do vegans decline invitations to dinners? Like, my pakistani neighbor always cooks with lots of meat. Id never be able to decline out of sheer respect for his craft

@igel The strong-hearted decline to sit at a table of violence against animals

@alex @igel

Think of it as a religion. Would muslims decline an invitation to eat pork?

@issdeinschnitzel @igel To me it's political, not religious. Animals are unique individuals with thoughts and feelings. It's an injustice to kill them when they've done nothing wrong.

@alex @igel Politics do flow out of religion tho

I mean I don't think veganism is a religion necessarily (unless there's a lot of dogma I'm not aware of), but @issdeinschnitzel has a point here

@realcaseyrollins @igel @issdeinschnitzel The only way it's related to religion is that both involve morality. But I don't think veganism asks people to believe anything they don't already believe, it just asks them to apply their own sense of ethics consistently.

@alex @issdeinschnitzel @igel

> it just asks them to apply their own sense of ethics consistently.

Not necessarily. Many who eat meat (in fact, I would argue to say "most") believe that human life is worth more than that of animals.

@realcaseyrollins @issdeinschnitzel @igel Well that's just provably false, in multiple ways. In fact it's a form of discrimination like an extreme form of racism.

@alex @issdeinschnitzel @igel

> that's just provably false, in multiple ways

How so?

@realcaseyrollins @issdeinschnitzel @igel

#NameTheTrait

https://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/index.php/NameTheTrait

Logic doesn't often win debates, though.

@alex @realcaseyrollins @igel @issdeinschnitzel the site you linked to seems to be dedicated to deconstructing that argument. instead it points to a different formulation, which is, uh, a little less catchy

https://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/index.php/NameTheTrait_2.0%2B_(official)

@fixpoint @igel @issdeinschnitzel @realcaseyrollins This one is for philosophy nerds but the first version is more accessible and still mostly right

@alex @fixpoint @igel @realcaseyrollins

The destinction is personhood. Most people assume even very retarded humans are still persons.

@issdeinschnitzel @alex @igel @fixpoint Wait I just realized something; is there evidence that animals are moral, or have a moral complexity approaching that of humans?

@realcaseyrollins @issdeinschnitzel @igel @fixpoint There's a lot of research about self-awareness, eg the "mirror test" (which all apes and even pigs have passed) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

@alex @issdeinschnitzel @igel @fixpoint does this apply to morality? Couldn't find anything in the article about moral value