r/DebateAVegan • u/Mundane_Move_5296 • 6d ago
✚ Health Why not eat Oysters?
Let me be clear, I get the whole non animals thing, but if they reason you do that is because animals with a nervous system are theoretically sentient, why not eat the countless animals that don’t have them? Gets you proper dietary needs without having to medicate yourself, still doesn’t harm a creature with a nervous system.
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u/MttGhn 5d ago
Prouve que seul le système nerveux permet de revenir la douleur dans ce cas
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
Si on va par là, on peut dire la même chose des plantes.
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u/Bun768286 5d ago
The definition of veganism refers only to animal exploitation and cruelty so vegans don't necessarily concern themselves with the rights of plants. You can talk about plant exploitation but this isn't really the place to do so.
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u/AnsibleAnswers agroecologist 5d ago
I don't think you understand why OP is saying this. The comment above suggested that OP prove that nervous systems are necessary for pain perception. That opens the door for bringing plants into the conversation. You can't prove that plants don't feel pain, either.
If the only reason you don't eat oysters is because of some arbitrary classification, you are by definition a speciesist.
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5d ago
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u/nineteenthly 5d ago
Je crois que les plantes sont conscientes.
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
I’ll one up you, I believe that dirt is conscious. Check mate vegans
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u/nineteenthly 5d ago
Well it is. I'm panpsychist. Veganism is about limiting damage by only harming autotrophs. We don't have a particularly high moral ground, just an obligatory one of minimal decency. Nothing to be proud of.
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
Wait, hold up. What is panpsychist, I can’t say I’ve ever heard that. It does sort of imply that you think dirt is conscious. I gotta know more
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u/nineteenthly 4d ago
I can't speak for all panpsychists, but for myself I'd say consciousness is an essential property of matter in an analogous way to magnetism, so whereas all charged particles have magnetic fields but only very particular arrangements of matter are, for instance, ferromagnetic, so is all matter conscious but only certain arrangements of matter can be observed to be conscious, or rather to behave as if they are (which they are but it cannot be observed in another).
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 4d ago
Huh, that’s pretty interesting. If you don’t mind me asking, what led you to that conclusion?
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u/Try_at-your-own_Risk 4d ago
To keep it short and simple they believe the universe and everything in it including matter in all forms is conscious.
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 4d ago
Huh, and do they have proof they use for that or is it just kind of a vibe thing?
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u/Polttix plant-based 5d ago
What is your answer to the combination problem (and by extension the problem of arbitrary consciousnesses)?
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u/nineteenthly 4d ago
I don't have all the answers but I think it's important not to make self-serving assumptions and this means extending the possibility of consciousness as far as possible.
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u/Polttix plant-based 4d ago
I'm not sure what you mean here, if parsimony is your goal then there are much more parsimonious ontologies re. consciousness than panpsychism, that simultaneously don't carry the explanatory gap of the combination problem. Without answering the combination problem you basically are at a similar position as materialism, without having any empirical (or otherwise) justification for taking the stance. At least empirically speaking materialism doesn't overreach unlike panpsychism.
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u/nineteenthly 4d ago
It's common for people to believe what's convenient for them to believe based on their identity. For instance, there are philosophers who base consciousness on the use of language, meaning that anyone without a "voice" needn't be considered morally at all, so that would include not only members of other species but also babies, people with dementia and some learning disabled humans. We always need to examine our own motives for our beliefs. If one of them excludes something from moral consideration which has significantly different characteristics than ours, we must be doubly suspicious.
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4d ago
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u/nineteenthly 4d ago
It isn't about feelings. We do actually strongly tend to use ego defences such as rationalisation to justify our values. Compassion and empathy are our guides. The ethical demand of the encounter with the other is fundamental. The maxim you suggest is not based on that and may be made in bad faith. I don't think you actually live your life by that principle.
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u/RealAggressiveNooby 5d ago
Nah. They have ganglia, unlike plants.
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u/dazedandloitering 5d ago
So do tumors
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u/RealAggressiveNooby 5d ago
yeah but unlike tumors oysters have a simple nervous system
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u/dazedandloitering 5d ago
No, they have ganglia. So do tumors.
In fact many tumors have a much more sophisticated set of ganglia than oysters.
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u/RealAggressiveNooby 5d ago
I know, that's what I said. Oysters and tumors have ganglia but oysters have a simple nervous system and tumors do not.
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u/dazedandloitering 5d ago
If by ‘simple nervous system’ you mean the ganglia are connected this can also happen in tumors.
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u/RealAggressiveNooby 5d ago
Oysters have neurons that form circuits, which work with ganglia. Tumors lack neural reflex circuits.
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u/dazedandloitering 5d ago
Tumors can also have neural circuits lol. You keep moving the goalposts
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u/Ace_of_Sevens 5d ago
They are gross. I would choke them down if I ever got one of those conditions that makes it impossible to be vegan that always comes up in the discourse.
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
Yeah oysters aren’t great, scallops are decent though
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u/WeeklyAd5357 5d ago
Oysters 🦪 can have bacteria and ecoli that can make you sick.
Scallops, mussels, sea urchin are good options
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u/Bipedal_pedestrian 5d ago
Well lately in the US, everything from jalapeños to blueberries to lettuce has been recalled because they had E. coli or other pathogens that can make you sick 🤢
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
Sea urchin is literally one of the best shell fish ever
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u/Aggapres 5d ago
Bleah! I remember my family would fish them when I was a kid and eat them on the boat with a tiny spoon. When you open them you see black lines (poop) close to the orange part (the eggs) that you can eat, so they would use the same spoon to scoop off the poop and then proceed eating the eggs. I couldn't bear watching them
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
Yeah they’re pretty nasty, never got why people like them. Scallops are pretty good though
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u/AnsibleAnswers agroecologist 5d ago
I've never met anyone who found oyster sauce to be gross. Why not eat oysters that way?
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u/Aggapres 5d ago
Also barbecue sauce with meat powder is not inherently gross or Candie's aren't inherently gross. But if you don't want to eat bones you'd refrain from eating candies anyway
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u/Glad_Pepper8255 vegan 5d ago edited 5d ago
Most vegans disagree on bivalves. I don’t care if people eat them; there’s no current scientific consensus on whether they are capable of experiencing or not (sentience). I’d rather err on the side of caution personally.
Plus, I’ve had oysters before… they taste like shit.
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
Yeah, oysters are nasty regardless. Scallops are pretty decent though
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u/Ordinary_Prune6135 5d ago
Scallops unfortunately do show more situational awareness than most bivalves.
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
Interesting, might have to look into that. I’m not a vegan by any stretch, but I do a lot of fishing, scallops being one such “fish” I’ll have to look into that for sure
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u/Ordinary_Prune6135 5d ago
If you're curious for the sake of it, the phrase you're most likely to see differentiating them from something like an oyster is their possession of identifiable "motivational states."
The bivalves all share the characteristics of possessing basic nociceptors while lacking the sort of central nervous system that we know to translate nociception into the concept of pain. They vary wildly, though, in whether they show escape behaviors, movement tracking, or other types of responsiveness to environmental stress, and these are the sort of states we might expect to produce convergent pressures toward experiences like distress in more complex animals.
(We do see many examples among the insects of distributed nervous systems still resulting in complex, goal-directed behavior, so 'similar nervous system' is more of a way of quickly identifying animals who share a lot with us rather than sorting out others as definitely lacking these traits.)
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
Very interesting, I’m certainly no vegan, but I do find stuff like that fascinating, how animals evolved a sense of their environment or simply didn’t at all! Thanks for the tip!
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u/I_Amuse_Me_123 5d ago edited 5d ago
I already have my dietary needs met without having to medicate myself. So I feel like the question is already in bad faith by insinuating otherwise.
But... why not?
Many reasons:
- They are bottom feeding scum filters
- I want to incentivise the creation of lab grown seafood of all types.
- I don't really like oysters, the best thing about them was always the hot sauce.
- Foodborne illness.
- People jump at the chance to accuse vegans of not being able to abstain from animal products, and use it to excuse their own actions
If someone wants to endure all that but is otherwise vegan, I'm not going to argue with them until we've eradicated factory farms.
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u/anna_bortion43 5d ago
All of these points could apply to vegetables that are fertilised with manure btw.
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u/I_Amuse_Me_123 5d ago
Except manure isn’t alive and isn’t an animal.
But your reasoning exactly why I don’t use manure or any animal byproducts in my own garden.
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u/retatrutider Ostrovegan 5d ago
Lots of us eat oysters, or rather are ok with eating oysters.
People say “why do you need to eat oysters”? In my case, I live in a household where Asian food is frequently served which is otherwise vegan except for oyster sauce. Eating oysters significantly uncomplicates my life and I decided not to worry about.
The question a lot of people have is: can you then call yourself vegan? My answer: who cares? I’m not chasing a label… I’m letting my ethics guide my actions.
I’ll identify as a vegan in real life because it cleanly communicates what food people should serve me. If another word comes into widespread usage that specifically means “I won’t eat sentient animals for ethical reasons” then I’ll start using that one.
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u/Aggapres 5d ago
The main problem to me is that if restaurants workers start thinking vegans eat oysters, ot would be more complicated to explain that we don't eat them
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u/retatrutider Ostrovegan 5d ago
Right I wouldn’t get into that conversation with a restaurant worker, or a party host or anything like that.
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 5d ago
Not eating oysters doesn't mean that you medicate. Veganism isn't about suffering. It doesn't matter if oysters don't have a nervous system. Those are animals. Vegans don't eat animals.
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
Right, but why? Why not eat animals if sentience isn’t the problem
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 5d ago
Because of the exploitation. We just don't eat animals. That's it. No need for a being to be sentient. We can live just by eating plants. No need to kill anything. So we don't.
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
Well, I mean you do kill plants. If there’s an animal that is basically a plant aside from its genetic makeup, doesn’t that kind of fit?
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 5d ago
So some humain beings do not feel pain at all. That's a medical condition. Would you eat them because they are basically plants ? Plants are different. Not because they don't have a nervous system, but eating them is part of their reproductive system. Like fruits are meant to be eaten. They provide a good taste and we disperse their grains, or pollen... killing a plant is not what I do. I just eat the fruits, the leaves... the plants are still alive ! That's it. Again it's not about the nervous system.
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u/Acceptable-Peace-69 5d ago
People the don’t feel pain are still sentient which is the moral argument against eating/harming/exploiting them.
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
That’s not really true though. Most vegan foods do not assist in a plants digestion, nor is that needed for them to reproduce. I mean if you just don’t wanna eat oysters that’s chill, just kinda seems like an odd argument
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 5d ago
That's not an odd argument. We do not kill plants (systematically) and we help plants to spread. Vegan just do not eat animals. Oysters are animals. Get over it and stop pretending to have a genuine question when clearly you just don't want to face the truth...
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u/SjakosPolakos 5d ago
What? Of course we kill plants
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 5d ago
Not systematically
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u/SjakosPolakos 5d ago
Ever been to a farm where crops are grown and harvested (aka killed)?
Doesnt get more systematic than that.
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
It just doesn’t seem like a justification. More like sticking to a label for the sake of it
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 5d ago
C'mon just search it
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
I mean, I’m pretty sure the main reason people are vegan is to protect what they see as sentient life
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u/VeganSandwich61 vegan 5d ago
I disagree. If we don't eat animals "just because" then veganism ceases to have a rational basis. If we don't eat animals because they are sentient, then the oyster question needs to be taken seriously.
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 5d ago
Vegan don't participate to the animal exploitation. You're a vegan you should know it.
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u/VeganSandwich61 vegan 5d ago
Can you exploit an animal if they aren't sentient?
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 5d ago
No. Would you ?
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u/VeganSandwich61 vegan 5d ago edited 5d ago
I didn't ask would you, I asked if it is even possible to exploit a non-sentient organism. What does "exploitation" mean if the one being "exploited" has no experience of the world, no affect, no cognition?
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 5d ago
Exploit means use something for my personal interest. No need to be sentient here if I exploit a being I consider this being as an object. That's worse if you consider that you cannot exploit something that cannot feel like you do or cannot feel at all.
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u/VeganSandwich61 vegan 5d ago
No need to be sentient here if I exploit a being I consider this being as an object.
What qualities do "beings" have that makes exploiting them wrong? Do you believe that plants can be exploited and that it is wrong to do so?
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u/Fit-Law-6516 5d ago
But 7.4 billion animals are killed through crop harvist each year around the world.
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u/AffectionateBurger 5d ago
Most crops are grown to feed farm animals. But yes, no consumption is 100% harmless. That doesn't defeat the point of veganism.
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u/Fit-Law-6516 5d ago
Grass fed is ideal if you want to kill the least amount of animals.
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 5d ago
Yeah but not sustainable. That's why industry farming exists
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u/Fit-Law-6516 5d ago
It can be, but industrial farming is 'easier' unfortunately.
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 5d ago
No it's not. A cow takes place. We don't have enough place for 8+ billion people. That's why people are starving.
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u/Fit-Law-6516 5d ago
people are starving because of corruption, not because we lack the space for regenerative agriculture.
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u/Lower_Force_6638 5d ago
Holy shit can you stop repeating the same number that was debunked years ago it's so annoying. You're not even citing it right.
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u/Fit-Law-6516 5d ago
bruh, you can look up yourself.
Regardless, animals are killed for vegans also.
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u/socceruci 5d ago
Ick. Speak for yourself. I define my veganism differently, not by some arbitrary rule.
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 5d ago
What ?
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u/socceruci 5d ago
You are stating "vegans don't eat animals" as if it is a fact.
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 5d ago
What do you mean ? Vegan do not eat animals.
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u/socceruci 4d ago
Myself, for example, I am "vegan" for ethical reasons. Some arbitrary decision by scientists about what is and isn't in the animal kingdom doesn't determine my morality.
There are many things outside of the animal kingdom I would not consume, like 1000 year old redwood trees.
It is only a simplistic label that I use to describe my diet in shorthand, but it doesn't define my actions as a human. You can describe what veganism is for you, but not for me.
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 4d ago edited 4d ago
Hum whatever... 1000 year old redwood tree isn't even eatable. I hope you don't think that there's an ethical way to eat animals, because that wouldn't make you a vegan.
If you're anti-speciest go for it. I don't understand why my version of veganism is wrong. I'm vegan for the animals. So I don't eat them.
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u/socceruci 4d ago
because that wouldn't make you a vegan.
I define my veganism, not you. This is an opinion, not a fact. Do you understand now? Maybe it is a language issue? Is English your first language?
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 4d ago
No English isn't my first language. But yeah that was your vision. You had an ick at mine tho...
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u/Weak-Barnacle4278 5d ago
I may be in the minority but since my vegan morals are based on suffering, yes since they are not sentient I have no problems eating oysters
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u/Majestic_Alps_1723 5d ago
As a vegan I have too questioned this in the past! The money that we pay toward this food would still go to fishing industries, I base it off of supply & demand when it comes to beings that may not be sentient :)
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u/calmurcunt 5d ago
Gets you proper dietary needs without having to medicate yourself
What is so "improper" about nourishing myself without animal products, OP? I'm guessing "medicate" refers to supplementation, which is kinda funny because vegans have a lower risk of many diseases compared to meat eaters. Being vegan makes you less likely to visit the hospital, so less likely to get you medicated than eating meat.
Ethics aside, there are still reasons not to eat oysters, like the fact that they are high in dietary cholesterol and because they are filter feeders, they also tend to be high in mercury. Aside from B12, there is no essential nutrients in oysters that I can't get from plant-based foods. Why would I increase my risk of atherosclerosis and mercury poisoning for mere B12 when I can just pop a pill?
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u/kharvel0 5d ago
Because they are classified as animals, as members of the Animalia kingdom.
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u/Vilhempie 5d ago
Note that you are now committing speciesism: making an ethical different purely on the basis of an irrelevant biological characteristic.
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u/kharvel0 5d ago
Incorrect. I’m committing kingdomism. Veganism is kingdomist.
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u/Vilhempie 5d ago
Kingdomism faces the exact same problem as speciesism though. Veganism should be based on sentientism. That’s the only plausible basis.
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u/kharvel0 5d ago
> Kingdomism faces the exact same problem as speciesism though.
And what problem is that?
> Veganism should be based on sentientism. That’s the only plausible basis.
Incorrect. Sentientism is an incoherent basis for veganism precisely because it is subjective and can be defined as anything by anyone. The OP post is the proof of this.
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u/purplefin_tuna 5d ago
And what problem is that?
Looking at subjective names/classifications instead of instrinsic qualities.
Sentientism is an incoherent basis for veganism precisely because it is subjective and can be defined as anything by anyone.
We might not yet be perfect at explaining all the details of sentientism, but it's obviously based on some plausible capacity to experience. Rocks can't do it.
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u/kharvel0 5d ago
> Looking at subjective names/classifications instead of instrinsic qualities.
The biological taxonomical classification system is far from subjective. It is one of the most objective systems one can find. Therefore, there is no problem.
> We might not yet be perfect at explaining all the details of sentientism,
So you admit and acknowledge that sentience is subjective and can be defined as anything by anybody.
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u/purplefin_tuna 5d ago
The biological taxonomical classification system is far from subjective. It is one of the most objective systems one can find. Therefore, there is no problem.
There are over 30 different systems -- and they're all equally valid -- so it's entirely subjective.
So you admit and acknowledge that sentience is subjective and can be defined as anything by anybody.
You can use "rocks" to refer to "pencils" if you want. Sentience might be vague / imperfectly defined, but that doesn't make it a useless concept. Everybody would agree that you have more sentience than rocks do, so it's not completely subjective.
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u/kharvel0 5d ago
> There are over 30 different systems -- and they're all equally valid -- so it's entirely subjective.
That is an unsupported claim. What “over 30 different systems” are you referring to?
> so it's not completely subjective.
Further admission and acceptance that sentience is subjective. Thanks for continuing to make my point.
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u/purplefin_tuna 5d ago
That is an unsupported claim. What “over 30 different systems” are you referring to?
Please just look it up, instead of making things up. This is basic stuff.
Further admission and acceptance that sentience is subjective.
Only in the way that ALL words are... it's not a relevant point.
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
Right, got that. Still doesn’t explain why you don’t wanna eat em. The main reason for not wanting to eat animals is to avoid eating something you see as being capable of sentience, so if you can be sure it’s not, then who cares
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u/kharvel0 5d ago
> Right, got that. Still doesn’t explain why you don’t wanna eat em.
Because it has been scientifically proven that humans can survive and thrive only on members of plant/fungi kingdoms.
> The main reason for not wanting to eat animals is to avoid eating something you see as being capable of sentience, so if you can be sure it’s not, then who cares
Sentience is subjective and can be defined as anything by anyone, as you have proven in your OP. That’s why it is not an appropriate or coherent boundary for the scope of veganism. The most coherent system to set the boundary would be the biological classification taxonomical system.
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
So then why do you not want to eat animals if sentience is not the problem? What separates a scallop or a barnacle from a mushroom or tree to you besides DNA? I mean nothing by it I’m just really curious
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u/kharvel0 5d ago
> So then why do you not want to eat animals if sentience is not the problem?
For the same reason that I do not want to kill humans and eat them.
> What separates a scallop or a barnacle from a mushroom or tree to you besides DNA? I mean nothing by it I’m just really curious
They have their own species-specific interests including an interest in continuing to live.
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u/VeganSandwich61 vegan 5d ago
They have their own species-specific interests including an interest in continuing to live.
How do you know this? They haven't been shown to be sentient.
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u/VeganSandwich61 vegan 5d ago
I disagree. If we don't eat animals "just because" they are classed as animals then veganism ceases to have a rational basis. If we don't eat animals because they are sentient, then the oyster question needs to be taken seriously.
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u/kharvel0 5d ago
> If we don't eat animals "just because" they are classed as animals then veganism ceases to have a rational basis.
The biological taxonomical classification system is a rational and coherent evidence-based scientific process with worldwide scientific consensus. It is as rational and coherent as any system can get. It provides a rational and coherent basis for veganism.
In contrast, sentience is subjective and incoherent and can be defined as anything by anybody. The OP post is proof of this. Entomophagists deny that insects have sentience. Pescatarians deny that fish have sentience. Who is right? Who is wrong? Who determines who is right or wrong?
Answer: no one knows. Your guess is just as good as mine. That is not a basis for coherence or rationality.
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u/VeganSandwich61 vegan 5d ago
Okay but why don't we eat organisms from kingdom animalia? I'm not criticizing taxonomic categories, I'm asking what is the rationale behind not eating animals if not sentience?
Stating the "biological taxonomical classification system is a rational and coherent evidence-based scientific process" doesn't address that.
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u/kharvel0 5d ago
> Okay but why don't we eat organisms from kingdom animalia? I'm not criticizing taxonomic categories, I'm asking what is the rationale behind not eating animals if not sentience?
Organisms in general have an interest in living, to continue to live. If we are going to respect that interest, we can start with the Kingdom Animalia.
Sentience is not a prerequisite for having an interest. Plants, fungi, bacteria, amoeba, etc have the same interest. That is the foundation of life. At the same time, humans also have an interest in living and as heterotrophs, they must consume something. Since they can do so with just the members of the plant and fungi kingdoms, the scope of veganism does not cover them.
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u/th1s_fuck1ng_guy Carnist 5d ago
Carnist here,
So what you are describing are the astrovegans. They eat seafood. However orthodox vegans do not eat seafood or oysters. There are also free vegans who will eat it if you buy it for them
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u/jackusD 5d ago
I never liked the taste. If they aren't sentient then it's not an ethical issue.
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
I agree, seems some people think they are an ethical disparagement
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u/jackusD 5d ago
Are you vegan?
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
No, nor am I vegetarian, but I do value and want to better understand people who are
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u/jackusD 5d ago
Do you think eating meat is ethical when it's unnecessary?
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
I do yeah. Can’t say I have a problem with it. I do a lot of hunting and fishing myself, not a huge fan of factory farming and such, but I don’t object to killing and eating
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u/jackusD 5d ago
Why are you against factory farming?
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
Same reason I make sure to get a clean shot in a deer. An animals sentience may be of questionable capacity, but I don’t personally like to see anything suffer
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u/jackusD 5d ago
What is questionable about an animal's sentience?
Is it okay to murder a human if it were done painlessly?
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
I mean a lot of animals just aren’t sentient to the level people seem to want them to be. Human emotions do not apply to most animals. Fish for example, are technically sentient, but they display virtually no emotional intelligence.
Yes, it’s literally the death penalty. But animals aren’t sapient, they don’t experience human emotions
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u/AltruisticCoelacanth 5d ago
Because I don't need to
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
I mean, I guess, but also why not? Good source of protein, makes eating out easier. Scallops taste amazing too
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u/AltruisticCoelacanth 5d ago
As was stated elsewhere, the precautionary principle.
I'm not sure where you're from, but allowing myself to eat bivalves would certainly not make eating out easier. Eating out is already not difficult for me. And never once has the availability of bivalves at a restaurant ever entered my mind when considering whether or not I can eat there. There's never been a time in my life where I thought "if I could eat bivalves, I would go here. Guess I can't"
I don't think the fact that they're a good source of protein is a valid reason to add them to my diet. The risk/reward when considering the precautionary principle just doesn't make sense to me. I have plenty of other good sources of protein.
They're also slimy and weird. I don't eat slimy and weird things.
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u/Lower_Force_6638 5d ago
Oyster sauce..
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u/AltruisticCoelacanth 5d ago
Vegan oyster sauce exists
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u/Lower_Force_6638 5d ago
We're talking about eating out.
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u/AltruisticCoelacanth 5d ago
Again, there has never been a single time in my life where I've been unable to eat out because of oyster sauce. Again, eating out is not difficult for me.
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u/Lower_Force_6638 5d ago
I'm just saying you said as a fact that eating bivalves would certainly not make eating out easier. It does as oyster sauce is used a lot. OP said it makes eating out easier I'm not sure why you would argue about that...
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u/AltruisticCoelacanth 5d ago
Because it doesn't make eating out easier for me, as I've stated now for the third time. For the third time, this has never one time in my entire life ever been a consideration for me when choosing a restaurant.
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u/Funklord_Earl 5d ago
So, I’m not sure where you got the whole part about the nervous system meaning anything in regards to veganism from…
But, the wiki of this very subreddit, yes the one you just posted in, has a wiki with a clear definition of veganism. Relevant quote:
“A vegan is a person that follows either the diet or the philosophy of veganism: a strict vegetarian who consumes no food that comes from animals (including eggs, dairy, etc.). The term usually implies that the person also abstains from using animal products that aren’t food (such as leather).”
Oysters are animals.
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u/ostojap 5d ago
That definition is shite. If merely follow the diet you are plant-based, not vegan. Veganism is a moral baseline which prohibits exploitation of other sentient beings. And by that question is fair.
There are some plants more complex than the modest barnacle. Plants communicate through the complex root system, and some are even capable of lying. They react to the external factors, share resources, warn each other....
It is important to have a defendable line why this and bot that. Capacity to feel suffering is a good bar, imho. The problem with that, it is not a simple question.
For me, it is really hard to make an argument that sponges should be treated any differently to plants, altho, they are animals.
We don't have a good classification for what constitutes a fish, let alone what and why something belongs to the animal kingdom. Furthermore, making a decision based on some classification, not on individual capacity is falling into the trap all the isms are guilty of (specism, classism, racism...)
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u/Anxious-Internet7767 5d ago
Yeah but what's the reasoning behind vegans choosing to avoid eating food from all animals instead of choosing to avoid eating food from sentient animals
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u/a11_hail_seitan 5d ago
The precautionary principle. Basically, all animals show more signs of thought than plants. so if you don't need to, you stick to plants.
Oysters show signs of fight or flight, which is what makes pain an evolutionary positive, without fight or flight there's really no reason for pain. Pain is also a massive evolutionary negative (chronic pain = shorter life, more disease, lower sex drive, etc). And pain is very easy to evolve away from and uses a lot of energy. So it makes no sense for plants to feel pain or suffer, while it's slightly more likely bivalves do.
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u/Anxious-Internet7767 5d ago
it's literally impossible for oysters to experience pain, the precautionary principle only applies when we aren't sure if they feel pain or not.
we know that you need a subjective experience to truly experience pain. reacting to stimuli doesn't mean they truly experience the stimuli. It's like how amoeba can detect stimuli, but can't experience it
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u/a11_hail_seitan 5d ago
it's literally impossible for oysters to experience pain
No, it's very unlikely. They could be sentient in a way that we don't recognize and don't test for.
the precautionary principle only applies when we aren't sure if they feel pain or not.
We don't. You're making a jump from "We haven't seen any evidence" to "Therefore we know for a fact it doesn't exist", but the correct answer here would be "Improbable but possible."
we know that you need a subjective experience to truly experience pain
Which they might have. Just becuase it seems very unlikely they have a subjective experience as we do. does not mean they don't have a subjective experience.
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u/Anxious-Internet7767 5d ago
This kind of thinking is absurd when you take it to its logical conclusion. Do you think abortion should be illegal from 2 months because there is a tiny chance the fetus can suffer at that stage and scientists can't prove they don't suffer? Should we avoid eating plants that respond to stimuli because there is a chance they are sentient?
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u/a11_hail_seitan 5d ago
Do you think abortion should be illegal from 2 months because there is a tiny chance the fetus can suffer
Putting the life of an adult female at risk to save something that has very little chance of sentience is silly.
If there was a fetus in a test tube that was putting no one's life at risk, I don't think we should kill and eat it without need.
If a bivalve found its way inside a woman and could potentially kill her, we should remove it even if it kills the bivalve.
Your examples make no sense as they don't reflect the situation.
Should we avoid eating plants that respond to stimuli because there is a chance they are sentient?
We need to eat plants to stay healthy. We don't need to eat bivalves.
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u/Anxious-Internet7767 5d ago
I'm not talking about necessary abortions, I'm talking about elective abortions.
We don't need to eat plants that respond to stimuli to be healthy
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u/a11_hail_seitan 5d ago
I'm not talking about necessary abortions, I'm talking about elective abortions.
All pregnancies put a woman's life at risk.
We don't need to eat plants that respond to stimuli to be healthy
We have properly done scientific studies proving we don't need to eat bivalves. Please provide the same sort of evidence shewing what plants we do or don't need, what levels, what we need to replace them with, etc.
Also show which plants respond to stimuli before being interacted as Bivalves mostly do as I don't know of any plants that we eat that do.
Also show which plants engage in fight or flight mechanisms including locomotion and showing fast response to damage, not slowly releasing chemicals over many minutes, but actual response times that suggest pain.
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u/Anxious-Internet7767 5d ago
The vast majority of pregnancies go fine. If it's an elective abortion, that means there is nothing wrong with the pregnancy and the women is getting the abortion purely because she doesn't want a kid. Under a precautionary view, a women aborting her kid at 2 months would be the same as aborting her kid a 8 months.
None of what you said matters. As long as science hasn't proven that these plants don't feel pain, there is a chance that they do and therefore we shouldn't eat them
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
I don’t disagree with that I’m simply questioning why, if the potential for sentience is why you don’t eat meat, why do you not eat animals you are certain aren’t sentient
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u/Funklord_Earl 5d ago
Oh, I mean, you’re asking for all vegans? I can’t answer on behalf of all vegans but personally I don’t eat mussels because they are animals and I don’t eat animals. Fairly straightforward. This way I don’t worry about whether the animal is sentient or not, because it seems like there’s about a billion different animals and like 10 don’t fit your definition of sentience via a CNS so I’m just not that bothered :^)
Also, I think having a nervous system, even if decentralized, keeps the book on “potential for sentience” open. I’m not a scientist, though. You might be.
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u/a11_hail_seitan 5d ago edited 5d ago
B-12 Supplements aren't "medicating" yourself, that's silly.
Vegans don't because of the Pre-cautionary principle. it says if you don't know and don't need to, don't. We don't know if bivalves are sentient, they are show slightly more traits aligned to sentience than plants, so it makes sense to not eat them if you don't have to, we don't have to so Veganism says don't.
Veganism draws the line at the aniaml Kingdom becuase pretty much all animals are sentient, and literally no plant shows any signs of it, so it's a pretty obvious place to draw the line.
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u/Acceptable-Peace-69 5d ago
Oysters are not sentient. Full stop, unless you think mushrooms (which are loser to animals than plants) could be sentient.
Just say you don’t eat meat. That’s a perfectly acceptable response.
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u/a11_hail_seitan 5d ago
Oysters are not sentient. Full stop, unless you think mushrooms
We think they probably are not. we have no proof they are not. They also show more traits linked to sentience than mushrooms including locomotion, fight or flight, reaction to visible stimuli before interaction, and more
Just say you don’t eat meat. That’s a perfectly acceptable response.
Vegans don't eat meat, they also don't eat oysters. The OP asked why, I answered the question. Whether you think it's 'acceptable' doesn't matter to the question.
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u/AutomaticArachnid669 5d ago
I think the distinction is a little more nuanced than just “has a nervous system = don’t eat it” 😊 The reason sentience is important to vegan ethics is that a sentient being can experience things like pain, fear and suffering, so there’s a particularly strong reason not to harm them unnecessarily.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean vegans think anything that isn’t sentient is automatically fair game. There are also questions around whether we need to use animals at all, whether we can meet our nutritional needs without doing so and the wider environmental and ecological consequences of producing different foods.
Also, I’m not sure I agree with the idea that you need to eat animals to meet “proper dietary needs” without medication. A well-planned vegan diet can provide the nutrients we need, with B12 supplementation being the main non-negotiable one. My mum is vegan and got kicked off a study because her B12 levels were too high - and she doesn’t even take a B12 supplement (or any supplements at that)! Plenty of nutrients people associate with animal foods can also come from plants or fortified foods.
So for me, it isn’t really “which animals are technically okay to eat?” It’s more “if I can meet my nutritional needs without using animals, why do I need to use them at all?” ❤️
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u/thesonicvision vegan 4d ago
Vegans are not looking for opportunities to consume animal products or exploit animals. We're not looking for loopholes and exceptions. We want to move in the other direction and guide non-vegans to leaving animals the hell alone (or helping them)[...] If you want to argue Animal X is really more like a plant than an animal and can't think or feel, that's moving closer to an exception. But given the abundance of other things to eat, vegans would likely still be uninterested and remain skeptical about the moral patienthood of Animal X.
One can eat a robust, healthy, delicious, affordable diet without consuming animal products. Furthermore, vegans often acquire a level of disgust concerning animal-based foods, as being freed from carnism means one can see things for what they really are: blood, bones, secretions, flesh, a corpse...A vegan diet does not contain any body parts and that starts to feel "normal" when one has been a vegan for a while. A vegan looks at a skinned animal hanging in the window of a restaurant or a dead fish on ice...And no longer thinks "food." They just see torture and death.
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u/nineteenthly 5d ago
This keeps coming up and it isn't okay. I don't know anyone face to face who both claims to be vegan and eats bivalves and I suspect it's a bit of a phantom, although people on here have done so. I've expressed my views on this many times but basically, two points:
* We haven't solved the problem of consciousness and it's an unwarranted and convenient assumption that bivalves are not conscious based on the idea that cephalisation is necessary to consciousness in animals.
* They're just not a healthy food generally. They accumulate heavy metals, tend to cause bacterial food poisoning and are more allergenic than most other foods.
Bivalves provide an ecological service which doesn't require them to be commodified.
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u/ZestyOgre 5d ago
Are you from the 1500s?
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u/Mundane_Move_5296 5d ago
Nah I wish, can’t wear dope ass puffy collars or challenge people to a duel anymore
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u/FailedCanadian 5d ago
I tend to find that this question tends to highlight the difference between vegans who have a deep understanding against vegans who dogmatically follow their beliefs without proper understanding.
In any particular ideology, you get individuals who actually fully understand the purpose the of the ideology, and are therefore able to execute it without problems, but you also ALWAYS get followers that don't fully understand, so for them the rules need to be simpler and more clear cut.
In consideration of that second group, I do not think it is a smart move for veganism to accept eating non-sentient animals, however I personally don't have any problem with it, it doesn't violate any of the underlying reasons of my veganism.
However they are kind of yucky so moot point for me anyway.
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u/DesignerFar3215 5d ago
That isn't the default position, so asking a question assuming that it is is just a non-starter.
On the one hand, we have all that is entailed by animal agriculture as it relates to oysters (forced reproduction, genetic modification, endless killing, etc.), and on the other hand we have none of those things (simply not paying for those things to happen).
To me, you might as well be asking "why don't we pay for people to run around burning cars?" The expectation is that that is the position that must be argued for first to begin with. I'm not just going to grant you that it is the norm and argue for all the reasons why one ought not support it.
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u/humbleCountyCA 5d ago
You know which animals are sentient and how much pain they feel?
I don’t think you do.
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u/Aggapres 5d ago
It's not "countless" but only a few types of sea shells and they are disgusting because they filter sea water through your body so if you eat them you eat garbage. And fishing them is harmful for marine environment and for fishes with a nervous system. Generally speaking I think we should refrain from harming the planet we live in, our one and only home, because it's not going to last for a long time anymore
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u/Lower_Force_6638 5d ago
Most don't get fished they get farmed and they filter byproducts of the agricultural indistry( reduces eutrophication), otherwise fishes would literally suffocate in dead zones we created. It's super sustainable as they do not require feed. The plants we eat also killed animals when they got harvested. Hard to compare the suffering of both as it's impossible to get a straight answer.
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u/Aggapres 5d ago
Umh, I think there are a few problems with your argument.
1, oysters and other bivalves do have nervous systems. Whether they're sentient is a different question. While there's currently little evidence that they can experience pain or suffering, we can't confidently rule it out.
2: you seem to suggest that eating them would eliminate the need for supplements. Are you referring to B12 and omega-3s? Because both can be obtained without eating animals, and taking a vitamin supplement isn't "medicating yourself". There's nothing inherently unhealthy about supplementation.
3 as for your point about animals being killed during crop harvesting, you're right that plant agriculture causes accidental animal deaths. Veganism isn't about causing zero harm, but about avoiding animal exploitation and minimizing harm as far as possible and practicable.
However, you seem to assume that harvesting bivalves causes no harm to other sentient animals or ecosystems and that's not necessarily true. Wild harvesting can disturb marine habitats, while aquaculture can have both positive and negative environmental effects depending on the methods and location.
So the relevant question would be whether producing the same amount of nutrition from bivalves actually causes fewer deaths and less suffering than producing it from plants. And I don't think we have enough evidence to make that claim either way.
So, aside the fact that I find them personally disgusting, I don't see a compelling reason to eat animals whose sentience remains uncertain when I can already meet my nutritional needs without them.
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u/RealAggressiveNooby 5d ago edited 5d ago
If you could prove that your oyster supplier uses non-invasive oysters, that oysters don't feel pain to a non-reasonable doubt even though they have ganglia and a simple nervous system, that they aren't non-negligibly competing for resources and space in their respective ecosystem where they are being farmed, I think it would be completely fine. Good, even. More variety of food choices and some filtering of water.
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u/VeganSandwich61 vegan 5d ago
I think it is entirely permissible:
https://vegancontemplations.blogspot.com/2025/10/on-bivalves.html?m=1
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u/RoyskiPoyski 5d ago
I ate mussels every day for 8 months before feeling like I needed other animal products too.
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u/GreatGoodBad 5d ago
as long as they aren’t sentient go right ahead. i personally don’t eat oysters whether it tasted good or not
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u/LunaShiva 5d ago
Because it is still harmful to the body who eats it.
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u/RealAggressiveNooby 5d ago
not really. unless you're eating a shit ton of oysters its like any other food.
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