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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 25, 2023

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Veganism isn't based on some argument. Either you care enough about animal suffering to do something about it or you don't.

Sure, but no one has a utility function of 0/0/0/0/100.

You can make all types of arguments about why veganism also gets you other things you want beyond reduced animal suffering (maybe it's better for the environment or fights the obesity epidemic or has other health benefits or etc), you can make all kinds of arguments about why it doesn't lose you other things you want (it's easier and cheaper and tastes better than you think, common intuitions about it making you scrawny or low-energy are wrong, etc).

If you care about animal suffering 15, then whether becoming vegan would lose you more or less than 15 in other areas is the determining factor in your decision. And all kinds of arguments are relevant to that calculation.

My answer to that would be 'motivated reasoning'.

Most arguments aren't 'real', for a lack of a better term. They're just stepping stones to get to the promised land, which any actual believer already knows is real. The whole game of 'arguments' is to help the unbelievers, or yourself in days of need, to that place. In other words, arguments are traced back from the thing you already know is true.

I'm not saying there aren't vegans who are vegans for some reason other than the animal suffering, and that those guys aren't making data driven arguments in some sense that's disconnect from the moral impetus driving many vegans, but, in my experience, those are not the vegans we are talking about in the OP.