Q&A: Veganism and Other Vegetables
Veganism and Other Vegetables
Question
If morality is a social invention meant to ensure peace among human beings, is it meaningful to say that veganism and any proper behavior toward animals is a moral matter? Seemingly this is a new invention that does not serve humanity, and a distortion of the original concept of morality. Maybe treating animals nicely is moral only because there is a group of people who demand it. So out of consideration for those people, it is moral. But it doesn’t seem to me that that’s what the poet meant.
Answer
Who revealed this secret to you, that morality is a social agreement? If it is a social agreement, then it has no validity even with respect to human beings.
Discussion on Answer
According to their view, ask them.
On consequentialism and deontology in morality, see the columns currently being published (the first one went up yesterday).
I’m asking according to their view, that it is a social invention that is nevertheless valid.
P.S. My civics textbook for the matriculation exam revealed this secret to me. And pretty much every time I talked about it with a human being, or when I read about how morality was invented.
By the way, I’m not talking about real obligation, only about the issue of upholding, doing, or observing moral rules in order to achieve some particular result that is the desired interest. About the purposiveness of morality, which doesn’t materialize when it comes to animals.