• commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    while you can’t prove a negative, it is possible to find evidence for a positive claim. so, very much, you don’t know that. the truest thing anyone can say is that there is not a conclusive study that supports the claim.

    • Emerald@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Even if plants might feel pain, we are certain that animals feel pain. Also if you think for whatever reason that plants feel pain, then, well, a vegan diet uses less plants because its a more efficient food source. Plants feeling pain, whether true or false, isn’t an argument against veganism in any way.

      • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        the crux of the argument that they might feel pain is not that it is wrong, but that it is inevitable, so it cannot be wrong

          • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 months ago

            when somebody raises the objection that plants feel pain, it’s not an appeal to hypocrisy. it’s a statement of fact whether we can prove it or not. and it’s the premise of a larger argument. that argument goes

            pain is an inevitable facet of food production

            food production is a moral good

            an inevitable facet of food production cannot make food production bad

            therefore

            food production remains a moral good

            your rebuttal was targeted at defending against the accusation of hypocrisy, but the devastating bit has nothing to do with the hypocrisy.

            • Emerald@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Pain might be an inevitable facet of food production (crop deaths). But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to eliminate as much pain as we reasonably can.


              Pain is an inevitable facet of surgery

              Surgery is a moral good

              an inevitable facet of surgery cannot make surgey bad

              surgery remains a moral good


              The fact that pain is inevitable to surgery doesn’t mean we should stop giving patients anesthesia and pain medication.

                • Emerald@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  So it just loops back to speciesism then? You don’t care about the pain animals face, only humans?

                  • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    3 months ago

                    as kant said, cruelty is bad. you ought not kick a dog, for instance, but there is no contradiction in animal agriculture itself. if some operations are acting cruelly, we should admonish them. otherwise, tehre is no reason to believe non-human animals can participate in an ethical society, so there is no reason to include them in our ethical systems.