this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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While there are logical arguments to me made for veganism, many rely on emotional reasoning.
And what exactly is a logical reasoning?
Pretty much all political reasoning is emotional, but for some reason, only the "other side" gets emotional.
Wanting equality is an emotional reason. Wanting absolute freedom is emotional. Freedom of speech, aristocracy, fascism, anarchism, progressive income tax are all, if you keep asking "why?" emotional choices.
If, at any point, someone says something is good or bad, well, that's emotional, simply because these are purely human categories that are not rational.
Vegans: Violently killing animals for no reason, ruining the environment, destroying cultures with animals is both logically and empathetically wrong
Libs: BOTH SIDESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
You can make a purely rational environmental argument with reducing CO2 emissions.
A pure appeal to emotion is showing slaughterhouse footage or other animal suffering.
A utilitarian philosophical argument about reducing suffering is also logical, not emotional.
A emotional spiritual appeal can be made with karmic debt accumulated or similar.
I don't give a flying fuck about CO2. I care that you are murdering an animal and ending its life for no reason. Animals have rights including the right to live without your torturing them and mudering them. Everything else is out of scope for veganism. It is an ethical position advocating for the rights of animals, not a utilitarian calculation.
Please do this without resorting to an emotional motivation such as "People enjoy being alive and not suffering" or whatever.
That’s not an emotional argument. The drive to survive is universal for all living beings.
What do to mean when you say "emotional argument"? I understand it as something like "an argument which rests on an appeal to an emotional experience" or similar.
For example a mathematical proof is not an emotional argument, as a being without any emotions would be able to verify it as true.
However "people don't want to die, so you shouldn't kill them" is an emotional argument as it fundamentally rests on the counterfactual "a person assumed to have qualia observing a universe in which they had been killed might experience negative valence". Which only makes sense if the notion of another being you assume to have qualia being sad in a way which is impossible in reality upsets you.
Of course that's emotional.
Reducing suffering is based on the idea that I don't like suffering, therefore I don't want others to suffer. That's emotional.
There are whole schools of philosophy around suffering, its necessity, and its reduction. Utilitarianism is one of that. Philosophy is based on logic, not straight emotions.
If you say, “I don’t like suffering” to someone with a “no pain, no gain” shirt, your argument is weaker.
This is nonsense. you should study philosophy and stop reading "rationalist" blogs.
Yeah, sorry, but that's straight untrue.
As I wrote before, every time you're doing a value judgement, you're arguing based on emotions.
Saying shredding two animals causes more suffering than shredding no animals is a rational, provable statement. But whether suffering is bad or not, is a value judgement and thus not rational.
And both of these statements are value judgement, you're doing a category error here.