- Joined
- Jun 2, 2012
- Reaction score
- 754
I've seen this in lots of places over the years. Some wiseguy comes along and decides to test our understanding of why we are vegan by asking us why we don't eat oysters.
The usual reply is a definitional one. Oysters are animals and vegans don't eat animals. End of story.
I can see why this answer isn't sufficient for many.
My usual answer is that I prefer to give oysters the benefit of the doubt as to their potential sentience, since they are closely related to highly intelligent invertebrates like octopi and squids. This should be sufficient for most, since abstinence from an activity generally needs no justification. I would say the burden of justification lies upon the one suggesting vegans should consider consuming oysters, since they do not appear to be self aware.
My problem with people who argue that oysters have none of the organs mammals use for thinking and perceiving, and thus are no more self aware than plants, is the human-centric idea that since humans think with their brains and feel with their central nervous systems, lack of a mammalian brain and central nervous system is undeniable proof that any organism without them cannot be said to think or feel. I don't find this argument compelling enough to make the claim that oysters are no more sentient than plants.
Of course clever people will come along and say that if oysters don't need mammalian organs to think or perceive, neither do plants. There is no evolutionary advantage to plants having sentience though, so it is unlikely they have ever developed self awareness. They have adapted to other mechanisms for surviving.
Oysters are likened to plants mostly because they are attached to their substrate, and cannot flee their predators like other mollusks. Many mollusks are capable of rapid evasion though. Lots of them have eyes, which are pretty complex organs, and which wouldn't be likely to have evolved if there was no perceptive ability from which to benefit from being able to see their environment. Oysters are related to a large enough number of species who are sentient that I don't think it is unreasonable to give them the benefit of the doubt that they may have self awareness and an interest in being alive, especially when some scientists have proposed the possibility of a secondary nerve network housed in the stomach, that functions as a very rudimentary brain and nervous system in some animals. Oysters may not have mammalian brains, but they do have stomachs.
Ok, discuss!
The usual reply is a definitional one. Oysters are animals and vegans don't eat animals. End of story.
I can see why this answer isn't sufficient for many.
My usual answer is that I prefer to give oysters the benefit of the doubt as to their potential sentience, since they are closely related to highly intelligent invertebrates like octopi and squids. This should be sufficient for most, since abstinence from an activity generally needs no justification. I would say the burden of justification lies upon the one suggesting vegans should consider consuming oysters, since they do not appear to be self aware.
My problem with people who argue that oysters have none of the organs mammals use for thinking and perceiving, and thus are no more self aware than plants, is the human-centric idea that since humans think with their brains and feel with their central nervous systems, lack of a mammalian brain and central nervous system is undeniable proof that any organism without them cannot be said to think or feel. I don't find this argument compelling enough to make the claim that oysters are no more sentient than plants.
Of course clever people will come along and say that if oysters don't need mammalian organs to think or perceive, neither do plants. There is no evolutionary advantage to plants having sentience though, so it is unlikely they have ever developed self awareness. They have adapted to other mechanisms for surviving.
Oysters are likened to plants mostly because they are attached to their substrate, and cannot flee their predators like other mollusks. Many mollusks are capable of rapid evasion though. Lots of them have eyes, which are pretty complex organs, and which wouldn't be likely to have evolved if there was no perceptive ability from which to benefit from being able to see their environment. Oysters are related to a large enough number of species who are sentient that I don't think it is unreasonable to give them the benefit of the doubt that they may have self awareness and an interest in being alive, especially when some scientists have proposed the possibility of a secondary nerve network housed in the stomach, that functions as a very rudimentary brain and nervous system in some animals. Oysters may not have mammalian brains, but they do have stomachs.
Ok, discuss!
, I think this discussion here is necessary, just as Pickle Juice said. If we are against speciesism, we should be able to explain our view clearly. Where do we draw the line? And why?
