I consider forcing cows to go through pregnancy and giving birth, only to be immediately separated from their children so that they can go back to producing milk for us, torture. That's just me though.
You'll quickly end up with some very unsettling conclusions if you follow this line of reasoning. I am not saying it's wrong, just that society isn't quite prepared for the implications.
But, you know, if you assign human ethics to animals, there's relatively little we do to animals that's less than abhorrent. Pets are okay to a significant degree. But just about everything else falls out the window if you start to consider the idea that animals may be sentient and have thoughts, feelings and emotions the way that humans do.
I guess what I'm saying that in an ideal world I'd be a vegan, but for now it's challenging enough to go through life eating everything nature has turned out to make possible. Nature is absolutely cruel (well, doesn't care at least), and humanity is just another part of it.
To be clear, you are saying that veganism is irrational because under vegan ethics, ...nonveganism is immoral?
Furthermore, it's unclear how your argument is fixed at the human/non-human boundary. Nature is cruel intraspecies as well, so your line of thinking also challenges the notion that slavery and race- or clan-based oppression is wrong.
I'm saying that there'a a good argument to be made that we'll consider today's domestication, breeding and exploitation of animals immoral.
But that the world isn't ready to make that moral judgement yet, because the alternatives to meat and animal products aren't convenient enough. We like to consider morality absolute, but it's strongly affected by a society's requirements.
As a side note, vegans probably have a more sound moral judgement than the rest of us.
There have obviously been cultures that considered slavery and various forms of oppression morally right, but I don't think my argument states that this is okay; quite the opposite.
"vegans probably have a more sound moral judgement than the rest of us"
Whoa! That's what is call generalisation... On the other hand diet had nothing to do with moral, it's all about health! None of the extremes are good, our body still have the hunter-gatherer digestion system
The perfect is the enemy of the good. Just because lots of things are cruel or everything is cruel or there is a spectrum of cruelty in this process but we're not at the worst of it… none of that is an argument against being less cruel nor against applying ethics fairly.
The unsettling conclusion would be to ignore ethics for convenience.
I grew up on cow and buffalo milk because we had cows and then we collectively owned a cow with a few families and hired a milkman.
The problem is over population. We have far surpassed carrying capacity and you can’t feed the billions with humane animal food. Especially when everyone thinks dairy and almonds should be cheap and available to all. Add capitalism on top of it as gluttonous consumerism thrives in a world burdened by overpopulation..when people don’t consider that resources are limited and having excessive progeny is akin to stealing shared resources from the commons, there is no polite way to point it out to them except to ask them to procreate responsibly. Each according to their means. But even better 1/2 surviving child/ person for long term comfortable survival of our species. Less than optimal: 1 surviving child per person for long term bare maintainence of our species.
If someone is at the point where they consider exploiting animals for their milk basically torture, I think they've probably already taken the logic to its natural conclusion.
It's not at all a challenge for an individual any more except in certain areas (e.g. northern Norway).
In most major cities vegan food is everywhere. In some countries McDonalds has vegan stuff for christ's sake. We arrived.
It's about as much of a challenge as putting a differently coloured shirt on in the morning. Of course, you have to want that colour first.
If you don't care, that's fine, but this shifty "oh but we're not ready", "falls out of the window" nonsense doesn't really come across well at all. Who are you trying to convince?
Yes, I am talking about veganism. (I'm probably just incidentally arguing in favor of veganism by arriving at the same ethical reasoning; I don't follow the principles and views of this movement to any significant degree).
It is obviously less convenient to be a vegan than to be omnivorous because, at the very least, you actually have to think about what you eat. Both from a purely pragmatic perspective ("does this product contain any animal products?") and wrt. healthy nutrition.
It is practical to do this, but it's not convenient. And that makes a big difference in a society where time and attention is at a premium. Pragmatically, there needs to be a big shift in attitudes, probably prompted by the trivial availability of ingredients equivalent to the main classes of animal products, before the moral view that exploitation of animals is immoral will become mainstream.
Right; but you're conflating individual action with societal attitude. If you want to be vegan, no-one is stopping you. If you don't, don't. There is no need to sit on the fence all wishy-washy.
I strongly disagree that it's not convenient.
By that line of argument making any active choice at all is "not convenient".
You specifically call out nutrition as an example. You can pretty much literally directly switch out meat for substitute meat.
It's not convenient to say, cycle 30km to work instead of driving, without making major life changes. It takes substantially more time, changes the way in which errands are done, etc.
Buying a different thing from the supermarket and cooking it is trivial. If anything eating meat is more faff because the risk of food poisoning is way higher if you e.g. cook chicken badly.
I don't like coffee so I tend to drink tea. Is that inconvenient? It makes no sense to me as a concept; even if it is (it's really not), who cares? I don't want the coffee?
(It’s not a cow running towards a yodeling Swiss milkmaid)
[..] The “rape rack” is a narrow, chute-like device in which female cows are restrained while they undergo a process the dairy industry euphemistically refers to as “artificial insemination.” During artificial insemination (AI), a dairy worker inserts one of his arms into the rectum of a restrained cow and, with his other arm, inserts a rod-like device called an Al gun into her vagina. The Al gun, which contains bull semen, is pushed in further until it reaches the cervix (the entrance to the uterus). The semen is then injected into the uterus.[..]
When you put it like that, it almost certainly seems like torture. What's interesting to think about -- if a species/animal isn't capable of comprehending this emotional loss, then it is torture? Furthermore, how do we measure/know if an animal can actually feel such a deep emotional loss? Many animals cannot communicate. I am so interested to know what a cow thinks. What any animal thinks. It's easy to know what humans think because their informational bitrate is huge.
IIRC cows can feel postpartum depression, so it makes sense that this would be torture. But if we did this to bacteria (maybe even bees), the moral dilemma seems to disappear.
I'll give you an upvote for that as it is thought provoking. Thinking about I fell down to my previous position though as otherwise I would have to consider the Western society to be torturing humans - and women in particular - by expecting them to go back to work within weeks or months after giving birth. Compared to the much shorter lifespan of cows and the much longer time it takes for a human baby to become independent I think some cows spend more of the important time with their offspring than certain human mothers do.
You might say it is voluntarily but I know that isn't the entire truth and I'm tempted to say as my socialist friend that slavery is still slavery even if it is wage slavery and the slave got to take responsibility for a whole lot more than they used to like feeding themselves, choosing a prtner in life and making sure they have a place to live.
You might be surprised to hear this, but I would agree with that perspective. Most humans are just like cattle from the perspective of human society and throughout our lives will have resources extracted from us one way or another. The way I've seen some humans get out of this cycle is by becoming the ones who do the extracting. I don't think cows are capable of doing something so cruel though.
> Thinking about I fell down to my previous position though as otherwise I would have to consider the Western society to be torturing humans - and women in particular - by expecting them to go back to work within weeks or months after giving birth.
The OP was referring to "torturing" cows for milk, and you are referring to "torturing" women with respect to maternity leave.
It’s a hotly-debated* expectation if you’re a married (or otherwise stably-partnered) middle class or richer woman, but a requirement if you’re single or poor, at least in the US.
Well-off women with good jobs get a few months of paid leave (at most); poorer women with crappy jobs do not get paid leave, just a right to get their job back after 12 weeks of unpaid leave most of them can’t afford to take.
*Hotly-debated because my friends (married, with well-paying jobs they really like) got varying amounts of pressure from their extended families and social circles not to work.
