"If the spices I needed were available locally I would
[consume only locally grown produce]."

- Skanky Carpetmuncher, 27 Dec 2004


The issue is why "vegans" don't make more effort not to
cause the death of animals. First we need to recap the
argument.

All "vegans" begin by following a logical fallacy in
order to arrive at the totality of "veganism": the
rule, Do Not Consume Animal Parts. The fallacy is this:

If I consume animal parts, I cause the suffering
and death of animals.

I do not consume animal parts;

therefore, I do not cause the suffering and death
of animals.

This argument embodies a classic fallacy, Denying the
Antecedent. A person can cause suffering and death of
animals by means other than consuming things made from
animal parts. The most important way in which this
occurs that is relevant to "vegans" is collateral
animal deaths in agriculture (CDs). The cultivation,
harvest, storage and distrbution of many grain crops in
particular causes suffering and death to animals on a
massive scale. None of the animal slaughter is
"necessary", but it is inevitable given current methods
of farming. "vegans" buy vegetables and fruits without
any consideration whatever about how many animals were
killed in the course of their production.

When and if they learn about CDs, "vegans" are forced
to acknowledge that they do not live a "cruelty free"
life, merely by following the "vegan" rule of "do not
consume animal parts." The usual course of retreat is
to make an intermediate stop at the false claim, "I am
doing the best I can to reduce animal death." This is
quickly seen to be a false claim: different vegetable
crops cause different numbers of CDs. The production
of rice, for example, is exceptionally lethal to
animals, far more so than other starchy grains. To the
extent the "vegan" eats rice rather than other, less
lethal grains, she is not "doing the best she can" not
to cause animal death.

Once "vegans" see that their intermediate position is
untenable, they make a second retreat to the weakest
position of all, the one that reveals "veganism" to be
utterly specious as an ethical choice: "At least I'm
doing better than you omnivores." This claim ALSO is
false, as one can easily show that a meat-including
diet can cause fewer deaths than virtually any "vegan"
diet. However, there is no further room for retreat,
so "vegans" simply close their eyes to the obvious, and
either stick with the "I'm doing better than you"
position, which illustrates the utter moral bankruptcy
of "veganism", or attempt to claw their way back to
their intermediate claim of "doing the best I can."

This position - "doing the best I can" - is the one
Skanky Carpetmuncher is currently trying vainly to
defend, even though she has already abandoned it to
make her second retreat. The quote at the top is her
reply to someone who asked her why she doesn't buy only
locally produced foods and spices (the implication
being that local production somehow necessarily causes
fewer deaths than distant production.) Her answer
implicitly *accepts* that locally produced means fewer
deaths than remotely produced, but we see that she
makes the reduction of animal deaths subordinate to her
aesthetic desire for more flavorful food. She doesn't
NEED spices at all; she merely wants them. How can a
supposedly absolute ethical value - "it is wrong to
kill animals" - take a back seat to her aesthetic wish
for flavor variety, and still be called a valid ethics?

It can't.

In my direct reply to Skanky Carpetmuncher, I pointed
out that by subordinating her absolute belief that it
is wrong to kill animals to her wish for flavor variety
in food, she is implicitly admitting, once again, that
she is NOT "doing the best she can" at reducing animal
death. In fact, she is revealing that she does NOT
believe killing animals is wrong. Her reply was very
revealing:

You can't accept that I find an improvement good
enough.
You want me to strive for a veganic perfection that
only
you [expletive] seems to see. I do MY best which
is good
enough for me to be content.

There is no question that she is NOT "doing her best",
as she could easily forgo the spices. She has, for the
SECOND time, retreated from the claim "I'm doing the
best I can" to the vastly weaker claim of "I think I'm
doing better than you, which is good enough for me."

In the process, she has revealed the fatal flaw in
"veganism" and, necessarily, in "vegans" themselves:
they don't really believe their absolute claim that
killing animals is wrong. Once that claim is
effectively abandoned, as this reveals it must be, we
see that "veganism" isn't about ethics at all.