The weakness of debating Veganism reveals the limits of Debate.
If we agree that debating is the general term we use to cover any discussion between two parties over an issue where they disagree, with the goal being that one party's argument wins, we can choose any issue to analyse the debating process.
Let us use Veganism to analyse the limits of debate.
TOOLS OF DEBATE
In debating we only have a few tools in our arsenal to win:
1. Logic.
2. Empirically verifiable or falsifiable statements.
3. Moral judgments.
[We could add Rhetoric (charm, elitism, jargon, body langauge) but this not necessary for our purposes.]
For example:
1. We can point out inconsistencies in the argument and invalid logic.
2. We can point out the falsity of empirical statements.
3. We can claim X is good and Y is bad. X is right and Y is wrong.
Vegans argue in debate that we are causing the suffering of animals to eat them. So if it is wrong to cause suffering, then we should stop eating meat.
This is using logic based on empirical statements to support a moral judgment.
VEGAN DEBATE ANALYSED
Empirical statements entailed by this vegan argument above include:
1. Animals can suffer.
2. Consumers of meat cause the suffering of the animal consumed.
3. Animals can only be consumed if they first suffer.
Logic includes:
1. If we believe we should not cause suffering, and eating meat causes suffering, and we eat meat, then it follows that we are are contradicting our belief when we eat meat.
2. If an animal becomes meat, and it must be slaughtered to become meat, and being slaughtered iincludes suffering, then animals must suffer to become meat.
Moral judgments include:
1. Causing animals to suffer is wrong.
There are implied statements in this argument, as well as the patent statements above. These include:
Empirically implied:
1. An animal suffers in the same way humans do.
2. Animals suffer.
Moral judgment implied:
1. Causing any suffering is wrong under any circumstances.
2. Animals have the same value as humans. Or animals are valued as much as humans are valued. Or animals are valued in the same way humans are valued.
In response to the vegan's arguement, we can oppose the truth value of the empirical statements through verfiying them. And we can diasagree on the moral judgment.
We can demand the vegan verify empirically that either animals suffer, or they suffer in the same way that humans suffer.
It is the burden of the proponent that animals suffer to prove the statement "animals suffer" and that animals suffer at a level that would be unacceptable by human standards.
In response to the vegan's moral judgement, we can simply disagree.
We can say we don't care that the animal suffers or is exploited, because that is our own moral judgment.
You cannot oppose someone's personal moral judgement. You cannot tell someone that what they think is good is not good. Morality is personal, just like taste. Morality is subjective, so attempts to make objective moral statements is logically impossible.
If I like vegemite icecream and you don't, you cannot tell me that I am wrong. You cannot say that my liking Blondes is incorrect.
ANTHROPOMORPHISM
This is the fallacy of claiming a non-human is a human. A baby pig is a baby human. A cow being raped is a woman being raped. A calf removed from their cow is a child removed from their mother.
This is an argument tactic vegans and other moral debaters use to attempt forcing the opponent into making what they say is a self-contradiction. You wouldn't murder a baby, so why murder chicks?
The analogy of treatment of animals with treatment of humans is a false analogy, because the two things are not the same.
If anthropomorphism was a good argument, we could use it for plants. A salad is a massacre.
An animal cannot be a slave, in the sense that a human can be a slave. This is using terms created to apply only to humans to non-humans.
If we analogise animals with humans then we could marry animals, make them subject to human law such as the criminal justice system, we could make them pay taxes, charge them for occupying property.
Most of us find animal cruelty abhorrent, but not because we imagine what it would be like for a human to receive that cruelty. We find it abhorrent because we can see something suffering. Not a human suffering, but a thing that we believe can suffer in some sense and is suffering in some sense, a sense specific to that thing.
You cannot argue that animals are human. So you cannot use human analogies to argue for anything other than humans. Killing an animal is not the same as killing a human. If you think it is, then you have to treat animals exactly like humans and subject them to human law, politics and morality.
Cows cannot be victims in the same sense that a human can be a victim.
You cannot put yourself in the mind of a cow. You cannot ask someone, imagine how you would like it to be a cow. You have to be a cow to know what it's like to be a cow.
So the argument that animals are humans is not going to win any arguments. But it will make you look like a dumbarse.
What debaters often do at this stage is quote direcrtly or imply a Moral Authority: the Bible, the Law, Social Norms.
But appealing to authority simple Begs the Question: who says the moral authority is correct, true, good? Same problem.
WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON?
But here is what's really going on in moral debates.
People tend to place their morality above everyone else's. It's an ego trip, a defence mechanism.
But their morality is only theirs, so it cannot be more true or more good than anyone else's morality.
People don't like that. It takes the weight off their beliefs, reduces them to having just one of millions of equally valuable moralities.
This is not ideal for people who need their beliefs and morality to be the best, superior, infallible, awesome.
So they attempt to argue that Morality itself is objective. There is a right and wrong outside of human experience. Your morality and moral judgments can be right or wrong, true or false.
My opinion is fact, your opinion is not. I am moral, you are not.
This would make debating morally something you could win over your opponent.
This is lovely. But it is not true. Morality is not objective. Your moral judgment cannot be true or false, wrong or right, nor better than someone else's.
Sorry buddy. The truth hurts.
So in debate, when we get to moral judgments all we can do is express them, agree to disagree and end the debate.
