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Ethical consistency
(thelemmy.club)
S12E4 "Wolf Cola: A Public Relations Nightmare"
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this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2026
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That's why I'm consistent and live vegan
The Dennises are mad about being destroyed with moral consistency
Veganism is perhaps more consistent in a sense, but ultimately irrational.
Just answer me this; what do we do with the sheep?
Vegans say you can't use wool, as it's a "product of animal suffering." Yet if you have a sheep, it would literally cause animal suffering not to shear it. So does the wool that results from that have to be discarded instead of used? Or if we can't use it nor can we shear them, then the only solution is for them to not exist. That would imply getting rid of them. Sure, we can make procreating of sheep illegal and they'd die out in a generation, but that's still a sort of animal genocide I'm not in favour of. Not to mention the morality considering stopping them from naturally procreating (even though it's ofc nowhere as bad as the forced procreation the industrys are currently doing, I'm definitely not saying that).
My point is that I've never gotten a vegan to answer the question.
(And I won't even go into the morality surrounding hunting of deer in places where humans are the only apex predator.)
Unfortunately our ancestors since like tens of thousands years ago have interacted with animals in such a way to make them dependent of us, and now we have to take care of entire species and there might not be a fully correct or moral way of doing that.
Also, did you not see S1 of Pluribus? I don't want to spoil anything so I won't explain further.
Sheep exit in the wild, they don’t require humans to sheer them.
We have bred a variety of sheep’s to be so extremely unhealthy that they will literally die without frequent human intervention.
You can let the unhealthy sheep breeds we have made continue their life and ensure they don’t reproduce. That isn’t “genocide of sheep”, sheep will still exist.
However if you’re so concerned with their wellbeing, I suppose you could slowly partner them with more natural breeds and undo the traits over many generations but that’s prolonging their suffering.
As for the resources produced while keeping them alive, i.e. wool - who cares? If your goal is to end their suffering permanently, very few would bat an eyelash to using that for something productive or throwing it away or anything else because in a few short years it would cease to be a problem ever again.
No they don't. Sheep (ovis aries) are a domesticated species.
If you mean the wild versions sometimes named "sheep" like "Bighorn sheep", that is the genus ovis, yes, but you'll note a definite lack of a crucial thing if you actually look at what "wild sheep" look like:
Can you spot which one is the domesticated one?
Hint:
Just because an animal is dependent on humans doesn't make it unhealthy. None of the domesticated animals could just survive themselves, aside from perhaps horses. And cats ofc, but technically cats aren't domesticated, they've semi-self-domesticated themselves, while retaining complete functionality.
Keeping pets is immoral to me. So I hope you're not arguing these things while you keep an animal hostage.
And in the meanwhile? You've still not answered whether a person who, let's say, is actively breeding domesticated sheep to have less wool and be more independent (and that's not how things work with animals in general just because dogs are incredibly fast to change with breeding, their ability to adapt so fast and the genotypic variability they have is utterly incredible) who only cares for the sheep, as they still have to shear the sheep.
So is that wool moral to use or not? You simply won't answer, because no-one has given you the answer and you have to go an authority instead of being able to form your own opinions.
Vegans. That's the entire point. Irrational, absolutist vegans.
So what about the deer?
If you're for reducing suffering, then you have to be pro-deer management. And if you're for reducing suffering, then trying to assert wolves killing deer as somehow causing less suffering is idiotic. Not to mention trying to put wolf packs into central Europe.
Absolutes don't work. This should surprise no-one over the age of 15.
You don't know the first fucking principles of veganism. Why you got such strong opinions about something you're so ignorant about?
To answer your gotcha (that I confess I didn't read past): you take care of them for the rest of their lives because the animals we create are morally entitled to the exact same unconditional love and protection as our own children. Since they cannot take care of themselves due to the genetic injuries we have inflicted on them, you sterilize them all, and once they have all lived out their lives, the problem is solved.
How fucking hard was that?? Why couldn't you just see that obvious solution? I'll tell you why. Because you're invested in cruelty and violence. You don't WANT to change, so you'll accept any excuse not to change without even thoroughly examining it. This is bad faith coping and fucking keep it to yourself.
Ofc I do. First, there isn't much to know, and secondly, I've many vegan friends, I cooked for a vegan when I was in the army and dated the girl after. (We had women in the army, yes.)
Tell me a single thing that I dont know about veganism.
"I'm proud to say I'm replying to your comments without reading them completely because it upset me so."
Yes, it's always the same. Always.
Yes and taking care of them requires shearing them. You still haven't addressed what you would do with the wool. Is it immoral to use it, despite it being a side-product of taking care of the animals instead of abusing them?
Oh, so you have a final solution and that's to literally genocide all sheep. Yeah see I don't see how you can think you're in the moral right when you advocate for the extinction of an entire species.
Which brings me back to veganism is irrational. You've just never thought about it. You just see a cute animal and know you don't want to kill it. That's the farthest you've gone in your philosophy, it seems.
You're the one advocating for the extinction of a species. Also, you haven't answered whether you think culling deer populations is moral or if ite more moral to allow for them to become overpopulated, so they destroy the entire environment they live in, causing disease and suffering to several species while also increasing road accidents, thus leading to more pain and suffering for both animals and humans.
So you're the type of person who'd wouldn't touch the switch on a trolley problem even when it's a few deer on the other track while the other track has those deer and all the other deer and other species and humans as well. And then you'd pretend to have the moral high ground.
You have no ideology. You've never questioned anything, you've just blindly jumped on a bandwagon and don't care how illogical it is, as long as you have people who agree with you.
Both are variations of: "The animal is already dead and on your plate, you either eat it or we'll throw it away which would be wasteful". Something very unvegan happened. You are in a messed up situation that would never have happened if veganism was consistently applied. And there are different answers to this in different situations but none debunk veganism's consistency because it's already not consistently applied.
In these cases, a second definition of veganism works better which is to reduce harm. This is in line with eating animal products that are already thrown away (look up freegan) but in other cases, demanding a vegan option and throwing away what was prepared for you, might break the cycle and next time, there will be more vegan options. It, again, depends on the situation.
Now to your "arguments": Guess who bred sheep into their current form? Certainly not vegans. So dealing with this messed up situation doesn't disprove veganism's consistency. Now that the child already fell into the well (which is a German proverb that might not translate into English as well), we need harm reduction which is the vegan thing to do. It is a worth while thought experiment when engaged in good faith but not the gotcha you think it is.
In the current moment, buying wool will increase the demand for it and therefore isn't vegan. But there are also vegans who rescue animals that would otherwise be slaughtered and give them the best life possible. Both happens today within the ethical framework of veganism which is at the end about harm reduction. You are attacking a strawman.
And, o deer, your other example. Humans changed the environment by exterminating all wolves in an area. The consistently vegan thing to do would be (you guessed it, maybe you didn't) not exterminating all the wolves in the first place. The second best thing is to undo the unvegan thing and restore the natural state by reintroducing wolves to their natural habitat which demonstrably works where is was applied. The thing that actually happens in Europe is that wolves are shot where they come back so hunters can have the deer.
And you should not take works of fiction as facts and even if, you should pay more attention:
mild spoiler for Pluribus S1
Maybe look up the difference between animals and plants. The proposed solution literally was harvest robots for plants which vegans totally do. Even fruitarians would pick up an apple. If you're take away was "veganism bad", you read that into the show, it isn't there.You remind me of an internet discussion I had during the pandemic with a guy who claimed Covid isn't real because it's unlike Camus' novel The Plague. The difference is that The Plague is about an epidemic (not a pandemic but close enough, also it's actually an allegory for WWII) while Pluribus isn't about veganism in any way, shape or form.
I didn't ask about buying wool. I asked about using wool that you gain from the sheep because you're shearing them for their wellbeing.
I didn't argue veganism is inconsistent. I argued it's irrational.
"Look up freegan" lol. I was dumpster-diving probably before you were born.
So you just didn't read the thing you reply to? (Would surprise me, the other replier literally admitted as much.)
See the part where I say humans have lived for animals with tens of thousands of years, making them dependent on us. Guess who it wasn't either, aside from vegans? Anyone alive today. Care to answer why it couldn't have been vegans? Because back then, vegans wouldn't have had B12 supplements and it actually didn't work as a diet to live on. So you wouldn't exist if those people >10 000 years didn't utilise animals.
Did they do it morally by our standards? Probably not. I said so as well in my comment. Unfortunately we have sheep. And sheep produce wool. You can't not shear them, that would be animal abuse. So is it okay to use that resulting wool?
So your moral position is "get a time machine and go back in time and tell our forefathers to not use animals, which would lead them to die themselves. Or make them not make wolves into dogs and those wolves with are too aggressive can't be defended against. Which again would result in humanity dying out. "
Gee what a RATIONAL way of solving the current problems; blaming paleolithic people and then declining to answer anything about today.
Like I said, unfortunately some animal populations are dependent on us. Wild and especially semi-domesticated species like reindeer couldn't even be driven to extinction without completely destroying the environments which are dependent on them.
Not this garbage again. You're talking about Yellowstone. A national park. To which wolves were reintroduced after being gone only some decades. You're trying to say that same thing would apply for central european population centres which haven't had wolves for thousands of years and in which wolves do not naturally live. Also, what delusion of yours leads you to think it's better for a deer to be afraid for the last moments of it's life while it's torn apart and eaten alive by wolves? If you were English you'd know how inhumanely canines kill things.
Firstly reintroducing wolves to what are nowadays population centers is a ridiculously naive thought and secondly why the fuck would you want deer to suffer? That's gross.
Roflmao go read a book kiddo. There hasnt been wolves in the UK since the 18th century and even longer in England.
And again, they have no idea how many deer to cull and they don't do it humanely.
That's why foxhunting is illegal in the UK, because it's a fucking bloodsport. But you're saying your ideology says it's better for deer to suffer than just die without even being able to realise it?
And the other poster suggested actually extinction of all domesticated and semi-domesticated animals.
And you wonder why I mock veganism as irrational, as something only a suburban child might believe in?
Edit oh an pluribus they can't use harvest robots silly. That's like saying if you make a contraption that kills someone that you didn't do it. You still caused it to happen even if you did it indirectly. Did you not see the show?
To reiterate my point a last time because if you don't read my comments, I don't interact with you much further:
You are attacking the strawman that veganism is about never ever using wool. That's not what veganism is about. Veganism is about reducing suffering which in the current moment means not buying animal products. This doesn't mean that vegans won't use animal products in a hypothetical situation. And "Imagine tomorrow everyone turns vegan" is a hypothetical situation. Coming up with a hypothetical situation in which it is ethical for vegans to use animal products doesn't prove anything but that your strawman is irrational. Veganism is about harm reduction. This translates to not using animal products in the current moment but not as an absolute. Treating it as an absolute is a strawman. I brought up freegan because it's an example where even today, eating animal products can be ethical within a vegan framework.
My argument continues that once you find yourself is a "messed up situation", the question becomes more nuanced. In such a situation, the definition of veganism as harm reduction becomes more prominent than the derived idea "we shouldn't buy animal products". Clinging to that would be irrational but, again, it would be a strawman.
And it doesn't matter how this messed up situation came to be. I didn't say take a time machine and prevent the messed up situation. I said in a messed up situation, the vegan principals manifest in a different way.
To directly answer this: my argument is that in this "messed up situation" that we domesticated sheep and bred it to this state, and the "hypothetical situation" that every single person turns vegan tomorrow, the idea "not using animal products will reduce suffering" doesn't apply and the more general idea of reducing suffering manifests in a different way. But I give you that: I shouldn't have bring but not non vegans bred them. It didn't really contribute to my argument but gave you the opportunity to engaged with that instead of my argument. I should have seen that coming.
And I wasn't talking about the UK. I was talking about the fact that wolves do come back in Germany in a natural way from further East and I think other parts of central Europe as well, and hunters lobby for killing them.
Would you argue for killing predators in their natural habitat because they would kill prey if you don't? That's a strange utilitarian idea.
And there is certainly more to it. A biologist explained to me that deer find food in the fields and in a natural habitat without this food source, their population would be much smaller. Is the solution to ban agricultural next to forests? I don't know. But I think there are better ways to interact with nature.
And about Pluribus: Rewatch the episode to get the harvest robots thing (it wasn't suggested by the hive mind and it didn't like it) but my point was that the hive mind has nothing to do with veganism. If read as an allegory for it, it's an even weaker strawman than yours. Again, I shouldn't have bring it up because now you focus on that instead of what my point was.
No I'm not, but you saying that, that is a strawman. I made the larger point that veganism is ultimately irrational, and I demonstrated it by showing you there's several questions you simply can't answer without getting so worked up you get into personal insults.
Oh wowooooow. This definitely surprises me so, as my earlier points have exactly pointed out that reducing suffering and being against shearing sheep or being against the population control of deer simply do not go together.
If you are against hunting elk/deer which is done based on government giving out felling permits, then you are for increasing suffering, as overpopulation of deer would devastate the environment and lead to increased car-deer crashes, which increase suffering to both animals and humans.
I cringe so hard when people toss around the names of rhetorical fallacies when they don't understand their definition either.
And you already admitted several times you don't even read my comments. There is nothing about veganism I don't know, despite you screeching how I don't know anything about it and after several comments where I argue with "reduce suffering" being the goal, you spurt "v-veganisms goal is t-to reduce suffering".
Yeah. That's what my comments are about and that's why you can't answer what to do with sheep or deer.
Were you the one who said we should literally drive sheep to extinction? I get confused with so many irrational vegans crying in my replies.
Your internal logic isn't consistent. The actions of vegans in general are more consistent in terms of animal morality than most, because most don't give a flying fuck and just go with whatever society is going with. However you don't really care enough to actually study the philosophy you say you're practicing. Or at least even glimpse at it critically.
Because you prolly live in a city, and denying death is just so much more comforting to you than accepting it as a natural part of life.
Hunters lobby for felling permits, because killing wolves is what has been practiced since before we had calendars, because wolves are the dogs which didn't get domesticated.
I live in SW Finland. I've never seen a wolf. The loner wolves, yeah, we sometimes get, and usually they're given a felling permit. Known why? Because lone wolves are dangerous. They're desperate and could snatch a kid walking home from school. That's not likely or even that probable, but what they do do, is kill domestic animals. Wolf packs we don't have, because there isn't animals for them to hunt around here.
But you're saying that this is wrong, and that hunters should stop hunting completely, and we should let packs of wolves roam population centers in Europe? And you genuinely think that's somehow morally superior of an idea? You can't be that thick. You're about "reducing suffering", yet you think it's better to 1) have wolfpacks where wolfpacks have never existed and 2) that a deer dying to a wolf suffers less while being eaten alive than a deer killed by a single shot from a rifle that the deer doesn't even have time to hear before it hits?
By what logic?
Using bloodhounds in hunting has been banned for a long time because of its cruelty. But you're arguing that we should bring literal packs of wolves to population centers despite the obvious risks, and that you support this notion because you're about reducing suffering?
Again, these aren't a natural habitat for wolves. They're coursing predators, not fucking house cats. If you don't understand what that means, maybe you shouldn't be arguing about wolves? My nickname is pretty much "wolfie" by it's Finglish etymology and I've been a massive fan of wolves since the early 90's.
Do I agree that we've intruded on what is the natural habitat of wolfs? Sure. But again, I didn't do it. And mostly, neither did anyone alive right now. MOSTLY. As in, the whole of Europe used to be good hunting grounds for wolfpacks. But since humans came, they slowly either 1) became dogs or 2) went further away.
Wyaah. I dislike reality, I don't have any suggestions on what to do, but I demand you stop doing the things you're doing despite the obvious problems it will cause while solving nothing but a tiny portion of my angst towards death
Here kiddo, go and learn:
https://cornellbotanicgardens.org/conserve/deer/why-we-manage-deer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browsing_(herbivory)#Overbrowsing
sheesh I'm tired of having this exact same conversation everytime I point out how irrational veganism is, and you kids think you're gonna educate me when you don't even know the bare basics
Yes, I'm sure you keep eating meat out of concern for the sheep.
Veganism is objectively correct. The fact that it contains further ethical questions in certain extremely specific scenarios doesn't mean it isn't overwhelmingly the right action to take.
As for sheep? Animal refuges. If there aren't enough for all of them, that's on you fucking carnists. Vegans have certainly done their part funding them.
Animals dont need a fucking purpose in order to exist. Fucking moron. Sorry I might be grumpy right now.
I don't support the cruel industrial farming of animals. Yet I eat meat. Why do you think that's a contradiction? I support vegan products, but find veganism as a philosophy irrational. Also no contradiction.
"Animal refuges"? Oh you mean a large place for them to be in, somewhere where humans take care of them? And in these "refuges", would you torture the sheep by not caring for them, by not shearing them? Supposing you answer with the option that means you're not willfully torturing them, then is it morally wrong to use the wool you gain from that shearing?
You're pretending the world is black-and-white and it's hilarious.
You can't answer the hunting question either. You'd just argue it's unnecessary brutality. But if the deer population isn't kept in check by the hunters, both animals and humans would endure more suffering. So if you're against animal and human suffering, you have to be pro-population control of those animals. Because without, deer crashes with cars would increase, harming both animal and human, and overpopulation of deer would literally destroy the environment in which they live for a// animals.
But the answers I've gotten from vegans include for instance releasing wolves into population centers in areas which haven't had wolves for hundreds if not thousands of years. As if the wolves would 1) have an understanding of the amount of deer they need to cull or 2) would somehow kill the deer more humanely than a one-shot kill from a .308?
Your world view only works when you ignore a majority of what happens in the real world. You do realise that the produce you buy is also the product of animal suffering, as the farmers have to keep animals from eating their crop, and they don't follow "please don't eat these veggies dear rabbit/deer/bird, theyre for vegans" signs?
"You fucking carnists"
You think you're offending me, but you're really not. You're just showing how mad you are when your childish worldview is even slightly poked at. My own views are rock solid because I actually made them myself instead of just hopping to the nearest bandwagon.
So, are you for or against population control of deer? If you're against it, then you're indirectly for animal and human suffering increasing. If you're pro-population control, then you're probably also able to understand that you won't be able to use condoms for it, and the deer actually have to be culled.
And are you gonna torture the sheep in your "animal refuges" (please tell me what form these refuges take in which they're clearly distinct from farms? :D) and not shear them, or are you gonna ban the use of the wool that results from you helping them, because your ideology says so and you don't see a problem in just wasting a fuckton of materials because you've never lacked for anything in your cosy life?
bro, you have not gotten an answer because every vegan is tired of that question.
The answer is that you obviously shear the sheep, but don't force a migrant worker on minimum wage to do it for 12h a day with tight quotas. The problem isn't the suffering inflicted from sheep existing, but it's the current conditions where exploiting them is financially viable.
Take a look at vegan.bingo, I can guarantee whatever further questions you have are thoroughly answered there.
Kek, no. It's because veganism is not rational when you take it far enough.
No, they're not answered and you haven't answered either. So is it okay to use the wool that you get from sheep when you only care for the animal and not for the products you get from it?
You're pretending the world is black-and-white and it's hilarious.
You can't answer the hunting question either. You'd just argue it's unnecessary brutality. But if the deer population isn't kept in check by the hunters, both animals and humans would endure more suffering. So if you're against animal and human suffering, you have to be pro-population control of those animals. Because without, deer crashes with cars would increase, harming both animal and human, and overpopulation of deer would literally destroy the environment in which they live for all animals.
But the answers I've gotten from vegans include for instance releasing wolves into population centers in areas which haven't had wolves for hundreds if not thousands of years. As if the wolves would 1) have an understanding of the amount of deer they need to cull or 2) would somehow kill the deer more humanely than a one-shot kill from a .308?
Go on, show me you bingo-card, I'm itching to see what it says.