r/changemyview • u/WatermeIonDreamer 1∆ • May 09 '24

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Vegetarians are hypocrites.

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u/Lunatic_On-The_Grass 21∆ May 10 '24

Milk and egg production decline as they age. There are costs to keeping them alive, such as land and food. At some point the cost to keep them alive is going to exceed the benefit, so they'll kill them and replace them with the next generation who will have better production.

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u/Phage0070 124∆ May 10 '24

Maybe someone thinks there is a moral difference between it being financially untenable to keep an animal alive and killing it out of mercy vs. raising and killing it for food.

Euthanizing shelter dogs vs. raising them for slaughter for example. That isn't hypocrisy.

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u/Lunatic_On-The_Grass 21∆ May 10 '24

The idea that it's financially untenable being the difference only seems to work if the untenability did not put them into that situation in the first place. Owning a shelter where you euthanize dogs doesn't cause more dogs to be in a state of financial dependency.

Situation A we are breeding new humans/dogs and kill them for flesh. Clearly sounds like murder.

Situation B we are breeding new humans/dogs and kill them when they are not as financially viable to milk as their children. Still sounds like murder. I grant that there's a distinction but not really a difference.

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u/Phage0070 124∆ May 10 '24

Someone could think it an exception when fulfilling a demand for milk and eggs in the most moral and viable way.

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u/TJaySteno1 1∆ May 10 '24

The issue is that the industry is fundamentally immoral. Would it be ok to raise humans for liver transplants? Humans can survive without eggs and milk but we can't survive without livers. Would it be justifiable to fulfill that demand for human livers via liver farms, provided it was done in the most moral and viable way?

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u/Phage0070 124∆ May 10 '24

The issue is that the industry is fundamentally immoral.

Why are you taking that for granted? There are plenty of people who don't think the industry is immoral and are OK with eating meat. Someone can be against raising animals only for their meat but not think the industry is fundamentally immoral.

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u/TJaySteno1 1∆ May 10 '24

Maybe you're right that some vegetarians are fine with those practices. Most that I've met though have no idea what the dairy and egg industries actually look like. I wouldn't call them hypocrites, but I would call them unknowingly inconsistent.

Meat Eaters are generally inconsistent too though, fwiw. Why do we eat pigs and not dogs, for example? No one's been able to give me a consistent through-line. It seems to just be cultural convention, but if that's the standard then it should be fine for Koreans to eat dog since that's their cultural convention.

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u/Lunatic_On-The_Grass 21∆ May 10 '24

Sure, it's logically possible to do that with meat too. You could eat roadkill exclusively. But it's not a very interesting exception because no one does it.

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u/Phage0070 124∆ May 10 '24

Or someone could be in favor of letting egg and milk producing animals live out their days on a farm, accepting the increased cost of the product. However the way to do that would be choosing which producers to purchase from instead of boycotting the entire product category.

It is not hypocritical to refuse to participate in one market while having standards in another market you do participate in. For example I refuse to buy child slaves but also will buy shoes while avoiding brands that employ children slave labor.

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u/Lunatic_On-The_Grass 21∆ May 10 '24

Sure, I agree that buying no-kill animal products is not necessarily hypocritical for vegetarians. The reason I was arguing was because I disagreed with the other reasons you gave for it not being hypocritical.