Meat Eater VS Vegan: "Veganism will harm a LOT of humans!"

hey dennis love you to meet you my name is ed i'm dennis yeah this is dennis and and i'm ed um and as as you know i'm at ucla because you are as well and there's a banner here that says can you justify not being vegan now you've been waiting an awful long time i have so what do you think about that um wow that's very broad um well i've been non-vegan my entire life that's just the way i was raised um that's i think that's really cool what you're doing um for me it just seems like i i haven't first hand seen the the negative aspects of not being vegan like i haven't been in a slaughterhouse done all those things myself and i'm certain that if i had a slaughter that count myself in and out would be much less enjoyable but i feel like for me personally i haven't had that experience myself so it's a lot easier for me to not be a vegan yeah obviously there are many things in the world that we will never experience but we can still recognize that they are objectively wrong or you know immoral certainly and we shouldn't partake in them do you think that what we do to animals is part of that even though you've not experienced it firsthand or you know actively pulled the the knife over the throat of the animal even without that firsthand experience do you still think that there is a case for it being wrong and something you shouldn't be involved in that's a very that's a good point i would say so that there's definitely a point for that um yeah i don't i i don't think there should be like sessions where people are taken out to slaughterhouses to see that'll be very traumatic for a lot of people but what does that say what does that say about it then um the fact that you know for a lot of people it would be traumatic if they had to see it and the fact that you yourself said well you know if i had to go to in and out and cut the throat myself you know i might go to veggie grill instead you know what does that say about the process and your feelings towards if it's something you wouldn't actively want to participate in i mean i just think that that's just something i'm not cut out for to do but i still feel like the end of the day like it just it's something that a lot of people are used to and so it has to be done certainly i wouldn't want to be a sewage worker but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have sewers no just because the work is unappealing i feel like we don't need that doesn't justify not having it and i certainly agree that like slaughtering the cows is a very gruesome job but the the cow would die eventually anyway oh yeah well certainly so but we're all going to die eventually but that doesn't justify taking life prematurely and needlessly that is very true i'm not advocating for mass murder because no please don't have my face associated with that that's true that's true um in the case of the sewage work that's a really valid point by the way the difference is we're not morally opposed to it we may find it grotesque for personal uh hygiene reasons but we're not the thing with the animals is part of the objection to that comes from the the repulsion of seeing the violence inflicted upon the animal and so i think there is a differentiation between jobs that we just would rather not do and jobs that we don't want to partake in because of a moral consequence to that that we don't want to partake in um okay if we couldn't that's a very good point thank you i appreciate i appreciate that i thought your argument initially was really good argument a good result initially and initially took it apart initially it's a good a good word for that okay um if it's not something that we could do ourselves is it acceptable to pay for someone else to do it on our behalf if it's you know if we because let's say this for the most most people in society if you said here here's a lentil curry or here's a you know a beyond meat burger or something and here's a goat curry or a beef burger but to get this you have to cut the throat here most people go well lentil curry sounds quite nice right so if that is the case how do we just by paying for someone else to do on our behalf um if we ourselves wouldn't want to do it that's like that's a good question um i think it just kind of uh people just don't see that as much of a moral wrong as other things um it's an immoral role i would think so just because i grew up with pet chickens so like i have a fondness for animals but i definitely see like if people didn't grow up in an environment with animals i think they might there might be a situation which is not morally wrong it's just the nature of the world for animals to die and i think it might just be so ingrained over thousands of years that humans kill animals for slaughter for nutrition and nourishment that for many people might just not be a moral wrong so i think a better situation for like promoting veganism would maybe to see if people have that morality towards animals initially and um okay so there's a difference between someone perceiving it to be morally wrong and a kind of a detached pro a detached view of it being morally wrong and what i mean by that is you're absolutely right that people uh don't think about these actions they've been raised in families that do it they've been part of a species that have done it for hundreds of thousands of years and so we might not as individuals perceive it to be morally wrong but that doesn't mean that in the context of current modern society that it isn't morally wrong so what i'm saying is there's a difference between personal perception and an objective truth if that's the right word for it would you agree with that i would say that if you look at objectively i would think it's like a more of a moral right if anything it's just like the nature of the world that like there's a food chain and you can argue that we're at the top and i mean certainly it you you feel bad for the fish when the shark eats it but that is you don't argue that the shark is immoral um i think the difference here though is like there is an alternative like the shark has to eat the fish or starve to death but it's like you could always eat the lentil curry that you brought up yeah so i think that's why veganism is a good point i i feel like you're actively converting me right now oh goodness i feel like my argument's not very good okay but well the arguments themselves are not bad arguments because in the context of how we've been raised and the way that we feel about these issues they logically make sense initially don't they it's just the problem with what we do to animals is we don't often don't think any any deeper right we have our surface level justification absolutely right and so with the wild animal thing you you you gave the response and then you answered the response which was wonderful because it's true um wild animals do things to other animals out of necessity often for when it comes to food and you know we may look at that and go oh you know that that's pretty brutal and that's horrible but we recognize that those animals don't have moral agency in the same way that we do now they can't rationalize the decisions in the same way but we as humans and if we look at the food chain i think the food chains that we've create food chains exist but i think the food chain we've created is is a human construct you know we artificially breed these animals we farm them um often in cages and such and then and then we take them to slaughterhouses that's not a natural food chain it's a human construct but i think what's interesting about the food chain is it creates a system of hierarchy and i don't think it's wrong to say well humans have differences to animals non-human animals i don't think it's wrong to establish those differences because i think what those differences um show us is that we have responsibilities and there should be accountabilities held on us that can't be held on other animals because we do have a reason through it we have exactly we have the ability to rationally think about these ideas we have the ability to understand the consequence of them and we have the ability to understand that we don't have to so i think that having this the point of the food chain is interesting because it establishes a hierarchy which the hierarchy you're describing i don't think is is a valid excuse but the notion of humans being different i think creates more of a reason for us to think about these issues because our differences create a responsibility for us to morally engage in these issues but i think that in a certain way if everyone went vegan that would that would be a lot of suffering for a lot of humanity as well like certainly there's a lot of um like i i imagine like a lot the media is like lots of jobs and an industry is lost that was previously for slaughtering and raising animals but certainly like a lot of cultural traditions would be lost for sure like thanksgiving for example everyone loves a good turkey so it's difficult to imagine a world where like that tradition would fall apart and um in that case it seems like you have to balance the priority of the animal welfare with i mean there's thousands of cultures and and so many traditions at least culinary traditions with different dishes that come from animals so it seems like if you were to go vegan everyone wants to go vegan like all those traditions would be gone and a lot of history that's important to a lot of people would vanish the first thing um is should culture and tradition dictate morality what do you mean by that is is something moral simply because it's cultural or traditional that is wow this is something my political theory professor would ask me um is something moral because the culture culture dictates it to be yeah it is something more similarly because it's culturally traditional we're assigning um we're assigning a moral justification to the consumption of turkeys because thanksgiving historically has involved eating turkey but is the consumption of turkey moral at thanksgiving simply because we associate with a traditional thing i think so because i think morality absolutely is just developed by um where you were raised so what about in countries where um let's say for example homosexuality is frowned upon you know whether that's a cultural thing what about female genital mutilation honor killings these are cultural practices and you know a lot of them very traditional are they moral simply because they're cultural and traditional um well for me i would say they're not just because that's what i was raised but i imagine for the people that were raised in that environment yeah it is more it is moral for them is the repercussion of what you've said then that those things are therefore permissible and should be allowed and shouldn't be challenged in those countries because the countries themselves and the individuals as a part of those countries have determined that it is uh what they would consider to be culturally moral or as i would think is it that culture and tradition shouldn't determine what is moral and we should challenge other cultures in things that are what i believe to be objectively immoral not objectively immoral because of the culture that we're in but because the culture that we're in has truth that killing animals and hurting people and hurting people hurting humans as well is wrong that's a good point you make for sure that's very good that's a good point and let's bring out how to respond to that because certainly i think that we we were raised in in when we were raised we naturally think that our morals and standards are our object are the objective truth and that where this is something we should reach for but um certainly people in other civilizations as well think that their moralities are like the standard that we should be upholding too so it this is actually like something we talked about in my political theory class it's like if you grow up stranded alone on an island and you meet someone and they say hi you'd probably punch them in the face because you were scared but you probably wouldn't feel guilt for that because you weren't raised in a society where punching people was bad well i mean i think it's empathy as well you know you might punch someone and then when you realize they're not a threat feel guilty for it but initially to have the morality to determine whether that was right or wrong and i think that if you it's it's if you didn't have the morality that killing animals was bad initially that might be something very difficult to develop unless you had to stab the animal yourself yeah or you had to have a uh you had to sit down and rationalize why why it's allowed because i think there's two aspects to it there's the kind of like the visceral emotive um you know things where we see the violence ourselves we go oh this is horrible i don't be a part of it but there also has to be the philosophical and rational thought process behind it to go up the killing of the cow that looked really horrible here's why you know here's why i found it morally repulsive because it's not just about the actual killing it's the whole context behind that killing that also lends um credibility to it being immoral what do you mean about that context what i mean by that is we can go and we can see like with the lion we see lions killing gazelles absolutely and we go oh that is that is that's some pleasant but we don't go oh we need to you know these lions let's let's stop you know because we recognize there is a context there that facilitates the need for that there right but when we see things happening to cows not only do we go oh that's horrible but then we go the reason we then go that is wrong and needs to stop is because we can logically and rash you know and rationally think about the process and go well that's horrible and it's unnecessary and there's no rationalization in a modern context for it to continue and so it's the grouping of both those things together that lead us to the realization that there needs to be a system change that's what happened for me anyway just to bring it back to thanksgiving and traditions is thanksgiving solely about the turkey in the table and or can someone no i'm not so sure about thanksgiving i think that's turkey i mean it's about like meeting up with family and finding what you're grateful for but like just association with the turkey that makes that it brings everyone a lot more together with a big meal and certainly over time you can develop like i know there's already like tofurkey options like i love to you but yeah yeah i mean i've never tried it i love my i love my dark meat turkey leg myself but it just seems like at least in my family for example like a big turkey is like a it like sets the mood kind of for thanksgiving when we look at these practices in these events there is often a deeper meaning to them you know christmas in the uk we consume turkey at christmas to celebrate the true meaning behind these cultural and traditional practices isn't it the meat on the table isn't a requirement for us to fulfill the overall expectation but i think it makes it a lot easier so i think if you were to transition away from that it'll be a lot more difficult to well not a lot more difficult but certainly it will be challenging initially and people just be like why is there a turkey but they wouldn't stop them from enjoying the celebration of all the things that are important about these events and we've already established any of the culture and tradition shouldn't even be a moral justifier and even if those transitions may feel a little bit strange at first those transitions have a moral imperative behind them which makes them worth pursuing outside of the the context of uh the the tradition itself if you know what i mean okay so let's move past that then you talked about taste you know i like how uh the dark meat of a turkey tastes yeah i know they're like developing like beyond meat options that are kind of like even better and healthier and everything right so i mean like if that happens sign me up what if it doesn't happen all right let's say that there isn't a delicious biome alternative which there probably will be hopefully you know but let's say there isn't does the enjoyment of that product morally justify what happens to the turkey for that product to get on your plate so you're saying like does that does my work that earned me the dollars justify the turkey's death no or what tastes just a taste [Music] you're saying that's a step course i would i would say that there's an argument for it i mean certainly at some point you have to prioritize your own happiness and i mean you can't please everyone i guess if you're always trying to make sure that everyone was not suffering you you wouldn't be able to do anything for yourself so as gruesome as it is for the turkey to die um it just seems like like for example i mean the lentil curry for example someone had to farm and prepare it that could have been difficult for the farmer it could have been difficult but the action of producing lentils was presumably a consensual action where the farmer financially benefited from it could feed his family and so the the system the supply chain there is a consensual beneficial system so did the farmer of the turkey benefit from the turkey the turkey didn't and that's the point the lentil isn't a victim in the lentil curry the turkey is a victim on the with the plate of turkey and if we're making the argument about taste and we're saying well yeah it can morally justify it what that boils down to is sensory pleasure right taste is a sense i enjoy how it tastes it's sensory pleasure so the argument really from that we're making is that sensory pleasure can be a moral justifier for our actions do you think that that is true to a certain extent i mean i think the difference between your the lentil farmer and the the turkey farmer is that by like strongly consuming about what the turkey's thinking that kind of like you're equating with the turkey like you're equating the importance of the turkey's life to a human's life no and why am i just saying well i mean you're just like oh by by killing the turkey by being inconsiderate to the turkey by slaughtering it i mean it it seems that like that's the justification for not having a good taste and i mean if you if you don't have any central pleasure in your life it seems like there won't be any happiness like if you don't enjoy the food you eat but you can still enjoy food without it being without coming from an animal that's true can you name me another another circumstance outside of just uh animal product consumption outside of that taste can you give me another circumstance where sensory pleasure does morally justify a behavior in action because we can because what because we can think of many examples where it doesn't and i just want to see if there's consistency to the argument to see whether or not there are other examples where it does where there is a victim involved and it does morally justify it no i can't think of anything from the top of my head so all right neither can i when i think about these things and so here's the thing if that is true and we can think of all these examples where it doesn't it therefore becomes convenient in my eyes that there is just one exception to that rule it just happens to be the exception that you are trying to justify so that's that to me that makes me think that you're not that you don't actually believe it does morally justify it it's maybe just because you'd like the taste of it okay so with that in mind you like we agree that plant-based options can taste nice which great but they can certainly we agree that as a consequence of them being able to taste nice there is no removal of happiness or significantly at least of course from being vegan in fact for me i'm happier because i i'm not paying for terrible things to happen to animals in the same way that i once was so if we agree of all that and we can reach that conclusion then where does that leave us where does that leave you from this moment on in your decision making if we couldn't you couldn't kill the animal yourself uh but i know that the animal was killed yep i know it does seem like by spending for that by like spending my money i'm like endorsing the killing in a way are you endorsing the killing by paying for it i think so yeah and it just well i feel like it's very difficult to say that you're not endorsing the killing it just comes down to if you're okay with the killing in the first place and i think for everyone they either like don't know about the problem they just ignore it or they are okay so i feel like in my opinion i really never thought about it that deeply and i guess like but now you are yeah and where does that leave you i probably will start start eating less meat so well done thank you yeah we should accomplish yeah um i still will be enjoying my occasional in and out though i'm not gonna go full vegan i think okay well let me put it let me put into these terms for you okay reducing our meat consumption is a great thing because it reduces the suffering that we cause it reduces the problems that we cause but for that animal right let's see that we only eat one animal again in our life okay for that one animal who has been killed for that moment for that time it's irrelevant to them just doesn't make a difference to them because their situation is the same because of of us killing them sometimes we can get bogged down in that the numbers of it are the mass production is wrong yeah the quantity is wrong but if we reduce that makes it acceptable but when we position ourselves in the uh the hoofs of the animal and we think about them as an individual it doesn't matter about if we don't kill 10 other animals to that one other animal it matters to them that they have been exploited and killed so i would say you know i'm you know i'm really happy to hear that you say you want to reduce but what i would say is when you won that in and out burger think about the consequence to that individual animal and think about the fact that it's still not moral if it happens to one animal irrespective of whether it doesn't happen to 99 more because the moral concerns still apply to one even if it you know as it does to 100 it does to a billion as it does to 80 billion and that is to me an important point to finish on it's just i think that the animals are able to register that they're being exploited like in plato we learned that allegory of the cave like the prisoners looking at the shadows of the wall their entire life yeah and and for them you can argue that they're being exploited they've been chained to the wall they just see shadows and they're physically weak but for them they don't seem like they're exploited at all i mean they just that's just existence for them that's all they've ever known so if an animal has been born in that situation as as graphic as it is for us looking out into it and seeing the slaughter maybe the animal just is like oh that's just that's just what's going to happen and that may be the case they may not be able to go i am in a situation where i am being exploited they may not be able to recognize that because they don't know anything other than the exploitation but that doesn't mean that the the suffering is any different that doesn't mean they feel the pain less that doesn't mean they don't feel the fear the same just because they don't rationalize and they don't they don't have the ability to know i am in here because this is what is happening to me so you say like the suffering is still there regardless of what they know outside of it exactly in effect i also think that the fact that they can't understand it can also can often make it maybe potentially worse for me when i think about times in my life where i felt scared often fear of the unknown is worse now let's say that we hurt our arm or hurt our leg we go oh that really hurts but we know the pain will end now for these animals in these situations because they don't know what's going to happen to them and they don't understand things maybe in the same way that we do when something happens to them not only don't they understand why it's happening but they have no idea what what's going to happen next is it going to be worse is it going to get better they don't know and so for me the fear of the unknown can make what happens to animals potentially even more severe than we might initially think because in a way even though you know you're going to suffer more at least there's some structure to that suffering right so it seems like if there is no structure then and they're going to come in tomorrow and do something worse to me you know there's just no they have no they have no idea and i think to me that fear of the unknown potentially could even intensify their suffering obviously we're speculating but i but from from my human position that's how i would feel and so if i recognize that animals in most capacities can experience in a similar way to work to me there's no reason for them not to experience those things similar to how i would i'm in the absence of being able to understand the situation i was in that's what i think that's wow well said thank you very much that's been a part what a delight thank you so much awesome i've enjoyed it thoroughly one of my favorites so far so thank you so much yeah i mean i i've just learned like like just arguing and then not listening is like pointless and i mean we just had like a very civil nice conversation we talked about a lot so it was a delight it wasn't that this is cool this is cool right so you just travel around and do this like what do you what do you do well i don't just exclusively do this i also um i i've got a book that's about to be published i make online content outside of just these debates everything i do is related to veganism okay uh this is just when i say like a farm in england with like 18 acres for animals that's right how did you know this i i actually googled you while i was waiting in line because i was like i need to know the guy that i'm gonna that's right yeah that's kind of cool and i like read about like the animals with names and stuff that's right and that's what i'm like giving animals names like definitely like humanizes them like it's a lot easier to kill zero zero seven two five than than gerald or whatever whatever you name the chicken i don't know why i thought i'm gerald i like gerald as a chicken named maybe maybe the next chicken will call gerald in your honor if you make the change to veganism okay cool man have a great day thank you all thank you for the picture yeah of course yeah this is exciting i am glad i stopped to do this and i am back i'm also glad [Music] you

Channel: Earthling Ed

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Id: NQHbDsAbJuM

Length: 22min 55sec (1375 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 15 2021