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How about vegetable flavored food? I don't try to make my steak taste like asparagus, nor Carnivore Asparagus Tomatoes.If you are a vegetarian or a vegan, why do you need meat flavored products?Why does anyone need *anything* flavored products? Wouldn't flavorless gruel be perfectly adequate to live on?
Maybe, like chocolate, there doesn't have to be any sort of deep reason (or necessity to justify) why some people like the taste of chocolate.
But you can eat both steak and asparagus, while vegetarians cannot. Besides, often the motivation behind a vegetarian life style is not "meat isn't tasty", it's "meat might be fun to eat but for various non taste related reasons I chose not to".
So it's as close as they can get to experiencing the taste.By the way, as someone who had a "vegan double cheesburger", I will say two things:
1) Vegan "meat" has nothing to do with real meat - not in taste nor in texture. Same goes for vegan "cheese".
2) Both vegan meat and vegan cheese are still pretty tasty. Different, but tasty.
Stealing is a moral issue -- eating less meat isn't.
Well for some people it is. Some people abstain from meat because they think it's immoral to encourage / contribute to the demand for killing animals.
I will point out that there is a major difference between all the immoral activities you mentioned (let's pretend for a moment that you never pointed out premarital sex in the same sentence as child beating) - all the other stuff you mentioned are "active, personal crimes" while the wrongs I was trying to discuss were more the "passive, universal" ones.
I was listing activities that a person might consider immoral and feel guilty about violating. I guess it goes completely over your head that I listed both beating your kids AND not beating your kids as examples. Do you suppose I regard both those things as equally moral?
What I, personally, consider immoral is not relevant to the discussion. I was trying to offer my opinion as regards to your original post - "I don't think half measures are hypocrisies." I do think that half-measures are hypocrisies, and I think if you regard eating meat as immoral (rather than just disgusting or economically inefficient or whatever) you have a moral duty to abstain from it all the time, not just when it's convenient.
The fact that "other people do it too" and that you regard it as a "passive" rather than active wrong really doesn't change the moral valence of it, for me. And that is obviously just my moral instinct and my opinion but hopefully it's a perspective for you other than just "rah, rah, rah."
Well for some people it is. Some people abstain from meat because they think it's immoral to encourage / contribute to the demand for killing animals.Stealing is a moral issue -- eating less meat isn't.
Clearly. I should have been more precise -- your comparisons were to things that the vast majority of people find immoral, while clearly a vast majority of Americans do not have a moral issue with eating meat. In other words, not particularly great choices for use as analogies.
Clearly. I should have been more precise -- your comparisons were to things that the vast majority of people find immoral, while clearly a vast majority of Americans do not have a moral issue with eating meat. In other words, not particularly great choices for use as analogies.Well for some people it is. Some people abstain from meat because they think it's immoral to encourage / contribute to the demand for killing animals.Stealing is a moral issue -- eating less meat isn't.
Whether the "vast majority" find it immoral is not relevant to the topic of the thread, assuming I'm understanding it correctly. As to whether they're "not great choices" for analogies, fair enough. In the future I'll only select examples from Bugleyman's Book of Acceptable Analogies for Use As Examples in Messageboard Posts.
If you're living according to the current dictates of your conscience, Lord Snow, that's all you can reasonably ask of yourself.
Well put.
Whether the "vast majority" find it immoral is not relevant to the topic of the thread, assuming I'm understanding it correctly. As to whether they're "not great choices" for analogies, fair enough. In the future I'll only select examples from Bugleyman's Book of Acceptable Analogies for Use As Examples in Messageboard Posts.
Or...you could just use logic. But you seem to prefer sarcasm.
At least your name is appropriate.
Whether the "vast majority" find it immoral is not relevant to the topic of the thread, assuming I'm understanding it correctly. As to whether they're "not great choices" for analogies, fair enough. In the future I'll only select examples from Bugleyman's Book of Acceptable Analogies for Use As Examples in Messageboard Posts.Or...you could just use logic. But you seem to prefer sarcasm.
At least your name is appropriate.
I'm incapable of using logic for the same reason that I am incapable of providing apt analogies. The sad fact is, I'm not that bright :(
Your post could just have easily been about stealing or gambling or premarital sex or beating your kids or not beating your kids.Jeez.
Anyho, don't worry, I don't take offense at your words.
I will point out that there is a major difference between all the immoral activities you mentioned (let's pretend for a moment that you never pointed out premarital sex in the same sentence as child beating) - all the other stuff you mentioned are "active, personal crimes" while the wrongs I was trying to discuss were more the "passive, universal" ones.
I'll try to explain -
active: when you actively do something wrong. For example, steal from someone or hurt someone
personal: you were the one committing the crime, not just the one benefiting from it.
passive: when what you "do wrong" is not fighting against something you perceive as wrong. For example, not going to that rally protest against abuse of immigrants even when you believe they should be treated with more humanity.
universal: basically 99% of humanity around you is doing the wrong that bothers you. Same example holds - seeing an entire 1% of a countries' population in a rally protest for immigrants would be a shock in most places in the world.
So, vegetarianism, money donation, social activism, volunteering etc. are all things that, when most of us will be asked, will be considered moral acts. Meaning that, by choosing not to do them, we knowingly chose the less moral path. I'm not saying it's *immoral* per say, but most of us can agree that it's not "quite as moral". Unlike violence to children or theft, "not donating money" is not exactly a crime, it's just a not-very-nice thing that most of us do. And even those who donate could theoretically always share more.
Some of us do chose to go down a certain length down any of these paths. If we'll come back to my personal example, some people who abstain from all meat get the title "vegetarians". Even though some of them think/know...
I believe it's not the actual content of the ideal but rather the claiming and fulfilment of said ideal that determines whether we are being hypocrites or not.
If I claim to live by the ideal of "Human life is sacred" and I somehow desecrate human life (be it by killing other people or treating them like objects), I'm being a hypocrite, just like if I claim to live by, I don't know, the ideal that "The strongest should dominate the weak" I would be a hypocrite if I started promoting employees just for being nice guys.
That some ideals are definitely more complex to uphold, or that some are seen as more important or more acceptable than others, doesn't change the fact that hypocrisy is defined by whether or not I act by the ideals I claim to live by, regardless of what they actually are.
I'm incapable of using logic for the same reason that I am incapable of providing apt analogies. The sad fact is, I'm not that bright :(
I've read your posts, you're plenty bright.
Sorry for the snark about your name.
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I'm being a hypocrite, just like if I claim to live by, I don't know, the ideal that "The strongest should dominate the weak" I would be a hypocrite if I started promoting employees just for being nice guys.
Ooh, that specific example could be worth a thread all it's own.
If I'm some sort of 'weak deserve to be stepped on' Randian objectivist, all about the enlightened self-interest, and end up showing favoritism to employees or subordinates who toady up to me and meekly do as I tell them, like good little do-be's and yes-men, instead of rewarding those who attempt to betray me and sabotage my department's work to make me look bad and get me booted for incompetence (like my own 'ethic' suggests I do to advance myself), does that count as hypocrisy?
I'm being a hypocrite, just like if I claim to live by, I don't know, the ideal that "The strongest should dominate the weak" I would be a hypocrite if I started promoting employees just for being nice guys.Ooh, that specific example could be worth a thread all it's own.
If I'm some sort of 'weak deserve to be stepped on' Randian objectivist, all about the enlightened self-interest, and end up showing favoritism to employees or subordinates who toady up to me and meekly do as I tell them, like good little do-be's and yes-men, instead of rewarding those who attempt to betray me and sabotage my department's work to make me look bad and get me booted for incompetence (like my own 'ethic' suggests I do to advance myself), does that count as hypocrisy?
I think that would depend on what the values the individual is claiming to uphold are exactly about. Without being an expert on the subject, I suppose a Randian Objectivist would put great value in personal achievement, and thus it would be hypocritical to reward people based on a criteria that didn't consider such things. I don't think the actual purpose would be to step on weak people (rather, we could say that the stepping-on would be one of the effects of acting in such an objectivist manner), so "not stepping on weak people" wouldn't be hypocritical in this case, I believe.