Even if I were Plato, I couldn't have designed a more
excellent foil than "Scented Nectar" to illustrate the
ethical bankruptcy of "veganism", and the moral
confusion from which it originates.

Undeniably, she began by believing that merely by not
consuming animal parts, she was causing zero harm to
animals. This belief IS the classic "vegan" Denying
the Antecedent fallacy:

If I eat meat, I cause animals to suffer and die.

I do not eat meat;

therefore, I do not cause animals to suffer and die.


How do we know she believed this? First, because all
she had done - in fact, STILL all she does - is to stop
consuming animal parts. Second, because she has
admitted to not knowing, until participating here,
about collateral animal deaths in agricultu

At first I didn't know about cds or what the
initials meant (collateral deaths).

"Scented Nectar" - 13 Dec 2004


She didn't *need* to say explicitly that she believed
in the fallacy; she has admitted it implicitly by what
else she has said. There was no manipulation or
"engineering" of the admission; she came right out with it.

Then she retreated to a far weaker position, and of
course could not explain how she got there in a way
consistent with her earlier belief. The weaker
fall-back position was that she is "doing the best
[she] can" at not causing animal death. This position
is untenable given her earlier demonstrated (and false)
belief that she had attained a ZERO animal death
"lifestyle" merely by not consuming animal parts. She
hasn't changed her actions a bit in making her
desperate retreat: she STILL is only refraining from
consuming animal parts.

Then she retreated a second time, after it was
demonstrated that she is NOT "doing the best she can".
Implicitly, she has acknowledged that she is NOT
doing the best she can, because she has not disputed
the contention that, were she to reduce her consumption
of some high-CD item and substitute an equivalent
amount of a lower-CD item in its place, she would be
doing better ("better" only according to her warped,
inchoate ethical values). Doing the "best" one can, in
something like animal CDs that implies a number,
involves counting, and she has never counted.

The exceedingly weak third position - TWO big retreats
- illustrates the absolute moral bankruptcy of
"veganism", because it makes the invidious comparison
with a demonized group of others the entirety of the
bogus endeavor. The comparison with others is all
that's left.

This comparison with others is especially loathsome,
because in addition to making one's ethicality
contingent on someone else's actions, it presents the
logical absurdity that the "vegan's" actual animal
death toll could INCREASE, but as long as it remains
below that of the demonized others, the "vegan" will
still conclude that she is being ethical!