Does vegans love or hate people consuming meat, diary and other animal products?

Some person claimed that we shouldn't feel sad if a person exploiting animals on a regularly basis die. All non-vegans are exploiting animals on a regularly basis for palatable pleasure/convenience.

Despite that I for a long time have tried to live a moral life, it took me almost 28 years to realize that it is wrong to kill animals for food, and that veganism is a necessity for an ethical lifestyle. If I would have encountered arguments like this, I think I would have become a vegan much quicker: http://articles.philly.com/2009-08-14/news/24986151_1_atlanta-falcons-quarterback-vick-illegal-dog-dog-fights

I think that the death of a sentient being always is sad, including the death of humans. I think that we can love someone despite the violence that that person is causing to others, and causing to himself or herself. I would e.g. mourn if someone died of my non-vegan family or friends. I don’t think it attracts our non-vegan friends to claim we shouldn't feel sad if they would die. I really hope it isn’t true that we wouldn’t be sad.

For me veganism has led me to feel more love and empathy to animals, including humans, on this planet. Of course I am deeply saddened by the exploitation my non-vegan friends are inflicting upon the animals, and their inability to demonstrate love and empathy toward the animals that they choose to exploit for animal products, but I can still love them.

If you understand it is morally wrong to inflict suffering on animals ---> go vegan

If we have reached the understanding that animals do have a moral value and that it is morally wrong to cause other beings suffering, then we can also easily understand the importance of going vegan. If one doesn't understand that it is wrong to inflict suffering e.g. on a dog or any other being, one truly has much to learn, and one truly has been heavily indoctrinated by our culture -- just like almost all vegans were before they made the connection and became vegans. Eating meat or other animal products, or using animals in any other way, inflicts animals suffering.

I became a vegan - i.e. I stopped participating in all animal exploitation (including causing animals suffering by my food choices) - this autumn. It is the best decision that I have made. To show love, compassion and nonviolence to individuals of all beings truly transforms ones life. If we want to have true peace, we shouldn't inflict suffering to others.  As we sow, so will we reap.

It think this is why everyone should become a vegan:
We should treat others as we want to be treated ourselves
 All animals are conscious and they do value life as much as we do.

The following applies to all animals: humans, dogs, cats, cows, etc.:
If we don't want to be killed, we shouldn't kill other being.
 If we don't want someone else to steal our family, we shouldn't steal their family.
 If we want to find our purpose in this world, we shouldn't steal others purpose.
 If we don't want to be exploited and abused, we shouldn't abuse anyone else.
 If we don't want to become enslaved, we shouldn't keep anyone else as a slave.
 If we don't want to hurt any animals, we must become vegans (i.e. stop eating, wearing and using animal products, and in other ways do actions that are hurting and killing animals).
 If we love animals, we don't kill animals. We don't kill and eat anyone that we love. If we love animals, we must support their want to not be oppressed, including not to be killed.

 I highly recommend this lecture: http://vimeo.com/17538152 and the book World Peace Diet by Will Tuttle (www.worldpeacediet.org )

All kind of animal products, including eggs and milk, are causing humans and other animals terrible suffering, oppression, starvation and death. Being vegan is the only way not to participate in the oppression.

Getting eggs from backyard chickens is not vegan. Here are some problems.

I think there are many problems with taking eggs from chickens of ones backyard. Here are some:

1.Perpetuates the view of chickens as "resources", instead of individuals as animals should be viewed. The problem in this non-vegan world is that animals are viewed upon as resources/things/property.

2.Many chicken eat their unfertilized eggs to regain the nutrition they lose by the excessive egg-laying that they have been bred to do.

3.Many people are domesticating and breeding chickens for this purpose. We should aim to end all domestication, since it is ethically wrong: http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/animal-rights-and-domesticated-nonhumans/ , http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/what-are-the-roots-of-freedom-and-slavery/ (A wonderful article by Will Tuttle, who have written the wonderful book the World Peace Diet (www.worldpeacediet.org)). Until then we should of course adopt animals that need our help, e.g. from animal shelters.

4. We need vegans who can prove that you can be very healthy and thrive on a vegan diet, and inspire others to do the same decision.

5. Detrimental to our physical health, and we should practise non-violence to everyone, including ourselves [Good article about why violence always is bad: http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/a-comment-on-violence/#.UWsFOMr3LS8 ]: http://www.adelicatebalance.com.au/

Peter Singer is promoting animal exploitation by endorsing non-vegan food habits

It is not at all about taking quotes out of their context. Peter Singer is clearly promoting animal exploitation by encouraging and not opposing non-vegan choices. See e.g this interview with him:

" I do want to emphasize that I don’t think eating ethically, particularly from a utilitarian point of view, is a matter of saying, “Here’s this strict law that I have to do everything possible comply with.” I think we can be ethically conscientious and recognize that sometimes there are going to be compromises. Sometimes it’s going to be very difficult, very inconvenient, to get the best choice, so we’ll settle for something else. As you were saying before with the steak, there’s a little bit of room for indulgence in all of our lives. I know some people who are vegan in their homes but if they’re going out to a fancy restaurant, they allow themselves the luxury of not being vegan that evening. I don’t see anything really wrong with that. If what they’re doing nine days out of ten is good, I’m not going to criticize them for being less than perfect on the tenth day. Sure, you’ll make mistakes, but don’t flagellate yourself if you do."

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2006/05/chew-right-thing#13645525980271&action=collapse_widget&id=812441

We need to promote veganism as a clear moral baseline since all animal exploitation is wrong, and lead as an example with our lives. Be the change we want to see in others. Gary Francione is doing an excellent job and has encouraged thousands of persons to become vegans. His excellent Facebook-page: www.facebook.com/abolitionistapproach

LiveVegan Writes:
In another group someone posted a link to a speech by Peter Singer speaking about altruism. Many large animal organisations consider Prof. Peter Singer the "father of the animal rights movement" and promote his welfare position. Please consider the following.

Prof. Peter Singer (the so-called "father of the animal rights movement") advocates the bestiality is morally acceptable in some circumstances.

Peter Singer believes the speciesist welfarist notion that the lives of nonhumans are of lesser moral value than the lives of humans.

He is a utilitarian and a "flexible vegan".

Peter Singer believes if someone (human or nonhuman) cannot plan for the future (and in the case of nonhumans does not have an intelligence that is "like us"), they are of lesser moral value, so that means that humans who have had head injuries and who have serious cognitive problems or who are in a coma are lesser. It's also a speciesist position because many nonhuman animals are forward-looking, can plan and do plan, but whether nonhumans are "like us" in their cognition or whether they have similar intelligence to us is irrelevant. All that matters is sentience.

Peter Singer also believes the practice of murdering disabled children in some cultures is ethical and believes that parents should be given the choice to have their disabled babies murdered after they are born.

These are just a few of the issues regarding Singer's work. We should seriously question whether someone with these moral inconsistencies should be taken seriously regarding nonhuman or human rights. Just a thought
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Glad you found it interesting!

Regarding Peter Singer:

He makes an exception for 'great apes', dolphins, and maybe some more species.

But he has no problem of consuming chickens and other farmed animals and fish if they are killed and raised supposedly "humanely". Based on what I understand from the following quote, he would exempt most animals from the right of not being killed, because he is claiming that most animals are not 'self-aware' according to his definition of 'self-aware'. That they are not ‘self-aware’ according to his definition, includes that they ‘live in a kind of eternal present’

 

Why do you believe he doesn’t include ‘most species’ in this?

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Quote:

Although Singer has stated this position at various places in his writings, his interview in The Vegan contains a recent, brief, and clear reiteration of his view:

 

   " I do think that there are morally relevant differences between various species, because the cognitive capacities of beings are relevant to, for example, the wrongness of killing them. I think it is worse to kill a self-aware being, that is, a being who is aware of its own existence over time, and is able to have desires for the future, than a being who may be conscious, but is not self-aware and lives in a kind of eternal present." (The Vegan, Autumn 2006)

 

In other words, Singer maintains that if a being is not self-aware in the way that a normal human is self-aware—that is, the being does not have what we call reflective self-consciousness—then the being is not self-aware in the morally relevant way that would give rise to that being having an interest in her life and that would make killing that being a significant moral wrong.

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How come in a 2007 interview with The Vegan, Singer gave his endorsement for "a world in which people mostly eat plant foods, but occasionally treat themselves to the luxury of free range eggs, or possibly even meat from animals who live good lives under conditions natural for their species, and are then humanely killed on the farm" ?
How come in a 2009 interview, Singer stated these arrogant, speciesist claims: "You could say it's wrong to kill a being whenever a being is sentient or conscious. Then you would have to say it's just as wrong to kill a chicken or mouse as it is to kill you or me. I can't accept that idea. It may be just as wrong, but millions of chickens are killed every day. I can't think of that as a tragedy on the same scale as millions of humans being killed. What is different about humans? Humans are forward-looking beings, and they have hopes and desires for the future. That seems a plausible answer to the question of why it's so tragic when humans die." ?

Singer calls himself a vegetarian and a "flexible vegan". In his May 2006 interview in Mother Jones, he states:
"I don't eat meat. I've been a vegetarian since 1971. I've gradually become increasingly vegan. I am largely vegan but I'm a flexible vegan. I don't go to the supermarket and buy non-vegan stuff for myself. But when I'm traveling or going to other people's places I will be quite happy to eat vegetarian rather than vegan."
Dave Gilson (3 May 2006). "Chew the Right Thing". Mother Jones. Retrieved 13 March 2009.

He hasn’t done any rebuttal in public of any of these statements. Peter Singers public statements in these interviews clearly show his position.

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To clarify more how I reason:

1.Although Singer has stated this position at various places in his writings, his interview in The Vegan contains a recent, brief, and clear reiteration of his view:
I do think that there are morally relevant differences between various species, because the cognitive capacities of beings are relevant to, for example, the wrongness of killing them. I think it is worse to kill a self-aware being, that is, a being who is aware of its own existence over time, and is able to have desires for the future, than a being who may be conscious, but is not self-aware and lives in a kind of eternal present. (The Vegan, Autumn 2006)
2. Based on this he justifies the consumption of animal products from an animal with the characteristic that she/he ‘lives in a kind of eternal present.’

3.Peter Singer still doesn’t advocate veganism as a moral baseline. He still justifies the consumption of animal foods from farmed animals and fish. He has never publicly retracted his non-vegan quotes that I referred to above, and claimed that now he thinks that veganism is the moral baseline.

4.Based on this I think as I quoted in my previous comment:
it is either the case that Singer really has not changed his views about animals lacking mental continuity sufficient to give rise to nonhuman personhood, or he thinks that any mental continuity in animals is qualitatively different from humans so that their lives have a lesser moral value and they can be used as replaceable resources if they are “humanely killed.”

5. Based on Peter Singer’s position outlined in #1 and him still advocating that a non-vegan diet, including the consumption of "humanely treated" farmed animals is morally justified, I don’t think it is inaccurate to say that Peter Singer claims that most animals are ‘not self-aware and lives in a kind of eternal present’.
If he believed otherwise, then according to his own philosophy, he would morally object the consumption of farmed animals, milk and eggs from farmed animals, and fish. He doesn’t object the consumption of this if the animals were treated “humanely”.

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Peter Singers position remains the same:
"The dinner was a vegetarian/vegan meal - and delicious! There were drinks beforehand and time afterwards to chat to Peter Singer himself. I took this opportunity to ask him something that I wasn’t clear on his position on - would a world in which animals were humanely reared and humanely killed be significantly worse than a world in which everyone was vegan? Some of his writing on personhood seemed to indicate it would be - if a being has a sense of themselves through time, an inner mental life, there is something wrong about frustrating those future ambitions - even if there is no physical pain involved.

His answer somewhat surprised me - essentially, no. I brought up the personhood thing, and he asked if I really thought that cows had that capacity. As far as I can recall, there’s research to suggest they feel secondary emotions, and have best friends (my Googling has been ineffective - if anyone can find the papers I’d love to see them) - so it seems to me somewhat compelling evidence that they have fairly complex mental lives. I like to err on the side of caution though, anyway. I’d always thought that he would think the killing of a being such as a cow or pig would always be wrong in some sense because of personhood - but turns out I’m more radical than him!"
Quote: http://ohheybiology.tumblr.com/post/49802108453/peter-singer-comes-to-oxford-ethical-food-veganism