Yes, as long as the producer consents
this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
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I've often had this silly scenario in my head.
You walk into a celebrated high class restaurant, and at the bottom of the menu, it reads "Human meat steak. $10,000". You ask the waiter who fetches the chef. The chef comes out and explains that after decades honing his craft, he feels like he's a master of his craft, and now he'd love the honour of cooking a steak taken from his own body. If anyone purchases the steak, a skilled surgeon will remove half a pound of meat safely from the chef, who will then prepare it for you, and the chef is visibly keen to serve this.
As a vegetarian, I honestly don't feel that this would bother me, if I had money to spend, the only reason I wouldn't go for it is that I'd worry the chef would come to regret giving up chunk of his ass or leg or whatever, and I'd be partially to blame, or that the chef was not thinking straight otherwise.
Most entertainingly, I think it would be vegan.
This situation kinda reminds me of John Locke talking about slavery. He says that for some rights to be truly inalienable, that people themselves should not have the ability to willingly surrender them, such as by willingly selling themselves into slavery. Now, yes, John Locke owned stock in a slave trading company, so he's a hypocrite in that regard, but I digress. I feel like this is one of those things where people shouldn't be allowed to physically sell parts of their body for consumption, as "not being eaten by other people" is one of those inalienable rights we should have as a society.
Jokes on john locke, i'm an organ donor anyways 😎
but to a degree I agree. in that chef example, at any point the chef could revoke consent and stop at any time. Likewise, somebody shouldn't be able to sell themselves into slavery but it would be fine to agree to do work for free or under slavery conditions as long as you can revoke consent at any time. But the right should be inalienable such that nobody should be in a position where they could be coerced into doing that, it would have to be 100% voluntary and enthusiastic. Like if somebody was in a position where it was either agree to being a slave or be homeless or starve or otherwise suffer, then I would argue society has failed them, we didn't protect their rights adequately
Jokes on john locke, i’m an organ donor anyways
Right, but there's no more harm that could come to you after you're dead, so being an organ donor wouldn't really qualify in this context. Your organs being donated after death diminishes you in no way and also potentially enriches the lives of others.
You don't have to be dead to donate organs. And donating something like a kidney does impact your health.
Sure, but also on a very basic level organ donating is not the same thing as selling yourself into a lifetime of inescapable slavery.
For sure, but i'd argue it's maybe comparable to the chef example.
I think this is a fantastic thought experiment. Thanks for sharing.
It actually gets worse.. i saw this post here on lemmy.
When someone replied to her exactly that, she said she "didn't always consent because she doesn't always feel like it but she does it for her baby, is that still vegan??".
She was looking for fight imo.
Yeah, she probably was. No one argues against a baby having milk, otherwise the baby would literally die.
Is roadkill vegan
Did roadkill consent?
How about all the bugs you splat on your windshield?
By definition you can eat and drink human produce and still be vegan. So you could be a cannibal and also a vegan.
eat the rich!
Yeah I think as long as consent is given. Animals can't give consent, which makes it immoral to eat them (according to vegans).
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Humans are animals.
That's the point.
Veganism, as far as I can tell, is not so much about not consuming animal products as it is about not consuming anything that causes harm to animals.
By that logic, you would keep your child on breast milk as long as possible, to avoid having to switch to cow milk or formula.
You are what you eat
Well?
Breast milk is the only milk that can be vegan. It’s all about consent.
Almond, cashew, oat, soy...
Those plants didn't consent, so...
I can speak from experience that almonds are kinky little sluts and like to be milked.
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So meat is vegan as long as the cows consent?
Man, Hitchhiker's Guide really was ahead of its time.
Technically yes. But of course they would (and can't really) do that. But you could also eat stuff like roadkill and it's vegan. Veganism as a moral philosophy has nothing to do with food, it's about respecting and granting animals the same rights as humans (as far as applicable, not stuff like voting).
Which would mean there's the possibility of this new short horror story I just wrote:
I noticed two new options in the dairy aisle today: human breast milk, vegan and non-vegan.
o_o
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Yes, and vegans can also be cannibals for this same reason, as long as the person consents.
It all depends on if you consider yourself an animal, which, technically, we are.
I'm more animal than most
Only if you define vegan as to strictly avoid any animal product (and define humans as animals). A somewhat looser Definition says to avoid animal exploitation.
So a product made by a non-domesticised animal in a natural way - e.g. Penguin guano - could be seen as vegan. The animal produces it anyway and the product isn't won through keeping the animal captive and / or "stealing" from it.
After all I wouldn't be too strict with definitions here.
Most honey wouldn't be vegan but perhaps an abandoned hive could be harvested. Or infertile eggs from an abandoned nest? Bits of sheep's wool collected from a spiky bush?
Yeah sure. Maybe you could make the argument that humans should leave stuff like that for other scavengers who need the nutrients to survive, and instead opt for plant foods. But at those edge scenarios you would then also have to take into account the impact that plant agriculture has on wildlife. It's quite possible that scavenging and gathering is the most vegan option, but seeing how it's neither viable for a lot of people nor something that often comes up in daily life, it's easier to just generalize vegan food as plant based.
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Only if the mother is a vegetal
Drinking milk without exploitation, instead of imposing suffering on millions of beings? Get the boat
What? I'm vegan myself. What does all of this have to do with the post?
Sorry fellow vegan, the post made it seem like human breast milk is somehow worse than or comparable to "conventional" cow's milk.
Forgiven 🌱♥️
Depends on weather the woman consented to being milked for adult food.
If I bite my nails am I not vegan anymore? /s
I can excuse slavery but I draw the line at kink
You can excuse slavery?
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Renzo.
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