Captive Animals ARE NOT Companion Animals (Unnatural Vegan is NOT Vegan)

eggs from rescued chickens that live
like in someone's backyard and they're well cared for they're treated like like you would treat a dog or a cat right what would be the harm so I appreciate that your channel discusses domestication of animals in a way that other vegans do not discuss it I don't think I thought about it as much as I did after I saw your channel but I did think about it how it's so inconsistent that at the time I was living with cats in my house so I would feed them meat and it felt very wrong it felt strange and also the fact that they are just in your house and not able to roam free where I was living was an apartment they were not able to go outside and you know even walk in the grass or anything a bad news yen so feeding them meat did not feel right and then you know I saw your channel and more of the discussion about just captivity in general and I thought that was really interesting because nobody sees it that way people see it as you love your animals you love your pets you're treating you're giving them a better life than what they could you're rescuing them from a bad situation that they could be living in and I just thought that that was really interesting so you know I was explaining to my sister-in-law how I have these more this moral quandary with I am living with these cats but I don't feel like it is right for me to be living with cats or just keeping them in captivity and she said she felt the exact opposite she thought that because we have the capability because they have the resources to feed animals then we should rescue as many animals as possible she actually felt guilty for not having any pets at the time they have a newborn baby so she was saying it's not quite the right time to have it you know have a pet but in the future they hope to adopt and you know rescue and adopt animals yeah so it is just an interesting conversation with her she said you know why would you not think that having pets would be better if you are you know a vegan and you care about animals and want them to be in a good situation why would you not keep them in your home like I think it is really common for people to just think that this is how it should be this is how animals are happy there had just with my loving caregiver as a human but to stick with that with that example did the conversation go anywhere after that it did just kind of stop like there was nowhere further but to go you know we started talking about farm animals too because I said I don't think it's right for me to treat one animal as food for another so cows as food for cats right that to me that's just inconsistent and I can't really justify it so she said whoa oh you could have a you could have a pet that's an herbivore you could have a cow we could have a pet cow I mean we did talk about our I told her about irrational that would be to actually try to have a pet cow as I was living in an apartment at the time put the cow in the bathroom yeah but you would not have to feed it me but I still said you know I still would not think it's right to have a pet cow but it is it is an interesting question to me it's you know because there are these farm sanctuaries where cows are taken and when they cannot be put back in the wild what are you supposed to do with these animals that do get rescued from from a factory farm well the word natural the adjective natural is a shorthand for a lot of very complex thoughts and ideas but I think a lot of people if you had a cow in your apartment their immediate reaction be to say well that's unnatural if you had a sheep or uh you know goat in your apartment they'd say that's unnatural but they see a dog and they think that's that's natural and I've gotten long emails from people defending the idea that like somehow dogs are evolved to live on your carpet like this like they're really engaging in a naturalistic fallacy or just because something is socially perceived as normal that therefore it's natural I think that puts veganism on the same footing as the meat eaters the same way meat eaters can say hey for thousands of years we've done this therefore it's natural therefore it's normal and there's a sense in which I agree with meat eaters you know eating turkey at Thanksgiving is normal I also want you to stop you know like yeah but it's not a net it's not natural what we do to animals no no days I mean the just the domestication must have been very difficult we were talking about why or just the other day like they're very mmm you know hard to deal with they're not easy to domesticate animals I don't think sure they seemed well okay look I mean you know obviously there are a lot of fallacies and naturalistic thinking and in terms of ethics I don't think we're ever talking about what's natural we're talking about doing the best that you can which is a very different set of criteria what's the best I can do for a cow or what have you if you do rescue account but in one word you used in your own description of that conversation there is just captivity it's hilarious to me that that that concept is completely missing from the the whole rhetoric of so you're contrasting sanctuaries and rescues and pets and companions so it's not your captive it's your it's your companion you know because when you at least when I was when I was really young we had a kitten and we had two kittens and you can see it it's not it's not your companion it's not your friend you're teaching it out to be a certain way you're teaching infinitely your life as a human how to put into your apartment or your house yeah yeah yeah did you where to pee and we're not to be right yeah Rick and Morty episode with the dog they stick it in sticking in space it's Pete Rick and Morty is a comedy TV show but has a number of episodes that are bizarrely provegan or talk about I should've eaten animal rights issues for whatever reason yet yeah so when you're first training a cat or a dog to live indoors you have to train it to not pee indoors and then do pretty unnatural for a dog or any animal you know it's unnatural fur so natural for a zebra yeah I don't know if I can get the zebra to live my father yes so you have to train a dog and I don't think that you would train a companion ideally you would not train your friend to be your friend so I mean big is a natural vegan we can cut in the the clips here she has this line of argument where she says keeping a dog as a pet is just as moral as keeping a hen a chicken as a pet and eating its eggs love it like a dog like love's right so her whole line of reasoning is it is morally acceptable to keep a dog in captivity in perpetuity until it dies to castrate it she's argued at length that castrating a dog is not causing it any suffering how you define suffering that way I have no idea a lot of mental and moral gymnastics on here but taking domesticated animals as her standard domesticated from the most familiar domesticate animals namely dogs and cats she then extends that to slightly less familiar animals like chickens and says therefore it's perfectly fine to keep a chicken in captivity and she does this it's a mode of reasoning out of a name for by basically saying hypothetically if you were in the chickens position how would you feel that's we could call it sympathetic reasoning how would I feel if I were in the chickens position I mean sometimes that's a useful mode of thought and sometimes it can be profoundly misleading so she offers the argument in isolation if she were the chicken she wouldn't care that these you know hairless biped Apes were eating her period secretions eating her her eggs just so long as those hairless apes were loving toward her and so on I find this a really tortuous and impossible impossible to defend line of reasoning and know you can ask yourself if you were being held captive because that's what nobody we're talking about captivity it can be a cage it can be cageless it can be free it can be a you know a wooden hut in your backyard you're talking about holding a hen in captivity and the nature of the captivity can't be understood by contrasting it to the more familiar captivity we keep dogs and cats which is why of reasons but you have to contrast it to how that animal would live in the wild what would be the natural behaviors of a chicken in the wild and I just googled it before making this video it ain't hard to Google hard you can you can look up what do wild chickens look like how do they live how do jungle fowl exist in the jungles of Indonesia or Cambodia for that matter other places I'm more familiar with but you know how do they live what are the behaviors I have seen them running around you know they they run around and catch small insects like crickets which can be quite inspiring to see it's quite an elegant set of predatory behaviors they have I've seen them in the jungle defending their own chicks you know if they feel you're too close to them you get the the mother hen walking with the line of chicks behind her she's quite quite a striking sight and you know still to this day the fighting the fighting chicken is the the national symbol of France they're known for being quite proud pugnacious confident birds little bird little they're birds that will start a fight with a fully grown human kind of thing same with turkeys turkeys are like that too with a conic be territorial and they won't they won't behave as if they're afraid of you ironically weasel or chicken they mean coward in English today but they were known for their their bravery and of course they're known for fighting one another having these complex social behaviors they've complex mating behaviors where the males offer food to the females and males fight other males to show who's the better mate and so on this whole world of social and instinctual behaviors is what chickens are cut off from in their captivity in your backyard and we have a natural vegan sadly there's a direct quote she simply asks what's the harm what would be the harm what's the harm of having of having a chicken occasion and I mean again I think she's really engaging in sophistry in the truest sense and the ancient Greek sense of sophistry it's a this is a misleading argument to say well if we're not harming a dog by doing this to a dog therefore were also not harming a chicken by doing this to a chicken and you know in a sense I agree because I think we are harming the dog we're harming a dog to cut its testicles off and we're harming a chicken to give it this life in captivity and she does I've seen her repeatedly engaged in this line of thinking when she justified giving cats a hysterectomy you know fixing cats will remove all the reproductive organs of cats which totally changes their behavior totally changed their character and their hormones due to an amazing extent and her line of reasoning was if she was in the cat's position she would prefer to have this hysterectomy but you prefer to be fixed rather than to feel sexual desire and not be able to satisfy not not everyone feels that way yeah like if I've got to spend the rest of my life in jail reow there's a real question would in solitary confinement or only with medicine would I rather be castrated or not I would take or not you know it's it's a really bizarre or question but even in framing the question that way you you dislocated the ethical issue from the real context of how this animal would live in the wild I'm not saying the life of a cat in the wild is great yeah this issue of being loved comes up again again so you have like a sheep as a pet and you share it and you and you where it's it's waste again we're talking about essentially a waste product it's something that would go to waste if it were not used again if assuming that the the sheep that the animal is well cared for and loved and all of that and not harmed what is the harm what is wrong with that situation eggs from rescued chickens that live like in someone's backyard and they're well cared for they're treated like like you would treat a dog or a cat right I think a really good example would be again a backyard hen you know having a hen who produces unfertilized eggs and then consuming those eggs assuming the Hinn is well cared for and loved and all of that kind of stuff what would be the harm do we really think that a chicken if a chicken could care that she would care about us consuming her period why would it be relevant to the chicken in captivity whether or not it is loved by these biped apes that tend to and eat its eggs or you want to say like if you're if you're captive if you are a captive in prison yeah your prison conditions matter and so on we don't justify prison because the prisoners are loved by their prison guards it's a relevant and surreal and bizarre to offer that argument it just makes no sense to me you know yes I was going to say Tobias and unnatural vegan I think they don't want veganism to come off as crazy and I think when I was talking to my sister-in-law about this topic she did think it was a little crazy that I was against having cats and dogs in your house because it's so common and it's so it seems natural but I don't think this video I think is long enough thing we can cut this up we have a couple different videos on related topics here but you know I you it's a very good point where you say their concern and how they address this is vegans seeming crazy because I would say my concern with this topic is vegans actually being crazy and people have sent me fan mail or feedback what do you want to say messages to me were they said that they really felt they were more sane after adopting the position explained on my channel because the other positions they were they were adopting previously before her my channel they felt were crazy or incoherent or self country or we're driving them crazy and you see that target means you see that you know I have my criticism of Gary Yourofsky and even though it sounds great at first gary yourofsky claiming he literally wouldn't kill a cockroach that he wouldn't kill any insects that he regards on one sex is beautiful he regards insects basically as having a soul and being equal to human human beings and any other position as being speciesism so one animal one soul and equal rights for all that's that's his position and he manages to make kind of five-minute lecture on it that sounds very appealing it sounds like you know sounds like some forms of hinduism frankly you know hinduism is a very diverse religion by the way you know it sounds very spiritual and appealing try living with it try explained meat-eaters what your actual program is try sitting down with the Parks and Rec board in Toronto and explaining what you don't want them to kill rats because downtown city parks can become overrun with rats really quickly or you know my favorite example is running running an airport airports have to kill birds you don't have birds flying to the the aircraft engines it really isn't a working philosophy of veganism or for veganism even if maybe for you personally that's how you arrived at veganism in the first place it's not the way vegan is we move move forward as a movement and I said I think this is this is true this question of sanity and santa-santa it's drawing kind of two levels there's an abstract level of does the movement make sense on the whole let me drive one hundreds of people are the future but there's also just the question of one person alone does this make sense for me when I wake up in the morning maybe when I have to kill cockroaches inside my own apartment when I have to answer questions in my own life and a lot of the approaches to veganism I don't really care whether or not they look crazy from the outside I care about whether or not they are crazy whether or not they are driving people crazy yeah but I do understand wanting to become wanting veganism to become more approachable so when you tell people it's wrong that you have pets well you know cats and dogs they can live cats can live like 20 years if they're in yes they're in Damascus City so I do understand also the other the emotional side to thinking that animals are your companions because once they are kind of whipped into shape but you know I'm not saying sure everybody whips their animals like but just when you first have an animal is a very small animal and training them to be your companion at that point they seem like you know it seems like you can look into their eyes and they know who you are they know you know how you're feeling so I do understand humans thinking that their animals are the companions and it is a very emotional thing for a lot of people I think so I can see that that um that part of veganism for the outsider with people would think it was crazy but okay right but look at me I'm devoting a lot of a lot of technically demanding fields look crazy to an outsider are things in science or physics or what-have-you but really quick we can do three contrasting examples chickens pigs and then dogs dogs are the hardest I'm putting them but look if given half a chance chickens domesticated chickens will revert to living as wild chickens and there's actually concern about this because when they do get a chance that this is mostly in Southeast Asia where the wild jungle fowl was is native that they escaped from farms and they'll go in and interbreed with so domesticated chickens will escape into the jungle they'll interbreed with the wild jungle fowl don't lay eggs together you want to put this they'll revert to wild behaviour they'll go back to sow and they're they're happy to do it it's what they want to do they don't want to live in a steel cage because you know this is they're back in a social setting where they interact with other members of their own species not with a loving bipedal ape that pets them on the head what the you think that gesture even means this means chickens don't pat each other on the head they don't that's not how they express affection within their own species you know I mean it's pretty weird you know eating its meals out of the hand of a human being the same hand that steals its eggs or makes a headdress out of its feathers I don't know what these people are doing with these chickens so you know it's given a chance they will revert to the wild mobile avers no pigs - long story short even the most pathetic domesticated pigs you see these very pink fat pigs that look like they couldn't survive don't kill yourself all over the world whether it's Australia or Southeast Asia or the Philippines feral pigs are so common as to be a menace it's very very common that domesticated pigs go feral that happens in some states than us - I forget Virginia some states solving a forest cover you get examples of pigs going out and reverting to wild behaviour Michigan's so that's very clear and to me I think we really need to appreciate the gravity of that as vegans of what it means and what indictment it is of the pet based parent okay now you come into the dogs and I think it gets into exactly these kind of precious delusions pet owners have that they look into their dog and they know what their dog wants and their dog understands them and again petting the dog on the head and the dog licking your face I mean that's what does that mean within dogs you know Jake Asli had a great video talking about that the actual significance in the wild of dogs looking each other's face is very different from what you might want to believe it is and so on yeah it's actually a sign of submission it's just so uh what is it a gamma dog looking the the alpha males face and sons showing that yeah very so it's them actually recognizing that you're the boss yeah yeah yeah these really strangely significant things that's sure that's the relationship that you have with an animal it's not a companion relation it's it's not it's not a companion it's your captive yeah but I I see I think the number one response I get on the issue of dogs is well I can't just reintroduce my dog to the forest right okay now even if that's true is that the point obviously we have so many pigs the number of piggies and the billions on this planet obviously we cannot reintroduce all pigs to the forest you know I don't even think we could we could stop all the factors introduce one percent of the pigs and I used to live in Taiwan Taiwan has more pigs than human beings they you know they even produce a huge number of pigs taiwan has basically no forest left it's a tiny island there are a couple of parks you know there a couple of habitat reserves but there's no way you're gonna liberate the pigs out of the factory farms into the forest so I mean I understand your point but do you understand mine do you understand the point that this pig in a cage on a factory farm does not in its heart yearn to be your pet on the carpet and doesn't yearn to be liberated into a sanctuary that is in many ways just a farm - the slaughterhouse it's just a farm that goes on forever and ever it's just perpetuating its captivity but it's the same conditions you get on a farm on some farms it's obvious it's slightly better than that than the worst farms you know really to understand this species and again see in a sense I think that the concept of animal rights is already misleading I can't say this pig has a right to live in the forest I'm just saying we have to understand and think about this pig in that context of what its life would be in the wild what it is being deprived of and you know the fact that I can't undo that privation it doesn't justify any of these other any of these other alternatives or directions which have become bedrock for the majority of vegans certainly including a natural vegan who says again and again this is just about love this is just about whether or not you love the animal that's the only criterion that makes this more alluring mall we use animals and people for a companionship for support you know emotional support financial support we don't consider these practices exploitative or abusive when we say that using a chicken for her eggs in every situation is abusive even if she has a loving home with food and water and shelter and was rescued from imminent death it sends a really confusing message we're talking about something that very clearly does not do any harm to the animal and yet it's wrong drinking milk like drinking cow's milk it could be another example of use without exploitation yeah and I can see how that line would lead to like you said insanity because you feel like nothing that you can do is enough we were just listening enjoy yeah great point like how you just you don't have enough time or energy to save every animal that is you know saved from a factory farm rescue trimmer factory rescue cats and dogs you don't nobody has enough time and energy right to put in all the effort that would take to keep these animals in captivity so I don't know I don't know what the answer is but I don't think you know encouraging everybody to rescue animals is the answer of it in a sense of what we're debating here is not what are the answers we're debating what are the questions cuz I mean that's the ultimate I have this really from my perspective deep divided to myself in a natural vegan but we're endorsing the same answer we're just asking different questions were formulating it in a very different way with I think different implications and outcomes well but isn't her answer having chickens as backyard hens in the last video on consent I included this quote it's not wrong to use any being human or non-human animal for your own ends as long as that use doesn't compromise their own ends saying it is without valid explanation is what makes veganism look irrational this is posing the argument by suggesting a parallelism between the ethics of how we treat humans and how we treat animals so the most fundamental premise here is it not wrong to use any human for your own ends I think I don't know what planet you're living on like I think there were all kinds of gray areas in exactly you know she's talking about using she goes on to say using people and animals for companionship you really don't think that's a morally murky area I do and specifically what she's talking about is using a person or an animal in captivity for companionship or possibly as a protein source etc you know you're talking about the exceptions to veganism or talking like generally the exceptions for eggs or you know it gets ok to eat eggs from your backyard hens or begin this clip I'm not quite sure where it's from I think that is the point I think is what are the exceptions to veganism that make veganism morally incoherent her basic premise in this series of videos is that veganism is not morally tentative it's not morally tenable the purpose of these videos is to explain what it means to be a tentative vegan and why tentative veganism as a moral position makes sense whereas veganism as a moral position it does not further going to clarify that that she is against dogmatism in veganism whereas her own position is allegedly non-dogmatic and his end is pragmatic as opposed to I completely reject that I don't see how you can say it's pragmatic to raise chickens in your backyard what's what is pragmatic about that and the excuses she makes for raising truth where she says it's dogmatic for us to say eating eggs is wrong even if they are chickens in your backyard I don't think that is dogmatic that may be a bit of a shorthand that maybe you know it may not be including what we call desert island scenarios and veganism really extreme and bizarre scenarios but no I think it's completely consistent and indeed pragmatic to say no even if you rescue hens don't eat their eggs and to say even if you rescue hens you're still keeping them in captivity in conditions that are so bizarrely far removed from the life that chicken would lead in the forest that we have to regard it as sub a chicken and the same weekend up with subhuman additions these are sub check-in conditions that's why again with the wildlife management paradigm I often point to zoos as being much more of a positive example than most vegans want to omit to themselves a zoo that really makes an effort to give penguins habitat that resembles their wealth of course it's not perfect it's not actually Antarctica they don't actually have free rooms when I've been in zoo enclosures that try to give birds free you know it ultimately had a dome on the top but give them enough space that they could fly around a bit you know I've seen that also with butterflies a butterfly enclosure really bizarre it's a little bit surreal this is a simulated environment those I think are the questions if for any reason you did have to rescue animals and keep them in captivity who certainly happens with endangered species unlikely to chase with the domesticated chicken those are the questions I'm asking or how closely can you can you come and instead she's asking this set of questions that I found really disturbing and misguided yeah I think it's important for us to discuss these things it doesn't make veganism look irrational it's trying we're trying to come to a conclusion about what veganism is or you know what just have discussions about these things it makes mecanism more no no just the other day we were listening to Tobias say that veganism is not there yet for somebody to say someone is at a dinner and the person hosting the dinner makes a casserole that has mayonnaise and you say to the you know you say to the person holding the dinner oh this isn't vegan it has mayonnaise so he says that it's crazy it's crazy to refuse he says he says this is bad for veganism and it's bad for how vegans are perceived to insist no I can't eat this casserole it's not vegan yeah because veganism isn't there yet yes not it's it's not a movement that people in in yeah you mentioned like what people say that about being gay you know you can't write you wouldn't you wouldn't tell your parents that you're gay because we're just not there yet like somebody had at one point say yes it is it's there there whatever the hell that means it's it's there yet is yeah it's not there yet isn't the valid excuse anymore vegans have to stand up for you know their convictions and what they believe and it only gets wrong for well well well and and does it does it make veganism look more or less irrational yeah like what's irrational but say no this is the definition this is the definition of veganism therefore eating this casserole is not vegan this is the definition of veganism therefore eating this chicken egg is not vegan why is that irrational or why does that make veganism look irrational you know we can talk about it in a rational or an irrational way but this is really really basic definition of veganism stuff yeah and if if veganism is not there yet it's never gonna get there wherever there is or whatever that means with this kind of excuse making I just don't see how that's good for the movement we don't consider these practices exploitative okay so do we use people in captivity for companionship and emotional support I mean to me I think you actually could cuz I you know I used to study Korean a jib way and we did have stories you know apparently completely true stories of human beings who had friendships with wild animals in the forest because they were in the tiny minority of Canadians who actually spend enough time in the force that they just see the same animal again and again over years you know look oh yeah that's that otter who lives down in that part of the but where they really didn't know animals and to some extent like interact with animals without domesticating them without having them in captivity and where there is a kind of companionship like you know there's a kind of kinship or even select with with things like otters I think the human would be catching fish when she cut up the fish and throw some of the fish to the otter we had this kind of so I've read stories from Korean a Ghibli people really living on the trapline Rivet living in the forest who had those kinds of interactions okay that's one thing maybe you can compare that to human companionship a casual acquaintance the human being you use in the sense but if I have a cue me the example she's using if I have a human being and I keep them in captivity so I can cut off their hair and make sweaters what weight you know and you think this makes veganism look less irrational so it's okay when you do it to humans that's okay to do pet it's not okay when you do it to humans and the rationale given it would never be applied to human beings being kept in captivity so you have like a sheep as a pet and you share it and you and you where it's it's waste again we're talking about essentially a waste product something that would go to waste if it were not used and you use it to make I don't know knit some gloves out of or something again if assuming that the the sheep that the animal is well cared for and loved and all of that and not harmed what is the harm what is wrong with that situation and the the rationale given that would never be applied to human beings being kept in captivity humans be cut off from their natural surroundings or whatever social situation they would be in if they were not in captivity I just mentioned that the other day that I was saying if you know for your your daughter don't get too personal okay I think you know so for a vegan that doesn't believe in domestic domestication of animals if they have kids they want to tell their kids no you know we can't get you a puppy we can't get you a kitten because it's wrong and it would be difficult to explain to a child why it would be wrong yeah but you know in Victoria our just whatever we could go to a Harbor and see the same seals that is true but I guess captivity is is the crucial word that's missing from this discussion of domestication because we all recognize the difference between paying money to go in a boat to see whales in the ocean yeah and trapping whales and putting them in a giant swimming pool and holding them in captivity right why can't we recognize that with dogs and cats and pigs and everything else you don't have you know if you go and visit you know a wolf pack though there's no comparison whatever whatever a sense of companionship you get out of seeing wolves or bison roaming over the land I wouldn't call that companionship but I don't see in this concept of companionship a rationale for domestication a rationale for captivity a rationale for castration and flying and all the other things that come with it in every situation is abusive even if she has a loving home with food and water and shelter and was rescued from what does that mean shelter a loving home a loving home oh where the dog can't pee where a cat has to pee in a box just Google you know red junglefowl the wild form of the chicken why what what is a loving home to a chicken a chicken wants to live with its own species it wants to meet with males of the species it wants to raise its own children and walk around the forest and catch wild insects and live that life it doesn't want a loving home but you know owned by a bunch of hairless bipedal Apes feeding it out of a can it's it's just ridiculous a loving home it's an emotional response to say that I don't know because we're used to seeing animals in the house or use the same I don't know a loving oh but it's it's a lot it's a human loving home being provided for I'm like how you would treat children yeah it's not like a loving family okay just today we were walking down the street we walked past a restaurant and we saw a bunch of birds in cages you know words because people here in China they keep birds in cages as pets and they put them outdoors so the birds can get some fresh air during the day right and you were a bit shocked and horrified at it I'm a bit more used to it okay does that bird have a loving home from a human perspective maybe the answer is yes because the humans say they love this animal and then they feed it and bathe it and they bring it to the vet when they get sick so from a human perspective that's loving home from a bird's perspective does the bird ever get to fly does the bird ever get to build a nest does the bird ever get to compete with other members of its species to mate and then mate with other members of species does it get to evade its own predators and maybe prey on other animals you know all that range of natural instincts and behaviors that's what matters not a loving home and I don't know maybe you can look at a bird that has its own nest and say that's a loving home for you in the wild maybe there is a meaningful sense in which a bird can have a loving home but it ain't this any my living room it's a totally or irrelevant set of criteria whether it's applied to a you know a flying bird or a flightless bird like a chicken or a dog or a pig but this this to me is a kind of deep sickness and if your concern of natural vegan is with vegans appearing irrational why can't you recognize what's irrational about this this to me is insane and yet it's wrong just be weary of framing so we've seen this just really briefly but she defines the word harm however was convenient for her so she says that cutting the testicles off a dog doesn't harm the dog she said that deadpan serious so obviously she the same way she's willing to define suffering anyway that's can be in for argument she's willing to buy harm in any way that's convenient for his argument again I just have to appeal to please take the time actually Google what the life of a wild chicken looks like and ask yourself white as you're making these excuses for keeping a chicken in a cage in a hutch in a backyard pen whatever it is and you're not looking at the reality of what life would be like for that animal in the wild because depriving them of that life is doing them harm and I think that's totally easy for us to understand the same way that you can't say by putting a human being in jail you're doing them no harm even if you put them in jail where they're given food and shelter and a loving warden you know I mean like it's just ridiculous to say well I didn't do any harm you're depriving them of another life a life in the wild or a life in some kind of social standard of what's normal look at analogy any come it will be eaten by other rodents by vultures just leave it it's going to decompose sure what what about the bears in the forest that might hold on food but also our research bears are we such vultures do we actually have no other moral or even aesthetic standards that that make us better than bears and vultures cuz you know that I think there are other considerations there sure and you know why is it that everything simple is dogmatic in her view very often simple guidelines are pragmatic I think yeah maybe it is a simplification to say vegans never eat animal flesh because we can come up with a desert island scenario we can come up with roadkill scenarios we can come up with some really weird scenarios maybe that's if it doesn't mean it's dogmatic if that's pragmatic yeah sure you know then there's some fine print there are some footnotes but come on it's nothing bad about that well you just mentioned that you're depriving them of I don't even know whatever life they would have what is it and why this is the one situation where speciesism matters right so we wouldn't say that about aalayam so you've rescued this lion so now it's okay to keep it as domesticate an animal for its whole life hey I rescued it from hunters so it's okay to put it in the zoo it's okay to put it in the circus or it's okay for me to keep it in my own living room to delight my guests which has happened historically by the way so recently the night as recently the 1960s people used to own lions as pets in the Western world they still do in the Middle East it's still fairly fashionable in Arab countries and as you say you can google it now it's still fairly fashionable in leopards and lions and some of the other big cats so I'm sorry I'm not stereotyping but this actually is talking about the Arab world as a unit the culturally that's that's still a phenomenon right now owning those those cats so if I mean so what's the difference you bought it from a breeder or for someone trapped in the forest as opposed to you rescued it no matter which way you look at it owning that Ocelot or that tiger or that leopard in your living room for your amusement for your companionship is wrong wrong wrong but we don't think that way about wolves we don't think that way about dogs we don't think that way about cats they're just more familiar and yet it does seem strange and bizarre and wrong when we even talk about having a goat in your own home which is also domesticate an animal is it what do you what do you mean how can this gold ever be happy in your living room or in your backyard or in your apartments how can a cat ever be happy this is a bizarre and again unnatural in this context natural is worth talking about you have to cut the balls off the cat you have to tear out its hormonal system it's you know you have to declaw it you're making all these physical and behavioral modifications the em1 forcing it to pee in a plastic box for what and you know what how how did how does the fact of rescue justify any of those other ethical decisions for me it doesn't whether we're talking about a lion or we're talking about a cat cats are simply more familiar and that is speciesism that is the question vegans ask again again when they say they contrast a dog to a pig and say why do you love one and and kill the other so you have like a sheep as a pet and you share it and you and you where it's it's waste again we're talking about essentially a waste product something that would go to waste if it were not used and you use it to make I don't know knit some gloves out of or something so this is basically exactly the same argument I presented with chickens a minute ago but I think there's a sense here in which Gary Fran Sione's critique of meat eaters that meat eaters just regard animals as objects or property actually applies to vegans you just regard this sheep as an object like a piece of furniture you can put in your house and keep you don't think of it in terms of the complex social interactions that it would have in its own herd you know that it would have in the wild and after watching this I just went to google and put in wild sheep nothing else and you get a lot of really eye-opening information take a look at what you're depriving the sheep up this sheep is not an object it has parents and its parents have grandparents going back a million years it has a million years of behavior in the wild that really do dictate what a life of dignity would be for the sheep and that includes all the stuff I've already mentioned this video competition within the species interactions with the opposite sex and with the same sex and living in a herd and there's a social hierarchy and they're all these behaviors and so on and you are depriving the Sheep of all of those things even if it is in a loving home you think of it like an object like a piece of furniture you can just add your house and as she asked he says what's the harm well if you don't see it in the context of how they would live in the wild you don't see that you're abstracting this from you're removing this from the context in which that sheep would have a meaningful life with its own species and competing to survive and doing all the things that are the whole range of behaviors and instincts that are meaningful for a sheep what's the harm the harm is exactly in destroying all those things for the Sheep it's it's a very strange and sick line of reasoning and it's the strangest thing to me is that so many vegans find it convincing I don't understand why this video especially given that it starts by saying that veganism is morally incoherent in contrast our position I don't know why more vegans weren't offended by that or didn't just react with it I've had emails of people who agree with me on this but there's nothing about this that's seductive or appealing or even useful for vegans so I just don't I don't see why there are thousands and tens of thousands of people who within veganism backup this position to us to my perspective it only makes our position weaker and worse oh but vegan vegan sweaters though you really you really think there's like a pragmatic outcome here where vegans can start producing wool because it comes from a loving home really like really is that what you're driving at how do you feel about pets do you think that there's any difference between say having a dog or having a you know backyard rescued hen and consuming its eggs do you see any difference between the two because I I do not yeah that's the point you don't see the other friends they're both wrong ones bad and the others evil I see both relationships as mutually beneficial assuming that the animals are well cared for you know they're receiving food and water and shelter and nurture and you are receiving companionship and eggs whatever else I don't know maybe you shave your dog and make little hats out of its fur I don't know I think the main point is that she's saying it's better than death so living in a house with people is better than death but she doesn't say that I mean look you that's a stronger argument that's not what she says because I mean when she says this to me she makes this excuse for companionship given that you're providing them with food and shelter and Walter water so what's up human beings in prison if you're keeping people in prison indefinitely I think one of the only justifications that is hey it's better than that and if they were facing a death sentence and given their choice would you rather be in prison or die I think most of them some people would choose death penalty but they'll say okay that they'll take captivity but no love does not justify captivity not in any way now the type of love that's meaningful for a sheep to experience or for a cow to experience is love within its own species it's not being patted on the head by human beings it's gonna be that sheep competing for its place within the herd you know she literally butt heads you know they have all these bizarre ritualistic behaviors no that's what's meaningful and important to sheep it's not being petted on that head by a by a bipedal you know hairless ape it's totally irrelevant but if you were taking human beings captive and calling them and precedent and saying well they provide me with companionship this whole line of reasoning would seem really sick and demented although the argument you just presented it's better than death if the alternative is death I think that's actually a stronger argument and for sure sometimes with endangered species that is the argument or saying we'll look these are the last few members of this free to bird or something so we're going to put them we don't want them to disappear so we're going to try to have a captive breeding program but even then the criteria that come into question are how closely can we simulate what their life in the wild would be and even if you were talking about keeping a pet privately I would ask that same question okay so you're going to keep lions for ever reason they whether they've been rescued or shipwrecked I don't know what crazy scenario you got a bunch of lions I would say no the moral justification is not that you love the Lions that's irrelevant not that you pad the minutes it's nothing provide them with food and shelter know how closely can you approximate what their lives in the wild would be and for penguins and lions and even something like a cow that's obviously a huge and difficult and expensive question and sometimes I got to tell you I think sometimes death is preferable to what we do with animals I'm not sure at all that being declawed and castrated and held in captivity and forced to pee in a plastic cubicle and you know all the bizarre things we do with that I think maybe death with dignity I think that a short life in the wild as a feral dog or a feral cat might in many ways be better than what it is that she has taken as the moral baseline for how we should treat animals for what she thinks it's right and good for treating not only dogs and cats but all other animals apparently including sheep so that you can knit a hat out of their hair see that's what that's the problem I have with domesticated cats and dogs because you can rescue like you were saying there's only a couple of this particular endangered bird left so let's put them in captivity and the captive breeding program so it's never that's never going to be the case with cats and dogs so I don't know that's that's my opinion on it like I don't see how continuing to keep these domesticated breeds of cats and existences helping anybody anybody or anything yeah is it even good for the cats you know I think also this is shallow and deep at the same time but there's a really deep misapprehension just said it was shallow and deep at the same time look uh unnatural vegan tends to criticize slogans without recognizing that they're just slogans so I mean he or she's partly reacting to this slogan all uses of use okay it's kind of a dumb slogan but it's just a slogan like if you scratch the surface with anyone who's are literally wearing that t-shirt of that button you're gonna find they have a more sophisticated view about veganism animal rights and so on we used to have a slogan in the anti-war movement ban the bomb it's kind of a dumb slogan and if you actually scratch the surface and talk to those people they don't actually think that the atom bomb is going to disappear from the world they say well what we want is for more countries to sign this specific treaty and we want to have them regulated by the United Nations and blah blah blah so actually a really complex geopolitical position of what you want to do with nuclear weapons in the future know so stated that simply I guess nobody really believes in ban the bomb stated that simply I guess nobody believes in all uses of use but so what is a slogan you know I just feel like get over it are we are we addressing slogans or we addressing real problems in the vegan movement because I mean like you know gary yourofsky's position on insects is not just a slogan and you know the position of vegans and what unnatural vegan is doing here with taking domesticated animals as the moral baseline instead of wild animals that's not just a slogan that's a deep-seated belief and we get to see how it shapes all the other steps of her approach to a new and advocacy for veganism yeah okay great that's a wrap [Music] ba Lu Cl