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Oct 13Edited
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Huemer is a vegan.

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Oct 14Edited
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What people in philosophy call ethical vegetarianism usually is just veganism.

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Yeah and it's terribly confusing terminology.

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I think moral philosophers are often concerned with staying terminologically consistent with very old literature and distancing from many non-philosopher vegans' notion that the term "vegan" is permanently bound to one person's particular definition from one organization.

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Is that where the definition of vegan comes from, though? I've never heard that.

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There is no "the definition" of veganism. There are, however, many people who love reciting one particular definition penned by Leslie Cross quite a while ago like a catechism, and who seem to consider faithful adherence to that definition more important than following the most reasonable ethical arguments where they lead.

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For Huemer, ethical vegetarianism is ostroveganism.

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I think rather, that while there is strong evidence for mammals being sentient, there is very little to no evidence with regards to certain bivalves (and, arguably, insects).

Intuitively, it makes sense. Sentience (the ability to have subjective experiences, including suffering) requires the presence of a certain apparatus. Not just nerves but complex nervous systems that perform certain functions. If the parts aren't there, how can there be the function? Bivalves have very simple nervous systems. It seems implausible that they should be able to suffer.

The case with insects is weaker than with bivalves. To be determined as science progresses.

I *think* Mike avoids the term veganism for the same reason he focuses on factory farming. He doesn't want to get bogged down in marginal details.

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No, it seems to imply that you can eat dairy and eggs from properly certified farms.

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Huemer doesn't seem to *imply* that; he seems to explicitly say it.

I guess I might agree if I didn't think that higher-order effects like societal normalization and playing into false industry propaganda that animal products are necessary were sufficiently large.

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