• oberstoffensichtlich@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    2 months ago

    You can make a purely rational environmental argument with reducing CO2 emissions.

    A pure appeal to emotion is showing slaughterhouse footage or other animal suffering.

    A utilitarian philosophical argument about reducing suffering is also logical, not emotional.

    A emotional spiritual appeal can be made with karmic debt accumulated or similar.

    • NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.orgM
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      2 months ago

      You can make a purely rational environmental argument with reducing CO2 emissions.

      Please do this without resorting to an emotional motivation such as “People enjoy being alive and not suffering” or whatever.

        • NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.orgM
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          2 months ago

          What do to mean when you say “emotional argument”? I understand it as something like “an argument which rests on an appeal to an emotional experience” or similar.

          For example a mathematical proof is not an emotional argument, as a being without any emotions would be able to verify it as true.

          However “people don’t want to die, so you shouldn’t kill them” is an emotional argument as it fundamentally rests on the counterfactual “a person assumed to have qualia observing a universe in which they had been killed might experience negative valence”. Which only makes sense if the notion of another being you assume to have qualia being sad in a way which is impossible in reality upsets you.

    • 🏴 hamid abbasi [he/him] 🏴@vegantheoryclub.orgM
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      2 months ago

      I don’t give a flying fuck about CO2. I care that you are murdering an animal and ending its life for no reason. Animals have rights including the right to live without your torturing them and mudering them. Everything else is out of scope for veganism. It is an ethical position advocating for the rights of animals, not a utilitarian calculation.

    • leisesprecher@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 months ago

      Of course that’s emotional.

      Reducing suffering is based on the idea that I don’t like suffering, therefore I don’t want others to suffer. That’s emotional.

      • oberstoffensichtlich@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        2 months ago

        There are whole schools of philosophy around suffering, its necessity, and its reduction. Utilitarianism is one of that. Philosophy is based on logic, not straight emotions.

        If you say, “I don’t like suffering” to someone with a “no pain, no gain” shirt, your argument is weaker.

        • leisesprecher@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          2 months ago

          Philosophy is based on logic, not straight emotions

          Yeah, sorry, but that’s straight untrue.

          As I wrote before, every time you’re doing a value judgement, you’re arguing based on emotions.

          Saying shredding two animals causes more suffering than shredding no animals is a rational, provable statement. But whether suffering is bad or not, is a value judgement and thus not rational.

          If you say, “I don’t like suffering” to someone with a “no pain, no gain” shirt, your argument is weaker.

          And both of these statements are value judgement, you’re doing a category error here.