Author: Stevan Harnad

James McWilliams used to seem ok, but he is apparently a historian-turned-philosopher first and a feeling human being only second. The disembodied abstractions of utilitarianism always missed the point, whichever way they cut: The point is simple and obvious — but you need to have and use a heart to perceive it. Don’t hurt except if vitally necessary. You don’t need axiomatics to solemnly enumerate the actual, transitional and hypothetically imaginable cases of vital necessity. But nothing new follows from them. And certainly not carnivory or the meat industry.

Pain and pleasure are incommensurable (except for a blinkered utilitarian). No amount of pleasure justifies inflicting pain on others. (How much pain I choose to inflict on myself in exchange for my own pleasure is another matter, but irrelevant: this is about inflicting pain on OTHERS in exchange for MY pleasure — or for the pleasure of N of US, in utilitarian metrics.) The only faintly utilitarian moral truth is that we should try to minimize pain; but, again, pleasure is not part of the equation. And “don’t hurt except if vitally necessary” already covers that.

The Road-Kill Retort. I am astounded that anyone considers road-kills relevant to any serious discussion of veganism: Even if it is true that more animals are killed by roadway accidents than by hunting, the only decent response, it seems to me, and the one in keeping with the gravity of the topic of both animal suffering and roadway accidents, is not to treat roadway deaths as some sort of abstract and immutable given in some utilitarian debate but as a compelling reason to work on ways to reduce highway accidents (just as collateral animal deaths in vegetable farming should not be taken as an abstract, immutable given, but a compelling reason to work on ways to make vegetable farming more humane). Accidental road-kills are certainly not a scaleable, sustainable way to feed the world. And what is important is practical ethics, not hypothetical ethics.

Whenever a student raises the issue of road-kills as it were some sort of argument against veganism I immediately assure them that we are not talking about obsessive-compulsive disorder here: Anyone, vegan or not, is cordially invited to eat all the road kill they encounter and relish: it is of absolutely no consequence or relevance to anything whatsoever other than the need to improve highway safety for all. (But it is usually carnivores, not vegans, who prefer to keep the discussion focussed on abstractions rather than on the flesh and blood and terror and agony that are the real issue. But when a vegan is also an abstract ethical theorist….)

Immense disappointment — for me, but I left Unity (the successor of Earthlings after a decade) after 20 minutes when I couldn’t take anymore. Horror upon horror, accompanied by exalted banalities solemnly voiced in sound clips by assorted celebrities.

Earthlings had been – and still is – immensely powerful and effective in awakening the world to the otherwise unimaginable agony inflicted on (other) animals by humans, the agony that ag-gag laws strive to hide from us. I hadn’t been able to bear watching Earthlings either, but I recognize that its graphic evidence is essential for sensitizing that vast majority of humankind who are ignorant of and insulated from the fact that such horrors are being committed, being committed everywhere, and being committed in our name, so as to feed those who crave meat and to clothe those who crave leather and fur. Earthlings was not a movie for vegans. It was a movie for creating vegans.

In the twenty minutes that I could bear of Unity, the horrors were mostly inflicted by humans on humans, in the context of war, but there were also Earthlings moments in Unity, where the human aggression was on animalls – and we could already sense that there would be more later in the film.

I left before they came. There will probably still be extracts from Unity that activists can use to inspire people to become vegan. But skip the human/human aggression. There is no horror we have inflicted on animals that we have not inflicted on humans too. The “rules” of war allow it all. But in peacetime, it is illegal to do that to people.

For animals, it’s always wartime, and they are always the helpless victims. They are all in the state of terror and despair of that indelibly soul-tormenting first scene of the calf facing and frantically, hopelessly, struggling to escape that all too narrow passageway to merciless slaughter.

The film brings us no new solution for ending human/human war, just the banal cliches we already know.

And for animals, apart from the new supply of episodes to add to the heart-convulsing Earthlings excerpts of ten years ago, this new film adds only a miscegenation of wickedness and words that form no unity: a congeries of horrors and homilies.

For me what was missing in this call for ecumenical unity among molecules, organisms, earth, planets, galaxies, and universe was the one property that distinguishes the trivial from the tragic — the property that unifies humans with the (other) animals and distinguishes both from molecules, earth, planets, galaxies – and even trees: That property is sentience, the susceptibility to suffering.

Towards other humans, we violate this property in times of war (and crime). But towards other animals we violate it at all times.

Maybe a miracle awaited those who stayed until the end. If so, maybe someone can tell me about it…

[Afterword: Friends later told me that the punchline turned out to be “Homo spiritus.” But (apart from the pedantic fact that it should have been “Homo spirans,” since the notion of “spirit” is inspired by divine incoming breath, and Homo is not the only breathing organism) even the more relevant taxonomic tag — Homo sensibilis — would have been a misnomer, because all other organisms with nervous systems are sentient, not just us. And our potential for sensitivity to their sensitivity is useless if we don’t use it.)]

Immense déception — pour moi, mais je me suis sauvé après 20 minutes lorsque je n’en pouvais plus. Horreurs suivies d’horreurs, accompagnées de banalités exaltées et insipides prononcées solennellement par des vedettes en clip sonore.

Earthlings avait été — et est toujours — d’une immense importance et utilité pour réveiller le monde à l’agonie indicible infligée aux animaux par les humains. Je n’ai pas été capable de regarder Earthlings non plus, mais je reconnais que ces témoignages sont indispensables pour sensibiliser cette vaste majorité d’humains qui est ignorante du fait que les telles horreurs se font, se font partout, et se font pour alimenter ceux qui mangent la viande et pour vêtir ceux qui portent le cuire et la fourrure. Earthlings n’était pas un film pour les véganes. C’était un film pour créer les véganes.

Earthlings had been — and still is — immensely important and useful for awakening people to the unspeakable agony inflicted on (other) animals by humans,

Dans les vingt minutes que j’ai pu supporter de Unity, les horreurs étaient majoritairement infligées par les humains aux humains, dans le contexte belliqueux, mais il y avait aussi des moments Earthlings ou c’était les animaux qu’agressaient les humains — et on devinait déjà qu’il y en aurait davantage plus tard dans le film.

J’ai quitté avant. Il y aura sans doute encore des extraits de Unity que les activistes pourront utiliser pour inspirer les gens à devenir véganes. Mais sauter les aggressions humaines/humaines. Il n’y a aucune horreur qu’on inflige aux animaux qu’on n’inflige pas aux humains. Les « règles » martiales permettent tous. Mais en temps de paix, c’est interdit de faire ça aux humains.

Pour les animaux, c’est toujours la guerre, et ils sont toujours les victimes impuissantes.

Le film ne donne aucune nouvelle soution pour mettre fin aux guerres humaine/humaines, juste les clichés banals qu’on connais déja.

Et pour les animaux, à part des suppléments aux extraits déchirrants genre Earthlings, il n’y a qu’un métissage d’exemples et de mots qui ne font aucune unité.

Pour moi ce qui manquait dans cet appel à l’unité œcuménique des molécules, des organismes, de la terre, des planètes, des galaxies, de l’univers c’était la seule chose qui distingue les cas banals des cas importants, voir tragiques. C’est la propiéte qui unifie les humains avec les (autres) animaux, et qui les distingue des molécules, de la terre, des planétes et des galaxies — et même des arbres: Cette propriété est la sensibilité, la susceptibilité à la souffrance.

Envers les autres humains, nous trahissons cette propriété en temps de guerre (et de crime). Mais envers les autres animaux nous la trahissons en tout temps.

Peut-être qu’un miracle attendait ceux qui sont restés jusqu’à la fin. Si oui, quelqu’un pourra peut-être me le raconter…

Although it sounds like an impassioned plea for mice, Australian ecologist Mike Archer’s 2011 “blood on your hands” argument against veganism is really just an uncritical defence of the status quo, rightly pointing out some relevant problems but completely ignoring others.

1. First and most important of all: The animals killed for cultivating land do matter, enormously. The remedy for that is humane herbiculture, which is definitely possible, and practiced, but rarely, because of the preference for factory agriculture, which is cheaper.

2. The picture drawn by Archer is of Australia, where it is claimed that 98% of beef (and all kangaroo meat) still comes from natural range-feeding animals. This is not at all true elsewhere in the world, where a lot of arable land is used to produce livestock-feed instead of food for humans. Australia, where wildlife habitat encroachment has not yet gone nearly as far as in Europe and America, is not representative of the rest of the world.

3. The free grazing argument, such as it is, applies only to cattle (and kangaroos), not to pigs and chickens, which require agriculture to grow their feed.

4. The calculation in terms of protein percentage is greatly skewed by the fact that we eat far more protein than necessary for survival and health.

Conclusion.

A. Leave the free-grazing animals for last. Phase out all the other meat-eating that is not even implicated by the herbicultural collateral-damage argument.

B. Reform herbiculture to make it as humane as possible.

C. From the fact that animals graze freely it does not follow that we need to kill and eat them, let alone purpose breed them.

D. Worry more about wildlife habitat encroachment.

E. Not only do humans not need to eat nearly as much protein as they do, but they need not reproduce as profligately as they do, increasing exponentially the mouths to fill, the land to encroach, and the innocent victims to kill and eat, needlessly.

(George Monbiot has done a few flip-flops on this topic too…)

See also:

Bruers, S. (2015). The Core Argument for Veganism. Philosophia, 43(2), 271-290.

Matheny, G. (2003). Least harm: A defense of vegetarianism from Steven Davis’s omnivorous proposal. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 16(5), 505-511.

Every day it becomes harder and harder to believe the depths of heartlessness to which the Fidik-minded populace of Hungary has sunk.

Shameless, shameful. The historic stigma this will leave on the government and its supporters — mitigated only by that wonderful minority of Hungarians who have hearts and are helping the helpless victims of their countrymen’s odious apathy and antipathy — will be indelible.

The righteous Hungarians will one day prevail, but meanwhile Orbanistan is a pariah among nations, an odious blight on humanity itself. Shame, shame and more shame.

Read, reader, and weep.

All the horrors that humans inflict on animals humans inflict on humans too. But doing it to humans is illegal, doing it to animals is not. Why?

Toutes les cruautés qu’infligent les humains aux animaux, les humains les infligent aux humains aussi — à la différence que de faire ça aux humains est illégal, tandis qu’aux animaux, pas. Pourquoi?

In “What if Current Foundations of Mathematics are Inconsistent?” Voevodsky (2010) suggests that there are three options in light of Goedel’s theorems:

Either:
1. If we “know” arithmetic is consistent, it should be provable, so Goedel’s second incompleteness theorem is false.

Or:
2. Admit there can be provably unprovable arithmetic “knowledge”

Or:
3. Admit that “knowing” arithmetic is consistent is an illusion, and arithmetic is inconsistent.

But why make any mention of psychological states like “knowing” at all?

Surely, regardless of our intuitions, the only truths (besides the Cogito) that we can “know” to be true, i.e., certain (rather than just probably true on all available evidence) are the truths that we have proved to be necessarily true, on pain of contradiction

Why not the following?—

4. Admit that arithmetic’s consistency is provably unprovable, but that then it may either be (unprovably) true (rather than unprovably “known”) that arithetic is consistent — or it may be false that arithmetic is consistent.

5. If arithmetic’s consistency is true (but unprovable, hence unknowable), then all proven theorems are true (except that their consistency cannot be proven).

6. If arithmetic’s consistency is false, then either an instance of inconsistency will be found (hence inconsistency will be “proven”) or it will not be found, in which case it will never be known whether arithmetic is consistent or inconsistent, hence whether the negations of theorems we have proved are also provable.

“Reliability” does not seem to be a valid substitute for provability-on-pain-of-contradiction. It would make mathematics into something more like inductive empirical science: provisionally true on the available evidence until/unless contradictory evidence is encountered. That is just the conjunction of 5 and 6. It also has some of the flavor of intuitionistic reasoning (insofar as the excluded middle is concerned).

As usual, this uncertainty only besets infinities, not finite constructions.

Or does the notion of “deductive rigor” all reside in the provability of consistency in nonfinite mathematics?

(The problem of possible mistakes in proofs (and the partial solution of computer-aided proofs) concerns another kind of reliability, and again seems to be a solution only for finite mathematics.)

“Marriage” (as opposed to civil contracts), and especially its overlay of fideist fanfare and flim-flam, has always struck me as silly, irrespective of what genders are involved.

But it has also always seemed obvious that there should be an equal right to engage in such silliness, irrespective of what genders are involved.

So I (always slow on the uptake) only started to realize the importance and significance of the LGBT rights movement when I noticed who was opposing it: For, virtually without exception, those who opposed LGBT rights were the very same ones who opposed all or most of what I (and, I think, most decent people) would take to be fair and right.

So here’s Hungary’s Jobbik, a party that embodies and celebrates all the uglier sides of human nature — ethnocentrism, racism, sexism, brutality, violence — putting on a “charm campaign” in Washington to try to make itself look electable to more than just the tail end of the normal curve.

There is an important article in the Hungarian Free Press about the Jobbik/Fidesz “charm campaign” in Washington: “Tad Stahnke: Don’t be duped by Orbán’s charm offensive!“.

Perhaps the most important thing Tad Stancke’s timely report points out is that Jobbik is not the only foul emanation from today’s Hungary: The regime in power, Orban’s Fidesz party, has appropriated most of Jobbik’s ugly agenda — less out of conviction than out of opportunism and utter lack of either principles or scruples — to attract Hungarian voter and expat support.

And plutocratic Fidesz, too, is conducting a charm offensive in America to try to camouflage its affinity to its Charon.

To the point where we can just as well speak of “Fidik,” the fusion of the current body politic with its orbiting doppelganger.

The stance on LGBT rights is, as ever, the canary in the menacing magyar mineshaft.

But there is hope. Because although enough Hungarians are drawn to the Fidik mentality to keep it aloft for now, the decent side of the normal curve is also alive — if currently ailing — in Hungary, protesting against the xenophobic wall of shame under construction, and using their meagre means to help the migrants.

All you ever asked
of life
was thin little flakes
sprinkled frequently enough
so you could munch and munch
to your gentle little heart’s content.

At first I feared,
as your little belly swelled,
that you were egg-bound,
then that you were over-eating,
as your glide became a waddle,
and, alarmingly,
I no longer needed a net
to airlift you to the other tank
so the rest could eat in peace
and you would not burst:

I could just scoop you up
in my hands,
your soft, tubby little form,
and you,
too swollen to struggle,
but now I know,
also too weak.

And I thought
it’s because all you care about
is food.

When my sluggish soul realized
you were neither gravid
nor gourmande
but suffering from a fearful illness
I rushed
to purchase the paraphernalia for a cure,
but you could no longer wait,
nor even resist the filter,
grown stronger than you,
which locked you in its orbit,
so you could only linger there
gasping, helplessly.

So sudden.
Was it because I unjustly underfed you
in your last weeks?
Or failed to freshen your water enough?
Or discovered your ailment too late?
Or the world was just too much — or too little — for you?

Your waddle is still now.

You drift freely with the little whirl-pool.

I don’t know if you still are.

I don’t dare decide not.

And I don’t want to.

I squeeze your bloated little belly
gently, maybe I can expel the poison.

And soon I must umpire the learnèd paper
that confidently argues
that fish do not feel
nor see
nor suffer.

My own little lump of gold,
the only gold of value.

I won’t betray you again.

“The pain passes, but the beauty remains” — Auguste Renoir

Pronounced by someone speaking of his own pain, this statement is noble and betokens all that is good about the human spirit.

But all too often it is not that. It is about beauty (taste, pleasure) for me, and pain for others, especially non-human others.

“I no longer know where I am. I seem to move around perfectly easily among people, to have perfectly normal relations with them. Is it possible, I ask myself, that all of them are participants in a crime of stupefying proportions? Am I fantasizing it all? I must be mad! Yet every day I see the evidences. The very people I suspect produce the evidence, exhibit it, offer it to me. Corpses. Fragments of corpses that they have bought for money… Calm down, I tell myself, you are making a mountain out of a molehill. This is life. Everyone else comes to terms with it, why can’t you? Why can’t you?” — J.M. Coetzee, “The Lives of Animals”

Video: The Mirror-Neuron Initiative

On June 13 2015, all around the world – in Paris, Brussels, London, Berlin, Istanbul, Delhi, Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal – people gathered to March for the Closing of the Slaughterhouses.

But the slaughterhouses will not close of their own accord.

To close the slaughterhouses people’s eyes and hearts have to be opened. Opening people’s hearts is the only hope for the countless victims – innocent, helpless, without voices, without rights – who are suffering, horribly and needlessly, every moment of every day, everywhere in the world, for our palates.

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur, The Ghost in Our Machine (with permission)
How to open people’s hearts?

With two fundamental facts that most people do not yet know or believe.

I. The first fundamental fact is that eating meat is not necessary for human survival or human health.

The vegans from all over the world who marched on June 13 were the living proof of this first fundamental fact (Nearly 1% of the world population of 7.5 billion is vegan today.)

II. The second fundamental fact is that in order to provide this meat that is not necessary for the survival or health of the 7.5 billion humans on the planet, an unimaginable amount of suffering is necessary for over 150 billion innocent, voiceless, defenceless victims every year.

Slaughter for meat is not euthanasia. It is not the merciful, pain-free, terror-free ending of a long, happy life in order to spare the victim from suffering a terrible incurable disease or unbearable pain.

SEE ALSO:
– Video Captures Terror Of Slaughterhouses – The Dodo
– “Hurt That Bitch”: What Undercover Investigators Saw Inside A Factory Farm – Mother Jones
– Scalding Live Chickens Is Business as Usual on Factory Farms – Mark Bekoff
– Cheap Meat Comes at High Cost to Farm Animals, Wildlife – Stephanie Feldstein
– Let’s #OpentheBarns to Transparency– Matthew Bershadker

Slaughter is the terrifying and horribly painful ending of a short, anguished life full of disease and fear and pain, for innocent, defenceless victims deliberately bred and reared for that purpose. And it is all carefully concealed from the public eye.

And it is completely unnecessary for our survival or health. We inflict all this pain on the victims only for taste pleasure, and out of habit.

Demonstrations like the June 17 march are very important, but they are not enough to open people’s hearts and close the slaughterhouses.

For that, we first have to open access to the slaughterhouses, with audio-visual surveillance Webcams placed at all the sites of the abominations (breeding, rearing, transport, slaughter) — cameras that will film the horrors and stream them all immediately, continuously and permanently on the Web so that all people on the planet can witness the terrible cost in agony that our taste-preferences are inflicting, every moment of every day, everywhere, on our victims: sentient beings, innocent, defenseless, without rights, without voice, without respite, without hope.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons (public domain image)

Not everyone will look at the videos streamed on the web.

But the number of witnesses who will look and see will grow and grow. And with them will grow the knowledge of the heartbreaking truth, the reality that has till now been hermetically hidden from our eyes and our hearts.

And those of us who come to know the awful truth can provide the eyes and the voice for the victims.

The existing regulations for minimizing suffering in slaughterhouses are shamefully inadequate — how can one needlessly end an innocent life humanely? But even these existing, inadequate regulations are not being enforced or monitored or obeyed today.

As its first consequence, the crowd-sourced monitoring of slaughterhouses, based on the evidence streamed and stored publicly on the web, witnessed and reported by a growing number of informed and concerned citizens, will help to ensure that today’s existing (though inadequate) regulations – and prosecution for their violation – are enforced more and more reliably and rigorously.

In Quebec — the province that has until now been the worst in Canada for animal welfare — we have just acquired a legal basis for requiring rigorous monitoring of slaughterhouses: the National Assembly has heeded the many Quebec voices raised on behalf of protecting animals from suffering. The Quebec Civil Code has been amended to give animals the status of sentient beings instead of the status of inert property – or movable goods – as formerly. (Other countries are doing likewise: New Zealand is the latest.)

But this new status, like this public demonstration, are not enough.

Sensitizing Sentients to Sentience

In Quebec, on this new legal basis, and with the help of the new audio-visual evidence, as witnessed by the Quebec public, not only would we be able to prosecute those who do not comply with the existing (inadequate) regulations but we could also press for the passage of stronger and stronger legislation to protect sentient beings.

And the evidence provided by these surveillance Webcams would have a still further effect, apart from the enforcement and strengthening of today’s animal welfare regulations: It would also awaken and sensitize witnesses to the actual horrors made necessary by a non-vegan diet: It would sensitize us all to the sentience of sentient beings.

In place of the shamelessly false advertising images of “happy cows” and “contented chickens” we would all have the inescapable, undeniable, graphic evidence of the unspeakable suffering of these innocent, sentient victims – and the utter needlessness of their suffering.

Might this not at last inspire us all not to remain non-vegan, just for the pleasure of the taste, at this terrible cost in pain to other innocent feeling beings? Might it inspire us to abolish their needless suffering, instead of just diminish it?

SEE ALSO:
– Federal Report: Vegan Diet Best For Planet – The Hill
– No Lie Can Live Forever: Predicting a Vegan America by 2050 – Kathy Stevens
– 2015 Predictions From Vegan and Plant-Based Nutrition Experts – Sandy Pukel
– Getting from A to Z: Why Animal Activists Should Support Incremental Reforms to Help Animals – Bruce Friedrichs
– It’s About Power, Not Food: The True Causes of World Hunger – Joel Berg

Win/Win Outcome for All

Let me close with a little optimistic numerology and the world’s most benign pyramid scheme for every sentient being on the planet, with no losers other than industries that build profit on suffering:

If each vegan today inspires just 6 more non-vegans (1) to become vegan AND (2) to each inspire 6 more non-vegans to become vegan, then in just 9 steps all of the population of Quebec will be vegan, in 10 steps all of Canada, in 11 Canada and the United States, and in 12-13 the whole world.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain image)
It is also entirely fair that it should be ourselves, the most prosperous and well-fed populace in the world, who start. By the time we have closed all of our industrial slaughterhouses and converted the land to producing food to feed people instead of using it to breed, feed and butcher innocent victims, needlessly, the planet will be producing 40% more human food, 60% less pollution and 90% less suffering – with enough left to sustain natural wildlife and their habitat too.

That will also be enough food to feed the world’s current malnourished as well as to allow the last subsistence hunters on the planet to make the transition to a truly fair, sustainable, scalable and merciful means of sustenance.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SeYhE-BsWsY