CortellIs jellyfish vegan?
After having kept jellyfish as pets (Atlantic bay nettles), I wouldn’t really consider them to be vegetarian nor vegan. While similar to plants, seemed to have a greater sense of environmental awareness than my plants. Mine could sense light, have “off days”, and interact with their environment. It’s probably true that there’s not much going on there due to the small amount of nerves that control everything, but even when mine would accidentally get caught on tank cleaning tools or get bumped around they’d react in a protective way and to me it’s just similar enough to animalistic behavior that I’d not feel comfortable consuming them if I were vegan.
So is this theory of veganism to not cause pain to an animal? If so what about ethically sourced meat. Like bullet to the head/decapitation. Most of those creatures feel nothing, they just end.
Or is it to not eat anything that comes from the an organism from the Animalia kingdom because harming animals is immoral?
After proofreading, these sound more aggressive/argumentative than i had intended but they get the point across.
Tywèle [she|her]Veganism means to reduce the suffering and exploitation of animals as much as practically possible.
There is nothing ethical about killing a living being that doesn’t want to die.
_finger_I thought it had less to do with suffering and exploitation (animals do this to each other, no way to stop that nor should we) but more to do with climate change. Cattle farms are causing massive climate change for instance.
It can be either or both. Whether other animals or people cause suffering to animals isn't a statement about whether it is ethical for people to do so (naturalistic fallacy).
In terms of strict definitions of what should or should not be eaten based on its suffering, I think that's much harder to do. There's always going to be some gray area. Plants respond to stimuli and try to protect themselves. Jellyfish and insects and cultures cells are on a spectrum where it may not be clear how to draw the line.
Humans are moral agents, though. Just because something happens in nature, that doesn’t make it okay. There are lots of examples of rape among wild animals, but that doesn’t make it okay for humans to do it.
A lot of vegans are concerned about climate change, too, but it’s really tangential to the philosophy. Veganism came out of the animal rights movement, so it’s really concerned with exploitation and suffering. If there were no environmental issues with animal products, vegans would still be vegans.
Morals are a social construct
Just because something is a social construct doesn’t mean it isn’t real or important.
ParsnipWitchThat’s no necessarily true. It’s like saying “society is a social construct”. But I think there are more arguments to see morality as an inevitable result to human nature.