I won’t be debating this, don’t bother.
There’s very few medical reasons to consume animal products and the few there are will hopefully have alternatives soon.
Bringing that up in the context of the general population going vegan is silly.
Cultural norms is not a good reason to engage in exploitation.
The cruelty is absolutely in the practice, killing others is wrong.
Non human animals are living and feeling beings just like you and I, they experience the world, they have likes and dislikes, they have best friends, they enjoy chilling in the sun.
Just like humans, other animals also have the right to not be needlessly killed.
> > > Just like humans, other animals also have the right to not be needlessly killed. > >
So when do you start a campaign to turn cats and dogs vegan? What’s the plan for lions and bears living in the wild?
Cats and dogs can thrive on a plant based diet, so yes that’s what we should feed them.
Wild animals don’t have the capability to consider the consequences of their actions or the possibility to not eat other animals, humans do.
Do you normally base your morals on what wild animals do?
Cats and dogs can thrive on a plant based diet
That’s flat out wrong. Cats are obligate carnivores, so feed them vegan diet only if you really want them to suffer horribly.
Wild animals don’t have the capability to consider the consequences of their actions
If you consider the “capability to consider the consequences of one’s actions” as the ultimate method of determining if killing is OK or not… then you should be equally fine with mentally disturbed humans killing other humans. Are you?
Do you normally base your morals on what wild animals do?
Let’s not involve “morality” into this, since morality is a very subjective thing. The morality of abortions being an excellent example. It also puts the whole discussion about, say, euthanasia in a very peculiar spot.
Also: what about the morality of extreme deforestation to make room for farms growing vegan food? What about the morality of the increase in carbon emissions, the destruction of topsoil and reduction of biodiversity that soy farming brings?
The problem with meat industry is that, well, it became an industry. Excess is the evil here, not the ACT of consuming an animal. There are plenty of ways of giving animals excellent, pleasant lives and then ending these lives in a way that produces no fear, no trauma in them. Or even awareness of the fact.
We are all just life. Life starts, requires fuel, and then ends. Sometimes life kills other life in order to get the fuel, and that’s fine. What we, as the most technologically advanced form of life on this planet can do, is do all in our power to ensure that while all the forms of fuel remain available to us, we do so without causing excess harm. Which also means things like growing meat in labs instead of obtaining it through the killing of animals, of course. I’m very much a fan of the concept of lab-grown meat, but that’s just something that’s not obtainable on a large enough scale in the nearest future.