one of the problems animal rights and vegetarian (ar/veg) activists face is demonstrating the correctness of their stance amid a barrage of tactics hurled at them by those who support the imprisonment, exploitation, abuse and murder of non-human animals.
they know there is something wrong in what their opponents hurl at them, but they can't always quite get their finger on it. the attack doesn't seem right, but they find it difficult to respond to it sometimes.
almost all attacks on the ar/veg position consists of nothing more than logical fallacies. once these are recognized, the responses can be made with confidence.
the fallacy project attempts to gather together and demonstrate what many of these argumentative pieces of trash really are and you can help!!
go here first to take a quick look:
Fallacy Project
you'll see a long list of fallacies in the TOC.
click on Ad hoc or Ad hominem and you'll see each of these has:
with your help, we think we'll be able to provide an extremely useful resource for activists.
we'll even put your name in the acknowledgements section!!
my thanks to nickeyp who has worked with me on this project for several days now and will help to monitor the progress made in this thread.
so please post about any 'interesting' discussions you've had regarding ar/veg issues which can be used for this project. if you don't have any, you can go through old threads here or elsewhere and find some!
in friendship,
prad
Tags: fallacy
Permalink Reply by pradtf on ok i worked in the figure, but not the reference since there were some misleading self-admitted speculations in the paper as well as insufficient emphasis on lifestyle (imho). since the key idea is not to use outliers to determine one's mean, i think we've done sufficiently well. :D
in friendship,
prad
Permalink Reply by pradtf on lot of good stuff here jacob!
let's go through them and then i'll place things.
we have been killing animals for food since the discovery of fire. appeal to tradition?
yes.
it is part of most people's nutrition. they were taught this by their parents. appeal to popularity?
specifically belief since the suggestion is they believe what they were taught.
the hole in the vegan argument that meat is murder is this: more animals die to prepare and harvest crops.
not sure this is actually a fallacy because it's simply incorrect. see:
the mass murdering plant industry rationalization
on the other hand, since the idea is "you kill too", it could go under tu quoque.
if animals weren't used for food, couldn't the planet become overrun with those animals?
that's clearly a slippery slope - in fact, very similar to the data/lore illustration
[animal abuse is] not [analogous to] owning slaves because even though humans were at one point able to buy and sell other humans, that is no longer lawful. begging the question?
you can't kill humans for food. that is against the law. begging the question?
yes to both!
I recognize that the mass killing of animals isn't pretty, but they are doing it for food.
depending on how it is said it could be appeal to pity?
we have the teeth to tear and chew and grind flesh [therefore we should eat meat.]
again, this is not factual, but it seems to be an appeal to nature
just like people trying to force feed religion to non-believers, unless you have a desire to seek spirituality, you're not going to change. you cannot put another human being into a cycle of change. they have to already be open to it.
i'm not even sure what this person is trying to say - sounds like a self-help aficionado of some sort.
it could be just a distraction through irrelevancy depending upon context, so may be a red herring?
see if you agree with my assessments or suggest alterations. i'll put them up pronto after i hear back from you, because i'm working on something else right now that i'll tell you about in a couple of hours.
in friendship,
prad
Permalink Reply by pradtf on ok i've put them up now:
http://yourcybercourt.info/fallacies/list.html#sec-7-1
http://yourcybercourt.info/fallacies/list.html#sec-16-1
http://yourcybercourt.info/fallacies/list.html#sec-17-1
http://yourcybercourt.info/fallacies/list.html#sec-20-1
http://yourcybercourt.info/fallacies/list.html#sec-24-1
http://yourcybercourt.info/fallacies/list.html#sec-25-1
http://yourcybercourt.info/fallacies/list.html#sec-41-2
i think that's the lot! please check and make any suggestions.
in friendship,
prad
Permalink Reply by pradtf on animals have been known to display bad behavior.
bad behavior is in opposition to moral reasoning.
therefore, all animals are incapable of moral reasoning.
this is faulty induction or generalization by composition:
http://yourcybercourt.info/fallacies/list.html#sec-32
it's also kinda stupid.
consider that humans have had (and continue to have) a far greater record of brutality and aggressiveness even towards each other compared to any animal:
... the ultimate disobedience to this fantasy is the continuous predation by humans on other humans. War, famine, theft, rape, child abuse, and numerous varieties of discrimination based on race, gender, class, religious belief, appearance, language, age, height, economic status, ...
http://www.towardsfreedom.com/277.html
or enjoy this which covers all this in much better detail
... Just today I read about an 8 year old boy who was dismembered in someone's kitchen. Years ago I read about someone killing a child and sending letters to the parents informing them what part of the child's body he had eaten that day, as he kept the corpse in the fridge. I feel these anecdotes are immensely valuable in discussing the issues, harkening back to Mark Twain's the Damned Human Race, where he used the daily newspaper for similar purpose. ...
http://yourcybercourt.info/yccbb/viewtopic.php?id=28
in fact, we have an entire project being dedicated to the issue of
HAAH (human atrocities against humans)
so by james' reasoning
"humans can't be held to the idea of morality and be weighed as "good" or "better" than humans, morally speaking". Morality is a concept they are not aware of, which neither damns nor absolves them.
apart from:
1. the logical fallacy
2. the devastatingly incriminating blow to humans
it is unwise to talk such rot as animals are incapable of moral reasoning in this day and age. the rather well-developed science of cognitive ethology has shown quite conclusively that animal do have a fine sense of ethics. take a look at the work of mark bekoff and jonathan balcombefor instance.
james' argument may have some merit if he had argued that due to a less developed sense of ethics we can't ask animals for reciprocity anymore than we could ask a child (and some ar activists do use that line of reasoning), but the way he's put it, he'll bring the entire human race to the steps of purgatory!
now i'll put this into the project! thx!!
in friendship,
prad
Permalink Reply by pradtf on ya that's good!
anyway, we can be grateful to james for this addition:
http://yourcybercourt.info/fallacies/list.html#sec-32-1
in friendship,
prad
Permalink Reply by Raw Zombie on a few example comments stolen from some articles:
if not already covered are excuses alluding to third world countries to justify what they unsustainable habits
#firstworldproblems. I seriously doubt if any country outside the USA or Europe has ever wondered aloud if it is ethical to eat meat. Given the multitude of crises facing the world at present, doesn't it seem a little bit silly to be a cape-wearing "crusader of the cows"? I can think of a lot more serious and relevant issues to be debated intelligently by the times'
another one is the respect your hosts type false dilemmas for instance :
meat eater will create some sort of fictitious story regarding dinner time in which everyone is happily eating their animal flesh and the vegan is singled out and called ungrateful I don't see why vegans are so ungrateful vegans should just shut up and eat the meat , they should be happy to have food at dinner and its rude to expect some one to accommodate them, why is it if you entertain a vegan it has to be vegan food but when you go their houses they wont serve you meat
this is loaded with so many fallacies and ill logic I wouldn't even know where to begin It assumes that to be vegan one must be ungrateful and feel that special treatment is needed for as it is such a burdersome inconvenient on the meat eaters to pick up the slack of the ethical shortcomings of the compassionate vegans behalf and benvolently provide them some suitbile vegan fare ala bread and celery but Ironically plays on the unrequited non-reciprocity from said ungrateful vegan to the meat eaters, that the vegan is so rude as not return his obligatory meal of meat to said carnist.
as if I was to entertain a jewish guest and serve pork and give them some kosher meal and then get mad cause they don't order pepperoni pizza when I am in their house talk about false dielemmas
Permalink Reply by pradtf on thx again rz!
the first one is a standard red herring:
the second went well for appeal to spite (it's not logically presentable to be a false dilemma effort which at least bears some semblance to a thinking process :D):
Vegan be ashamed! Vegan be grateful!
(i combined your version 'ungrateful' with helena mccann's 'ashamed')
i appreciate your continued contributions here.
in friendship,
prad
Permalink Reply by Raw Zombie on Thanks! likewise, i appreciate your posts, always thoughtful and well articulated!
I have sent these to my other vegan friends for use, soon I will be posting a rudimentary video on some Ideas on how we can put this to use to save some time and educate others in a semi automated manor
Permalink Reply by pradtf on that sounds fantastic, rz!
you may find some serious items at my philosopher friend david sztybel's site:
http://www.30bananasaday.com/forum/topics/dr-david-sztybel
he also has a fallacies page and a lot of other goodies too!
in friendship,
prad
Permalink Reply by Kimberly Klos on Funny you should bring this up; I'm working on fallacies right now in my logic class, and I am working on a paper titled "factory farming equals animal cruelty". Anyway, over the next 2 weeks while I'm doing my research, I'm sure to find some fabulous fallacies for you, and maybe some possible ways to show the weakness in their arguments. I'll be getting back to you!
Permalink Reply by pradtf on that's terrific, kimberly! and welcome to 30bad!
it's great your first post here should be geared to being so helpful!
we need fill ins for certain areas still and could possibly use a few more fallacies.
as you are no doubt aware, these are all informal fallacies - we didn't put any formal ones down because they are pretty black and white for the most part ... but may be we should.
in friendship,
prad
Permalink Reply by Raw Zombie on http://beforewisdom.com/blog/veganism/where-was-my-meatgasm/
another rather humorus one if it wasn't so serious
the supposed myth of the meatgasm, the articles a brief read please check this out
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