 Yes, I'm vegan, but I'm considering being part-time vegan, going on holiday on veganism for three months. So the outcome of this conversation could be, if I fail here, there's a lot of pressure basically. I don't really know where to draw the line in practical feasibility, like how virtuous do you need to be, and how much should, how much moral morality demand of us. So if there was like a bit of human flesh on the ground or something like that, you would eat it? Yeah, potentially. Are you saying buying iPhones causes suicides? Yeah, it does, right? Yeah, but I mean... Waste-dairy over vegan ice cream is not that bad! I'm not... this is not a debate that I really care about. Wait a second, before you leave, did I change your mind on doing your three-month eating murdered animals? So we have the table here, why aren't you vegan? Okay. I'm interested in debating the ethics of veganism with someone who's not vegan. Are you vegan? Yes, I'm vegan. You're vegan? I'm considering being like part-time vegan. Ah, okay. So I'm interested in maybe what the... whether that's justifiable decision basically. Okay, that's interesting. I've never ever had someone sit down and say that. So the outcome of this conversation could mean if I fail here, there's a lot of pressure basically. Yeah, I know. I might become kind of like a sort of orthodox Christian where I become a vegan sort of nine months a year and then have like three months of no veganism. Okay, so what do you think veganism is? What is your idea of veganism? I think it's somewhere between like a lifestyle choice and a serious semi-religious moral commitment. So what is this... what is it the underpinnings of veganism? What is it based off of? It's a moral choice, right? Do you have a... Well, yeah, I mean a lot of things are moral choices, but what is it fundamentally to you? I guess it's part of my identity, something I do because I think it's right, along with many other things I do, like not murdering people in the street or like hurting people for no reason or doing bad things. So if I asked you why are you vegan, what would you say? I guess it's mainly an anti-materialistic thing, probably, where I believe that like if you can be a vegan and give up meat, you can give up anything in life pretty much. So by giving up meat, I'm basically free in a way which I wouldn't be if I had to eat meat. So if you... you're kind of doing it as kind of a virtue to let go of meat? Exactly, it's kind of like virtue ethics would be maybe the closest moral... So you're actually building sort of fortitude in yourself by saying, I'm kind of abstain from this, therefore that's going to make you a better person in your own eyes or something like that? Yeah, that's the idea, yeah, that's the idea. Okay, so that for me sounds like sort of an ego-driven reason to avoid meat? Yeah, it's fairly connected to my identity. Okay. So veganism is a movement based on the idea that animals should not be exploited? Yeah, yeah, obviously that's like the rational reason I do it, because I think it's wrong to eat animals and it's wrong to like... it's totally unnecessary, there are no reasons in favor of eating meat, it's not necessary only for a tiny series of exotic cases that's ever necessary to eat meat or dairy. So I don't see there any like positive reason, but like that's not really... those kinds of reasons don't actually really change most people's behaviors, so I'm just being honest, like that's actually what motivates the deeper core of my commitment. All right, well that was a level that I didn't expect, yeah. So you went for a deeper level of what changed your motivation? Yeah, that's right, yeah. What changed your behavior? I went for like the kind of like this is what actually made me and makes me stick to what is a fairly difficult lifestyle choice. Okay, so for me, and for veganism itself, because we could talk about meat, we could talk about the doctrine that humans should live without exploiting animals and by exploiting I mean violating the rights of animals and by animals I mean sentient animals just so we don't get into oysters or things like jellyfish or stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Japan are like quite fringe-ish. Do you believe that we should live without violating the rights of sentient animals? Oh yes, totally, yeah, yeah. Okay, and why would you consider living a lifestyle for three months of the year that violates the rights of sentient animals? I guess the idea is that we live in a society which is so complex, the moral dilemmas that puts upon us are so difficult, both in harming humans and animals that to live virtuous life all the time is basically like psychically impossible. So I wouldn't say like eating meat for three months a year is good. I would never say it's justifiable morally, but perhaps like psychically or like psychologically humans can only bend so far they can only take on so much and that it's kind of, I don't really know how to rationalize it, maybe it's like forgivable to eat meat for three months of the year in the same way that maybe, I'm trying to think of an analogy, possibly like Christians would rationalize some of the things, some of the sins they break even though in theory it's absolute sin. So on the other end of this are obviously actual victims. Yeah, like the animals themselves. Yeah, yeah, of course being enslaved and decapitated and turned into burgers and, you know. So I can't really, can you find a human case where... We hurt humans for three months a year. Well, like no, we're not just hurt humans. I'm talking about breeding them into existence for the sole purpose of killing them to eat them. You don't need to eat them, but just breeding humans into existence to enslave them there. They are basically considered property so they don't have personhood they're considered, there would be slaves in this hypothetical. I'm basically trying to analogize the animal case with humans. Can you find any place where we can do this to human beings? I can't think of maybe breeding humans, that's obviously quite extreme. But I can think of maybe some of the choices we make in modern consumer society, like flying in airplanes, buying certain products that require certain components which require the deaths of poor people in other countries basically. For example, buying an iPhone, you're partially complicit in the terrible working conditions and the factories which lead to suicides of people. And people might say, look, I'm very moral in most areas of my life, I also want an iPhone. I have an iPhone. I have this microphone as well. Yeah, so I don't really know where to draw the line in practical feasibility, like how virtuous do you need to be and how much can moral morality demand of us as people? Okay, well let's go there. So I really do want to have this discussion because what I believe you're doing is you might not necessarily be, I don't want to misrepresent you either, so just stop me if I am. But you're saying that these are equatable moral issues? Yeah, they're sort of other species. Equivocal, like they're equatable? So you're saying buying an iPhone is kind of equatable to eating meat? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, okay. It might be wrong. Okay, so basically I've got this iPad here. You think that it's equatable suffering or drain in utility or rights violations in this iPad by purchasing this iPad as there is in a piece of a cow? Probably not. Probably eating the cow is probably larger, right? Because that's only a tiny fraction of the wrong in buying the iPad is to use. There are many, many iPads. It's distributed across a couple of purchasers. So it might be the equivalent, say, of maybe all the flying of your lifetime could be equivalent to, say, eating a couple of burgers, potentially. What has flying got to do with violating rights of animals or humans? Just the massive emissions that it produces. How is that a... Because I guess eventually the causal chain will lead to people dying, presumably, or animals, right? So do you think flying a plane violates human rights or animal rights? Well, not legally. But you can make an argument that harms human rights or animal rights at some point. It's just because it's so causally disconnected, we don't think about it in those terms. But actually, yeah, there is a cost right of flying. And just like there's a cost of driving, right? I've always fought the spaffling. People are like, yeah, we built roads next to high schools and primary schools. Does that violate the rights of those children? No, but actually it means that like five children every 10 years are going to die. So I guess I would say, yeah, flying does violate some rights, but just not obviously, right? They're very, very disconnected. Yeah, the environment, yeah. So I wouldn't say that the environment necessarily violates the kind of negative rights I'm talking about. So I'm talking about like, you know, the right not to be interfered with, enslaved and murdered. You're talking about some type of secondary, secondary effect from like emissions or something like this. I know that can be really catastrophic. Right, yeah. Yeah, like climate change. Just as many individuals, yeah. Yeah, but I'm talking about more direct violation of animal human rights. Yes, yeah, yeah. So you mentioned like iPhones, right? Yeah. What is it about the components of iPhones that is analogous to raising animals and decapitating them for burgers? Yeah, I suppose the, maybe we should work out, I think there might be some other difference that we're having. Do you think the indirectness of buying an iPhone and hurting animals is morally significant compared to like buying and eating a burger, for example? You mean hurting humans? Yeah, hurting, like, so for example, like, obviously like stabbing someone and killing them is wrong. Yeah. No one disagrees with that. Buying an iPhone, leading to the suicide of a human necessarily by buying the iPhone by supporting the process is also wrong. But do you think the causal chain difference between the two direct stabbing or the very long series of events in buying the iPhone, do you think they're morally significant, the difference? Are you saying buying iPhones causes suicides? Yeah, it does, right? I mean, not directly, but like those suicides wouldn't have occurred had it not been for the support of the iPhone buying community, right? Do you have a, it seems like you're making an empirical claim or it seems like you're making... I don't have the evidence with them. The numbers, but obviously like there are the documented cases of people killing themselves in iPhone factories. I don't doubt that. People kill themselves. Yeah, definitely. And they wouldn't have had it not been for the profit driven motives of the... That's what I don't agree with. I mean, I don't agree that me purchasing the iPhone incentivizes suicides or me not purchasing this iPhone is going to stop suicides. I don't think there's a causal chain there through supply and demand, but it's very clear to me when I buy a burger that an animal's been decapitated because their body is in that burger. Now, do you have any like sort of comparative data to suggest that if iPhone factory didn't exist in China, that that would drop the suicide rate lower? No, I mean, okay, yeah, this might not be the best example. I was just using it as an example. You know what I'm saying? I'm not trying to do a gotcha. I'm just saying that the conditions in China are the conditions. Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think a lot of these kind of moral debates do kind of come down to these empirical questions. You can see the difference, right? Let's just say the workers at the iPhone factory are actually being raised and decapitated for burgers. See the difference? Yeah, I mean, I guess like, can we just maybe imagine a situation not where they're being raised and decapitated, but simply a situation where the only way you can get an iPhone is... This is hypothetical. The only way you can get an iPhone is if there are like people exploited in a way so serious that it kills them. Yeah, then I would boycott the iPhone, but that's a hypothetical that I'm talking about reality here. You made the claim that buying an iPhone is equivocal to buying a burger. And I sort of try to like... I'm trying to like... Right, right. But you would boycott then if that was the case empirically. Yeah, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about is buying an iPhone the same as buying a burger? Because basically what I believe you're trying to do is wrestle with the idea that we purchase products that are almost identical to the moral implications of buying a burger. Oh, I don't think... Sorry, I wasn't very clear. I don't think buying an iPhone is as bad as eating a burger. I just think that there is some number... Maybe iPhone's not a good example because I'm not sure on the empirics of actually how... Let's talk about slave mining minerals or something. I don't know. You're not buying diamonds, right? Like in a diamond life. Yeah, let's talk about something that I do buy. I don't buy diamonds. Or how about the lithium mines, right? Is it lithium? Yeah, the lithium mines. So because basically, as a vegan, I get this a lot like you're a hypocrite because you buy this product. So why should I boycott that product when you buy this product? How do you decide on boycotting? I would just say what is the accusation about the product? Oh, right. So what product? Whichever one you choose that I buy. I've got electronics here. I've got iPhone here. I've got clothing here that I wear. So what would the accusation be? And I can tell you how I would approach it. Sure. I mean, I can't come up with any off the top of my head. So basically, you're considering eating meat again because you purchase products that you believe are just as not un-virtuous or what was the word? You basically feel like it's the same kind of moral issue to buy these products. You can't really draw a distinction. I'm saying there's a massive distinction, right? And I want you to point out why you believe there shouldn't be a distinction between buying a phone or buying electronics and buying a burger. Yeah. So I'm thinking maybe like the combined effect of consumer product purchases like plastic items, like flying in, flying, driving around in cars, buying like advanced consumer electronics. You're lumping in different industries that have different implications. So I don't think you can do that. I want to go go because you're talking about massive industries. Like, do you know who works for airlines that you got? Yeah, lots of people. Lots of people work at the Apple store here in Cambridge. I'm saying there's no reason why I should do any of these things. There's no positive argument in favour. There's no moral argument for me to do any of these things like going on holiday with long-haul flights. It's just for my own enjoyment, right? Yeah, but I don't think you're violating human or animal rights by going on that flight. There's obviously a threshold to which you're creating some kind of extreme amount of climate damage to the point that you're like... If you're drawing the threshold, like eating a burger is so much higher than... Well, for the individual animal, it's like you're comparing environmental damage to someone being decapitated. Yeah, I mean, I guess in some ways they are both wrongs, right? They're nowhere near compatible. Well, let me just ask you this. Like, what harms you more? Me flying a plane, taking a flight right from now, go to Cambridge to Europe, right? Or me decapitating you and putting you in a burger? Which is more of a moral emergency? This is quite like an old-fashioned way of looking at these moral dilemmas. I think a lot of the biggest criminals in modern life commit these highly diffuse crimes. Like someone who murders... Let's say someone murders someone at the pub, right? They chopped their head off. That's obviously a crime. It's bad. But are they really comparable to say someone who avoids huge quantities of tax? Who's more evil in the situation? The murderer. The murderer, then the tax evader. The victim, yeah. Oh, to the victim. But yeah, who causes more damage, I guess? Somebody who had taxes or someone who cut someone's head off. Well, the murderer. Okay, what happens in the process of evading tax? It causes deaths, basically. What kind of deaths? Murders? Not murders, just like... If it causes more murders, then the person who causes more murders is worse. Okay, but I guess what I'm saying is like... Or how about an oil spill, right? Like someone is partially responsible for causing an oil spill. But it's like a very large bureaucratic structure. They made a choice. It led to, like, many, many people getting affected by the oil. But they're not a murderer. There's nothing as direct and powerfully impactful as the decapitation. Who's the greater criminal, I guess, in this situation? If you decapitated all those people, the person who decapitated all those people for burgers. But they're not like... But this is like an oil spill, right? It's a diffuse... Yeah. It's a secondary pollution kind of issue. Right. It's bad. I'm not saying it's good to pollute. Don't get me wrong by saying one is worse. I'm not saying the other is good. But what I'm trying to get at is... You're making a claim about electronics and iPhones, right? Yes, which might not be very important, I accept. Yeah, because when you make this claim about, say, people in low-income countries, right? You're talking about infrastructure and jobs already being at a certain standard, right? So you have to first show me how me not purchasing that product would make conditions there better and that by me buying that product, I'm somehow draining well-being or making that situation worse. Like, so I would make an argument... Actually, there's a very good argument against that, that by boycotting these poorer countries, you're taking away whatever finances they're getting and you're forcing them into even worse conditions. Right. I see what you're saying. I'm just processing it. So what you're saying is it's basically less clear what the harm is from buying electronics and even if we did know, it might just be significantly less than eating meat. So it's not comparable to eating meat because it's just less clear, basically. But there are some products you do boycott because you've done the research and you're convinced that it's equivalent or close enough above the threshold that is such that you changed your lifestyle. Is that correct? I mean, that's a fair characterization of it. It's unclear what people's accusation is about these products. Is there slavery? Sure. I mean, I guess the idea is that it seriously harms human well-being, right? Yeah, I mean, that's not slavery because if there is slavery, then that should be dealt with. Like, obviously, that slavery is a... But then when you say it's slavery, obviously you're talking about a smaller proportion of these company. So where is that? So then it's less likely that I'm actually supporting slavery. When you make it, the more egregious the thing you're talking about, the less likely it happens. Which is what I was saying earlier when I said not only is it less clear if there is a harm, but the harm itself is probably less. So, yeah, I mean... Well, let me put it this way. There's a t-shirt factory in Pakistan, right? And they're making t-shirts and the conditions aren't up to the West's conditions and they get a dollar a day or something like this. But over there, that's the best... People generally work the best job available to them. Like, if you go out to apply for a job, you're going to look for the best job available to you. Now, if you live in, say, Pakistan where there's not many jobs available to you, the t-shirt factory is available, that is the best job available to them based on their circumstance, yeah? So the solution for people would be boycott that place because it's not up to our standard. It's horrible working conditions. And what that boycott might do is force them into even worse situation. Actual slavery, it could... Okay, yeah. So in terms of these products which do have known harm... Okay, maybe their personal choice is... Okay, yeah, I see what you're saying. Maybe supporting it bad. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I mean, there might be a better option, but that doesn't mean that supporting that option is bad because not supporting that option could force them into a worse scenario if they didn't have an industry there at all. So what products do you boycott, if any? Well, let me just put it to you in the animal agriculture case. Like, if we were doing what we do to animals for food to human beings... Yes, you would not. It's very clear that boycotting that makes the condition better. Right, no, this makes perfect sense to me, which again is why I'm a vegan. I think it's so obvious that supporting the existing agricultural industry is bad. I guess when I'm looking at going on holiday on veganism for three months, what I'd be thinking about maybe is eating eggs from your own chickens or your friend's chickens in a farm, which the chickens they don't kill, they just raise them. Is that a moral wrong? It's obviously less than eating a burger. I would never eat a burger. In the three months. Probably what I would do realistically in the three months is occasionally eat dairy products that I knew where they were sourced from. And I was convinced that the conditions were not as egregious as murdering or forcibly impregnating cows. So what are your thoughts on this? So basically, I see where you're going over this. So have we fairly tackled your problem with the distinction between products and we had the clarity between boycotts. Sometimes boycotts don't work, actually. We've got this boycott mentality with animal agriculture. It's very clear that boycotting, if we all boycott animal, it'll make better. If we all boycott t-shirts, they might be forced into slavery. I think for me, what you persuaded me about is that compared to meat, it's less clear. It's less clear. It should be agnostic. You can't have good arguments, present the data. I might look at it better. And also when it comes to, say, flying, I mean, I'm still not totally sold on people flying all the time. If someone is like... With environmental damage, it's definitely... If I drive around an SUV, just loving it, just pumping the music. Obviously, we drive a small car. We get to work. We do travel when we need to. I find it interesting that as vegans, we don't ask people to boycott unnecessary long-haul flights, which... Because veganism was based upon a principle that man should live without exploiting animals. Back then, they said man. Obviously, humans should live without violating the rights of sentient animals. That was what veganism was. Now we have people... A plant-based diet just happened to be really good for the climate. Really good for... There's really good data on whole food plant-based diets for health. Really good epidemiology. Sold on that. But that's not veganism. That is what has been... These causes have been co-opted. Co-opted the word. So really, I'm happy that your plant-based... He's for plant-based for the environment. I'm happy. Right. I see. You've got your own... Not your own. I didn't find... I'm saying is you have a version of veganism or what you would claim is the... The founding version of veganism. Right. But I don't know who you'd be to say to claim the sort of trademarked version of veganism. Yes. I see what you're saying. It's the oldest. It's the one with perhaps... Because basically, I can violate human and animal rights and it'd be good for the environment. I could kill you right now. Your carbon footprint is gone. I guess what I'm saying is this is... Is that true? I could kill you right now. Your carbon footprint is gone. Right. Because you have to dispose of the body. Oh, well, after I dispose of your body, then you carbon... Negative. Neutral. Carbon neutral. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm... I guess what... What I'm saying is that sometimes the environmental movement can cut against human rights and animal rights. Yes. Yeah. And the most environmentally destructive animal on Earth are humans. Yeah. I guess what I'm... So see how these justice issues say... I'm not like... I don't want to get into a semantic debate, but I don't really care what is the veganism. But I understand that... I know what you're saying. The difference between environment... It's the animal rights view versus... I just do it to save the environment are clearly quite different, right? Because I can make environmental arguments that are very egregious to human rights and animal rights. I'm not saying they're the same. But I think that if someone described themselves as a vegan purely for environmental reasons, I wouldn't be like, Ha! You're not a vegan. I'd just be like, well, maybe you're just a different kind of vegan or it's a semantic issue. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. So would you boycott human slavery for the environment? Maybe, I guess. As your primary reason? Possibly. People do... I mean, not me personally, but if someone did, I wouldn't be like, look, this is kind of off track. I don't really care about this issue. Is that human agriculture or not animal agriculture? I'm not... This is not a debate that I really care about. Me neither. We put the label on. I agree that... All I'm trying to say is how different they are. No, I totally agree. They're very different. I just don't care about how we label stuff that strongly. But anyway, let's go back to the... Me neither. Me neither. But it does... It actually does matter a little bit because then people go, I use this word vegan and then I will eat animal products out of these circumstances in here. That's a different... So I guess we're at with you nine months of the year you're vegan and when you travel, you're concerned... Hypothetically, yes. If you were to travel, you go to this country, you eat dairy products and egg products. I wouldn't eat... Well, I wouldn't eat travelling probably because it's far harder to know where the food comes from when you're travelling. So it's not a holiday. You're in this country? Yes. So you're in this country and you're spending three months just letting your hair down and you're eating all the dairy... No, I wouldn't eat just lots of dairy products. I would eat occasionally maybe like an omelet depending on where the eggs came from. Maybe if I knew someone kept chickens for fun and they just lived their life on their farm and they had spare eggs, I would eat an omelet maybe. So one omelet in that three months? I don't know. It depends on how many eggs there were surplus or whether they were forcing them to produce more eggs, basically. So the hens that actually exist at the moment, they've been selectively bred to lay more eggs? Yes. So I wouldn't ever buy them from the supermarket, for example. Just buy them off your friend? Would you create a demand for the eggs? If they were like, I will produce some more eggs for you if you buy them, then no. It's just if they had more about, basically. So there was a surplus of eggs that were going to go to waste. So you would eat them? Yeah. Okay. And that would be the only circumstance in which you would eat animal products? There are probably other weird, exotic circumstances, but there's no point in getting on into those. If I was trapped on a desert island and I had to eat a cow or I'd die, why go into those exotic, strange scenarios? But yes, realistically, in scenarios that could actually happen, those would be the only situations, yes. In every other situation, why would you boycott animal products? Because you think it's morally wrong to violate animal rights? Yeah. So if you found a circumstance where you could eat animal products that weren't violating animal rights, that would be the only time you would eat them. Yeah, would that be a holiday from veganism? That's the question. No, it wouldn't. It wouldn't technically. It would be like kind of a loophole to eat animal products that didn't involve the violation of animal rights. Yeah, I suppose... Because if you walked around and you seen like an egg on the ground that a chicken had left in the forest or something like that and you ate it in an omelet, then why would I be concerned? Yeah. So I guess what you're seeing here is that actually that's not a holiday and that's actually just being a vegan all the time. It's just basically you're applying... You wouldn't be a dietary vegan, but you would be eating animal products in a way that didn't violate animal rights, which is what I would be primarily concerned about. But I would still have a secondary concern. Would you like to hear it? Yeah, of course. Yeah. So this is a lifestyle choice I'm actually considering. So I would like to... The problem for me with it, and it is a pretty serious problem, it's the reason that animal products exist. It's the reason that factory farms, it's not animal products exist. It's the reason that factory farms exist. Yes. It's that we view animals as a product and we view the things that come out of them as a resource and that is how this all began. Okay. So you've gone back to the roots of this problem. Yes, but I guess what you're saying is by me eating waste eggs, somehow I'm going to retrigger factory farming or contribute to it. No. No. What are you saying? Sorry. I'm saying you're still viewing the animals as a product, as a resource, as things that come out of them, as a food source, which is where demand stems from. So you're not actually being revolutionary enough to stop viewing animals like that or animal products like that. Okay. So in the future, you still reinforce to yourself, that's a food, maybe that might leak out into other areas and if people, you know, promoting the idea that animals are food and resources is the problem that we're in now. I guess maybe, but I would also consider doing that with certain human products. So if there was like a bit of human flesh on the ground or something like that, you would eat it? Yeah, potentially. Yeah, potentially. If that led to factory farmed humans, or if we had factory farmed humans and we're really trying to radicalise... That could be a serious problem. And I think if you could convincingly show me the empirical example of eating like... I can. So you find... I can. What are they? Yes, that would be... So the factory farms exist? Why? No, I mean like, could you give examples of people today who start out eating like, waste eggs and then start factory farming, or it leads them to becoming more aggressive in their dairy... Just reverse back factory farming to the first time at someone ate eggs. It's not very empirically convincing, though, as... Why not? It's a slippery slope in action. But the slippery slope is like a known logical fallacy. That's why it's called... It's literally called the slippery slope. Yeah, yeah. So it's not really a fallacy, is it? It's just a product of viewing eggs as resources has led to factory farms. Just reverse it back. I'm not totally convinced, though, that like individuals eating eggs that are waste products today, having been through the process of factory farming and choosing to give it up, would then lead again back to factory farming. Like, if I oppose factory farming and occasionally eat eggs that are on the ground, is that... Is that impossible? Is that... No, it's not an inconceivable thing. I don't think you're... I think it's possible. I do think that when you sat down here, you said that you're considering not being vegan for three months. So I think that this here is like, kind of a gateway to you to maybe just, you know, saying, you know what, I really like these animal products. I'm going to buy a factory farm. I'm going to... When I'm in a restaurant, if there's eggs in there, I see eggs as food. I'm going to buy that. You know, and I am aware of this. I think, like, for me, veganism is quite a lot of, like, religious connotations because there's a sort of purism in it. Like, we got to not eat any dairy because making any exceptions is a slippery slope psychologically and will lead us back to eating more and more dairy, which I, you know, I... Not that it will lead us back. We are there. It led us to here. Right, but I guess what I'm saying is, like, we're not... It's not... It's not equivalent. It's not a perfect mirror image because we would have, like, consciously gave it up. But, like, I guess what I'm saying is, like, I understand, like, why you have to draw bright lines when you're making moral decisions, even if it's not perfectly logical. Because what you're saying is, it's not wrong to eat eggs that are on the floor in the forest. But what you're saying is, it could lead to us doing wrong things. It has led to us to this point. It could, theoretically, or... It reinforces the wrongness of the action of viewing animal... exploiting animals, basically. So it is more of a philosophical kind of... Like, look at where we are now. Obviously, what do people think eggs are? Food? Yeah, no, and I guess... But it's not like... What you're saying is it's not actually... It's not a violation of animal rights to... Yes. It's not a violation of animal rights to pick up some roadkill or cook it on a barbecue. But if you really like that meat, then why wouldn't... You know, this is where your ethics start to bend and fold. Right, and this is what I mean by the kind of religious elements. Like, you have to be kind of pure about it. Otherwise, your mind won't be able to... Your soul, in a way, or your spirit won't be able to make the hard choices that need to be made to protect animals, I guess. Yeah, well, I'm very... I'm very convinced of animal rights. I'm very principled, and, like, I've been vegan 10 years, and I don't lean towards trying animal products in these... these weird scenarios. I know that they're not practicable for everyone to achieve, and I want to be the change I want to see in the world. Like, and I don't think you can... You can give people, like, this amount of exit. This is where people want... You want eggs? Just you? And then what about the next person? What about the next person? Yeah, and I... Yeah, again, like I said, I am considering this. I'm on the fence. One of the reasons I came here is because I wanted to hear some arguments against it. You have some good ones. And I think it's fairly... Your case is quite persuasive. I find it very... It's very hard to do moral things 90%. Like, 10% often grows and it becomes impossible. I would say, like, and to just conclude before I go, there's sort of another category of meat-eating activities. Well, not meat... I've not eaten meat in a very long time. But dairy eating activities where I have eaten dairy recently. But I don't necessarily... I don't know. It's like, I feel bad for doing it, but then equally I'm like, I don't know what to say about it. So, like, recently, my granddad, who's quite ill, made me a cheese sandwich and I've not seen... I hadn't seen him in many months. And he was like, here you go, here's a cheese sandwich I made just for you. And I was like, okay, granddad, I'll eat your cheese sandwich. Or, like, a while back when I was really depressed, I was like, I want a doughnut. I've not had a doughnut in a really long time. Again, it's wrong, but, like... What's the moral? I mean, obviously it's morally wrong, but, like, what's to be gained from morally blaming in the situation? Yeah, it's like... Well, well, I think, like, you begrudgingly took the cheese sandwich or something like this. Well, yeah, but I was just... Well, obviously, like, insidely I was... like, I don't... I really don't want to eat this cheese sandwich. What if you had a dairy allergy? A dairy allergy? I would have probably eaten it as well. Although he... What if he had anaphylactic shop and went to a hospital? Um, presumably... I'm saying there's a line where you'd be like, I'm sorry, I can't take this. Obviously, I wouldn't want to hurt myself for him. That'd be crazy. Like, I'm not a nutty dude. Like, I wouldn't be like... But I'm sorry, there's a... What if there were just a... A dog... A dog chopped up in that sandwich? I'm not saying it was right. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying, like, what are we to do when people say this? Yeah, well, like, you know... Like, I think Bernard Williams makes this point, where he says morality demands quite a lot from humans. And at some point it can actually cross into the realm of, like, becoming impossible to live your life, or, like, actually conflicting with other valuable moral things. But this is, like, a kind of deeper, meta-effical point, I think. Yeah. I mean, I get what you're saying. Like, you know, at that point, you know, you had a... Was it your grandfather? Yeah, yeah. A sick grandfather, and you didn't want to make them upset at that moment, and you took the cheese sandwich and you ate the cheese sandwich. Which I'm not saying... I'm not saying it was right morally. Obviously, that's not how morals work. I'm just saying, like... There's... Sometimes morals run out in how you live your life, which, yeah. Not for me, but I can see why, you know, you seemed like a little bit on the fence anyway, so I wouldn't see you being, like, you know what? I don't even eat cheese. I thought you knew, and then let's go get a vegan burger together or something, because there are ways around those social situations. It's not like, oh, my God, there's a gum to my head. I better eat this cheese sandwich, you know, and... Yeah, but again, like, what I'm saying is, like, you can't always expect that from people. Oh, no, no, no. But, I mean, I know that. When people say, oh, I'm just going to eat these animal products in these scenarios, whether I think that they're going to only use those scenarios that don't violate animal rights. I think it's going to be a planning, which is more insidious, whereas, like, if they were, like... Yeah, I mean, planning ahead is a slippery slope, clearly. If we're, like, psychologically from experience, like, if you're like, here is my, like... But if you don't plan ahead and you're like, I've been overwhelmed emotionally or, like, psychologically, then that feels less insidious to me, because, like, there are limits to the human soul, I guess, or the human ability to make moral decisions. I feel like being principled helps me a lot. Like, I have principles, you know? And for me, I'm an animal rights activist. I expose what goes on in farms and abattoirs, and I try to defend the animals. And having these principles is what reinforces my decisions on a day-to-day basis. And people know that about me. I'm pretty, you know, people know about my... It works for you. It works for me. And I think people do have these, like, they draw lines, arbitrary lines. It's okay to eat this animal product here because it's that animal that I don't really care about. If it was this animal, though, oh, my God, if it was a human being, no way, I would just completely... You couldn't force me to eat it. So I think people draw arbitrary lines when they shouldn't. We share this inherent value of sentience together with animals and we shouldn't really pick and choose. I obviously agree with all this. I'm not disagreeing. I'm just saying, like... You're saying there's these outside scenarios where there's... You're talking about very fringe kind of... Yeah, but again, the reason I'm a vegan is because I think often debating these exotic... I call them exotic scenarios because they don't come up in modern life. Most people, they're not thinking about that when they actually say, can I meet in the scenario? What they're thinking about is can I buy eggs in the supermarket? What about buying a donut? Let's stick there. Buying a donut? Why don't you buy the vegan donut? Because they don't... Look, I was really depressed. Whereabouts? Whereabouts were you? Because I want to see if there's a vegan donut there so next time. I guess I was in like... This was maybe like five years ago. So I was in Gregg's and I wanted a donut. Like... Five years ago? And you still remember that donut? I just remember it because I was like, this is like... Against what you're used to? And also just like, this is kind of a fairly profound point in my life. I'm like, sometimes, you know, like the human spirit just... I try to live a principled life. I try to live a disciplined life. But you know, sometimes the human spirit, you just kind of can't take it. I get it. And I want a donut. I get it. Yeah, it's just not really what I do, but... You're in a depressed mindset and you weren't thinking as rationally as you maybe are today and you feel... I had a moment of weakness. It had been... And the only reason it was possible is because eating a donut harms animals in such an indirect way. But if it was like, going like... Fludging an animal to death for this donut... Obviously I wouldn't have... Not depressed enough to do that. Right, but there are people... I'm sure there... I'm positive there are things that harm people which people also do in the same way or have done in the past. Which are equally wrong but have been done out of like a sense of spiritual failure. I'm guessing. I'm guessing there. Probably, yeah. I think there might be... Because it's indirect. I mean, I can't think of like a drone pilot being like, I'm really depressed to have to hit this button. But... So how long you've been vegan for? Three years. But you bought the donut five years ago. Um... No, I've been like kind of been on and off. So... So you're vegan, not vegan, vegan for not vegan? Yeah, just because it was tough, I guess. I was like a vegan for three years like there was a year gap and then before that vegan and then about 10 years vegetarian. So... So vegan for... I know I've had you for a long, long, long time and I appreciate the chat as well but for me, veganism is something like a principle that you kind of hold and it's not something that... It's not... When you talk about practicing veganism I suppose it's like eating a vegan diet you can put on hold and you come back, put on hold. But the principle was something that it's with you, it's like it's psychologically quite difficult and you need to find ways of continuing to do it especially because the social pressures, they can be fairly intense. Yeah. Have you seen what happens to animals and animal agriculture? I've seen all the footage and stuff. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like I said, like I said, this isn't for me a moral dilemma. I'm not in doubt about whether it's wrong... What I'm saying is psychologically as a person that's the way I saw the struggle is and what I find difficult with some vegan discourses I think it it might be counterproductively like critical of people and I think it may underestimate the emotional and psychological attachment people have to meet either in their past in their childhood it might be a connection with them to their culture. I'm not saying that makes it right I just mean like this is psychologically a highly complicated phenomenon. It's ingrained in society I understand that. It's ingrained in psychology it's ingrained in family. Yeah, and family's an impersonal history and identity. Yeah. Yeah. And I could only imagine what I was lacking like during the you know four generations of slavery in America and it was just it might have been quite normalized at that point too like talking about generations have died and died. Yeah. Obviously there's someone out there in history who's like man I had such a connection to my grandfather for our slave owning and it's such a shame why would we think about that? It's economic you know and you know obviously these things don't trump the rights of humans or animals but I understand there are psychological factors that shouldn't be underestimated but also I'm asking people to weigh those things up you know because I have mental health issues mental health history and you know I was uneducated I was a drug addict come out of prison and I had a leg down and you know but I still managed to sort of put the animals applied before all of these factors and go you know what I always weigh it up that's what I do personally I just weigh it up Well that was great talking to you thank you very much I appreciate it so wait a second before you leave did I change your mind on doing a three month eating murdered animals? Yeah it's been very helpful to talk to you I think at most I would eat like waste dairy products I'm still not totally I personally don't think it's going to slip me into like You really like dairy haven't you found a non-dairy alternative that you like? No I do I do eat You must really like it to eat waste dairy I don't like dairy that much Yeah I guess like it's about dairy that you love so much just like childhood memories of certain dishes Why don't you get the vegan ice cream vegan this vegan that vegan everything these days oh my god Yeah but I mean Waste dairy over vegan ice cream it's not that bad Yeah I'm just like I just really love dairy Yeah I do really like dairy What about lab growing dairy when that comes out persistent fermentation Totally totally I think we'd go for it Alright brother It's great talking to you Take care