Sunday, May 13, 2012

Vegan ethics


Vegans think it’s wrong to eat animals. Is so, does that mean vegans think it’s wrong to kill animals?

Do vegans think it’s wrong to use pesticides? What about killing dangerous animals that threaten human beings?  

What about mousetraps? Rat bait?

Conversely, how do vegans feel about abortion, infanticide, suicide, and euthanasia? 

7 comments:

  1. If vegans think it's wrong to kill animals, what counts as an "animal"?

    That which is biologically classified as an animal (animalia)? Isn't that somewhat fuzzy?

    What about non-cellular life like viruses? Or cellular life like bacteria or protists? Or what about sponges?

    By the way, would they object to using sponges from, say, sea sponges?

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  2. I killed a possum today. From what I could tell, it was definitely an animal.

    However, I have good reason to think the possum was killing other animals' babies, and then eating them.

    How can we simply stand by and let such things happen? Aren't we implicitly approving of such behavior if we do nothing to stop it?

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  3. If carrots could scream, would vegans still eat them raw?

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  4. Mike, you think they'd prefer to boil or steam them?

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  5. Why'd you kill a possum? Wouldn't get out of your roof?

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  6. @AMC: DBT lives in New Zealand, which has a problem with brushtail possums, which are invasive and are not the same thing as a North American opossum.

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  7. I can only agree. There's no obvious place to draw lines here. But that's life.

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