Vegans vs. Second Hand Leather (Second Hand Morality)
30 May 2018 [link youtube]
The lesser of two evils is still evil.
Youtube Automatic Transcription
I've got news Tian and then the internet
was a big one because the internet came along and I started watching those videos that a lot of them that PETA puts up of factory farming oh and hireable it's horrible it's not just terrible it's it's like it doesn't make any sense it's like this is this is like human beings at their very worst [Music] [Music] we've treated these things as like the the most not just as a commodity but we've ignored their feelings and their thoughts and their that the fact that they have instincts and needs and that we've stopped them at these tiny little cages it's a sickness I've understand I participated in a storm of controversy today I participated in not one but two massive debates on this court and I won I won both I won the first one while bench-pressing over 220 pounds I forget it was maybe 230 but tonight I was distracted I was having this debate on discord and the second one well I was doing push-ups and upright row with 105 pounds but I won that also anyway this is what the second debate and Melissa is off camera but she's just asked me a few questions about this so the second debate which we talked about here had to do with second-hand leather and secondhand morality a very small number of vegans want to make excuses for second-hand leather keeping retaining and using items that are second hand leather themselves I don't dig second-hand morality and I'm morally consistent on this because I'm also against second-hand pets and secondhand horses I don't care that you didn't buy the horse in the first place if you keep the horse as a captive and you ride on its back and you feed it hay and you take it to the vet you're doing all the things of that horse ownership and Tails whether you call this exploitation or use or just ownership it's not vegan doesn't matter that you got that horse for free it doesn't matter if it was a gift it doesn't matter if you bought it secondhand doesn't matter if it was a rescue animal does not matter if you stole it right and this applies for me also directly to leather if you broke into the leather store with a gun and stole it at gunpoint it's still leather you're still acquiring owning and using leather and if in as much as veganism is opposed to the use of animal products it's opposed to the use of leather whether you stole it whether you got us a hand-me-down like was given to you for free by your older brother or you got it secondhand buying leather at a secondhand shop is still buying leather and again even if you eliminate the buying stage you're still participating in this cycle of suffering at all the other stages you're still participating in the market mechanism and the ethical decision here just like anyone else but just without that first stage of paying money into the system now if your version of vegan ethics hangs totally on the moment of purchase you may not see it that way so those the people have just been debating with but for me it's the whole Gestalt right ultimately so I have used this example for on the channel if someone is putting cocaine down on a table and then they have to get up and leave the nightclubs there's a nightclub and somebody's Pro this cocaine I don't care that the cocaine is there for me to use for free someone else might say oh well this cocaine would go to waste I personally ethically wouldn't purchase the cocaine but given that it's free here given that someone else has in effect bought the cocaine they would use it for free from my perspective that's what you could call a free rider fallacy the fact that someone else has committed murder or someone else's committed rape or someone else's purchased cocaine if you regard it as morally bad you're not looking for your opportunity to jump on and take advantage of that for free if you regard the production of leather as morally bad the purchase and sale of leather is morally bad you're not looking for your opportunity to be a moral free writer and jump on and get it get it for free say oh well somebody else already killed it somebody else already packaged and sold it I can get it secondhand or I can get it as a hand-me-down great it was my chance to wear leather and use it know that's morally incoherent I'm not into secondhand leather I'm not into secondhand morality now there's a flipside of this which is what my girlfriend Melissa asked me about which is about the vegan not being in the role of the recipient but the role of the donor so when people first go vegan they often own meat they have some meat in their fridge they own dairy they own eggs they own leather and the question is what should they do with these objects now I have jokingly say to people when they ask me get a shovel goat in your backyard take a grave and bury it I'm only half joking because this is indirectly my opinion if you make the decision to take this leather and give it to your brother Tom you're making the moral judgement oh I would never wear this leather I would never this is immoral for me but for someone like you it's acceptable I mean this is looking down your nose at Tom saying well for an inferior person like you Tom this is okay same with cocaine if I have if let's say somehow I've ended up with a bag of cocaine in my possession am I gonna turn around and hand it to my own daughter and say well look I have no use of this I would never use cocaine but maybe you and your friends can have fun with it no that's totally morally incoherent again the the issue of it being my daughter obviously is more evocative because there's an issue of moral responsibility but my point is were all morally responsible for each other doesn't matter if it's my daughter or my brother or my friend from high school or my high school principal go to the high school principal and say hey you you you can maybe you can make use of this cocaine if you think cocaine is bad you don't want to use it yourself you don't want to encourage others to use it you're not gonna enable others to use it if I think wearing leather is bad I'm not gonna use it myself I'm not gonna give it to my brother Tom etc now actually burying in your backyard is not that great not that great to use I think great a solution it's not not that great way to get rid of it but I think for for a lot of us I did come into veganism as an ecological be canceling Melissa and I have in common um but I think there's a false aesthetic of waste and waste avoidance involved here where people say they don't want to waste things and then this justifies doing something that's immoral so for me it's the same with the cocaine oh well this cocaine is gonna go to waste if you don't snort it up or use it because someone else left it here that you didn't buy it you didn't plan it this way but it's here so now you can be a free rider on no cocaine belongs in the garbage good for me it's morally positive to see cocaine swept off the table and thrown out with the trash good it belongs in the trash that's morally positive it's not morally neutral that's a good thing cheese belongs in the garbage good I don't regret that I don't say I don't say oh what a waste this should have been eaten by a human being no that's the opposite of what I believe I don't want to eat it myself I don't think anyone should eat it I'm morally opposed to be bleeding cheese so when cheese gets put in the garbage it's not a waste at all right this is that's a waste I regarded that's morally positive I'm sorry so on so on line leather I mean now my argument on this again is not based on the symbolic value of leather oh that's also interesting if you are morally opposed to rape you won't be going around wearing a t-shirt that says rape is normal rape is okay rape there's no big deal it's morally incoherent this is the symbolic argument that people like Gary France they own a lien on where they say oh by wearing leather you're sending up the signal wearing leather as normal wearing leather as acceptable now I think that's interesting kind of window dressing I think it's an interesting element of living in a culture and it's there's some truth to that if everyone around you is wearing fur it becomes socially normalizing if everyone around you is smoking cigarettes it's social norm I mean if you take a stand and say no smoking cigarettes is wrong then you're also not against cigarettes going in the garbage you're not regarding that as a waste great let's let's throw let's throw more cigarettes in the garbage they're not going to waste if they're if they're getting thrown out however so it's not based on an onsen Baalak reasoning in that sense but it is based on an acceptance that one there is no hard and fast moral distinction between acquiring something new and acquiring it secondhand whether it's secondhand leather second and rape second and murder second and cocaine now I just want to insert here the caveat I can recognize that something is the lesser of two evils but the lesser of two evils is still evil I do think it's different if you're given a leather jacket as a hand-me-down from your older brother I understand it's not the same as you going to buy there are people who inherit fur coats from their grandparents it's a hundred year old for co.design I understand that's less evil than going to a store now and buying it or going to store an ordering one and saying yeah kill that animal slit its throat and make it into this style oak oh no no I want this style so make sure it's an extra gray animal and kill it and I want them vertical not horizontally in this kind of [ __ ] you can hear people talking about this as part of other furniture a lot of stuff is made to order my mom's fur coat was was made to order I know I'm unless she's got rid of it my mom used to go around in a fur coat I remember that and the fact that something is the lesser of two evils doesn't mean it's morally neutral and again wasting something throwing away something that you think is evil from my perspective is morally positive so I just got the argument for example oh but if you let it go to waste like if you don't eat this leftover cheese this leftover pizza if you don't eat this roadkill animal then you're gonna go out and buy more broccoli sindhu harder and I argue about no I see buying broccoli is morally positive oh if you don't recycle these secondhand leather shoes then you're gonna go buy a new pair of vegan shoes and that's some other but no buying vegan shoes is morally positive and again whether it's direct or indirect if it's a knock-on defect for your brother Tom or something Tom also you should encourage him to go ahead and buy vegan shoes whether you're the the donor or the recipient ultimately if you're trying to stamp out the use of cigarettes a lot of cigarettes are gonna end up in the garbage trying to stamp out the use of leather shoes a lot of leather shoes are gonna end up in the garbage if you call that a waste I think you're in a a morally coherent position well use it all right okay like under 10 minutes I think that's a wrap for me it's a really morally simple issue for someone like a natural vegan it's more complex because the natural vegan doesn't oppose all animal use she allows the use of animals as pets and then in an allegory to that she says you're allowed to own a cow and keep it in captivity and exploit its produce milk in as much as you treat the cow as well as you treat a cat or dog for me it's all animal use those animals don't want to be a toy or a plaything for human amusement that cow doesn't want to live in a shed in captivity and produce milk free to consume none of that's morally coherent and using animals to produce clothing out of them or to produce food out of them is immoral even if you somehow got the animal secondhand baños yen
was a big one because the internet came along and I started watching those videos that a lot of them that PETA puts up of factory farming oh and hireable it's horrible it's not just terrible it's it's like it doesn't make any sense it's like this is this is like human beings at their very worst [Music] [Music] we've treated these things as like the the most not just as a commodity but we've ignored their feelings and their thoughts and their that the fact that they have instincts and needs and that we've stopped them at these tiny little cages it's a sickness I've understand I participated in a storm of controversy today I participated in not one but two massive debates on this court and I won I won both I won the first one while bench-pressing over 220 pounds I forget it was maybe 230 but tonight I was distracted I was having this debate on discord and the second one well I was doing push-ups and upright row with 105 pounds but I won that also anyway this is what the second debate and Melissa is off camera but she's just asked me a few questions about this so the second debate which we talked about here had to do with second-hand leather and secondhand morality a very small number of vegans want to make excuses for second-hand leather keeping retaining and using items that are second hand leather themselves I don't dig second-hand morality and I'm morally consistent on this because I'm also against second-hand pets and secondhand horses I don't care that you didn't buy the horse in the first place if you keep the horse as a captive and you ride on its back and you feed it hay and you take it to the vet you're doing all the things of that horse ownership and Tails whether you call this exploitation or use or just ownership it's not vegan doesn't matter that you got that horse for free it doesn't matter if it was a gift it doesn't matter if you bought it secondhand doesn't matter if it was a rescue animal does not matter if you stole it right and this applies for me also directly to leather if you broke into the leather store with a gun and stole it at gunpoint it's still leather you're still acquiring owning and using leather and if in as much as veganism is opposed to the use of animal products it's opposed to the use of leather whether you stole it whether you got us a hand-me-down like was given to you for free by your older brother or you got it secondhand buying leather at a secondhand shop is still buying leather and again even if you eliminate the buying stage you're still participating in this cycle of suffering at all the other stages you're still participating in the market mechanism and the ethical decision here just like anyone else but just without that first stage of paying money into the system now if your version of vegan ethics hangs totally on the moment of purchase you may not see it that way so those the people have just been debating with but for me it's the whole Gestalt right ultimately so I have used this example for on the channel if someone is putting cocaine down on a table and then they have to get up and leave the nightclubs there's a nightclub and somebody's Pro this cocaine I don't care that the cocaine is there for me to use for free someone else might say oh well this cocaine would go to waste I personally ethically wouldn't purchase the cocaine but given that it's free here given that someone else has in effect bought the cocaine they would use it for free from my perspective that's what you could call a free rider fallacy the fact that someone else has committed murder or someone else's committed rape or someone else's purchased cocaine if you regard it as morally bad you're not looking for your opportunity to jump on and take advantage of that for free if you regard the production of leather as morally bad the purchase and sale of leather is morally bad you're not looking for your opportunity to be a moral free writer and jump on and get it get it for free say oh well somebody else already killed it somebody else already packaged and sold it I can get it secondhand or I can get it as a hand-me-down great it was my chance to wear leather and use it know that's morally incoherent I'm not into secondhand leather I'm not into secondhand morality now there's a flipside of this which is what my girlfriend Melissa asked me about which is about the vegan not being in the role of the recipient but the role of the donor so when people first go vegan they often own meat they have some meat in their fridge they own dairy they own eggs they own leather and the question is what should they do with these objects now I have jokingly say to people when they ask me get a shovel goat in your backyard take a grave and bury it I'm only half joking because this is indirectly my opinion if you make the decision to take this leather and give it to your brother Tom you're making the moral judgement oh I would never wear this leather I would never this is immoral for me but for someone like you it's acceptable I mean this is looking down your nose at Tom saying well for an inferior person like you Tom this is okay same with cocaine if I have if let's say somehow I've ended up with a bag of cocaine in my possession am I gonna turn around and hand it to my own daughter and say well look I have no use of this I would never use cocaine but maybe you and your friends can have fun with it no that's totally morally incoherent again the the issue of it being my daughter obviously is more evocative because there's an issue of moral responsibility but my point is were all morally responsible for each other doesn't matter if it's my daughter or my brother or my friend from high school or my high school principal go to the high school principal and say hey you you you can maybe you can make use of this cocaine if you think cocaine is bad you don't want to use it yourself you don't want to encourage others to use it you're not gonna enable others to use it if I think wearing leather is bad I'm not gonna use it myself I'm not gonna give it to my brother Tom etc now actually burying in your backyard is not that great not that great to use I think great a solution it's not not that great way to get rid of it but I think for for a lot of us I did come into veganism as an ecological be canceling Melissa and I have in common um but I think there's a false aesthetic of waste and waste avoidance involved here where people say they don't want to waste things and then this justifies doing something that's immoral so for me it's the same with the cocaine oh well this cocaine is gonna go to waste if you don't snort it up or use it because someone else left it here that you didn't buy it you didn't plan it this way but it's here so now you can be a free rider on no cocaine belongs in the garbage good for me it's morally positive to see cocaine swept off the table and thrown out with the trash good it belongs in the trash that's morally positive it's not morally neutral that's a good thing cheese belongs in the garbage good I don't regret that I don't say I don't say oh what a waste this should have been eaten by a human being no that's the opposite of what I believe I don't want to eat it myself I don't think anyone should eat it I'm morally opposed to be bleeding cheese so when cheese gets put in the garbage it's not a waste at all right this is that's a waste I regarded that's morally positive I'm sorry so on so on line leather I mean now my argument on this again is not based on the symbolic value of leather oh that's also interesting if you are morally opposed to rape you won't be going around wearing a t-shirt that says rape is normal rape is okay rape there's no big deal it's morally incoherent this is the symbolic argument that people like Gary France they own a lien on where they say oh by wearing leather you're sending up the signal wearing leather as normal wearing leather as acceptable now I think that's interesting kind of window dressing I think it's an interesting element of living in a culture and it's there's some truth to that if everyone around you is wearing fur it becomes socially normalizing if everyone around you is smoking cigarettes it's social norm I mean if you take a stand and say no smoking cigarettes is wrong then you're also not against cigarettes going in the garbage you're not regarding that as a waste great let's let's throw let's throw more cigarettes in the garbage they're not going to waste if they're if they're getting thrown out however so it's not based on an onsen Baalak reasoning in that sense but it is based on an acceptance that one there is no hard and fast moral distinction between acquiring something new and acquiring it secondhand whether it's secondhand leather second and rape second and murder second and cocaine now I just want to insert here the caveat I can recognize that something is the lesser of two evils but the lesser of two evils is still evil I do think it's different if you're given a leather jacket as a hand-me-down from your older brother I understand it's not the same as you going to buy there are people who inherit fur coats from their grandparents it's a hundred year old for co.design I understand that's less evil than going to a store now and buying it or going to store an ordering one and saying yeah kill that animal slit its throat and make it into this style oak oh no no I want this style so make sure it's an extra gray animal and kill it and I want them vertical not horizontally in this kind of [ __ ] you can hear people talking about this as part of other furniture a lot of stuff is made to order my mom's fur coat was was made to order I know I'm unless she's got rid of it my mom used to go around in a fur coat I remember that and the fact that something is the lesser of two evils doesn't mean it's morally neutral and again wasting something throwing away something that you think is evil from my perspective is morally positive so I just got the argument for example oh but if you let it go to waste like if you don't eat this leftover cheese this leftover pizza if you don't eat this roadkill animal then you're gonna go out and buy more broccoli sindhu harder and I argue about no I see buying broccoli is morally positive oh if you don't recycle these secondhand leather shoes then you're gonna go buy a new pair of vegan shoes and that's some other but no buying vegan shoes is morally positive and again whether it's direct or indirect if it's a knock-on defect for your brother Tom or something Tom also you should encourage him to go ahead and buy vegan shoes whether you're the the donor or the recipient ultimately if you're trying to stamp out the use of cigarettes a lot of cigarettes are gonna end up in the garbage trying to stamp out the use of leather shoes a lot of leather shoes are gonna end up in the garbage if you call that a waste I think you're in a a morally coherent position well use it all right okay like under 10 minutes I think that's a wrap for me it's a really morally simple issue for someone like a natural vegan it's more complex because the natural vegan doesn't oppose all animal use she allows the use of animals as pets and then in an allegory to that she says you're allowed to own a cow and keep it in captivity and exploit its produce milk in as much as you treat the cow as well as you treat a cat or dog for me it's all animal use those animals don't want to be a toy or a plaything for human amusement that cow doesn't want to live in a shed in captivity and produce milk free to consume none of that's morally coherent and using animals to produce clothing out of them or to produce food out of them is immoral even if you somehow got the animal secondhand baños yen