For You
One of the more interesting topic I discuss with people is why exactly they formed their vegan belief system. Some point out that they saw a documentary of Youtube video showing the horrors of animal agriculture, but that just points to our gut reaction, not necessarily the logical backing making us change our lifestyles. With that being said, where do you personally derive your beliefs from? Do you hardline certain deontological sticking points like exploitation? Do you just care about the relative net impact on creatures and their ability to thrive? Or is it something else entirely?
Personal Viewpoint
Personally, I draw my entire ethical world view on broad utilitarian viewpoints. So if a chicken were to suffer because of something I did, I must have done something wrong. Equally, if a chicken were to thrive because of something I did, I did something good. However, I do not think about the exploitation nor commodification of that chicken, because those are anthropomorphic ideas that they likely do not care about. Sure, commodification and exploitation are usually wrong because they excuse people's actions, but, it seems to me that there are some niche cases where these qualities, which we often find as bad, are in fact morally neutral.
I think I realized that after seeing a video of someone who saved several hens from factory farms who were still producing eggs, and continued to use the eggs for their personal usage (feeding carnivorous animals and supplementing their own diet so far as the chicken did not have any physical stressors). I tried to look at the situation objectively to find some issue with the chicken being malnourished, abused, or made to do something they didn't like. But alas, the hens involved had no medical issues, were able to thrive in a safe and comfortable environment, and were nutritionally supplemented to ensure their well being (i.e., no nutritional deficiencies). Plus, carnivorous animals got a meal so less animals as a whole were harmed.
The humans involved in the prior example did not need to consume the chickens eggs, but doing so posed no ethical issue, so for me, it was ethically neutral - a non issue.
Other Example
If you still want to read, here's another example of my views. I personally avoid wool as I know where it comes from and the suffering that must be inflicted in our system. However, I acknowledge that there are ways in which wool can be a viable fabric while still allowing for thriving lives for sheep.
First, I think about a normal house dog. They usually hate getting a hair cut when they're younger because they are scared of the razor. After you get a razor with a cooling blade mechanism and get them exposed to it, they learn to not be afraid of it and instead enjoy the experience since the hair cut doesn't actually provide any physical pain. For that, I feel no moral qualms with giving them a hair cut because they seems to enjoy or be unbothered by it. If I put in the effort to utilize the hair I cut off in a meaningful way, it'd be fine to do. Especially because I just throw it away otherwise.
Equally, a sheep "wool" is simply their hair. Some breeds have the genetics to grow more or less, but growing it and having it removed do not have to bring about harm - we just do it because we value cheap goods year round far more than their livelyhoods so we adopt cruel standards. If I were to some day have some sort of homestead, where I raised sheep from their adolescence all the way to their death of natural causes, and continued to give to shave their wool, I see not problem with doing so. Given that they are well fed, not hurt in the process, and were given access to natural pastures that they can use to thrive. In fact, I'd argue that is a good thing to do as I've taken care of them their entire life (protection from normal predators, warm home, access to food, etc) without harming them in the process.
TL;DR exploitation and commodification are usually bad, but I find the reason for them being bad to be the harm (direct and indirect), not just the fact that they are exploited.
Wow, all of these posts are a lot to read. I agree with everyone for the most part. Living up to ethical standards can be incredibly challenging, half due to the sheer ignorance or difficulty of finding out how things are manufactured, and the unexpected edge-cases that can really challenge a person's morality. This is something I call philosophical courage, and it requires that I do hard things and end relationships with people who consistently violate the principles I have, because in many cases it is tantamount to consenting to behavior I think is wrong.
I stopped eating animals and using products made from them when I finally understood how horrifically and at the incredible scale that animals are mistreated. I became vegan when I finally understood that I can live a long healthy life without eating meat or dairy, eliminating the main excuse people have for avoiding change. I personally dislike eating, I find it a chore, so I never felt like I was missing out on taste, a quality that is usually improved by adding plants anyways.
While I do think it is ethical to keep utilitarian items like clothing made of leather, since they last a long time and wearing things you own for as long as possible reduces the waste cycle immensely, I gave away all my leather stuff because I had developed a strong distaste for being around dead animals, and I sure as well won't wear them.
Some things I have become less extreme about, like eating honey. I am still incredibly ambivalent about it, because it is essentially taking away the food made through the labor of the animals that need it, but I also got sick recently and honey did a lot for my throat. I don't know, I feel ignorant about this.
I made an exception for buying shoes made of wool, because they were super nice and on sale, and the fact that we have domesticated sheep to produce so much hair that they essentially die if they are not sheered is a gray area for me.
Saying all that, what is really important for my is respecting the autonomy and rights of animals, and the exploitation of them is depressing and immoral. I am personally against the ownership of animals, AKA pets. I think zoos are disgusting and is basically slavery. The fact that we treat dogs and cats better than people but fuck over any other species is stupid and evil. I also think riding horses is wrong.
Many animals are incredibly intelligent, especially animals slaughtered for their flesh like pigs and cows. I truly believe humans can live harmoniously with other species, the way a myriad of animals live together in a forest, but with a lot less death.
Animals should be treated with respect, interacted with as companions, given their space and habitat to thrive. We should not be destroying the rain-forest just to make demand for meat. It is like blowing your brains out in order to feed your family while in the middle of a garden, because your children do not like the taste of vegetables.
Yet... I recently met someone I really care about who is not vegan, and I do not want to lose. We share a lot of the same outlook on life and are on similar career paths; she makes me a better person. So, my concept of philosophical courage is kicking my ass because I might eventually lose her because of what she eats.
I don't know, this sucks.
I think I share some of the same view points, although for different reasons.
One thing I wonder is if returning animals to their natural habitats is always the better option. This idea mostly comes from the shear magnitude of wild animal suffering. We like to think of nature as harmonious, but it is incredibly violent with death and suffering being a daily or evenly hourly threat. This happens in nature whether or not humans are involved.
With that said, I don't think there is much I can do personally to prevent wild animal suffering from that standpoint. Instead, I think we might want to consider the possibility that animal husbandry is a decent idea. Not in the idea that we should use animals for wide scale commodification and consumption (requiring their early death). But rather, we adapt other animals into our lives and keep them safe while providing them with the maximum possible comfort and protection.
As per my chicken example, a wild chicken is far better suited to live with me than in the wild. Killing or harming them would negate the good of keeping them from danger as I am now the new threat, but "owning" them isn't necessarily bad. I would more so frame it as being a caretaker, even if they produce something that we like or can use. Similarly to my dog hair example, just using the natural byproduct from an animal isn't bad ethically, it's just the way we do it where we find issue. So if they were to continue laying eggs at a rate that doesn't hurt them, I see no issue in eating said eggs in the same way I see no issue in using the hair that is naturally shed/cut from my dog to improve their and my livelyhood (if their hair was indeed useful).
I will say it's a tricky paradigm. Owning sounds inherently wrong because we recall ideas of slavery and all the implications of that such as forced labor and abuse. But that is using human ideas of jobs, freedom, choice, etc. It's why I would rather focus on how my actions impact the chicken's well being rather than abstract ideas. Even if it is more difficult sometimes to grapple with, I feel the chicken, or any other example animal is far better off living their whole life in a caretaker situation with no suffering caused by the use of their byproduct, than really any other.
As an aside, I hope you and the person you care about work out. It's tough to be patient when you care about something so deeply, but I hope that you're able to pull through and you both are happy :)
I think about that too, but it seems like a sisyphean effort to protect every animal. I think this mentality comes from the fact that humans have transformed most of the land on Earth, destroying habitats and killing off species in the process. It doesn't help that most people are biased to only care about a handful of animals, and treat everything else like some bizarre alien as if they don't belong to the same planet.
It is maddeningly lame and annoying to hear people talk about animals. I cannot count the number of omnivores who say to my face that the love all animals. ALL ANIMALS? Just the dumbest rationalization to keep themselves from questioning there own morality.
Anyways, thank you! I am headed out for a date soon, so I am happy.
I mean, I am the only person in my family who is vegan. I don't hate me family, I just don't like to be near them when they eat.