yea, seems a little wack. you should do what you think is right in this case, even if you don't think it's going to make a huge impact. maybe it will make a difference, maybe it won't, but that should be secondary to doing what you feel is right and good. this example just sounds like an excuse to not follow through on your convictions... or maybe you don't care enough, which is fine, but there's no need to lie to yourself/others about it
(similar to voting)
Its a stupid argument but I also don't believe people should have to justify their diets to anybody anyway.
"Stupid" may be an overstatement, but I don't think it's a reasonable argument. The more meat (or eggs, or milk, or whatever) you eat, the more misery you cause. Some animals are going to suffer because you're not a vegan that wouldn't have suffered otherwise. It may be a drop in the bucket of the whole situation, but it doesn't by far mean that the suffering of those individual animals that wouldn't have suffered otherwise doesn't matter.
It's sort of like saying, "I'm going to sexually molest my children because it happens so much anyway that the effect my behavior has is only a drop in the bucket." The main difference here is that you don't get to see the misery you're causing by eating meat/eggs/milk/whatever.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ThndXIlb3iY/UD5OHBEmvdI/AAAAAAAAAlY/FV8kYCuf038/s1600/starfish+story.jpg
And this is to say nothing of whether we should be good citizens and do what it would be good if everyone did even if our own individual choices are of small consequence. It's like the "paradox of voting": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting . Our own individual vote won't change the outcome of the election, so why bother trying? But then, what if everyone thought that way? Or worse, what if all the most rational people didn't vote for that reason? We'd be screwed!
It is not stupid, it is an unconnected and invalid conclusion based upon assumptions with limited scope. As such a formal failure. But on an meta level it is a shield argument presumably.
Not quite, you can take action in other ways, but removing yourself from the problem by being vegan doesn't help as much as raising market demand for high quality animal products or demanding the gubermint to do something.
It only works when the majority does it, including your pets, not gonna happen.
Of course it is. It's lazy and cheap. Even when I wasn't a vegan, this is an argument I never used. Just used: Ah, I am addicted!
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