Animals can't comprehend morality. Humans can. Animals do plenty of things that are immoral for humans, such as infanticide. The "choice" that bears have is totally incomparable to the choice we have. Not only because of the reason above, but also because they can't go to the supermarket and choose their food at leisure. You simply cannot say we should do something just because other animals do it. We wouldn't have made it very far as a species if we did.

I think you mean "animals haven't invented morality yet; humans have". Morality does not exist in nature; you may think it is 'wrong' to eat other animals but that is not the case. It is a [u]fact[/u] that animals eat other animals; it is an arbitrary imposition of opinion to claim that humans eating animals is wrong and there is no stable basis for saying it is morally wrong at all. If morality is something which we have 'discovered' then please tell me the moral status of an exploding star or a tree photosynthesising. Is it 'immoral' for one tree to force another tree to die by depriving it of light? Don't be daft. There's a reason why morality is only spoken of when there's a human involved. Also, I am not claiming that because animals eat other animals we should too, I am telling you how life works. I like how you completely ignored my point about the apple when it explains the situation perfectly. There is no fundamental difference between eating an apple pulled from a tree and eating a fish caught from a river. In both cases you have 'killed' a living organism and intend to use it for your own sustenance. But somehow you think one is okay whilst the other is not. Sure a fish squirms about and suffers, but if that is the only reason you don't want to harm it then why not tranquilise it before killing it? No pain, no squirming; now it is exactly the same as the apple. But no, you will insist that somehow there is a difference; the fish is a proper living animal while the apple is just part of a plant. Well now you're just being speciesist.

[quote]I think you mean "animals haven't invented morality yet; humans have".[/quote]Animals haven't invented it because they can't comprehend it. They cannot grasp that their actions may be more, or less, desirable as far as minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure. [quote]If morality is something which we have 'discovered' then please tell me the moral status of an exploding star or a tree photosynthesising.[/quote]Stars are not conscious. We "discovered" morality the moment we discovered that there is a spectrum of conscious experience where the greatest pleasures sit at one end and the worst forms of suffering sit at the other. [quote]Is it 'immoral' for one tree to force another tree to die by depriving it of light? Don't be daft.There's a reason why morality is only spoken of in terms of human interactions.[/quote]No, it's spoken of in terms of [i]conscious[/i] interactions. Your dichotomy is a false one. [quote]Also, I am not claiming that because animals eat other animals we should too, I am telling you how life works.[/quote]I know how "life works", I am saying that it isn't necessarily how it [i]should[/i] work. If you were consistent with this argument, you would also oppose any form of structured civilisation because it defies your apeish idea of how "life works". Clearly, we are able to change, and improve, our lives and the lives of others. We have a hardwired imperative to do so -- thus being a part of how life works, interestingly. [quote]I like how you completely ignored my point about the apple when it explains the situation perfectly.[/quote]I ignored it because it was a poor argument. Apples, like stars and trees, aren't conscious. Fish are. The difference between eating an apple and a fish is crystal clear. It has nothing to do with being a "living organism", but a conscious one. [quote]Sure a fish squirms about and suffers, but if that is the only reason you don't want to harm it then why not tranquilise it before killing it? No pain, no squirming; now it is exactly the same as the apple.[/quote]Why end its life when there's a perfectly good apple available? (This is analogous to there being countless vegan alternatives for every animal food.) And, of course, you are simply kidding yourself if you think the animals killed for food live painless lives and die painless deaths, even from laxly labelled 'organic' and 'free range' sources. I dislike the term speciesist, as it is awkward and crude. Even though you were being facetious, if speciesism extended toward apples and stars I wouldn't mind wearing the label. It wouldn't stop my arguments from being logically ironclad, and yours less so.

Morality is illogical; deal with it. Why is it not logical? Because you cannot support a moral claim without making other moral claims beforehand, and then those claims have no grounding unless you create more moral claims before them etc. etc. ad infinitum. Pain is bad (moral judgement) because suffering is bad (moral judgement). Suffering is bad (moral judgement) because people shouldn't have to experience things they don't like (moral judgement). People shouldn't have to experience things they don't like (moral judgement) because... well that doesn't really need a reason does it? It's 'self evident'; [i]"OF COURSE people shouldn't have to experience things they don't like."[/i] Lol. It isn't self evident at all, but people dogmatically say so in just the same way they dogmatically say there 'must' be a beginning to the universe. It's an assumption with no real grounding that people take for granted so that they can feel comfortable making otherwise baseless assertions. None of these moral judgements can be empirically verified in and of themselves; they do logically flow but only from a base point of illogical dogmatic assumption, which undermines the whole argument. Logically ironclad? Don't make me laugh. Question: if an animal had been killed by another animal, say a deer by a tiger, but for some reason the tiger went away, would it be OK to eat the deer? If so it is presumably because you think the immorality is in the human action of killing an animal, rather than just eating an animal which has died. I don't see how you could object to eating the deer; there is no moral grounding to do so anyway. Therefore, so long as I do not kill any animal myself, eating one is not morally reprehensible of me. If you think that by doing so I'm condoning the wrongdoing of other humans then that is an argument, but it is also an opinion, and in my opinion it is much more wrong to be against the killing of animals and then to let the animals who are already dead go to waste. You brought up points against the meat industry and I'd like to state here (in case you didn't notice the first time) that I do not have any problem with arguments against the meat industry. But simply killing animals and eating them is not what the meat industry's about. Also; why end the life of an apple when there';s a perfectly good fish? As i said the reasons you put the fish first are not justifiable,. Consvciousness brings about pain but ultimately you're basing your claim on the assumption that people shouldn't feel things they don't like, which is not itself justifiable, or if it is, that justification is just another moral judgement which needs a justification. There is at some point beyond that, somewhere where you 'just think x is morally better than the opposite' without any reasoning behind it.

[quote]Why is it not logical? Because you cannot support a moral claim without making other moral claims beforehand, and then those claims have no grounding unless you create more moral claims before them etc. etc. ad infinitum.[/quote]This is, quite clearly, false. Any moral act or question can be reduced to facts about how conscious minds work. It is a fact about conscious minds that getting stabbed in the foot is undesirable; to then ask why it [i]should[/i] be undesirable is an exercise in redundancy. It has nothing to do with whether we [i]should[/i] or [i]shouldn't[/i] value something, but rather acknowledging the way we, as conscious organisms, have evolved to function. Morality is concerned with these facts about conscious experience, and thus is not illogical at all. Minds are just as much parts of nature as stars, trees, and apples. People commonly like to cite the learned is/ought problem, as though on autopilot, but this is simply a case of mental heuristics that have caused a great deal of philosophical insincerity over the years. Thankfully, the western intellectual community is rejecting this idea with increasing agreement (although I think it took far too long). There is no divide between facts and values when it is a [b]fact[/b] that minds have [b]values[/b]. Hume was, simply, wrong in separating the mechanisms of minds from the mechanisms of the rest of the universe. [quote]None of these moral judgements can be empirically verified in and of themselves[/quote]Of course they can. Not only can we observe when others are in pain (there is usually an obvious difference in expressions between someone getting stabbed in the foot and, say, smelling a bed of roses), but we are becoming increasingly able to detect responses in the brain to certain stimuli using neuroimaging. And it is clear that at some point in the future all subjective experiences will be able to be tracked and verified by studying changes in brain activity. [quote]Question: if an animal had been killed by another animal, say a deer by a tiger, but for some reason the tiger went away, would it be OK to eat the deer? If so it is presumably because you think the immorality is in the human action of killing an animal, rather than just eating an animal which has died. I don't see how you could object to eating the deer; there is no moral grounding to do so anyway.[/quote]That's because I wouldn't object to eating the deer. [quote]Therefore, so long as I do not kill any animal myself, eating one is not morally reprehensible of me.[/quote]The flaw in your argument is that I wouldn't condone supporting the tiger to kill the deer -- just so you could eat meat without getting blood on your hands directly. If you stumbled upon a deer corpse and needed food to survive, then it would be foolish to pass it up -- otherwise, probably best to leave it for hygienic reasons. A case can also be made for killing a deer yourself if you were in an extreme survivalist situation. The problem is, neither of these are applicable to us. And by purchasing and eating animal products, you are supporting the tigers of the food industry. [quote]If you think that by doing so I'm condoning the wrongdoing of other humans then that is an argument, but it is also an opinion, and in my opinion it is much more wrong to be against the killing of animals and then to let the animals who are already dead go to waste.[/quote]The crucial issue here is that some opinions are more valid than others. A child rapist and mass murderer can show up at an ethics convention -- if there is such a thing -- and start rambling on about how, in their opinion, molesting children and then killing them is an absolutely wonderful way to spend one's spare time. Are their views on equal footing with the academics in the room who vehemently disagree with them? The answer should be a resounding no. If anyone actually wanted to argue that the rapist/murderer duo are equally valid in their views of living ethically, then I doubt their intellectual sincerity and have no interest pursuing further discourse with them. [quote]You brought up points against the meat industry and I'd like to state here (in case you didn't notice the first time) that I do not have any problem with arguments against the meat industry. But simply killing animals and eating them is not what the meat industry's about.[/quote]Any arguments against the meat industry are, by extension, against the consumers who support it. I'm somewhat interested in what else the meat industry exists for besides killing animals for profit, but it isn't of huge importance because it cannot exist without it. And it is not just the meat industry that is unethical.

If you're going to appeal to "any position which could even remotely condone nasty actions is void of validity" standpoints and other intelectually dishonest fashion trends like "'why' is a redundant question; what i said is the truth because it is" then i am not going to continue this discussion. Good day.

+if you want to live like nature, I'm not gonna stop you from running around naked in the woods, catching pray with your bare hands, never using the internet again [spoiler]thanks for gelping me out with this thread, other vegan person. Can you also help with the nutrients questions people ask? Because I don't know a thing about it.[/spoiler]

This can get quite tiring, but direct me to the questions and I'll do my best. I've skimmed the thread and seen nothing but blatant arrogance that isn't worth my time.

It's a reply from Angry0lbgranpa, he knows much more about nutrients than I do (I'm only 16)

No, he doesn't. He's a troll, and a typical example of someone who does a few google searches and suddenly thinks they know what they're talking about. I muted him a long time ago.

Oh, but won't the other people think he's right and eat a lot of meat after reading it?

Not worth concerning yourself with, honestly. You should see by the posts in here that this forum isn't exactly filled with rational, open minded individuals.

But if I could make 1 of them vegan...

You are going about it wrong. Constantly telling people to "go vegan" does not, ironically, make people go vegan. Too many people become vegan with their hearts in the right place, but assume that others will be swayed just as easily, and thus go out spreading their views without doing much research beforehand. And they come off as pushy and unscientific. This is not intended as a personal attack. I simply correct people when they spread misinformation and criticise their weak defenses for eating animals. If you want to actually have a chance at opening people to your point of view, you need to be properly equipped. If you aren't, you can end up doing more harm than good for your cause. Do some thorough research and appeal to science and logic before emotion. Here are some good places to start. http://jacknorrisrd.com http://www.veganhealth.org/