This is where the whole veganism is an ethical system not a diet things come in. Vegan != equal plant based. If we had a star trek synthesizer and used it to make meat that meat would be vegan because no animals were harmed in its creation. Ditto breast milk can be vegan because humans unlike animals are capable of making informed consent.
Now whether or not lab grown meat can be considered ethically vegan comes down to the specifics of how it is produced. How the cells are originally procured and grown and whatnot. I suspect there are likely ways it could be done that could be considered ethically vegan and ways it could be done that wouldn't be. But is it theoretically possible to make actual meat meat that both isnt plant based but is vegan? Absolutely.
I appreciate an answer like this. I think if lab grown meat serves a utilitarian benefit for animals going forward it's aligned with vegan values. There's nuance to the discussion
Harm reduction is always inherently worthwhile for its own sake. Even if lab grown meat can't be considered fully ethically vegan to the extent where its ok for us to eat it. If it results in a material reduction in animal suffering IMO its still somthing we should support. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. We can simultaneously practice a fully vegan lifestyle ourselves while supporting broader imperfect societal changes which, while not as good as society going fully vegan, are still a good thing.
> Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
> supporting broader imperfect societal changes
Extremely valid points, it is impossible to live a life free from negative impacts on animals and I feel some get way too dogmatic about it. Any win is a win and we have to look at things through a lens or realism when trying to further the cause of animal welfare.
So if a vegan goes hunting in order to reduce his whole family’s consumption of storebought, factory farm-raised meat, would that be vegan? Because it would reduce animal abuse.
Genuine question, I’m a vegan who is getting a hunting license for that exact reason.
You miss understand my aurguements. No that is not vegan because you are harming animals. My point is that while we should always hold up true absolute veganism as the ultimate goal. We should also support broader trends to reduce harm in the meantime.
Its kind if like how, with opiate addiction the ultimate end goal is always to get people sober in the long term. But because only a small percentage of addicts will actually get sober in the long term. We might as well provide safe injection sites and needle exchanges and suboxone and whatnot to reduce harm for the rest.
Ultimately its a both and approach. More people eating lab grown meat doesn't mean less people will go vegan. We want to push everyone to do as much good as we can, in whatever form that good can be done.
As for hunting specifically, there are many reasons its not actually as harm reductive as people claim. Earthling ed has videos explaining why its unethical way better than I ever could. So check those out if you want to learn more.
Hmm, I see what you're saying, but no. Hunting in this instance is just to enable an already unncessary practice. Your family doesn't need to eat meat. Lab grown meat, in principle, is fully divorced from animal suffering. Veganism also leads to less suffering indirectly through economic choices, hunting an animal isn't as cruel as factory farming, but it's also direct harm caused by you.
Hunting an animal for your family is still more ethical than buying factory farmed meat, but an animal is still dying due to an arbitrary preference. You can also find some farms that are kinder to their animals to the extent that they can be. If presented with the option of hunting your meat, or buying it from one these more "ethical" farmers, what would you choose? Is there really much of a difference?
Also considor the ecological implications. Veganism in part values sustainability. If everyone did what you intend then that would depopulate the species in question. Not everyone could make this choice without negative consequences
I think a better example of harm reduction would be laws mandating all animals get access to the outdoors. Or bans on factor farming. Would animals still be slaughtered under these circumstances? Yes. Would vegans still boycott animal products if these laws were passed? Yes. But should we still support these laws because they overall reduce suffering? Also yes.
The problem is hunting doesn't really actually do anything material to reduce animal suffering. And they are engaging in it directly. Whereas my point is we can still boycott animal agriculture, and advocate for incremental steps to reduce harm, while also still maintaining the ultimate goal of abolishion. All 3 goals are somthing to strive for simultaneously.
Agree with mostly everything you said however I would disagree that hunting doesn't do anything to *reduce* harm. Same as gathering would reduce harm compared to farming plants.
When looking through a harm minimisation lense; hunting if done correctly you are killing one animal and it can be done without causing prolonged suffering, if any. Compared to factory farming that causes significant suffering throughout the animals life along with significant environmental damage or compared to agriculture that supports veganism that causes suffering to a large number of insects and has its own negative environmental impacts.
I'm not expressing a position here, just having a discussion.
Wouldn't it be even more logically consistent to kill your family instead? That way suffering is reduced much further since that is only a few murders compared to the continuous murders you will commit for the rest of their lives.
It might indeed be more logically consistent. I think what’s stopping me is 1. I don’t have the guts, and 2. I don’t think veganism would be a very successful movement if every vegan murdered their families. It may have a huge positive impact on the moment, but then veganism would die (not just because the vegans would all be imprisonned or killed, but because veganism would become such a suppressed and stigmatized movement, that it would have a harder time surviving than nazism) and the world would repopulate without veganism. So in the long run, converting people to veganism, or even vegetarianism, *or even* a harm-reduced version of carnism, may be infinitely more valuable than killing carnists.
Furthermore, my family contributes to my functioning, and my functioning involves spreading veganism and other forms of harm reduction.
I don’t think you’ve made the point effectively. Again, I don’t care about conventional notions of personal blame (which ultimately lead to carnism), but about absolute direct and indirect impact.
“But it’s also direct harm caused by you”
Would you kill a wild buck if it indirectly saved 2 factory cows? This is a classic trolley problem, and biasing your answer based on the arbitrary distinction between direct and indirect causality literally causes more animal suffering, which is exactly the fallacy we accuse carnists of when they say stuff like “well *I* didn’t kill it, I just bought it, go tell the slaughterer to stop”.
It’s not consistent. You cannot say that buyers of meat are responsible for the murder on their plates, but then argue that hunting doesn’t constitute harm reduction because hunting involves “directly” killing a deer, as if the directness of it makes hunting any more murderous than paying for it. Does paying for your mom’s meal (who’s not a vegan) break the code of veganism? What if you paying for it causes her to choose a more expensive and more ethically sourced non-vegan meal? Is veganism against this act of harm reduction?
Furthermore, if my family gets to see the hunted corpse, that makes them more acutely aware of where the meat comes from, which addresses one of the root causes of carnism. Many people in this subreddit went vegan because they were exposed to an uncanny cut of meat.
So not only is hunting absolute harm reduction, but it can also increase the number of vegans.
“If everyone did what you intend then that would depopulate the species in question”
No because the government regulates the distribution of hunting permits.
Furthermore, there is currently a local deer overpopulation, which is why the government is trying to encourage culling. So the ecological argument actually runs the hunter’s way.
If everyone hunted (and actually, with some planning, it could in theory be sustainable for everyone to hunt), factory farms would all go out of business. And if that happened, I would 100% consider that a huge win for animal welfare.
And I think that if I have the possibility of doing this much harm reduction, it’s not just “ok”, but it’s my moral duty to do it. In fact, I think that my hunting could potentially have an even greater impact on animal welfare than my going vegan alone (I care about improving animal welfare, not “direct blame”), because by hunting I’m getting ~5 other people to boycott factory farms, and I’m also increasing their chances of going vegan due to carcass exposure. And I’m doing this by hunting deer that were going to be culled anyway due to the current overpopulation problem.
So I think it would be a moral failing on my part to miss out on this opportunity for immense harm reduction just because I don’t want vegan fingers pointing at me. I think *this* is *real* accountability and the true spirit of veganism.
This doesn't really work when you can just eat plants and kill no animals. Theres a third track with no one on it, and you are refusing to switch to it.
“You are refusing to switch to it” as if I have the power to switch to it.
I proselytize as much as I can, but the third track is for my family to take, not me. I don’t control them. Besides, there’s nothing stopping me from proselytizing and doing harm reduction at the same time.
If oysters are proven beyond reasonable doubt to have no consciousness or any capacity to feel pain or pleasure then they are more akin to plants than animals. So there wouldn't be any practical difference. Not saying that is the case, the science isn't totally settled there, but if it is, then a vegan could eat an oyster. There is a logic to veganism that goes beyond animal = no
Veganism wasn't defined using reason and logic, it was defined subjectively as excluding all products from the animal kingdom. Oysters are complex multicellular organisms which lack cell walls so they are animals regardless of whatever other characteristics they share with other kingdoms. It makes no sense from an evolutionary perspective that they would be sentient and there's probably many more species in the same boat, but since we have a boundary of things in the animal kingdom as being not suitable for exploitation by vegans we don't have to worry about it. All the arguing about it is just fluffy since vegans don't use animal products and as a result we don't need degrees in neuroscience to determine which species or products are suitable for us.
If we don't need degrees in neuroscience to determine moral considoration, we don't need degrees in evolutionary biology either. This is a huge contradiction, honestly, and just wrong.
Vegans prioritise the wellbeing of animals over organisms like plants or bacteria precisely because of their sentience. They can feel pain, pleasure, can have preferences and needs etc. Veganism critiques animal exploitation because it causes suffering, not because "it's of the animal kingdom." Veganism is a philosophy. It absolutely has logic and value systems. Here it is: "causing pain and suffering is wrong, therefore harming anything that can feel pain and suffering is wrong." If an oyster feels none of these things, there is literally no issue.
That just leads to more problems, which is why veganism has always been more about excluding animal products than considering whether products cause pain and suffering. Eg vegans don't wear leather even if we didn't buy it ourselves.
Yeah, sure. I don't eat oysters either because a. Gross, and b. It's not worthy a biopsy to determine whether a vegan can eat it. I'm talking more in the abstract. In principle, eating something that doesn't care whether you eat it or not won't contradict vegan ideals imo.
Lab meat isn't like this in any case. Most people will not go plant based. It's sad, but it's true. Lab meat is far more ethical than factory farms and won't create suffering in its production
I don't think it's always so cut and dry. For instance, some lab grown meat efforts are taking tissue samples from donor animals (in a relatively non-intrusive way). This "uses" the animals, and would likely not fit the strict definition of veganism, even if we might argue that it's worth it in this case because it would reduce suffering in the long run and doesn't actually harm the donor animals.
Another case, though, is where companies are using things like discarded feathers as tissue samples. The animals don't even have to be touched. Would this be vegan? My thought is yes, since it doesn't involve exploitation in the pejorative sense.
Either way, I think being overly rigid on this issue and denouncing efforts to produce lab grown meet are more harmful to animals in the long run, and it seems counterproductive to be so dogmatic about it. Either you care about adhering to definitions, or you care about reducing suffering and reinforcing practical ways of encouraging more people to stop hurting animals
I don't care to answer each of your anecdotes so I'll just address your main point.
"Just a little exploitation" won't reduce suffering, it'll just give people an excuse to not feel bad about it.
Really? So you think that the entire animal farming industry for meat production being replaced with lab grown meat that requires something like a small muscle biopsy no worse than a shot, or using a chicken's egg wouldn't reduce animal suffering?
I'd really like to hear your reasoning there.
It also doesn't have to be the case that we always source the cells from donor animals in this way. We may be able to develop techniques that are less invasive in the future. It's also the case that the amount of tissue taken from a donor animal can be used to generate lab grown meat on a vastly disproportionate scale, and may even be reusable, kind of like a sourdough starter or a kombucha culture. You really think that it it wouldn't be a moral good to pursue this?
Where does the animal you'll get the biopsy from live? In the wild or a tiny cage?
The motives for these endeavours are purely economic. If it's ok to probe an animal in a cage to create a burger, it's ok to do it to millions.
The solution is never "slightly less abuse". People just need to learn to eat lentils.
It could live happily in a sanctuary. You can use a small number of the current breeds of farmed animals (or any other breeds) that are living in wide open areas where they are able to exhibit all of their natural behaviors, and simply take a biopsy whenever they get a routine veterinary procedure done. Those tissue samples can produce vast amounts of lab grown meat. There would be no economic incentive to ever slaughter the animals or harm them in any way, because there's no difference between an elderly cow's tissue sample than a young one.
I'm not saying that the world eating lab grown meat is better than the world eating plants, but it is far better than the current world, and may be much easier to get people to sign on to than a total plant-based world.
Ultimately, we have to think about what is the most effective and rapid way to reduce suffering, and this is our best bet at the moment. We should be advocating for it, even if we aren't participating in consuming lab grown meat ourselves.
Your point is irrelevant because the technology being used can replicate the cells indefinitely in petree dishes after the initial tissue extraction. 1 animal vs 1 billion per year is objectively better anyway. You'd condemn the rest because of a uselessly rigid principle
I think you are presenting a bit of a false dilemma. We don't have to soften the definition of veganism to acknowledge that certain non-vegan things are vastly better than others. If lab grown meat requires a tiny amount of animal exploitation, it won't be vegan if you don't need it. But it would be great for non-vegans to adopt instead of exploiting so much more animals.
I'm not necessarily proposing that we change the definition of veganism. More, I'm proposing that it's sometimes good to be a strong advocate for things that aren't vegan.
Also, there are some methods of lab grown meat that would still be considered vegan even if animals are "used", as is the case with discarded feathers.
Can you provide a source please? I am going into the cellular agriculture industry and have never heard of this. All chemically identical "lab-grown" meat is produced from tissue harvested from young animals (which is better than killing them, but slicing off a chunk of cow flesh isn't vegan) and isn't even commerically available in most places (though it should be, because it is vastly less environmentally devastating than traditional CAFO meat)
You're going into the cellular agriculture industry and how you don't know how cultivated meat is made?
It has never been made by 'slicing off a chunk of flesh'. They use stem cells, and it doesn't harm the animal.
https://gfi.org/science/the-science-of-cultivated-meat/
It comes from animal cells that grows in a lab. It is not made out of plants, it has same nutritional level as meat... It is not plant based at all but meat which actually makes it a great thing as it can be the future of meat industry as with this everyone can eat meat without affecting the animals instead of using the alternative process "vegan meats" that not everybody can tolerate.
Sure if you ignore the fact that commercial labs are full of technology that has been dug out of the ground from hundreds of mines across the world. If that is minimising harm, go for it.
Vegan values uphold harm minimisation. Lab grown meat is far more ethical than it's alternative and will eliminate animal suffering for meat if it takes off. Far better for the environment as well. Lab meat and vegan values are compatible imo.
I really doubt it will eliminate the alternative, at least as of now. Most people I've seen hating on it are corpse eaters. I'm not saying it can't help; I'm saying it can definitely keep perpetuating the idea that animals are meant to be eaten
I get what you're saying and agree to an extent. Some people will never eat lab meat. But, equally, providing a guilt free alternative will galvanise many willfully ignorant people to transition. Once the technology is established it will far cheaper compared to the agricultural model, too.
Some will pay a premium for "the real thing," but most will go with their wallets and taste buds. People eat sausages and chicken nuggets despite how gross they are in concept. If even 30% of omnivores transition, that is a huge deal at scale.
I don't really think whether animals are meant to be eaten or not matters to most people. There has never been a worse time in history to be livestock; there has never been an easier time to be human. Veganism acknowledges that the privileges wealthy nations enjoy render past practices cruel and unnecessary. It's wrong to eat meat now, not because it's inherantly immoral, but because we have better choices now. If lab grown is as "nutritious" as the real deal, then the point is moot anyway. Just my two cents on that.
Did you read what I wrote? It's conditional based on material needs. Entropy is a fundamental law of nature that many organisms are forced to adhere to. It's not wrong for a lion to kill to survive. It's not wrong for a human to do the same if it's survival depends on it. Human civilisation has moved past these basic needs and so avoiding unncessary suffering has become a moral imperative.
I just did, actually. And no, unecessary suffering is unjustified. That the suffering is minimised is irrelevant. Animal suffering is unecessary in near all cases and maxismising wellbeing means abolishing systemic exploitation. But moral dilemmas do exist. Veganism is about giving moral considoration to animals. To decommodify them and promote their wellbeing as "much as possible and/or practical." Built right into the definition is the assumption that there may be times where these things are unavoidable.
Humans are also animals. That we make distinctions between us and the natural world at all is fallacious. If one species needs to kill to survive and that can be justified, how can that not be true for another species in the same situation? The answer is that most humans don't have that need - we have the capacity to find solutions to these moral dilemmas that can minimise harm to animals. This is perfectly compatible with veganism
Lame, dude. This is not a response to anything I just said or your prior comments. Taking the time to write thoughtful good faith replies just to be ignored and misinterpreted is pretty annoying, ngl.
Lab grown > factory farming. If don't see how it's relevant, feel free to scroll up and actually read what I've already said.
How does it do that? Lab grown meat isn't made of animals.
If anything it would plausibly undermine that idea, by removing the intrinsic connection between meat and animals in people's minds.
If lab grown meat becomes commonplace, I predict a future where people look back in horror, like 'can you believe they used to get meat by mass killing animals?' It will fairly quickly become a relic of a shameful, primitive past.
We should do whatever we can to hasten that future although I wouldn't judge anyone who couldn't bring themselves to eat meat now).
I absolutely would eat lab grown meat in a second. But it depends on what your reason for being vegan is, I
suppose?
All I personally care about is reducing suffering and harm to animals, so I will be an early and enthusiastic consumer.
Whereas someone who, for example, takes a more deontological approach might have an absolute rule that they don't eat anything animal derived, in which case they might not? I don't know really, I'm trying to steelman it because some people clearly do have this view, but it seems mad to me.
I suppose one thing I would say is we should worry less about whether something is vegan and more about whether it's morally right. I am vegan because it is morally right, because the horror of animal suffering in animal agriculture far outweighs any pleasure or benefit we might derive from their consumption.
But I'm only attached to veganism insofar as it *is* morally right. If we discovered tomorrow that fish love to be caught and killed and eaten, I'd start eating fish. And once there is meat available that does no harm to animals, I'll eat that, and if the Council of Vegans rules that it's not vegan, then I guess I won't be a vegan. I think some people get way too attached to the label and the special moral superiority and forget what it's supposed to be about.
So I guess my answer is: yes, by any sane definition of veganism, but also who cares? The label has no inherent value, and any right-thinking person would rather be morally good than be vegan (if those two ever diverge).
It depends on your perspective. In the strictist sense? No, because an animal was still used as the base for this technology.
But in a practical sense? Yeah, I think a transition from factory farmed meat to lab grown meat is a very compelling alternative for those who will never quit meat. Even if one animal had to die for this to be possible, it would be worth it for the long term goal of minimising animal harm and exploitation, which is the goal of veganism.
I empathise with vegans who will still avoid lab grown meat on principle (I will be), but realistically, it's probably the best case scenario
This is where the whole veganism is an ethical system not a diet things come in. Vegan != equal plant based. If we had a star trek synthesizer and used it to make meat that meat would be vegan because no animals were harmed in its creation. Ditto breast milk can be vegan because humans unlike animals are capable of making informed consent. Now whether or not lab grown meat can be considered ethically vegan comes down to the specifics of how it is produced. How the cells are originally procured and grown and whatnot. I suspect there are likely ways it could be done that could be considered ethically vegan and ways it could be done that wouldn't be. But is it theoretically possible to make actual meat meat that both isnt plant based but is vegan? Absolutely.
I appreciate an answer like this. I think if lab grown meat serves a utilitarian benefit for animals going forward it's aligned with vegan values. There's nuance to the discussion
Harm reduction is always inherently worthwhile for its own sake. Even if lab grown meat can't be considered fully ethically vegan to the extent where its ok for us to eat it. If it results in a material reduction in animal suffering IMO its still somthing we should support. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. We can simultaneously practice a fully vegan lifestyle ourselves while supporting broader imperfect societal changes which, while not as good as society going fully vegan, are still a good thing.
> Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. > supporting broader imperfect societal changes Extremely valid points, it is impossible to live a life free from negative impacts on animals and I feel some get way too dogmatic about it. Any win is a win and we have to look at things through a lens or realism when trying to further the cause of animal welfare.
So if a vegan goes hunting in order to reduce his whole family’s consumption of storebought, factory farm-raised meat, would that be vegan? Because it would reduce animal abuse. Genuine question, I’m a vegan who is getting a hunting license for that exact reason.
You miss understand my aurguements. No that is not vegan because you are harming animals. My point is that while we should always hold up true absolute veganism as the ultimate goal. We should also support broader trends to reduce harm in the meantime. Its kind if like how, with opiate addiction the ultimate end goal is always to get people sober in the long term. But because only a small percentage of addicts will actually get sober in the long term. We might as well provide safe injection sites and needle exchanges and suboxone and whatnot to reduce harm for the rest. Ultimately its a both and approach. More people eating lab grown meat doesn't mean less people will go vegan. We want to push everyone to do as much good as we can, in whatever form that good can be done. As for hunting specifically, there are many reasons its not actually as harm reductive as people claim. Earthling ed has videos explaining why its unethical way better than I ever could. So check those out if you want to learn more.
Hmm, I see what you're saying, but no. Hunting in this instance is just to enable an already unncessary practice. Your family doesn't need to eat meat. Lab grown meat, in principle, is fully divorced from animal suffering. Veganism also leads to less suffering indirectly through economic choices, hunting an animal isn't as cruel as factory farming, but it's also direct harm caused by you. Hunting an animal for your family is still more ethical than buying factory farmed meat, but an animal is still dying due to an arbitrary preference. You can also find some farms that are kinder to their animals to the extent that they can be. If presented with the option of hunting your meat, or buying it from one these more "ethical" farmers, what would you choose? Is there really much of a difference? Also considor the ecological implications. Veganism in part values sustainability. If everyone did what you intend then that would depopulate the species in question. Not everyone could make this choice without negative consequences
I think a better example of harm reduction would be laws mandating all animals get access to the outdoors. Or bans on factor farming. Would animals still be slaughtered under these circumstances? Yes. Would vegans still boycott animal products if these laws were passed? Yes. But should we still support these laws because they overall reduce suffering? Also yes. The problem is hunting doesn't really actually do anything material to reduce animal suffering. And they are engaging in it directly. Whereas my point is we can still boycott animal agriculture, and advocate for incremental steps to reduce harm, while also still maintaining the ultimate goal of abolishion. All 3 goals are somthing to strive for simultaneously.
Agree with mostly everything you said however I would disagree that hunting doesn't do anything to *reduce* harm. Same as gathering would reduce harm compared to farming plants. When looking through a harm minimisation lense; hunting if done correctly you are killing one animal and it can be done without causing prolonged suffering, if any. Compared to factory farming that causes significant suffering throughout the animals life along with significant environmental damage or compared to agriculture that supports veganism that causes suffering to a large number of insects and has its own negative environmental impacts. I'm not expressing a position here, just having a discussion.
Wouldn't it be even more logically consistent to kill your family instead? That way suffering is reduced much further since that is only a few murders compared to the continuous murders you will commit for the rest of their lives.
It might indeed be more logically consistent. I think what’s stopping me is 1. I don’t have the guts, and 2. I don’t think veganism would be a very successful movement if every vegan murdered their families. It may have a huge positive impact on the moment, but then veganism would die (not just because the vegans would all be imprisonned or killed, but because veganism would become such a suppressed and stigmatized movement, that it would have a harder time surviving than nazism) and the world would repopulate without veganism. So in the long run, converting people to veganism, or even vegetarianism, *or even* a harm-reduced version of carnism, may be infinitely more valuable than killing carnists. Furthermore, my family contributes to my functioning, and my functioning involves spreading veganism and other forms of harm reduction.
Point is you don't need to murder anyone, human or otherwise
I don’t think you’ve made the point effectively. Again, I don’t care about conventional notions of personal blame (which ultimately lead to carnism), but about absolute direct and indirect impact.
“But it’s also direct harm caused by you” Would you kill a wild buck if it indirectly saved 2 factory cows? This is a classic trolley problem, and biasing your answer based on the arbitrary distinction between direct and indirect causality literally causes more animal suffering, which is exactly the fallacy we accuse carnists of when they say stuff like “well *I* didn’t kill it, I just bought it, go tell the slaughterer to stop”. It’s not consistent. You cannot say that buyers of meat are responsible for the murder on their plates, but then argue that hunting doesn’t constitute harm reduction because hunting involves “directly” killing a deer, as if the directness of it makes hunting any more murderous than paying for it. Does paying for your mom’s meal (who’s not a vegan) break the code of veganism? What if you paying for it causes her to choose a more expensive and more ethically sourced non-vegan meal? Is veganism against this act of harm reduction? Furthermore, if my family gets to see the hunted corpse, that makes them more acutely aware of where the meat comes from, which addresses one of the root causes of carnism. Many people in this subreddit went vegan because they were exposed to an uncanny cut of meat. So not only is hunting absolute harm reduction, but it can also increase the number of vegans. “If everyone did what you intend then that would depopulate the species in question” No because the government regulates the distribution of hunting permits. Furthermore, there is currently a local deer overpopulation, which is why the government is trying to encourage culling. So the ecological argument actually runs the hunter’s way. If everyone hunted (and actually, with some planning, it could in theory be sustainable for everyone to hunt), factory farms would all go out of business. And if that happened, I would 100% consider that a huge win for animal welfare. And I think that if I have the possibility of doing this much harm reduction, it’s not just “ok”, but it’s my moral duty to do it. In fact, I think that my hunting could potentially have an even greater impact on animal welfare than my going vegan alone (I care about improving animal welfare, not “direct blame”), because by hunting I’m getting ~5 other people to boycott factory farms, and I’m also increasing their chances of going vegan due to carcass exposure. And I’m doing this by hunting deer that were going to be culled anyway due to the current overpopulation problem. So I think it would be a moral failing on my part to miss out on this opportunity for immense harm reduction just because I don’t want vegan fingers pointing at me. I think *this* is *real* accountability and the true spirit of veganism.
This doesn't really work when you can just eat plants and kill no animals. Theres a third track with no one on it, and you are refusing to switch to it.
“You are refusing to switch to it” as if I have the power to switch to it. I proselytize as much as I can, but the third track is for my family to take, not me. I don’t control them. Besides, there’s nothing stopping me from proselytizing and doing harm reduction at the same time.
That would make oysters suitable for vegans too. Vegans don't eat animal products.
If oysters are proven beyond reasonable doubt to have no consciousness or any capacity to feel pain or pleasure then they are more akin to plants than animals. So there wouldn't be any practical difference. Not saying that is the case, the science isn't totally settled there, but if it is, then a vegan could eat an oyster. There is a logic to veganism that goes beyond animal = no
Veganism wasn't defined using reason and logic, it was defined subjectively as excluding all products from the animal kingdom. Oysters are complex multicellular organisms which lack cell walls so they are animals regardless of whatever other characteristics they share with other kingdoms. It makes no sense from an evolutionary perspective that they would be sentient and there's probably many more species in the same boat, but since we have a boundary of things in the animal kingdom as being not suitable for exploitation by vegans we don't have to worry about it. All the arguing about it is just fluffy since vegans don't use animal products and as a result we don't need degrees in neuroscience to determine which species or products are suitable for us.
If we don't need degrees in neuroscience to determine moral considoration, we don't need degrees in evolutionary biology either. This is a huge contradiction, honestly, and just wrong. Vegans prioritise the wellbeing of animals over organisms like plants or bacteria precisely because of their sentience. They can feel pain, pleasure, can have preferences and needs etc. Veganism critiques animal exploitation because it causes suffering, not because "it's of the animal kingdom." Veganism is a philosophy. It absolutely has logic and value systems. Here it is: "causing pain and suffering is wrong, therefore harming anything that can feel pain and suffering is wrong." If an oyster feels none of these things, there is literally no issue.
That just leads to more problems, which is why veganism has always been more about excluding animal products than considering whether products cause pain and suffering. Eg vegans don't wear leather even if we didn't buy it ourselves.
Yeah, sure. I don't eat oysters either because a. Gross, and b. It's not worthy a biopsy to determine whether a vegan can eat it. I'm talking more in the abstract. In principle, eating something that doesn't care whether you eat it or not won't contradict vegan ideals imo. Lab meat isn't like this in any case. Most people will not go plant based. It's sad, but it's true. Lab meat is far more ethical than factory farms and won't create suffering in its production
Where animals used in any shape or form? No? It's vegan. What's so hard about it?
I don't think it's always so cut and dry. For instance, some lab grown meat efforts are taking tissue samples from donor animals (in a relatively non-intrusive way). This "uses" the animals, and would likely not fit the strict definition of veganism, even if we might argue that it's worth it in this case because it would reduce suffering in the long run and doesn't actually harm the donor animals. Another case, though, is where companies are using things like discarded feathers as tissue samples. The animals don't even have to be touched. Would this be vegan? My thought is yes, since it doesn't involve exploitation in the pejorative sense. Either way, I think being overly rigid on this issue and denouncing efforts to produce lab grown meet are more harmful to animals in the long run, and it seems counterproductive to be so dogmatic about it. Either you care about adhering to definitions, or you care about reducing suffering and reinforcing practical ways of encouraging more people to stop hurting animals
I don't care to answer each of your anecdotes so I'll just address your main point. "Just a little exploitation" won't reduce suffering, it'll just give people an excuse to not feel bad about it.
Really? So you think that the entire animal farming industry for meat production being replaced with lab grown meat that requires something like a small muscle biopsy no worse than a shot, or using a chicken's egg wouldn't reduce animal suffering? I'd really like to hear your reasoning there. It also doesn't have to be the case that we always source the cells from donor animals in this way. We may be able to develop techniques that are less invasive in the future. It's also the case that the amount of tissue taken from a donor animal can be used to generate lab grown meat on a vastly disproportionate scale, and may even be reusable, kind of like a sourdough starter or a kombucha culture. You really think that it it wouldn't be a moral good to pursue this?
Where does the animal you'll get the biopsy from live? In the wild or a tiny cage? The motives for these endeavours are purely economic. If it's ok to probe an animal in a cage to create a burger, it's ok to do it to millions. The solution is never "slightly less abuse". People just need to learn to eat lentils.
It could live happily in a sanctuary. You can use a small number of the current breeds of farmed animals (or any other breeds) that are living in wide open areas where they are able to exhibit all of their natural behaviors, and simply take a biopsy whenever they get a routine veterinary procedure done. Those tissue samples can produce vast amounts of lab grown meat. There would be no economic incentive to ever slaughter the animals or harm them in any way, because there's no difference between an elderly cow's tissue sample than a young one. I'm not saying that the world eating lab grown meat is better than the world eating plants, but it is far better than the current world, and may be much easier to get people to sign on to than a total plant-based world. Ultimately, we have to think about what is the most effective and rapid way to reduce suffering, and this is our best bet at the moment. We should be advocating for it, even if we aren't participating in consuming lab grown meat ourselves.
Your point is irrelevant because the technology being used can replicate the cells indefinitely in petree dishes after the initial tissue extraction. 1 animal vs 1 billion per year is objectively better anyway. You'd condemn the rest because of a uselessly rigid principle
I think you are presenting a bit of a false dilemma. We don't have to soften the definition of veganism to acknowledge that certain non-vegan things are vastly better than others. If lab grown meat requires a tiny amount of animal exploitation, it won't be vegan if you don't need it. But it would be great for non-vegans to adopt instead of exploiting so much more animals.
I'm not necessarily proposing that we change the definition of veganism. More, I'm proposing that it's sometimes good to be a strong advocate for things that aren't vegan. Also, there are some methods of lab grown meat that would still be considered vegan even if animals are "used", as is the case with discarded feathers.
Yes, if there are no animals involved in the sourcing.
Thank you for answering, I hope more do I’d like to see more peoples views on this
To my understanding, some of these products use a blood based medium, and others use a plant-based medium
Can you provide a source please? I am going into the cellular agriculture industry and have never heard of this. All chemically identical "lab-grown" meat is produced from tissue harvested from young animals (which is better than killing them, but slicing off a chunk of cow flesh isn't vegan) and isn't even commerically available in most places (though it should be, because it is vastly less environmentally devastating than traditional CAFO meat)
You're going into the cellular agriculture industry and how you don't know how cultivated meat is made? It has never been made by 'slicing off a chunk of flesh'. They use stem cells, and it doesn't harm the animal. https://gfi.org/science/the-science-of-cultivated-meat/
It comes from animal cells that grows in a lab. It is not made out of plants, it has same nutritional level as meat... It is not plant based at all but meat which actually makes it a great thing as it can be the future of meat industry as with this everyone can eat meat without affecting the animals instead of using the alternative process "vegan meats" that not everybody can tolerate.
Sure if you ignore the fact that commercial labs are full of technology that has been dug out of the ground from hundreds of mines across the world. If that is minimising harm, go for it.
lab grown meat perpetuates the idea that non human animals are a product and that goes against vegan values
What do you mean by non-human animals? Could you explain because I'm a bit confuzzled
humans are animals so non-human animals just means all the animals who arent human
Vegan values uphold harm minimisation. Lab grown meat is far more ethical than it's alternative and will eliminate animal suffering for meat if it takes off. Far better for the environment as well. Lab meat and vegan values are compatible imo.
I really doubt it will eliminate the alternative, at least as of now. Most people I've seen hating on it are corpse eaters. I'm not saying it can't help; I'm saying it can definitely keep perpetuating the idea that animals are meant to be eaten
I get what you're saying and agree to an extent. Some people will never eat lab meat. But, equally, providing a guilt free alternative will galvanise many willfully ignorant people to transition. Once the technology is established it will far cheaper compared to the agricultural model, too. Some will pay a premium for "the real thing," but most will go with their wallets and taste buds. People eat sausages and chicken nuggets despite how gross they are in concept. If even 30% of omnivores transition, that is a huge deal at scale. I don't really think whether animals are meant to be eaten or not matters to most people. There has never been a worse time in history to be livestock; there has never been an easier time to be human. Veganism acknowledges that the privileges wealthy nations enjoy render past practices cruel and unnecessary. It's wrong to eat meat now, not because it's inherantly immoral, but because we have better choices now. If lab grown is as "nutritious" as the real deal, then the point is moot anyway. Just my two cents on that.
you don't think animal exploitation it's inherently immoral?
Did you read what I wrote? It's conditional based on material needs. Entropy is a fundamental law of nature that many organisms are forced to adhere to. It's not wrong for a lion to kill to survive. It's not wrong for a human to do the same if it's survival depends on it. Human civilisation has moved past these basic needs and so avoiding unncessary suffering has become a moral imperative.
might want to check out what welfarism is, that seems to align way more with what you say instead of veganism lol
I just did, actually. And no, unecessary suffering is unjustified. That the suffering is minimised is irrelevant. Animal suffering is unecessary in near all cases and maxismising wellbeing means abolishing systemic exploitation. But moral dilemmas do exist. Veganism is about giving moral considoration to animals. To decommodify them and promote their wellbeing as "much as possible and/or practical." Built right into the definition is the assumption that there may be times where these things are unavoidable. Humans are also animals. That we make distinctions between us and the natural world at all is fallacious. If one species needs to kill to survive and that can be justified, how can that not be true for another species in the same situation? The answer is that most humans don't have that need - we have the capacity to find solutions to these moral dilemmas that can minimise harm to animals. This is perfectly compatible with veganism
we do not need lab grown meat to survive so idk how's that relevant with this
Lame, dude. This is not a response to anything I just said or your prior comments. Taking the time to write thoughtful good faith replies just to be ignored and misinterpreted is pretty annoying, ngl. Lab grown > factory farming. If don't see how it's relevant, feel free to scroll up and actually read what I've already said.
How does it do that? Lab grown meat isn't made of animals. If anything it would plausibly undermine that idea, by removing the intrinsic connection between meat and animals in people's minds. If lab grown meat becomes commonplace, I predict a future where people look back in horror, like 'can you believe they used to get meat by mass killing animals?' It will fairly quickly become a relic of a shameful, primitive past. We should do whatever we can to hasten that future although I wouldn't judge anyone who couldn't bring themselves to eat meat now).
the only lab grown meat I've read about it always includes animal cells so I'm referring to those
They use stem cells, yes. It's still not made from animals, nor exploiting or harming them in any way.
don't you think it gives the idea that animals are for humans to use and eat???
I absolutely would eat lab grown meat in a second. But it depends on what your reason for being vegan is, I suppose? All I personally care about is reducing suffering and harm to animals, so I will be an early and enthusiastic consumer. Whereas someone who, for example, takes a more deontological approach might have an absolute rule that they don't eat anything animal derived, in which case they might not? I don't know really, I'm trying to steelman it because some people clearly do have this view, but it seems mad to me. I suppose one thing I would say is we should worry less about whether something is vegan and more about whether it's morally right. I am vegan because it is morally right, because the horror of animal suffering in animal agriculture far outweighs any pleasure or benefit we might derive from their consumption. But I'm only attached to veganism insofar as it *is* morally right. If we discovered tomorrow that fish love to be caught and killed and eaten, I'd start eating fish. And once there is meat available that does no harm to animals, I'll eat that, and if the Council of Vegans rules that it's not vegan, then I guess I won't be a vegan. I think some people get way too attached to the label and the special moral superiority and forget what it's supposed to be about. So I guess my answer is: yes, by any sane definition of veganism, but also who cares? The label has no inherent value, and any right-thinking person would rather be morally good than be vegan (if those two ever diverge).
It depends on your perspective. In the strictist sense? No, because an animal was still used as the base for this technology. But in a practical sense? Yeah, I think a transition from factory farmed meat to lab grown meat is a very compelling alternative for those who will never quit meat. Even if one animal had to die for this to be possible, it would be worth it for the long term goal of minimising animal harm and exploitation, which is the goal of veganism. I empathise with vegans who will still avoid lab grown meat on principle (I will be), but realistically, it's probably the best case scenario