Within Reason - #18 Ed Winters - Veganism Reconsidered

Episode Date: April 21, 2022

Ed Winters ("Earthling Ed") is a vegan educator, best-selling author, public speaker and content creator, widely known for his viral debates, speeches, and video essays. Ed was on the Cosmic Skeptic Podcast in 2019, making him the first guest to appear for a second time. He and Alex discuss the definition and nature of veganism, the limits of "practicability", the ethics of unnecessary vegan food, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Alex O'Connor, your host, and I'm joined today by the wonderful, the illustrious, the prolific Earthling Ed, real name Ed Winters and recent author of This is Vegan Propaganda and Other Lies that the meat industry tells you Ed, welcome back to the podcast.

Our first, I think, repeat guest on the podcast. I haven't done that many episodes but it's been quite a while since we last spoke. We spoke, I think, in 2019 and that was just after I gave up animal products

and so I was kind of new to the whole thing and it was a bit of an inquiry into the vegan position. I like to think I've learned a thing or two since then about this movement. I think you definitely have. But it's also raised quite a lot of questions about the specificities of veganism

and kind of particular questions about how we should go about advocating or living out of vegan lifestyle. But I think because of the fact that there will be people watching who haven't seen our first podcast and maybe are unfamiliar with your work, I think it would be a good place to start

to talk about veganism generally. I'm not going to do the story of how you became vegan because you've done that 100,000 times already. But what I do want to talk about is, in your view, to be clear with our terms, what veganism is, what it is that you're actually advocating people do, I guess like a definitional starting point.

So, yeah, welcome back. And I guess the first question is, what is veganism? Yeah, I mean, it's a simple question, but also a relatively complex question, I suppose, in terms of the context of how we live. Veganism, I guess the formal definition

is to live in a way that excludes as far as is possible and practicable the exploitation and use of animals, non-human animals. I suppose in tangible terms, that means eliminating some of the primary aspects of, you know, for which we exploit animals. So meat, dairy eggs, of course, clothing like leather, wool,

down, fur, and then obviously avoiding cosmetics tests on animals. And those are kind of like the broader, more obvious ones. But the definition, I suppose, you use that word specificity, which is a bit of a mouthful, right? And that's part of the interesting, I guess, nuance of this conversation.

And I know that maybe you had a couple of questions that we were going to dive into kind of more catered around that. But I think that there is this nuance which exists and to kind of go off on a really random tangent straight off the bat. A lot of things that people always say to me, you know, they'll say similar things.

And one of the things that I always hear from people is, you know, I suppose like, why do we have to be vegan? Like, what is this reason to be vegan now? And it comes down to that notion of choice. And so this notion of reducing as far as possible and practicable, I suppose, comes down to the fact that we have an option, which we haven't necessarily had in the past where we can be vegan now in a way that we weren't able to be 100 years ago, certainly not a thousand years ago, let's say. So that's where it becomes, I guess, a prevalent moral issue of our time because it is now possible and it is now. practicable in a way that it hasn't been before. Yes. I think the operative word in the definition of veganism that the vegan society uses and that you've alluded to there is practicable or possible, as you've put it also there. And one of the questions that I find most difficult to

answer when talking to people about veganism is what the bounds of practicability are. Because there's an interpretation which essentially says when you think of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, Or you think of people living in places on the planet right now where it's genuinely impossible to get vegetables. And we think, well, because it's not practical for them to be vegan, or at least it's not practical for them to remove animal products from their diet, it would be unfair to say everyone should be vegan, and to be vegan is to include something that some people can't do, right? But of course, there are situations in the world today where people might describe themselves as being in a position of it being quite impractical for them to go. vegan, but they're not talking about needing to rely on hunting and gathering. So imagine, for example, look, if I was giving a speaking tour, and maybe I'm even giving a speaking tour about

veganism. And so I spend a lot of my days on the train, traveling, and a lot of the time, the only place I'm able to get some food is at the train station or from a corner shop. And because I'm traveling for so long, it transpires that if I were to eat entirely vegan food, the whole time I was on that tour, I wouldn't be able to sustain my nutritional requirements. Maybe even if I was taking a multi-vit, even if I brought some hule along with me, you know. A situation like that, it doesn't seem like the kind of crazy, extreme type of situation that we'd usually say somebody is justified in eating a pig or a cow, but it does seem like it's perhaps worthy of a label of impractical or impracticable.

I don't know what you think about a situation like that. Well, I mean, I've been in a situation. it depends, obviously there's degrees. Now I've been in situations where I've done speeches or I've been to areas where there is limited to no vegan food available. And you really are kind of scraping the barrel to find something. But by and large, it's always workable. And I've never, I've never felt that I needed to, to not eat something that was plant-based in those moments. Now, I think we have to look at there is, you know, there are these degrees that we have. And so often people say to me, look, you know, it isn't realistic to expect everyone to go

vegan. And I think it's absolutely fine to admit that that's true. In fact, it's important because the last thing we want to seem is dogmatic or ideologically naive. And, you know, I would say that for a significant number of people in the world, there isn't the options that we have. And you can maybe even make the argument that, I mean, I don't know, I don't know if I could say majority, but there's definitely a significant number of people where it's, it's not possible. And I think what the roadblock we run into sometimes is people can be disingenuous and they can apply that knowledge of it not being possible for everyone and then apply it to themselves as a way of trying to detract from their own personal responsibility and so what

I mean by that is it would be easy in a situation where it's difficult to then say well not everyone has to be or it's not always going to be possible so therefore I'm not going to push myself as much as I could in this moment and I think the situation you're describing is one way it might being convenient, but probably doesn't make it justifiable to buy something else and potentially you could have prepared a bit more earlier in advance or stocked up somewhere where you knew there was an option available. Yeah, I guess you could say that if there is an injustice somewhere in here, it's in the fact that you didn't prepare properly when you embark on the speaking tour. I wonder like if somebody were looking for advice in a specific situation as to what

the kinds of things they're looking for in order to judge whether something is actually practical or not. I mean, imagine if you were on holiday and Rome and you don't really know the area very well and you're off to see the Vatican in like an hour's time or something and you've got your booking. And you're looking for somewhere to eat because you're very hungry and you find a place but because you're in Rome,

everyone was doing fresh pasta and it's all got egg in it, right? So you sit down and everything has egg. And in theory, you could stand up, look around like just walk and walk and walk until you find somewhere that will serve your food that doesn't have any animal products in it

you're probably there, if you do that, going to miss the booking, you're not going to get to go to the Vatican. It's going to mess you up quite a lot. You're going to have to walk around quite a lot. It's going to inconvenience all of your friends, this kind of stuff. And sure, maybe you should have planned better, but in this case, you didn't. So a person decides, you know what, I'm just going to eat the egg pasta. Do you think that they've committed an injustice in that situation? Yes. You could just not eat for a couple of hours. You know, none of us in a situation where the skipping of one meal is going to have a huge detrimental impact on our health unless of course we have diabetes or some sort of um medical condition that that means that we

need to you know constantly eat or make sure that we have regulated blood sugar so for the for the average person i would say no but for the for the diabetic for example because they would expect to be in a situation such as this i suppose that's true but like i guess in the in the abstract here yeah that would be justifiable if perhaps the reason well even if they did not plan even if it was like their fault that they hadn't planned. It's still in a situation where there's a medical requirement to eat this food and I think that would count as the kind of thing. Probably I mean a medical requirement. Yeah, when it comes down to an issue of health, you know, it becomes, it becomes different. Let's, you know, let's say you're taking a medication. You had to take a medication. That medication

has been tested on animals. So, you know, you could justify taking that medication because it's a matter of health. And so if you're in a situation, you need, you know, whatever is happening with your blood sugar I need something to eat and, you know, the only option you have is that egg pasta that's in front of you, otherwise you're going to pass out and potentially harm yourself, then you could find a justifiable reasoning in there to eat the egg pasta. But for the everyday person who doesn't need to eat, you know, at these regimented times and who could skip a meal or be an inconvenience and run off or even the worst thing in the world missed the booking for the Vatican, you know, I think that that's a punishment that is, you know,

is a worthwhile punishment based on the fact that it's your own, I suppose, disregard that has put you in this situation to begin with? I mean, there are a few things to whine out there. I mean, there's the consideration that buying that particular piece of pasta isn't going to contribute largely, but I think we're both on the same page as to why that would still potentially be wrong. I wonder, like, not to sound a bit kind of facetious, but I mean, you talk about health, and I think a common vegan talking point is when somebody says it's understanding,

unhealthy to be vegan. The answer is to say, no, it's not, it is healthy to be vegan. And that's why you have an obligation to do so. The corollary seems to be that if it were unhealthy, we'd have an obligation, or not an obligation, a permissibility to eat animal products. The issue I have with this is that health seems like quite an ill-defined term, because of course, we can think about somebody being a diabetic, we can think about somebody starving, we can think about these kinds of things. But I don't know. I mean, if by going vegan, you became three foot shorter, you know, something like that. Maybe you're a basketball player. Maybe this is something that's very important to you. Is that the kind of like health requirement that could be taken into

consideration? It's a great question, isn't it? I think about this often. And I try and work out if, let's say, the reality was reversed. And let's say that being vegan increased your risk of getting colon cancer or being vegan increased your risk of having a stroke or, you know, having diabetes. How much of an increase would it need to be to make it justifiable to not be vegan? You know, 10% increase, 20%? I have no idea. Let's say that being vegan cut five years off your average lifespan, would that make it something that you wouldn't need to do now? I mean, it's easy to sit in the position we're in because that's not a risk. So it's easy for me to kind of theorize that, no, that would still not make it morally justified to factory

farm these animals and cause all of this suffering. But, in that situation where this, where the reality was reversed, who knows what we would say? I actually don't know. But I think it's an interesting because there has to be some health repercussions that would be acceptable, you know, some health repercussions that would make it still immoral to consume animal products. But the opposite is true as well. There must be a limit to what is permissible from a health perspective before it becomes justified to do what we do. And I'm not sure where that line is. Yeah. What do you think? Well, I don't know. It's actually, it's one of the reasons why I wanted to raise it with you because, of course, in practice, if somebody's asking you

for advice, you can say, well, look, let's look at your situation and let's just see what our intuitions scream at us. But when you're talking in the abstract, when you're talking just making a philosophical case for veganism, and somebody asks, well, look, in principle, what does this word practicability mean? Because I make quite a, I put quite a lot of emphasis on the fact that veganism involves this essence of practicability. And actually, I wonder if you agree with me on this. So because the definition of veganism that I use is a minimization of, and you know, maybe it's suffering, maybe it's exploitation, that varies too, but to the highest extent practicable, if you have somebody like who's living in Northern Canada and they

genuinely, it's too expensive for them to import vegetables and so it is actually impracticable, or maybe they're the diabetic in the situation that we spoke about. And so this person eats animals, but they're eating as little as they practically can. Is that person a vegan? Well, the way I see it is, I think it's important that we have veganism as a clear definition. I think when we lose the definition of veganism or it becomes diluted, it starts to lose its meaning. And so I guess what I mean by that is I wouldn't say those people are vegan, but what I would say is they're morally justified in not being vegan. So I think that there's a difference. So I think that we should keep veganism as being what it means.

But then at the same time, understand that you can be a moral person and not be vegan in these. situations which were maybe alluding to right now. Is there not a potential contradiction lurking here in that if we define veganism as a minimisation to the highest extent practicable of animal suffering in death, and then you meet somebody who is eating animals, but they are minimizing animal suffering and death to the highest extent practicable, and you say, well, I don't want to call them a vegan, but isn't that the definition of veganism that we're working with? Because I agree with you that it can be a bit unhelpful sometimes, a bit unclear to say that, yes, an living in Northern Canada eating animals that they hunt is a vegan.

Yeah. But I think if we don't do something like that, it might come at the cost of our consistency in the definition. Well, potentially so. And I think you do raise a valid point, which is that both our definitions, you can argue that none of us are vegan or, you know, more than just, you know, more people are vegan than maybe it seems obvious through, kind of like this situation you're describing now and I think there probably is the argument that there is some inconsistency there but at the same time I think that we do run the risk of losing this meaning of what being vegan means and I and I would argue that probably the Inuit living in North American or the northern parts of America probably doesn't really care

too much about this this term vegan and it's not something they particularly are interested in having as part of their identity yes and so I feel like maybe we run the risk of diluting it for a reason that's not even even that important yeah it's essentially a terminological dispute right i mean this is something that happens a lot in the discussion around religion and atheism there's this huge debate about whether an atheist is someone who believes there is no god or if an atheist is someone who doesn't believe that there is a god and people they they lose friends over this kind of stuff but it essentially it's just a definition i think what we're interested in is correct or justifiable action rather than calling yourself the

the most appropriate thing. But, so you talked about this idea of like, well, maybe none of us are vegan by a particular definition or maybe like we need to define veganism, at least if a person is vegan, let's say, what that means is that that person doesn't eat animal products, something like this, right? But there's a, there's a question which I briefly mentioned to you at one point before. I think I've messaged you about it. And I wonder if you have any thoughts on this. And that is the question of eating non-essential vegan food.

Because as anybody who's kind of had a bit of familiarity with the vegan discussion will be aware, animals are killed in crop production. Like, vegans are responsible for killing animals too. And when somebody brings this up as a problem, you have a whole video on this, the big question that vegans can't answer, something like this. The answer is to say, well, look, I mean, far less crops are used to feed a human being. than it used to feed livestock. And so if we eat the crops directly,

then we kill less animals in crop production. But if animals die in plant-based agriculture to produce things like vegan chocolate, or vegan cakes, that is non-essential vegan food, then by eating those products, we are buying food that directly contributes towards the death and suffering of animals

that we don't need to be doing. So it seems to me like there, we are contributing unnecessarily to the suffering and death of animals, which doesn't seem like a very vegan thing to do. Yeah. Well, it's an over-consumption issue, isn't it? And I think that whether it's foods, clothing, whatever it might, whatever it may be, we have an issue, broadly speaking, in society where we consume too much of most things, right? And so when it comes to this idea of,

you know, what is not essential, I guess it first, it's quite hard to determine what is essential. Now, we could take essential as just meaning, you know, two and a half thousand calories a day, making sure you hit your nutrient allowance. And then you could make the argument, well, If I've hit my nutrient allowance, or my nutrient, you know, goals with 2,000 calories, well, I've got 500 calories spare, having a piece of chocolate cake or whatever it may be, could be classified as essential because I need those extra calories. So I don't think it's, it seemed maybe that the line you were drawing was between, like, healthy and unhealthy, and you're using, like, unhealthy as being non-essential.

But unhealthy doesn't have to be non-essential. A lot of people rely on unhealthy foods to meet their caloric intake. So I think it's just more about an over-consumption issue, and we shouldn't be consuming above and beyond. what we need because then we have health problems as well. And that obviously brings about a huge problem to society and to individual health. So I think it's just more about being responsible and not over-consuming what we should be consuming anyway. And that would somewhat alleviate that problem. I think that makes sense. We could potentially draw out a more specific answer by looking

at a problem case. Like we have a situation in which a person has a choice for whatever reason to to either eat and if one product doesn't do it let's say they have to do it every day for the whole week or something they're eating vegan food and they know that a certain number of animals are being killed in crop production in order to produce that food and it's probably like a few

it's not just like one right but they do have the opportunity because of where they live to maybe go hunting or maybe you know they have a neighbor who has chickens in their in their back garden this kind of thing and so still things that we see as morally problematic if we don't need to do them, but faced with the choice between killing that one animal and eating the animal

and eating the vegan alternative, which is killing more animals and crop production. And I don't think this is always the case, of course, because in like factory farming, far more crops are used. But if a person were in a situation where they eat a bit of chicken or a bit of steak or a bit of elk, whatever, and it kills less animals than eating a vegan alternative that kills more animals and crop production, what's the correct thing to do? And I guess separately, what's the vegan thing to do? And are they the same thing?

Well, I mean, to kind of just go briefly back, back to the original question we're discussing, I think that the benefit of, you know, supporting plant-based agriculture now is where demanding that plant-based agriculture become more efficient, become more ethical. You know, when we look at things like vertical farming or kind of more regenerative systems of plant-based agriculture that are focused, you know, less on efficiency of production, but more in sustainability and morality of production, I think that those advancements will be driven from this demand for these plant-based foods.

And I think that the risk we have is by, I guess, normalizing the consumption of animal products, we are less likely to pursue a more preferable system of plant-based production. There was a paper actually on crop deaths, and Joe Rogan cited, in that video you referenced of mine, I speak about this paper.

And the paper basically starts by saying that they estimate about 7.2 billion animals are killed in crop production annually. But the conclusion of the paper is that actually in the future, it should be possible to produce plants without killing any animals through things like vertical farming systems. And so I think what we should be doing is supporting plant-based agriculture with an eye to the future, wherein that future which we can create would be a future that is focused on reducing crop deaths as well, because hopefully as we move more into a vegan society, we will look to produce plants in a way that is more in harmony with the morality and beliefs around veganism. But I don't want to dodge your question.

To come back to the question that you're alluding to, let's say with backyard eggs, for example, you know, there is probably a situation where you can justify consuming backyard eggs and not have too much of a moral problem with that. But with this specific thing we're talking about, those hens will be fed something. and they'll be fed chicken feed,

which is, of course, something that's grown and harvested and the same problems exist. But with the hunting one, I think what's interesting there is, I suppose there's a couple of ways of looking at it. The first is when we talk about food systems, I suppose the word system heavily implies

a form of production that can feed the masses. You know, hunting obviously can't. So if we separate hunting into kind of individual, I guess, damage, but in societal harm as well, From a societal perspective, the notion of hunting being a food system obviously doesn't work. You know, we can't feed everyone with a system of hunting, because if you want to do canned hunting, which is where they breed animals in these kind of contain zones, that doesn't work because

you're still feeding them something. But even with kind of truly wild animals, let's look at the US. There's 30 million deer, 360 million people thereabouts. So you can't feed everyone with the hunting system, and actually the ecological damage of doing so, it would be catastrophic. So that doesn't work. So we still should be preferring a plant-based food system, or kind of lending more credibility, I suppose, and validity to a plant-based food system. But I suppose from an individual perspective, what becomes interesting to me is the hunting argument, or I guess the moral aspect of the hunting argument often

comes down to things like, you know, what we're talking about now, we've crop production deaths, but also, I suppose, the idea that there is too many deer. or too many of moose or elk and it's actually morally preferable to hunt them because it reduces the risk of starvation and reduces the risk of dying from horrible disease which obviously happens to wild animals

I guess the main problem with that is hunters are killing animals in their prime you know in nature there is kind of like a system of checks and balances where the weaker the older animals are the ones who were taken by the predators because they don't have the legs to be able to run as fast as they used to

to be able to, you know, they don't have the stamina to be able to evade danger. And so I think, you know, the moral argument, I think, only has credibility when you have hunters who are specifically looking for weak animals or ill animals or very old animals and looking to kind of like, I suppose, hunt in that way. But that's not the situation we have. You know, these are very healthy animals, the big stags or the big antlers. And so actually that is robbing an animal of a life which, you know, from a natural perspective, would be much long. longer than it would have been if they had been hunted. So I think that's potentially when when the moral aspects of hunting becomes

slightly tenuous is the argumentation that's used, I don't think actually plays out in the actions they partaken. It's like a reverse natural selection. Instead of the survival of the fittest, it's the exact opposite. It's survival of the weakest because hunters are picking off the strong and well-suited. It's quite disastrous to the ecosystem. I mean, what's fascinating is they've seen in certain species of

animals that genetic traits have gone in the opposite direction of what you'd expect. So their horns have become smaller because it's seen as less desirable. So evolution has taken over in a different way where it's trying to stop these animals from looking or being as desirable as they would have been, you know, if evolution had continued in the path, the linear path it would have done. And it's interesting when one of the, when you consider the element of people liking to claim that this stuff is natural, like, well, in many ways it's not just unnatural. It's exactly unnatural. It's the exact opposite of what a process of natural selection

would be doing. Not of course that nature would be a good thing to appeal to when trying to judge our ethical conduct anyway. I guess I'm interested in seeing what your principled position is here, just to kind of round up this particular problem, which is, I guess, is it always the that the action you take that results in the least amount of animal suffering and or death is the vegan action or are there situations in which you could potentially, at least in principle, be responsible for more animal death and suffering, but be vegan. This is, I guess, the problem. I guess it's kind of an objection to this idea of defining people as vegan only if they don't eat animal products, is that if there happened to arise a situation in which it genuinely were the case that by eating, an egg, eating a bit of chicken, something like this, it contributed to less animal suffering than eating some kind of vegan alternative did. And you're right that maybe we should be eating

in such a way as to vote for the future that we want, right? But in the situation that that person is in right there in that particular decision, is it the case that a person can kind of kill more animals and say it's the more vegan thing to do? Because for me, that just seems a little strange. It seems counterintuitive, right? I'm hesitant to make a declaration one way or the other.

I'm hesitant to make the declaration in saying that that is not true because I think it can be dangerous to have definitive opinions on something when it's hard to be able to categorically state why that would be the case, if you know what I mean. Now, I guess theoretically, if it was that, let's say, harming this one chicken meant that 10 fewer chickens were killed overall, I guess a kind of utilitarian perspective would say that that was the preferable thing to do. But I guess I'm not sure where that situation necessarily exists.

Even with the case of hunting, you know, you kill one elk. Hunters will make the claim, well, you know, that elk feeds me for a year. And that may well be true, but it's also not the only food you're consuming. Yes. So I guess theoretically, if you, you know, if being a carnivore was this healthy, amazing thing to do and killing one elk fed you for an entire year. year, well, maybe there's some argument there, but that's just not the reality that we live in. So, I don't think, I can't think of a tangible example which necessarily subscribes to what

you were asking. Yes. Do you have any? I don't have any that I would confidently say, yeah, I know that this results in less suffering. I think the reason why it's useful to talk about it is because a lot of the time people make an argument that there's some particular form of vegan action that actually kills more animals, you know, eating plants kills more animals, this kind of thing. And there are two discussions to have about that. The first is to say, like, yes, it does or no, it doesn't. The second is to say, well, if it does, or if it doesn't, does that matter in terms of what our practice should be? It seems to me that, like, I would agree with you than the vast majority of cases, at least. It is actually the case that being a vegan is going to harm less

animals. That's kind of our thing. But I would quite trivially, in my view, accept the conditional that if a particular action results in less animal suffering and death, that is just going to be the right course to take. And so I agree with you that it seems like you're implying that maybe you agree with me there that conditionally it would be the case if it caused more animal suffering, that that would be the wrong thing to do. But because that never materializes, it kind of doesn't matter. Well, I think it would be, I think it would be strange to say that the reason where vegan is to reduce animal suffering, but then take the approach that abiding by, I suppose, a definition or a concept of what being a vegan means more generically, I don't think that

that should be more important than actually abiding by the philosophy of reducing suffering. Right. You know, if I, because then we're, we're using veganism as an identity and we're, We're saying that that identity is more, you know, important than the actual philosophy behind it. So I think theoretically, yes, that there is an argument that could be made there, which it feels weird to say, but, you know, we do live in an imperfect world. And so even with most moral discussions, there are nuances and situations that don't neatly fit into where we'd like them to fit. So I guess theoretically what you're saying is probably true. but of course in real terms we would agree that the vast majority of cases at least the ones that we partake in every single day the choices that we have it's it's relatively clear cut

what does cause or reduce suffering the most I think one thing I think is interesting actually and one thing that I think we need more transparency over with with food in general is the production of food and I guess what I mean by that is there are obviously some foods plant foods that are going to cause more suffering than others you know take iceberg lettuce for example. I mean, iceberg lettuce has next to no calories. Nutritionally is rubbish. So what's the benefit of eating iceberg lettuce? Because if animals are dying in the production of iceberg lettuce, but it also offers us as humans basically nothing, even from a flavor perspective, I mean, what even, you know, it doesn't offer anything. But morally, why would we produce that?

So really, I suppose, what would be interesting is looking at the caloric and nutritional density of foods and then making decisions around that, you know, opting to consume things. like brown rice, for example, or, you know, kale because they're very nutritionally dense foods over foods that are less nutritionally dense because that way we can get more, but also reduce suffering overall. So I guess what I'm saying is that we should probably look towards in the future the different plant foods and this scale of suffering they cause. You know, for example, foods grown on trees require less fertilizers, of course. You know, you don't have animals been harmed during the harvesting because you're just plucking avocados or apples or oranges from trees. So morally speaking,

that is probably preferable to a food that's grown in the ground and is churned up using a combined harvester. So I think that there is an interesting discussion there about, you know, how we should segregate plant foods and the morality of certain plant foods, because it seems fairly obvious to me that they're not all equal when it comes to, you know, the morality of the consumption. That's interesting. It's, I can imagine in a world where there were no animal agriculture directly, but animals were still killed in crop production, maybe the equivalent of us would be people who are trying to raise awareness for this thing that they might call veganism, which is, you know, the exclusion of animal suffering. So only eat those foods that don't cause animal death. They'd be

advocating the same thing as we are right now. But instead of, you know, don't force a pig into a gas chamber, it's like don't use a combine harvester. You're right, there's kind of like a second order discussion about reducing animal suffering in even plant-based agriculture. And I do want to talk about the methods involved, because one of the things that I think your book is most useful for, especially for someone like me, is that you have a chapter, the third chapter, quite a chunky one in which you basically just describe quite dispassionately, you just explain what's actually happening to animals and factory farms. And it's like you don't even really need to make an argument as to why we should end it. It's kind of self-evident to anyone who reads

it. I don't want to talk about that, but just beforehand, you've mentioned reducing suffering a few times now. And I wonder, is that the vague principle that you're, you're, you know, trying to live by here, reducing suffering. I guess the main debate that I'm trying to poke at here is between the consequentialists who think that we should reduce suffering and the deontologists who think that people have rights and animals have rights that are inviolable, even if it's going to cause less suffering.

They have a right to something that you can't violate. I wonder what you're more kind of in line with. But the problem I have, I suppose, with that idea is both seem inherently flawed. You know, there seems to be fairly obvious logical inconsistencies with both. I mean, obviously, if you had to choose between killing 10 people and killing one person, killing one person would be morally preferable. But at the same time, if the objective is to reduce suffering, how far do you take that? You know, I suppose, I suppose I use the phrase in reduced suffering.

And I guess that is probably the principle I line with more. I don't think that there is anything categorically or always, well, there are some things. But I think by and large, most moral issues, there are situations where they could become justified. So I don't think it's very easy to say that everything is always categorically wrong. Yeah. Because there's probably always some hypothetical that you can think of where the action would be justified. So I think reducing suffering is probably the principle I live more in alignment with. But the question always is how far do you take that?

because, you know, if we wanted to reduce suffering the most, then non-existence would be the furthest reduction of suffering possible. But I don't advocate for eugenics. You know, I don't advocate for, you know, the elimination of life, because the elimination of life would be the elimination of suffering. But that seems to be the logical conclusion to this pursuit of reducing suffering as much as is possible. Yeah, interesting. I mean, a lot of people for that reason think that veganism of a kind, certainly consequentialist veganism, would entail, for instance, anti-natalism. Right, yes. It's immoral to have children because of the suffering that you're inflicting upon these beings. And the way to minimize suffering in the most, let's say,

reliable way would be to stop having children. I'm sure people would be interested in your views on that, but that's not, as you say, that's not something you advocate for. I think it'd be almost unfair to press you on that right now. But I think it would be interesting to see if you're thinking, let's say, consistently in terms of which moral principle you use with humans and animals. So a common consequentialist problem is to say, as you say, if you have to kill one person or kill five people on the famous trolley tracks, you probably want to kill the one instead of the five. And yet you can't harvest one person's organs in order to save the five, right? And so this is fairly well-trodden material, yet in an animal context, I wonder if you'd think the same. So if you have to

kill one pig or five pigs, we'd probably want to kill one pig. Yeah. But if you had the opportunity to harvest one pig's organs in order to save five other pigs, do you think there's a difference here and that that might actually be okay? Or would you say similarly like the human case? No, that pig has a right to not be to be violated in that way and so we'll let the five die. It's a really good question. I guess, so I suppose of a human term, you would say it's not morally justified to to find a homeless person who has no family, no social connections, and harvest their organs to save five other humans who have, you know, big families and, you know, have all of these, you know, wonderful connections in life.

You would still say that was wrong, right? Well, at least I believe that to be the case. So I guess it comes down to that notion of intrinsic worth, doesn't it, an intrinsic rights and value. Yeah, so this is where we seem to align more with the rights position, at least in a human context. And this is why, so I made a video not long ago in which, I ruffled a few feathers, if you'll pardon the dying metaphor.

Because I said that I'm not sure I can commit myself to the view that animals, non-human animals, have a right to life, at least in the same way that humans do. And I guess the reason for that is I thought, well, why is it that we would think it's wrong to kill the homeless person with no friends and family? well maybe it's because they just have an inviolable claim not to be killed unnecessarily or something like that you know and you make exceptions for self-defense and this kind of stuff so unnecessarily killing them they just have a right not to have that done even if it doesn't have an effect on suffering you just have a right to this and so I can't kill the homesperson but equally if the only way for me to feed myself were to kill another human being to either steal their food or eat their flesh or something if that were the only way that I were able to feed

myself, I think this right-to-life idea says that I can't do that to a human. I can't go and kill a human to steal food from their pantry so that I can feed myself, even if I need to in order to survive, because they have a right. The issue is that if we say that animals have a similar right to life, then, well, if I can't kill a human being to feed myself, even when it's necessary to do so, why do I have the right to buy vegan food that involves animal death, to feed myself. Because, of course, it's necessary for me to eat something, but if the only way I can eat, at least as things stand right now, because you're right, like it's a contingent problem, one day this won't be an issue. But today, if an animal has a right to life, we could

say, well, we wish we lived in a world where that didn't need to be violated in order for me to eat, but it stands that today you do need to violate that right, potentially, I might be wrong about that, in order to feed yourself. And it seems to me that if we were to attribute the same right to life to those non-humans, we'd be in big trouble, we'd have to starve ourselves. And if we want to say that we can't kill the human to feed ourselves, but we can kill the rodents to feed ourselves, we're committed to either, well, we're committed to the view then that these animals don't have a right to life in the way the humans do. But I suppose the question is, on what grounds would it be immoral to harm a human if you had to to survive? Because if humans have a right to life,

then that also applies to yourself. So you're, you are, I suppose, giving away, your rights to honour the rights of someone else. Yeah, there's a whole body of literature on the philosophy of rights and I think, so for instance, a distinction you might make is that the right to life is not a life to have your, it's not a right to have your life preserved at all costs, right? It's not like you don't have

the right, you don't have a claim upon other people that they must do everything they can to keep you alive in all circumstances. It's more like you have a right for them not to kill you. So going and eating food is more like a kind of preservation thing. It's like, well, the life that I'm kind of preserving here is not, I'm not stopping something from killing me. I'm kind of keeping myself going, whereas to go and kill somebody for food is something that you do. There might be a difference there. I'm not really sure.

I guess I'm just interested in what your intuitions say, because it seems to me, you're right that, like, sometimes we want to appeal to suffering. Sometimes we want to appeal to right to life. And it seems to me that underlying all of this is essentially intuition. We just say, well, let's think of this particular situation. let's see how we'd compare it to analogous situations and just see what our intuitions say and I just wonder what you think there do you think animals have like an inviolable right to life

in the same way that humans do? I don't know if humans have that inviolable, is that the word you used? Yes. I don't think, I don't even know if we do. Let's say for example, you know, on the table there is some food. You and I are in a similar situation. We both need that food.

I think we would be morally justified to kill each other to get that food. I don't think that we would have an obligation, morally speaking, to back off and say, no, you have the food and I'll die. Right. So I'm not sure if I even subscribe to the idea that humans have that. And in a situation of, I guess, necessity for one's own survival, I think you could justify doing that. Yeah. So I think that that's probably where that probably makes it a little bit more consistent, to have the view of animals that I do have.

I just don't think that there is anything like intrinsic rights for anyone. I mean, who ordains that, who grants that? Why do we have that other than the fact that we are humans? And so we believe ourselves to possess something that other animals don't have. But sure, that's just coming from a place of ego rather than anything more objective. Yes. So this would be the other prong of the forks. Because if you have this issue that I said you're basically committed to a view, but you're not,

there are kind of two options here. You can either say, okay, non-humans don't have a right to life in humans too. Or you can say, well, I guess no one has an inviolable right. then. I mean, for what it's worth, I think that the two ways around this problem that rights theorists will take is some of them say what you seem to be implying, which is that actually, if there are such things as rights, sometimes they can be overridden. Sometimes they just can be violated ethically. Others will say, no, like the definition of a right is that it cannot be violated, but they, it's a view called specificationism where they say that the right to life

It's just a shorthand for what the actual right itself is like this kind of book length, highly specified, like exact conditions and stuff. And it seems intuitive, actually. It's like when a case goes to the court, when you have two rights in conflict and the courts decide what they think is right and said a legal precedent, like I guess they would interpret that as discovering the next kind of little qualification in the rights. But I think you're right that you're being consistent by just saying that humans don't have that right either. I think that's fine that the issue is with that if you're saying that

well no one actually has a right to life maybe the reason we talk about rights is because it's like a useful concept to act more morally to reduce more suffering, this kind of thing. The issue you then have is obviously have the rather large problem of why is it wrong to kill the homeless person with no friends

but I guess more relevantly why is it wrong to kill the pig with no friends? I guess I guess I guess the way I feel about it is maybe I'm taking the stance of I don't believe that there's any

God-given rights that we have that we don't have any rights just by the virtue of being a human or being a pig or being a cow but the fact that being a human being a pig being a cow means that we have certain characteristics and capacities and so the right

to have a life with as far as possible and practical the avoidance of exploitation and pain comes from the sentience that we possess. So I guess the, to go back to what you were saying about animals and, you know, if animals have the right to life, therefore we would have to starve, I guess my views are that the levels of sentience animals have somewhat determines the rights that they should have. So for an example, if we take a chicken and a human, a human in a situation we had to choose between one or the other would have more moral worth or more right to life because of their increased

sentience, but a chicken or an aphid or a chicken and an ant. You know, you would choose the chicken because the chicken has an increased sense of sentience and capacity to experience. So I guess that's why I think that the moral wrong comes from is the capacities that we have as individuals, human or non-human, that grants us the right to not have these things happen to us rather than anything that's kind of like intrinsically given to us. Right. I'm interested in this question of relative levels of sentience and how it affects our moral assessment of different animals. Because I actually have a quote from your book, which I noted down because I wanted to ask you about it, where you said, quote, favouring one's own species in a situation where you had to

choose between saving a member of your own species or a different one could, of course, be morally justified, said quite confidently. And I was going to ask you about that, and it seems like you've preempted that by answering that the reason why that's the case is because we have a higher level of sentience. Yes. So it's not got something to do with the right to put oneself first or something like that. It's just because we have a a higher capacity for feeling pain or something like this. Not just the sensation of pain, but I guess the consequence of what that death would mean to others. So, you know, if you or I were to die, that the suffering that would presumably cause would be, would extend further than just the individual experience we have of that death, but have gone to our friends, our family, the people within our lives. And so I guess that the, the suffering caused by the death of a human is presumably not just worse for the individual, but also is further reaching than just that individual human.

You know, I guess let's say you have a situation where it's your own companion animal dog, for example, and a human you've never met, who you never will me, who's on the other side of the world, you know, I guess quite naturally we would want to save our dog because we have a connection with the dog, but from a moral perspective, it would probably, at least using the logic that I've adhered to to this point, you would opt to save the human on the other side of the world you've never met because of these things, I guess, we're discussing now. Yeah.

Are you ever worried or suspicious of the fact that, though we like to talk about chickens having less sentience or something like this, sometimes I worry if we can be so confident about this. I mean, as Peter Singer observes, animal liberation, which is the, I should say, the second best book on veganism currently available in print. He says, well, look, we accept that a hawk's eyesight is far more acute and intense than we're even capable of imagining. Why? Well, because evolutionarily, it makes sense for these creatures to be more sense-dependent. Dogs experience smell far more intensely and acutely

than we're even capable of imagining, because evolutionarily they have good reason to. Human beings evolved rationality, reason. And on an evolutionary picture, the reason for that would be because it helps them to survive. So we can avoid those things that harm us, not just by touching it and going out, but also by our reason to say, well, we know from memory, we know that this kind of thing leads to this and we should avoid it. That's why it's there. In other words, because we have rationality evolutionarily, we need to rely less on our crude sensory experience. So if these other animals are actually more reliant upon their senses and less reliant on their rationality, then maybe the very thing that we're trying to use to say they feel less pain,

which is that they have a lower intellectual capacity or something like that, actually means that experientially, just as a dog experiences smell more strongly than we do, maybe they experience pain more strongly than we do. I wonder what you think of that, and the conditional of if that were the case, if we somehow proved it, would you therefore say that a chicken has more moral worth? than a human. I've used this argument before about pain. And I guess what I, when I'm discussing this, I don't necessarily mean that the capacity to feel pain is, is potentially more prevalent in humans. I think there's a very reasonable and logical case that actually

humans have the capacity to experience pain less than than other animals. Because I think our cognition allows us to psychologically distance ourselves from the experience, we can distract ourselves with thought we are understanding or we have an awareness that pain will end even if that means death we we know that it isn't an internal feeling you know that have some sort of have some sort of end points and i guess an animal who maybe doesn't have an awareness of death or obviously doesn't know about painkillers or maybe um because of their cognition lives more in the moment is more kind of focused because evolutionary you know they're pre-animal and you know they have to be in the zone ready kind of you know hyper aware of what's around them there is probably the argument that they

experience pain more because psychologically speaking there's an extra element of fear that comes with not knowing if it will end the inability to distance oneself psychologically from the experience you're having could potentially mean that you're trapped in that sensation the way that you and I as humans potentially have the luxury of avoiding it you know as severely yeah so actually I think there is a good case that non-human animals can experience pain more than we can or at least you know that the the isolated feeling of pain in a specific moment moment, you know, there's different types of pain, emotional pain of such, of course. So I guess it's not so much about the pain, but I guess it's more about the sentience in

other ways. I suppose the ability to fear death, the ability to have an awareness of what will be lost, you know, things that maybe we as humans have an increased ability to understand and rationalize. Those things create a life that is, I don't want to use this phrasing, but I guess this is where I'm going to, kind of quote, quote, more worth living because the ability to gain something from it and the ability to experience, you know, is probably more prevalent in a human than within other animals. And I, and I feel a bit, I don't really like what I'm saying, because it feels a little bit like I'm degrading non-human animals more than I would like to. Yeah. And I'm, I'm always very wary of placing humans on some sort of pedestal

because I think for the most part is somewhat unwarranted. But I guess inadvertently, by creating a hierarchy of sentience, I'm, I'm doing that as a natural, as a natural, as a natural thing. thing, which leaves me feeling, I suppose, a little bit conflicted about, but again, it comes down to what we were saying earlier about veganism and the reduction of suffering. And is it more important to be philosophically right, or at least not philosophically, but at least logically right or ideologically motivated? You know, because ideologically, it would be very simple for me to say, no, all animals are, you know, the same right to life as a human, because ideologically, that fits more in the philosophy of being vegan. But maybe realistically, there is, of course, somewhat more

of a worth of life hierarchy, if you like. Yeah. But maybe, just to kind of finish the point, maybe there isn't so much of a distinction between humans and cows and humans and whales, of course. The distinction more is between humans and insects and crop farming, or humans and say plant life, which of course, you know, plants are alive, but are not sentient in any way that we recognize has been morally relevant.

So I guess the differentiation in that hierarchy is less about where humans come to the animals we consume, where humans come to the animals we, you know, kill in the production of crops, let's say. Yeah, I guess the reason people would be interested in this question is because it leads to a quite strange conclusion, potentially. And there may be ways of avoiding this by appealing to higher and lower pleasures, as John Stuart Mill had them, the idea that there's just this kind of categorical difference in experience between, like, crude physical pain and, like, the experience of worrying about your taxes.

or fearing death or enjoying an opera. Interestingly, Mill opens utilitarianism, the essay, by responding to the criticism because he'd previously advocated for utilitarianism, and it was seen as just a pleasure-pane balance. And the criticism, believed to come from Thomas Carlyle, was that it was, quote, a pig philosophy because of the fact that if it's all about pleasure and pain,

then a pig's pleasure is worth no more than a... or no less than a human's pleasure, And that's ridiculous. And so Mill responds to this by saying, no, no, because, oh, we have higher pleasures and lower pleasures and they only experience the lower pleasures and this kind of thing. But interestingly, like, you know, had he had a bit more prescience on this matter, he might have been like, well, yeah, that's not actually a criticism, Mr. Carlisle. I found that quite interesting. But I guess the conclusion I was talking about was that if it is the case that chickens potentially feel more pain experientially, then if we want to conclude from that, that they have sufficiently

worse or more intense experiences than us to warrant them being called worth more morally than us, then we really would be committed to a view of probably removing ourselves from the planet as quickly as possible. And I think that's a, it seems like that's an intuition you wish to avoid,

and I think you're doing so by saying that there are kinds of pleasures and pains that humans have access to that other animals simply do not. I guess the question is the relative weight of those pleasures, a so-called intellectual pleasure would be worth more than a physical. Seems arrogant, doesn't it?

Yeah, to think that. That's my problem with that view, I think. It's true. Well, what do you think? Because you had, I guess with your video about right to life, you've created a distinction between humans and non-humans. So I guess, where does your distinction stem from? Well, I'm not entirely sure, actually.

And interestingly, that video was part of a Q&A. so I wasn't making a video I mean the video was titled like I probably don't think animals have a right to life but it was a question somebody said something about

they said like what's the best argument for animals having a right to life and I was like well I'm not really convinced that that is something we can defend but I'm not sure what I think about it either that's why I'm quite interested to speak to you and also why I think it'll be interesting to hear

what our wonderful viewers and listeners think about this particular issue I guess I think I am committed to the view that pleasure and pain, if that is what grounds moral worth

and there's a question for me as to whether there's kind of a meaningful use of the word moral worth that is in any sense objective. But I think if we take the view that suffering is what matters then I think I would just be committed to the view

that if other animals can suffer more they are worth more for that reason. I remember I had a debate once where I was asked if there was a super sensitive panda who just experienced pain like far, far more intensely

than any human being does would that panda have more moral worth and with the view that I was defending at the time I think I quite easily just said well I guess yes I guess I would be committed to that and people objected to that of course and it's maybe quite problematic and causes you to rethink things

so maybe suffering isn't all the matters it's a complicated matter you know I don't really know. It's hard, isn't it? Because the risk that I suppose we have, I mean, logically, I suppose you're right. If we take the position that it is, the reduction of suffering that's most important,

then of course those who have the capacity to experience suffering the most, must be those who have the most moral, who deserve the most moral consideration. And if that is the case, let's say, that we find out that chickens or other species of animal has the capacity to suffer more, And even, I suppose, for what I was saying, just, you know, just a few moments ago where I was talking about potentially it is the case that animals, non-human animals, that is, have the capacity to experience suffering and pain more, then obviously that would make the infliction of suffering and pain on those individual animals worse than it would onto humans, let's say.

But that leads us down a tricky road of, of, I suppose, characterizing some atrocities has been worse than others, you know, based on, I just, I guess, scale. then the infliction of suffering. It becomes a very tricky road to kind of go down, isn't it? I think the problem is that this stuff about suffering, it's by definition experiential. And you can never get into the head of even another human being, let alone another animal. I think it can be useful to think that there's an analogy here that I'm thinking about in terms of difficulty. Like when we talk about a being experiencing more suffering or less suffering, it's like,

okay, is high school physics easier or harder than PhD-level physics? Well, of course, PhD-level physics is harder. But is high-school physics harder for the high-school student than PhD-level physics is for the PhD student? It seems like maybe no. It seems like actually, in terms of the experience that they're having, both of them have exactly the same levels of stress and difficulty with the material, right? And so we can kick back and say, like, oh, well, this particular method of slaughter or treatment or this particular action or this particular pain, it causes more pain, it hits harder, it lights up more of the brain, this kind of stuff.

It's like, well, maybe it's not as simple as that, because what matters is how it's experienced, because you could light up every single pain receptor in my brain, but if experientially it didn't really do that much to me, then it wouldn't really matter, you know? such a good point, isn't it? So I guess do you agree or disagree with the premise that sentience is what assigns moral worth? I think if there is such a thing

as moral worth, it will be commensurate with sentience. I'm defining sentience here just as an ability to feel pleasure and pain. So of course, the kind of stuff you're talking about where you say, well, it's not just about the suffering of the animal, but also the suffering of other people,

and this kind of stuff and their fears and their worries, I would just kind of package all of that in to this definition of suffering and pleasure. If there is something that ethics is about, it seems to be that that's what it is. But I'm not sure. I mean, as my view as know well, I'm pretty unclear about my metarethical views.

I don't know what I think. I might even be committed to a non-cognitivist view that ethics is just an emotional expression and nothing more, but I'm not sure. That's why when I make a case for veganism, really I'm just making a case of descriptive consistency. I say to people,

I don't care what my metarethical worldview is. You think that it's wrong to force a dog into a gas chamber. You think it's okay to force a pig into a gas chamber. We don't have a moral discussion. There's no moral element to the discussion that we're having. I just say, well, is it actually inconsistent? Because if you think it's, well, it's okay to force the dog into the gas chamber because it's a, or it's not okay to do that,

because it's a pet, then I say, okay, if someone had a pet pig, would you, would you be okay with that? And they say, that would still be fine. There's just an inconsistency. There's not like a moral problem, that they're just being descriptively inconsistent, right? And so, like, I don't really know how I, what my base moral intuitions are. That's why when I argue for veganism, I don't really argue morally for it, but descriptively. A.J. A. A. one of the early advocates of the non-cognitivist, emotivist view of ethics, pointed out, this kind of jumped off the page at me when I first read it, that most moral debate is not moral debate. If you watch a debate about, like, gun laws, right? People will say, well,

if we make guns illegal, it pushes it into the black market. And, well, more people die in swimming pools. Oh, but you could just put a fence up. Oh, like owning more guns actually reduces gun crime. They're debating these kind of points, but these are not moral claims. These are just factual claims. They're either like true or false. They're just descriptive debate. The actual moral principle is not even in the debate. And I find the same thing with veganism. When I'm talking to people, you're talking about animals don't feel pain. Yes, they do. Being in a gas chamber, it's an uncomfortable experience. No, it's not. Like, this cause suffering. No, it doesn't.

More animals die in crop deaths. No, they don't. Like, you're debating facts, but we never actually really debate the ethics of it. We just test other people's consistency. So although this is interesting, I don't think it changes much about, like, what we're actually doing most of the time.

So true, isn't it? Interesting. It's true. We're not really ethicists about this. We're just shooting at consistency, I think. Yeah, I think you've summarized it so, so nicely there. It's true. The conversations I have with people, we're always dealing with very surface-level arguments. You know, it is, it is just as you say, more about people having to work through their inconsistencies. You know, I guess the question, the question I always ask people,

you know, when we talk about dogs and pigs, I suppose the question is never, why is it, you know, from an ethical, moral perspective, wrong to do this to a dog? I mean, sometimes I'll say, why is it wrong to do it to a dog? But it's always very surface level. And I suppose you're absolutely right in saying that most of the reasons, most of the ways that we discuss this topic is, yeah, it is really just about drawing out people's inconsistencies. Yeah. You just like assume a base level with somebody. So you say, well, look, I mean, a pig is like a dog. And they either say, oh, fair enough.

Okay, let's discuss that. Or they say, like, no, it's not. Or they say, I don't care about dogs. And if they do that, then you just push it a bit deeper. You say, okay, well, you care about humans. And they go, yeah, I do. It's like, okay, let's see the difference. between humans and dogs, right?

But if they said, no, I don't care about humans either, why should I care about humans? The way to respond to that, at least in the context you're talking about, is not to scream meta-ethics at them, but to go even deeper. You say, well, you know, you think that things have moral worth because of particular reasons. And this kind of stuff, right?

And you're just debating essentially descriptive qualities. Is there a, is there a favorite conversation that you've had with either on the kind of change my mind tables or in another context on a podcast or something? Is there like a kind of go-to? also thinking maybe people are interested in hearing more of your conversations are there any in particular that you've really enjoyed um i applauded one quite recently with a a lady at u t dallas she was called um she she was called q i don't know what her name was that's where she the name she gave

me um and that that's one of my favorite ones i've done it was it was great is that the is that the lady in the yellow that's correct yeah i've i've seen that clip um i yeah i thought that was that was quite good too did you enjoy that because you felt it was productive or because you felt like you won. Oh, both. I mean, I don't think, I don't like to use the word one, but I felt, you know, a lot of the time the conversations end and, you know, we'll shake hands and it's very pleasant. And, you know, I kind of see it as being, you know, relatively, relatively evenly matched conversation between two people of different beliefs. And, but with her, I think just the way she, she kind of got up at the end and walked off symbolized to me that I said something that had got her,

you know, like that she'd had to think about it and it made her uncomfortable. So, she opted to storm off rather than work through that or at least leave more politely. So there was a sense of satisfaction that came from that. But I also think it was a fascinating discussion because she seemed to believe she knew everything about these issues, but without knowing anything, more or less. You're talking about halal slaughter, but she couldn't tell me what actually meant. It was a wonderful moment where she said, you know, that's why halal slaughter is more ethical. And you said, what's halal slaughter?

and she just didn't know. And it's quite strange that people do this all the time. They say things with confidence. But when question they realized, they actually maybe don't know about the process. And then you told her, and I think she was a bit taken aback. But it's clear in that conversation,

she seemed to come in quite crazy already. She came in heart. She interrupted a conversation I was having. And I was speaking to this very nice guy. And it was a very normal conversation I was having with him, but she was stood really, really close. And I could see her getting more irate just out the corner of my eye. And she literally came over and was like, I'm sorry,

I just want to interrupt you. I need to go to class, but I really want to sit down and debate you. And I said to the guy, I was like, you know, would you mind just sparing 10 minutes? Because I knew that she was going to be passionate. And so she came in instantly ready to go. And I kind of like, yeah, this is going to be good. Because it's good for content, you know, from a selfish perspective.

But also I think when someone has that, passionate opposing view, it creates a great platform for people to be able to understand how they feel about these issues, you know, to really see themselves in the arguments. And I like that aspect of it as well. What's the biggest or which vegan stereotype, if any, would you most like to see disappear from the minds of the average human being? What a good question. I mean, that's a really good question, a vegan stereotype.

I don't know. I think there's, you know, there's a stereotype that vegans are weak. There's a stereotype that vegans are pushy. There's a stereotype that vegans are hippies. There's all kinds of things like this. I mean, for me personally, I think the one I wish to see disappear most. The one that's most annoying to me, let's say, is the preachy, pushy, persona because, of course, I don't think I'm any more preachy or pushy. If anything, I'm less so

about veganism than many other people are about other ethical issues. Like, it's quite strange. I see people say to me, well, look, I don't disagree with what you're saying, but like, you've just got to stop being so preachy about it. Yeah. And so the claim is, although they don't put it in these words, you're at least, I'm not, at least I'm not saying you're wrong. You may be right, but the method doesn't work. The method rubs people up the wrong way. It's not the way to get through to people. And then five minutes later, when it comes to fox hunting or another ethical issue across the board, like, they're the people posting the Instagram stories and making the, you know, the fact sheets and stuff and telling everybody

and their dog about it. Yeah. Which, it's not just kind of like hypocritical, because that's, that's annoying, but it's also like, a moment ago you told me that your problem wasn't that I was wrong, but that this method doesn't work. It's ineffective. But now you're using it. So you're either using a method which you yourself think doesn't work, or you were lying to me. And this idea that somehow vegans are particularly pushy, I think that's the stereotype that I would wish to see disappear most. It's funny. I often think that sometimes these stereotypes can work in our advantage, though. I think that the one I would most like to get rid of is the idea that we're unhealthy, because I just think that'll bring more people to veganism. But I think with the one

that you're describing, obviously it's probably more negative than positive that that stereotype exists. And it is undeniably so frustrating that every time we speak up about veganism, every time we talk to people, instantly people have this default position of thinking that we're being preachy and militant and extreme. I think the reason I am less against that one is just because as soon as we kind of show people that were not those things, it immediately softens people up to the concept of being vegan. So when, let's say we have a conversation with someone and they may think, oh, you're vegan, you're going to be like this. And then you're not what they think you're going to be. You're instantly giving them a more favorable impression of veganism. And also you're

showing them that they're kind of fallible, you know, that they can be wrong. That they, their preconceptions of what something is isn't always what it actually is. And so I think that works what works quite well. And when I have conversations with people, when they leave that conversation, I don't often judge the success of that conversation based on whether they're not, you know, whether or not they tell me they're going to be vegan because I'd be solely disappointed most times if that was the metric for success I was using. But more about whether or not they feel more reasonable or feel that veganism is more reasonable. And I think just by being not extreme or not preachy, that instantly makes it seem more reasonable because we're showing

that actually veganism isn't necessarily what they perceive it to be. So it can work in our advantage sometimes, I think. Yeah. But not overall, not overall positive though. No, no, probably still best to do to do without it. Do you think there's a legitimacy to this idea of being pushy? Because you say that one of the useful elements of this stereotype

is that you have an opportunity to prove them wrong. But then you're not thinking sometimes it is permissible and sometimes even prudent to be a bit Oh definitely. Pushy. Oh, certainly. There are definitely times where we should be pushy.

I think it's becoming more and more becoming more and more relevant to be pushy you know things are getting worse animal suffering is increasing factory farming is increasing globally you know clearly something needs to change and change quickly and we have to be pushy but i guess it's just more about what people perceive of this in the perceive us to be you know we can be there's a difference between being pushy i suppose and being vocal and i guess what they see or what people mean when they say pushy is they mean dogmatic or they mean an inability to listen, an inability to understand. So I think that we can

be strong and vocal advocates, but also in a way that doesn't fulfill that stereotype of being pushy. Yeah, I think there's also a distinction between pushing the idea and pushing the person, right? And I think the first is better. I think if people want a defense of the idea of being a bit at least loud about it, as you say, we shouldn't be pushing the sense of being dogmatic and sense of not listening, but in the sense of bringing it up, in the sense of publishing a book on it and having it in the front window of basically every waterstones that I see in the country, is there some justifiability in this? I think a good answer to this, actually on a previous podcast episode with Joey, with Joey Carpstrong, so I'm referring to, he said to

me, look, if you were an animal in a cage being mutilated, disbudded, forcibly impregnated, forced into a gas chamber, how loud would you want people on the outside to be about it? How often would you want them to bring it up with people? And given that they're constantly in a place of opportunity to talk to the people who are paying for this to occur, what would you like them to do? And I think when you, as with so many cases of the vegan discussion, if you're confused about like what action to take or how to go about it or the legitimacy of a, moral position, just once again place yourself in the mindset of the victim involved.

And it can offer a lot of clarity, I think. And I think if you put yourself in those shoes, hooves, then you'll find that actually maybe you would want people to be about as loud as we're being. Yeah, probably more so. But that's, that is why I think it's worth doing these podcasts and talking to people on the and writing books like this is vegan propaganda. And otherwise the meat industry tells you, I think this is going to be a good place to wrap up.

I mean, I wanted to talk about the methods involved, the slaughter methods in factory farming. I think we probably don't have time to do that now. I also imagine that quite a lot of people listening to this will at least have some vague idea. But I would, if people are interested, because we talk in passing about this idea of animals suffering, animals going through horrendous treatment, animals being exploited.

And some people listening might have an idea in their head that that itself is illegitimate because these animals aren't actually being treated too badly. As I said earlier, but I'll say it again, chapter three of this book, especially if you're in the UK, because this is brand new, it's hot off the press, and it's got a lot of information about UK farming, this is, it's a wonderful compendium of that information. So if you, you want more information about the actual ways in which the animals are being treated, because we're talking about the philosophy that undergirds what we should be doing.

But if you're interested in what the problem is in the first place, then I think it's well worth reading the third chapter of this book. And I will leave a link in the description and everything like that. And I do hope that people pick it up. Was this the first choice of the name of the book? Were there other contenders that you had? No, this was not the first choice. I had the working title of I could never go vegan

that's cool yeah which I quite like but then I'd done a post about C-Spiracy actually and in it I had said something like you know is this vegan propaganda or is this you know or is there some veracity to this and so on at the publishing house Penguin had said I like this phrasing vegan propaganda wouldn't it be great if we could could use that in some way and I was like it would be good as we went back and forth quite a few times and then came up

with this, this is vegan propaganda, you know, kind of subverting that criticism we get, you know, farmers always say, you know, that's vegan propaganda. I kind of want to invite people to come in and say, look, this is what has been labelled as propaganda. Come and decide for yourself, you know, see who's really spreading the propaganda here and make your own, make your own mind up. Yeah. And I hope people read it and do. Yeah. But I think that's a wonderful place to end this podcast. Thank you so much for coming back yet. I know you're a very busy person, especially with the publication of the book. I think my viewers will congratulate you as well on the success of the book.

It's been on the bestseller list for quite a while, at least at the time of recording. And I think we're good reason. So I hope that people will go and pick it up. It's also worth mentioning that the two of us will be appearing together at the vegan campout Australia in the end of this year, in the summertime over there. So any of our Australian listeners who are interested in that, I'll leave a link to that in the description as well. I think that'll be quite a fun event. That might be the first time we've done an event together. I believe so, because the campouts in the UK were normally, you were last year, weren't you?

That's right. We're on each other's off year. And of course, yeah, you're going to be speaking at the vegan campout in the UK this year as well. And there's quite a great lineup again. I'll leave a link to that in the description as well. I'm not going to be speaking at that one myself, but Ed will be there. You'll be there? I might be there.

Well, it remains to be seen. I'll leave it as a mystery. I suppose I should probably say yes to sell more tickets to my followers, but we'll see. We'll see. At any rate, it's going to be a wonderful event. So the vegan campouts that are happening across the globe, I'll leave a link to

the information in the description, and people should go and check that out as well. Of course, if you're not already following Earthling Ed, then that's what you're going to want to type in, whether it's on Instagram or YouTube. It's all going to be Earthling Ed. Again, I'll leave the links in the description, and I hope that you do all

go and follow him. I believe you also have a TikTok now, if I'm not mistaken. I do. I saw that. That's correct. I'm trying to use it more. I upload and then leave the platform as quickly as possible. Exactly what I do. I will remove it from my phone and then reinstall it. I upload a bunch videos and run away. It's a pretty tragic platform. But if you do happen to be on that, then shame on you. Then yes, follow, and myself. I'm cosmic skeptic on TikTok for anyone who isn't following me there as well. You're still not on Twitter, are you? No, I'm not. No. And probably better, better for it. But okay, I'll leave

any socials that you do have will be in the description and a link to the book and I hope everybody enjoys the book and enjoyed this conversation. But with that said, thanks again for coming on, Ed. And I've been Alex O'Connor, and this has been The Cosmic Skeptic Podcast. Thank you for watching. If you like the podcast

and the other various bits of content that I put out, please do consider becoming a supporter on Patreon at patreon.com forward slash Cosmic Skeptic. And a special thanks, as always, to my top-tier patrons who really do keep this channel afloat. Thank you for even considering that, but also a way to support the channel is to share the podcast and share the content with your friends and your family and indeed your

enemies. With that said, I will see you all in the next one. Oh!