Just in case anyone was on the fence about whether vegans are insane...

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Originally Posted by Sir C

Nonsense. We are doing our human thing from a position of awareness. We have knowledge of the consequences and morality of our actions. The mosquito does not.

People choose to be fundamentally awful. Corbyn chooses to support the IRA or whichever oppressive dictator takes his fancy on the day. Owen Jones chooses to be a repulsive little gimp and consciously tries to use his position to encourage turning this country into a socialist hellhole, even though he knows the effect this will have on his fellow citizens. peter chooses to support these monsters. sw chooses to spunk his wages on Guinness, beat his children and píss in his wife's wardrobe.

All conscious choices. All guilty.

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Nah. Free will is an illusion. How can it be anything else, when not one cell in your body or your brain (i.e. everything that makes you who you are) was your choice? None of us are the true authors of our actions, in any meaningful sense.

Moral culpability has a deep purpose and without it we'd be fúcked. But it is inherently illogical.

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Originally Posted by Monty92

Nah. Free will is an illusion. How can it be anything else, when not one cell in your body or your brain (i.e. everything that makes you who you are) was your choice? None of us are the true authors of our actions, in any meaningful sense.

Moral culpability has a deep purpose and without it we'd be fúcked. But it is inherently illogical.

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Who are you, Mr Spock? You can't hide your guilt behind pseudo-intellectual balls. Reason it as much as you like, ultimately you're a nasty little shít with possible sexcrime tendencies because you shoose to be.

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Originally Posted by Sir C

Who are you, Mr Spock? You can't hide your guilt behind pseudo-intellectual balls. Reason it as much as you like, ultimately you're a nasty little shít with possible sexcrime tendencies because you shoose to be.

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I'd love you to elaborate on what is pseudo-intellectual about pointing out that not one cell in your body or your brain was your choice

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Originally Posted by Monty92

I'd love you to elaborate on what is pseudo-intellectual about pointing out that not one cell in your body or your brain was your choice

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Why are you choosing to oppress me over this?

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Originally Posted by Sir C

Why are you choosing to oppress me over this?

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You realise he is Jewish :corbynforpm:

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Originally Posted by Sir C

Nonsense. We are doing our human thing from a position of awareness. We have knowledge of the consequences and morality of our actions. The mosquito does not.

People choose to be fundamentally awful. Corbyn chooses to support the IRA or whichever oppressive dictator takes his fancy on the day. Owen Jones chooses to be a repulsive little gimp and consciously tries to use his position to encourage turning this country into a socialist hellhole, even though he knows the effect this will have on his fellow citizens. peter chooses to support these monsters. sw chooses to spunk his wages on Guinness, beat his children and píss in his wife's wardrobe.

All conscious choices. All guilty.

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We have some awareness, sure. But we also have our instincts. And, as endless examples show, a few missed meals and our 'morality' disappears like an ice lolly on a hot day. Does that make us evil? Or does it just make us animals like everyone else?

The irony, in fact, is that our coveted moral sense is a luxury we have acquired only by ruthlessly exploiting other people, animals and our environment in order to ensure a constant supply of food, water, warmth and shelter. Only the acquisition of those things has given us the luxury to construct a moral universe. Take those things away and morality disappears. Or, if you prefer, we return to a state of 'innocence' in which 'morality' is neither here nor there.

The point is that that we are just animals and only as 'innocent' or 'guilty' as other animals. Also, every aspect of civilised life is tainted by 'immorality' at some point or another. Just because we don't participate directly doesn't make us any less complicit. And, in that context, I find singling out animals for especial concern over humans distinctly odd and not a little distasteful.

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Originally Posted by Burney

We have some awareness, sure. But we also have our instincts. And, as endless examples show, a few missed meals and our 'morality' disappears like an ice lolly on a hot day. Does that make us evil? Or does it just make us animals like everyone else?

The irony, in fact, is that our coveted moral sense is a luxury we have acquired only by ruthlessly exploiting other people, animals and our environment in order to ensure a constant supply of food, water, warmth and shelter. Only the acquisition of those things has given us the luxury to construct a moral universe. Take those things away and morality disappears. Or, if you prefer, we return to a state of 'innocence' in which 'morality' is neither here nor there.

The point is that that we are just animals and only as 'innocent' or 'guilty' as other animals. Also, every aspect of civilised life is tainted by 'immorality' at some point or another. Just because we don't participate directly doesn't make us any less complicit. And, in that context, I find singling out animals for especial concern over humans distinctly odd and not a little distasteful.

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Nice to see you stick up for Owen Jones, Corbyn and sw, b.


Although one of those is completely unpalatable

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Originally Posted by Burney

We have some awareness, sure. But we also have our instincts. And, as endless examples show, a few missed meals and our 'morality' disappears like an ice lolly on a hot day. Does that make us evil? Or does it just make us animals like everyone else?

The irony, in fact, is that our coveted moral sense is a luxury we have acquired only by ruthlessly exploiting other people, animals and our environment in order to ensure a constant supply of food, water, warmth and shelter. Only the acquisition of those things has given us the luxury to construct a moral universe. Take those things away and morality disappears. Or, if you prefer, we return to a state of 'innocence' in which 'morality' is neither here nor there.

The point is that that we are just animals and only as 'innocent' or 'guilty' as other animals. Also, every aspect of civilised life is tainted by 'immorality' at some point or another. Just because we don't participate directly doesn't make us any less complicit. And, in that context, I find singling out animals for especial concern over humans distinctly odd and not a little distasteful.

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What a lot of old cobblers.

Are you still running most days, btw? The glw has challenged me to run 1,000 miles this year, which means a 5k pretty much every day. Seems unlikely, but I have accepted and only have 987.6 miles left to do.

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Originally Posted by Sir C

What a lot of old cobblers.

Are you still running most days, btw? The glw has challenged me to run 1,000 miles this year, which means a 5k pretty much every day. Seems unlikely, but I have accepted and only have 987.6 miles left to do.

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It's not a load of old cobblers, it's the unpalatable truth. Our morality is a paper-thin conceit that relies for its existence on thousands of years of suffering, exploitation and death. As m says, it's societally useful, but that doesn't make it any less of a nonsense.

Must admit, the old running has been pretty erratic lately. The plan is to get back into it come spring.

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Originally Posted by Burney

We have some awareness, sure. But we also have our instincts. And, as endless examples show, a few missed meals and our 'morality' disappears like an ice lolly on a hot day. Does that make us evil? Or does it just make us animals like everyone else?

The irony, in fact, is that our coveted moral sense is a luxury we have acquired only by ruthlessly exploiting other people, animals and our environment in order to ensure a constant supply of food, water, warmth and shelter. Only the acquisition of those things has given us the luxury to construct a moral universe. Take those things away and morality disappears. Or, if you prefer, we return to a state of 'innocence' in which 'morality' is neither here nor there.

The point is that that we are just animals and only as 'innocent' or 'guilty' as other animals. Also, every aspect of civilised life is tainted by 'immorality' at some point or another. Just because we don't participate directly doesn't make us any less complicit. And, in that context, I find singling out animals for especial concern over humans distinctly odd and not a little distasteful.

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There is some justification in singling out animals for especial concern. Yes, by acquiring modern luxuries we are complicit in the suffering of other humans. But everyone agrees that this is sub-optimal and it would be better if we could have such luxuries without any human suffering - and significant efforts (both intentional and inadvertent) are made to move closer to this ambition (see the numbers who have been pulled out of poverty by capitalism over the past 100 years). This consensus is far more ingrained than, say, the belief that it would be better if we could enjoy a KFC without some chickens having suffered a horrific existence, even if we all know that to also be true.

So there is some requirement to redress the balance. Not to shift focus away from humans to animals, or to make us believe it's just as bad for animals to suffer as humans (which it obviously isn't), but to shift the dial on our ethical framework to *some extent* in order to reduce suffering among animals.