Veganism & Vegetarianism Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for those committed to a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle and anyone interested in learning more. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
In moral arguments for veganism, the pain, stress, and fear experienced by animals is often given as an argument. I have read some arguments that vegetarians should be OK with eating oysters and mussels.
What evidence exists (either way) that clams, oysters, cockles, mussels, scallops feel pain, stress, and fear, or not?
It's highly unlikely, due to them not having any brain or central nervous system. All they have is a small nerve network and two ganglia near their esophagus.
The whole nervous system is basically two nerve centers, one that controls the muscles and the other one that controls the "foot" and other sensory organs. It's unknown whether the cerebral ganglia can feel pain, or just sensations such as food in it's mouth.
There are many articles about whether oysters and such are vegan and do they feel pain, but the overall consenus is: They likely don't feel pain, but whether you eat them depends on your definition of vegan. Do you abstain from eating animals altogether or just animals that feel pain...
With regard to eggs. it is true that they are not or ever were sentient. However, the hens that laid them usually have a pretty awful life. All male chicks are destroyed - often in a very cruel way. Molluscs are a different problem. They do seem to react to what would be painful stimuli in vertebrates but whether they are in any way 'conscious' is open to doubt by most scientists
