Do you consider animals (other than homo sapiens) “people” with “natural rights” to life?
If so, then there’s no way for ethical animal husbandry for human consumption.
However, my opinion is that we homo sapiens are animals, along with other ancient hominids and current high primates, and we are omnivorous predators. Our prey’s opinion on its right to life is inconsequential to whether we kill it to eat it or not.
Hypothetically similar to a brown bear hunting hikers along a trail through Yellowstone. The bear doesn’t care if a hiker wants to live or not; it wants to eat the human.
And that’s why I think it’s fine I ate my neighbors’s dog, Your Honor.
That isn’t a reply; it’s a desperate failure of reading comprehension packaged as a lazy joke.
What you typed is a Slippery Slope fallacy, arguing that acknowledging biological reality (that humans are omnivorous predators) somehow forces me into committing a criminal act: eating a neighbor’s dog. You deliberately ignore the obvious distinction upon which the entire debate rests: the line between livestock and pets.
Me: Consume ethically raised livestock (the “prey” for omnivorous), but reject the immorality and environmental risks of factory farms.
You: if you eat any meat, you must logically be fine with pet theft and consumption.
The difference between a cow, pig, chicken, etc. and your neighbor’s dog is precisely where human law, morality, and social norms have been drawn for centuries. Some cultures even find it normal to consume dogs. To pretend that acknowledging our predatory nature invalidates all those distinctions is not as clever as you think it is—it’s just a transparent attempt to substitute emotional shock value for actual logical engagement.
You’re also using Reductio ad Absurdum, just like other losers on this thread, because you can’t defeat the core premise of what I said. You have to drag this into absurdity to make it seem like I’m advocating for social collapse, rather than just advocating for better ethical sourcing. If your only move is hypothetical “Your Honor” theatrics about a pet dog that’s kidnapped and eaten, you’ve admitted you have no genuine counter-argument.
Yeah… that was my point. Meat for humans in the contemporary era should cost more, there should be far less consumption per capita, and meat producers shouldn’t be so cruel to the animals. However, some of us enjoy animal flesh. Some of us are in fact healthier when we consume it. We can consume animal flesh in a better way.
If you’re healthier consuming meat than you would be consuming a plant-based diet, you’re a statistical outlier. Most people would be healthier with a plant-based diet.
Let’s give brown bears the right to vote if there’s no difference in ethical agency or social responsibility between them and us, as you claim to believe. We can set up polling booths at the salmon streams.
That reply commits a logical fallacy. It’s an example of Reductio ad Absurdum (or Appeal to Ridicule) and a Straw Man, intentionally misrepresenting my point to make it sound ridiculous.
My argument was about biological reality (humans are omnivorous predators) to defend the consumption of ethically sourced meat. Your counter-argument shifted the focus to an absurd political non-issue.
Your Logical Fallacy Explained
My Statement Was About:
Your Reply Misrepresents It As:
The Logical Error in Your Response
Biological Capacity
Identical Ethical/Political Agency
Reductio ad Absurdum / Straw Man
The fact that Homo sapiens are omnivorous animals and predators driven by evolutionary needs (justifying the capacity to eat meat).
A claim that humans and bears share identical social, political, and ethical traits (e.g., the capacity for voting rights).
You took my comparison (predation as a biological reality) and pushed it to an absurd extreme (voting bears) to avoid addressing my actual point.
The amoral reality of predation in nature, which makes the prey’s opinion irrelevant to the predator’s act.
A dismissal of all human ethical systems and social responsibilities, implying I advocate for complete ethical equivalence with wildlife.
My argument accepts that humans have ethical agency, which is why I explicitly called for avoiding factory-farmed meat. You ignored the ethical choice to focus on an irrelevant political concept.
My defense for eating ethically sourced meat, acknowledging the failure of factory farms.
A crude defense of all forms of killing for food, regardless of method or context.
The entire point of my comment was to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable meat consumption, a nuance your fallacy completely discards.
I used the bear analogy to highlight our fundamental nature as predators. I did not suggest we run for Congress together. The debate is about biological capacity and the ethical choices we make with that capacity, not about who gets a ballot.
You seem to be completely unaware of my point, but I am not interested in arguing with autocomplete. In the future, maybe try having the courage to think with your human mind. I’ll once again encourage you to reread the comment chain and think about your argument and my joke about it. Since you’re a fan of philosophy buzzwords, here’s some further reading:
Since we’re having so much fun, here’s another language model’s critique of your reply:
Yes, I did use a language model to analyze and structure my previous reply. My goal was to provide the most logically precise critique of the fallacy in your response.
Your choice was to attack the source of the critique, call my argument ‘autocomplete,’ and question my ‘human mind.’ If a logically sound, structured argument—even one assisted by AI—is superior to your subsequent move of simply linking two Wikipedia articles, that reflects poorly on the substance of your own position.
Your attempt to paint me as a sophist relying on ‘buzzwords’ while your contribution is uncontextualized links to remedial philosophy is a textbook example of intellectual posturing. An accusation that admittedly could be leveled at me for using an AI to detail your logical fallacies, if it wasn’t for the fact that you had already shifted the tone with their dismissive “voting bears”
My argument was not a simple Appeal to Nature. You committed a Straw Man by reducing my statement—that humans are omnivorous predators with an ethical duty to minimize suffering—to the claim that humans and bears share identical ethical agency.
I used the bear analogy to establish the ‘Is’ (our biological capacity for predation).
‘Ought’ (the ethical duty to source meat humanely) is evident in the initial comment I made to someone else, which you glossed over on purpose.
My core point is that we apply our higher ethical reasoning to how we fulfill our natural capacity. Your ‘voting bears’ reply failed to address the ethical distinction I explicitly made.
My call for ethically sourced meat consumption is the direct result of applying the ‘Ought’ to the ‘Is.’ I accept the biological reality but reject the factory farming industry based on ethical and environmental responsibilities. You rely on disingenuous debate tactics intended to dismiss the premise.
Your condescension notwithstanding, it’s safe to say we’re certainly not friends, by any stretch.
Here some more fun takes from a language model, that "dares to know’.
“Sapere aude” means ‘dare to know,’ the motto of Enlightenment reason.
It’s ironic you use it as a closing remark after relying on a Straw Man fallacy (“voting bears”) and an Ad Hominem attack (“autocomplete”) instead of engaging the ethical distinction I explicitly made regarding ethically sourced meat.
Applying reason means addressing the actual argument, not running from it with a haughty, snide attitude, citing your Latin phrase as a dismissal.
Do you consider animals (other than homo sapiens) “people” with “natural rights” to life?
If so, then there’s no way for ethical animal husbandry for human consumption.
However, my opinion is that we homo sapiens are animals, along with other ancient hominids and current high primates, and we are omnivorous predators. Our prey’s opinion on its right to life is inconsequential to whether we kill it to eat it or not.
Hypothetically similar to a brown bear hunting hikers along a trail through Yellowstone. The bear doesn’t care if a hiker wants to live or not; it wants to eat the human.
And that’s why I think it’s fine I ate my neighbors’s dog, Your Honor.
That isn’t a reply; it’s a desperate failure of reading comprehension packaged as a lazy joke.
What you typed is a Slippery Slope fallacy, arguing that acknowledging biological reality (that humans are omnivorous predators) somehow forces me into committing a criminal act: eating a neighbor’s dog. You deliberately ignore the obvious distinction upon which the entire debate rests: the line between livestock and pets.
Me: Consume ethically raised livestock (the “prey” for omnivorous), but reject the immorality and environmental risks of factory farms.
You: if you eat any meat, you must logically be fine with pet theft and consumption.
The difference between a cow, pig, chicken, etc. and your neighbor’s dog is precisely where human law, morality, and social norms have been drawn for centuries. Some cultures even find it normal to consume dogs. To pretend that acknowledging our predatory nature invalidates all those distinctions is not as clever as you think it is—it’s just a transparent attempt to substitute emotional shock value for actual logical engagement.
You’re also using Reductio ad Absurdum, just like other losers on this thread, because you can’t defeat the core premise of what I said. You have to drag this into absurdity to make it seem like I’m advocating for social collapse, rather than just advocating for better ethical sourcing. If your only move is hypothetical “Your Honor” theatrics about a pet dog that’s kidnapped and eaten, you’ve admitted you have no genuine counter-argument.
You suck at advocating for veganism.
Waiter, I didn’t ask for the sophist word salad, can you take this back, please?
Sure sir, here’s a steak. You need protein.
It better be one of those ethics steaks the bears eat
Ethics steaks. That the bears eat.
We may be omnivores, perhaps, but that means we can eat animal flesh or plants. Why would we kill 2T animals a year when we don’t need to?
Yeah… that was my point. Meat for humans in the contemporary era should cost more, there should be far less consumption per capita, and meat producers shouldn’t be so cruel to the animals. However, some of us enjoy animal flesh. Some of us are in fact healthier when we consume it. We can consume animal flesh in a better way.
If you’re healthier consuming meat than you would be consuming a plant-based diet, you’re a statistical outlier. Most people would be healthier with a plant-based diet.
Too much of one thing (in this case, meat) is bad for you. Measured and monitored diversity in one’s diet is optimal.
Here’s a great article explaining the risks and benefits of meat consumption.
All animal ag is cruel. You can’t take the life of an animal who wants to live without it being cruel.
My “cruelty” in consuming animal flesh is acceptable to me as I am an omnivore.
Let’s give brown bears the right to vote if there’s no difference in ethical agency or social responsibility between them and us, as you claim to believe. We can set up polling booths at the salmon streams.
I don’t understand. Is your argument that bears do have ethical and social responsibility regarding humans?
Try to reread your comment and mine, and think about it a little longer.
Here’s a language model’s take on this thread.
That reply commits a logical fallacy. It’s an example of Reductio ad Absurdum (or Appeal to Ridicule) and a Straw Man, intentionally misrepresenting my point to make it sound ridiculous.
My argument was about biological reality (humans are omnivorous predators) to defend the consumption of ethically sourced meat. Your counter-argument shifted the focus to an absurd political non-issue.
Your Logical Fallacy Explained
I used the bear analogy to highlight our fundamental nature as predators. I did not suggest we run for Congress together. The debate is about biological capacity and the ethical choices we make with that capacity, not about who gets a ballot.
Edited for clarity.
You seem to be completely unaware of my point, but I am not interested in arguing with autocomplete. In the future, maybe try having the courage to think with your human mind. I’ll once again encourage you to reread the comment chain and think about your argument and my joke about it. Since you’re a fan of philosophy buzzwords, here’s some further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature
Since we’re having so much fun, here’s another language model’s critique of your reply:
Yes, I did use a language model to analyze and structure my previous reply. My goal was to provide the most logically precise critique of the fallacy in your response.
Your choice was to attack the source of the critique, call my argument ‘autocomplete,’ and question my ‘human mind.’ If a logically sound, structured argument—even one assisted by AI—is superior to your subsequent move of simply linking two Wikipedia articles, that reflects poorly on the substance of your own position.
Your attempt to paint me as a sophist relying on ‘buzzwords’ while your contribution is uncontextualized links to remedial philosophy is a textbook example of intellectual posturing. An accusation that admittedly could be leveled at me for using an AI to detail your logical fallacies, if it wasn’t for the fact that you had already shifted the tone with their dismissive “voting bears”
My argument was not a simple Appeal to Nature. You committed a Straw Man by reducing my statement—that humans are omnivorous predators with an ethical duty to minimize suffering—to the claim that humans and bears share identical ethical agency.
I used the bear analogy to establish the ‘Is’ (our biological capacity for predation).
‘Ought’ (the ethical duty to source meat humanely) is evident in the initial comment I made to someone else, which you glossed over on purpose.
My core point is that we apply our higher ethical reasoning to how we fulfill our natural capacity. Your ‘voting bears’ reply failed to address the ethical distinction I explicitly made.
My call for ethically sourced meat consumption is the direct result of applying the ‘Ought’ to the ‘Is.’ I accept the biological reality but reject the factory farming industry based on ethical and environmental responsibilities. You rely on disingenuous debate tactics intended to dismiss the premise.
sapere aude, my friend
Your condescension notwithstanding, it’s safe to say we’re certainly not friends, by any stretch.
Here some more fun takes from a language model, that "dares to know’.