Exploring Morality & Ethics with Cosmic Skeptic

In the second episode of the Principles of Change Podcast, I sit down with Alex O'connor, also known as CosmicSkeptic to discuss morality, philosophy, ethics and their relation to animal rights. We also go over Alex's journey to veganism and what his core principles are to fight for change in this world.

 In Today's Episode:

• Alex's Background
• Discovering Veganism
• What is Morality?
• Utilitarianism & Veganism
• Is Alex a utilitarian?
• Discussing Animal Welfare
• Are animals commodities?
• Deontology & Veganism
• Why does veganism matter?
• Alex's Principles Of Change & last words

Check out Alex's website: https://cosmicskeptic.com

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Transcript

0:38

My name is Alex and I'm the host of this show. I'm an animal rights activist, lecture and author of the ebook. When Adam. The rights are logic meat. Which you can download in 20 languages for free on my website. Set alex.org. The aim of this show is to motivate you to get more active and find in what way you can each personally make this world a better place. During my past seven years of activism journey, I realized that a lot of people that sometimes friends feel very limited in what they can do in order to help other animals, environmental protection or other social issues. And in my own journey of learning from other activists, I realized that so many amazing game changers have found countless creative ways to make this world a better place. I invite these amazing individuals and chat about what they do, their journeys, tactics, and advice. My goal is to finish each episode by making you realize the incredible power of the individual and remind you. That there is no one perfect way of activism. Finally, if you wish to support this podcast, I would really appreciate it. If you can subscribe and leave a review, And if you'd like to support it directly and have access to early and exclusive episodes, please make sure to check the Patrion link provided below. Today's guest is Alex. O'Connor also known as cosmic skeptic. Alexis the founder of the cosmic skeptic YouTube channel. Podcast and blog. platforms that are dedicated to philosophical ideas and debates. He also has a degree in philosophy and theology from the St. John's college, Oxford university. And he has accumulated over 40 million views on YouTube alone. Attracting route 450,000 subscribers. Now I am personally a very big fan of Alex's work and I was so happy to have the opportunity to finally sit down and have a chat with him. We talked about everything from his background to his stance on animal rights. and although Alex and I might not agree on every single thing. I'm so happy to have someone as brilliant and well-spoken as him. In a moment of animal rights. Thank you again for joining, please subscribe to this podcast and I'll see you on the other side.

Seb Alex 2:38

alex, thank you so much for making time to be on the podcast. I'm really excited to have this discussion with you because I've been following your work for quite some time now. And I, I'm pretty sure there's so many out there want to hear this conversation directly with you,

Alex O'Connor 2:54

it's good to be here. It's just struck me that this must be the first time that we've ever actually spoken properly. I mean, I know we've interacted a fair amount, but I don't think we've ever actually sat down and just had a chat. So, uh, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It'll be.

Seb Alex 3:08

many of you. Familiar with his work, but can you please go ahead and share us a bit about your background and, where he come from and how did you get into philosophy?

Alex O'Connor 3:20

Sure. I have lived in Oxford in the UK, all of my life, but when I was younger, I didn't live in the, in the good bits. Let's say, I had no real interest in school or anything of the sort. I used to be a skateboarder and a guitarist, and I just want it to be a rock star. My idol was slash from guns and roses. I think old me would be. New me up actually now that I, now that I come to think of it. but you know, I, I started, in my, in my kind of teenage years, I started watching a lot of these pop science, pop philosophy, YouTube channels, things like V source and Veritasium and these kinds of things. And I thought, you know what, like, it's actually quite interesting. and I couldn't escape this gnawing feeling that the kinds of questions that they were talking about and the kind of topics that they were banging on about were just some of the most interesting things that I'd ever heard. so starting from there, and then through meetings and friends who were a bit more academically inclined than I was, I got a bit of an influence on me. I started working a bit harder at school and all the, all the while I thought it would be fun to make some YouTube videos, which I did. I made some like science-based YouTube videos, some skateboarding, YouTube videos, even which still exists on the internet, believe it or not. and I thought to myself, well, let, we'll put it out there and see what happens. And one of the. Just happened to take off people seem to like it. And it was one where I was talking about religion. and so I thought, let me do another one of those and they liked it again. And so I kept doing that. And then I thought to myself, well, I should probably try and study philosophy to, to actually address some of the claims that I'm making. So really it was less of a kind of, I fell in love with philosophy and then started making YouTube videos. It was more like I was making YouTube videos, fell upon religion and thought to do religion. You kind of have to do philosophy. Um, and then I started studying and to my happy surprise, it turns out that it's actually quite fun. So I'm still doing it to this day. And I just finished up a degree in philosophy and theology from St. John's college at Oxford. And I found out about two days ago that I managed to not fail. so yeah, I'm now I guess you'd call me a graduate. Although technically I haven't properly graduated yet, but I've got the grade. Um, and that's where I'm at now. So now I'm for the first time in my life, a full-time uni.

Seb Alex 5:32

That's really amazing. Thanks for sharing that. Actually you did mention one thing and this might be something we can talk about later on, but I do want to talk about it if that's okay. you mentioned that you did not live your whole life. and Oxford, remember you had a Tik TOK video go viral because someone had accused you of being a privilege vegan and it went so viral. I mean, your response to that claim once so viral that you ended up on, was it BBC that had you on for a short interview?

Alex O'Connor 6:00

it was the babysitter. It was, it was BBC south today. It was, um, it was local, local BBC news. Um, but BBC news, nonetheless, I tend to kind of leave out. The south today, but you know, I was on the BBC today.

Seb Alex 6:14

It sounds more fancy.

Alex O'Connor 6:16

Yeah. Um, that was, that was a hell of a, that was a hell of a trip. Um, yeah. Well, so I have lived in Oxford all of my life, but Oxford is a big place. It's like saying you live in Los Angeles or something you think, you know, Hollywood will not be able, so you've got your content. Right. and I guess the content of, of Oxford is probably Blackbird leaves, which is, I believe Europe's largest counselor state, as well, it's where I grew up. and we weren't, you know, we weren't like living in absolute rags or anything. but it was a bit like, look, I don't know if I'm going to be able to pull the money together to. Yeah, get the bus fare for you to get school. You might have to walk today kind of thing. and we had a lot of family travels, you know, my parents ended up divorcing my mom got cancer at one point, which she's verbally, fully recovered from and all of this kind of stuff. so yeah, it was, it was a, it wasn't the most ideal living situation. And I won't deny for a second that as things stand right now, I'm going to grab an incredibly privileged human being. I mean, I'm, I'm a, full-time YouTube, if we're going to say, cause I just said, which is something that apparently nowadays I've heard this from studies. If you ask kids in primary school, what do you want to be when you grow up? They no longer say I want to be a film star. I want to be a lawyer. They'll say I want to be a YouTuber or Tik TOK style. which just beggars belief. but so yeah, someone made this video and I suppose it's on account of my, um, of my accent, which I've been told can come across a little bit pretentious. fair enough. it's probably the result of listening to too much Christopher Hitchens who probably had more of an. On my life than my own parents and family did. but yeah, fair enough. I'd say I'm from Oxford and I studied at Oxford and I've got this lovely, nice background of books and I've got a posh accent. So fair enough. People will assume what they will assume, but when somebody tries to make a point against veganism on those grounds and says, listen, you're just, this upper-class privately educated. He said, I don't know where he got that from. Who doesn't care about the working class and doesn't understand it. And I thought to myself, look, you know, I'll just make a quick video. I nearly didn't do it. Cause I thought it was a bit pasty. I made a video saying like, you just don't know what you're talking about. Here's where I grew up. here's my life story. And guess what? I still think it's wrong to needlessly torture animals. and for whatever reason that video blew up and it's, it's got just under 2 million views on Texas. Blows my mind, because it means it's one of my most popular videos ever. And it's on Tik TOK. And one time I was in a pub and not too infrequently, it happens every now and again, someone comes up to me in real life, as it were and says, oh, you know, I, I know you from YouTube, but for the first time in my life, somebody came up to me in a pub and said, you're that guy from Tik TOK?

Seb Alex 8:45

How did you feel it though? What are you confused?

Discovering Veganism

Alex O'Connor 8:49

well, uh, is going on. I just, I couldn't believe my friends just wouldn't start laughing. I mean, it was, they they'd find it funny enough when it happens with YouTube, but if the tech talk the sake, but yeah, so, I mean, look, I, I I'm somebody who like understands what it's like to be working class. Like really? I do, you know, Did this idea of veganism being something that's really a play thing. If the middle-class is, it might be true. Practically speaking in the, I don't know, maybe statistically, the vast majority of vegans might be middle-class. They might be white. They might be all of these kinds of things, but if I'm not coming at this from a sociological perspective, I'm coming at this from an ethical perspective, I think it's wrong. If you can avoid inflicting, suffering upon an upon an animal, I think it's wrong to inflict that suffering. And guess what? I don't care how much money you've got in the bank. Hasn't changed your ethical obligations, again, built into the definition of veganism as I've been characterizing it here is this point about practicality? Is this point about practice practicability, I should say, of removing animals suffering to the highest extent that you can. I mean, we are responsible for killing animals. You and I, I mean, uh, when we, when we buy crops, you know, we're, we're destroying habitats and using pesticides and all of these kinds of things. Now, these, these might be. Contingent, animal deaths that one day will be eradicated it's possible, but for now, as it stands, like we're all killing animals as we can. This was about minimizing that to the highest extent that you can. So if you're at any way, living in Northern CA in Northern Canada who can't afford to buy vegetables, then maybe you do genuinely need in some circumstances to eat animal products. If you are on this, you know, infamous desert island with nothing but a pig, what are you going to eat? My first question is always what I'll eat well, the pigs eating. but if you have to eat the pig and that's your only option, I don't just think that you can break your veganism to eat the pig. I think that you can eat the pig and that be a vegan thing to do, because you might still be minimizing animal suffering to the highest extent that you can. Right. So even if it were true, If you have less money in the bank, it's harder to eliminate animal products. It just means that you need to eliminate it to the highest extent that you can. Whatever's practicable for you. Luckily, certainly an Oxford, certainly in the UK and most of the UK, at least it's the case that it doesn't matter how much money you have. It's about as easy to be vegan as it is nowadays. I mean, three to meat based diet. The only obstacle I can think of is that in order to eat vegan diet, you need to be on top of your nutrition. You should be on top of your nutrition anyway, but I think an unhealthy vegan diet is more, much more dangerous than an unhealthy meat diet. If you're eating nothing but junk food, at least with non vegan junk food, you're getting some kind of, you know, you might be getting, protein or calcium or whatever, like this kind of stuff, right. Vegan junk food is, is completely useless, nutritionally speaking. so I think you need to use. If you're not already on top of your nutrition, you need to get on top of it. So the only thing I can think of that might actually make it more difficult is kind of the time and energy it might take to, to learn about nutrition, right? that's the only thing, but as long as you're in a position where you can do that, and as I say, you should be doing that anyway. then I, I really do think that certainly depending on where you are in the world, but for myself, yeah, it was, it was absolutely the easiest thing that I've ever done. And I've offered to people who play in the country to go on a shop with them and to ask, you know, what were you gonna buy and how much were you going to spend and see if I can find vegan alternatives and if I can, and if they're more expensive, I'll pay the difference. And I've never had to shell out a single penny.

Seb Alex 12:14

that's really amazing. And how did you come across veganism? Because obviously you were doing your content, which was, say

Alex O'Connor 12:20

Hm

Seb Alex 12:21

focused on atheism and religion.

Alex O'Connor 12:24

that's right.

Seb Alex 12:25

falling on veganism?

Alex O'Connor 12:28

Well, the, the atheist crowd, Always ends up talking about morality somehow, I think because you have this moral argument for the existence of God, if there's no God, where do you get your ethics from? How can you be a moral person, this kind of, tripe, and you end up having to kind of learn a thing or two about it. Cause most of the time the discussion is. Boring and surface level and atheists will say, I don't need God to tell me what to do. I don't need the celestial dictator to supervise my moral conduct, all of this kind of stuff. but that's, that's kind of missing the point. I mean, we're talking about the grounding of objective Morales. You, so you end up doing a bit of studying into morality and before you know, it you're essentially doing philosophy. And if you're somebody who's professing to know a thing or two about morality, then of course, people who are vegan, who've come to recognize, this is one of the most important moral emergencies that we're facing as a species, as a planet. of course, you're going to be asked about it. Right. And I was asked about it a lot at the time. I have hundreds of comments, always asking me about all kinds of different things. What do you think about, you know, stoicism? What do you think about Maoism? What do you think about veganism, charity, whatever, like, and veganism is one of those ones that came up all the time and I just ignored it. Right. And I used to see books and on my list of books that I needed to read for the history of philosophy up there with like, you know, on Liberty, by mail and all of these. Classics, was animal liberation by Peter singer kept coming up on the list and I ignored it. Not, not even just because I didn't want to read it, but because I thought it was like seeing a book about charity, you know, why you should give more to charity and you think you look at it and I could read that, but I think I get the point, right. I think I'd get it like, oh yeah, people are suffering and he's give them money, whatever. Right. I'll get around to it. I was like that with the beacon thing, I get it, you know, animals suffer. I don't kill animals. Jenny's class fun, whatever. But I finally read it. I finally got around to reading it. And after just reading the preface that the overwhelming feeling it was just a feeling of just shit, you know, just like, ah, right. Okay. Um, well then, uh, it's just, it's just brilliantly argued brilliantly, put purely, almost coldly rationalistic. It's not that there's none of this kind of like look at the poor animals, like the kind of stuff you see on Instagram. It's, it's pure. Unadulterated philosophy and it's fantastic. And that's why I love it so much. So I read that and I just thought, this is, this is impenetrable. This is simply impenetrable. And for goodness sake, please, somebody tell me that I'm wrong because I really don't want to give this stuff up. And I really don't want to bring upon the effort that it's going to take to try and start talking about this stuff publicly, because it's not going to be too easy. So I made a video called a meat-eaters case for veganism. And I said, look, guys, you know, I've been reading this, I've been thinking about this philosophy and please for the love of God, what am I missing? What am I missing? This has seems so obvious to me. And we were forcing pigs into gas, chambers, separating calves from their mothers, masquerading chicks to the tune of 7 billion per year. That's as many human beings as a currently alive on the planet. Every single year, about a hundred billion humans have ever lived on planet earth, ever full stop. And we kill nearly that many land animals alone every single year, because we're addicted to the taste of their flesh and their secretions. What am I. Like really? Like what, what is it that I must be missing something because everybody around me, isn't just saying like, oh yeah, no, I didn't really think about that. But they're saying you're being ridiculous. You're being you're wrong. You're being extreme. You're going too far. It's like, what am I missing? And I asked and no answer came much like with, my experiences with religion. You think to yourself, you have so many questions and you ask them very sincerely. You throw a hands up to this guy and simply nothing in response. And you think, well, until that day comes, when somebody can finally come and tell me why they think or why they can justify our, the moral permissibility of forcing an animal into a gas chamber, because we liked the way they taste until that day comes. I will not have a part of this anymore. And it's the best decision that I have ever made in my short.

Seb Alex 16:23

Wow. Thank you. I actually came across your work at the same time. I saw two videos. Actually. I saw the one, you mentioned the meat-eaters case for veganism, and I think it was shortly after that. It popped up on my Facebook, a speech you gave, if I'm not mistaken that an atheist committed.

Alex O'Connor 16:41

Um,

Seb Alex 16:42

I listened to that on the motorbike. And then I got home and I put it again and I listened to it again. Cause I was, like, this is very powerful. And the fact that you gave that speech at N E w it was an atheist convention, right? A conference of the

Alex O'Connor 16:59

it was, well, it was one of these like, yeah, I, what was it called? It was called the my car conference, which is, I can't remember what it translates us, but it's something it's, it's, it's one of these kinds of like rationalism conferences, you know, science advocacy, which is in many, many of the time you see that kind of thing. It is basically an atheist conference, but they don't want to say because atheism to the atheist community, And affirmative positive thing. It's like a, it's like a lack of something, something you don't do. So we don't like to attach a label to it, but yeah, it's essentially an atheist, I'm an atheist conference. And I was originally going to speak about, I think, just master ethics on a, on a, on an atheistic worldview. How can you ground morality? and I said to the organizer, and this was a bit after, I mean, I, when I made the media, this case video, I, I wasn't yet vegan, to become vegan very shortly afterwards. partly due to the response that I got to that video from people trying to argue in favor of me using, I mean, when people won't me like, Hey, if you go vegan, you know, you're going to get brain damage. I didn't realize it would be because of the comments that I received in my YouTube. okay, fair enough. Maybe I should have, maybe I should have heeded that. but, uh, this was maybe like a few months later, at least. it was around November time and April was about the time I wouldn't be vegan. So, you know, like a good half year. And I just couldn't get it off my mind. I just kept thinking about animal ethics. And I said to the organizer, listen, I know this is kind of an atheistic conference, but kind of talk about veganism. And at first he said kind of, I don't know about that. You know, it's a bit of an explosive issue. I don't know how people will take it. And to his credit, I remember we went for dinner afterwards and he said, you know, I was thinking about it. And an idol that we both share is Mr. Christopher Hitchens. and he said, you know, I was reflecting on a quote, the Christopher Hitchens said that the essence of an independent mind is not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks. And so he's, and he thought on that and said, well, look, I mean, if you're just applying the same kind of skepticism and rationalism and analysis to animal ethics as you're doing to any other topic, then sure, sure. I'll let you take that platform. And. I gave the speech. I wrote it about like, I remember Thomas Westbrook, my good friend, Holly, Kool-Aid another YouTuber, uh, woke me up that morning. I'd overslept in the hotel. He kind of threw this, this like fruity bar thing at me for breakfast, threw it at me. And Ben said, get up, you've got to write a speech. So it's like behind backstage at the space trying to script this video and I'm trying to get on the internet so I can look up a quote from Thomas Jefferson. And it was kind of people all going around me doing all kinds of stuff. I thought it was gonna be a bit of, a bit of a train wreck really, right. For some reason, it just, I just felt pretty good. it was a, it was quite a large auditorium and I don't know I was in the mood for it. and it came out pretty well and people seem to like the speech. and at the end, I mean, it was the first time I'd ever received anything resembling, standing ovation ever. Right. But it was like, some people stood up and I was like, wow, that's incredible. But at the same time, it was kind of canceled out by the other half of the audience who was not there with folded arms looking at me as if I'd just killed someone. and it was a bit of a mixed reaction. I won't lie, but yeah. Um, I ended up kind of, you know, bringing the, bringing the gospel to, uh, to, to the atheist crowd. And that's kind of, my job it seems is to, be the, the, the vegan voice in the atheist committee.

Seb Alex 20:15

amazing. if we're going to get into it, how would you define or let's say, how would you explain what is morality and is veganism a moral obligation? And if yes.

Alex O'Connor 20:29

It's one of the most difficult things to possibly do in philosophy is to even just to define, moral terms. I mean, one of the great debates of the previous century was off to John Stuart mill had produced his essay on utilitarianism, which is probably the most popular and famous ethical theory among secular moralists today. If you find someone who doesn't believe in God, chances are there'll be a utilitarian and GE more criticizes him by saying, look, you can't just say that pleasure is the same thing as good. You can't. We can say is, you can say that pleasure is the only thing that is good. You can say that, in the same way that you might say, you know, Uh, a taxi is the only thing that's yellow in the world. Right? If that were true. but it doesn't mean that taxi means the same thing as yellow, even if the only yellow things in the universe were taxis, it wouldn't mean the taxi means the same thing as yellow. So even if pleasure is the only thing that's good as Mel had, it doesn't mean the pleasure means good. So more asks what is good on a, on a secular world? W what is good? What does it mean? And he concluded that you cannot define it. He, he concluded that it was much like the color yellow. How do you define the color yellow? You can't, I mean, you can talk about its wavelengths and stuff, but like the experience of yellow, we all know what we're talking about when I say yellow, but to a blind person, you just cannot describe it. Right. And he thinks the same thing with good. So even just defining these terms for many, philosophers is an impossible task for me. I think morality is essentially the, the striving to do what one should. Right. And to avoid what one should not, in, in kind of broad terms, matter ethics is the process of trying to work out what good means what it is. You know, I'm more interested in practical ethics, shall we say, which is to say, I want to work out what is good, whereas a matter ethicists want to work out what good is. I'm not entirely sure what I think about matter ethics. I've spent a long time outlining a particular descriptive theory, in a talk I gave called the good delusion, which is on my YouTube channel, but when it comes to veganism, I don't think it matters about your master ethical theory. The reason being is that like, as Lincoln said of slavery, he says, if this isn't wrong, then nothing is right. It's like, I, I'm not entirely sure. What I think about matter ethics, whether or not morality is objective, if it is then, then exactly what the objective prescriptions will be. But if it's not wrong to take an innocent being enforcement to a gas chamber, then nothing is wrong, right? If you're, if you're not willing to say that that's, if you have any semblance, any moral theory that gives you some kind of moral obligation towards the minimization of cruelty and unnecessary suffering will commit you to veganism. if you're a utilitarian, I think you're committed to vegans. And if you're Christian, I think you're committed to veganism. If you're a Muslim, I think your argument is to veganism. And I will shout that loudly, even in front of those who say no, no, look, we're given permission by God to do this. Look at the. Methods of slaughter dictated by our, by our custom and the Halaal methods as flossers play that we're able to eat animal products. I still think that's wrong. I think that practically any ethical theory leads you to veganism except perhaps like a, a purely egoistic, or like a rational amoralism somebody who kind of, you know, accepts things as being morally right or wrong, but isn't motivated by them or someone who says that I only care about my own well-being and pleasure and nobody else's the reason why I'm good to other human beings is because of the threat of the law. And because of my nature, someone who just cares about other human beings, but I just don't care about animals. that is perhaps the only ethical theory that you can consistently hold and not have some duty towards animal, but I think it gets at a rather unpalatable one. Don't you? It also means that the only thing between. That person shaking your hand and killing you with an ax is, that current conviction that they quite like you and the current, situation of legal protection, such that they'll go to prison. If they try to kill you with an accident last one day, they'd feel like they might be able to get away with it. So I don't know if it's worth, really being friends with such people. so for myself, I brought take the approach of saying that, like, I don't know what, good and bad mean. I don't quite know how to objectively ground them, but I know that if there is such thing as evil as badness, then inflicting unnecessary cruelty upon the most innocent members of our moral community has to be among that number. Generally speaking, as the innocence of the victim increases the badness of the crime proportionally increases, right. If I were to punch another, man, it would be bad if I would punch a chart. It would be worse. If I were to punch a baby, a defenseless Edison, unknowing, baby, it would be infinitely worse. And it keeps going in this direction until you get to the species barrier, at which point, for whatever reason, it seems that now the more innocent the victim, the more we feel, we have a license to treat them as we please, this seems to me an inconsistency and all I'm looking for with, this whole discussion's running veganism is just a bit of consistency. I don't care what your matter ethical position is. I really, I really don't. But if you think it's wrong to kill a human being, whatever reason you give for saying why that's wrong, I promise you will also ultimately lead you to saying that it's wrong to kill animals for the same reason. so I make an argument from consistency. I don't really start from a base moral principle, cause I don't know if I already have from at the moment, it's so many so difficult to, to unpack and make your mind up on. And I keep seeming to change my opinions on this. But one thing that never changes is that wherever that base is, is saying. The, the issue of, of animal rights always sits very firmly on top of it super easily. you know, it, it just, it's so easy if someone says, you know, I don't kill human beings because like inflicting suffering on them is wrong. Well, why? Because suffering, it feels bad for them. You know, it's a bad experience and we should minimize negative experiences in the world. It's like, yeah. And animals suffer too. And you don't need to kill them. It's like it trivially follows that you shouldn't be harming animals as well, like to give one example. So whatever reason you would give to say that it's wrong to mistreat human beings, I think ultimately commits one to not mistreating animals as well. It's not to say they're worth the same. It's not to say it commits you to seeing nonhuman animals in the same way as you see humans, but at the same kinds of justifications will lead you at least to say that you shouldn't be cruel to them. It's not to say that you think they're worth the same as human beings or anything like that. But just to say that you shouldn't be inflicting violence and cruelty on them, I think is a, is an obvious question.

Seb Alex 27:07

So if I were to play the devil's advocate and in a very simple superficial way, give this example. If identifies With as being utilitarian, want to multiply utility, if something causes them happiness or pleasure, then it's justified and they make the argument that well, killing this animal gives me pleasure. And I see it as justified. Why would that not be consistent? Or would it be, let's say immoral, even though we haven't defined mortality, but in the way that we understand

Alex O'Connor 27:41

Yeah. With the force of the vegan argument, I think comes not just from the fact that we're unnecessarily harming animals, but the huge disparity between the triviality. Of the pleasure that we get from eating a burger and the untold intensity of the suffering that these animals go through to procure it. Utilitarianism is a neutral, is a perspective neutral philosophy, right? It doesn't listen to anybody that, that talks in the first person, right? It's about the maximization of utility in Mill's case, utility has identified as pleasure, um, across the board. Right? And so the only way that you could justify a particular action is if it's going to maximize pleasure, not, not for you, but overall. And so if you're inflicting a lot of suffering upon an animal for a little bit of pleasure for yourself, utilitarianism demands that you have an obligation not to do it in the opening chapters. I believe the opening chapter of utilitarianism, I mean Mill's essay, he talks about this criticism of utilitarianism is what he calls a pig philosophy. Um, yeah. The point is that like some of his contemporaries had criticized him for saying, you know, this is just a kind of, like head aneurysm of this kind, just chase off to your pleasure. It seems, it seems superficial and baseless. And also like, you know, what about a pig rolling around in the mud? They seem perfectly happy and pleasurable. Like, are we really gonna say that, that that pleasure is like, it is worth something in the same way that us doing poetry and, and listening to classical music is it seems like a much more important ledger. And utilitarianism seems to say that they both seem to count and milled sides to avoid this problem. By coming up with the idea of higher and lower pleasures, he thinks that there are this, this is like categorical difference between those pleasures of the intellect and those pleasures of the body. but equally mil could have been clever here and just preempted our own current ethical philosophy and said, you know what? That's a good point. Isn't that funny. Hmm. Maybe you're right. Maybe the pleasure and suffering of animals actually does matter. Maybe we should be taking it seriously. What if this is the funniest thing about the history of, of animal ethics is that it's so often been used as a parody. And when you look back on the parody, now, it seems, it seems it's hilarious just to look and see how close people came. Like in this case, you know, you're talking about utilitarianism and someone says, but doesn't this mean we need to like care about the wellbeing of pigs, hah. Well guess what? Yes. When, um, the vindication of the rights of women was first published as Peter singer writes about in animal liberation. there was a parody circulated called a vindication of the rights of brutes about the rights of animals. If women can have rights, why not animals? Well, guess what again? Maybe you're right. Maybe we should be taking this a little bit more seriously. yeah. So if you're a utilitarian who says, you know, well, I get a bit of. From torturing this animal, then you just haven't understood what utilitarianism is. You just you've, you've missed that it's perspective, neutral and cannot be used to justify an infliction of a net positive amounts of suffering. regardless of your intention of justification, it's a purely consequentialist theory and it doesn't matter. Who's doing the feeling that's where you get the famous, uh, Jeremy Bentham quote, that it doesn't matter whether they can reason a what matters is whether they can suffer because for Bentham, he was a lot more consistent. It seems to me than mil, or a lot more viable, I should say, maybe Bentham had another famous quote in which he said, all things being equal pushpin is as good as poetry, pushpin being this, like I think some kind of ballgame that they used to play a bit like billiards or something. and he said all things being equal pushpin as, as good as poetry. That is to say, if you get a lot of pleasure from reading poetry and another guy gets a lot of pleasure from playing pushpin, it's worth the same. So Bentham would have said, you know, if a pig. A lot of pleasure from rolling around in the mud. it's yeah. It's, it's worth about the same. If you get the same amount of pleasure in doing whatever it is that you're doing, Mel says it's worse to be a full, satisfied then Socrates, unsatisfied, maybe I'm mixing up the terms. So he basically says he asks the question. Would you rather be a pig? Or a human unsatisfied and he thinks it's better to be a human unsatisfied because of this higher and lower pleasure distinction, which to me seems to undermine the utilitarian principle. I think that the utilitarian, uh, at least in the, in the strict sense is probably committed to saying that they'd rather be the pig satisfied. There are lots of paradoxes and thought experiments that you can unpack there that are really interesting. And anyone who is interested I'd recommend reading, Roger crisps, commentary on Mill's utilitarianism. It's the one that they force every undergraduate at Oxford who's studying philosophy to read, with good reason. it discusses all of these problems with fantastic clarity. but yeah, the only way you could possibly justify this on utilitarianism as if somehow by inflicting suffering on this animal, you are increasing the pleasure overall by a significantly or by a, by a higher amount than the suffering Influxing at which case it wouldn't just be miserable. It would become an obligation according to utilitarians. and look, I'm, I'm rambling now. I realize you kind of, you talked for, you asked like a three word question and I just keep on going. Um, but one thing to consider is if you think to yourself, well, does that mean that I can inflict a little bit of suffering on an animal? If the pleasure that I get is going to be much higher maybe, and if you're a utilitarian, it might just be the case that you are committed to the view that, yeah, that's fine. But remember that like veganism is about minimizing animal suffering. So if overall you're actually increasing the well-being of conscious creatures, across the board, then maybe it is a vegan thing to do. But also look maybe suffering and pleasure. Aren't worth the same thing. This is one of the most interesting takeaways of David book, the famous antinatalist, who has some interesting things to say about the nature of pleasure and pain. But one of the most interesting is that they're not worth. Would you take, if I offered you five minutes of the most intolerable imaginable pain, just that the, the most severe pain that you could possibly imagine for five minutes, if afterwards, I gave you five minutes of the most unimaginable bliss, most people in my experience say, no, I said, it's not worth it. I don't want to go through that. Why not? Does that imply that maybe the suffering is actually worth more on the scales than the pleasure is that is to say, maybe it's like, maybe there's kind of like this, the scale that kind of goes up like that. You know, one one's much more exponential than the other, such that like, you actually need a lot more pleasure to justify a little bit of suffering, such that even if you inflict a little bit of suffering on a, on an animal to get a lot of pleasure for yourself, that still might not be enough to outweigh the suffering because the suffering is worth more. so look, I think, yeah, like whatever way you frame it, I think that the vegans have, uh, have, have kind of wiggle room to, to insert their ethical philosophy into pretty much any, any. Uh, ethical philosophy that that exists.

Seb Alex 34:23

I agree. And you did mention, the bantams, quote about whether or not they can suffer. currently reading a book by Tom Regan. It's called the case for animal rights,

Alex O'Connor 34:34

Hm.

Seb Alex 34:34

mindblowing book. I do have to say,

Alex O'Connor 34:37

Yeah.

Seb Alex 34:37

each page like times. It's not easy. And he actually criticizes that them scope by saying that it's not that they can suffer, but it's that they can feel pain because he made the point that suffering means

Alex O'Connor 34:54

yeah.

Seb Alex 34:54

is caused for a long time and it became suffering. In which case people can raise a point. So-called humane slaughter, because then they say, well there, the animal is not suffering. It was done fast. So therefore he's more, more based on rights-based, philosophy and talking about the fact that they're sentient criticizing bentos point, which I don't know if you've read any of his

Alex O'Connor 35:18

Yeah.

Seb Alex 35:18

it is really, really.

Alex O'Connor 35:21

Yeah. I've read Tom Regan. I mean, one of the most interesting things about, the animal rights movement is that most people who claim to be animal rights, activists are not because they don't believe in animal rights because they're doing this for utilitarian grounds. They've read Peter singer. They think it's about, you know, minimizing suffering. That's not what rights are like to have a, to have a rights to something means you have an inviolable impenetrable claim. To do something and to have other people not interfere with your doing so. So if I have property rights, if I have a right to, you know, this let's say I've got a, like a holiday home, like a shack somewhere in a foreign country and it's mine. Right. And I have a rights to that property then even though I'm not occupying it. And even though it doesn't really matter to me, if somebody is caught out in a blizzard and is going to die, unless they break into my property and stayed the night there and isn't no skin off my back and they can't do that, it's not permissible because they cannot violate my right now, the utilitarian will say that, like, I have an ethical obligation to allow this to happen, or at least that person is ethically permitted to break into the property. And, and, I think most, you know, virtuous people would say that. Yeah, like at the very least you can understand why, why someone would do that and that they probably shouldn't be blamed for it. But if I have a right to that, It means it does not matter how severe the consequences of protecting that rioters. It must be protected. So if you believe so, most people believe that humans have a right to life. For instance, what that means is that even if, you know, a hundred people were going to die, a thousand people are going to die. You don't have the right to kill me to save them. Right? You can't push me onto the train tracks. You can't kill me to harvest my organs to save the others, right? Because I have a right to life, even if it's going to maximize pleasure. And this is one of the biggest criticisms of utilitarianism is that it can't account for rights. Millet comes to do this in the fifth chapter of utilitarianism. And that's an admirable fight, I think. But this is the distinguishing feature between the welfare trust approach of someone like Peter singer, who just cares about the minimization of suffering and the right space approach. Someone like Tom Reagan, who says, no, we want to give animals and inviolable rights to certain things like, you know, freedom from torture and suffering. I'm not all too convinced that REITs can. Really thought to exist in this manner. I spoken about rights in the past as good functional tools, to like protect the, the minimization of suffering in the long run is essentially a form of rule utilitarianism. But in this particular instance, protecting a right won't minimize suffering, but the practice of protecting rights in general overall will minimize suffering. If you see what I'm saying, that's, that's the distinction feature between someone like Reagan and someone like singer is, rights versus just utility. I remember reading Tom Reagan and being in the like, this is a, this is an interesting book. He makes an interesting case, but I remember ultimately disagreeing with him. It's been a long time since I've read. a case for animal rights and I've been meaning to reread it actually. But I remember he had a lot, he had a lot to say that I, that I didn't particularly like. but I think that's got a lot to do with the fact that he seems to just be a, a deontologist someone who just thinks ethical statements on can just be true. That just ethical properties are a part of the universe doesn't mean that just actually exists. Whereas someone like Peter singer and myself, it's more like, well, we know that suffering exists. That's something we can be searching. And so I think you can maybe get something out of minimizing suffering, but this idea of rights, the rights really exist. And if so, how do they exist? And how are they specified? I mean, people say you have a right to life. That's not quite right. Because like, you know, if you tried to kill me, I could kill you in self-defense and someone might say, oh no, you can't because that person has a right to like, you can't kill them. So I know clearly what we mean is you have a right to life unless you're threatening someone else's life. And then. And then you can come up with lots of other situations. Oh, you know, what about, you know, military warfare, this kind of stuff like, okay, so you have a right to life, except this, this, this, this, this, and within the philosophy of rights, these people are in a specification. It's they think the rights do exist, but that the fees, these actual like book length long, rights that you put in practice, you can never actually know what your rights are, because they're just so long. It's like this massive gerrymandering of rights around each other. but then I don't know how much I buy that because if I were to break into somebody's property to save my life, I feel the next day as if I had to say, sorry, I'd be like, look, I'm really sorry for violating your rights. If they, if they, if I broke it broken onto their property. But if the specification is correct, that the reason I can violate this right. Is because they don't actually have a right in this case, because it's specified such that you have a right to property, unless someone is in dire need and needs to break into the house. In which case you don't have a right. Then what am I apologizing for? We haven't done anything. Because they don't have a right to use that property in this manner. I haven't, I haven't violated anybody's rights. It's specified in there, right. That I have the permissibility to do this. So the next day when I hand them over some money for the damages and, and apologize and, you know, buy them a drink, why, what, what am I doing that for? I don't need to do that. Right. It's like, you can't, you cannot apologize to someone it's sincerely without a genuine recognition of wrongdoing. Right. And so by accessing apologetic, it seems that I'm recognizing a wrongdoing, which means that there is some kind of rightness violation. So yeah, I have a philosophy of rights is a bit complicated. I don't think it, I don't think that it's particularly feasible to say that there are these things that exist called rights that can never be violated under any circumstances. I know some people who do, but it's, it's not, for me, I'm more of a classical utilitarian in, on at least this.

Seb Alex 41:01

Alright. I think, it reminds me of, something I was talking about. a friend of mine told me it's similar to the speed limit. doesn't really exist,

Alex O'Connor 41:13

Um,

Seb Alex 41:14

to protect. And

Alex O'Connor 41:16

yeah.

Is Alex a utilitarian?

Discussing Animal Welfare

Seb Alex 41:16

the case that like you gave the example of like the blizzard and you had to save your life. I think we could say if, if someone got into an accident and then you pick them up and you're rushing to the hospital and you break the speed limit, did you read. Break the law or is it permissible or I guess it falls into that specification example that you gave. You also mentioned the ontology and I did want to talk about that because I do think in some ways, and I say this as someone who has not studied philosophy for sure, but in some ways I, I felt that it can cover some areas that it will turn ism can because even Peter singer himself made the post. Um, I think it was last year saying that every once in a while, he, in his words, he said something like, take part in the pleasure or something like that, of eating some animals. And in another culture, squeezing, you know, when he's traveling or something like that, then I found that so sad because I thought like, wow, you're the personal road, animal liberation. You can't just not consume a plant-based diet. And then he even made the point of humane, slaughter and good treatment. At least if I remember correctly, would. The ontology takeover. And how would it work in your opinion, between the ontology and utilitarianism? would you personally identify with, say classic utilitarianism?

Alex O'Connor 42:36

Yeah, well, at least I'm more so, um, than, uh, at least all the questions we were talking about than a, than a right space. I wouldn't call myself utilitarian. but for all intents and purposes, most of the time when I'm having a discussion it's as if I were one. and look, I mean, like I think, and, you know, I saw that post and I can't remember what he said, but I mean, I think to myself, you know, this is again, w we're talking here about practicality. We're talking here about minimizing suffering overall. The reason why we don't like the phrase, something like humane slaughter is because most of the time when someone says humane slaughter, it's simply not humane. But remember if someone like Peter singer, who's just being purely rationalistic about this. He's saying like in principle, if there were a situation in which you could breed an animal and kill them without pain and eat their flesh, what's the problem with that. And for utilitarian, there is none because there's no suffering involved here. Now you have to obviously account for things like the social element of that animal's life. You have to make sure that they don't have like family who are going to mourn over them and this kind of stuff. But if you just had an animal that had no social capacity and you killed them, painlessly, the utilitarian is committed to saying that that wouldn't be wrong. And because I kind of agree with singer on this point, that death isn't bad for the person who dies. I think even in the human instance, I think that the reason why it's wrong to kill human beings, may. it can't be whatever the reason is. It can't be that death is bad for the person who dies because once you're dead, it can't be, it can't be bad for you. if there is some positively bad thing about death, um, it's difficult to know what it would be. And it might imply for instance, that death is worse for Shakespeare than it is for Christopher Hitchens, because Shakespeare's had more of it. just kind of doesn't really make sense. So look, if you could have a situation in which animals weren't suffering, Why not, what would be the problem with, eating the, eating the products of that labor, if it genuinely involves no suffering and a lot of vegans want to say, look, it's just, it's just a point of, moral principle. We just don't use animals. They're not to be used as means to ends. They're just ends in themselves. They essentially become canteens. and it's like, okay, like, you're welcome to do that, but you can at least recognize that it's consistent for the utilitarian to say I'm against factory farming. I think it's disgusting and despicable. I think that inflicting cruelty upon animals is an unpardonable moral sin, but that if an animal doesn't suffer, I'd be perfectly happy to eat that product. You know, like I think that's perfectly consistent. And I think I would have to agree with Peter singer that in principle, there could be such a thing, that it wouldn't be problematic.

Seb Alex 45:20

So if, when you say you agree, do you agree in the way as in what he does is consistent and because you mentioned earlier that you usually use consistency and I, as the basis of your argument, he's being consistent of course, with his views. But we're going to do a consistency test, then that would surely apply to human beings as well, Who let's say a person who

Alex O'Connor 45:44

yeah,

Seb Alex 45:44

family or no friends is killed very quickly because some people out that human flesh tastes really good. Would that then be okay?

Alex O'Connor 45:56

well, obviously we want to say no, right. That's kind of the, that's kind of the point of bringing it up. and this is in fact one of the biggest problems for utilitarianism in general, not just for vegans, but for utilitarian is generally, you know, it's like, well, why can't I kill somebody? Uh, well, because of the effect it would have on society and because they've got family and friends and it's like, okay, well look, you know, I find the homeless man in the cabin in the woods and you know, I killed him painlessly, why is it wrong? Um, and the utilitarian famously struggles to answer this question. Now, maybe the case that actually it is permissible in that circumstance to do that. That's one bullet you can bite, but most people don't want to. I think that one way to use this Baron can get out of it is to say like, look at the very least, if you kill someone without suffering is kind of morally neutral because there's no suffering, there's no pleasure either. It just, it's just something that happens. It's just, it's just, you just did it. Right. so now we've got this marginal case in which somebody has to do the killing, right? Somebody has to pull the trigger or set the things in motion and the kind of effects that it's going to have on that person, their propensity towards harming others or the kind of character it cultivates within them might be like a marginal reason to say. That actually you are slightly lowering the utility. And because of consequentialist is generally quite strict about things. That means that you've got a choice to not two options. One's got a higher utility than the other. You are obligated to do the higher utility. And therefore, even though in this case, surprisingly, it's only a tiny bit of utility. You still have an obligation not to kill that person so you can get out of it, I think. but again, like you can just keep going with these things you can say, okay, what about if like, you know, the person kills the other person and then immediately their memory is wiped and they have absolutely no memory of having done it. This, you can go on and on and on for days. but yeah, you do have to be consistent. This is the biggest problem, whatever you think about animals, you have to also think about human beings. So Peter's saying it wants to say that it would be okay to raise animals in a humane way, whatever, and kill them. He has to be consistent with humans, but it doesn't mean that he has to say, for instance, that we could just do this with human beings. He might say that, although any being that's capable of suffering because they can suffer has a right. Not to, not to have suffering inflicted upon them. there's also this thing called a right to life, which let's say maybe it applies to people who are capable of desires. So let's say that like human beings are capable of desiring to not want it. They don't want to die. Right. And so they have a right to have that, desire respected or something like that. So you can't kill them because they want to live. I don't know if that would be particularly consistent, but there are other principles you'd come up with. Maybe you say that like, well, you know, these animals were more sociable. We have friends and family just as a species, all of this kind of stuff. Then these animals that were killing what Peter saying would be committed to is saying that we could, we could essentially farm human beings who. Themselves don't desire to live. Perhaps they're like, you know, severely disabled or whatever it may be. and you know, I don't think Peter's thing is a stranger to that kind of thing. You know, famous for his somewhat dodgy comments on infanticide and things like this and, and, you know, euthanizing, disabled children, not for the sake of the children, by the way, but for the sake of other children, for whom resources could be, uh, more adequately used. So maybe this is, this is one of those cases in which strict consequentialism bears its really ugly face and seems to many people just obviously wrong for exactly this reason. But Peter saying it, wouldn't be committed to saying, well, if you grow in human beings and they're not suffering, that's fine. It would ha it would be more like something like if you're growing human beings have a specific kind ones who we've liked genetically bred such that they don't, um, they don't know what's going on. They don't have a desire to live. They have about the same cognitive capacity as a pig, this kind of stuff. Then it'd be okay to fall and kill them as long as you're not inflicting suffering upon them. Now for us embedded as we are in a culture, which says that human rights are the, the ultimate moral grounding of everything. It's like, if you're a human, you have a right. And it's disgusting to think that you should be discriminated against on any arbitrary characteristics, like intelligence or skin color or whatever. It seems to us still repugnant to say that you can kill a human being because they have lower intelligence, whatever. But like for utilitarian, if we kind of get rid of, uh, preconceptions and just put all utilitarian capsule and you can see why it would be at least consistent for them to say that like, well, in this system, although in practice, if it came about, it would lead to all kinds of other problems, which is why we wouldn't want to instill it because like people might start, you might start seeing discrimination against the disabled, for instance. because people think that it's morally permissible to treat them differently. But in principle, if we could do it in such a way that wouldn't have those problems, I think someone like Peter singer would just say, yeah, that wouldn't be a problem. this is where I think. You get to, there's a, there's this phrase that I keep hearing thrown around in conversations that I have with, with friends, that one man's modus ponens is another man's modus Tolkien's, which requires a little bit of explanation. Um, these are, these are forms of logical argument, Mo modus ponens is an argument of the form. If P then queue that's premise one, premise two is P and the conclusion is cute, right? So like, you know, if it's raining outside, then I'll get wet. It's raining outside. Therefore I'll get wet, right? Like that logically follows from the two premises. If P then Q and P it follows necessarily that chemistry and argument, if that form is good motors, opponents, um, there's also another logically valid form of argument called modus tollens, which is if P then Q and the second premise is not queue from which it follows that not P right. If it's raining outside, then I'll get wet. I'm not. Therefore, it's not raining outside. that lodge that's logically valid. It might not be sound because it's not actually true that if it's raining outside, I will get wet. You know, like, but like the, if the premises are true, the conclusion is, is true. So you have these two forms of argument, modus ponens and motor silence, but they both share the same premise at the beginning, if P then Q right? So the premise might be, if utilitarianism is true, then it's wrong to kill, that, sorry. Then it's permissible to kill human beings in some circumstances, right? If utilitarianism is true, then we're allowed to kill the man in the cabin, in the woods. And so for one person, you've got a modus ponens, which is if utilitarianism is correct, then you can kill a human being. Utilitarianism is correct. Therefore you can kill a human being. So that's one man's modus ponens is going to be another man's modus Toland. If utilitarianism is correct, then I can kill an innocent person, but I can't kill an innocent person. Therefore, utilitarianism isn't. Right. So they can both accept the conditional. So we can be talking about utilitarianism, both agree that yeah. You know what, you're right. If utilitarianism is true, then you can kill a human being. And one man from that goes so we can kill a human being. And the other man goes, ha, so utilitarianism must be false. And essentially you just have to pick which premise is more plausible to you. Which one are you more willing to get rid of either the, the idea that utilitarianism is true, or the idea that it's a permissible to kill or that it's wrong to kill human beings? Which one are you more willing to give up? and that's the decision that I think can only really be made on the basis of intuition. but I think that's what you get led to in a situation like this. Because if you want to say that, no, it's still wrong to kill an animal. even if there's no suffering involved, then you might have to say, well, that means that utilitarianism isn't, isn't accurate isn't is isn't a good enough account of, my vegan philosophy. And so I'm going to have to find another one. I can't just say, well, it's just wrong to inflict animal suffering. Why am I vegan? Because I want to minimize animal suffering, but that's not true because you just said that it's wrong to kill an animal, even if there's no suffering involved. So I'll ask again, why do you think it's wrong to kill an animal? And you realize you have to rethink it, or you take them on as opponents approach as Peter singer does and say, huh? Yeah. Well then it is okay to kill an animal as long as there's no suffering. and it's kind of up to the listener to decide which, which they think is more plausible bear in mind. Like, like if we lived in a situation where we were killing animals in this humane way where everybody's animal products were coming from animals who lived a really good life and then we'll killed, we might still have an ethical conversation here. Right. It might be like how we should really sit down and like, it's an interesting ethical question. Should we really be killing the animals? Is it really wrong to do this? But I don't think you would see the same kind of like, it wouldn't be the main focus of mine. If it would just, if animals would just being, living a good life and then being killed painlessly, I might talk about it every now and again, and say, you know, there was an ethical farms with us. We shouldn't really be killing animals for X, Y, Z reasons, but I wouldn't be like on the streets protesting this kind of stuff. The real force of the vegan movement is not just the fact that we're killing animals, but the fact that we're treating them so horrendously. So although this is a, a useful question to uncover what we're actually thinking about ethically. you have to realize that if it were the case that we lived in this kind of Peter singer in a utopia where animals were being killed painlessly, and we will happily animal products, even if we still think that would be wrong, I feel like we wouldn't be sat here on this podcast, having this conversation. I feel like, you know, you and I wouldn't have spent so much time, so much energy talking to people about veganism because although it might have been ethically wrong to kill an animal, it's not like it might be wrong in the way that like. It's like, yeah, that's probably a bad thing to do, but like, I, I don't know, like, you know, it, it may be, there's some sort of songs on in which is okay, everyone's going to do it, whatever. It's not like a big deal. so if it is wrong to kill an animal painlessly, I think it's wrong. Maybe in that sense, what's obviously wrong. And why we spend so much time talking about it is because of the treatment of the animals and the fact that we're not living in a world where we kill animals without suffering. but yeah, I mean, I think the biggest problem with just biting the bullet and saying that it's okay to kill animals, that don't suffer is the human problem. You'd have to be consistent with human beings. Um, but I think that if you are consistent, as I say, that's, that's all I'm asking.

Seb Alex 55:53

All right, So do, I don't have to say I do disagree on that. another argument I could make in that utopian world is that, is it not worse to take the life of someone who's living a happy life because someone could make the argument that the animals in the, in the factory farms, you're doing them a favor, but why would you kill someone who's having a happy life, you know? But.

Alex O'Connor 56:17

that that's, that's true. However, I think if you just had two animals, one was really happy when I was really sad. It would be worse to kill the happy one. But if you were going to breed animals into existence and you were going to either breed them into existence in a state of suffering and then kill them them into existence in a state of happiness and think. It would be worse to breed them into the, into the suffering. I mean, that's, that's an interesting observation you make. And I think I've, I think I've heard this mentioned before, because I remember someone talking about like, you know, when, uh, when, you hear the news of someone who's died, you know, they always say, oh, he was such a happy man. He was living such a good life. He had a wife and children, it's like, huh, it's almost as if like, even if they had a happy life that makes it worse to kill them. a a, an interesting, um, an interesting point, but you run into this, I mean, you run into this problem where like, if it were the case that you could bring an animal into existence if they were ultimately going to be killed. and if they're not going to be killed, they don't get pulled into existence make it such that they do have a life that overall is worth living. You know, it is, it is a good life overall, like by bringing them into existence and then ultimately killing them who, if we harmed. Like, okay. So, so this is, it's this problem known as the night entity problem, um, which was often attributed to, to a dark path that, who wrote about it in reasons and persons and he made, he talks about it in a human context. He says like, look, I mean, if, if a 14 year old girl is thinking of having a, having a kid and she has this child, the child's going to have a pretty shoddy life. You know, it's gonna have a pretty bad start, but ultimately it's going to still live a life worth living. So gonna be a good life overrule, you know, but if you wait five years and has a child, then that child will have a much better upbringing. Um, the question is, is it, you know, is it kind of wrong if there third, does she, does she do something? do something wrong by having the child so early, knowing that it's going to give them this bad start and like when she could have one much later and give it a good start in life intuitively, you want to say, yeah, she should wait, but why? Right. Who's being harmed. If you wait five years, you don't have the same child that you would have had four years ago, it was completely different child, right? So like if you have that child, when you're 14, yeah. They have a bad start in life, but their life is overall worth living. And the only alternative to bringing them into existence here with this, with this impediment would be for them to not exist at all. And so if you ask that child, like, are you glad you're in existence? They'll say, yeah, of course my life is worth living. You say, well, what about this impediment you faced? And they say, well, if I didn't have that impediment, the only way to avoid it would have been to not exist. And so I'm glad that it happened. There was a, there was a story in, um, Derek Parfitt talks about this, about how there was, they were discussing on the news or something. Some minister had had said, what great news it is that there have been so few teenage pregnancies this year, teenage pregnancies have gone way, way down. And that's a really good thing. And there was an angry man who wrote in and said, listen, I was the result of a teenage pregnancy and I have a good life. The implication of what you're saying is that it would have been better. Had I not been with. And he was very angry about it. He said, like by saying, you know, thank God there are no, you know, there are so few teenage pregnancies. Well, I was a teenage pregnancy. And so you're saying like, it would have been better if I wasn't around. And the funny thing is like, yeah, like you're committed to that view. Like if you're going to say that it's wrong to, you know, bring someone into existence, if unnecessary, part of bringing them into existence is that they have some kind of severe impediment that doesn't make their life worth, worth living overall, but it's still a serious impediment. If you're gonna say that's wrong to do that, then yeah. You're committed to the view for instance, that like, it would have been better that these people who were born were not born and that someone else would have been born in their place, know, which seems wrong. And it's one of the, it's one of the biggest, the most interesting problems I think in modern philosophy is this not identity problem. but like the reason it's the non identity problem is because it seems obvious to us that it would be wrong to do these kinds of things. That it would be wrong to bring someone into existence with a severe disability. Well, when we could just as easily bring someone into existence who didn't have that disability, that's going to make their life more. Immiserated even if they'd be different people. so yeah, I just thought it's worth kind of flagging that, but the question is this, this is the thing. If you were that animal and it's the case that you've got a choice between either living a, uh, a good life positively good, but it has this unfortunate ending where you get killed, versus no life at all, which would you rather live? And if the answer is the first, then we've got a pretty serious problem facing us in terms of explaining why it would be wrong to do that. Don't I mean, don't, don't you think.

Seb Alex 1:01:04

Yeah. I think it would fall into the false dilemma because we're saying, well, we either do this good life and bad ending or bad life and bad ending, but we actually have a third option where it's good life, no bad ending, you know? and

Alex O'Connor 1:01:22

true.

Seb Alex 1:01:23

that comes from me, from my side, at least from the right space, point of view where it it's their right to live their life. And it's not our rights to take that life away, I was actually having a discussion about, um, veganism earlier on this court and someone was talking about mortality and everything. And, and I actually did the same thing. You mentioned, uh, where I talked about consistency and I told him like, if you believe in human rights, same logic that gives us the idea of human rights applies to animals. I applied that in all Of my thoughts to check my consistency. if I were to say anything regarding other animals, I would immediately check if I would say, regarding humans. and just the same way I have the right to my life, because I desire to experience pleasure, let's say, or, um, I'm conscious the same thing applies to two other animals. And if they have that

Alex O'Connor 1:02:18

Yeah.

Seb Alex 1:02:18

way, as I do, one has the right to kill. Um, regardless of whether or not I have friends or family or people who love or care about me, that same thing applies to other animals. So I think it falls into the false dilemma fallacy, and we keep forgetting that, Hey, there's this option where we just respect the right And I know it's a made up, right. It doesn't exist in nature, neither does the right. of you and you and I. Yeah.

Alex O'Connor 1:02:45

Um, that's right. I like to think of it as the, it's like the, assertion, when you go to the gun range that the gun is always loaded. It's not, not always

Seb Alex 1:02:53

Yeah,

Alex O'Connor 1:02:54

but with, we're going to just kind of pretend as though it is because we recognize that by doing

Seb Alex 1:02:58

exactly. I think so

Alex O'Connor 1:02:59

Um, you're, you're right. In one sense in, in that. Yeah. Like if we kind of, in a, in any individualize instance, we have a choice between bringing an animal into existence and killing them, not bring them into existence bring them into existence and allowing them to let their life. But you, I mean, you recognize that if we were all vegan, that were born would be allowed to live the rest of their life, but there would be significantly less of them being bred. Right? If we, if we lived in a world where most people were eating meat, but only from sustainable, so to speak sources, this idealized conception that we have, where animals are living a pretty good life in them being killed at the end, in that world, there would be more animals bred into existence to then live that good life and then be killed with no suffering in this ideal situation. And so it would mean that like by being vegan, less animals would be being brought into existence to experience a good life and then be killed at the end of it. So we are in a situation where you would have to choose for those animals, for those animals who aren't going to be bred if we're not eating meat. And if we're all vegan so many less are going to be bred for those animals that we're talking about, it is the case in this hypothetical that we either bring them into existence. So they live a good life and then kill them and eat them eat, or they don't exist. Right. And in that situation for those animals, that is, those are the only two options. I don't think it's a false dilemma. I think that, but in this situation, I mean, would you, would you agree that at least in this situation, that would be, those would be the two options for those animals, right?

Seb Alex 1:04:28

If the end goal is to is, is because we see them as, as resources that we're going to use, that we're going to bring them into existence. I definitely see that. And, um,

Alex O'Connor 1:04:38

So lots of them would be, I mean, they simply wouldn't be born into existence, but if they are given a good lie, even if just to like satiate the, the concerns of humans or something, even if not for their sake or whatever, like, but like from the animal's perspective, it's like you get the choice between either living a good life, having a good run and then being killed without even realizing it like that before you even know it, or you just never, never escape the, um, the void of non-existence.

Seb Alex 1:05:03

I will have a, a technical question here. If we're going to talk about an these animals living a good life, most of these animals are social animals, which means they would have other animal friends or family members who care about them.

Alex O'Connor 1:05:17

Yeah, Yeah,

Seb Alex 1:05:19

especially for example, chickens, chickens are very social. I rescue the chicken around two years ago. The first thing I was told to do is go and rescue another one. And another one because they can't live

Alex O'Connor 1:05:29

right?

Seb Alex 1:05:29

They have their social structure. are the same sheep are the same. I think this is a technical thing.

Alex O'Connor 1:05:36

That's, that's, that's, that's a good point.

Seb Alex 1:05:38

we have to take this into because the good life does not mean isolated from every other being, especially

Alex O'Connor 1:05:45

That's right.

Seb Alex 1:05:46

species.

Alex O'Connor 1:05:47

But you know, a good life also doesn't mean a perfect life. So let's say for instance, that like, because you're going to kill these animals in necessarily involves like the disruption of their social situations. It's not immediate, you know, they get spent some time with each other and let's say that, you know, maybe, maybe if you notice two chickens, really good friends, you'd kill them at the same time, something like this. Right. Um, you, you, you might think, you might think like, okay, so this is obviously an, a. But at least hypothetically, you could imagine that their life is still worth living overrule. Even with that impediment. This is again like the non identity problem. Like the person who grows up in horrible conditions, but their life is still worth living overrule. It might be like the person who kind of has a socially difficult life, but their life is worth living overrule. You might just say that like, no, as a matter of principle, because these animals are so deeply social. If you take away that if you, if you make that intervention into their social life, um, then it will just almost by definition, be a life not worth living. You can say that. And that allows you to say that it would be wrong. But I think the biggest problem here is that like, like w we're talking about like in principle, in principle, if we have this perfect situation where everyone was not only is it like, like, you know, the law and morality dictates that we need to treat animals correctly, but that every single institutional planet earth actually follow the laws. And no one was like covertly treating their animals badly that this situation will never obtain it will. And so there are two questions here. One question is as a matter of philosophical interest in principle, right? Because when you're talking about philosophy, it's like, oh, if you had like a, like a human being who had like no eyes, but he had this like special capacity to like, feel suffering through his ears and you get these crazy thought experiments and you're asking like, in principle, what would you do? Right. Like in the practical world, it has, it bears almost no relevance because we could say that in principle it would be okay to bring this chicken into existence and have it live a good life and then kill it at the end of it. But as soon as we try to Institute that across the globe, it's just never going to happen. So I will still continue to campaign for this stuff to be abolished and its entirety, because I think that in practice, you're never going to be able to reach this, um, utopian. Situation. Um, and so, so like, yeah, although it might trouble you to hear that in principle, like there are situations in which it might be okay to kill an animal unnecessarily, like in practice, there's just no way that this can be instituted. And that's why in the, in the, in the fight for what we're actually trying to achieve politically and morally and socially we're on the same side, you know? but like in principle, I think that the questions get a lot, a lot harder. And I think that's really what Peter's saying is getting out as well. Um, possibly, I mean, I don't know, I'll have to reread what he says on the massive, but you know, I think that's, uh, it's worth, worth saying.

Seb Alex 1:08:26

no, I'm glad we cleared that out because I don't want people to think now that you would go and eat, Other animals that are killed. And, what about the ontology? I know we went a lot utilitarianism and how that works and all these

Alex O'Connor 1:08:40

Yeah.

Seb Alex 1:08:41

everything we talked about during the past around 20 minutes, we're talking about the hypothetical situations, right? We're talking about

Alex O'Connor 1:08:47

Um,

Seb Alex 1:08:47

this would you, that we're not really. Cause as you said, like this, this is a utopian world. Like we would never get to that point. Therefore we would just, fight.

Alex O'Connor 1:08:56

it's like saying, you know, if you knew that by breaking someone's arm, it would like, you know, get rid of malaria. He'd probably be like, well, look, generally speaking. I think people have a right. Not to be harmed and assaulted, but you know, in this situation, maybe I'd be okay with it. But like in practice, if someone came to you and said, listen, dude, if you go and break the guy's arm, Larry's can just be, it'd be like, In practice without guarantees. And it's just, it's not even worth entertaining these kinds of hypotheticals by the way, utopia, because I've mentioned that word a number of times I'm saying this only applies to the utopian situation. The origin of the word utopia literally means like not place, the word means like a place that doesn't exist and will not exist. That's kind of an interesting point about the utopian goal. You may as well be saying the, the, the goal that can never be achieved. I think that's how most people tend to use, um, utopia. And that's how I'm using it is to say that if we were in utopia, this might be permissible, but guess what? We're not, and we never want.

Seb Alex 1:09:58

Okay. to know. We are going to step a bit outside of philosophy now, but I do want to hear your opinion on this. How do you feel about the idea of seeing other animals as through your sources? Because in my personal opinion, I've thought about this a lot. I do believe that because they are different. The idea of seeing them as resources could be an way of planting the seed of thoughts that someone being different than you means that you have certain rights or power over them, or even to the extent of using them as resources. Would you agree with that? Or do you see any problem with seeing other animals as a resource.

Alex O'Connor 1:10:37

I think it's possible that, that, by treating animals as resources that has like human consequences, for instance. but I'm not really, I'm not really sure. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, the reason why it would be wrong to use another being as a resource. The thing is a resource is because of the effect that it has on the welfare and their suffering. So for instance, we might think in principle with human beings and we have to be careful here, right? Because when you say like, we, we shouldn't use human beings as means to end, we should only treat them as ends in themselves. We should never use them just as like, you know, um, what about like a waiter? You know, when you, when you, when you, when you call over a way through an audio audio feed, you're treating them as a means to an, and you're not treating them as an end to themselves. It's like, okay, well, strictly speaking, we're saying we don't want to use them as a means to an end in some way that isn't kind of, that they haven't entered into themselves or something like this. So I think that the reason why it's wrong to use people means to ends will be because it inevitably leads to suffering. That is to say, if we think we can use people as a means to an end, because we think, well, in principle, you know, if it's not going to harm them, why not? And then before, you know, it you've, you've enslaved half the population. Um, I think the same thing happens with animals. You might think, well, animals don't care, you know, especially if they don't know that they're being used as means to. You guys like, yeah, let's, let's use them as commodities because they're not going to know any better, but like in practice, as you say, that's probably going to lead to a situation in which their welfare is going to be severely diminished, uh, further enough down the line. So I don't have this deontological, um, uh, restriction against using other beings as means to end just for its own sake. I think it's instrumentally the case that we shouldn't do this because ultimately it's going to diminish the dementia that suffering.

Seb Alex 1:12:17

Alright. And just for those who don't know what the ontology is, could you give like a very short or superficial idea?

Alex O'Connor 1:12:24

Yeah. The ontology.

Seb Alex 1:12:25

it's not easy to explain things in a very shorter, superficial way, but as much as possible.

Alex O'Connor 1:12:31

Yeah, I mean, I've done. I tend to ramble on even on non philosophical question. So, the ontology literally it's the study of duty. That's what the word means. and deontology will be contrasted with something like consequentialism where consequentialism is the idea that what's right or wrong. Depends on the consequences. So the minimization of suffering and the maximization of pleasure, that kind of thing. Whereas deontology thinks that certain actions are right or wrong, full stop. It's like, it's wrong to, it's wrong to lie. It's wrong to steal. It's wrong to murder regardless of the consequences, it doesn't matter. Right? Like it is completely irrelevant to the question of the thing being wrong in all circumstances, no matter what, you know what I mean? Um, I shouldn't say in all circumstances, cause the deontologists could say. It's wrong to murder in X, Y Zed circumstances, but not ABC circumstances, but as long as it's like the thing that's wrong, I think that makes it wrong. It's just, it's kind of embedded within the rule itself, rather than having any sensitivity to the consequences, then you're on deontological grounding rather than consequentialist.

Seb Alex 1:13:34

about if a is running after someone and they're going to kill them and they, and lying is wrong. And they ask you that you see where that person, went, where that

Alex O'Connor 1:13:44

Yeah.

Seb Alex 1:13:45

do you lie if you're the ontologist or do you not fly? Because you know that If, if, lying is wrong, but if you

Alex O'Connor 1:13:52

If,

Seb Alex 1:13:52

a life.

Why does veganism matter?

Alex O'Connor 1:13:54

yeah, if you're a manual. You, you, you, you can't, you can't lie in any circumstance again, as earlier when you asked me about killing human beings and I'm just like, well, the utilitarian kind of struggles with this. This is what the deontologists struggles with and famously when people study can't for the first time, they are fascinated to learn. And it's, this is often the example that's given is it's specifically the example of somebody hiding in your closet and a murderer coming to the door, and you know, saying, do you know where this person is? and they're fascinated, just absolutely dumbfounded to find that the county and philosophy obligers one to say, yeah, I know where they are. That's what it's it's and it's, and again, it's kind of a modus ponens mode of selling things like choose what you think is more plausible here. and, and this ground, I think most people would be utilitarians about it, right? They're not, they're probably not going to like the reasonably, I mean, like you could say that. If, for example, like if you're lying, if you lying to this person somehow ends up causing some problem where this person ends up dying. So you lie to them. They think that you're lying. They see through it, they break into the house and they kill the person. Then you see the goal in some way responsible for this, right? Like you've done something wrong, which has led to the, to the death of this person. If you tell the truth and they go and kill this person, like this person's rights has been, have been violated great immorality has occurred, but you're not responsible for it. Right. So the, the question that we're asking here is kind of, or a question that should be raised here is kind of like, what's the focus of ethics? Is it, is it about like right or wrong action? Is it about you not doing the, you doing the right or wrong thing? Is it because of ethics is to be an ethical person. You just have to make sure that whatever that you don't do wrong things, and you always do the right thing. Then if you, if someone comes to the room and says, do you know where this person is? You say, yes, they then go and kill them. You haven't done anything wrong. it's the it's the murderer. That's done all the wrong. You haven't done anything wrong, um, much in the same way that if you refuse to talk to an innocent person, even if that's the only way you can find out where a bomb is going to go off in Manhattan and kill thousands of people, if you say, no, I'm not going to talk to this person because they have a right not to be tortured. And then the bomb goes off and kills a thousand people like those rights have been violated, but not by you. Right? Whereas if you'd have tortured, the innocent person that person's rights will have been violated and the 10,000 peoples wouldn't have, but now that person's rights were violated by you. So you've done something wrong. Now, if you don't violate that, right then 10,000 people's rights get violated, but not by you by the terrorist. So like for you, if you're interested in you doing the right thing and you believe that people have rights, that can't be violated the right thing to do. To is it is to not violate that. Person's right. Even if it's going to have consequentially speaking a much more problematic outcome, whereas if you're a consequentialist, you not only, think it's permissible to talk to the person, but you think it's obligatory you do it with pleasure and ease. again, you have to ask yourself, there are two questions. One is what you would do in that situation. And one of what you should do, the Kantian would say that you should tell the truth, but probably if they're honest with themselves, recognizes that they would not most circumstances, tell the truth.

Seb Alex 1:16:55

All right. Thank you for that answer. And last answer, before we get to the ending, I want to ask why do you believe. Animal ethics is important. And right now we should be vocal about this. And, and obviously you took that path as well. You found out about

Alex O'Connor 1:17:13

Hm.

Seb Alex 1:17:14

you sat down and studied it. You read about it and you went all the way. Why do you believe that you call it a moral limit? The biggest moral emergency? I think you mentioned it in the speech. why do you believe that?

Alex O'Connor 1:17:26

it's so multifaceted, right? it's not just, I mean, we've spent all this time talking about the, suffering and wellbeing of animals, which on its own is enough, gives us enough of an obligation to go vegan. But there's also an environmental aspect that we haven't mentioned, you know, the fact that, the animal agricultural industry has just decimating the environment. there's the pandemic prevention issue, which I've spoken about in the past weekend. We haven't mentioned today. like, yeah, like we're basically asking for another pandemic to. Reoccur, uh, with the way that we are telling human beings to keep as far away from each other, as they can to prevent viral transmission while simultaneously cramming tens of thousands of animals into tiny bonds. Good job. that again on its own would be enough of a reason to eliminate at least factory farming. you've got health concerns. It's one of those things you can do for your health depending on your current situation. and you've also got the, problem of antibiotic resistance, right? Which is the biggest emergency in medicine as to say, like, if antibiotics just suddenly just begin to kind of stop working, because of a growing resistance to them, we're going to be in big, big trouble and where the most antibiotics. To animals in factory farms, which shouldn't surprise you, given that these are disease written hellholes, which again is also a big problem with the pandemic intervention. So there's five reasons on its own. And you've also got the problem that you hinted out of. Like if people go vegan and they're told that, you know, I don't, I know this, this other being has a different number of legs to you and has different intelligence level and different everything about them is different, but you still can't mistreat them. Do you think that kid's going, gonna grow up to mistreat other human beings because they look a bit different, right? So there, there you go. That's a sixth reason any of these on their own, on their own would probably serve as a good enough reason at least to eliminate factory farming and probably to eliminate animal products altogether. That's, you've got that massive way on one side of the scale. And on the other side of the scale is a sausage roll and cheeseburger, and you think to yourself and you have to ask why. We're shouting this from the rooftops. I mean, come on. Anybody who asks that question, anybody who says to me, and I know you're asking it rhetorically. but anybody who sincerely asks me like, but why are you focusing on this? Like, why, why is this your thing? It's like, have you not listened to the, to the entire speech that I just gave before asking that question? Because if you asking this question, you must've missed something. How could you not care about this? How could you not think that this should be at the forefront of the agenda? Any government that claims that it's doing everything, it can, everything it can to prevent something like this pandemic from ever happening again, any religion that claims to be the moral stewards over the ethical treatment animals, any country, which claims to be one full of animal lovers, any, organization that claims to care about the environment and to be campaigning for, you know, the, the elimination of the environmental crisis, any of that. Who claim to do those things, ignore the issue of animal consumption. I hate to have to say it, but they, they are a joke to me at this point, right. That it's a joke because it's either the case that they haven't come across this, that in all their research, they haven't realized the biggest thing, staring them right in the face and the easiest of things to fix it. See, they either haven't realized or they have, and they're being obscurantist about it. They're shoving it under the rug. I don't know which is worse. but it, it just belief. It's like being an advocate against lung cancer and giving your speech as well. You know, smoking on a Marlboro gold. It just doesn't make sense if I were one of these animals, as they say, but for the grace of God there go, I, I could have been one of these animals. I could have been born as a pig or sheep or cow or chicken. I had three, two, one chance being born a chicken because they outnumber us by about that many, On that factory farm being gassed to death or separated from my children or facing the mass racer or the plastic bag where the checks are suffocated under their own weight. yeah, I'd like to think that there was somebody out there on the other side of the wall, arguing for people to stop this. And I'd like to think that those animals think if a capable of reason that the reason this is happening to them is something serious that I don't know why this is happening. I don't know why I'm going through this unimaginable pain, but you know, maybe there's some greater good. Maybe they develop their own internal theodicy is in the same way that human beings think. I don't know why there's so much suffering in the world, but maybe God has some reason for it. But if we found out that the reason why all of our suffering cancer and children tsunamis ripping children from the answer to their parents, if we finally got to the pearly gates and we said, God, why did you do this to us? And he said, you know, I just felt like. That's how an animal would feel coming out of a factory farm. Finally, why is it that you're separating my child from me? Why is it that you're bulk gunning them in the head in front of me and we just go, have you ever had a milkshake? It would just be the most insidious thing that I could possibly imagine. So yeah, I'd like to think that if I was inside that factory farm, there'd be someone on the outside, shouting it from the rooftops until it ended and seeing as nobody else in my community, likes the idea of doing it. It will have to be me. And I'm glad to see that many more people are beginning to switch onto this in the atheist community. At least they at least are growing sympathetic to it. A lot of people simply hadn't considered it. Like I, you know, like me two years ago, I just hadn't really thought about it before many people seem to react very angrily. but whatever, like fine, like if you're going to react angrily, I will I'll, I'll repeat it then. And I'll keep repeating it until you realize how serious of an issue this is. Yeah. I mean, you can ask, you know, why is it, why is it wrong? can ask kind of what's going on in the animal agricultural industry. But once that's been explained, the question just doesn't remain as to why this is an important issue. It's the most self-evident thing in the world. To me.

Seb Alex 1:23:31

I agree. And to finish off, I have one last question. What would you say are your core principles that are driving you to seek this change?

Alex O'Connor 1:23:41

Um, it's justice, it's justice. If justice exists, it must be. Um, it demands certain things of us and the process of ethics. If you look at any ethical, throughout history, it's the process of overcoming our naturalistic and tribalistic impulses to do what we think is rationally. Correct. and I'm just driven by the same, by the same principle. I want to count myself as a morally serious thinker. I want to in a few decades from now, when I'm lying on my death bed, think that I've done something good for the world. there's that I can't ignore that. I don't like to think that that's there because that seems like quite an egoistic motivation doing the right thing. But that's, that's that, that that's playing on me. You know, when as Peter singer asks, when history looks back, you'll be counted among the oppressors of the liberator's like, make your choice. Okay. There's some kind of grandiose, um, moral dignity point there that I want to be side, but ultimately. It's not something it's not like I kind of choose my principles and I, I decided what I'm going to be guided by. just the case that justice demands. This of me. there is such a thing as ethics, it demands this of me. If there's such a thing of justice, demands this of me. If there's such a thing as virtue, then it demands this of me. and I like to think. I'll be able to call myself a virtuous person, someone who's sensitive to justice, all of these kinds of things, because if I don't bear in mind. Yeah. Because one option is just to say, well, yeah, justice demands this of a person, but whatever, I'm just not adjusted person. Okay. But then you forfeit your right any injustices on planet earth. if, when someone mistreats me, want to say, Hey, you know, man, don't do that. You can't do that. That's a violation of my rights. That's unjust. If I want to retain the right to do that for myself and for my friends my family and for my species, then I have to reform the, uh, for the same, right. To those who fall outside of that category, less I'd be accused of being a hypocrite being inconsistent. so yeah, it just feels as though this principle of justice, that's just into soul. If you will. It's it seems to be an inseparable part of my nature that I'm just disgusted and infuriated by instances of injustice and stupidity. I can't ignore it. That's what's driving me. It just, and as I say, it's the easiest and most obvious decision that I ever made. If eating meat is, as people continuously like to say a personal choice, it should be equally obvious that the choice is an obvious one.

Seb Alex 1:26:17

Thank you so much for your time. I really, really enjoyed this conversation and I look forward to the day where we can actually meet in person and have these conversations over some. Good vegan food.

Alex O'Connor 1:26:29

That would be wonderful.

Seb Alex 1:26:30

Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. I'm sure that everyone who listened this far really enjoyed this conversation please everyone do check out Alex's work cosmic skeptic on YouTube. If you already are not subscribed do so. And maybe one day we'll be on this podcast again, together to talk more in depth about what we weren't able to cover today until then. Thank you again so much for your work as well, and for your inspiration.

Alex O'Connor 1:27:00

Thanks for having me, Steve. It's been fun.

1:27:02

Thank you to all the listeners who joined us today. In this episode with Alex, O'Connor also known as cosmic skeptic. I really hope you enjoyed listening to us as much as I enjoyed the conversation I had with Alex, as I said in the beginning of the episode, Alex is a really well-spoken animal rights activist and I myself have. Many times referring to certain examples in the way that he does, because I find so much value in the ways that he manages to explain the stance of animal rights. And if there's one thing I can ask from you all is to please share this episode with at least one friend of yours so that more and more people realize how important activism is And how much it helps the environment. And most importantly, the animals I'd also like to remind you to subscribe to this podcast channel, which is, and will always be for free and leave a review to help it reach more and more people, if you would like to support this podcast, which of course I will really appreciate. Please check out my website, SEP alex.org. And until the next episode, keep in mind the actual power of the individual.