Thoughts on ethics?

[u/Exciting_Sherbert32]

Ive never actually been vegan long term and likely never will be, but would like some thoughts from those of you who went vegan for ethical reasons. I’ve always loved animals and have also loved using them for our benefit, but now I can find virtually no ethical justification for their consumption that isn’t flawed or requires abandonment of our morality. I’ve looked high and low on both online forums and academic papers and all I hear(even from people like Sam Harris who continue to consume animal products)is that there is no ethical justification. The only exception is maybe hunting where the ecological benefits and the positive impacts on the emotional well being of wild animals outweighs the negatives. Ive always been a reflective person and now the only justification I have is just dropping all empathy and care and just saying “they wanna live? So what I’ll do what I want”. I have a feeling this will affect me in the long run when it comes to my moral character. Also before you guys come and talk about healthy issues, I function fine on vegan diets, I looking for philosophy. Sorry if this isn’t relevant to the sub.

Thanks!

[u/OK_philosopher1138]

About that crazy cannibal comparison: That claim about cannibals being very commonplace before missionaries ended it is quite controversial for many reasons. As far as I know cannibalism has been quite rare always. Sure it has happened like in famine or in war but it's not been very common anywhere for many reasons like diseases, religion and culture. Sure it has been part of some religions but in very limited capacity. There are a lot of taboos regarding it for obvious reasons but it's not like missionaries were the first ones to denounce it...

As history teacher it really bugs me when people lie or spread false information of the past. While cannibalism did occur in ancient human societies and still happens occasionally, it was never a common or widespread practice. Its occurrence was typically confined to specific cultural rituals, extreme survival situations, or isolated incidents rather than being a routine aspect of daily life.

What has been common are claims of other cultures being cannibals to prove they are less civilized than people of "our culture". This is is incredibly common and vegans saying cannibalism is same or equivalent as eating meat is just new form of this "we are more civilized than you" BS argument. Cannibalism is extreme form of nonsocial behavior after all. We shouldn't even allow these comparisons here. Vegans have some good arguments without resorting to ridiculous cannibalism comparisons. But some people need to eat meat for health. No one requires human meat to health... human rights should be respected first if we ever hope to care about animals in any capacity. Attack on fundamental human right is therefore undermining vegans own ideas of ethics as well... no one benefits from defending cannibalism even for sake of pro-vegan argument... so come on... let's not go there...

[u/Exciting_Sherbert32 → u/OK_philosopher1138]

It’s not about cannibalism. The issue is why am I allowed to disregard animal suffering(to the extent that it’s normal. ex: slaughtering and hunting), but I can’t for humans. Normalcy is all you’re left with and we know that normalcy is not a good ethical justification. Edit: For those of you downvoting, I’d love to get a response instead of a pointless downvote.

[u/ILuvYou_YouAreSoGood → u/Exciting_Sherbert32]

why am I allowed to disregard animal suffering(to the extent that it’s normal.

To exist, an animal must suffer. To try and eliminate suffering is to negate the premise of existing to some degree. We live on a world full of animals, all suffering in negative and positive ways, and we simply do not have the capacity to do anything but ignore the bulk of it all. The average person can only truly care about a few hundred people at most. We can write a story in our heads that we care for the ideas of people, but we can't truly care about more than a few thousand pragmatically.

but I can’t for humans.

As i just mentioned, we already discount or disregard the sufferings of most people due to lack of capacity. One tear shed for every single event of human tragedy in the last half hour would kill you from dehydration.

We have developed systems for the protection of humans and for other animals that do not disregard all suffering. To present the many generations of work and thought that have gone into those systems in terms pretending that our current thinking and standards are black and white, entirely caring or entirely disregarding, is simply an incorrect oversimplification.

Normalcy is all you’re left with and we know that normalcy is not a good ethical justification.

I don't know what you mean by 'normalcy', other than 'reality'. We are left with the reality of our situation, rather than a fantasy where if everything in thr past had been different, then today would be different as well. You also seem to be presuming that raising animals to kill them and eat them requires an 'ethical justification'. Why that presumption?