Libertarian REFUSES to have his freedom denied by vegan | Stanford University

could you not just eat vegan three times a day when you eat and then focus all of your other energy on these interpersonal relationships that you clearly care about and of course very important i could but and i know this will sound cool to you but ultimately i don't want to and i feel that there is no obligation whilst i understand that you don't want to wants and not good justifications when it comes to the exploitation of others the want in and of itself shouldn't make it morally permissible hi jed my name is ed and uh nice little rhyme and it's lovely to meet you uh thank you so much for sitting down and uh having a conversation with me as you know i do welcome as you know i have a banner and it says why aren't you vegan yet i'm wondering what are your thoughts about that question so as a libertarian i believe that people should have the freedom to do with their life body and lifestyle as they wish and i believe that i very much respect the fact that you're vegan and i hope that there are businesses which uh cater to you and that if there aren't everywhere as we given how big the vegan culture is now they're really missing out and they should hop in on it but i also believe that we should um those of us who do not uh care to be a vegan i think those of us who do like meat since after all we are made with both kinds of teeth as humans we do have both uh the carnivorous and the herbivorous teeth i believe that um there should be no cultural pressure for us to be vegan i believe that if we enjoy eating meat from ultimately different species lower species if they weren't lower species then why haven't they destroyed us yet um okay let's stop there for a second the first thing just very briefly to do with the teeth uh many herbivorous animals also have canine teeth i'm not saying what herbivores biologically speaking but just because we have canines doesn't provide us with a moral justification to to harm animals you know we can do a multitude of things but just because we have the capacity to do those things doesn't provide us with the justification to do so uh the first point you made about being a libertarian was about kind of like you know individual sovereignty um and the right to your own kind of like life and existence um but what about the animals why do why does our right to our own sovereignty and our own individuality and our own body how is it morally justified to come to the expense of someone else so um as a libertarian ultimately i believe that uh our government i like the libertarian form of government and ultimately it is the government uh government is a contract between individuals and a sovereign state so that uh we do not all murder each other and we live in some sort of order and um animals are not included in this they not currently of course well um they would not be able to participate in um they would not be able to actively participate in any formation of a government um but but of course um when we're talking about social contracts humans with lack of certain cognitive abilities they also can't engage in the social contracts that we're discussing are their lives less morally valuable because they can't engage in the same social contracts that you and i can well ultimately they will eventually be able to but also someone not someone who's uh cognitively impaired in the ways that we're discussing right now perhaps not but they are also human and ultimately different species have different social contracts well for example how about um if we're going to talk about animals in general what about the wolves should we chastise them should we reprimand them for uh feeding on um species which are lower down the food chain animals in the wild who who kill over animals do so have necessity they do so to survive we don't have that excuse and also uh we have moral agency you know on the one hand we're referring to ourselves as higher beings you know they're lower beings but on the other hand we're trying to use what they do to justify our morality it can't be both things so animals in the wild don't have the moral agency that we do we because we have moral agency we're able to rationalize our choices and we're able to understand the positives and negatives of those choices and because we live in a society where we have the choice to do something else that's something else reducing suffering then morally speaking to me that's the preferable choice to make what do you think about that uh i guess first i would ask you what is human morality what is human moral agency uh well morality in its in its purest philosophical terms is of course subjective i don't i don't have a spiritual religious belief that creates a definition of what is moral or immoral but i think that we can by and large try and understand morality as being something that is seeking to reduce harm and suffering something that's working to create a society that is more quote unquote utopian even though that word is of course uh you know impractical because it will never exist it's about pursuing um goals and aspirations that make life better for as many people and as many beings as possible so reducing suffering basically so altruism kind of altruism i mean i guess you could go down the route altruism yes so um one question that i would ask is if it came down to reducing the suffering or the hunger of human beings and the um i guess the death of animals uh which would you choose would i choose an animal over a human if the human is starving is that the question you're asking yes if in times of necessity you can morally justify something so if a human is starving and requires um you know needs to kill a chicken to survive then of course the human could justify that but that's not the situation we're in you know in such an extreme situation you could find reasons to save one life over the other case in point let's say a building is on fire and inside the building you have a five-year-old child and a 95 year old human you could justify saving the five-year-old child over the 95 year old human because the child has their life ahead of them in all these different different factors but that doesn't justify needlessly harming the elderly in a normal society same with the animals we don't have the choice between a chicken and a human if we did you could definitely choose the human over the chicken but our choice is human chicken or neva and because we have the neva choice that is the morally preferable choice to make but uh one thing that i want to return to is you mentioned that um there shouldn't be a hierarchy of beings but i didn't say that or okay so you do say that um in a time between choosing a chicken and a human you would choose the human in a situation of necessity where i had no choice but to choose one or the other you could find justifications for why the human life would be worth saving over the chicken's life this doesn't disprove veganism because veganism is the stance that in a situation where we have the option to not harm evil life that is the morally obligated uh decision to make what do you think when we have the choice being human chicken or neither what is the morally obligated choice to make i believe and respect that um i believe that anyone uh should have the capacity to choose uh what they believe their obligation is so long as they do not actively infringe on the rights of another human being in our society can i let's take let's let's remove farm animals let's go for any animal could i kick a dog stomp a dog to death could i poach an elephant could i hunt a whale can i do anything to any other animal based on the fact that i'm a human and as a libertarian yourself that's the only thing that has a sovereign value when it comes to species has our society out loud outlawed these things are we living in a society that has outlawed does legality equal morality in my view i do not believe that there is an intrinsic morality so just because something is legal doesn't mean that it's wrong or right i believe that ultimately a government comes together and they inform society off their laws which are essentially the moral values and the moral codes to abide by so as to make this change right society laws change as do morals within society exactly because it is a top-down movement so we challenge things regardless of the legality of those things so just because you know killing a pig is legal but uh hunting you know poaching an elephant is illegal doesn't mean that killing a pig is moral and poaching an elephant is immoral because morality and legality whilst they should be the same of course we would think that they should be in actuality they're not well i would say that different people can have different opinions of it and ultimately what matters in um the only thing that objectively matters is what the law is so what's your opinion then let's say a dog's walking past now can i stomp that dog to death if i want to uh is it outlawed here what is the law here let's say let's say it's not outlawed let's say for a hypothetical situation currently where we are it's not outlawed for me to stop that dog to death what is your personal opinion on the morality of me doing so i do not operate with um the idea for morality so you i personally wouldn't i don't feel the need to but if you did um okay outside of a legal system anyone should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as they personally think that that's fine and you wouldn't stop that that's why we created legal systems because we were going around and we we would just go around and kill each other for a meal what about in in cultures where let's say homosexuality is illegal is homosexuality immoral in those cultures because it's illegal well that's also why i don't believe in moral systems personally i believe that they are societal constructs so is homosexuality immoral in societies where the construct is that it's illegal in that society they have constructed themselves in that way that yes what do you think i support homosexuality fully so you support homosexuality but in a culture where it's illegal you think it's acceptable do you i'm not doing it but do so so those should they should be challenged then i support challenging them yes right so okay so outside of cultures and outside of laws we now accept that just because something is cultural or something is legal or illegal doesn't mean that it is moral or immoral and we should challenge things regardless of their cultural or legal status you have the um right and capacity to challenge them uh peacefully okay peacefully okay okay great so we accept that now the important thing that we need to establish is that culture doesn't define morality or more importantly something isn't moral simply because it's cultural and secondly something isn't moral simply because it's legal illegal okay great so when it comes to animals then for you with your personal opinion is there any moral consideration than a non-human animal deserves do they deserve anything any consideration at all they do not deserve anything no we can give them but anything that we give them is grace it is not something that they intrinsically deserve why do humans intrinsically deserve uh moral consideration because we are creating the society amongst ourselves okay but what is it about being human that means that we deserve more because that's not deserving that's not intrinsic you're saying that value to a human is created based on the society that we've created but what about in you know environments where they haven't created the societies that we have you know is there something intrinsic about a human that means that we deserve value or should be viewed with value i think that um we as humans uh can accept be more accepting but in technicality for example within the united states i believe that somebody who does not have a direct affiliation with the united states be they uh like you said a work visa or be they a permanent resident or be they a citizen technically they do not have any rights in the united states um you could argue something with like the united nations but they technically do not have any rights in the united states but i think that we would be more favorable to them than an animal because we do ultimately humans have a potential to interact with human societies in a way that a wolf does not the way that we as wolves wolves would not give us the rights um yeah but that doesn't matter that's irrelevant about what wolves wouldn't do is about what we do with the intelligence that we have now again i bring it back to the question i asked earlier what about a human who has a cognitive impairment that means that they can't engage in society in the way that we're talking that they can't engage in the things that we're discussing that you say assign humans worth do those people not deserve moral consideration as well because they can't engage in the way that we're talking about um i mean they are definitely affiliated with i would say that they are affiliated with our society for example uh do they have a affiliate if they are if they have like residency or if they have like just a legal affiliation with the united states then they are um subject to all of the laws and protections afforded by the united states so a human being's moral worth is based on the legal protections assigned to them as citizens of the united states so before citizenship the objective worth now personal um now personally we can have differences and we did uh discuss the whole um uh the uh argument of like a society which is homophobic um but um and i certainly respect your opinion that uh that you can be uh that like veganism is moral and i definitely i am not going to challenge it i'm not going to say that you are wrong i am just saying that we can co-exist oh we can co-exist we do the problem isn't you and i because i'm not the victim and neither are you in this conversation the problem is the animal they can't co-exist in this in this scenario so we're not we're not talking as a victim an oppressor we're talking as two oppressors or a potential oppressor and a current oppressor and we're talking about a victim and what i'm saying is that what about their rights what about their standing now you're saying that they don't have those under the law okay fair enough but that's just because of the legal system that we have legality changes as does morality but i think when it comes to humans what means that we have moral worth isn't uh the laws or that are granted to u.s citizens is to do with basic things such as sentience you know consciousness the capacity to experience you know when i stab you know if i was to stab someone it wouldn't be wrong for me to stab that person because they're a u.s citizen and they're protected by the law it would be wrong for me to stab that person because stabbing them causes them harm and it's unnecessary for me to do so the same is true of the animals stabbing them to death and cutting their throats is wrong because it's unnecessary for me to do it and for you to do it and it is a non-consensual thing that harms them for a needless reason they too have sentience and consciousness and the capacity to experience they may not be protected by the law but they still feel and still suffer and still have the capacities that that my eyes surely must create moral worth for them as individuals i do believe that they have the capacity to feel and i do also believe that we actually underestimate their intelligence and we are but i will also say that and this is the biologist starting to come in um the cerebral uh cortex ultimately we have a greater ability um to think uh conceptually to think abstractly um which is why we're even having this discussion right now um than any other species does that justify arbitrarily harming them you know because we're saying might makes right because we have these cognitive advancements because we're intellectually superior we therefore have the right to dominate do you think that's true does does intelligence and power create the um the moral justification to tyrannize well ultimately that is the question of human history isn't it it is and unfortunately human history is fraught with examples of why that shouldn't be the case and it's still an ongoing conversation amongst humans so one question that i would have actually is perhaps um is veganism um is this the pressing issue when we still have so many um cases of human rights is this the conversation that we should be having should we not perhaps wait until we have our house in order well i don't think we'll ever have our house an order unfortunately but the point is uh social justice issues aren't mutually exclusive you can be in favor of multiple social justice issues and campaign on behalf of multiple social justice issues as well it's not an evil scenario the thing about veganism is what we consume is a is passive what i mean by that is we have to eat you know we don't have that's non-negotiable so to be vegan just means the three times a day where we eat meals if we eat something else right now we can go and campaign on behalf of all these other issues that need campaign on behalf of but if we just made that small change we can not only reduce animal suffering significantly but also human suffering there are a huge intersections between human exploitation and indeed the agricultural industry as well so we need to attack all of these things but we shouldn't just discount something because there is something else you know we could we could discount feminism because there's still issues of uh you know human exploitation in the southeast or something of asia so there are all these different problems that exist but we shouldn't discount one problem because another problem also exists at the same time we should work to solve all of them when it comes to the options that we have available in front of us do you think that reducing the suffering of animals should be the morally preferable choice considering that you acknowledge that they feel and you also and i agree with you on this you think that they that we as a species um discount their intelligence and maybe do you think that because we do that and because they also have the capacity to experience like you've acknowledged that they should be given the moral consideration to not be needlessly exploited and killed considering it harms them in a non-consensual way all the same i still do believe that the uh societally agreed pleasure of a human comes before uh the pleasure of an animal it's not about the pleasure of the animal it's about their their entire existence it's about their life it's about everything that they have everything that's precious and valuable to them we're saying that our pleasure is more important than their very being and not only our pleasure but 15 minutes of pleasure we eat a meal it's 15 minutes we're talking about that 15 minutes of pleasure and beyond that we can eat you know delicious plant-based foods so even if you were to say that you enjoyed uh you know meat 30 more than you enjoyed a plant-based meal you know let's say a beef stew or a chicken curry or whatever it might be and you say i'll enjoy that 30 more than i would a plant-based version we're now saying that that 30 difference in pleasure that lasts for 15 minutes is more valuable than someone else's entire life in existence everything that they hold valuable to them gone for 15 minutes of 30 difference in taste pleasure when you talk about the uh life and actually uh this actually brings me to perhaps the um environment ecology and um what happens many times is if you remove a predator if the predator species dies off then um the um people be the ones that would i guess you could call them victims you got i mean and they are victims of like the predators of the high chain they run rampant and actually their own goods they actually eat themselves out of um and actually it ends up being bad for the entire environment so um is it possible that um would you perhaps do you believe that there is a possibility humans have a role in the predatory well not in the agricultural system that we have because we these are animals that we farm are either artificially bred by humans using you know their hands or we facilitate the the breeding and existence and procreation of these animals so the animals that we farm and eat are not part of a natural food chain or a natural ecosystem and actually um you know as you're probably well aware the farming of animals has a huge ecological cost you know the habitat lasts the the deforestation the land use all of these things contribute to animal agriculture reducing um wild biodiversity which is of course a huge problem as well so that context no the context that we support uh definitely not because that's not the relationship that exists um actually wildlife and the natural world would flourish if we eliminated this incredibly harmful aspect of what we do you know for industries and for consumption then i have another question um i guess now uh the reason why people can talk about like veganism legitimately being able to supplement you is because you are capable of having artificial proteins and supplements that would naturally come either from an animal or from an animal product since veganism is not is also about the elimination of utilizing animal products but what about for humans who cannot afford these uh supplements especially the ones of the best quality um here we go i just want to stop you very quickly just on the artificial protein thing you know we don't need to consume artificial proteins we don't take protein supplements you can take protein powders but that's not a vegan non-vegan thing lots of non-vegans have protein powders and you get more enough protein from whole plant foods so protein no supplements uh yes you do want to have a supplement and that supplement would maybe be like a b12 or like a vitamin d which we should all have maybe lesser in california but generally speaking most people should have a vitamin d supplement vegan or non-vegan when it comes to supplement quality there's really not much discrepancy in quality and you can get supplements that are you know less expensive than a piece of red meat for example but the more pressing issue is what you're saying about people that can't afford it not that i can't afford a supplement because the supplements you know in terms of value and expense is it's no different to buying you know most things but in terms of general affordability and accessibility the reason i have these conversations here is because by and large everyone that sits down and speaks to me isn't a situation where they can be vegan there are people who don't have that luxury in certain parts of the us and of course in certain parts of the world but that changes then it's less of a moral obligation when it's not a necessity but for you and i because we can that's where this conversation becomes especially pertinent because we have that choice do you do you recognize that it is a choice for you that you could be vegan if you wanted to be i do recognize that yes that's really good and so with it being a choice then on what grounds do uh you think it's acceptable to choose to inflict more harm onto someone else than you need to not i recognize that on your grounds um it is unacceptable but ultimately i have different grounds i have a different world view what's what are your grounds then define those you may have already done it but just for the point of of this reiterate what your grounds are my grounds are that um in this as humans we decide we form society because we realize that we are all better off if we work together and that we can create our own goods we can our the agricultural revolution we are better off if we don't um if we aren't worrying of somebody um every night coming and just taking an evening's meal from us and our lives along with it so that is ultimately the beginnings of society and we do the freer a society the more people are able to interact i believe that we are actually better off but ultimately i believe that humans are sovereign and that we have the greatest abilities and that if we did not we would be proven wrong and the animals would have destroyed us okay well i mean the animals don't have the capacity to do that but that doesn't make harming them acceptable now what i would say society has always changed what you've described has been like the evolution and creation of a society absolutely true but society always changes and thankfully it does because there's never been a point in human history and it certainly isn't now either where society is as good as it could be society can always improve and get better and importantly we can always learn more and we can always understand our relationship with others around us and hopefully become better citizens and create a better world as a consequence so society changes and whilst currently in the current society that we live in these may be the the contracts that currently exist and this may be the situation we're currently in that doesn't mean in the future we shouldn't then start to think about animals deserving moral consideration because when we talk about issues of morality it's always important we keep challenging ourselves and learning from from our past behaviors yeah i'm glad to hear that um and so i think we need to look beyond just these these societal constructs i need to look at something a little bit more intrinsic and i think that intrinsic is is empathy a moral agency and whilst we could be and i'm going to use the word pedantic i know i'm not saying that you are being pedantic but i think but i think maybe you are being a bit pedantic it's we can be pedantic and create this kind of like construct that defines our morality but ultimately i think when it boils down to it when we see situations of harm and suffering that's not the rationalization that we have when we see situations of harm and suffering we empathize with those enduring that harm and suffering and that's why i think we can understand this wrong because we can understand what they're going through so i think empathy is the cornerstone to creating a better society now we can empathize with animals when we can empathize with their suffering we can acknowledge what they're enduring and because we can empathize with them and because we know what they're going through we know what is that experience you know it comes negatively to them i think from a moral perspective that's how society is becomes better you know your life might not be made significantly better from an environmental perspective sure animal agriculture has it you know is it hugely environmentally damaging so removing that is better for the environment and better for humans in that context but even as an individual although you may not feel a benefit within your own life for you know the destabilization of you know animal exploitation the betterment of society comes from reducing suffering and when we acknowledge that i think suffering breeds suffering and violence can breed violence you know slaughterhouse workers have mental health problems they can become increasingly violent because the work that they do you know society is negatively impacted by what we do to animals and i don't think that we'll ever have a world which i think we probably both want which is just a nicer world right i don't think we will ever have that while we have facilities and places where we knowingly put billions trillions of sentient animals through a process that we know consciously causes them pain and ultimately takes their life and i think that's morality for me it's about empathy and extending that empathy in ways that that make practical sense you know which to animals it does i may be allowed to give closing remarks um so i very much respect and i admire um your arguments i think that they are very well put together and i do not um disagree with them um on your grounds what i do say is that i think that we have a long way to go in terms of human relations and uh human societies and i think that um maybe this may sound like a kick the can down the road arguments but i believe that we would be better served focusing on our own species and even within that like the subunits of our own species like our own societies and then eventually our own species before we start considering others but i do believe that we can have um this conversat these conversations um on a broader scale policy scale um a couple centuries down the line a couple of centuries i certainly hope that that's not the case okay just for the sake of argument could it not be that for you when you buy food you just buy plant-based food and then put all of your energy into focusing on these other issues and focusing on creating better societies and better relationships for interper interpersonal relationships between humans could you not just eat vegan three times a day when you eat and then focus all of your other energy on these interpersonal relationships that you clearly care about and of course very important but it's not just a small thing that you could do that just negates that aspect but then doesn't take away from you being able to do everything else that you care about i could but and i know this will sound cool to you but ultimately i don't want to and i feel that there is no obligation but i feel that we could as a society agree that there is a moral obligation once we have our house mostly in order all right we're gonna have to wrap it up there um thank you so much for a wonderful conversation thank you jed i love that name by the way it reminds me of something this is really it's really good um but whilst i i just i i really yeah i've got to go i just want to say whilst i understand that you don't want to wants and not good justifications when it comes to the exploitation of others you know many people want to do something but that one shouldn't get in the fact that if there is a harm and there is a victim who's been harmed as a consequence of that want the want in and of itself shouldn't make it morally permissible okay maybe we'll leave thanks have a great day thank you i really appreciate it have a great life as well by the way we'll probably never see each other again all right bye you

Channel: Earthling Ed

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Keywords: earthlinged, earthling ed, vegan, veganism, street debate, street interview, debate, public, public freakout, public debate, reasons to not go vegan, vegan fail, owned, destroyed, fail, funny, vegan versus, vegan versus meat eater, heated, argument, emotional, meat, dairy, eggs, arguments against veganism, change my mind, table debate, campus, liberal, university, college, animals, recipes, veganuary, how to go vegan, vegan owned, gets owned, libertarian, joe rogan, freedom, america

Id: 7sEH1LNeasQ

Length: 28min 6sec (1686 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 29 2022