TRIGGERnometry - The Moral Case Against Eating Meat

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00:00:30.400 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:33.780 I'm Constantine Kissing.

00:00:34.860 And this is a show for you if you're bored with people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing about.

00:00:41.620 At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts, we ask the experts.

00:00:46.240 Our brilliant guest this week is a YouTuber called Cosmic Skeptic. Welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:50.920 Thanks for having me. It's going well so far.

00:00:53.960 Unlike the pre-show banter. It's good to have you, man.

00:00:56.800 And for anyone who doesn't know you, just tell everybody who are you, how are you, where you are, what has been your journey through life?

00:01:03.100 A lot of questions.

00:01:04.200 My name is Alex, as you say.

00:01:06.840 I'm a YouTuber, which is a strange term to apply to myself, but I suppose it's the only one that fits.

00:01:12.480 I've been doing it for about three years.

00:01:15.020 Previously, I was talking about atheism online was the main thing that I would do, trying to contradict religious claims that people were making.

00:01:21.780 beginning as a kind of tongue-in-cheek edgy atheist type thing and then you realize that

00:01:26.600 you start getting emails from from people all around the world saying uh you know i'm trapped

00:01:31.460 in my country and my parents will kill me if they found out about my religion what should

00:01:34.300 my lack of religion what shall i do and you think ah maybe i should start taking this a little more

00:01:38.940 seriously uh and so you start talking more about philosophy and the politics of religion

00:01:43.220 um and then i took a complete 180 in the past uh year or so and started just completely talking

00:01:50.300 about almost nothing other than animal rights all of a sudden. So that's the most recent

00:01:54.580 kind of path that I've taken. But I'm essentially just somebody who says things on the internet.

00:02:00.580 I mean, you say you ask the experts. I don't know. I mean, that's a very charitable term.

00:02:03.900 I don't know that I'd be able to apply that to myself in any respect. But people seem

00:02:07.780 to have enjoyed what I've had to say so far. So that's about all I've got going for me.

00:02:11.480 I love how British that is, just to downplay any level of expertise that you have. And

00:02:17.640 Actually, when you said you did a complete 180, I thought you were going to go, oh, I'm a devout Muslim now.

00:02:22.820 Yeah, that would make quite the clickbait headline.

00:02:25.440 I made our producer laugh, so that was a good joke. Finally, finally I got one.

00:02:28.920 I do consider it sometimes. I think about just the level of ad revenue that I'd receive if I made some video about why I'd convert it to radical Islam or something.

00:02:36.960 Oh, mate, that would be demonetized. No revenue for you.

00:02:40.020 Maybe not the radical part, yeah.

00:02:41.420 No, but let's talk about religion because one of the things that we've talked to quite a few people about, and I know that you've debated Douglas Murray in the past on certain issues.

00:02:52.040 One of the things that neither of us are believers in that traditional way, but one of the things that we've talked to a lot of people about is the impact of a lack of religion on society.

00:03:03.020 and it feels like we're living in increasingly individualized times

00:03:07.600 and a lot of people have linked that to the death of God if you like

00:03:11.660 and everyone essentially I think Lawrence Fox when he was on our show

00:03:14.780 said that he feels a little bit like it will become a religion of one

00:03:18.300 so do you have any thoughts on you know religion may not be true

00:03:25.480 but it's a glue that binds society together

00:03:28.280 yeah well look I mean it's clear to me that the only reason why

00:03:33.060 It's certainly true that people who lose their religion are left with a kind of feeling of emptiness a lot of the time.

00:03:39.780 You have to ask why that's the case.

00:03:41.820 One thing that people try to do is just ignore that that's the case or deny that it happens.

00:03:45.080 Of course it does happen.

00:03:45.940 But the reason it does is because these people are told from birth that the thing that gives their life meaning is their devotion to God,

00:03:55.180 that they are nothing without complete and utter subjugation to the Creator that they were made to appease.

00:04:02.440 And they're told that if that goes away, there would be nothing for you.

00:04:06.400 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, you're still in your sin.

00:04:10.520 It's a miserable existence.

00:04:12.960 And so when that faith is taken away, or not taken away, but fools away from them,

00:04:17.420 and they realize that there's just no grounding for it,

00:04:19.380 of course they're going to feel like there's no purpose for life,

00:04:21.260 because they've been told and conditioned for all of their life that that's where it comes from.

00:04:25.900 So the whole problem with this, and the reason why I think that people in society

00:04:30.000 are beginning to feel like they have a lack of purpose

00:04:31.980 is because of the fact that we act as though it's the only place it can come from.

00:04:36.440 We don't teach children the meaning and purpose and fulfillment

00:04:40.740 that can come from connection with other human beings

00:04:44.520 without needing some kind of divine buttress for it.

00:04:48.420 You don't need it to be predicated.

00:04:49.920 You don't need the love that you have for your friends and for your family

00:04:52.620 to be a derivative of the love that the Creator has for you.

00:04:55.380 It can just be a love that you have for yourself,

00:04:57.600 and that almost makes it all the more special and meaningful.

00:05:00.540 If you really think that this life is just a precursor to an eternity,

00:05:07.280 by the very nature of something being infinite,

00:05:09.220 it means that this life that we're living is totally meaningless.

00:05:12.660 What does it matter if we're suffering, if we're dying?

00:05:15.200 What does it matter if you pass someone on the street who's freezing to death?

00:05:18.460 Because they've got an eternity of bliss waiting ahead of them,

00:05:21.360 provided they're a Christian, of course.

00:05:23.680 But this kind of thinking completely soaks meaning out of the life that we have now.

00:05:30.520 And so I think it's almost quite ironic when people turn around and say,

00:05:33.400 but if we take away God from society, there'll be no meaning to live.

00:05:37.600 It's like we have every meaning to live the moment when we take that away

00:05:41.280 because we realize that this is all we've got and we'll make the most of it.

00:05:44.240 It's very interesting that you say that, and especially that this is all we've got.

00:05:48.700 because it's when you finally accept that

00:05:52.000 that in reality you start living

00:05:53.900 because you realise that life is precious and finite

00:05:56.320 and that every moment you have

00:05:58.520 could be your loss

00:06:00.360 and you need to make the most of it.

00:06:01.780 Absolutely.

00:06:02.280 It's like, you know,

00:06:03.780 I don't know,

00:06:04.440 if somebody told you that

00:06:05.980 you were going to die next year,

00:06:08.860 you've got some kind of illness or something,

00:06:10.240 how would that change your life?

00:06:11.500 I mean, there'd be a lot of people I'd tell to fuck off.

00:06:14.440 I don't know that well.

00:06:15.540 Maybe some people would be happy as well.

00:06:17.300 Who knows?

00:06:17.800 But whatever the case, it would change your life in a great many ways.

00:06:22.560 You would start having a lot more enthusiasm to complete the tasks that you want to complete, right,

00:06:28.080 if you told you had a terminal diagnosis.

00:06:30.160 But here's the thing, right, if let's say that diagnosis was six months, right,

00:06:34.080 that would totally change your life.

00:06:35.320 Let's say it was one year.

00:06:36.960 It would still probably be pretty effective.

00:06:39.500 What if you had only two years to live?

00:06:41.040 And it's like, well, yeah, but what you realize is that we are in a state of terminal decline.

00:06:47.020 We are going to die, right? The further away you move, maybe the less urgency there is in your

00:06:54.780 action. But if you stretch that onto infinity, then there's no reason to do what you're doing

00:06:59.340 today. It's like having an infinite pool of money and being given a dollar versus having a hundred

00:07:04.820 dollars in your bank account and being given ten dollars. It's life-changing. The one day that we

00:07:09.820 have today to get the things done we want to do becomes far more urgent when you recognize that

00:07:15.320 there's a there's a limit to your days and that's kind of in an exaggerated form you see it very

00:07:20.140 clearly with people who are diagnosed with terminal illnesses who have like a bucket list but we're

00:07:23.920 all on that diagnosis right now it's just that our diagnosis is maybe 70 years or so um so of course

00:07:29.360 we should be applying the same logic we should say that it's the shortening of that life that

00:07:34.120 should give us the the very meaning to get out of bed and do the things we want to do because

00:07:37.380 we're not going to have a chance to do them after we've perished and it's very interesting as well

00:07:43.020 that idea what do you think about the counter argument to that that especially religion means

00:07:49.600 that you're part of a group we're tribal animals being part of a group means that we feel more

00:07:54.800 connected we feel happier we feel safer yeah well i mean if it's if it's false hope and false safety

00:08:02.380 then a true friend wouldn't allow another friend to be part of that community with them right

00:08:08.060 like it's not like we can't build communities on secular foundations right it's not like that

00:08:12.640 can't be done can you give us some examples i mean talking talking broadly like the the camaraderie

00:08:19.340 that you can have with just a friendship group is is far more meaningful than the camaraderie that

00:08:25.240 the average person i would say who's maybe an anglican has with the members of their church

00:08:29.300 on a sunday when they go along i mean you know i used to be a catholic and i remember when i used

00:08:32.800 to go to church and like yeah it was quite nice you you show up and there's some people there and

00:08:36.780 a few kind of elderly ladies sat singing the hymns and stuff it's not like that was the

00:08:40.940 the basis of my social function you know there are so many other ways in which we can connect

00:08:46.760 with with other human beings if you play a musical instrument you can join a band or get in a get in

00:08:50.720 an orchestra you could you can join a choir you can go to a comedy club you know you can do whatever

00:08:54.700 it is you want to do and it has precisely the same effect but without the spiritual baggage

00:08:59.960 you're told no do you know what you can come and sit with us and have a nice time and we can do

00:09:04.880 things together and we can become friends and share these experiences but i'm not going to be

00:09:09.320 continually reminding you while we're doing so that you're destined to hell if you don't kiss

00:09:13.680 the feet of a god that's the difference you know i'm not requiring anything of you i'm not saying

00:09:18.100 that yes you get my love but you also have to have this fear i'm saying no let's get together

00:09:23.460 let's love each other let's have a good time and not worry about the extra baggage that isn't

00:09:28.300 necessary for the thing that's being used to justify the existence of the institution see

00:09:33.440 it's interesting because i'm kind of somewhere towards you but also maybe not quite there for

00:09:38.680 the reasons that francis was talking about like if there was a religion that didn't require me to

00:09:43.240 believe in god i think i'd probably sign up yeah so what about buddhism sound nice to you well yeah

00:09:48.900 it does i mean uh just kind of feels weird it just it's just wrong it's foreign isn't it that's i

00:09:53.440 think that's what it is yeah i think that people um again they say things like well what about a

00:10:04.800 religion where you know you don't need to believe in a god what about a religion where you don't

00:10:08.420 actually need to meet up and have religious observance. And it seems like what we're saying

00:10:12.680 is like, the further away you get from what would traditionally be called a religion, the better

00:10:17.400 it gets. It's like, yeah, that's what I'm saying in so many words. The further away you get from

00:10:21.240 religion, the better your religion is, of course. But what does that say about the concept of

00:10:25.800 religion as a whole? I mean, how are we defining religion here? It's a very difficult thing to

00:10:29.520 define. Most people, most scholars will go for a kind of family resemblance model. There's not like

00:10:33.320 a list where every religion has all of them. And if it doesn't have one of them, it's not a religion.

00:10:38.380 So you'll have things like belief in God, moral code, community ethos,

00:10:43.880 and you don't need all of them, but as long as there's enough of them there.

00:10:48.040 But what we're beginning to do is kind of pluck these away

00:10:51.420 until we're just left with these singular characteristics like community ethos

00:10:56.220 and we're saying, I guess we could technically call that a religion.

00:10:58.880 It's like, you're welcome to that if you want,

00:11:00.180 but I really don't think that's what people mean

00:11:01.500 when they lament the removal of religion from society.

00:11:05.540 I mean, what if we replaced the state religion with that kind of pseudo-spirituality, that kind of like vague notion of like something other, like we wouldn't be a religious state at all.

00:11:17.540 We'd just be a state who has a strange metaphysical thing that it sometimes references when it talks about community ethos, right?

00:11:25.500 If we're talking about religion, let's talk about religion.

00:11:27.760 If we're not talking about religion, then let's not label it religion just to keep ourselves kind of satisfied.

00:11:31.640 Now, I hear what you're saying. I guess what I'm saying is, I mean, one of the fundamental transformations in human history was when we went from the kind of pagan religions, which where the temple, it was a house of God, where actually ordinary people weren't allowed inside.

00:11:48.260 It was just serviced by the priests to being the church, being the house of the people where people would come together.

00:11:54.220 right i mean look at what's happening now in our society people have made politics a religion

00:11:59.200 and have split a long a kind of faith let's say not maybe a religion but people have become very

00:12:04.080 religious about their politics it feels like to me maybe you don't agree but i don't know i mean

00:12:09.180 i agree but can you name a time in history when that hasn't been the case uh i i know i think it

00:12:14.900 depends i think it depends my point is that i feel like increasingly there's nothing that binds

00:12:19.900 society together beyond those divisions so for example in a country which was strongly christian

00:12:27.640 let's say people might be left or right or conservative or labor but there would be a set

00:12:32.420 of commonly held customs or values that they would all share that at the end of the day they would

00:12:38.460 say well yes we are all british or we're all christian or whatever it might have been now i

00:12:42.880 feel like the fractures are becoming so much stronger and so much bigger because there is not

00:12:48.540 a glue that binds us together. And I hear you that, you know, there's a lot of superstition

00:12:55.100 and irrationality when it comes to religion. I just wonder whether the social impact of having

00:13:00.220 these, you might call them delusions, you know, Richard Dawkins might call it a delusion, which

00:13:04.520 he does. I wonder whether some delusions have utility. I mean, look at Yuval Noah Harari and

00:13:11.720 his book, Sapiens, where he talks about the fact that the reason that we as human beings, as homo

00:13:17.660 sapiens have been able to achieve what we've been able to achieve is our ability to have myths that

00:13:23.340 bind us together beyond our tribal small group. Do you see where I'm driving? There are multiple

00:13:28.720 things to say. The first is that to say that something has been useful as a means to produce

00:13:35.240 evolutionary results doesn't mean that we should continue to use it to base our societies upon.

00:13:39.480 I mean, like rape was also an evolutionarily useful tool, but we're not going to say that

00:13:44.100 because of that we should we should still be doing it we can recognize that that was probably

00:13:47.780 necessary in the evolution of our species and if it weren't for that we wouldn't be here um but

00:13:52.860 it's another thing entirely to say that that we should because of that we should base our

00:13:57.480 and base our social institutions on it um there goes the monetization

00:14:02.060 somebody's gonna clip that alex and it's gonna go you know it's not the worst thing

00:14:08.500 cosmic skeptic says rape is necessary believe me there are far worse things that i can say

00:14:16.020 when we get on to veganism um i think that uh uh what were we talking about we're talking about

00:14:22.180 religion being a necessary perhaps delusion to buy that's right yeah we're talking about you

00:14:27.460 know we're talking about the balance between our value of truth and our value of of of comfort

00:14:31.920 let's say. Also, be careful to note that your point is valid in saying that politics is

00:14:42.320 so divisive that maybe we need something transcendental that people can refer to and

00:14:46.160 agree upon, but what do you want it to be and what do you want to happen when people

00:14:49.440 don't agree with it? The reason religion has been so successful at producing social coherence

00:14:57.800 in the past is because anybody who deviated

00:14:59.760 from it has been marginalized or killed.

00:15:02.420 Of course it's going to produce

00:15:03.800 a coherent society if everybody who doesn't

00:15:05.900 comply is kind of gotten rid of.

00:15:08.000 What are you going to do with the dissenters?

00:15:10.280 The whole point

00:15:11.840 Hey man, I'm Russian. I know what we're going to do

00:15:13.860 with the dissenters.

00:15:15.380 The whole point of the individualist

00:15:18.100 revolution,

00:15:19.700 the enlightenment, the realization that

00:15:21.740 maybe we should start treating people as though

00:15:23.740 they have value of their own accord and not just

00:15:25.900 in the utility that they serve to greater society is to say that actually, no, there

00:15:31.380 is value in a difference of opinion. And if that means that we have to give up these cherished

00:15:35.360 institutions of religion, which ostensibly have caused social cohesion and progression,

00:15:40.820 but when we really analyze it, have actually caused a lot of disruption, have actually

00:15:44.800 caused the opposite, right? For every example you can give of religion producing a well-oiled

00:15:51.220 functioning society, I can give you an example of where it's completely destroyed one, right?

00:15:55.780 It does both. And it's one of those trade-offs that we have to make, right? And to me, I think

00:16:02.220 that firstly, most people wouldn't be comfortable with the idea of admitting something is false but

00:16:08.340 saying that we're going to just accept it and use it as though it's true anyway. I mean, I've got

00:16:12.620 no problem with people accepting religious ideas, recognizing that they're false, but kind of

00:16:18.380 embracing the ethos and living by those principles anyway. I think that's what someone like Jordan

00:16:23.240 Peterson does. I don't think he actually believes in the metaphysical claims of Jesus' resurrection,

00:16:27.680 but he sees a great mythical meaning in it. That's fine. You know, again, he's welcome to that. I

00:16:31.360 don't mind that at all. But my point is this. There are people on this planet who believe that

00:16:37.380 the earth is 10,000 years old, right? They are wrong. They are incorrect, provably so. There

00:16:43.920 are people who don't believe that we're evolved creatures. And what effect does that have on the

00:16:47.960 rest of us? I mean, you might say that if you accept that we're evolved creatures, then, you

00:16:52.920 know, our special place as humans is gotten rid of, our meaning is taken away, and this is what

00:16:57.880 people said when The Origin of Species was first published. But the opposite is also true. If you

00:17:04.060 restrict people from learning about evolution, like people are trying to do in the United States,

00:17:08.040 for instance, then you restrict them the opportunity of realizing their place in the

00:17:12.420 animal kingdom, their place in nature, and the respect that they should have for nature because

00:17:16.040 of that fact, right? It goes both ways is what I'm saying. But as a philosopher, I'm interested

00:17:21.940 in what I think is true

00:17:22.960 and arguments that I think

00:17:24.020 have rational grounding for them.

00:17:26.120 And so, I don't know,

00:17:28.380 if somebody came along to you

00:17:29.460 in any other field

00:17:30.520 other than religion

00:17:31.180 and said to you,

00:17:32.180 listen, I've got this thing

00:17:33.200 that I believe.

00:17:35.000 And you say,

00:17:36.240 well, here's why I think

00:17:37.180 it's not true.

00:17:37.700 And you go,

00:17:38.700 yeah, you know what,

00:17:39.240 you're actually right.

00:17:40.080 I mean, I don't think it is true,

00:17:41.260 but I just kind of like it.

00:17:43.540 Well, it's interesting

00:17:44.200 that you make that point.

00:17:45.200 Sorry, Franz,

00:17:45.840 let me just finish this bit

00:17:47.100 with Alex.

00:17:49.140 Actually, you've already

00:17:50.100 made me question

00:17:51.220 some of what i said in terms of the idea like when you said what do we want that thing to be

00:17:57.240 that binds us together that's a very interesting question and i think a very important one

00:18:01.500 yeah i guess the issue is that everything is so politicized that even what we the three of us

00:18:06.820 would certainly i imagine agree in this room you know the enlightenment values of freedom of

00:18:10.880 expression freedom of scientific research all of this kind of stuff that's divisive now you know

00:18:16.100 being pro free speech makes you right wing now all this kind of thing so it's just a question i guess

00:18:21.000 is can we come to a common set of values?

00:18:24.360 But again, look at national identity,

00:18:26.400 saying we're British, that's now toxic.

00:18:29.840 I guess as a society where we are now,

00:18:32.960 and maybe why people say that the death of God has caused this

00:18:36.340 is that we are unable at the moment

00:18:38.780 to come together around a common set of values,

00:18:41.720 no matter how big or abstract they are,

00:18:44.340 just because everything has become so divided.

00:18:47.180 But let me put a counterpoint to your final point,

00:18:49.560 which is about the utility of false beliefs.

00:18:53.160 One of the things that I'd say to you as a comedian, for example,

00:18:55.780 is it's incredibly useful as a comedian to believe that you are incredibly funny,

00:19:01.040 even if you're repeatedly proven wrong by an audience.

00:19:04.120 It was one gig, mate. Fuck off.

00:19:07.900 But anyone will tell you that confidence is a huge thing in almost any career, in any profession.

00:19:15.240 uh the belief that you are able to do something helps you do that thing better yeah even if

00:19:23.300 maybe you're not you know you're not actually that good at that thing yeah but i mean the

00:19:28.400 difference is that firstly like you recognize that it's being used as a tool right it's it's

00:19:33.200 what um i think brett weinstein has called these metaphorical truths for example the gun is always

00:19:39.100 loaded right it's a useful thing to believe even though you know it's not like you should treat it

00:19:43.700 as though it is but but you're not making this metaphysical claim you're not actually necessarily

00:19:48.820 believing this thing it's like if you're on stage and people say you know imagine the audience in

00:19:52.620 their underwear it's like it's imagination that's the point you're using it as a tool for yourself

00:19:57.620 it's kind of inward looking and i have no problem with that kind of inward looking stuff but if you

00:20:01.800 started saying no i am a funny comedian and someone says i don't agree with you and you say

00:20:06.640 no you're wrong and i'm going to teach your kids that you're wrong and i'm going to i'm going to

00:20:11.220 institute, I'm going to put myself in Parliament because I think that Parliament needs a bit more

00:20:15.920 humor in it. And someone might even agree, they might say, yeah, it'd be great to have some

00:20:18.380 comedians in Parliament, but not you. And you say, no, no, you've got no choice about this.

00:20:23.220 Then people might start saying, actually, this is going beyond just a tool. And you're going to

00:20:27.300 have to actually be a lot more justified in your claims that you are quite funny. I mean,

00:20:33.240 the Church of England has 26 seats in our upper parliamentary house reserved for its bishops,

00:20:40.700 The only other country I can think of that does that is the Islamic Republic of Iran.

00:20:46.280 It's absurd.

00:20:48.020 In what other area would we allow this?

00:20:51.220 If we had 26 seats in the House of Lords reserved for white people,

00:20:56.660 and someone said, that's absurd and racist,

00:20:58.180 and someone said, I know, but it's probably quite useful for British nationalism.

00:21:01.900 What are you talking about? This is absurd.

00:21:03.740 As soon as you start putting this into our politics,

00:21:07.580 not just our politics, but our political institutions,

00:21:09.820 you're going to have to have a hell of a lot more justification for that.

00:21:12.200 I've got no problem with people doing it for themselves.

00:21:14.500 What you believe in private, what you believe in,

00:21:16.940 and what helps you get through the day, gets you out of bed in the morning,

00:21:20.020 that's no business of mine.

00:21:21.820 But if you start trying to teach it to my children,

00:21:24.100 if you start trying to get schools funded by the government

00:21:27.380 that proselytize this nonsense, then I'm going to call it what it is.

00:21:34.360 I mean, which is absolutely fair enough.

00:21:37.040 I'd just like to say 26 white people in the House of Lords is not enough.

00:21:39.820 So, Alex, what would your counter-argument be to the fact that many people see atheism as a religion and that you have, you know, absolutists, you know, and there are people who adhere to it in almost militant fashion?

00:21:57.640 Yeah. So imagine, I don't know, take the sport of golfing, right? Let's say you've got the people who golf and then you've got the people who don't play golf.

00:22:08.080 I don't play golf. Let's say that somebody was really annoyed for some reason that people who

00:22:12.520 played golf, let's say a golf course just kind of opened up and took over some of the land that

00:22:16.540 they used to walk through or something and they can't get there. And they're really, really annoyed.

00:22:19.520 And so they make this sport out of like, you know, throwing bricks onto the golf course or

00:22:24.140 something to try and disrupt the golfing. And someone comes along and says, all these bloody

00:22:28.920 non-golfers, they're a sport in their own regard, you know, throwing bricks and stuff. And I'm just

00:22:32.680 like no no i just i just i just don't play golf it's just something i don't know they're like oh

00:22:37.000 well you're a sport you're taking taking part in sport and i say no no you don't you don't understand

00:22:40.740 i literally i just don't play golf that that's it and someone says what about these extremists who

00:22:45.300 are going around throwing bricks into into into golf and trying to score points by getting the

00:22:49.280 home like that's that's like those people may also be people who don't play golf but you not playing

00:22:54.720 golf is not definitionally that right and it's the same thing being an atheist is just not being

00:23:00.800 religious, right? The word literally just means, it's not atheism, it's atheism. Theism is just

00:23:07.580 the Greek, comes from the Greek theos for God. A just means without, right? You're living without

00:23:11.480 the existence of a God. Of course, there are people who hate religion and are extremists in

00:23:16.160 that regard. And all of those people are atheists, but not all atheists are those people, right?

00:23:22.080 To call atheism a religion just completely shows a misunderstanding of what people mean when they

00:23:26.300 use the term right i i don't know any of my friends or colleagues atheist friends or colleagues who

00:23:32.140 make the claim there is no god who actually make any propositional claims about it at all

00:23:37.300 they just they are just unconvinced of the claim that there is a god that's so agnostic rather

00:23:42.200 than atheist these are the same thing right well they're not the same thing but they can they can

00:23:45.880 exist at the same time is what i mean yeah agnosticism is similarly greek um but comes

00:23:50.440 from the word for knowledge so with agnosticism we're talking about what people know do you know

00:23:54.880 that there's a God? Well, of course, no one knows. That makes us all technically agnostic.

00:23:57.980 What we're interested in is what we believe. And that's where theism comes to play. You're

00:24:02.240 either a theist, meaning you do believe the claim, or you're an atheist, meaning you don't.

00:24:06.120 It doesn't mean you believe the opposite claim. But if you do believe the opposite claim,

00:24:09.760 you are an atheist. That's a subset of atheism. That's not what atheism is. And people point

00:24:14.860 to communist atheistic regimes and things like this and say that atheism is a religion

00:24:22.340 and it's caused harm and things.

00:24:23.520 It's like, that's definitionally just not what atheism is.

00:24:28.160 Hashtag not all atheists.

00:24:30.000 Something like that, yeah.

00:24:31.400 And do you not believe that we have this, because I'm an atheist,

00:24:35.860 but I also believe that there's a part of us that needs to believe in something.

00:24:40.000 So, you know, you see this with horoscopes,

00:24:43.400 and you see this where we have this sort of materialism,

00:24:47.000 where we buy and consume in order to fill a void within this.

00:24:51.060 do you not think that we need something

00:24:53.940 if we do

00:24:56.240 then

00:24:57.140 you should try finding it in humanity

00:24:59.480 it's the most fulfilling

00:25:02.060 what do you think is going to give you more purpose in life

00:25:04.280 your daily horoscope

00:25:05.560 that tells you

00:25:06.460 watch out for a bad signal

00:25:09.520 from a bird today or something

00:25:10.820 or from the love of your friends

00:25:13.740 and family

00:25:14.240 do people really think

00:25:16.660 you're assuming a lot about his family

00:25:18.040 that. It's really important to think about this. Why is it when people say, but without religion,

00:25:25.780 you need something like a horoscope. Why is that the first thing that comes to mind? What's a

00:25:29.400 horoscope compared to the multitude of other things available to us? I've never understood

00:25:36.260 when people say things like that, they say, but surely you believe in something. What does that

00:25:41.460 even mean? Yeah, I believe in the existence of an external world. I believe that I'm wearing a

00:25:46.920 blue jacket right now. What do you mean believe in something? Do you mean you believe in something

00:25:52.300 that provides transcendent purpose? Do you mean you believe in something that provides just any

00:25:57.540 kind of purpose? Do you mean you believe in something that has explanatory power about how

00:26:02.620 we got here or explanatory power about why we got here? Like just to say you must believe in

00:26:06.860 something is such a broad thing to say. It's like, well, everyone believes in something, sure,

00:26:11.660 but that's like almost trivially true. So it's like I don't understand what you mean by that.

00:26:15.320 thanks for destroying that argument

00:26:17.060 Francis gets destroyed every episode

00:26:19.980 and you've just had your moment for this one

00:26:22.120 let's move on and talk about

00:26:24.380 animal rights because this is something you've been

00:26:26.260 I think it's fair to say fairly outspoken about

00:26:28.340 what's your position

00:26:30.560 on veganism and

00:26:32.180 animal rights? I think that

00:26:34.220 the refusal to

00:26:35.480 exploit sentient creatures

00:26:37.980 for non-necessary purposes

00:26:40.400 is not just morally virtuous

00:26:42.100 but a moral obligation should be

00:26:44.260 a baseline of our ethical conduct not an extension of it so don't eat meat uh don't uh exploit

00:26:51.000 animals don't exploit animals yeah don't eat them don't eat their products don't wear them

00:26:54.880 don't use them for entertainment and sport entertainment i was trying to think of the

00:26:59.260 last time i used an animal for entertainment let's not bring that up all right um uh that

00:27:05.500 was russia before the internet alex looks horrified he's um oh believe me the things

00:27:09.880 that happen in factory farms are far more horrifying yeah of course they are okay we're

00:27:13.700 And that's actually the interesting,

00:27:16.040 that's one of the first interesting points

00:27:17.240 that people will raise their eyebrows at.

00:27:20.620 And this is something that I realized myself

00:27:22.080 back when I used to eat meat.

00:27:23.600 Someone once made this point to me.

00:27:24.620 They said, it's a bestiality.

00:27:27.640 It's pretty disgusting and wrong.

00:27:29.320 And I was like, well, I mean,

00:27:30.860 instinctively I want to say yes.

00:27:32.000 And they say, but if you have sex with an animal,

00:27:35.920 there's at least a chance that they might enjoy it.

00:27:38.100 And maybe they do.

00:27:39.020 I mean, it's a good chance

00:27:40.020 they're probably having a good time

00:27:41.060 or at least it's a pleasurable experience to an extent.

00:27:43.040 conversation is taking a turn but anyway i'd love you to do that as a routine at a woke comedy club

00:27:47.500 that'd be fucking brilliant but but like i that's this is the thing right the eyebrows go to the

00:27:51.520 back of the head and then you say but but think about this right like when it comes to like

00:27:55.880 slaughtering and killing an animal that's obviously not in their best interest they're

00:27:59.280 obviously not enjoying that kind of thing so it's like it was an argument from kind of saying like

00:28:03.160 if we're allowed to literally take a take a cow put a bolt through its brain turn it upside down

00:28:07.540 slit its throat and watch it bleed out but that then that's that's just fine and no one cares but

00:28:12.240 as soon as you put your penis in it, oh, that's a big ruckus.

00:28:15.400 And I was like, that's a really good point.

00:28:17.520 Now, luckily, I'm able to go the one way of saying

00:28:20.000 neither of those things should be done.

00:28:21.720 But I think as a meat eater, these are the kind of absurdities

00:28:25.940 that you have to start considering.

00:28:27.400 What else can that kind of justification allow you to do?

00:28:31.760 The kind of justification that we produce,

00:28:34.420 that we desperately kind of clamber for

00:28:35.960 when we're trying to continue eating our burgers and our milk and our eggs,

00:28:39.840 those justifications, you want to be careful with them

00:28:41.680 because they can lead you to a whole host of really unfruitful places, I think.

00:28:45.980 So how many meat-free days a week do you reckon you can have

00:28:48.240 if you want to have sex with a cow once a week?

00:28:51.340 Do a little hedonic calculus.

00:28:53.560 Work it out.

00:28:54.680 So you're vegan.

00:28:58.120 Put forward the case as to why we should be vegan.

00:29:01.540 So there are a few ways to go about it.

00:29:03.680 The first thing to note is that usually I make a case from consistency.

00:29:08.160 I don't work from the ground up.

00:29:09.740 I take things that I think other people already believe

00:29:11.680 and I try to just extend the logic

00:29:13.600 so let's start with something

00:29:15.220 we do agree upon

00:29:17.460 presumably speaking

00:29:18.860 we're not racists

00:29:20.740 now

00:29:22.140 you've got to be careful

00:29:24.660 sometimes you need to give it lower than that

00:29:26.440 we've got to be careful these days

00:29:29.640 now let's think about why

00:29:32.420 it's weird because we're kind of proving a negative here

00:29:34.440 the argument shouldn't be why are you not a racist

00:29:37.140 it should be why should I be a racist

00:29:38.340 and that argument is flawed

00:29:39.260 but let's still think about it, you know, reflect on this, right?

00:29:41.900 Or let's take sexism as well, kind of keep them all in mind.

00:29:44.800 Are men and women the same?

00:29:46.640 Are white people and black people the same, right?

00:29:49.600 There are differences between people.

00:29:51.360 People have different height averages.

00:29:53.460 They have different skin colors.

00:29:54.700 They have different hair length and things like this, right?

00:29:58.040 But to be anti-racist or to be anti-sexist

00:30:00.240 isn't to deny that differences exist.

00:30:02.000 It's to say, like, who cares about those differences?

00:30:03.640 Those differences aren't morally relevant, right?

00:30:05.600 So let's think about the differences between an animal and a pig, let's say, for instance.

00:30:10.240 So one difference is that a pig has more legs than we do, right?

00:30:13.440 Is that what justifies the difference in treatment?

00:30:15.840 Of course it's.

00:30:16.380 I mean, obviously that's morally irrelevant, right?

00:30:18.720 But the question becomes, what is the morally relevant difference?

00:30:21.940 What is the difference between a pig and a human?

00:30:25.360 The difference between them, that justifies the idea that if we even hurt one without their consent,

00:30:32.800 we can be thrown to jail but the other one we can do literally whatever we please to what's the

00:30:37.620 moral difference here and not only do you need to find that difference but it needs to be such to

00:30:41.600 be consistent here we need to find the difference that if that difference were also true of the

00:30:46.900 human we'd be okay with doing it to the human so if we say like um the pig is different in this

00:30:51.980 respect it lacks this quality if that's really the quality that justifies the difference in

00:30:56.840 treatment then we'd have to say that if the human being also lacked that quality we'd be okay with

00:31:00.840 slaughtering them. The question is, what's that quality? Because it's not me who has to do the

00:31:04.680 justifying here. If you're causing suffering, you should justify that behavior. Every time we

00:31:10.020 cause any kind of suffering, we justify it. A lot of the time we can do so. We justify wars

00:31:14.620 because we think that they serve a greater end. What justification do we have for torturing and

00:31:20.140 killing innocent beings? I guess the argument there would be, and I'm not suggesting, by the

00:31:26.460 way that human beings are carnivores by the process of evolution. But carnivores eat other

00:31:33.540 animals, right? But tigers don't eat tigers, right? It's not because they have a moral hierarchy of

00:31:39.180 some kind. It's just they don't eat other carnivores, right? So from an evolutionary

00:31:45.580 perspective, my understanding is that we are kind of like 99% vegan, I suppose, in terms of our

00:31:53.760 evolution that's kind of how we evolved um uh but there would you know if you look at apes or

00:31:59.760 monkeys what they'll do is they mostly fruit vegetables whatever mostly fruit of course but

00:32:05.900 and roots and stuff like that but every now and again they'll catch whatever and eat it yeah right

00:32:12.020 so the argument to what you're saying would be that we evolved for a small part of our diet at

00:32:19.660 East to hunt and eat animals, just like almost every other animal is either prey or predator

00:32:27.240 in the animal kingdom, right?

00:32:28.860 So there are two potential arguments at hand.

00:32:31.300 One is to say that this occurs in nature, but how can we be held morally responsible?

00:32:36.080 We don't hold the lion morally responsible for eating the gazelle.

00:32:39.020 The other argument is to say that actually we do need some kind of meat because it's

00:32:43.300 part of our evolutionary heritage, which means that we actually have a requirement, right?

00:32:46.820 So on the second point first, it's demonstrably not true.

00:32:50.940 The only thing that gives us what we need from the food that we eat are the nutrients contained within them.

00:32:55.320 And we can prove that all the nutrients you need to survive and not only survive but be healthy can be achieved on a vegan diet with quite considerable ease, in fact, especially living in London.

00:33:06.560 It's one of the easiest things to do.

00:33:09.200 And again, it's a point about necessity here.

00:33:11.220 Is that really true?

00:33:12.240 I'm only asking that because I don't know.

00:33:14.180 It's true.

00:33:14.440 So the first thing that people worry about is protein.

00:33:16.800 Protein is the least of your concerns.

00:33:18.140 I mean, it's very easy to get the right amount of protein on a vegan diet.

00:33:22.820 The thing you really want to watch out for are micronutrients.

00:33:25.480 Things like iron deficiencies might be high among vegans

00:33:27.800 because people don't want to eat their leafy greens,

00:33:29.780 but that's really all you have to do.

00:33:31.540 You can take a multivitamin supplement if you want to.

00:33:34.820 You don't have to, but something like over 60% of the American adult population

00:33:40.120 do that anyway.

00:33:41.260 It's a fairly common thing to do.

00:33:42.280 The only thing that you can't really get from a vegan diet is vitamin B12.

00:33:47.040 It's the one thing that people will always bring up because it's like the one thing that only comes from animal products.

00:33:51.680 Well, first thing to note, it doesn't technically come from animal products.

00:33:54.500 It comes from bacteria in the soil which the animals eat.

00:33:57.000 We used to get it either through drinking water and we'd get traces from the dirt in the rivers

00:34:02.100 or because our food wasn't perfectly clean in the specks of dirt.

00:34:06.200 But also, the stuff that we get from the animal products today, those animals are being fed B12 supplements, and then we're then eating the animals.

00:34:13.960 So if people want to say that they don't want to take a supplement because it's an unnatural thing to do, well, everything about factory farming is unnatural, including the fact that they're being fed the supplements.

00:34:23.160 But it is absolutely true that every single nutrient you need can be achieved on a vegan diet.

00:34:28.780 Okay, and let's come back to the lion and gazelle thing.

00:34:30.880 Yeah, well, lions also rape each other, right?

00:34:34.320 If you want to...

00:34:35.480 That's problematic.

00:34:36.200 If you want to base your ethical conduct on the conduct of lions, then you go ahead.

00:34:41.220 But you're not going to have a very good time.

00:34:42.300 I mean, lions will often find a new pride, male lions, and they will kill the younglings, kill the male and rape the female to repopulate the area with their younglings.

00:34:55.240 Now, imagine somebody trying to justify being a rapist by saying, well, you don't judge the lion for doing it.

00:35:01.560 You'd laugh them out of the room.

00:35:03.260 It's like, of course we don't, because we don't base our ethical conduct on the conduct of wild animals.

00:35:08.500 The difference that we need to consider here is moral worth versus moral agency, right?

00:35:13.140 Moral agency is where you can be held responsible for the actions that you commit.

00:35:17.220 Moral worth is weaker than that.

00:35:18.620 It just means that you have, as I say, like moral worth.

00:35:22.260 I mean, it is what it says on the tin.

00:35:23.540 So you could take, for instance, a severely disabled human child, clearly, or even just a normal human child.

00:35:30.460 Let's just take someone who's young enough

00:35:32.260 that clearly they don't have moral agency, right?

00:35:34.640 If they do something wrong,

00:35:35.880 we don't really hold them responsible for it

00:35:37.260 because we recognize that they don't have that agency.

00:35:40.340 But that doesn't mean they don't have moral worth, right?

00:35:42.220 If somebody tried to hurt them,

00:35:43.760 it wouldn't be justified in saying,

00:35:45.380 oh, but the baby just hit someone.

00:35:46.440 Why can't I hit the baby?

00:35:47.400 It's like, because there's a difference here, right?

00:35:48.980 Like, you need to, we need to act in the ways,

00:35:53.480 we need to act in accordance with

00:35:54.980 what our kind of natural position prescribes, right?

00:35:59.480 Like, we have a capability for rational thought.

00:36:02.460 In fact, the very thing that people often use to justify the slaughter of animals is the thing that should justify the opposite.

00:36:07.680 They say, like, yeah, but we're on another level to these animals.

00:36:10.200 You know, we're better than them.

00:36:11.200 We're higher than them.

00:36:13.220 And it's like, if that's the case, then we're better than they are in terms of their violence towards each other.

00:36:18.300 We're better than they are in terms of the idea that they have to kill each other for food.

00:36:21.560 Like, we're better because we're moral creatures.

00:36:24.660 We're better because we have a conscience.

00:36:26.040 We're better because we're able to rise above that kind of naturalistic carnivorism.

00:36:30.640 But hold on.

00:36:31.440 Look, a lion isn't going to survive on a vegan diet.

00:36:35.760 Its digestive system, its whole body, everything about the lion is,

00:36:41.640 I don't want to use the word designed, but has evolved to make it a carnivore.

00:36:46.480 A lion cannot survive without eating other animals.

00:36:49.980 Absolutely, but you can.

00:36:51.400 Yeah, I hear you.

00:36:52.500 But my point is that lions could very comfortably, I imagine, survive without raping each other, maybe not as successfully as they do.

00:37:02.460 But eating meat for a lion is a natural part, an essential part of its evolutionary background, right?

00:37:12.960 So I don't think you could judge a lion for eating meat, right?

00:37:16.740 So the argument would be that human beings evolved to some extent to behave in that way

00:37:24.700 as well.

00:37:25.700 Judging us for doing that, there's a weak link somewhere in the argument, maybe I haven't

00:37:32.080 identified it properly.

00:37:33.080 I'm glad you changed the word, you changed the saying it's essential, you changed

00:37:37.500 it from saying it's natural, saying it's essential.

00:37:39.740 That's exactly the point.

00:37:41.740 It's necessary for them to do so.

00:37:43.780 obligate carnivores. They don't have a choice in the matter. We do have a choice. We don't

00:37:48.520 have to eat meat. If we have to eat meat, then that's another matter. What we have here

00:37:52.680 is a situation where, as we've all accepted at this point, we don't have to do it. And

00:37:59.040 when you accept that, it means that what you're doing is, by definition, unnecessary. And

00:38:04.200 the next stage of the argument is that, well, what we're doing causes suffering. So what

00:38:09.040 we're doing is causing unnecessary suffering. I think that the baseline of ethical conduct

00:38:14.300 is to try to eliminate unnecessary suffering. It's as simple as that. Why don't we apply

00:38:20.800 the same arguments to dog fighting, people who breed dogs? People generally have agreed

00:38:27.180 that that's an evil thing to do. They're not going to give their money to that. Why? Why

00:38:32.280 are people outraged when there are festivals in China where people eat dogs? Why are there

00:38:37.220 protests on the street of London when that happens because we're completely selective

00:38:40.940 with our empathy. It's not like we don't care about animals already. These arguments

00:38:44.360 that we make about what's natural and what we should be allowed to do to other animals

00:38:48.320 because of our evolutionary heritage, it's like, if you want to use those arguments,

00:38:51.880 let's apply them consistently and see how okay you are with dogs being put into battery

00:38:58.040 cages. We have animal cruelty laws because we've recognized that animals do have some

00:39:03.580 kind of moral worth. And if they have any kind of moral worth, even the most minimal

00:39:06.620 sense of moral worth, then what we do to them at factory farms is in no way justified, right?

00:39:10.780 And certainly not by saying that, well, you know, for a lion, it's necessary to kill other

00:39:16.380 beings in order to eat. And so for us, even though it's not necessary, it's kind of maybe

00:39:21.540 a little bit necessary, but not really. So maybe we should, you know, stick a pig into

00:39:25.780 a torture chamber. It's like, I don't see the, I don't, I don't follow the argument,

00:39:30.120 right?

00:39:32.380 Well, did you want to?

00:39:33.920 No, I wanted to touch on factory farming, actually, because this is something that's

00:39:38.420 been brought up again and again and again. And I think people, the average person who

00:39:43.900 would be exposed to this, sort of understands that factory farming is not a good thing,

00:39:49.360 but we're all busy people. We don't really have time to explore these particular subjects.

00:39:54.020 Could you just tell the listener or the viewer why you believe that factory farming is wrong?

00:39:57.880 They're concentration camps for animals. The level of suffering going on in these farms is so unimaginably huge. I think that's the real reason people don't know what's going on, not because they don't have the time for it. Everybody would have the time for it if they had the slightest inkling of what was going on.

00:40:15.640 There are, I mean, it's a different experience for different animals, right?

00:40:22.240 So, for instance, with eggs, to take one example, it's not the same chicken that gives us meat

00:40:27.940 that gives us eggs.

00:40:28.940 There are broilers and layers, and the layer, they're genetically engineered differently,

00:40:32.680 right?

00:40:33.680 So the ones that lay eggs, obviously only the females lay eggs, so when the males are

00:40:38.520 born, they're totally useless, right?

00:40:40.680 And so I ask people, what do you think they do with them?

00:40:42.600 And they say, well, I guess they're sold for meat.

00:40:44.880 And I say, no, no, it's a different type of chicken.

00:40:47.400 So what do you think they do with them?

00:40:48.360 And they say, I guess they kill them.

00:40:51.260 It's like, yeah, how do you think they do it?

00:40:53.600 They gas them or something or chop off their head.

00:40:55.620 They put them on a conveyor belt and throw them into a blender.

00:40:59.040 Just chicks, just alive simply because of the fact that they're male.

00:41:02.080 Millions and millions and millions of them on end just so that we can eat eggs.

00:41:06.640 Baby chicks just being ground up alive.

00:41:09.240 The treatment of pigs and cows is obscene.

00:41:12.980 To get milk, cows are forcibly impregnated, and then they give birth to a calf.

00:41:17.820 I mean, they produce milk for the same reason we do.

00:41:19.640 It's for their children.

00:41:20.320 But the children, obviously, then, have to be taken away.

00:41:23.040 And that causes the same kind of psychological distress that it does in a human being.

00:41:26.380 Again, what for?

00:41:27.500 So that we can have a glass of milk.

00:41:29.420 And then what happens to that cow?

00:41:30.540 Well, it's continually impregnated and continually has its children taken away for years and years

00:41:34.820 until it finally can't do it anymore, and then it's sold for me, and it's slaughtered.

00:41:38.100 It's like, who doesn't know that this is the kind of stuff that's happening?

00:41:44.480 Who doesn't know that in order to have milk, a cow has to be pregnant?

00:41:48.300 It's the same thing with a human being.

00:41:49.540 And who doesn't know that if that milk is meant for the child, then the child has to be taken away?

00:41:54.020 And who doesn't know that that child probably has a bolt put through its head or is sold for meat?

00:42:00.380 Like, who really doesn't know that this is happening?

00:42:02.260 And who thinks that it's justified?

00:42:03.340 i mean just just think about what's going on here right unimaginable levels of suffering

00:42:11.240 millions and millions of animals killed every single hour just because we think they taste

00:42:15.840 nice it's a hell of a justification what other what other kind of immoralities are we going to

00:42:20.780 allow people to justify because of their sensory pleasures i wanted to talk to you about the

00:42:28.680 practical side of this because the reality is that the overwhelming majority of people eat meat

00:42:33.360 and while i think the point you just made is very strong i don't think uh we're going to convince

00:42:42.640 people to not eat meat based just on that because if if if that was possible it would have happened

00:42:48.640 by now do you know what i'm saying um so first of all actually just on the factory farming i mean

00:42:54.180 would you be a lot more comfortable with people eating meat if it was all grown kind of like free

00:43:00.760 range uh grass fed all this kind of stuff yeah so the first thing to note is that labels like

00:43:05.900 free range are generally mythical um the the requirements for something to actually be free

00:43:11.160 ranges is uh people have this idea of like you know happy chickens and happy eggs and stuff like

00:43:18.080 it's it's just not true you know these animals don't have to be happy to produce

00:43:21.820 the food that we eat from them.

00:43:24.700 Chickens on free-range farms, they'll have access to the outdoors for half a year.

00:43:28.080 These animals are still caged.

00:43:29.380 They're still bred.

00:43:30.560 They're still getting osteoporosis because they're laying too many eggs.

00:43:33.260 Still, all of these problems are going on, even if they stick a free-range label on it.

00:43:38.600 If anybody's interested, you can watch footage from these farms.

00:43:43.000 My friend Ed, who co-founded an organization called Surge,

00:43:48.100 recently did an expose into UK dairy farms.

00:43:53.240 The campaign is called Dismantle Dairy,

00:43:54.800 just showing people what's going on in these farms.

00:43:57.020 A few years earlier, he produced a documentary

00:43:58.700 called Land of Open Glory,

00:44:00.740 showing what's happening on red tractor-approved farms,

00:44:04.020 on farms that have these kind of labels

00:44:06.080 that are supposed to kind of satiate customers

00:44:07.880 into thinking that it's an okay thing to do.

00:44:10.940 But remember, we're still talking about life here.

00:44:15.580 We're still talking about animals being exploited for their products and for their meat

00:44:19.940 so that we can have something that we think tastes nice or so that we can wear them and stuff like.

00:44:25.240 The levels of justification are totally mismatched.

00:44:28.420 We're not just saying that we want to slaughter and kill and exploit animals for some great noble purpose

00:44:37.000 because we want to win a war, because we want to use horses as transportation to get us onto the battlefield

00:44:43.260 or something like we might have used to be able to say, right?

00:44:45.400 And we're not just saying, oh, we want a slightly inconvenient cow

00:44:49.680 so that we can have our mild convenience of taste, right?

00:44:52.980 Like, it's completely mismatched.

00:44:55.540 Like, it means a single meal, a single burger,

00:44:58.220 that bit of milk that you have in your tea means absolutely nothing to us,

00:45:01.400 but it means absolutely everything to the animal that produced it.

00:45:04.980 We just got to ask ourselves if we're justified in doing it.

00:45:06.940 And I also disagree with you in saying that, like,

00:45:08.940 we're not going to convince people to be vegan based on this argument alone.

00:45:12.360 I mean, you say it would have happened already. It's like every moral argument takes time, right?

00:45:16.200 The difference with this, like how long, as Peter Singer asks, how long do you think it would have taken for black slaves to become liberated if they couldn't have spoken for themselves?

00:45:25.320 How long do you think it would have taken for women to be granted equality if they couldn't fight for their own rhymes, right?

00:45:30.520 This is one of the arguments I always make when I'm defending freedom of speech, that actually it's very important for people who are oppressed in some way to be able to do it.

00:45:38.180 So I guess you're saying animals don't really have freedom of speech.

00:45:40.720 That's the thing you recognize, how important it is, how important it is to have the ability to speak for yourself in order to actually achieve anything in terms of social justice.

00:45:49.700 Well, these animals can't talk for themselves.

00:45:51.540 They need someone to talk for them.

00:45:53.140 I mean, they can talk in the sense that they can scream.

00:45:56.200 And if you've ever seen an animal on a factory farm, then you know what it's trying to say to you.

00:46:01.020 You don't need to ask.

00:46:01.780 You don't need a translator.

00:46:03.340 But they can't write essays.

00:46:05.160 They can't write political diatribes.

00:46:07.600 They can't argue.

00:46:09.220 They can't argue back to the person who says,

00:46:11.760 shut up, I like the way you taste.

00:46:13.640 So you're going to suffer and die.

00:46:16.520 There's no argument back to that, that they can produce.

00:46:19.360 It has to fall on us.

00:46:20.980 And of course it's going to take a long time,

00:46:22.640 but you might have said the same thing in the 1700s.

00:46:26.440 People roughly knew that slavery was a bad idea.

00:46:29.780 If you read the letters and the correspondence

00:46:35.420 during the time of the production of the United States Constitution,

00:46:38.020 The founding fathers having this incredible, noble, and totally unrealistic and utopian success of creating this nation.

00:46:47.000 And they're writing the Constitution.

00:46:48.300 They're all in high spirits.

00:46:49.100 And then comes the question of slavery.

00:46:51.300 And they're using metaphors.

00:46:53.540 And they're using euphemisms because everybody kind of knows that it's the elephant in the room.

00:46:57.980 They knew it was the wrong idea.

00:46:58.920 And somebody might at that point said, like, yeah, come on.

00:47:01.760 Obviously, if it were going to happen, it would have happened by now.

00:47:03.760 People aren't going to be convinced by the moral argument to abolish slavery.

00:47:06.240 It's going to have to be practical things.

00:47:07.800 We're going to have to prove that there's an economic benefit to abolishing slavery.

00:47:11.440 The problem is that there wasn't.

00:47:12.600 In fact, it was the complete opposite.

00:47:13.940 So what happened is people had to say, no, I'm sorry, time is up here.

00:47:17.840 The moral argument is strong enough, and if you're not willing to consider it,

00:47:20.640 if you don't have the time, then we'll make you have the time.

00:47:23.560 We'll give you the time.

00:47:24.560 We'll provide the time.

00:47:25.460 We'll put in the work.

00:47:26.560 We'll do the investigations.

00:47:28.640 We'll do the research, and we'll put it to you in plain English.

00:47:31.600 And then it's up to you to just decide whether you want to be on the right side of history or not.

00:47:34.660 and Alex what do you think about those people who go okay so you've made those you know those

00:47:40.720 arguments about factory farming it's diabolical it's awful however even farming agricultural

00:47:48.440 farming creates a huge amount of damage to the local wildlife to the ecosystem the use of

00:47:54.780 pesticides the use of fertilizers so actually the reality is that all our impact on the the on the

00:48:02.840 on the ecosystem through our farming is detrimental yeah so uh the thing to know is people say for

00:48:09.220 instance like you know growing crops the kind of crops that we need on a vegan diet growing soy

00:48:13.780 these things are really really bad for the environment it's absolutely true but we're

00:48:18.220 currently growing enough crops to feed the world population three times over and then we're feeding

00:48:22.560 it to livestock and then we're eating the livestock right so we would still be minimizing our impact

00:48:27.720 on the planet by going vegan, we'd actually be using less soy because 85% of the soy that

00:48:32.960 we currently grow is fed to livestock, it's fed to cows, right? So like, I agree with

00:48:38.160 you, you know, like, yeah, we should be reducing the amount of soy that we're growing. We

00:48:41.940 should be reducing the amount of crops and land that we're taking up. But if you want

00:48:44.380 to do that, like, you're still going to want to go vegan. I'd also say that the animal

00:48:51.200 agricultural industry is such a large contributor to global warming. Most people who are going

00:48:57.280 vegan these days are doing it for environmental reasons, which I resent because I think that's a

00:49:01.300 bad reason to go vegan and leaves us with the concern that they might switch back again

00:49:05.740 if the environmental crisis is abated. It's just like a nice thing to have on the side for me,

00:49:11.900 right? The moral argument is so impenetrably strong that I don't think it needs anything else.

00:49:17.920 So how great is it that just by the way, if you do this, you'll also be doing the single best

00:49:21.300 thing you can do as an individual to save the environment. You'll also be doing wonders for

00:49:24.780 your health like these are nice little add-ons but they're definitely not necessary to make the

00:49:27.820 argument i can just see the comments under this video three cucks discussing how to be how best

00:49:34.020 to be a soy boy that's what it's going to be like you're actually more of a soy boy yeah

00:49:38.640 katie hopkins called me a soy boy yeah yeah so i've been there man um having said that soy is

00:49:45.620 disgusting we uh we stood up katie hopkins once by by mistake we was a friend of mine was supposed

00:49:50.000 to be interviewing her and she she'd emailed him but it had accidentally gone to his junk folder

00:49:54.520 so he was waiting at the wrong place.

00:49:55.980 So she was sitting at the Oxford Union

00:49:57.360 kind of waiting around for us to show her

00:49:58.820 and we never did.

00:50:00.840 It's one of my kind of claimed fames

00:50:02.260 that I got to stand up for Katie Hopkins.

00:50:05.240 Whereas I just called her a soy boy by her

00:50:07.180 which is very painful having to admit

00:50:08.560 Katie Hopkins is not always wrong.

00:50:10.940 But there's one question that I wanted to ask.

00:50:12.500 So you bring up the health issue.

00:50:14.020 Why is it healthier to be vegan?

00:50:15.500 Well, it's not necessarily healthier.

00:50:16.840 It's just that there are health benefits

00:50:21.360 for instance to not eating things like red meat.

00:50:24.520 And you'll often find that when people go vegan, they start paying attention more to their diet and you're less at risk of going overweight.

00:50:32.360 You find yourself paying more attention to the nutrients you need because you need to get the right nutrients to be healthy.

00:50:37.920 You start focusing on that and you become healthier.

00:50:39.840 Like a vegan diet or a meat diet, like there are benefits to both health-wise.

00:50:45.040 Although I think it's recommended that you eat absolutely no red meat because it's a carcinogenic and a cause of heart disease.

00:50:51.460 Although, you know, it's all a little bit kind of muddy, right?

00:50:53.720 No one really quite knows.

00:50:55.160 What we do know for certain is that being a vegan is healthy, right?

00:51:00.560 That's one thing we do know.

00:51:02.260 We know that you can also be healthy on a meat-eating diet.

00:51:05.000 To say which is healthier, like, it's a difficult argument to make.

00:51:08.340 You could probably say that eating meat will give you a more convenient way to live a healthier lifestyle

00:51:12.740 and you'll get more muscle mass and things like this.

00:51:14.440 But my argument is this.

00:51:15.620 If it is healthy, I don't care what's healthier.

00:51:17.740 I care about if it's healthy, then it's not necessary to eat meat.

00:51:22.080 and then it's immoral to do so right like if we found out that it was if it was it was healthier

00:51:28.280 for our diets if we started eating the the flesh of tortured babies human babies

00:51:34.380 people would be like well obviously we're not going to do that and and i say what are you

00:51:39.200 denying that it's healthier it's like of course no no like we can recognize that something's

00:51:42.200 healthier but also recognize that that's not an argument to do it um so if meat eating is

00:51:46.500 healthier like okay great i still think it's wrong still think we shouldn't be doing it just as if

00:51:51.400 you take steroids in a sports competition you will perform better that is actually true but

00:51:55.700 we're still not going to allow you to do it no i'm russian i know i know all about that we've

00:52:00.120 been there done that yeah listen we're almost out of time i wanted to say by the way on the

00:52:03.420 whole male chick thing i just like just a bunch of males on the conveyor belt being thrown into

00:52:07.400 a blender that's like a feminist wet dream but uh before we let you go uh the last question we

00:52:13.120 always like to ask uh is what is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society that

00:52:17.680 we ought to be talking about beyond the scope of

00:52:19.660 maybe what we've covered already?

00:52:22.240 Annoyingly, the thing that does

00:52:23.540 spring to mind is animals.

00:52:26.000 Is the treatment of animals.

00:52:29.620 It's like

00:52:30.420 they are so not spoken

00:52:33.620 about.

00:52:34.720 So things like religion,

00:52:36.860 things like that, they get mentioned

00:52:39.480 in our

00:52:41.500 House of Commons. They get brought up

00:52:43.440 in politics. At least on the manifesto,

00:52:45.980 animals are nowhere to be seen.

00:52:47.380 The idea that we should be vegan is totally radical. It's this totally radical idea such that if you found it even mentioned in a party's manifesto, you'd think, whoa, that's crazy. But what are we talking about here? We're talking about boycotting an industry that's torturing innocent creatures. How has that become a radical thing to do?

00:53:08.860 right the reason why is because people aren't talking about it people people it's not normalized

00:53:15.160 when you say that these things are going on people say well i'm i'm sure that i must just be a bad

00:53:20.280 apple you know that i can't really be having it surely like there there'll be regulations in

00:53:24.300 place you know that kind of thing it's like no there's absolutely not and the reason we're not

00:53:28.220 aware of that is because we're just not talking about it um the moment that we do begin talking

00:53:32.160 about it as a society is the moment that it will begin to end because there's no way once you give

00:53:36.120 in a moment's thought and you realize what's actually going on that you can continue to

00:53:39.020 justify it. The only actual justification for the way that we're treating these animals

00:53:43.360 is ignorance. And that's a hell of a justification. And it's not one that you're able to make

00:53:47.460 for yourself because the moment that you start making it, you're no longer ignorant.

00:53:51.340 So I think that certainly that it's obvious to me, and I think it will be obvious to future

00:53:56.080 societies that in the same way that we look back on history and it's full of white dudes

00:54:02.720 and we think, ah, where were the women?

00:54:05.640 It's like, it's one of those things.

00:54:07.540 It's like clearly, you know,

00:54:08.400 people just weren't like representing them.

00:54:11.900 They just weren't talking about them.

00:54:13.120 It's like we look back

00:54:14.320 and it's quite obvious to us now, right?

00:54:16.280 I think it will be equally obvious in the future

00:54:17.920 that people will be like, hold on.

00:54:19.560 These guys were like losing their minds

00:54:21.620 over potentially exiting the European Union.

00:54:25.180 Whilst in the time it took between, you know,

00:54:28.260 the vote and today, we've slaughtered what?

00:54:31.980 hundreds of billions of land animals

00:54:36.600 and trillions of sea animals.

00:54:38.820 And future societies will look back

00:54:40.140 in the way that we look back and say like,

00:54:42.400 so these guys were like arguing about this political union

00:54:45.740 while they were literally owning slaves.

00:54:47.620 These people were arguing about these weirdly specific issues.

00:54:51.600 Well, people were on slave ships.

00:54:54.420 How could they possibly have that kind of cognitive dissonance?

00:54:56.520 I think people will say the same thing about us right now.

00:54:58.540 How were they not talking about this?

00:54:59.900 How is this not front-page news every single day?

00:55:03.600 It's just because it's not in the conversation.

00:55:06.020 Well, thanks very much for coming on the show.

00:55:07.920 You have a brilliant YouTube channel.

00:55:09.520 How do people find you online?

00:55:11.020 Where do they go for that?

00:55:11.860 Everything is just Cosmic Skeptic.

00:55:13.340 It's quite an unusual name.

00:55:14.700 So forward slash Cosmic Skeptic on any side,

00:55:16.660 and you'll probably find me there.

00:55:17.980 Fantastic.

00:55:18.480 Well, go and check Alex out.

00:55:19.600 He does some great work.

00:55:20.820 Thanks very much for tuning in to watch us this week,

00:55:22.940 and we'll see you in a week's time with another brilliant episode.

00:55:25.760 Take care.

00:55:26.280 See you next week, guys.

TRIGGERnometry - February 23, 2020

The Moral Case Against Eating Meat

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