices leading up to cows being raped, by your own admission, every two or three months, giving birth, getting their calves taken away, spending their life in pain due to the enormous milk production, and dying an early death ? I’m not okay with it, so i don’t partake in it and just buy oatmilk instead lmao.
oh wow i just read through your article quickly and it’s saying that raping the cows isn’t abuse ? alright then i guess sexually exploiting animals is a-okay so long as it’s for profit