I'm back on The Fifth Estate podcast
... and it has the weirdest trigger warning you've ever heard.
In this episode, Cameron Blewett and I say the ‘v word’ - veganism.
Where does veganism fit into the freedom movement? Is it morally justified to limit application of the non-aggression principle solely to other humans? Why are so many pro-freedom people anti-vegan? And is the soy boy really a thing?
This one will get you thinking!
As a long-term vegan I was appalled to see others reject the concept of personal self-determination and freedom for all, including human animals. I was disgusted that so many vegans including members of the so-called Animal Justice Party embraced vax mandates. Clearly, they adopt willful ignorance when it comes to the mice, rats and primates tortured and murdered during experiments of the jab. They also don't seem to care about the calf foetuses who are cut from their mother's wombs in slaughterhouses, so their heart serum can be drained and used for manufacturing the jabs.
Hey Robyn and guests, I enjoyed the interview, thanks! It made me want to learn more about the moral veganism. Here are some starter questions if anyone wants to engage in one:
At what point does the lamentable Judeo-Christian Humanist approach to animals begin, and humans as actors in a functioning ecosystem end?
If humans acting superior in feeling, communication, power, intellect etc. is distasteful, why is it not also a negative thing that humans act superior morally, or as custodians of suffering?
What are the thoughts behind distinctions such as:
- Killing is morally wrong unless you need to - where does need begin and want end?
- Killing animals is morally wrong because they suffer, have emotions, have life goals, invest energy and care into their offspring, communicate. Killing plants is morally acceptable, yet they also suffer, have emotions, have life goals, invest energy and care into their offspring, communicate. Where does the line get drawn? Why are the other Kingdoms not drawn into the debate? Do people have strong moral feelings about mushrooms? Bacteria?
Brian Cox suggests that perhaps humans are the only thing in the universe that can attribute meaning to it (https://www.commbank.com.au/articles/newsroom/2022/10/momentum-conference-brian-cox.html). What do you think about using that as an important distinction between Humans and other animals? What about using it as a reason why we are more important than other animals?
Orca's will kill a baby seal and flick it like a football, cats will toy with prey, wasps will enslave their prey and cuckoos will cuckold other birds nests. None of this is strictly necessary to their survival. Are they accountable to questions of right or wrong? What is the distinction which makes humans accountable? Is it morally wrong that we 'allow' wasps to continue their mistreatment of animals and do nothing to stop them?
From one viewpoint, wheat has enslaved humans. We allocate significant land, labour, care and devotion to cultivating it and have turned it into a successful species. From another viewpoint, we raise wheat under unnatural conditions purely for our own benefit, kill it, then eat it. If our treatment of animals can also be described by such a wide difference in perspectives, why does one create such ambivalence, and another such a definitive stance?
If killing animals has more significance for me because they are more similar to me, is that not a version of Humans as dominant over nature, that life gets ranked in importance according to my preferences?
If humans should apply libertarian and moral principles to a wider group of species, why only the wider group of species similar to us? Why then, might it be awful if I did the same within human groups and had different levels of morality for, say, my children, based on which ones were more similar to myself?
If I understand farmers correctly, there are huge tracts of arid land in Australia which are suitable for roaming grazing cattle, but not for agriculture. The implications are that this has virtually no environmental impact. Is eating this beef O.K? Would eating it still be O.K if life was harsh for the cows in this arid land, and they suffered greatly being left to their own devices? What if their suffering was increased during periods where Human's did not kill and eat some of them, because they always, as nature is wont to do, expanded to consume all available resources to the point of regular thirst and hunger?
Does the moral responsibility of humans expand or contract with our fortunes? For example, we are currently dominating the planet and expanding our population and fewer of us are starving than ever before. We can afford to fight long and hard for animal rights. What changes if we degenerate into a fierce competition for survival as a species?