False Equivalence

Logical fallacy

Treating two things as comparable when the differences that matter to the argument are large.

An everyday example

“Both candidates have made mistakes, so they are equally unfit for office.”

The same move in this debate

“Plants are alive too, so eating a carrot is no different from killing a pig.”

Where this appears

But animals eat other animalsEthics & Morality

Treats obligate carnivores, who have no alternative and no capacity for moral deliberation, as morally comparable to humans who have both.

Plants feel pain tooEthics & Morality

Equates signalling in an organism with no nervous system to pain in one with nociceptors and a brain. The two are described with the same word and are not the same kind of event.

Local meat is better than imported vegetablesEnvironment

Sets a small transport saving against a large production difference as though the two were comparable quantities that might cancel out.

The Maasai and Kikuyu study shows a whole-food meat diet beats a whole-food plant dietHealth & Nutrition

Treats the 1920s Kikuyu diet, a narrow cereal diet low in calcium with no B12 source, as though it stood for 'a whole food plant-based diet' in general. The differences between that diet and a planned modern one are exactly the ones the study's authors blamed for the poor outcomes.

Animal farming is like rain: the harm comes with something we needPhilosophy & Logic

Compares animal farming to rain, an unchosen natural process that life depends on. The difference that matters here, whether the thing is optional, is exactly where the two come apart. Diet is chosen, and plant-based diets are shown to be adequate.

Rewilding would increase total suffering through r-selected speciesPhilosophy & Logic

Sets a speculative, unquantified effect against a documented one of very large scale as though the two were comparable quantities.