Scented Nectar wrote:

>>>>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?
>
>
> I have no way of knowing what farmers do what.

That's false. NOW, you know exactly what they do:
they chop little animals to bits in the course of
producing food for you. Previously, you didn't know,
but now you do know. It is your knowledge of what
happens that implicates you.

> I'm not
> responsible for any deaths personally.

You are responsible for the deaths of the animals
chopped up in the field in order to feed you in exactly
the same way a meat eater is responsible for the deaths
of animals he eats.

> You are trying
> to put an 'absoluteness' on the whole thing

It is just there, based on YOUR belief in the absolute
wrongness of killing animals.

> when in
> fact you know full well that I am content with the death
> reductions I have made (knowing that it's currently
> impossible to do better).

You have no reason to be content, and it IS possible
for you to do better. It is EASILY possible for you to
do better, but you never cared in the first place. You
are content solely with doing the easiest, most emptily
symbolic act you can find.

> You say I'm not allowed to
> feel content, something you have no say in.

I do have say. You are not entitled to your feeling of
contentment. You haven't done anything morally
significant.

> I am doing the best I can

You are NOT doing the best you can. Stop lying.


>
>>>>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're the one putting absolute in there.

No, it is just there.

> I do indeed
> believe that killing animals is wrong

Then you have no reason for feeling "content", because
you are STILL causing the death of animals with your
consumption patterns.

>
>
>>>>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."
>
>
> You're putting words in my mouth.

No. That is the essence of what you're saying.

>
>
>>>>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.
>
>
> Stop forcing the word absolute into the above

I'm not. It's just there, whether you like it or not.