essay veganism

Essays About Veganism: Top 5 Examples and 10 Prompts

Veganism is on the rise. See below for our great examples of essays about veganism and helpful writing prompts to get started. 

Veganism is the practice of abstaining from animal-based foods and products. The movement originated from the philosophies against using animals as commodities and for capitalist gains. Now a booming industry, veganism promises better health benefits, a more humane world for animals, and an effective solution to global warming. 

Here is our round-up of essays examples about veganism:

1. A Brief History of Veganism by Claire Suddath

2. animal testing on plant-based ingredients divides vegan community by jill ettinger, 3. as vegan activism grows, politicians aim to protect agri-business, restaurateurs by alexia renard, 4. bezos, gates back fake meat and dairy made from fungus as next big alt-protein by bob woods, 5. going vegan: can switching to a plant-based diet really save the planet by sarah marsh, 1. health pros and cons of veganism, 2. veganism vs. vegetarianism, 3. the vegan society, 4. making a vegan diet plan, 5. profitability of vegan restaurants, 6. public personalities who are vegan, 7. the rise of different vegan products, 8. is vegan better for athletes, 9. vegans in your community, 10. most popular vegan activists.

“Veganism is an extreme form of vegetarianism, and though the term was coined in 1944, the concept of flesh-avoidance can be traced back to ancient Indian and eastern Mediterranean societies.”

Suddath maps out the historical roots of veganism and the global routes of its influences. She also laid down its evolution in various countries where vegan food choices became more flexible in considering animal-derived products critical to health. 

“Along with eschewing animal products at mealtime, vegans don’t support other practices that harm animals, including animal testing. But it’s a process rampant in both the food and drug industries.”

Ettinger follows the case of two vegan-founded startups that ironically conducts animal testing to evaluate the safety of their vegan ingredients for human consumption. The essay brings to light the conflicts between the need to launch more vegan products and ensuring the safety of consumers through FDA-required animal tests. 

“Indeed, at a time when the supply of vegan products is increasing, activists sometimes fear the reduction of veganism to a depoliticized way of life that has been taken over by the food industry.”

The author reflects on a series of recent vegan and animal rights activist movements and implies disappointment over the government’s response to protect public safety rather than support the protests’ cause. The essay differentiates the many ways one promotes and fights for veganism and animal rights but emphasizes the effectiveness of collective action in shaping better societies. 

“Beyond fungus, Nature’s Fynd also is representative of the food sustainability movement, whose mission is to reduce the carbon footprint of global food systems, which generate 34% of greenhouse emissions linked to climate change.”

The essay features a company that produces alternative meat products and has the backing of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Al Gore. The essay divulges the company’s investments and plans to expand in the vegan market while providing a picture of the burgeoning alternative foods sector. 

“Experts say changing the way we eat is necessary for the future of the planet but that government policy is needed alongside this. If politicians are serious about wanting dietary changes, they also need to incentivise it, scientists and writers add.”

The article conveys the insights and recommendations of environmental and agriculture experts on how to turn more individuals into vegans. The experts emphasize the need for a whole-of-society approach in shifting more diets to vegan instead of putting the onus for change on an individual. 

10 Writing Prompts on Essays About Veganism

Here is our round-up of the best prompts to create interesting essays about veganism: 

While veganism has been a top choice for those desiring to lose weight and have a healthier lifestyle, some studies have also shown its detrimental effects on health due to deficiencies in specific vitamins. First, find out what existing research and experts say about this. Then, lay down the advantages and disadvantages of going vegan, explain each, and wrap up your essay with your insights.

Differentiate veganism from vegetarianism. Tackle the foods vegans and vegetarians consume and do not consume and cite the different effects they have on your health and the environment. You may also expand this prompt to discuss the other dietary choices that spawned from veganism. 

The Vegan Society is a UK-based non-profit organization aimed at educating the public on the ways of veganism and promoting this as a way of life to as many people. Expound on its history, key organizational pillars, and recent and future campaigns. You may also broaden this prompt by listing down vegan organizations around the world. Then discuss each one’s objectives and campaigns. 

Write down the healthiest foods you recommend your readers to include in a vegan diet plan. Contrary to myths, vegan foods can be very flavorful depending on how they are cooked and prepared. You may expand this prompt to add recommendations for the most flavorful spices and sauces to take any vegan recipe a notch higher. 

Vegan restaurants were originally a niche market. But with the rise of vegan food products and several multinational firms’ foray into the market, the momentum for vegan restaurants was launched into an upward trajectory—research on how profitable vegan restaurants are against restos offering meat on the menu. You may also recommend innovative business strategies for a starting vegan restaurant to thrive and stay competitive in the market. 

From J.Lo to Bill Gates, there is an increasing number of famous personalities who are riding the vegan trend with good reason. So first, list a few celebrities, influencers, and public figures who are known advocates of veganism. Then, research and write about stories that compelled them to change their dietary preference.

The market for vegan-based non-food products is rising, from makeup to leather bags and clothes. First, create a list of vegan brands that are growing in popularity. Then, research the materials they use and the processes they employ to preserve the vegan principles. This may prompt may also turn into a list of the best gift ideas for vegans.

Many believe that a high-protein diet is a must for athletes. However, several athletes have dispelled the myth that vegan diets lack the protein levels for rigorous training and demanding competition. First, delve deeper into the vegan foods that serve as meat alternatives regarding protein intake. Then, cite other health benefits a vegan diet can offer to athletes. You may also add research on what vegan athletes say about how a vegan diet gives them energy. 

Interview people in your community who are vegan. Write about how they made the decision and how they transitioned to this lifestyle. What were the initial challenges in their journey, and how did they overcome these? Also, ask them for tips they would recommend to those who are struggling to uphold their veganism.

Make a list of the most popular vegan activists. You may narrow your list to personalities in digital media who are speaking loud and proud about their lifestyle choice and trying to inspire others to convert. Narrate the ways they have made and are making an impact in their communities. 

To enhance your essay, read our guide explaining what is persuasive writing . 

If you’d like to learn more, check out our guide on how to write an argumentative essay .

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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What Veganism Is, Why It Matters and How to Eat Plant-Based

A primer on the what, whys and hows of veganism.

Explainer • Diet • Health

Words by Seth Millstein

In many ways, modern society is built on the suffering of animals. Very few people set out to actively harm other living creatures, of course — yet so much of the food we eat , the clothes we wear , the cosmetics we apply and the services we rely on subject animals to significant pain and suffering. One way to fight against this is to adopt a vegan lifestyle .

Over the last few years, the number of vegans has skyrocketed , yet in many ways, veganism is still misunderstood. If you’re interested in transitioning to veganism , or if you simply want to learn more about the vegan lifestyle and why one might adopt it, read on.

What Is Veganism?

Veganism refers both to a diet that omits all animal products and, more broadly, a lifestyle that forgoes any products or services that inflict suffering on animals.

Is Veganism Just a Diet?

When most people hear the term “vegan,” they think of people who don’t eat animal products. While that’s not exactly incorrect, veganism is more than just a diet . In its fullest form, veganism is an ethical commitment to impose the least possible harm to the animals with whom we share the Earth.

People who live vegan adopt a fully plant-based diet, omitting not only animal flesh but also animal secretions such as milk, honey and eggs from their diets. Many vegans extend this policy to nonfood products as well, and won’t buy clothes, soap, candles or anything else that either contains animal products or was tested on animals . Additionally, vegans forgo services and events that imprison or inflict harm on animals, such as circuses, rodeos or horse-drawn carriages.

In short, veganism is a practice that supports living in harmony with nonhuman animals, which means leaving them out of our food, clothing, entertainment, products and labor. It’s about treating animals with dignity, and allowing them to live their lives as naturally as possible.

Why Is Veganism Important?

The industrialized production of animal products causes enormous harm to animals, the environment  and  humans. Vegans seek to mitigate this destruction by choosing not to purchase or consume these products.

Our society isn’t structured in a way that prioritizes animal or environmental welfare. In fact, it’s the opposite: modern human society is built such that the average person, without even trying or being aware of it, will contribute to the suffering of animals and destruction of the environment simply by living their lives.

It’s worth looking at exactly what this destruction looks like, both to gain greater understanding of how the world works and, more specifically, to understand the precise harm that vegans are trying to avoid and reduce.

Limiting  Environmental Harm Through Veganism

Many people go vegan due to environmental concerns. Animal agriculture is one of the biggest drivers of global warming , the leading cause of habitat loss worldwide and a significant pollutant of waterways.

Animal Agriculture and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Studies have shown that the livestock industry produces between 11 and 20 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and almost twice as much greenhouse gas as plant-based foods . One of the most harmful greenhouse gasses is methane, and according to the EPA, 37 percent of methane emissions caused by human activity come from animal agriculture.

Animal Agriculture and Deforestation

Livestock also wreaks havoc on natural habitats. The beef industry is the number one cause of deforestation around the world, and is responsible for 80 percent of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest specifically. Meanwhile, up to 35 percent of all mangroves have been destroyed since 1980, mostly to make way for shrimp farms and other aquaculture .

Rainforests and mangroves both trap significant amounts of carbon from the air, making them invaluable tools in fighting global warming . They’re also important sources of biodiversity; some animals only live in mangroves or rainforests, and many species have gone extinct due to deforestation .

Animal Agriculture and Water Pollution

The fertilizer used to grow feed crops on an industrial scale are a combination of manure from factory farms and synthetic chemicals. These typically contain phosphorus and nitrates, and when it rains, the chemicals flow from the soil into nearby waterways. This causes harmful algae blooms , which in turn result in mass fish die-offs. This water pollution also poses a hazard to humans: high levels of nitrates can cause methemoglobinemia , a condition known as “blue baby syndrome” that can be fatal to newborns.

Limiting Animal Cruelty Through Veganism

Many vegans will tell you that they chose their lifestyle because they don’t want animals to suffer. That’s entirely reasonable, because factory farms — which is where at least 90 percent of farmed animals live — cause immeasurable suffering and pain for the animals raised in them.

Animals on factory farms are mutilated in a number of horrifying ways: pigs are castrated at birth and have their teeth clipped, chickens have their beaks sliced off, various animals have their tails removed, cows are branded and dehorned and much more. All of this is done without anesthetic , thus causing immense physical pain to the animals, often just moments after they’re born.

Conditions for Chickens on Factory Farms

In most factory farms, animals  live in suffocating, cramped conditions. For instance, the majority of egg-laying hens in U.S. farms live in battery cages . In these enclosures, hens have around 67 square inches of space each; that’s around the size of a piece of paper, and is so confining that the chickens can’t fully spread their wings or extend their necks. They’re also unable to engage in normal chicken behavior, like preening, dust bathing and scratching the floor to file down their nails.

On egg farms, hens are intentionally starved for weeks on end in order to increase egg output, a process known as “forced molting.” After weeks of no food, hens are fed again, and their egg output increases slightly. Chickens that survive this ordeal are subjected to it up to three times before they’re killed. According to the US Department of Agriculture, at any given point in time, 6 million hens are being systematically starved on factory farms in the U.S.

Conditions for Pigs and Cows on Factory Farms

Many female pigs on factory farms, meanwhile, are held in gestation crates —  metal cages so small and tight that the pigs in them can’t turn around, let alone graze or walk on the grass. They’re confined to these crates for their entire pregnancies.This would be bad enough if they were only pregnant once, but they aren’t. Mother pigs are forcibly impregnated over and over again in order to produce as many piglets as possible. After around two years, they’re no longer able to give birth, at which point they’re slaughtered for meat.

A similar process plays out on dairy farms; female cows only lactate during pregnancy and after giving birth, so farmers repeatedly impregnate them to ensure a constant flow of milk.

Adding to the misery is the fact that cows’ and pigs’ offspring are taken from them shortly after their birth. This causes significant emotional distress: mother cows will cry out for days on end for their children after they’re separated, and piglets who’ve been taken from their mothers exhibit higher levels of fear and stress later in life.

Animal Cruelty During Transportation to Slaughter

Lastly, there’s transportation. After spending their lives in confinement, farm animals are transported to slaughterhouses in the same fashion. They’re often held in trucks for extended periods, with little room and no food or water , causing many to overheat or dehydrate. As a result of these conditions, it’s estimated that 4 million chickens, 726,000 pigs and 29,000 cattle die in transport each year in the U.S. alone.

Adopting a Vegan Diet for Human Health

Veganism isn’t just good for the environment and animals. It’s also often good for human health.

To begin with, going vegan can help protect you from the leading cause of death globally : heart disease. One study found that a plant-based vegan diet can significantly reduce your risk of dying from heart disease, while others have shown that vegans have lower blood pressure , lower LDL cholesterol and lower BMI than people on omnivorous diets — all outcomes that reduce one’s risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

Studies have also shown that vegans are less likely to get cancer or Type 2 diabetes and have lower rates of hypertension. It’s probably no surprise, then, that vegans live longer than omnivores on average as well.

Beyond individual outcomes, going vegan can help reduce widespread harm as well: According to a 2021 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pollution from animal agriculture kills 12,700 people in the U.S. every year.

How to Become a Vegan

It’s often best to transition slowly into a vegan lifestyle, and there are a plethora of tools and resources online to help facilitate this transition and, more importantly, allow you to sustain your new lifestyle once the transition is complete.

How to Transition to Veganism Gradually

Everyone’s vegan journey looks different, but there are some general best practices for anyone transitioning into a vegan lifestyle.

After learning of the negative impacts the meat and dairy industry have on the world, many people are ready to give up eating animal products overnight. This is entirely understandable, but it’s generally advised to transition gradually into a vegan diet rather than doing it in one fell swoop, as this reduces the mental and physical shock of such a drastic dietary change.

There are a few ways of doing this. One is to eliminate animal products one by one from your diet over a period of time; for instance, you might stop eating beef in January, then remove dairy products from your fridge in February, then forgo chicken in March, and so on. Another strategy is to begin by going vegan just one day a week, then slowly increase that until you’re an everyday vegan. Similarly, you might start by only being vegan at home before eventually adopting a vegan diet while dining out as well.

Connecting with Vegan Community

A great way of facilitating your transition into veganism is to connect with other vegans, as they can provide much needed mental, emotional and practical support. This can be as simple as reaching out to any vegan friends you already have; alternatively, if you don’t know any vegans yet, attending a local vegan meetup, or joining a local vegan Facebook group, is a great way to meet some.

Resources for Vegans

There are also plenty of material resources online for aspiring vegans. In addition to the many “ how to be vegan ” guides, websites like Free From Harm and A Well-Fed World contain a wealth of helpful knowledge for vegans. The free app and website Happy Cow displays  vegan restaurants near you, all around the world.If cooking from home is more your speed, you can pick up a vegan cookbook , or follow any number of vegan influencers on social media for recipes. If you have a little extra pocket money, you could even sign up for a vegan meal subscription service like Hungryroot, Purple Carrot, Thistle or many others.

Becoming vegan can seem overwhelming at first, so take your time in learning the facts, figures and science behind veganism. This will allow you to remain firmly rooted in your beliefs and actions in the face of those who might try to discredit your new lifestyle.

The Bottom Line

Veganism is about changing how we look at animals. We’re raised to see them as a food source, but when we learn to appreciate animals as the living, feeling, loving beings that they are, we create space to discover new plant-based food options that we’d never have considered before. Although animals occasionally rebel against the systems that oppress them, they aren’t able to stand up for themselves in any significant way. They need us for that. It’s been estimated that for every day a person lives a vegan lifestyle, they save one animal’s life . That may not seem like it matters very much in the grand scheme of things — but it matters a whole lot to each one of those animals . It also matters for the health of our planet: going vegan for even one month can save approximately 33,000 gallons of water, 1,200 pounds of grain, 900 square feet of forest and 600 pounds of CO2.

Independent Journalism Needs You

Seth Millstein is a writer and musician living in the Bay Area. He has helped launch several early-stage journalism startups, including Bustle and Timeline, and his work has been published in Bustle, Huffington Post, The Daily Dot and elsewhere.

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BEING VEGAN: A personal essay about veganism

I wear a necklace that spells out the word vegan. People peer at it and ask me, “Are you vegan?” It seems like an odd question, but people find vegans odd. When I respond that I indeed am a vegan, the comeback reply I dread most is when the person lists the animal products they eat, and how they couldn’t live without chicken or cheese.

In the cut and thrust of talk about food, I’ll then respond that the chicken is the body of an animal who wanted to live. That cheese is made from milk, a nutritious sustenance meant for a mother to give her newborn calf. If the baby cow was male, he was slaughtered for veal.

The slaughtering of baby animals is a good way to end what could escalate into an uncomfortable conversation neither of us really wanted to have.

Few of us are born vegan, and those who choose to become vegan usually do so following a personal epiphany, perhaps in the wake of a health crisis, or after meeting and befriending a farm animal whom one might formerly have considered food. That was my route. I was 40 before I understood that I was living a lie, claiming to love animals on the one hand, and eating them on the other. Today, veganism brings me peace of mind and a nice circle of friends.

I find it regrettable that vegans are so widely disliked in the mainstream media, but I’m not surprised. Our insistence that animals are neither objects nor ingredients is a perspective that people find challenging and even subversive. Our choice not to eat or wear animals challenges people to think about their own relationship to animals.  Most people love animals. Most people don’t want to think about animals being gruesomely treated and slaughtered. Faced with a vegan, the non-vegan has to think about that. Or else thrust such thinking into the depths of the psyche, and quick.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, on a weight-loss campaign to shed some of his 300 pounds, hurriedly dismissed two PETA-sponsored vegans who brought him a basket of vegan treats during one of his weekly weigh-ins. He wouldn’t even look them in the face. He abruptly dismissed a question from a reporter about veganism and retreated into his office.  He skipped a subsequent weigh-in.

His Honour could have relaxed a little. Veganism is a way of life that is not forced on anyone. We don’t come to your house with flyers or make robo-calls. We’re not funded by some giant corporation. We’re people who care deeply about animals, and about the people who have nothing to eat because so much of the corn and grain grown in North America goes to feed livestock, not hungry children.

Vegans mean it when they say they love all animals. A recent vegan advertising campaign showed a dog or cat facing a pig or chick, and underneath was the caption: “Why love one but eat the other?”

The questions we raise bother people. One commenter on a social media forum wrote:

“Those who don’t eat meat, I can empathize with you but you also need to get off your soapboxes.”

I relish the irony of being told to get off my soapbox from someone who is firmly planted on theirs. Non-vegans have been doing more than their fair share of “preaching” for centuries. In our day, McDonalds and Burger King push their beliefs and products on me dozens of times a day through TV and newspaper ads, and coupon flyers stuffed into my mailbox.

The Canadian government forces me to subsidize the meat and dairy industries through taxation. Non-vegans have preached and promoted their point of view on such a large scale that they have successfully hidden the cruelty of the meat and dairy industries from public view.

When I’m responding to an item in the newspaper about the subject of veganism, someone in the next comment box will inevitably ask me why I bother with animals when there is so much human suffering in the world. I love that question because it allows me to explain that I see animal liberation and human liberation as being intertwined.

The great physicist Albert Einstein famously said: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” He also held the view that not eating animals would have a physical effect on the human temperament that would benefit the lot of humankind.

The vegans I know care about injustice, enslavement, and oppression, no matter what the race, ethnicity, or species of the victim. When someone argues with me that human problems take precedence, I have to turn the argument on its head and ask not only what that person is personally doing to alleviate the suffering of human beings, but why they feel the heartless exploitation of other animals should continue even so. Humans are hurting, so kindness to animals must therefore be abandoned?

The most ridiculous argument that I hear is that plants have feelings too. To which I quote the answer provided by vegan food writer Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, who asks, in an episode of her podcast devoted to what she calls excuse-itarians—“ Really? Really?”

Animals are sentient and plants are not. Sentient beings have minds; they have preferences and show a desire to live by running away from those who would harm them, or by crying out in pain. Plants respond to sunlight and other stimuli, and apparently they like it when Prince Charles talks to them, but they are not sentient; they don’t have a mind, they don’t think about or fear death, they aren’t aware and conscious.

Finally, there’s the argument of last resort: that eating flesh is a personal choice. If it were my personal choice to kick and beat you, would you say to me “that’s your personal choice”? Being slaughtered for food is not the personal choice of the billions of animals that just want to live their portion of time on Earth.

Being vegan has changed not only what I eat and wear, but how I cope with the anger, outrage, dismissal and verbal abuse of others.

I’m learning, as I go, to let it all go. I speak out where I feel my words will do the most good, and if all else fails, I’ll simply smile and say, “Don’t hate me because I’m vegan.”

[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]Bonnie Shulman is a writer and editor working in Toronto. She earned her Master of Arts degree at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta. You can follow her on Twitter at @veganbonnie .

image:  rian_bean (Creative Commons BY-NC-SA)

The biggest issue for me in the whole politics of eating is the divide that’s created among people solely based on their choice of diet. To be vegan or non-vegan shouldn’t matter. Like any labels I wish they didn’t even exist. But of all the unnecessary labels, to have to use the word vegan is pretty sad. What one chooses to eat is a personal choice that doesn’t hurt anyone else, yet some people blow it up into such a big issue.

I wish people didn’t get so annoyed at vegans because it just contributes even more discord to this world. The only upside I see is that when people single out vegans and get defensive it at least causes them to think and talk about veganism.

Hi Breathe:

I agree that discord between people isn’t pleasant. Yet that is the end result of being an advocate for animals. I want to put a stop to the wholesale torture of animals on factory farms. To do that, I have to take a stand. I have to stand up and declare myself for animals. I have to campaign about the abuse, so that more people know what goes on behind those walls where pigs and chickens never see the light of day their entire lives. Speaking up for animals makes some people uneasy, and they get angry. On the other hand, some people, meat eaters included!, appreciate the stance I take. I say meat eaters too because even good people who eat meat don’t want animals to suffer as they do in the current conditions on factory farms. Watch any video by Mercy For Animals and you’ll see what I mean. It’s horrifying.

Thanks for your response. Take care.

First, I appreciate that you’re willing to stand up for animals. It takes courage and it’s a thankless job, which is why so few do it.

As I mentioned, I see the benefit to standing up for animals and I don’t discourage that. What I was getting at is how can we advocate while maintaining peace? How can we raise our communication to a higher level?

Saying the V-word pisses people off. It always has… maybe always will because people just don’t like to think that they’re in the wrong. Defensiveness is one of the ego’s most potent tricks. It has the power to disprove even the most solid logic. And so, enemies are built. The point is not even to build “allies” because that too is separation. We’re all humans doing the best we can with the resources we have at work. So the question is how do we advocate for animals by overcoming this ego battle? For me, that just means loving them, being in nature, connecting to them and sharing my love for them. Now I don’t believe that this is making a world of difference or anything. The whole issue of animal rights is no easy situation to deal with and I’d just like to think of different ways of doing things.

Breathe, you ask the million dollar question. And you hit the nail on the head: advocacy can lead to icky feelings between people! I once passed by a demonstration against wind farms, and I asked someone with a picket sign why she was against wind farms, and she kind of spat in my face with disgust at my question. Naturally, I am ALL FOR windfarms now (haha – I actually was before the incident).

May I recommend a great book? It’s my advocacy bible and I have a review on Amazon.com about it. I think it really addresses what you talk about – we have to change the world for animals without alienating people. I am not perfect, I admit, but I hand out vegan food at work and leave easy vegan recipes in the servery. That helps! Food is good! I’ve even got some people to try out Meatless Mondays, without even asking them to do so. They just thought it was cool to give vegan food a try. They love it now.

Here’s the book:

The Animal Activist’s Handbook: Maximizing Our Positive Impact in Today’s World by Matt Ball and Bruce Friedrich. These are the top advocates that I know of, and I respect them so much. They are brilliant people who understand that we must not lose touch with people in our animal advocacy. Again, they are the masters. I bow to their wisdom!

Thanks for writing!

Breathe, When you are in a non vegan diet what one chooses to it hurt innocent animals. It took me a while to connect the dots. I was not always a vegan, but becoming a vegan was a moment of brilliance that it is one of the best things that has ever happen to me. I can not keep exploiting animals.

I don’t hate anyone because they are vegan. But the vegans hate me because I insist that eating meat is natural for humans. Being vegan is a choice. Eating meat is a choice.I respect yours but do you respect mine? Your article is again full of accusations. Up to today I never got an answer to the questions: How does a vegan think about a Lion eating a Zebra? How does a vegan think about a cat eating a mouse or a bird? And why do they think different about a human eating a cow or a chicken? Humans are omnivores since millions of years. And please spare me the – how did you cal it “The most ridiculous argument ” that our bodies, our teeth etc are not made for meat. We eat it since millions of years for heavens sake! When do people accept that eating meat is our natural food? Yes we can chose to not eat meat. Yes I do accept that. But it is a choice! And if you want to tell me that I hurt animals by killing them then you have to accuse a Lion as well. And by the way, dairy is not our natural food. I agree with you on this. Not because we steal it from the mothers but because it is not natural and that’s why so many people are dairy intolerant. It is natural to be weaned off dairy products. But we do not have a great number of people who are meat intolerant. Because it is part of our natural diet.

Dear Peter:

When a lion eats a zebra I am distressed at the images of the kill, but I let it go because that is the way of the lion world. They cannot grow plants and raise crops. I am not angry at the lion for having its dinner. I find it pretty ridiculous that you would even think that. Also, people are not lions, so why do you even bring that up as an argument?

What do I think about a cat eating a mouse or bird? if it is a domestic cat I’m infuriated, because there so many farm animals are being slaughtered already, the by-products of which go into animal food readily available at stores. The decrease in the number of North American songbirds has been attributed largely to household cats.

If meat is a natural part of our diet, why do so many people thrive the minute they give it up? Also, why are so many of our hospitals stuffed to the gills with people requiring heart surgery? Only a minor percentage were born with heart defects. Among the rest, many gorged on such meat products as steaks, bacon, sausages and chicken fingers, as well as high-fat dairy, until their bodies rebelled.

I see my article has made you very angry. If this doesn’t prove my point then I don’t know what does. Thank you for writing, PeterNZ.

Question for you – would you be able to go right now, pounce on a cow, pig, etc.’s back, chomp through their hide/skin with your teeth to their muscle and eat it without cooking it? If your answer is NO (which it should be if you are human), well then there is your answer. Next, just because something has been done for millions of years, does not mean that it is right. Humans have done MANY things for millions of years that have been considered atrocities (sadistic Roman gladiator games, slavery, etc.). Were those things okay? These are just excuses. Believe me, I understand, as I made excuses my whole life…Done with that!

Bella I am a completely normal human being and i would be more than happy to go to my local supermarket and eat food that they provide, as this is what is normal for our culture. let me just quote History.com, one of the most reliable sources possible “In a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team announces the discovery of burned plants and bones from 1 million years ago. Their findings suggest that Homo erectus?not Homo sapiens or Neanderthals?became the first hominin to master flames, possibly in order to cook their food.” as my ancestors have done I would happily cook the meat so that the food becomes safe for my consumption, I agree with you in the concept that no human would go and pounce on a wild animal and sink their teeth into them as this is not what a normal human would do. I personally if it was down to survival would light a fire and cook the meat so that I could enjoy the delicacy that has been provided to me by nature. just this weekend i have enjoyed one of my favourite meals that does meat in it. i would suggest some of the recipes from this site as i have found them the best http://www.foodnetwork.ca/everyday-cooking/photos/most-popular-beef-recipes/

In your responses try to not be so aggressive as your way of life is far from the main stream and preferred way of living 🙂

also note to the author of this post, don’t try and act like your not trying to bring attention to your self, your twitter name is legitimately “veganbonnie”.

We vegans don?t hate u guys but we just wish non vegans to understand how the animals have to suffer and have to end their precious life just for the food u eat. and don?t compare humans with loins we humans can think rationally and we have can grow crops .. we have many options but the lions don?t have any options.. we respect your choice to eat meat but animals do not exist for humans and our uses. Animals also have moral rights to live in this world as much as human have.

Human beings have a variety of options when it comes to getting protein into their bodies – rice paired with lentils, chickpeas or any kind of bean forms a perfect protein. There is also tofu, and a lot of soy products are viable alternatives for those who are not allergic to soy. We cannot educate a wild animal such as a lion, to grow, harvest and ferment soybeans. Or chickpeas. This argument is silly. Lions hunt based on instinct. Human beings are more advanced (arguably) and therefore, we can use our more advanced brains to make food choices that do not cause harm to other living things. We have many instincts that we can overcome, and that we have overcome in order to be able to live in “civilized” societies.

Eating the flesh of a living thing is a personal choice that kills an innocent creature. There is nothing inherently wrong with your choice. But don’t get defensive when someone points out this fact.

Fact: You choose to place your tastebuds and your personal enjoyment over the life of another living creature, because you view yourself as more advanced and therefore entitled to consume flesh.

You do not need to feel guilty about your choice. Just be honest about it, and accept the moral consequences. That’s all. Meat may have been eaten by humans since the dawn of time… but historical precedent is not, in my mind, a valid excuse by which to continue justifying a behaviour.

In a similar vein, women have been treated as property since the dawn of time as well. Men are more powerful and indeed women did not always hold legal personhood status throughout history. So we should continue in the same vein, no? But this argument doesn’t fly today. Why? Because we know better, so we can act better. The same goes for the meat argument.

Your dietary implications may not be clean and pretty, but if you’re going to stand firm in your position, stick to it 100%. Do not waver, and do not speak about naturally being an omnivore. Just because you CAN eat it, enjoy it and thrive on it, doesn’t mean you SHOULD continue to do so. If we are enlightened beings, as we all like to claim to be, we should be held to a higher moral standard. If we do not want to hold ourselves up to that standard, that is fine.

P.S. Before you begin to assume things about me I will tell you that no, I am not a vegan. Why? Because I love eating fish, and cheese on occasion. But I don’t apologize for it. I know I can live without it, and I know that I am making a personal, selfish choice in the face of cruelty and suffering.

Laura, your reply is so beautifully heartfelt, and I read it with great interest. I love your honesty. Part of my animal advocacy is just asking people to be honest with themselves about the choices they make.

I also think you make a critically important statement that really hits the nail on the head. I’ll repeat it here:

Just because you CAN eat it, enjoy it and thrive on it, doesn’t mean you SHOULD continue to do so.

Thank you for contributing such wise words to the conversation, and all the best.

http://www.amif.org/blog/eating-meat-is-ethical/

This is so inspiring! I am a loyal vegetarian and have been for almost 9 years, I really feel deeply moved by it! I’ve thought about becoming Vegan but on a strict competitive national training programme it could be difficult, but you’ve definitely persuaded me to give it a go! Thank you for your thoughtful insight!

I just wanted to voice my support and appreciation for this article. With your stance and mine, putting the word “vegan” out in the world is going to make people angry. Anything different makes people angry. But if that anger ever leads to them making sure they understand the implications of their actions, it is worth it. It is worth it if they think.

I have had a close friend of mine tell me that he honestly believes in mind over matter. He also said he couldn’t ever stop eating meat. That self-limitation is stopping the human race from doing great things. WE must think through our actions, because we are the only species who can. Do what is right, because we are able.

Can people really be okay with eating a being that loved its mother? I always hypothesize a world were people could speak to animals and I ask the meat eater “Tell that animal to its face that it was born for the purpose of dying and feeding you, only for a single day, before you eat its children.”

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Blog > Common App , Essay Advice > How to Write a Great College Essay About Veganism

How to Write a Great College Essay About Veganism

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Kylie Kistner, MA Former Willamette University Admissions

Key Takeaway

People become vegan for a number of reasons. For some, it’s a deeply held personal choice, while for others it’s simply a matter of taste.

If you’re vegan, chances are that it’s a topic that’s important to you. You may even be wondering if veganism is something you should write about for your college essay.

Your college essay should be about something you are most passionate about, and veganism can allow you to talk about a core part of your values.

But veganism is also a fairly common topic that can at times be difficult to extract an original and meaningful message from.

Like any common topic, there are pros and cons to writing a personal statement about veganism. The topic isn’t off the table, but some approaches are more effective than others.

Where College Essays About Veganism Can Go Wrong

To achieve the goals of a personal statement, a college essay about veganism has to be about more than just your veganism.

After all, you are vegan for a reason. Something about the practice resonates with you at a deeper level. That significance is what you should focus on.

Two of the most common approaches to writing a college essay about veganism miss this mark because they rely too much on generalities instead of your deeply-held and identity-based reasons for being vegan.

“Why I became vegan”

The first ineffective approach is the surface-level “why I became vegan” or “how veganism changed my life” framework.

If veganism is something important to your lived experience, then it’s only logical that you’d want to write your college essay about what led you to be vegan or the specific ways being vegan has improved your life.

That is valuable. But too often essays that follow this approach give only common-knowledge reasons for being vegan. In doing so, they fail to address something truly meaningful about the writer.

A 2018 poll found that 3% of American adults identified as vegan, up from 2% in 2012. Your admissions officer is very likely familiar with the most common reasons behind veganism, so sharing this kind of surface-level answer is inadequate.

Unless you truly interrogate how veganism connects to a broader part of who you are, then your essay will leave an admissions committee wanting.

“Why you should be vegan”

The second common trope to avoid is the simple persuasive approach to “why you/everyone should be vegan.”

Maybe you do think everyone should be vegan. Maybe it’s even the belief that has sparked your interest in studying environmental science or food studies.

Because this topic carries a lot of weight, writing about why people should act a certain way takes a lot of time and care that is typically not possible in a personal statement.

A persuasive essay about veganism also says too much about others and not enough about who you are, so it’s best to find another approach.

Overall, college essays about veganism can go wrong when they make an admissions committee say, “That’s great! But now what?”

If you only write about your veganism, you leave the admissions committee with more questions than answers about who you are and why they should admit you.

Before you begin your college essay about veganism, you should consider asking yourself two questions:

How does my veganism relate to a larger part of who I am?

• And what do I want admissions officers to do with that information?

Using these questions as a guiding framework, let’s discuss two ways to go about writing your essay.

Effective ways to approach your college essay about veganism

Background and identity.

One way to make an essay about veganism stand out is by connecting your veganism to another significant part of your background or identity.

Instead of writing generally about why you became vegan, allow veganism to be only part of your more complex story.

Drawing these connections for the admissions committee will give them more genuine insight into who you are and what motivates you.

Consider the “how” and “why” behind your veganism to identify the value or motivation that is most central to you.

Did you go vegan after watching Food, Inc.?

Or maybe you grew up on a farm and your veganism is because of (or in spite of) your upbringing.

Or perhaps you simply have a dairy allergy and don’t like the taste of meat.

In all of these cases, the compelling story is not that you are vegan. Your veganism is compelling because it developed in a context that is specific to you.

Let’s plug the Food, Inc. example into our questions:

I went vegan after watching Food, Inc. > I watched Food, Inc. in health class. > I cried during the documentary because I felt bad for the animals that were being treated poorly. > I love my veganism because I can actively live out my compassion for animals.

And there it is! A compelling, motivating part of your identity: your compassion.

And what do I want admissions officers to do with this information?

I want admissions officers to know that I am deeply compassionate towards animals. > This compassion is a guiding principle for how I move throughout the world.

With these two questions answered, you have a seedling for your essay. If you find that your answers to the questions actually aren’t that compelling, then you might consider a different topic.

Related Interests

The second effective way to approach your essay about veganism is to relate it to a specific academic or co-curricular interest.

Your veganism can then be a vehicle through which you talk about another topic related to your goals and passions.

This approach is effective because it allows you to discuss something you’re personally passionate about (veganism) and connect it to another part of yourself (your interest or accomplishment) that gives the admissions officers more reason to admit you.

Probably the most popular connections are wanting to study environmental science or biology or being a climate or animal rights activist.

Let’s try the questions again:

I’m vegan. > I’ve joined and now lead an online community of vegans. > I’ve developed an academic interest in niche communities and am interested in learning more about them.

I have an extracurricular accomplishment managing an online community of 5,000+ members. > My veganism has led to a budding interest in the psychology and sociology of online groups.

Again, you’ve found the seed. You can use your newfound connections as the foundation of your college essay.

Key Takeaways

Veganism is deeply important to many people. If you’re one of them, it’s okay to write your college essay about it.

While some approaches are better than others, essays about veganism are still fairly common.

So if you choose to write one, make sure that you root your essay in genuine and specific examples that clearly illustrate how your veganism connects to a core part of you.

In the end, your college essay about veganism should showcase another value, belief, or interest that you hold deeply. Once you’ve determined what that looks like for you, check out our other resources for writing a college essay and creating a cohesive application narrative .

Liked that? Try this next.

The Incredible Power of a Cohesive College Application

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15 Amazing Personal Statement Examples (2024 Update)

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54 Veganism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best veganism topic ideas & essay examples, ⭐ good research topics about veganism, ❓ veganism research questions.

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• Worldwide Vegan Dairies: Digital Marketing Of particular importance is the promotion of vegan cheese in Australia, where information technology is also developed and the culture of a vegetarian lifestyle is flourishing.
• The Impact of Vegan and Vegetarian Diets on Diabetes Vegetarian diets are popular for a variety of reasons; according to the National Health Interview Survey in the United States, about 2% of the population reported following a vegetarian dietary pattern for health reasons in […]
• Health 2 Go: Vegan Waffles for Everyone All fruits and berries are purchased daily from local suppliers and stored in a contaminant-free unit of the Health 2 Go.
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• Vegan Parents’ Influence on Their Children’s Diet The first reason why a vegan diet should not be imposed on children is that every parent should pay close attention to the needs of their toddlers.
• Positive Reasons and Outcomes of Becoming Vegan Being vegan signifies a philosophy and manner of living that aims at excluding, as much as achievable, any kind of exploitation of, and cruelty against, animals for meat, clothing and other uses while promoting and […]
• Herb’aVors Vegan Drive-Thru Product Business Model As a result, the wide public will be able to receive the brand-new service with the excellent health promotion characteristics and traditional cultural implications of fast-food. The breakthrough of the offered concept is the vegan-based […]
• The Culture of Veganism Among the Middle Class According to Hooker, the culture of veganism has become so popular among the middle class that it is easy to associate it with the class. In this research, the focus will be to analyze the […]
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• How Does the Body Change While Following Veganism?
• What Percentage of the World Is Veganism?
• What Does Veganism Allow You to Eat?
• How Many Animals Are Saved by Veganism?
• Why Do People Stop Following Veganism?
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Introduction: Thinking Through Veganism

• First Online: 25 May 2018

Cite this chapter

• Emelia Quinn 6 &
• Benjamin Westwood 7  

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature ((PSAAL))

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This introduction outlines the social, environmental, and intellectual contexts shaping the emergence of vegan theory. It establishes an understanding of veganism’s messy, contradictory aspects, which runs counter to contemporary conceptualizations of it as a faddish diet or punitive set of proscriptions. Quinn and Westwood argue that veganism is situated between two opposing, but necessary poles: utopianism and insufficiency, aligned respectively with the work of Carol J. Adams and Jacques Derrida. The importance of these coordinates derives from their opposition: veganism as a confluence of utopian impulses, and the acknowledgement of their inevitable insufficiency. This introduction shows how thinking through veganism—as a heuristic lens and topic in its own right—opens out onto a wide variety of issues and questions explored in the following essays.

• vegetarianismVegetarianism
• Critical Animal Studies (CAS)
• Absent Referent
• Ethical Veganism

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Oxford English Dictionary , 3rd ed., s.v. “vegan, n.2 and adj.2. ”

See Robert McKay’s essay in this collection.

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Around the Performative: Periperformative Vicinities in Nineteenth-Century Narrative,” Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity (Durham, 2003), pp. 71–72.

See Richard Twine’s essay on the “intersectional disgust ” that he suggests has divorced the question of the animal from mainstream feminism (“Intersectional disgust ? Animals and (eco)feminism ,” Feminism & Psychology 20, no.3 (2010): 397–406). While we are reluctant to conflate homosexual oppression with the oppression of animals, we do not shy away from the recognition of important analogies that allow us to theorize human social and political structures in relation to the nonhuman. As Twine concludes “It would be a shame if disgust were to get in the way of conversation” (p. 402).

As made clear by Carol J. Adams in Sexual Politics of Meat  (London, 2015) and Annie Potts, “Exploring Vegansexuality: An Embodied Ethics of Intimacy” William Lynn: Ethics and Politics of Sustainability. 9 March 2008. http://www.williamlynn.net/exploring-vegansexuality-an-embodied-ethics-of-intimacy/

See, for example, José Esteban Muñoz , Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (New York, 2009) and Judith Halberstam , The Queer Art of Failure (Durham, 2011).

See Sara Salih’s essay in this collection.

J. M. Coetzee, The Lives of Animals (Princeton, 2001), p. 67.

See, for example, Martha Nussbaum, Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law (Princeton, 2004). Nussbaum condemns disgust as reliant on fears that are “typically unreasonable, embodying magical ideas of contamination, and impossible aspirations to purity, immortality, and nonanimality, that are just not in line with human life as we know it” (p. 23).

Matthew Calarco, “Deconstruction is not vegetarianism: Humanism, subjectivity, and animal ethics,” Continental Philosophy Review 37, no. 2 (2004): 194.

Ibid., pp. 195, emphasis added.

United Nations, “World population projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050” UN.org , 29 July 2015. http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-report.html

United Nations Environmental Programme, “Assessing the Environ-mental Impacts of Consumption and Production” UNEP.org , 2010. http://www.unep.fr/shared/publications/pdf/DTIx1262xPA-PriorityProductsAndMaterials_Report.pdf ; London Economic, “Vegan Food Sales up by 1500% in Past Year” The London Economic, November 2016. https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/food-drink/vegan-food-sales-up-by-1500-in-past-year/01/11/ ; Vegan Life, “Veganism Booms By 350%” VeganLife Magazine, 18 May 2016. http://www.veganlifemag.com/veganism-booms/

The UK National Health Service supports this, stating on its website that a well-planned vegan diet will provide all the nutrients the body needs. NHS, “The vegan diet,” nhs.uk. http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Vegetarianhealth/Pages/Vegandiets.aspx

Michael P. Branch and Scott Slovic, The ISLE Reader (Athens, 2003), p. xvi.

See, for example, Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin , Postcolonial Ecocriticism (Abingdon, 2010), Carol J. Adams and Josephine Donovan, Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations (Durham, 1995), and Val Plumwood , Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (London, 1993).

For more on Deep Ecology, see George Session, Deep Ecology for the Twenty-First Century (Boston, 1995).

Robert C. Jones, “Veganisms,” in Critical Perspectives on Veganism, eds. Jodey Castricano and Rasmus R. Simsonsen (London, 2016), pp. 15–39.

Kara Jesella, “Vegans exhibiting an ever wilder side for their cause,” nytimes.com , The New York Times, 27 March 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/arts/27iht-vegan.1.11463224.html

Best et al., “Introducing Critical Animal Studies,” Journal for Critical Animal Studies 5, no.1 (2007).

Taylor and Twine, “Introduction. Locating the ‘Critical’ in Critical Animal Studies,” in The Rise of Critical Animal Studies, eds. Nik Taylor and Richard Twine (Abingdon, 2014), p. 2.

Ibid., p. 6.

Ibid., p. 12.

Pederson and Stanescu, “Future Directions for Critical Animal Studies,” in Critical Animal Studies, p. 262.

Wright, The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror (Athens and London, 2015), p. 7.

Joshua Schuster, “The Vegan and the Sovereign,” in Critical Perspectives, pp. 216, 210.

Anat Pick, “Turning to Animals Between Love and Law,” New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics 76 (2012): 65–85.

For more comprehensive surveys of the development of animal studies, see Linda Kalof (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies (Oxford, 2017); Garry Marvin and Susan McHugh (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Studies (Abingdon, 2014); Derek Ryan, Animal Theory: A Critical Introduction (Edinburgh, 2015); and Kari Weil , Thinking Animals: Why Animal Studies Now? (New York, 2012).

The French edition was published in 1999, with an extended version released in 2006. The work itself is based largely on the text of a series of lectures given by Derrida at the 1997 Cerisy-la-Salle conference on “The Autobiographical Animal.”

Derrida, “‘Eating well’, or the Calculation of the Subject,” in Points… : Interviews, 1974–1994 , ed. Elisabeth Weber, trans. Peggy Kamuf (Stanford, 1995), p. 280.

Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am , ed. Marie-Louise Mallet, trans. David Wills (New York, 2008), p. 111.

Ibid., p. 28.

Adams, Sexual Politics of Meat , pp. xix; emphasis original.

Ibid., p. 63.

Ibid., p. 21.

Erica Fudge, Animal (London, 2002), p. 45.

Derrida, “Eating Well, ” p. 282.

Calarco, “Deconstruction is not vegetarianism,” p. 198.

Ibid., p. 194.

Gary Steiner, Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism (New York, 2013), p. 63.

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Quinn, E., Westwood, B. (2018). Introduction: Thinking Through Veganism. In: Quinn, E., Westwood, B. (eds) Thinking Veganism in Literature and Culture. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73380-7_1

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10 The Ethical Basis for Veganism

Tristram McPherson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ohio State University.

• Published: 11 January 2018
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This chapter aims to clearly explain the current state of the ethical case for veganism, to orient readers to (some of) the relevant philosophical literature, and to focus attention on important outstanding questions on this topic. The chapter examines different variants of ethical veganism, and different types of reasons that can be used to support it. It then spells out the core argument for the wrongness of making animals suffer and die. The chapter then considers three ways of arguing from this conclusion to an ethical defense of the vegan lifestyle, which appeal respectively to the ethical significance of the effects of individual use of animal products, of group efficacy, and of complicity with wrongdoing. The chapter concludes by examining several neglected complications facing the ethical case for veganism.

Introduction

On one natural gloss, veganism is a pattern of living: roughly, to be vegan is to avoid eating or otherwise using products made from or by animals. At least in our cultural context, few people are likely to just find themselves becoming vegans, in the way that one might find oneself eating too much saturated fat, or possessing an alarming quantity of paisley clothing. Rather, people are likely to become vegan as a result of (more or less explicit) ethical reflection. This chapter examines the ethical case that can be mounted for veganism. While I take the ethical case for veganism to be very promising, my aim in this chapter is not polemical. Because there has been comparatively little discussion in ethics focused directly on veganism, my central hope in this chapter is instead to help foster substantive progress in that discussion. I aim to do this by: (1) orienting readers to (some of) the most important literature relevant to the topic, (2) providing a clear explanation of the current state of the ethical case for veganism, and (3) focusing attention on the most important outstanding or underexplored questions in this domain.

I begin by examining and organizing the range of positions that deserve to be called ethical veganism. I then discuss (some of) the range of types of reasons that philosophers can potentially appeal to in making a case for veganism. In my view, the most promising case for veganism begins by arguing directly for the wrongness of making animals suffer and die. There are several important and different potential strategies for connecting this conclusion to the defense of a vegan lifestyle. Here I consider three such strategies, which appeal respectively to the ethical significance of the effects of individual use of animal products, of group efficacy, and of complicity with wrongdoing. I conclude by examining several relatively neglected complications facing the ethical case for veganism.

What Is Ethical Veganism?

I began by glossing veganism as a kind of lifestyle: one that rejects the use of products made from or by animals (hereinafter animal products ). It is worth noting that one might also think of veganism as a commitment to this sort of lifestyle: this would permit us to understand someone with such a commitment, who occasionally succumbed to omnivorous temptation, as a weak-willed vegan .

Ethical veganism is the class of ethical views that ascribe some positive ethical evaluation to that lifestyle. In what follows, I will understand ethical evaluation quite broadly, for example, I will take self-interest to be an ethical consideration. In order to focus on what is distinctive of ethical veganism, it is useful to contrast it with two paradigmatically contrasting views. Ethical vegetarianism makes a strong distinction between using products made from animals (e.g., meat), and products made by animals (e.g., milk), characteristically objecting to use of the former but not the latter. Ethical omnivorism permits the use of some animal products, but restricts the acceptable sources of such products, to those that satisfy some ethical criterion.

There are many possible versions of ethical veganism. To begin, it will be useful to consider a very strong version:

Broad Absolutist Veganism: It is always wrong to use any product made from or by any member of the animal kingdom.

Broad Absolutist Veganism contrasts with vegetarianism and omnivorism, but it is also implausible, for several reasons. One reason is its absolutism : the claim that it is always wrong to use animal products. This entails that it would be wrong to press a leather button, even if doing so were necessary in order to avert global nuclear war. A second reason is the broad scope of this principle across the animal kingdom, which entails that it is wrong to use sponges (members of the animal kingdom which wholly lack a nervous system). The thesis can be modified to avoid each of these problems.

The scope problem is especially potent because many arguments for veganism appeal to properties—such as the ability to suffer—that are not shared by all animals. It is not clear whether there are any ethically significant properties that are shared by all members of the animal kingdom but not by plants. 1 It is thus natural to restrict ethical veganism to focus on those animals that have the proposed ethically relevant property or properties. Ethical veganism could also be restricted in other ways, for example, one can imagine a thesis that prohibits dietary consumption of animal products, as opposed to their use more broadly. In what follows, I will in general neglect this latter sort of restriction.

The implausibility that arises from absolutism can be avoided by a defeasible form of ethical veganism, which allows that there are circumstances in which using animal products is permissible. A defeasible veganism might suggest that the ethical objection to using animal products can be outweighed by competing ethical considerations. Several philosophers have argued that ethical principles can also be defeasible in another way: by having exceptions in which they do not count at all against a relevant action. 2 For example, one might think that if there is an ethical requirement not to use animal products, it simply does not apply to consuming human breastmilk with the consent of the producer.

Elsewhere 3 I defend a form of restricted and defeasible veganism that I call:

Modest Ethical Veganism : It is typically wrong to use products made from or by a range of animals that includes: cats, dogs, cows, pigs, deer, and chickens.

This is a defeasible form of veganism because it explicitly signals that using animal products is only typically wrong. It is also restricted, governing our use of only some animals. In virtue of these features, Modest Ethical Veganism will be much easier to defend than Broad Absolutist Veganism. However, it is also strong enough to be a recognizably vegan thesis. For example, in typical circumstances, it rules out the use of products made from or by the most commonly farmed animals. Weakening the thesis further (e.g., by prohibiting only the use of great apes, or claiming that using animal products was only occasionally wrong) would arguably result in a thesis too weak to deserve the name veganism.

One could weaken the vegan’s thesis in a different way, by replacing the core idea that failure to be vegan is wrong. For example, it could be argued that practicing veganism is ordinarily virtuous but supererogatory: above and beyond the call of ethical duty. 4 Notice, however, that if combined with the view that vegetarianism or ethical omnivorism is obligatory, it might seem odd to call this view a version of ethical veganism. Alternatively, one could argue that veganism is a required aspiration, as opposed to a required practice. 5

Another dimension along which ethical theses concerning veganism can vary might be glossed as their modal fragility . For example, one can imagine an argument for veganism which claimed that using animal products is essentially wrong. This sort of argument would entail that using animal products could not have easily been typically permissible. By contrast, imagine a case for ethical veganism that grounded the requirement to be vegan crucially in putatively unjust FDA policies. The requirement to be vegan would be modally fragile on the second view: using animal products could easily be permissible, on this view, if the FDA were to change its policies. This dimension of the issue is rarely discussed, and I will largely ignore it in what follows.

The principles discussed so far focus on the use of animal products. While we have some grip on this notion, a rigorous characterization of veganism would need to make precise which relationships to animals counted as use in the ethically significant sense. However, one might think that however use is understood, characterizing ethical veganism solely in terms of use is objectionably limited: one might claim that the core ethical concerns that mitigate against using animal products should also orient our lives as social and political beings.

One way into the social dimension of this issue begins by noting that when someone knowingly and freely performs an action that we judge to be wrong—especially as a consistent pattern—we typically take it to be appropriate to blame that agent, and to feel various negative emotions toward them. We also typically take it to be appropriate to curtail our interactions with such agents in various ways. If eating meat is typically wrong, we might also expect it to be blameworthy. And this raises the question of whether vegans should refuse to be friends with omnivores, or otherwise share their lives with them. 6

Veganism also raises important questions in political philosophy. Generally, we can ask: Should the status of nonhuman animals be a central dimension by which we evaluate polities? 7 In the context of ideal theory, we can ask: Would the use of nonhuman animals be absent from, outlawed, or punished in an ideal polity? 8 Or are certain uses of nonhuman animals examples of ethically objectionable behavior that should nonetheless be tolerated in a well-functioning society characterized by reasonable ethical disagreement? In our nonideal circumstances, we can ask whether various forms of conventional or radical political action on behalf of animals are required or supererogatory on the basis of the considerations that support veganism. 9

This section has surveyed a range of dimensions on which variants of ethical veganism might be organized. No one of these views is the obvious candidate to be the privileged characterization of ethical veganism. Because of this, keeping the range of possible variants of the view in mind is important: some of the issues raised by differences between these views are badly in need of careful exploration. Further, these views vary widely in plausibility, and very different sorts of arguments would be required to support or rebut them.

Arguing for Veganism: Resources

One might argue for veganism in a wide variety of ways. In order to orient the reader, I begin by sketching a rough taxonomy of the sorts of reasons that a vegan might appeal to.

Self-Interested Reasons

Adopting a vegan lifestyle can potentially impose significant burdens on an individual, ranging from inconvenience, to being cut off from valuable traditions, to the risk of ostracism or malnutrition. Nonetheless, it is possible to mount a prudential case that many of us should adopt a vegan diet. The core reason is this: the overwhelming majority of North Americans have diets that are unhealthy in large part because they involve eating too many calories and too much saturated fat, and too few vegetables and whole grains. 10 One reason to choose a vegan diet is that it will tend to be a much healthier alternative to this status quo. Of course, one can be an unhealthy vegan. However, many of the most problematic foods in the North American diet are ruled out by veganism.

This way of supporting veganism appears to face three limitations. First, it at best supports adopting a vegan diet. It does nothing to rule out non-dietary uses of animal products (wearing a leather jacket is not going to clog anyone’s arteries). Second, it is most clearly a case for preferring a vegan diet to currently typical diets. It is not obviously a case for preferring a vegan diet over (for example) a largely plant-based diet that includes modest amounts of lean meat. This issue is controversial. For example, T. Colin Campbell and Thomas Campbell claim that the nutritional evidence provides some support for completely eliminating animal products from one’s diet. 11 However, even Campbell and Campbell grant that they have a very modest case for the superiority of eliminating consumption of animal products entirely, as opposed to substantially limiting it.

The significance of this issue likely depends in part on one’s capacity for self-control. For some people, the case for going vegan on health grounds, rather than attempting a healthy omnivorous diet, may be analogous to the alcoholic’s reasons to quit “cold turkey” rather than attempting to drink moderately. For others, however, a healthy omnivorous diet, like moderate drinking, may be easily implemented. And others may even find that making infrequent exceptions is crucial to maintaining their motivation to remain vegan the rest of the time. 12

Third, it is likely that even if these sorts of prudential considerations can provide reasons to become a vegan, they cannot support the deontic claim that eating animal products is wrong. Compare: most of us have good reasons to get more exercise, but it is implausible that we act wrongly when we fail to do so. 13

Environmental Reasons

Another important way of arguing for veganism appeals to the environmental consequences of animal agriculture. This sort of argument could be developed anthropocentrically, focusing on environmental consequences that affect human beings generally. Or it could appeal to the intrinsic ethical significance of, for example, species or ecosystems. The starting point for such arguments is the idea that the vegan lifestyle and diet makes fewer demands upon our shared environmental resources than the typical North American diet. Consider three points. First, it typically takes far more arable land and water to produce grain to feed to nonhuman animals to produce a calorie of meat than it does to produce a calorie of plant-based food. Animal agriculture thus puts pressure on increasingly scarce and vulnerable cropland and water resources. Second, economic pressures on animal agriculture have led to increasingly industrialized farming practices. This has increased the amount of environmentally toxic byproducts generated by farming, which in turn further damages land and water systems. 14 Of course, these dynamics apply to the production of vegan foods as well. This consideration thus supports a vegan diet only in conjunction with the first point. Third, animal agriculture is a significant contributor to global warming, which is arguably the most dramatic environmental threat we now face. 15

These environmental considerations support a slightly broader conclusion than the self-interested reasons. 16 For example, if the environmental cost of animal agriculture gives us reasons to stop eating animal products, it also gives us reasons to avoid using animal products in other ways.

A central complication facing such environmentally based arguments, however, is that it is implausible that all animal agriculture is environmentally damaging. For example, farm animal manure can increase the agricultural productivity of farmland without the use of industrially produced fertilizers, and animals can forage on land that is not otherwise agriculturally productive. Considerations like these could be used to argue that there is a nonzero level of animal agriculture that is optimal (at least from the point of view of overall human well-being). 17 This suggests several complications for an environmental case for veganism. This is especially true if the relevant foil is a lifestyle that significantly reduces, but does not eliminate, the use of animal products, or one which focuses on supporting farms that use animal products in environmentally friendlier ways.

Religious Reasons

Religious traditions provide ethical guidance for many people. It is possible to develop arguments for veganism that appeal to the distinctive ethical resources of certain religious traditions. The most straightforward way of making such arguments would appeal directly to religious prescriptions. For example, Jainism and some variants of Buddhism enjoin some version of vegetarianism. In most cases, however, religiously based arguments for veganism will have to address significant arguments against ethical veganism from within their religious tradition and will not have such direct doctrinal support. Here, the metaphysical principles of a religion can be relevant, for example, the Buddhist doctrine of transmigration entails that humans and animals all have souls and, indeed, that many animals were humans in past lives. 18 This metaphysical thesis makes the case for ethical similarity between humans and animals easier to argue for, compared to views on which humans are distinctive among animals in having souls. 19 The Christian tradition is similar in this respect. Would-be ethical vegans have an uphill battle against explicit biblical discussion of food. But they can also appeal to the ethical significance of certain ethical precepts that are widely accepted within the Christian tradition. For example, one might seek to make a case for ethical veganism that appealed centrally to the ethical importance of reverence, mercy, or stewardship. 20 This, of course, only scratches the surface of potential avenues for religiously based arguments in food ethics. 21

Animal-Focused Arguments

Each of the classes of considerations just briefly sketched is potentially important, and each might be developed to make a case that we have reasons to move in the direction of a vegan lifestyle. However, they leave out what I take to be the most significant reasons to become vegan: reasons that focus on nonhuman animals themselves, rather than focusing on human interests, considered either individually or collectively. The range of relevant animal-focused arguments in the literature is vast, 22 and I will not do it justice.

Theoretical Commitment and Naïveté

One central division among arguments in animal ethics is whether the author presupposes a systematic normative ethical theory or hopes to proceed without one. Approaches that begin from commitment to a systematic normative ethics are legion. For example, there are discussions of animal ethics that are embedded within utilitarian, Kantian, virtue theoretic, and various contractarian and contractualist theoretical structures. 23

One influential and powerful example of the theoretically committed approach is Tom Regan’s case for animal rights. 24 Regan argues that individuals possess various moral rights, which directly reflect the inherent moral worth of those individuals. By proposing to ground rights directly in moral worth, Regan raises a pressing question. On any plausible view of rights, some things (e.g., you and I) possess moral rights (and hence inherent moral worth), while others (e.g., a shard of broken plastic) do not. What explains the difference? Regan argues that many initially plausible answers to this question are indefensible. For example, consider the idea that inherent moral worth requires capacities for ethical agency or sophisticated rational thought. This would entail that nonhuman animals lack rights. However, it would also entail that many humans (e.g., young children and severely mentally handicapped adults) lack rights. And this is implausible. Or consider the idea that having moral worth requires being a member of the species Homo sapiens . This avoids the problems facing the rational capacity idea, but it looks like an attempt to explain a fundamental ethical property by appeal to something ethically irrelevant. To see this, imagine that we discovered an alien species with capacities to think, feel, love, and act that are very like our own. Mere difference in their genetic code surely cannot deprive them of rights. According to Regan, the only defensible alternative is that a sufficient criterion for having intrinsic worth is being the experiencing subject of a life. 25 Since many of the animals that humans eat and otherwise use are experiencing subjects of lives, Regan concludes that these animals have moral rights that are just as strong as ours. 26 Just as farming humans would violate our rights, so, on this view, animal agriculture violates the rights of nonhuman animals.

Arguments like Regan’s make an important contribution to the ethical evaluation of veganism. At the very least, such arguments can help us to better understand some of the implications of promising systematic views in ethics. However, the strategy of appealing to a systematic ethical theory faces at least two significant limitations. The first is that there is an ongoing fierce and reasonable dispute between proponents of various systematic options to normative ethics. The second limitation—obscured by my breezy exposition of Regan’s view—is that each of the central organizing ideas in systematic normative ethics can be implemented in many ways. The forest of structural options is perhaps most familiar from discussions of consequentialism, but the issue generalizes. 27 Together, these points may limit how confident we can reasonably be in any systematic ethical theory determinate enough to guide our thinking about veganism.

The alternative to such approaches is to offer a theoretically naïve argument for veganism. On this approach, one appeals to intuitively compelling judgments about clear cases and seeks to construct local ethical principles capable of explaining the truth of those judgments, without appeal to systematic normative theory. 28 Even for philosophers committed to a systematic normative theory, exploring the issue from a theoretically naïve perspective may be illuminating, as it may help to reveal issues that will make a given theoretically committed approach more or less plausible or dialectically compelling.

The Naïve Argument from Suffering

Jeremy Bentham famously said of animals that “the question is not, Can they reason ? nor, Can they talk ? but, Can they suffer ?” 29 The line of argument for ethical veganism that I find most plausible begins from this question, answering that—at least for a wide range of animals—the answer is: Yes, they can suffer . 30

The first virtue of this approach is that it seems evident to almost everyone that many nonhuman animals can suffer. There are many phenomena that might be grouped together under the heading “suffering.” Two examples of what I have in mind are intense pain, such as a piglet experiences when castrated without anesthetic, and intense distress, such as a cow or a sow experiences when separated from her young.

The second virtue of the approach is that the following ethical principle appears hard to reasonably resist:

Suffering : Other things being equal, it is wrong to cause suffering.

The plausibility of Suffering can be brought out in several ways. 31 First, it seems true when restricted to humans. So to claim that it is not wrong to cause suffering to animals may seem like a case of ethically objectionable speciesism. Second, many cases of causing suffering to nonhuman animals seem obviously wrong. For example, it would be wrong to catch a stray rabbit, take it home, and torture it with electric shocks. Third, in many cases like this one, the wrongness of the action seems directly explained by the fact that it is a case of causing suffering to an animal. Fourth, Suffering is modest, in at least two respects. First, Suffering is a defeasible principle, so it does not imply that causing suffering to nonhuman animals is always wrong. Second, Suffering does not imply parity between the moral significance of human and nonhuman suffering. It is compatible with there being many reasons why it is typically wrong to cause suffering to an adult human being that do not apply to nonhuman animals. (For example, causing an adult human to suffer may express disrespect for their autonomy.)

Most arguments for veganism (especially those which seek less modally fragile conclusions) will defend a further principle prohibiting the killing of animals, such as:

Killing : Other things being equal, it is wrong to kill an animal.

This principle, however, is not as immediately intuitive as Suffering. The intuitive contrast is well-expressed by Michael Tooley:

It seems plausible to say it is worse to kill an adult human being than it is to torture him for an hour. In contrast, it seems to me that while it is not seriously wrong to kill a newborn kitten, it is seriously wrong to torture one for an hour. 32

Tooley’s wording is careful here: his claim is cast in terms of what “seems plausible” about “serious wrongness.” We can helpfully distinguish two ways of making the suggested ethical claim more precise. Weak Asymmetry is the view that, other things being equal, causing substantial suffering to an animal is more seriously wrong than killing that animal. Strong Asymmetry is the view that other things being equal it is wrong to cause animals to suffer and not wrong to kill them.

Strong Asymmetry has sometimes been endorsed. 33 However, I suspect that its appeal does not survive reflection. In evaluating Strong Asymmetry, it is crucial to screen off cases in which other relevant things may not be equal. For example, there are many ordinary cases of killing animals for (at least arguably) ethically legitimate reasons. Think, for example, of overburdened animal shelters euthanizing some of their wards, or of culling a deer population to a level that its food sources can support. By contrast, there are very few ordinary cases in which there are good ethical reasons to torture an animal. These facts can potentially mislead us when we consider principles like this one; we may unconsciously “fill in” extraneous assumptions about the motives or character of the agents involved, and these assumptions may then guide our judgments about the cases. 34 In light of this point, consider a case in which, simply for the sake of doing so, someone catches a healthy stray kitten, takes it home, and then kills it by adding a fast-acting and painless poison to its meal. This seems clearly wrong, which casts substantial doubt on Strong Asymmetry.

What about Weak Asymmetry? Here again, it is important to screen off distracting assumptions about the agent’s motivations. So consider a case where we screen off these distractions. Suppose that you are given a terrible choice at gunpoint: Kill this kitten with a painless drug or torture it for an hour. Suppose further that you somehow know that if you torture the kitten, it will go on to live a long and happy cat life. It would certainly be easier for a decent person to kill the kitten than to make herself torture the kitten. But it is hard to see why torturing is not the ethically better of two awful options. After all, it seems plausible that torturing the kitten in this case would be better overall for the kitten. Focusing only on the kitten’s welfare, this case is not much different from that of someone administering a painful lifesaving medical treatment to an animal, which seems obviously okay, if doing so is the only way to allow the animal to have a long and flourishing life. In light of points like these, it is not surprising that several philosophers have argued against Tooley-style asymmetry claims. 35

It is worth emphasizing that rejecting Weak Asymmetry is compatible with granting that killing humans is ordinarily much more seriously wrong than killing nonhuman animals. The best explanation of why torturing the kitten is ethically preferable to killing it adverts to something like the ethical significance of well-being or of the value of an entity’s future. 36 Such considerations are surely important in thinking about killing humans. 37 If human lives are typically far richer than nonhuman animal lives, an account of the wrongness of killing that appealed to the value of futures would partially explain why it is ordinarily worse to kill humans. Further, in many cases of killing humans other considerations—especially considerations grounded in the agent’s autonomy—may also be significant, or even paramount. For example, consider a version of the gunpoint dilemma with a human victim. Here—as Tooley’s quote suggests—torturing would ordinarily seem like the lesser evil. But now suppose that the victim requests—on the basis of substantively reasonable and reflectively stable values—that you kill him rather than torture him. In this case, respecting his autonomous preference may be ethically more important than maximizing his net expected welfare.

One might object to the line of argument proposed in this section by arguing that the ethical asymmetry between humans and nonhuman animals runs deeper than I have granted thus far. The most familiar way to develop this objection would appeal to the explanatory role of moral status . For example, it might be claimed that the core explanation of why it is wrong to make a human suffer needs to appeal to humans’ distinctive moral status as well as what human suffering is like. Animals, it might be insisted, lack moral status (or have some sort of second-class moral status), and so the badness of their suffering cannot render wrongful an action that makes them suffer.

This objection should be rejected. 38 To begin, notice that the objection threatens to deprive us of the most natural explanation of the wrongness of torturing nonhuman animals. A theoretical argument would need to be extremely powerful to warrant this. But the idea that animals lack moral status is most plausible if we understand moral status as the bundle of ethical powers and protections characteristically possessed by adult humans (in a helpful introduction to moral status, Agnieszka Jaworska and Julie Tannenbaum call this “full moral status”). 39 A two-year-old child lacks full moral status: she has no right to self-government, for example, or political participation. But I still owe it directly to such a child that I not torture her. It is natural to assume that the wrongness of making the child suffer is grounded in her individual capacities. But if so, then the objection collapses, because many nonhuman animals have similar capacities. One could repair the objection, for example, by insisting that the child has moral status simply in virtue of being human. 40 But it is deeply puzzling why bare genetic facts like this one should have such striking ethical significance.

Supposing that it is sound, the case for the wrongness of killing animals and making them suffer has profound ethical consequences. Consider the institutions most directly involved in raising and slaughtering animals for use in making animal products: the farms, animal factories, feedlots and slaughterhouses. These institutions inflict extraordinary amounts of suffering, and then very early death, on the billions of animals they raise and kill. 41 If killing animals and making them suffer is wrong, then these institutions (or the people who compose them) act wrongly on a truly horrifying scale. Stuart Rachels gives us a sense of the scope of the issue, estimating the amount of suffering inflicted by these institutions as orders of magnitude greater than that inflicted by the holocaust. 42 Further, our governments arguably act wrongly as well, in virtue of creating a legal and regulatory framework within which these institutions are permitted to treat animals wrongfully, and in virtue of providing economic incentives—and in many cases direct subsidies 43 —for these institutions to harm animals. However, the case for the wrongness of killing animals and causing them to suffer does not yet constitute an argument for veganism. The next section explains the gap remaining in the argument, and explores how it might be filled.

Completing the Naïve Argument for Veganism: Some Options

One could grant that it is wrong to kill animals or to make them suffer, but deny that this gives one reasons to be vegan. After all—as is vividly obvious in the contemporary world—eating animal products does not require that one kill animals or cause them to suffer. As a defense of omnivorism, this may initially smack of rationalization. However, facing it squarely helps to illuminate several of the most difficult challenges for constructing a rigorous ethical argument for veganism.

We can begin by schematically representing the gap left by the argument of the preceding section, as follows:

1. The institutions that produce our animal products act wrongly in a massive and systematic way. 2. Veganism bears relation R to those institutions. 3. It is typically wrong (or . . .) to fail to bear R to those institutions. C. It is typically wrong (or . . .) to fail to be vegan.

The parenthetical possibilities in premise 3 and the conclusion are intended to remind readers of the range of possible forms ethical veganism might take (discussed in the first section). Different arguments will, of course, be required to support weaker or stronger vegan theses. The central question is whether there is some relation that we can substitute for variable R to produce a sound version of the schematic argument just given. This section discusses some important possibilities.

One might claim that the gap suggested by this argument is easily filled. For example, Rosalind Hursthouse suggests that a truly compassionate person could not be aware of the cruelty of contemporary animal agriculture and continue to be “party” to such cruelty by eating meat. 44 Such self-aware omnivorism may indeed feel uncomfortable: witness Michael Pollan’s description of reading Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation in a steakhouse. 45 At best, however, this reply appears to support a very weak form of ethical veganism, according to which omnivorism is some sort of ethical imperfection. But even this is not so clear. Absent further argument of the sort to be considered, it is not clear that one must lack compassion to any degree if, for example, one followed the Buddhist teaching that permits a monk to eat meat, provided that he does not suspect the relevant animal has been killed specifically to feed him. 46

This section focuses on three candidate proposals for explaining how ethical requirements on individuals can be generated indirectly, in virtue of relations between their actions and some other bad or wrongful act or state of affairs. These proposals appeal, respectively, to individual value-promotion, group efficacy , and complicity . The aim is to assess whether these proposals can provide intrinsically plausible principles that—when combined with the naïve argument of the preceding section—support some form of ethical veganism. The proposals that I discuss are far from exhaustive, but they strike me as the most promising. 47

For simplicity, I treat these proposals as ways of completing the preceding naïve argument. However, these proposals have broader theoretical significance for the ethics of veganism. For example, many broadly environmental arguments for veganism (briefly discussed in the second section) will face the same sort of gap as the argument just sketched: they are most directly arguments from the wrongness of status quo animal agriculture, not for the wrongness of individual acts of using animals. In light of this, most attempts to defend ethical veganism will need to appeal to some theory like the ones to be considered here, that propose ethical links between individuals’ use of animal products and the objectionable practices that create those products.

Individual Efficacy

I begin by considering the attempt to cross the gap by appeal to the idea that the individual vegan can promote something ethically important: expected animal welfare. The canonical presentation of this idea by Peter Singer begins by granting that it is highly unlikely that one’s own food choices will ever make a difference to actual animal welfare. 48 However, Singer suggests this is not the end of the story. He suggests there must be some (unknown) threshold, at which, for example, increased numbers of vegetarians or vegans will reduce demand for chicken sufficiently to reduce the number of chickens made to suffer in factory farms. For example, “Perhaps for every 10,000 vegetarians there is one fewer 20,000 bird chicken unit than there would otherwise be.” 49 However, we are ignorant of where the relevant threshold is. Perhaps we are away from the threshold, in which case the individual vegan makes no difference to the chicken suffering. But given our ignorance of where the threshold is, we should take there to be a 1/10,000 chance that we are at the threshold. And if we are at the threshold, an individual vegan’s refraining from consuming chicken will save 20,000 chickens from a short life of suffering. 50 The expected utility of this chance for each vegan is the same as the expected utility of certainty that one will save two chickens from suffering. In a slogan: it is vanishingly unlikely that one will make a difference by being vegan, but if one does, it will be a correspondingly massive difference. One might then argue that this is enough to entail that one is required to be vegan. 51

This sort of argument faces several types of objection. Some of these are empirical in nature. 52 For example, some have argued that we have empirical reasons for believing that we are more than proportionally likely to be stably between thresholds of the imagined sort. Others have argued that we should be skeptical of the ability of individual buying decisions to produce any economic signals whatsoever in a large market.

Another type of objection begins by querying the trajectory of aggregate demand for animal products. Assume for simplicity that aggregate demand trends are stable, without a lot of random variation. Suppose first that demand is stably increasing. Other things being equal, this will lead to rising prices and (eventually) to new animal factories being built, as increased supply becomes profitable. My veganism cannot prevent a broiler factory from being built, under such assumptions. At best, it might conceivably delay its construction. But for how long? Seconds? Minutes? 53 Or suppose that aggregate demand is stably decreasing. Then prices will typically fall, and with it production. Again, at very unlikely best, lack of my demand could hurry closure of a broiler factory by a few minutes. The only (artificially stable) scenario in which my becoming a vegan could make a more marked difference is if aggregate demand is, independent of my choice, stably exactly at a threshold. Only here could my buying behavior possibly make a more than a momentary difference to the welfare of animals. But our credence that we are stably at such a threshold should be much smaller than Singer’s heuristic estimate. It might thus be expected that the expected benefit to animal welfare of my becoming vegan is likely to be extremely small.

The Singer-style argument also makes at least three important assumptions about ethical theory. One (highly plausible) assumption is that welfare outcomes are ethically significant. The second assumption is more controversial: this is that the expected value of consequences plays a role in determining right and wrong. This assumption is controversial because many philosophers think that the actual—as opposed to expected—value of consequences is what contributes to determining right and wrong. 54

The expected value assumption is crucial to Singer’s reasoning. For example, in Singer’s stylized example, it is extremely likely that no one actually makes an objective difference to animal welfare by being vegan. For on Singer’s account, it is very likely that aggregate demand is in fact stably away from a threshold. And this means that for each consumer C , the counterfactual: if C were to be vegan, animal welfare would be improved is very likely false.

The third crucial assumption of Singer’s argument is that the negative expected value of an option can explain why that action is wrong. Notice that this is a stronger claim than the idea that facts about expected value matter ethically. This issue can be illustrated by a familiar style of case: I can choose to either spend $1,000 on a vacation, or to donate this money to the Against Malaria Foundation. The expected value of the donation is saving at least one person from miserable sickness and early death due to malaria, which obviously outweighs the direct and indirect expected benefits of my vacation. It is plausible that this makes donating the money morally better than going on vacation, but it is controversial whether it entails that I would act wrongly by going on vacation. 55

Even if this sort of objection is sound, evaluating the empirical challenges to the Singer-style reasoning might be quite broadly important to the ethics of veganism. On the one hand, it might provide a direct way to argue that veganism is at least ordinarily supererogatory. On the other, some sort of efficacy might be argued to be a necessary—even if not a sufficient—condition for veganism to be required. The worry is that absent a plausible case for efficacy, one’s concern not to eat wrongfully produced meat amounts to an ethically dubious desire to avoid a kind of “moral taint.” 56

Group Efficacy

As we have seen, it is not trivial to establish that an individual omnivore has any effect on animal welfare. By contrast, it is obvious that all of the consumers of animal products together make a difference: their aggregate demand is the raison d’être of the animal agriculture industry. If demand for animal products declined to zero, wrongful farming of animals would likewise decline precipitously. In light of this, one might suggest that the argument for veganism should appeal to the ethical significance of the relationship that an individual vegan bears to this group. For example, one might complete the schematic argument imagined at the beginning of this section in the following way:

1. The institutions that produce our animal products act wrongly in a massive and systematic way. 2. The group consumers of animal products together act wrongly by making the wrongful treatment of animals mentioned in (1) persist. 3. It is typically wrong (or . . .) to be a part of a group that together acts wrongly. C. It is typically wrong (or . . .) to consume animal products (i.e., to fail to be vegan).

As in the schematic argument, the “(or . . .)” marks the fact that one might argue for a variety of ethical statuses for veganism. Premises 2 and 3 of this argument introduce important and controversial ethical ideas. Premise 3 is a general claim about the individual ethical significance of group wrongdoing. Premise 2 is an instance of a principle that tells us that groups can acts wrongly in virtue of making bad things happen. Consider a case that might help to motivate the relevant general claims.

Suppose there are two communities along a river: Upstream and Downstream. The river is the only source of water for both communities. Members of Upstream also dispose of their sewage in the river. (This is not a town policy; it is just the prevailing and accepted practice in Upstream.) As a result, members of Downstream are very often painfully and dangerously ill from drinking the polluted water. Suppose, however, that no individual’s sewage from Upstream makes a difference: the river is so uniformly polluted by Upstream sewage that removing one person’s sewage from the river will make no difference to the number or severity of the painful illnesses suffered in Downstream. Suppose finally that the members of Upstream know about their effects on Downstream and could (either individually or collectively) safely dispose of their sewage elsewhere, at modest cost. It is plausible that the members of Upstream are, collectively, responsible for wrongfully harming the members of Downstream. It may seem plausible that, in virtue of this, an individual member of Upstream acts wrongly by disposing of her sewage in the river, despite the fact that this action produces no marginal harm.

This argumentative strategy takes on several burdens. 57 First, some philosophers think that only individuals can act wrongly. This view must be defeated if the group-mediated account is to work. Second, we can usefully adopt Margaret Gilbert’s useful distinction between “collectives”—like families or sports teams—from looser “aggregates.” 58 It is arguably more plausible that collectives can act wrongfully than mere aggregates. This is relevant because the group consumers of animal products does not coordinate in the systematic ways characteristic of collectives. Third, even if an account of responsibility that applies to aggregates is developed, 59 a clear mapping from group to individual wrongdoing still needs to be provided.

Even if these theoretical questions can be adequately addressed in a way friendly to the argument, 60 one might wonder whether the group-mediated approach supports veganism over certain alternative responses to the evils of animal agriculture. To see the challenge, focus on an individual in Upstream. Suppose she knows that for a modest cost she could install a safe and effective septic system, and thus cease to contribute to polluting Downstream’s drinking water. However, she knows that if she instead donated the same amount of money to help provide water filters in Downstream, this would actually help to prevent some Downstream residents from getting sick. It seems plausible that she has much stronger reasons to donate than to eliminate her own pollution. 61 By analogy, if we suppose that an individual’s being vegan involves some cost to that individual and negligible benefit to animals, it might seem that this cost would be more constructively borne to support direct assistance to animals (human or non-) rather than one’s veganism.

Benefit and Complicity

The group-mediated approach focuses on the relationship between the individual and the consumers of animal products. But this may seem like an implausibly indirect relationship to focus on. After all, as I noted at the end of the previous section, the individuals and institutions most directly responsible for the massive pattern of wrongful treatment of animals are the farms, animal factories, feedlots, and slaughterhouses. So we might want to focus on the relationship of the individual vegan or omnivore to these institutions or wrongful patterns.

Besides making a difference to the extent of the wrongful pattern (the issue we discussed under “Individual Efficacy”), there are at least two ethically relevant relationships that we might want to focus on. First, the omnivore benefits from this wrongdoing: the food she chooses to consume is a product of this wrongdoing and would not be available—or at least, it would be available only in much smaller quantities at much higher prices—absent such wrongdoing. 62 Second, the omnivore is complicit with the wrongdoing, in the sense of cooperating with the wrongful plans of the more immediate wrongdoers. I will briefly explore the prospects of appealing to the ethical significance of one or both of these relationships in defending ethical veganism.

Consider first benefiting. Several philosophers have argued that one can acquire ethical obligations in virtue of benefiting from injustice. 63 One might think that some of these arguments generalize to benefiting from significant wrongdoing of other types. The knowing omnivore chooses to consume products that result from the wrongdoing of the animal industry. This is relevant because it is much easier to motivate the idea of obligations in virtue of voluntarily received benefits. 64 Our central topic here, however, is not the obligations that omnivores might take on in virtue of their behavior (itself an interesting question). Rather, our question is whether omnivorism is itself wrong in virtue of being an instance of voluntary benefit from wrongdoing. One might take such voluntary benefiting to constitute the ethical analogue of the legal status of being an accessory after the fact. 65 However, the ethical significance of such pure benefiting—when shorn of other ethical features—is not clear. For example, suppose that it is wrong to kill deer in your context. And suppose that you witness a reckless driver hit and kill a deer, then leave the scene. If you then take, dress, and ultimately eat what can be salvaged from the abandoned deer carcass, you are benefiting from the driver’s wrongful killing of the deer. But it is far from clear that what you do in this case is wrong. 66 Even this case involves a kind of active receipt of goods. By contrast, suppose that the wrongful killing kept the deer from grazing on your garden. Surely you do not act wrongly by merely receiving this benefit with a wrongful genesis.

Recalling the variety of forms of ethical veganism, one might argue within a virtue-theoretic framework that the willingness to voluntarily benefit from wrongdoing is a significant vice. However, if we again consider the case of the deer salvager, it is again not clear that this willingness is any kind of vice, if limited to the sort of case described. One might insist that virtue in part consists in a way of seeing animals that takes them to be not to be eaten. 67 But one might suspect that this sort of perception is (relatively) virtuous only assuming the inability to make relevantly fine-grained distinctions between more and less ethically problematic cases, and that the perfectly virtuous person could regret the death but salvage and enjoy the resulting food.

It is useful to contrast the case just considered with one where someone intentionally kills a deer in order to sell it, and then sells you some of the resulting venison. In this sort of case, there is not merely wrongful action (as in the recklessness version of the case), but (we will assume) a wrongful plan of action. Further, you are not merely benefiting from that plan (as in the case where killing the deer saves your garden). Rather, you are playing a key role in the execution of the plan: the hunter’s plan requires someone to play the role of venison buyer, and you are voluntarily playing that role. This case seems strikingly ethically different from the case of salvaging venison.

Call knowingly and voluntarily fulfilling a role that needs to be fulfilled in order for a wrongful plan to work being complicit with the plan. One might suggest the following principle:

Complicity : Other things being equal, it is wrong to be complicit with others’ wrongful plans.

This principle could be used to complete the schematic argument in the following way:

1. The institutions that produce our animal products have a wrongful plan. 2. Individual consumers of animal products (non-vegans) are typically complicit with that plan. 3. Other things being equal, it is wrong (or . . .) to be complicit with others’ wrongful plans (Complicity). C. It is typically wrong (or . . .) to fail to be vegan.

As in the schematic argument, the “(or . . .)” marks the fact that one might argue for a variety of ethical statuses for veganism. The controversial core of this argument is Complicity. In order for Complicity to help complete a case for ethical veganism, it would need to be refined in several nontrivial ways. Consider two examples. First, the set of roles relevant to counting as complicit would need to be somehow restricted. For example, it is presumably essential to the success of the hunter’s plan that he not be caught in a Heffalump trap or otherwise prevented from hunting. But failing to take such steps to foil a plan seems different from the sort of active complicity described. As this case brings out, there seems to be a crucial contrast between cooperating with a plan and merely not interfering with it. 68 Second, the contemporary production of animal products is largely implemented by a highly complex system of corporations. The initial model of an individual and his or her plan will need to be extended, to apply to the complex way that plans (or something like them) can be ascribed to corporations, or even loose collections thereof. 69 Third, relatively few consumers purchase meat directly from the corporations that produce the meat. So the argument will need to support some sort of iterability: it will have to be claimed that the consumer is wrongfully complicit with the retailer who is wrongfully complicit with the wholesaler, and so on.

It is also important to clarify how Complicity interacts with questions of individual efficacy. On the one hand, individual efficacy arguably makes the ethical significance of complicity clearer. My complicity with your evil plan may seem especially objectionable where it promotes the success of that plan. 70 However, it seems objectionable even absent this: suppose you know that the hunter in our example always has buyers for his venison; if you don’t buy the venison, someone else will. I find it plausible that complicity with the hunter via buying his venison is wrong even here. 71

Compare a parallel case: the more familiar duty of fair play : this requires that I not benefit from successful cooperative institutions without making a fair contribution to them (i.e., that I not free ride ). 72 In many cases, free riding will not harm anyone, and yet it appears wrong (other things being equal) in these cases. Of course, duties of fair play are controversial, and some of the controversy surrounds just this question of efficacy. 73

As the discussion of this section makes clear, it is far from trivial to explain how to complete the schematic “naïve” argument for veganism sketched at the end of the previous section. Clarifying these issues is thus an important task as we seek to make progress on understanding the ethical status of veganism.

Complications Facing Arguments for Veganism

In this section, I discuss a series of important complications facing arguments for veganism that have not been addressed in this chapter so far. Satisfactory resolution of these issues is crucial to developing a full-fledged case for veganism. This section briefly considers complications arising from considerations of aggregation, the demandingness of the principles needed to argue for the claim that veganism is obligatory, the defeasibility of the ethical principles that support veganism, the specificity of the response required of vegans, and methodological objections to typical “intuitive” arguments for veganism. I begin by considering challenges to the ethical significance of animal suffering and death.

How Bad Is Animal Suffering and Death?

The naïve argument assumed that animals can suffer. However, this assumption has been challenged. In order to properly assess this challenge, we would need to examine several complex questions about the nature and ethical significance of pain and suffering.

One way to develop the challenge begins by noting that it is the qualitative nature of suffering—what it is like for the sufferer—that seems most clearly ethically significant. 74 For example, if we built a robot that was behaviorally very similar to a cat, but which had no phenomenal experiences, it is very unclear whether there would be anything intrinsically wrong with treating the robot in ways that elicited very strong aversive behavioral responses. (Of course, that someone would choose to do this to the robot would be disturbing, but it would be disturbing in roughly the way it would be disturbing for someone to choose to play a video game in which their avatar graphically tortured cats.)

The thesis that ethically significant suffering is a phenomenal state entails significant epistemic difficulties for supporting the claim that nonhuman animals can suffer. First, there is no agreement about what phenomenal experience consists in (is it irreducible, or can it be given a functional characterization, for example?). An empirically informed methodology here will seek to identify functional, evolutionary, and neurological correlates for phenomenal states. But there are many interesting functional and neurological similarities and differences between humans and nonhuman animals. This makes the “problem of nonhuman animals’ minds” an empirically and philosophically complex issue.

Some philosophers have argued on this basis that it is a mistake to think that animals can suffer. 75 However, it is worth noting that this sort of argument can only be as plausible as the underlying philosophical theory of phenomenal consciousness, which at very least counsels caution. If we set aside these challenges, we confront a less radical challenge: the strongest case for the possibility of animal suffering is presumably in those animals that are biologically and evolutionarily closest to humans (i.e., mammals). The question of whether other animals—most saliently birds and fish—can suffer is deeply complicated. 76 This may leave a version of veganism restricted to mammals in a significantly stronger position that those which range more broadly across the animal kingdom.

If we suppose that (certain) animals can suffer, this does not settle how bad that suffering is. Imagine your shoulder is aching. How bad this is for you is in large part a function of its meaning for you: experienced as a reminder of a vigorous workout, it will seem much less unpleasant and significant than if it is understood as a symptom of your developing arthritis. It is difficult to know whether animals can experience their suffering as meaningful in anything like these ways. This might tend to reduce the significance of animal suffering. 77 If animal suffering were systematically not that bad, this might attenuate the badness of contemporary animal agriculture. However, this is not very plausible, for at least two reasons. First, some nonhuman animals do appear to attribute significance to their experiences: witness the extended distress of cows or sows separated early from their young. Second, the idea that perceived meaning affects the badness of pain is perhaps most plausible for relatively mild pains: it is characteristic of agony that it crowds out all such reflective perspective on one’s state.

The naïve argument for the wrongness of killing animals appealed in part to the value of an animal’s future if it were not killed. One might challenge this argument by appealing to philosophical theories about personal identity, or (more broadly) the conditions for ethically significant survival. On a leading cluster of accounts, certain relations of psychological continuity are required for ethically significant survival. 78 On this view, we need to ask: Do many nonhuman animals have rich enough psychological connections to underwrite the intuitive thought that a given cow, for example, is the same moral patient over (much of) its biological lifetime? If not, this view might entail that for ethical purposes, a cow should be treated as constituted by a succession of distinct ethically significant beings. This would in turn mean that painlessly killing the cow would not be depriving it of a significant valuable future, but rather preventing the existence of its many successors. Because many philosophers are skeptical that we have any weighty duties to bring valuable lives into existence, this conclusion would undercut what is otherwise the most plausible argument for the wrongness of killing nonhuman animals.

As with the preceding challenge, I am cautiously optimistic that this challenge can be met, at least in many cases. For example, many animals appear capable of various forms of memory. 79 However, as with questions about animal pain and suffering, answers here are likely to vary substantially across species in ways that require careful empirical work to tease out. Further, as with the case of suffering, this argument takes controversial philosophical theory as an essential premise. For example, on accounts which make continuity of brain or organism essential to ethically significant survival, this objection fails immediately.

Aggregation?

It is often insisted that persons are ethically separate. 80 While it usually seems reasonable for me to impose a cost on myself now in order to attain a greater benefit later, it can seem objectionable to impose a cost on one person in order to benefit others more. The force of this idea is perhaps best dramatized in Judith Thomson’s transplant case, where we are asked to imagine that a doctor could carve up a healthy patient and distribute his organs to five others needing transplants, thereby saving five lives but killing the initial patient. 81

The view that carving up the patient would be very wrong is widely shared. But similar cases involving nonhuman animals are much less clear. Imagine the relevant case: your roving high-tech veterinary clinic finds five young deer in need of organs. The deer population around here is stable, and you know these deer would live a long and happy life if saved from imminent organ failure. As it turns out, you find a sixth, healthy deer with the requisite biological compatibilities to be the “donor.” Would it be wrong to carve this deer up to save the other five? It is at least unclear whether it is. If this point generalizes, it might suggest that there is no “separateness of nonhuman animals”: that there is no moral objection to harming or killing one animal as a means to bringing about an outcome that is best overall. 82

The idea that animal ethics should focus on aggregate effects would have significant implications. For example, consider culling populations of animals that would otherwise—in the absence of nonhuman predators—predictably go through cycles of population explosion and starvation. The most obvious objection to this policy is that it harms the animals culled, but if the culling is best for the population in aggregate, the anti-separateness thesis would undercut the objection. Returning to veganism, if the culling is legitimate, objections to then eating or otherwise using the culled animals will be harder to develop. 83

Demandingness?

Several philosophers have reported to me that they accept the soundness of arguments for veganism but have not become vegan. 84 One explanation for this phenomenon is that—at least for many people—it is very difficult to become vegan: doing so would require abandoning cherished foods, coping with new inconveniences, developing new tastes and learning new skills, not to mention potentially creating conflict in our relationships. While the thesis that veganism is obligatory is thus arguably quite demanding, it may also be that the arguments needed to defend a requirement to be vegan have implications that are far more demanding. Consider two examples that may help to illustrate this idea. First, the appeal to individual causal efficacy is most straightforwardly developed into a case for veganism when combined with a principle that prohibits selecting options that will promote something very bad happening. But—as we saw in the example of choosing between a vacation and a charitable donation—such principles might be otherwise quite demanding, requiring us to sacrifice many pleasures in order to help others avert terrible fates.

Or consider the appeal to a complicity principle, also discussed in the previous section. Thomas Pogge has argued that the causal interconnections in the world are so dense and complex that an ordinary affluent person has likely been involved both in transactions that caused deaths and ones that saved lives. 85 Because it is plausible that many of the nodes in this web of transactions involve unjust rules and wrongful actions, one might worry that one cannot help but be complicit with wrongdoing.

If these sketchy examples reflect a general pattern, then an obligation to be vegan may only be defensible as part of a highly demanding overall ethic. If such demandingness renders an ethical theory implausible, this would in turn pose a clear and relatively neglected challenge to any claim that veganism is more than supererogatory. 86

Defeasibility?

As I noted in the first section, plausible forms of ethical veganism will be defeasible: that is, they will allow that there are a range of possible circumstances in which it is permissible to use animal products. One might argue that demandingness itself can constitute a relevant defeating condition. For example, in many cases, animal products are an essential element of the only available nutritionally adequate human diets. This is true for many hunter-gatherer cultures as well as for many subsistence farmers, for whom having a cow—or even a handful of chickens—can offer crucial protection against certain forms of malnutrition.

Ideally, the proponent of an obligation to be vegan would seek a principled account of defeasibility conditions that (a) granted permissibility in these sorts of cases, and (b) applied more generally, in a way that reduced the force of the demandingness challenge, but (c) did not permit the difficulties involved in becoming vegan to defeat the obligation more generally. It is an open question whether such an account can be developed. If it cannot, the proponent of an obligation to be vegan may be further committed to implausible demandingness in light of too-limited defeating conditions.

Specificity?

The core of veganism involves eschewing use of animal products. As we saw in the first section, one might think that our relationships to nonhuman animals have other ethical implications: implications for how our political lives should be organized, for what our political priorities should be, and for how we interact with other humans. One possibility is that the best case for veganism entails obligations of all of these types. This conclusion would suggest a further way in which arguments for ethical veganism might be highly demanding.

One natural way of mitigating the demandingness of an ethical desideratum is to permit agents options as to how they respond to it. On this sort of view, it might be argued that while the massive wrongdoing in animal agriculture demands some response from each of us, a range of such responses might be permissible. For example, consider someone who reasonably believes that transitioning to veganism would involve significant sacrifices to her well-being. Suppose that this person instead practiced ethical omnivorism, while simultaneously dedicating a significant portion of her political and financial resources to supporting organizations that she reasonably believed would best help to promote animal welfare. Absent a highly demanding ethical theory, it might be argued that such a person would count as meeting her ethical obligations. 87

The Methodological Burdens of Revisionism

An important question about demandingness objections concerns whether they should centrally be understood as targeting the demandingness of a candidate theory, or the fact that the particular demands in question fly in the face of common sense. To see the contrast, consider the claim that one might be required to endure great sacrifices to save one’s child or that a soldier can be required to sacrifice his life for his country. These are theses that make ethics very demanding, at least in certain contexts. But it is not clear that having such implications counts significantly against an ethical theory: intuitively, they simply show that sometimes it is hard to do the right thing. This might suggest that demandingness per se is not a problem. Rather, being demanding in certain respects might simply be one way in which an ethical theory can fly in the face of common sense. Any argument for an obligation to be vegan will arguably be a philosophical argument against common sense. Influential Moorean views in epistemology claim that such arguments are quite generally dubious. 88

One might think that such skepticism is especially powerful against the sorts of arguments for veganism discussed in this chapter, for two reasons. First, as that discussion illustrates, any fully developed ethical argument for an obligation to be vegan will be quite complex. Second, the central arguments discussed were methodologically naïve: they appeal centrally to clear intuitive judgments. But if the permissibility of eating a cheeseburger is also commonsensical, then one might think that the best such arguments can hope to show is that a certain complicated set of our intuitive judgments is inconsistent. One might wonder why, in this case, one should be confident that the permissibility of eating a cheeseburger is the judgment that should be abandoned. 89

One task for the ethical vegan is to rebut such arguments. If this is not possible, one possible way to reply involves being epistemically—but not practically—concessive. For example, one might grant that it is unclear whether the best arguments for veganism put us in a position to know that veganism is obligatory. The epistemically concessive vegan might argue that nonetheless, the arguments are at least strong enough to entail that we ought to suspend judgment concerning the thesis that veganism is obligatory. And here they might advocate an ethical precautionary principle: if we cannot tell whether doing A is wrong, then we ought, other things being equal to refrain from doing A . This is a quite different way of thinking about ethical veganism: on this gloss, we can know that the lifestyle is required, not in virtue of the first-order ethical facts, but as an ethical response to reasonable ethical uncertainty. 90

Another way of replying is to grant that naïve theorizing might not be enough to establish ethical veganism. Perhaps naïve arguments need to be supplemented by methodological arguments that can rebut the Moorean strategy here and provide a principled means of explaining why the permissibility of eating a cheeseburger does not survive the putative conflict imagined. 91

Conclusions

Ethical veganism can be initially motivated by compelling insights: that animals matter ethically, that our collective treatment of nonhuman animals is one of the great contemporary horrors, and that these facts make an ethical demand on each of us. This chapter has sought to illuminate the dialectic that arises when one attempts to develop these and other motivations into a philosophically careful argument. As I have sought to make clear, there are many possible species of ethical veganism worth investigating, there are many philosophical resources that can be levied into arguments for one or another vegan thesis, and there are many deep challenges facing these arguments. I have argued that there is a powerful core case for veganism, but that this case is in several important respects incomplete or poorly developed. I hope that this chapter will enable and encourage others to rigorously address these topics, thereby allowing us all to better understand the ethics of veganism, and—more broadly—the ethics of our relationships to nonhuman animals and to what we consume. 92

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Rachels, Stuart. “Vegetarianism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics , edited by Tom Beauchamp and R. G. Frey , 877‒905. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011 .

Rawls, John.   A Theory of Justice . Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1999 .

Regan, Tom.   The Case for Animal Rights. 2d ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004 .

Robinson, Luke. “ Moral Holism, Moral Generalism, and Moral Dispositionalism. ” Mind 115, no. 458 ( 2006 ): 331‒360.

Rowlands, Mark.   Animals Like Us . New York: Verso, 2002 .

Schweikard, David P. , and Hans Bernhard Schmid . “Collective Intentionality.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2013 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta . http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/collective-intentionality/ .

Schwitzgebel, Eric , and Joshua Rust . “ The Moral Behavior of Ethics Professors: Relationships among Self-Reported Behavior, Expressed Normative Attitude, and Directly Observed Behavior. ” Philosophical Psychology 27, no. 3 ( 2014 ): 293‒327.

Singer, Peter.   Animal Liberation . New York: Avon, 1977 .

______. “ Famine, Affluence, and Morality. ” Philosophy & Public Affairs 1, no. 3 ( 1972 ): 229‒243.

______. “ Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism. ” Philosophy and Public Affairs 9, no. 4 ( 1980 ): 325‒337.

Singer, Peter , and Jim Mason . 2006 . The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter . Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2006.

Smiley, Marion. “Collective Responsibility.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta . http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/collective-responsibility/ .

Smith, M. B. E. “ Is There a Prima Facie Obligation to Obey the Law? ” Yale Law Journal 82, no. 5 (April 1973): 950–976. Reprinted in The Duty to Obey the Law , edited by W. A. Edmundson. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.

Talbert, Matthew. “ Contractualism and Our Duties to Nonhuman Animals. ” Environmental Ethics 28 (Summer 2006 ): 202‒215.

Thomson, Judith Jarvis. “ Preferential Hiring. ” Philosophy and Public Affairs 2, no. 4 ( 1973 ): 364‒384.

______. “ The Trolley Problem. ” Yale Law Journal 94, no. 6 ( 1985 ): 1395‒1415.

Tooley, Michael. “ Abortion and Infanticide. ” Philosophy and Public Affairs 2, no. 1 ( 1972 ): 37‒65.

Väyrynen, Pekka. “A Theory of Hedged Moral Principles.” In Oxford Studies in Metaethics , edited by Russ Shafer-Landau , 4:91‒132 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009 ).

Walker, Polly , Pamela Rubart-Berg , Shawn McKenzie , Kristin Kelling , and Robert S. Lawrence . “ Public Health Implications of Meat Production and Consumption. ” Public Health Nutrition 8, no. 4 ( 2005 ): 348‒356.

Weatherson, Brian. “ Running Risks Morally. ” Philosophical Studies 167, no. 1 ( 2014 ): 141‒163.

Wenz, Peter S. “ An Ecological Argument for Vegetarianism. ” Ethics and Animals 5 (March 1984): 2‒9.

Wood, Allen. “ Kant on Duties Regarding Non-Rational Nature. ” Supplementary Volume, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 72 ( 1998 ): 189–210.

Zamir, Tzachi.   Ethics and the Beast . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007 .

______. “ Veganism. ” Journal of Social Philosophy 35, no. 3 (Fall 2004 ): 367–379.

Zimmerman, Michael J.   The Concept of Moral Obligation . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996 .

For a useful discussion of this issue, see Pluhar, “Who Can Be Obligated,” 191–193.

See, e.g., Lance and Little, “Where the Laws Are” ; McKeever and Ridge, Principled Ethics ; Robinson, “Moral Holism” ; and Väyrynen, “Hedged Moral Principles.”

McPherson, “Case for Ethical Veganism” ; McPherson, “Why I Am a Vegan”; McPherson, “How to Argue.”

For a related idea, compare Harman, “Eating Meat.”

See Gruen and Jones, “Veganism as an Aspiration.”

For a vivid depiction of someone struggling with this question, see Coetzee, Lives of Animals .

Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice , 325–407; Plunkett, “Methodology of Political Philosophy.”

Zamir, “Veganism,” 368–369.

For discussion of some of these social and political questions, see Donaldson and Kymlicka, Zoopolis ; Michaelson, “Accommodator’s Dilemma” ; Rowlands, Animals Like Us , ch. 10.

E.g., Walker et al., “Public Health Implications.”

Campbell and Campbell, China Study , 242.

Singer and Mason, The Way We Eat , 282–283.

However, for an argument that human health-based considerations can play an important role in utilitarian arguments for vegetarianism, see Garrett, “Utilitarianism, Vegetarianism, and Human Health.”

Walker et al., “Public Health Implications.”

Estimates of the climate impact of animal agriculture range wildly, from between a twentieth and a half of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. See Goodland and Anhang, “Livestock and Climate Change” ; Fairlie, Benign Extravagance , ch. 13; and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Role of Livestock,” for competing estimates of the climate effects of animal agriculture. Assessing which of these competing estimates is relevant for ethical purposes requires complex empirical and ethical argument.

For a case for vegetarianism that appeals centrally to such considerations, see Fox, “Vegetarianism and Planetary Health.”

See Fairlie, Benign Extravagance , ch. 4, for defense of this idea; Wenz’s “Ecological Argument” is an environmentally based argument for vegetarianism that is concessive on this front.

Goodman, “Indian and Tibetan Buddhism,” sec. 5.

Harvey, Buddhist Ethics , 156, 163.

Cf. Linzey, Animal Theology ; Halteman, Compassionate Eating .

For a useful discussion, see Doggett and Halteman, “Food Ethics and Religion.”

For a useful but incomplete bibliography, see “Vegetarianism and Animals,” The Philosophy of Food Project,

http://www.food.unt.edu/bibliography/#16 .

For an explicit discussion of utilitarianism and vegetarianism, see Singer, “Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism.” Many other important discussions make the most sense if we presuppose the utilitarian framework that their authors accept, although they do not explicitly presuppose utilitarianism; see Singer, Animal Liberation ; Norcross, “Puppies, Pigs, and People”; and S. Rachels, “Vegetarianism.” For Kantianism, see, e.g., Wood, “Kant on Duties” ; Korsgaard, “Fellow Creatures” ; and Calhoun, “But What about the Animals?” For virtue theory, see Hursthouse, “Applying Virtue Ethics.” For various contract approaches, see Baxter, People or Penguins ; Rowlands, Animals Like Us , ch. 3; and Talbert, “Contractualism and Our Duties.”

Regan, Case for Animal Rights . The exegesis in this paragraph largely follows that in McPherson, “Moorean Defense?”

Regan, Case for Animal Rights , sec. 7.5.

Certain elements of Regan’s total view complicate this conclusion. See Pluhar, “Who Can Be Obligated,” 193–197.

For a superb introduction to many of the choice points facing some of the major approaches to systematic normative ethics, see Kagan, Normative Ethics .

This approach to animal ethics is widespread; two exemplary instances are J. Rachels, “Moral Argument,” and DeGrazia, “Moral Vegetarianism.” I take this approach in McPherson, “Why I Am a Vegan.”

Bentham, Works , XVII.IV n. 1, emphasis in original.

For an argument against beginning the case for ethical vegetarianism by appeal to this sort of idea, see Diamond, “Eating Meat.” Diamond suggests that such arguments are too abstract and disconnected from the texture of our lived relationships with animals to form apt bases for ethical arguments.

For one way of developing these points, see McPherson, “Why I Am a Vegan.”

Tooley, “Abortion and Infanticide,” 40.

E.g., by Pollan, Omnivore’s Dilemma , ch. 17.

This is inspired by the analogous point about our judgments about killing and letting die in J. Rachels, “Active and Passive Euthanasia.”

Compare McMahan, “Eating Animals” ; DeGrazia, “Moral Vegetarianism,” 160–164; Harman, “Moral Significance of Animal Pain” ; Norcross, “Significance of Death” ; and McPherson, “Why I Am a Vegan.”

In the sense discussed in Nagel, “Death,” and Marquis, “Why Abortion Is Immoral.”

Compare Lippert-Rasmussen, “Two Puzzles.”

For related skepticism about the usefulness of “moral status” talk, see Zamir, Ethics and the Beast , ch. 2.

Jaworska and Tannenbaum, “Grounds of Moral Status.”

Compare Cohen, “Critique,” 162.

For some of the literally gory details, see Mason and Singer, Animal Factories .

S. Rachels, “Vegetarianism.”

For example, according to the Environmental Working Group, direct US subsidies to dairy and livestock totaled nearly $10 billion in 1995–2012. Other, much larger subsidies—such as on grain used for feed—serve to indirectly subsidize US animal agriculture. “Farm Subsidy Database,” Environmental Working Group, http://farm.ewg.org/ .

Hursthouse, “Applying Virtue Ethics,” 141–142.

Pollan, Omnivore’s Dilemma , 650.

Harvey, Buddhist Ethics , 159.

For criticism of some of the other options, see Budolfson, “Inefficacy Objection to Deontology,” sec. 3–4.

Singer, “Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism.”

Singer, “Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism,” 335.

Broilers spend around six weeks in the chicken unit before being transported for slaughter. Mason and Singer, Animal Factories , 7.

For very similar arguments, see Matheny, “Expected Utility” ; Norcross, “Puppies, Pigs, and People”; and Kagan, “Do I Make a Difference?”

See Frey, Rights, Killing, and Suffering ; Frey, “Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism Again” ; Chartier, “Threshold Argument” ; and Budolfson, “Inefficacy Objection to Consequentialism.”

Compare Chartier, “Threshold Argument,” 240ff.

For discussion, see, e.g., Feldman, “Actual Utility.”

For relevant discussion, see, e.g., Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” ; and Cullity, Moral Demands .

For relevant discussion, see Appiah, “Racism and Moral Pollution.”

For a helpful introduction to relevant debates, see Smiley, “Collective Responsibility.”

Gilbert, “Who’s to Blame?”

E.g., Held, “Random Collection” ; Bjornsson, “Joint Responsibility” ; and Pinkert, “What We Together.”

E.g., McGary, “Morality and Collective Liability.”

For a parallel case, see Björnsson, “Joint Responsibility,” 108. For relevant discussion, see also Zimmerman, Concept of Moral Obligation , ch. 9.

One complication is that—as mentioned in the discussion of self-interested reasons to be vegan—the omnivore’s dietary choices might in fact be overall bad for her, suggesting a straightforward sense in which they do not benefit her. However, the omnivore—at least immediately—gets what she wants in eating animal products. And I suspect that the argument will be similarly plausible if we simply stipulate that this counts as a benefit.

Thomson, “Preferential Hiring,” 383; Butt, “On Benefitting.”

Pasternak, “Voluntary Benefits.”

Goodin and Barry, “Benefitting from Wrongdoing,” 2.

For further discussion of cases like this one, compare Bruckner, “Strict Vegetarianism.”

E.g., Diamond, “Eating Meat,” sec. 3.

Making this distinction well is far from trivial. For example, if one had a standing obligation to prevent hunting (e.g., one was the local game warden, etc.), then merely turning a blind eye to the hunting would seem objectionable. Or suppose the hunter held you in such esteem that you could prevent the hunt with a single gentle word, perhaps here again you have a duty. Perhaps failing to prevent the hunt in these cases does not count as complicity, but is objectionable on other grounds.

For an introduction to collective intentionality, see Schweikard and Schmid, “Collective Intentionality.”

For an intermediate position, see Lepora and Goodin, Complicity and Compromise , sec. 4.1.1, which appeals to a notion of “potential essentiality,” according to which a relatively weak possibility of difference-making is necessary for complicity.

Mark Budolfson, “The Inefficacy Objection to Deontology,” has argued for a further important variant of a complicity view. He proposes that how essential the wrongness of the production of a product is can affect how wrong it is to consume it. For example, it is worse to purchase the archetypal Nazi-made soap than it is to purchase a watch made in a concentration camp because the fact that the soap is made from human fat makes the wrongful character of its production more essential than the wrongful character of the production of the watch was. This sort of idea might be used to defend the idea that it is wrong to eat beef, where wrongful treatment of animals is relatively essential, but not wrong to drink milk, because while the wrongful treatment of dairy cows is ubiquitous, it is inessential to the production of milk.

Klosko, Principle of Fairness .

E.g., Smith, “Prima Facie Obligation.” For a reply, see Dagger, Civic Virtues , 71.

For a case for potentially ethically significant animal mental states that do not involve phenomenal consciousness, see Carruthers, “Suffering without Subjectivity.”

E.g., Dennett, Brainchildren , 161–168.

For an introduction to the study of animal consciousness, see Allen and Trestman, “Animal Consciousness.”

For an argument that it can also make it worse, see Akhtar, “Animal Pain and Welfare.”

For discussion, see Olson, “Personal Identity,” esp. sec. 4.

Allen and Trestman, “Animal Consciousness,” sec. 7.4.

E.g., Rawls, Theory of Justice , sec. 5–6.

Thomson, “Trolley Problem,” 1396.

For relevant discussion of this hypothesis, see Nozick Anarchy, State and Utopia , 35–42.

The ethical legitimacy of aggregation might also seem to support a controversial objection to veganism: that widespread veganism would tend to lead to the existence of far fewer cows, pigs, chickens, etc. If we assume (controversially) that these animals currently tend to have lives that are worth living, this would entail that veganism was worse overall for animals. And aggregation might seem to bolster this argument. This argument faces severe further difficulties, however. Here are two: first, reduced numbers of farm animals will likely be accompanied by increased numbers of wild animals; second, this argument likely require controversial views about the ethical significance of bringing entities with valuable lives into existence (for the classic discussion of this issue, see Parfit, Reasons and Persons , Part Four).

For non-anecdotal evidence that philosophers’ failing to act on their belief that they should be vegetarian is widespread, see Schwitzgebel and Rust, “Moral Behavior.”

Pogge, “Severe Poverty,” 17.

For a related worry, see Gruen and Jones, “Veganism as an Aspiration.”

For relevant discussion taking Peter Singer as its foil, see Frey, Rights, Killing and Suffering , ch. 16. It is illuminating here that the Animal Liberation Front—a radical group that advocates direct and often illegal action in defense of animals—requires only vegetarianism, and not veganism, as a minimal requirement for association. “Credo and Guidelines,” Animal Liberation Front, http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/alf_credo.htm .

For discussion, see McPherson, “Moorean Arguments” and “Moorean Defense?”

McPherson, “Case for Ethical Veganism,” sec. 3.

For contrasting assessments of the underlying precautionary idea, see, on the one hand, Guererro, “Don’t Know, Don’t Kill”; and Moller, “Abortion and Moral Risk” ; and, on the other, Weatherson, “Running Risks Morally.”

McPherson, “Moorean Defense?” and “Case for Ethical Veganism.”

I am indebted to the editors of this volume for wonderful feedback on a draft of this chapter. Portions of this chapter draw significantly on my previous work on this topic, including “A Case for Ethical Veganism”; “How to Argue”; “A Moorean Defense”; and “Why I Am a Vegan.”

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Veganism, Moral Motivation and False Consciousness

Susana pickett.

School of History, Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

Despite the strength of arguments for veganism in the animal rights literature, alongside environmental and other anthropocentric concerns posed by industrialised animal agriculture, veganism remains only a minority standpoint. In this paper, I explore the moral motivational problem of veganism from the perspectives of moral psychology and political false consciousness. I argue that a novel interpretation of the post-Marxist notion of political false consciousness may help to make sense of the widespread refusal to shift towards veganism. Specifically, the notion of false consciousness fills some explanatory gaps left by the moral psychological notion of akrasia , often understood to refer to a weakness of will. Central to my approach is the idea that animal exploitation is largely systemic and the assumption that moral motivation is inseparable from moral thinking. In this light, the primary obstacle to the adoption of veganism arises not so much from a failure to put genuine beliefs into action, but rather in a shared, distorted way of thinking about animals. Thus, common unreflective objections to veganism may be said to be manifestations of false consciousness.

Introduction

Why does the case for veganism often fail to convince? Insofar as it does sway opinion, why then does it fail to motivate large-scale social change? Whilst moral disagreements are inevitable, the core case for veganism from the animal rights perspective – complemented as it is by environmental, social justice, and global health considerations – is robust. 1 Considering this jointly with commonly held moral principles, one might reasonably expect the percentage of vegans to be much higher, at least in economically developed societies. On the other hand, apathy towards veganism prevails, and common objections to veganism often rest on rationalisations (Piazza 2015 , p. 114). In this paper, I suggest that a failure to accept the moral status of animals as required by veganism may itself constitute a failure of moral motivation (hereinafter referred to as motivation). Central to this position is the premise that moral thinking and motivation are inseparable, and thus thinking does not necessarily precede motivation. If this is the case, then common excuses presented against veganism express failures of motivation rather than intent, by which I mean the motivation to think of animals as being recipients of moral consideration in a manner that conflicts with our social habits and received opinion.

To narrow the scope of my opening questions, I examine the motivational problem from two radically opposing perspectives; namely akrasia and false consciousness. Akrasia – often known as ‘weakness of the will’ – is a failure of practical reasoning whereby individuals act knowingly and willingly against their better judgement. This idea has already been developed by Aaltola ( 2016 ) to explain the widespread reluctance to adopt veganism. Marxian false consciousness, by contrast, is traditionally understood as the social consciousness of an exploited class. It leads individuals to act – not fully knowingly or willingly, and thus not akratically – under a dominant ideology. This ideology may run contrary to one’s best interests, but I argue that it can also taint one’s conception of the ‘greater’ good. I understand false as applying to groups of individuals beyond social class, and argue that it is false consciousness, rather than akrasia, that is more likely to be a persistent condition that dampens motivation. As such, false consciousness may have greater explanatory power than akrasia for the widespread refusal to shift towards veganism.

This paper is divided into three sections. First, I offer a brief overview of the motivational difficulties associated with veganism, specifically the role of willpower and typically presented rationalisations. Second, I give an overview of akrasia and the structure of akratic action. Furthermore, I consider social factors which impact upon our moral thinking, serving to highlight that moral thinking is not reducible to syllogistic-style reasoning. Shortcomings of the application of akrasia lead on to the final section on false consciousness, wherein I explore the persistency of dominant ideologies and their impact upon moral thinking and motivation.

The Vegan Motivational Problem

Moral motivation is typically conceived as the phenomenon of being motivated to do what one judges to be the right thing to do. Naturally, moral reasons can conflict with one’s self-interest and other reasons. In the animal ethics literature, care ethicists, including Luke ( 1992 ), are critical of the mainstream, rationalist approach exemplified by Singer ( 2015 ) and Regan ( 2004 ). The rationalist approach tends to put forward arguments for veganism and vegetarianism without tackling the motivational question of why some people may be convinced by their arguments but fail to put their beliefs into action. By contrast, care ethicists consider humans to have an innate sense of empathy towards animals, which is the basis of moral motivation, but such empathy needs to be cultivated. A problem with this approach is that most people carry on eating animals despite being empathetic to their suffering. Indeed, it is not unusual for carnivores to feel guilt and avoid imagining a slaughtered cow when eating a hamburger (Greenebaum 2012 , p. 316). Hence, it is pertinent to ask why veganism poses such motivational difficulties, considering that the public possesses some moral regard for animals as well as varying degrees of empathy for animals.

Bona Fide Challenges

While some aspects of veganism, such as health and environmental considerations, may be motivated by human self-interest, other dimensions conflict not only with narrow self-interest but also with prudential self-interest. As such, they constitute bona fide reasons to act or side against veganism. ‘Go vegan’ approaches present veganism as being easy, yet some challenges merit attention. These include financial sacrifice, social alienation, and conflict. However, I argue that taste (flavour) is not a bona fide reason.

First, veganism may sometimes involve financial sacrifice. This is because vegan substitutes often cost more (Mills 2019 , p. 17). However, this does not apply to a large part of the population who has access to and can afford plant-based foods. Second, veganism involves alienation. Food is communal in family and social situations, and a vegan at the table can be seen as a threat (Twine 2014 , p. 632). Worse still, vegans often experience exclusion and disapproval (Bresnahan et al. 2016 , p. 13) and such forms of discrimination as ‘vegaphobia’ can arise (Horta 2018 , p. 359). Third, veganism involves moral conflict, not only because of how vegans are perceived but also because of how they perceive others. Raimond Gaita states that vegans who provocatively shout, ‘meat is murder’ exhibit a pathological gap between what they profess and how they act, in that ‘they don’t act as though they live among murderers’ (Gaita 2016 , pp. 22–23). This insight is powerful, even when applied to less polarising claims such as ‘meat involves unnecessary suffering’. From the perspective of some vegans, it can be soul-draining to inhabit a world that celebrates animal consumption and forces ‘question upon question from non-vegan interlocutors’ (Reid 2017 , p. 39), and vegans are often asked to justify their standpoint and then subsequently criticised for being ‘preachy’ (Cole and Morgan 2011 , p. 149). Fourth, radical factions can create tension with other individuals who do not live up to the expectations of the ‘hegemonic vegan frame’, a phrase coined by Wrenn ( 2019 ) to describe highly bureaucratised veganism (often referred to as the ‘vegan police’). There are indeed many ‘veganisms’ (Jones 2016 , p. 24). Hence, vegans may face opposition, not only from non-vegans but also from other vegans.

Finally, Kazez ( 2018 ) argues that food taste is not necessarily trivial. For example, persistently unpalatable food could affect one’s wellbeing. However, I disagree that this constitutes a bona fide argument against veganism, because it is based on a hypothetical consideration that assumes too much since not all vegan food tastes disgusting to most people. As Singer notes, it is not as if animal flesh is uniformly delicious and vegetarian food is uniformly awful (Singer 1980 , p. 333). Given this logic, one can reasonably object on the basis that taste is typically trivial when compared with what Rowlands ( 2013 , p. 6) refers to as an animal’s ‘vital interests’. What is one to make, then, of those seemingly incapable of going vegan owing to their craving for meat? For instance, Eugene Mills recounts how he gave up after trying to be vegan for three days. His cravings for hamburgers became so powerful that he became distracted from the pursuit of important projects (Mills 2019 , p. 19). It is not clear, though, that he deemed veganism to be an important long-term project.

Excepting taste, the aforementioned challenges can constitute bona fide, prima facie reasons for not embracing veganism. When coupled with the realisation that one’s lifestyle choices may have little positive impact globally (this is the phenomenon of ‘causal inefficacy’ which I discuss in more detail later), and after considering the disconnect between consumption, production, and killing, these reasons can become powerful. As a result, it may require substantial willpower to become a vegan against one’s cultural traditions. There are cases, however, where veganism does not require willpower. For example, where veganism is second nature (Lumsden 2017 , p. 221); or one finds joy rather than sacrifice in veganism (Aaltola 2015 , p. 42). In general, though, the act of becoming a vegan does require some degree of willpower.

Willpower in Deliberation

One may object on the grounds that, if animals have no moral status, as Hsiao ( 2015 , p. 284) proposes, then the moral motivational question of veganism does not arise. However, I disagree that this is necessarily the case. It appears to me that moral thinking and motivation are inseparable in the same way that reason and feeling cannot be fully separated, any more than form and content can. Indeed, without motivation, moral thinking would not be possible, for what else would motivate the thinking insofar as moral thinking is not purely theoretical? Hence, when I speak about moral motivation, albeit broadly conceived, I also include the motivation to deliberate about moral matters, including those concerning animals. According to this view, which I refer to as the ‘motivational unity thesis’, motivation is not always something that takes place at the end of a practical deliberation as to whether it is right or wrong to act (this is the narrow conception of motivation). Motivation is also needed to see certain others as worthy of moral deliberation in the first place.

The idea that animals have no moral worth is not commonplace, but the notion that animals are of lesser worth is central to the orthodoxy of animal welfare, a commonly held view which justifies animal suffering according to their utility to humans. This view has been said to explain ‘some of the apparently schizophrenic attitudes to animals that occur in Britain and elsewhere’ (Garner 2013 , p. 80). Regardless of whether one believes that animals are of lesser, or indeed no moral worth (or whether one has ever considered any of this in terms of moral worth), the motivation to think things through with moral seriousness fails when we conclude that we have a right to eat or kill an animal merely because, for example, it is traditional, natural, or simply because the animal was raised on a local farm or one with higher welfare standards than some other farms.

More elaborate justifications against veganism can be provided, but we fail to do justice to animals as the objects of our deliberation if we conclude that safeguarding our lifestyle habits is generally a good enough reason to justify animal exploitation. This constitutes a broad motivational failure insofar as we fail to view animals as individuals who are ‘equally real’, to borrow Thomas Nagel’s phrase (Nagel 1970 , p. 14). Still, one might lodge at least two objections. First, there is no motivational failure if it is not deemed morally objectionable to use animals as commodities in industrialised societies. Second, one might concede that a motivational failure only exists if one holds the conviction that veganism is morally obligatory, yet otherwise fails (akratically) to act accordingly.

Since this paper is not an argument for veganism, I cannot respond to the first objection directly but can link it to the second objection. To clarify, I can invoke the motivational unity thesis to argue that motivational failures can take place at the level of thinking alone (including what kind of beings to include in these considerations), and not merely when it comes to putting beliefs into action. Based on this premise, the exclusion of animals from serious moral consideration is tantamount to moral nihilism and leads only to further rationalisations when probed. Therefore, in addition to the prudential ( bona fide ) reasons against veganism discussed earlier, I now turn my attention to some common rationalisations.

Two Rationalisations

Rationalisations against veganism readily occur when the issue is not thought through. Indeed, we are prone to motivated ignorance (Tam 2019 , p. 6). The objection that animals only exist to be eaten and various other defensive tactics, exhibit apathy in the face of superior evidence to the contrary. Poor argumentation is relevant to motivation because thinking requires effort, while social habits and contempt inhibit it. Many rationalisations against veganism are merely strawmen, yet more sophisticated objections permeate the animal ethics literature, namely the causal inefficacy objection and the principle of unnecessary harm. On the one hand, causal inefficacy is the idea that an individual’s veganism has no impact on the market, specifically that one’s veganism will not make a difference to overall meat consumption. On the other hand, unnecessary harm is the principle (in the current context) by which it is unjustifiable to harm animals when vegan alternatives are available—a principle that is subject to distortion. Both principles are nonetheless interesting as they serve as a double-edged sword, both for and against veganism.

The causal inefficacy objection to veganism has accrued a vast literature which has been recently summarised by Fischer ( 2020 ). It is related to the ‘free-rider’ problem of rational choice theory, although my concern here is with the role of motivation in our thinking about causal inefficacy serving effectively as a proverbial ‘get out of jail free card’. There is a parallel with global warming, whereby people manage feelings of hopelessness with expressions such as ‘what can one person do?’, often to avoid thinking about a challenging issue (Cole & Morgan 2011 , p. 156). In fact, from the existence of a global problem alone, nothing clearly and directly follows with regards to individual responsibility.

In this context, group identity can be powerful, since a group can be more impactful and offer moral support: ‘within the safe bubble of the vegan community, its practitioners are noticeably joyous’ (Twine 2014 , p. 637). Relatedly, hope plays an important role in moral thinking. Moody-Adams ( 2017 , p. 155–6) discusses the motivating power of hope, specifically how those social movements which deepened our understanding of justice and compassion were driven by those who were confident in acting on their moral convictions and hopeful of moral change. Similarly, Agnes Tam emphasises the power of “We-reasoning” as a distinctive form of communitarian rationality (Tam 2019 , p. 3). Naturally, this does not mean that one abandons self-critical thinking, but it is a potential pitfall of identity groups (Fukuyama 2018 , p. 115).

As Garner points out, the phrase ‘unnecessary harm’ is somewhat vague, a catch-all that can have political advantages in supporting a spectrum of speciesist positions depending on geographical and historical factors (Garner 2013 , p. 81). For example, animal harm is viewed as a necessary evil in support of traditional forms of hospitality and economic interests. Central to the manipulation of these principles is the conflation of difficult, often potentially intractable empirical and analytic problems with practical moral matters about how one should live. In this vein, Reid has pointed out that simply not having a fully worked out theory of veganism is not sufficient reason, in of itself, for not becoming a vegan, in the same way as not having a fully worked out theory of knowledge is not a justification for epistemic scepticism (Reid 2017 , p. 38). Indeed, veganism can be seen as a practical stance in response to animal exploitation, even though it can only ever be aspirational, for it is not possible to avoid causing harm altogether (Gruen and Jones 2016 , p. 157–158). In order to reach the vegan practical conclusion, one need not have to resolve intractable problems of causation, collective responsibility, or necessity.

I have argued, because moral thinking and motivation are not entirely separable, that distorted thinking can dampen motivation, while motivational failures may also result in morally distorted thinking. Take, for instance, the conflation of difficult empirical and philosophical matters with practical moral considerations. Next, I consider how philosophers have traditionally accounted for the breakdown of moral motivation in practical deliberation, and how this can be applied to the vegan motivational problem.

Omnivore’s Akrasia

Akrasia , sometimes referred to as a weakness of will or incontinence, is often understood to mean an intentional action contrary to one’s better judgement. It is, by definition, rather a failure of practical rationality in the shape of a motivational failure. The literature on akrasia dates back to ancient Greek philosophy and the contemporary literature in moral psychology is often technical. To be concise, I assume that akrasia is possible and follow Davidson’s ( 1980 ) definition of akrasia as an action that is free, intentional, and contrary to a full-blown practical judgement.

In doing x an agent acts incontinently if and only if: (a) the agent does x intentionally; (b) the agent believes there is an alternative action y open to him; and (c) the agent judges that, all things considered, it would be better to do y than to do x . (Davidson 1980 , p. 22)

Practical reasoning often starts with prima facie judgements, whereupon various reasons are weighted against each other until an evaluative conclusion is derived. When deliberating whether one ought to become a vegan, prima facie reasons might include animal welfare, health, or environmental concerns (notwithstanding myriad other reasons for and against veganism, including one’s psychological and social wellbeing, or how one’s actions will be perceived by others). An individual may accept good overall reasons for adopting veganism, yet fail to embrace it in practice. Indeed, this seems quite plausible. Elisa Aaltola ( 2015 ) coined the term ‘omnivore’s akrasia ’ to refer to the state arising in those who voluntarily consume animal products despite believing that they have been produced by immoral means. Could widespread akrasia , then, play a major role in preventing a significant proportion of the public from adopting veganism? I argue that, despite its explanatory power, the traditional approach is subject to two limitations.

The Limits of Traditional Akrasia

A limitation of akrasia is that moral decisions, such as the decision to go vegan, may not necessarily be the outcome of practical deliberation. On the flip side, one’s better judgement may be faulty. In explanation, ‘all things considered’, or prima facie judgements may not necessarily yield a correct moral answer, not least because we are limited as epistemic and moral beings. Some philosophers (Arpaly 2000 ; Audi 1990 ; McIntyre 2006 ) have even questioned whether akrasia is necessarily irrational. What if the better judgement itself is faulty, or if the desires which ground the ‘better judgement’ fail to represent the agent’s overall desires and interests?

I shall illustrate this with a powerful example from Bennett's reflections on Huckleberry Finn (Bennett 1974 ), so that I can then explore how this applies to veganism. In Mark Twain’s famous novel, Huck believes that, all things considered, the right thing to do is to turn his slave friend Jim in to the authorities, but he fails to do so. ‘Huck hasn’t the strength of will to do what he sincerely thinks he ought to do’ (Bennett 1974 , p. 126). He acts simply out of sympathy for Jim. This turns akrasia on its head, for Huck acts out of moral necessity (he cannot do otherwise), yet he acts against his better judgement.

Similarly, veganism may not necessarily be the direct outcome of practical deliberation. For some, the commitment to veganism may happen over and above any prima facie considerations. It may be the case that one already has an inner necessity. For example, one is moved by the visceral repugnance of the slaughter and ingestion of animals or a deep sense of compassion.

Thus, one could argue that the akrasia explanation of non-veganism involves an overly simplistic, syllogistic account of moral thinking, largely ignoring the social context. Individuals are not disembodied moral agents capable of making rational decisions independently of the social contex—there is much more at stake than merely prima facie reasons in terms of practical deliberations about what one morally ought to do. Could a more nuanced, socially informed notion of akrasia serve to overcome this limitation?

Sociopolitical Akrasia

Aaltola ( 2015 , 2016 ) takes a nuanced sociopolitical approach to omnivore’s akrasia . Like Amelie Rorty ( 1997 ), she views akrasia as a social problem, in that social forces prevent veganism by placing individuals within a continual state of akrasia wherein conscious deliberation and self-control are futile. These forces include ambiguity or conflict at the root of our institutions, habit, consumerism, and the culture of immediate reward or sensory hedonism. Significantly, the meat-eaters’ paradox, in which a societal love for certain animals such as dogs and cats is cultivated, while cows, pigs, and other animals, which are equally sentient, are mistreated and slaughtered, is entrenched within our institutions (Aaltola 2016 , p. 118).

Despite these conflictual beliefs, 2 most individuals believe that food choices are rational but overlook how these choices are grounded via emotive, cultural, or otherwise more ambiguous justifications (Aaltola 2016 , p. 117). Habit perpetuates the meat-eaters’ paradox for, although the original reason for eating meat was survival, it is no longer essential for a large part of the world’s population, so it is in some ways a mindless habit and one that is exacerbated by consumerism. Given this, asking individuals to exercise self-control is insufficient (Aaltola 2016 , p. 124). Indeed, ‘our akratic choices may take place beyond the possibility of conscious deliberation, and thereby beyond the possibility of conscious hedonism or egoism’ (Aaltola 2016 , p. 131). This results in a vicious circle wherein contempt may feed moral apathy and we may thus become apathetic to act altruistically. Therefore, Aaltola ( 2016 , p. 135) concludes that we are in a state of continual akrasia .

Whilst such application of akrasia is insightful, akrasia may not be the best explanation for the phenomenon of widespread omnivorism. Crucially, the possibility of perpetual akrasia seems absurd, especially given that akrasia is, by definition, free intentional action contrary to one’s better judgement. In the context of permanent akrasia , as described by Aaltola, individuals are not acting freely or intentionally, and their better judgement is not to become vegans. As such, they are not akratically failing to become vegans: they never set out to do so in the first place, so there is no motivational failure as the rational outcome of practical deliberation.

Similarly, akrasia may not be the best notion to incorporate mindlessness, self-deception or voluntary ignorance. The notion of akrasia struggles to accommodate the fact that not all our thinking is transparent, bona fide , or easily moulded into practical syllogisms. For instance, it has been said that, once we are accustomed to behaving in ways that have implicit normative content, we struggle to contemplate the possibility of change and may thus engage in self-deception to justify wrongful actions (Cooke 2017 , p. 9). John Searle exemplified one such deception: ‘I try not to think about animal rights because I fear I’d have to become a vegetarian if I worked it out consistently.’ (Cooke 2017 , p. 10).

Indeed, such deception is more likely to be widely shared, given that most people give similar excuses against veganism, commonly referred to as the 4Ns (the belief that eating meat is natural, normal, necessary, and nice; Piazza et al. 2015 ). For Luke ( 1992 , p. 106), such rationalisations consume abundant social energy. However, one can object that very little thinking power is normally used, even though the passions may be inflamed. Given these limitations, one must ask whether the notion of false consciousness would fare any better in accounting for such persistent motivational gaps and largely unreflective responses to veganism or be more cohesive with the idea that animal exploitation is largely systemic.

Omnivore’s False Consciousness

False consciousness is a post-Marxian notion. Although Marx did not use the phrase ‘fase consciousness’, the notion is embedded in much of his thinking. Thus, Miller ( 1972 , p. 433) argues that a broad interpretation of the related concept of ideology, understood as applying to theories, belief-systems and practices involving the use of ideas, has great explanatory power concerning the persistency and influence of ideologies over the actions of the groups who adopt such ideologies. Crucially, if such a group is confronted by others holding incompatible ideas, ‘it has no resources to fall back upon, it can only reaffirm its original faith’ (Miller 1972 , p. 433). Alternatively, if the ideology is seen primarily as an explanatory framework, then ‘the ideology is given repeated empirical confirmation, through the selection of what is perceived’ (Miller 1972 , p. 433). When ideologies function in these ways, they can be said to involve false consciousness. If Miller is correct, and omnivorism can be shown to depend on an ideology that necessarily involves false consciousness, then this may account for the persistency of omnivorism over reasoned arguments, thus filling the gaps left by omnivore’s akrasia .

In Marxist theory, false consciousness is essentially deemed to be political in nature and refers to the social consciousness of the proletariat as an exploited class under capitalism. It is thereby related to the concept of ideological power and forms the basis of Luke’s third dimension of power, wherein the illegitimate use of power by one group over another confers the power to mislead (Lukes 2005 , p. 149). To put it simply, it is the power to control what groups think as being right, resulting in biased acceptance without question. Marx and Engels used the concept of ideology to refer to ‘the distorted beliefs intellectuals [hold] about society and the power of their own ideas. Those who produced ideologies suffered from false consciousness: they were deluded about their own beliefs.’ (Eyerman 1981 , p. 43). Given this tenet, one may be puzzled by my use of false consciousness, as it seems to shift the construct of veganism to being about people rather than about animals. How, then, is false consciousness relevant to the problem of motivation in veganism, given that animals are the exploited group in question, even to the extent that some theorists, such as Perlo ( 2002 , p.306), have likened animals to the proletariat?

The notion of false consciousness has evolved since its origins, and my intention here is to expand its application further. Marx’s concept was further developed by Gramsci, Lukacs and the early Frankfurt School, and later expanded to apply to any social class with a ‘limited form of experience in society’ (Eyerman 1981 , p. 43–44). Thus, it is not limited to Marxian class and has been more applied broadly to groups both before and after the rise of capitalism. For example, Michael Rosen ( 2016 , p. 10) sees Marxian false consciousness as a critique and the development of rationalistic understandings of a previously unformulated notion of false consciousness, beginning with Plato, for whom irrationality of the soul led to the injustices of the state; and Aristotle, for whom false consciousness is necessarily akratic . Omnivore’s false consciousness may thus be viewed as a novel development and a particular application of false consciousness 3 to a broad majority of humans who practise omnivorism in economically developed societies.

Narrow and Broad False Consciousness

So, what then is false about false consciousness? False consciousness is often portrayed in terms of one being misled about one’s true interests. However, there is a distinction arising between being blinded by one’s interests (i.e., being impetuous) and being blind to them, where false consciousness is often associated with the latter (Runciman 1969 , p. 303). The self-interest interpretation, however, omits the altruistic and moral dimensions of human thinking, whereby one may also be blind not only to others’ interests but also to their moral dimension. Traditionally, false consciousness is about group interest and social ontology, but I shall argue that it can also distort moral thinking in much the same way as it distorts non-moral thinking. The notion that Marxism is not totally abstracted from morality is not novel (e.g., Lukes 1985 ), so I will instead set the context before I explain how it bears on veganism.

Marx avoided talk about morality, not only because he hated preaching and was distrustful of the moralist per se (Popper 1995 , p. 220), but because he saw contemporary morality as being part of the bourgeois superstructure, in which class morality added an extra layer of false consciousness. The worker believes, according to Singer, that capitalist has a moral right to the profits 4 (Singer 2018 , p. 83). Although Lenin and others claimed that Marx’s theory was purely scientific, it has since been argued that Marx held a normative position, not least because of his desire to end capitalism (Cochrane 2010 , p. 95; Singer 2018 , p. 82), his hatred of servility, and his ‘desire for a better world that it is hard not to see as moral’ (Lukes 1985 , p. 3).

Central to the Marxian notion of false consciousness is the tenet that both the capitalist and proletariat are afflicted by it and, thus, that the proletariat believed, whether implicitly or explicitly, that the capitalist had a moral or legitimate right to profit. If proletarian Jim held such a belief about himself, he would also believe that the capitalist had a right to the labour of his fellow proletarians. In this world view, the proletariat is both wronged by the capitalist and unaware that they have been wronged. Similarly, capitalists had so distorted or delimited moral ideas insofar as they too failed to acknowledge the true interests of the exploited group and were unaware of their wrongdoing. In the case of animals, the public largely carries on supporting systemic practices of animal-exploitation without acknowledging the wrongs inflicted on animals in its name.

Hence, false consciousness may be understood narrowly as relating to either self or group interest or, more broadly, as including an altruistic moral dimension in the sense of limiting such a dimension. Indeed, if I am blind to my own true interests, then I may not necessarily be receptive to those of other people or those of animals. My claim is not that there is a causal link between blindness to one’s own interests and blindness to the interests of others, but rather that it is absurd to contend that false consciousness impacts only one’s self-interested thinking. Crucially, false consciousness may so taint one’s conception of the good and limit the moral self, that it has the effect of occluding the motivational difficulties of veganism. Hence, the akratic break (motivational failure) does not actually take place, at least not explicitly.

This broad interpretation of false consciousness presupposes a close link between alienation and false consciousness. As Rosen states in his discussion of Marx’s early writings on alienation as a form of life, ‘the alienated worker’s failure to recognize himself in the product of his labour and the failure of isolated individuals to recognize each other fully as fellow human beings are expressions of false consciousness that are lived and experienced before they are theorized about or reflected upon.’ (Rosen 2016 , p. 35). In this sense, the moral self is not impervious to false consciousness. This is interesting within the context of the vegan debate, as the cumulative case for veganism (i.e., the case from a wide range of perspectives) encompasses both moral and enlightened self-interested strands. If we deem both the narrow and broad sense of false consciousness to be appropriate, then this may help to explain how a substantial proportion of the general public may be somewhat blinded by the dominant animal-exploiting ideology in contrasting, yet complementary ways, so as to render the ideology quite impenetrable.

This narrow sense of false consciousness applies to the case for veganism from either anthropocentric or enlightened self-interest perspectives. Strictly, these perspectives support plant-based living as opposed to fully blown ethical veganism but are largely consistent with it. Overall, exploitative animal practices are agreed to have a detrimental impact on the environment, sustainability, and climate change (Rosi 2017 ; Sabaté & Soret 2014 ), as well as global human health (Tuso 2013 ) and that of future generations (Deckers 2011 ). Zoonotic diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have also been traced to wet markets where animals are confined within unnatural and unsanitary conditions (Singer 2020 , pp. 82–83). Despite these, and other harms to humans, the animal agricultural complex has a vested interest in continued animal exploitation. Moreover, the advertising industry and media can exercise tremendous power in perpetuating the desire to consume animal products.

There are at least two difficulties with the attribution of narrow false consciousness in these scenarios. First, the oppressor and oppressed (or exploiter and exploited) groups are not distinct, for at least some humans count as the exploited, even though they too contribute to animal exploitation through their consumption and labour. Although this complicates matters, it does not in of itself make the premise of false consciousness impossible, for (unlike Marxian social class) an individual can belong to more than one group at any one time. In this respect, animals are posited as the oppressed, yet humans are both oppressor and oppressed. In fact, the presumption of such a stark dichotomy of classes would have very little application in terms of the animal agricultural complex which lacks any clearly defined boundaries.

Second, false consciousness is supposed to affect both the exploiter and exploited alike, but it is not altogether clear why it would not be in the interest of the exploiter to exploit, particularly in terms of material self-interest. It may well be that the exploiting group is subject to false consciousness but is not necessarily deceived about its own material self-interest. After all, many people’s livelihoods depend on animal agriculture, which does not go against their immediate, material self-interest. However, the exploiter might be in denial about the consequences of their own exploitation. In Hegel’s dialectic, which influenced Marx’s thinking, the master (to his own detriment) becomes too dependent on the slave. When translated in terms of the current exploitation of animals and nature, exploiters act in such a way as though they are blind to the ultimate consequences of their actions, yet the crucial difference here lies between enlightened self-interest in the medium term and the long run, for it is the latter that false consciousness is supposed to affect.

On the other hand, in a somewhat broader sense, false consciousness acts against the case for veganism from the point of view of ethical and political perspectives such as animal rights and care ethics. These are deemed to be ‘veganism for the animals’ perspectives that constitute the core of ethical veganism, which are not defensible from the standpoint of self-interest. In this context, false consciousness might serve as a good explanatory match for two phenomena; namely the absence of moral reflection on whether one ought to become a vegan (in light of the meat-eater's paradox), and second, the poverty of thinking exemplified by the public’s common rebuttals in response to arguments for veganism.

Although not all objections or negative responses to veganism are crude, there is a widespread social malaise in the form of a prevalent moral apathy towards the exploitation of animals. This matter is political, not only from the perspective that humans exercise illegitimate power over animals but also that animals are worthy of political justice as argued, for example, in The Political Turn in Animal Ethics (Garner and O'Sullivan 2016 ). Further, it could be construed that the public’s commonplace objections to veganism are socially determined and thus often devoid of individual self-expression. The issue is also a very personal one, in the sense that moral thinking is inextricably personal, yet such thinking may at times be thwarted by sociopolitical imperatives. When deliberating on whether one ought to become a vegan, insofar as one engages in moral discourse at all, the moral problem is, and ought to be, inescapably one’s own in the sense that one cannot pass it on to someone else to resolve on one’s behalf (on this topic see Gaita 1989 , p. 128), let alone rely on the unexamined opinions of the majority. However, this is precisely what tends to happen when people confront veganism. The next step, then, is to relate common, unreflective objections to veganism to aspects of political false consciousness.

Four Features of False Consciousness

To deconstruct how thinking can be systematically distorted, I build on Miller’s account of the four dimensions of false consciousness (Miller 1972 , p. 443–444), sketching how these features may be manifested in omnivore’s false consciousness. The four interrelated features are conceptual inadequacy, isolation of phenomena, eternalisation, and reification.

First, false consciousness involves a degree of conceptual inadequacy in that it leads to fallacious reasoning . For example, generalisations based on superficial similarity, whereupon subsequent analysis can reveal them to be disparate. Conceptual inadequacy includes such common injunctions against veganism as animals being unintelligent, carnivorism natural, and vegans self-righteous. These claims expose distortion as empirical analysis – and frequently linguistic or logical analysis alone – can prove them to be fallacious.

For instance, does it follow from the premise that animals are less intelligent that we have a moral right to eat them? Does the fact that something is natural necessarily make an action or attitude morally justifiable? Are all vegans self-righteous? Even if they all are, this latter argument is effectively ad hominem and therefore invalid. Similarly, the idea that veganism is impossible because nobody can ever avoid partaking in harming animals is to misunderstand the very concept of veganism. It exhibits fallacious reasoning by misusing the concept of vagueness. Just because there are borderline cases between a child and an adult, or shades of grey, it does not necessarily follow that nobody can ever be an adult, or that nothing can be truly black. The same holds true for veganism. While nobody would seriously deny that adulthood or true blackness are possible, many are prepared to subject veganism to a reductio ad absurdum . These common examples of conceptual inadequacy are not isolated mistakes, or merely manifestations of the ignorance of specific information, but rather are fundamental ways in which thought fails. They are manifestations of how the acceptance of the moral and political legitimacy (or neutrality) of animal exploitation is deeply rooted within the collective consciousness and embedded within our social institutions.

Second, the process involves the isolation of phenomena, notably a refusal to see an instance of individual behaviour as being part of a wider social system. For example, the belief that one exercises free will in consumer choices 5 and, therefore, that one’s decision to eat animals is autonomous when one is, in actuality, making socially conditioned decisions which are influenced by the meat industry. Hence, Nibert talks of a socially engineered public consciousness, highlighting how organisations such as the ‘Center for Consumer Freedom’ exploit both the concepts of ‘freedom’ and ‘consumer choice’ (Nibert 2013 , p. 266). Since others are doing the same, these attitudes are considered to be justificatory of the wider system.

Third, it involves eternalisation, whereby conventional relationships or characteristics are regarded as being permanently fixed within the nature of things. For example, in medieval Europe, society was ranked hierarchically from God down to inanimate objects. Similarly, the hierarchical belief in speciesism is effectively an extension of the belief that ‘might is right’, wherein biological omnivorism is extrapolated to entail a right to exploit animals. For Cooke, the view of the innate inferiority of animals is embedded within our social consciousness, and the moral imagination must be cultivated to break out of such self-deception (Cooke 2017 , p. 14–15). This feature of false consciousness serves as the key to perpetuating certain practices.

Let us consider an example of eternalisation, such as the common belief (in some countries) that a turkey must be the centrepiece of the Christmas dinner table, as tradition dictates, in such a way that a vegan alternative is deemed to be out of the question. In what way is this thinking distorted? How does it manifest as a form of false consciousness? One of the distortions revolves around the false belief that tradition is alone sufficient justification for engaging in a specific practice. Some traditions, such as forced marriages, are morally wrong and so tradition alone does not morally justify a practice. It constitutes a distorted form of thinking rather than a question of holding a false belief, as most individuals living in liberal societies do accept that tradition alone does not morally justify a practice. It manifests as a form of false consciousness insofar as the distortion is not politically neutral.

Like most animal agriculture, the mass confinement, fattening and slaughter of hundreds of millions of turkeys aged between 14 and 24 weeks for Christmas involves the illegitimate use of power of humans over animals. Yet, such traditions continue, not only because people enjoy certain flavours and family traditions, but also because a powerful industry lobby has a vested interest in perpetuating and normalising this form of animal exploitation. For example, in December 2019, the UK’s National Farmers Union (NFU) took issue with a BBC commercial in which a cartoon turkey wearing an ‘I Love Vegans’ sweater announced ‘less of us have been gobbled this year’ (The Telegraph 2019 ). The NFU feared that the BBC was promoting a political view. What was not questioned, however, was that the farming and killing of animals may not be a politically neutral standpoint.

Finally, it involves reification. It reduces individuals to the status of mere objects of fixed properties, their individuality denied, similar to the archetypal Nazi depiction of the Jew (Miller 1972 , p. 444). Animals, too, are objectified when reduced to the status of commodities such as forms of food or modes of transportation, or even being owned as pets. As expressed by Cole and Morgan ( 2011 , p. 149), ‘ethics are simply ruled out of order by the prior to objectification and invisibilisation of nonhuman animals that speciesist material and cultural practices instantiate’. This takes place on a large scale, even when people are generally aware that animals such as the Christmas turkey are (or rather were) individuals, not mere things. Still, animals are essentially commodified, an idea that also links into Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism.

Miller’s analysis provides a framework for dissecting how common objections to veganism, and the belief systems that ground them, are distorted and thereby largely unmovable. It gives weight to the idea that these objections manifest false consciousness. As a form of political false consciousness, omnivore’s false consciousness involves distorted and limited forms of thinking that are not often scrutinised. I have only touched on a small number of common objections to veganism, although there are many others, such as those exemplified in a defensive omnivore board. 6 When one of these notions is challenged, many more excuses are proffered.

What these distorted forms of thinking lack in terms of sobriety they make up for in intuitive persuasiveness by conforming to a widely accepted worldview or way of life. According to this worldview, nonhuman animals are inferior to human animals in politically significant ways that accord the latter the moral entitlement to exploit the former. As Miller recognises, one cannot easily fight instances of false consciousness by pointing out isolated errors. Thus a broader stance is needed, yet it may not be possible to avoid false consciousness altogether (Miller 1972 , p. 444). Therefore, one might ask what makes false consciousness not only possible but also so persistent and prevalent?

The Persistency of Ideologies

The link between false consciousness and ideology is key to its persistency. Gauthier ( 1997 , p.27–28) points out that the notion of an ‘ideology’ is employed inconsistently, yet is generally regarded as a pejorative aspect of our consciousness. He sees ideology as a theoretical construct, part of the ‘deep structure of self-consciousness’, that is, the capacity to conceive oneself relative to others and therefore to act in light of this conception of oneself as a member of the human species. Although it can be the subject of reflection, it is necessarily pre-reflective. This sounds puzzling, but Gauthier sees a similarity between ideology and language in that ‘both conceal a deep structure which unconsciously affects conscious activity’ (Gauthier 1997 , p. 28). Even if one cannot think outside the boundaries of a specific language or ideology, reflection and critique are still possible, thereby enabling moral progress.

Like languages, ideologies also promote social commonality. One of the main functions of social institutions is to maintain and transmit a common ideology (Gauthier 1997 , p. 28). Hence, individuals with very different ideologies, such as vegans and non-vegans, may find communication difficult. Moreover, for Marx, an ideology was not merely false but served an intentional role both in upholding the extant social order (Rawls 2008 , p. 361) and continuing the status quo in terms of the exploitation of the proletariat. For example, hiding the act of robbery within the construct of capitalism is essential. Similarly, exploiters of animals do not want to be perceived to be exploitative, whether these agents be the state or the lawmakers protecting animal-exploiting institutions. Farmers’ associations have privileged access in terms of shaping the viewpoint of the media and in influencing agricultural policy and legislation (Benton 1993 , p. 160). For example, both the US and Australia have introduced ‘ag-gag’ laws that essentially criminalise the dissemination of information about the treatment of animals (O'Sullivan 2016 , p. 53). Moreover, the institutionalised praise of exploiters and punishment of animal liberationists is not a morally neutral position with regard to conceptions of the good that liberal states purport to do. As Schmitz says, ‘the animal question debunks the appearance of neutrality’ (Schmitz 2016 , p. 42).

If we interpret ideologies as being pre-reflective, this aids in explaining their persistency and evasiveness from rational argumentation. As Miller suggests, repeated selective perception confirms the ideology (Miller 1972 , p. 433), yet it is difficult to construct a simple verification or falsification test, as ideologies are false at the level of the whole (Miller 1972 , p. 435). As such, they are not a mere set of commonly held ideas, but rather embody attitudes, common behaviours, and practices. Thus, the ideology that dominates our relationship with animals in developed societies gives rise to a level of false consciousness. It is pre-reflective in that societies embrace omnivorism without perceiving the moral need to justify it, although it is possible to reflect on it. When the dominant ideology is challenged, rationalisations can ensue. Since an ideology is not a specific set of beliefs that can be proven to be true or false in isolation, it is very difficult to ‘prove’ that omnivorism is morally wrong, or that veganism is right in such a way that any rational moral agent could be convinced.

One might object to the premise that attributing false consciousness is arrogant, for it requires a privileged perspective in terms of intellect and education. As Polsby states, ‘the presumption that the “real” interests of a class can be assigned to them by an analyst allows the analyst to charge “false consciousness” when the class in question disagrees with the analyst’ (Polsby 1963 , p. 22–3). However, is the attribution of false consciousness necessarily arrogant? Lukes ( 2005 , p. 149–150) argues that recognising the possibility of false consciousness is neither condescending, nor inherently illiberal, or even paternalistic. He considers, for example, J.S. Mill’s analysis of the subjection of Victorian women to the rule of men (in Mill 2009 [1869], p. 25) which can be interpreted as showing how most women were subject to false consciousness in the form of voluntary servitude, as opposed to coercive power. In light of such historic examples, and the fact that gender equality is now largely undisputed, the objection from arrogance is begs a question in that it denies the possibility that anyone might ever be politically deceived. It is ad hominem insofar as it attacks the character of the analyst, not the soundness of their views. Similarly, if future generations were to embrace the cause of animal rights and veganism, the attribution of an omnivore’s false consciousness to previous generations may then not seem too paternalistic.

Some Marxists could argue that the notion of false consciousness simply does not apply here. That may well be the case if indeed false consciousness is taken literally in a Marxist context. Instead, I have argued that there is a broad reading of false consciousness according to which it can narrow the moral self precisely because the interests of animals are not perceived in such a way as to trigger the moral motivation to practice veganism. In fact, I have attempted to detach the concept from Marxist theory as far as possible, so that one does not have to embrace Marxism in order to be able to accept how such a concept (and related concepts) may command useful explanatory power where the notion of akrasia falls short. 1

If there is such a thing as omnivore’s false consciousness, it would seem to follow that animal liberation (from human oppression) requires human liberation from omnivore’s false consciousness. Broad false consciousness may need to be confronted head-on through practices that promote more reflective and altruistic thinking (Cooke 2017 ). Narrow false consciousness, on the other hand, may be tackled directly by promoting some of the benefits of plant-based living (Fetissenko 2011 ), or indirectly by creating the conditions that normalise such a lifestyle (Lumsden 2017 ), for example, by making the shift from animal to plant agriculture easier and more desirable for farmers, or through the technological development of realistic alternatives to culling animals (e.g. in vitro meat; see Milburn 2016 ). A drawback of the self-interest approach, however, is that it only favours animals contingently in those instances where enlightened human self-interest happens to be convergent with those of animals. These challenges make a global shift to veganism not only fraught but also currently inaccessible to those on the opposite side of the debate. Considering how humans have habitually exploited animals, the future for most animals looks grim. On the other hand, social movements depend on hope and persist in the belief in moral progress has been said to be a regulative concept (Moody-Adams 2017 , p. 154).

Concluding Remarks

Starting from the assumption that there is a strong case for veganism in the literature, and the hypothesis that moral thinking and motivation are inseparable, I have considered how akrasia and false consciousness are ‘conceptual pathways’ through which our practical thinking about animals is distorted. Omnivore’s akrasia leaves some important gaps, for it is delimited to free and voluntary action against one’s better judgement. As such, the phenomenon of widespread omnivorism in developed societies may be better explained in terms of omnivore’s false consciousness (but I am not thereby suggesting that animal liberationists should embrace Marxism). Where omnivore’s false consciousness arises, there is no clear or explicit motivational failure to become a vegan, precisely because there is insufficient reflection for an akratic break to take occur. Further work in the field of moral psychology is evidently needed to unravel the motivational unity thesis, a theorem upon which this paper leans heavily.

Insofar as veganism expresses an ideology, it cannot be proven either to be true or morally right through arguments alone in such a way as to persuade any rational being or otherwise fully-fledged moral agent. Veganism is, as such, not an analytic truth to be derived from abstract moral principles but rather a moral way of life. Arguably, it is also a moral requirement. Principles such as causal inefficacy and unnecessary harm can be turned against veganism via analytic rationalisations which exploit scepticism and err on the side of narrow human self-interest, rather than an altruistic stance towards animals. Despite difficult technical and analytic considerations, one can experience veganism as an inescapable imperative; as a spiritual necessity; or as a powerful political identity against the oppression of animals. As such, some animal advocates may feel utter despair and therefore struggle to comprehend how others are not similarly moved. They may experience helplessness as to why common reasons against veganism are so weak. This paper is but one expression of such puzzlement, and a first attempt to make sense through the hitherto underexplored notion of false consciousness within the field of animal ethics.

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the MANCEPT ‘Just Animals? The Future of the Political Turn in Animal Ethics’ workshop in September 2019. I am especially grateful to Robert Garner, Steve Cooke, Josh Milburn and Eva Meijer for their comments and support. I am also greatly indebted to the anonymous reviewers of this journal.

Self-funded.

Declaration

The authors declares that they have no conflict of interest.

1 For a concise exposition of the cumulative case for veganism see Stephens ( 1994 ). For more recent arguments see Francione ( 2008 ), Huemer ( 2019 ) and Singer ( 2020 ).

2 There is no conflict if animals are viewed and treated only according to their purpose to humans, but it can be argued that this is how things are (the animal welfare orthodoxy), not how they ought to be.

3 False consciousness is often assumed without explanation in the Critical Animal Studies (CAS) literature (e.g., Nibert 2002 , p. 247).

4 Marx may not have thought that the proletariat held such explicit beliefs given that they had no access to the superstructure, but the relevant idea is that the proletariat was blind to their interests.

5 Vegans too can be consumerist.

6 A compilation of poor excuses against veganism such as ‘we have carnivore teeth’. For an example see https://vegansaurus.com/post/254784826/defensive-omnivore-bingo .

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Vegan Ethics: An Overview of Moral Arguments for Veganism

Updated on November 8, 2023 Reviewed and fact-checked Found a mistake? Let us know!

Why be vegan? And specifically, what are the ethical reasons to be vegan? As someone who has been vegan for over 14 years, been a vegan activist, and talked to many people about vegan ethics, I can help lay out the common arguments for you.

Here are the 13 common ethical arguments for veganism I’ll be covering:

• Animal welfare .
• Animal rights .
• Exploitation .
• Intersectional anti-oppression .
• The environment .
• World hunger .
• Treatment of workers .
• The sanctity of life .
• Speciesism and anti-speciesism .
• Sentience (and why it’s okay to kill plants) .
• Expanding the circle of moral concern .
• Nonviolence .

Many of these are related, and you could expand them out into a much longer list. But covering these should give you a good introduction.

As a disclaimer, let me say: This is not an academic paper. This is a practical overview from someone who has been around the vegan movement for a long time. I’ll mention some philosophers, but I’ll try to put their arguments into clear, simple language.

1. Animal Welfare Arguments for Veganism

This may be the most common type of ethical argument made about going vegan.

The argument is that factory farms are extremely cruel to animals, fur farms treat animals abusively, animal research labs treat animals cruelly, and so forth—and going vegan is the best way to protest this cruelty.

If you’re not familiar with the details of modern industrial animal agriculture, I’ll cover some basics here: • The animals are often kept in extremely small cages. Some of them can’t even physically turn around in the crates that hold them. • Animals raised for meat are fed growth hormones and a caloric surplus, so they grow as fast as possible. This can cause all kinds of suffering because their bodies were not evolutionarily prepared for that kind of growth. Some chickens on factory farms can’t walk because they grow too fast for their legs to support them. • The animals may be kicked, beaten, and abused by workers who are also exploited and abused (more about workers’ rights below ). Here is an undercover video of dairy farm workers punching, kicking, and abusing cows . • The animals undergo painful operations like tail docking, dehorning, debeaking, castrating, and branding without any anesthetic.

Due to the capitalist drive to maximize profits, farmers are incentivized to pack more animals into less space. To remain competitive in the marketplace, they need to cut as many costs as possible.

This situation ends in factory farms that cut as many corners as possible when it comes to what is comfortable, healthy, or safe for the animals. And the result is mass suffering for farmed animals.

Veganism as a Solution to Animal Cruelty

This is the most common line of argument pursued by animal welfare organizations such as PETA, Vegan Outreach, and Mercy for Animals. These organizations promote veganism as one of the best ways to reduce suffering for other animals

(Some organizations and activists also focus on cruel practices in animal testing/vivisection, fur farming, leather production, animal abuse in circuses, and elsewhere. But agriculture tends to be the biggest focus because the number of numbers killed for food is much higher.)

The Philosophy Behind Animal Welfare Arguments for Veganism

You don’t really need a philosophical reference to say that hurting animals is bad. But if you want one, the go-to source would be Peter Singer’s classic book Animal Liberation .

Peter Singer’s arguments for animal liberation are based on a type of ethics called utilitarianism . If you’re taking a serious look into animal welfare arguments for veganism, you should start by taking a look at utilitarianism as a theory of ethics.

Understanding Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is the philosophy that says that actions are ethically “good” or “bad” due to the amount of happiness or suffering that they cause.

So, according to utilitarianism, you can sort of calculate whether an action is good or bad by asking if it causes more happiness than suffering.

In practice, these ethical calculations can get pretty sloppy because how can you even quantify happiness or suffering? But the philosophy at least gives you a formula of what to aim toward— more happiness, less suffering.

It’s kind of like the Golden Rule: Assuming what we all want is happiness and what we all don’t want is suffering, something is “good” if it helps individuals experience more of what they want and less of what they don’t.

So at the core, utilitarianism is based on the fact that we all have preferences . We all care what happens. And an event is good if more people prefer that it would happen.

Applying Utilitarianism to Veganism

Peter Singer applied this utilitarian philosophy to our treatment of nonhuman animals. And the reasoning is quite simple: Nonhuman animals seem to have similar preferences as we have. Specifically, animals prefer to avoid pain.

Basically, Singer says, “If it’s wrong to needlessly hurt other people, then why wouldn’t it be wrong to needlessly hurt animals?”

In this way, you can look at animal welfare (and really, most of vegan ethics) as being about “expanding the circle” of our moral concern to other species. We’re taking the kind of moral considerations we already make for other humans, and we apply it to animals.

To only care about human pain would be speciesist , according to many vegans. Shouldn’t we care about the pain experienced by nonhuman animals, too? It’s still pain.

And if we do consider nonhuman animal pain as ethically relevant, then things like the confinement and killing of animals becomes at least questionable.

What’s most definitely wrong from a utilitarian vegan perspective is the cruel treatment of animals on modern-day factory farms. The horrific abuses on factory farms are intolerable from a utilitarian perspective because they cause so much suffering.

But do utilitarian ethics take you all the way to veganism?

Does Utilitarianism Lead to Veganism?

An interesting point is that you can hypothetically kill animals without causing them any pain. And if you achieved that, it would be okay according to a utilitarian ethic.

Utilitarianism doesn’t actually say there’s anything wrong with killing. It just says we shouldn’t cause suffering.

Now, most forms of killing will cause suffering. The animal will be scared and confused before they’re killed. Maybe their family will suffer due to seeing them be killed and not having their family member around anymore, and so on.

But if you somehow killed animals without causing pain, it would be okay according to Peter Singer’s utilitarianism. So not all vegans agree with this position.

Many vegans feel there is a more fundamental ethical reason not to kill animals—and I’ll cover that below. But let’s really get the implications of this point here first.

The Gap Between “Reducing Suffering” and Going Vegan

When you hear arguments about how you need to go vegan to reduce animal suffering… that’s not actually an air-tight argument .

Of course, going vegan is one way to help fight the cruel meat industry. Arguably, it is the best way. But you could also plausibly reduce suffering by raising backyard chickens and killing them “humanely” instead. (Just to give one example.)

So if you really want to make an air-tight argument for veganism, animal welfare arguments are probably not the path to take. They can potentially be resolved by reforms that just create more “humane” treatment in the process of confining and killing animals.

That said, if reducing suffering is genuinely the main reason you’re vegan, then by all means, speak your truth.

2. Vegan Arguments for Animal Rights

Many vegans believe nonhuman animals have a fundamental right to life, autonomy, and freedom. That is, they believe in animal rights.

Some vegans specifically want to abolish the legal property status of nonhuman animals, and to acknowledge them as “nonhuman persons.”

You’ll notice that these views are at least subtly different from Singer’s view ( above ), which simply argues that animals shouldn’t be made to suffer. These views argue something more fundamental: Animals have rights .

“Animal rights” can mean a lot of things, and I’m not well-read on every philosopher in this field. That said, I’ll outline a few of the main threads and the most influential authors.

Gary Francione and the Abolitionist Approach

Gary Francione is a thought leader among a group of vegans called abolitionists. Francione is a lawyer, and he argues for abolishing the property status of animals.

Gary Francione is actually opposed to any activist campaigns toward more humane treatment of animals being exploited. He argues only for the abolition of these industries.

Why would a vegan activist be opposed to “humane treatment” reforms?

Abolitionists argue that bigger cages would not at all make it okay for those animals to be caged in the first place. Furthermore, some consumers will be comforted to know that their meat and eggs are “humane” now.

So in that way, reforms can lead people to be more okay with the exploitation and confinement that’s still occurring.

Last I checked, Francione seems to spend a lot of time trying to convince animal welfarists to become abolitionist vegans. He posts many critiques of animal welfarists on his website .

Taking Anti-Speciesism Seriously

To Francione’s credit, he seems to take the idea of speciesism (explained more below ) very seriously. Take the following example:

Would we be okay with campaigns today asking for bigger cages for human slaves? No. Such a campaign would be offensive because it would simply not be asking enough. Asking for bigger cages for slaves would seem to be condoning the fact that slavery is happening in the first place.

So we shouldn’t be okay with campaigns for bigger cages for animals, according to Francione. The only acceptable change is to abolish the system of animal use by humans.

In alignment with this view, Francione promotes the idea of veganism as a “moral imperative.” It is a moral baseline. It’s not too much to ask of people—it’s the only reasonable thing to ask.

For more on this perspective, check out Francione’s book Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach or check out his website at abolitionistapproach.com .

The Movement to Recognize Nonhuman Persons

There has slowly been growing recognition for the idea that certain species qualify as “ nonhuman persons .” Usually, the species is dolphins or other cetaceans.

SeaWorld has struggled in recent years as a business in large part due to this growing recognition that orcas and dolphins deserve more rights and should not be confined.

In late 2015, India actually declared dolphins to be nonhuman persons, outlawing the captivity of dolphins in India for entertainment purposes.

But these steps are not fully vegan wins—because the reasons cited for dolphin personhood are typically based on intelligence, self-awareness, and specific rational capabilities.

Those reasons won’t necessarily apply to all farmed animals equally.

A truly vegan step would be saying that dolphins should be protected because they are sentient or because they have preferences. That would be a characteristic that applies more broadly to more animal species.

But still. The expanding rights for cetaceans may be the first step toward a much broader acknowledgment of nonhuman persons and animal rights for many different species.

Tom Regan on The Case for Animal Rights

Tom Regan is another famous animal rights philosopher who may fall into this broad category of “animal rights” rather than “animal welfare.”

Regan argues that nonhuman animals have moral rights because they, like us, are “subjects-of-a-life.” Their lives therefore have inherent value, they deserve respect, and they should not be used as a means to someone else’s ends.

Regan’s view of moral rights resembles that of famous philosopher Immanuel Kant—but Regan simply applies these rights beyond our own species. (See “Expanding the Circle” below .)

Learn more about this perspective in Regan’s classic book The Case for Animal Rights .

3. Vegan Arguments About Consent

Many vegan arguments are focused on the idea that it’s wrong to use animals without their consent. And due to communication barriers, the quality of consent we can receive from nonhuman animals is never very good. So, vegans argue, we just shouldn’t use them.

Humans can enter into agreements with each other about an exchange they want to make: “If you do this job, I’ll pay you $50.” But we can never get this kind of explicit consent from other animals.

Even in situations where an animal seems grateful and willing to enter into an exchange with us (like pets), there can never be full, informed consent because the higher levels of communication are not possible.

This line of argument has an obvious parallel to sexual consent between humans. So it’s a line of argument that’s often pursued by intersectional vegans (who I’ll cover below ).

But this line of argument is also made by libertarian and anarchist vegans.

Libertarians and anarchists oppose how the government uses the threat of physical force to make citizens follow laws and pay taxes. Libertarians value the freedom to choose what relationships and contracts you enter into. They believe in voluntary exchange with consent.

Why would the principle of voluntary exchange and the importance of consent not be carried over to nonhuman animals?

Notice that, even when you take good care of an animal—you’re giving them food and shelter— you’re making decisions on their behalf. The animal is not expressly consenting to anything. You have the control as the owner.

So this line of argument takes us very naturally to veganism: We shouldn’t use animals because it’s impossible to get clear consent from them to use them, and it’s wrong to use any sentient individual without their consent. So just let them be free.

See also: Would “consensual cannibalism” be vegan?

Pet Ownership and Vegan Arguments About Consent

Vegans who focus on the issue of consent will often feel discomfort about pet ownership. You can never actually have clear consent from your dog to be the steward over their life .

It’d be ideal if your pet was able to come and go by their own choice. But if you’re locking them inside your home or in your yard, it’s less clear that they’re really consenting to that situation.

Pretty much all vegans just accept that this is a compromise and that it’s worth rescuing pets from other, worse situations. Many vegans are pet lovers and have multiple cats and dogs.

But there are definitely some vegans out there who say that a true vegan world would not include pet ownership.

I’ve heard it argued that there should be a movement toward more animal sanctuaries, where the animals are guaranteed greater freedom of movement than in most pet situations.

4. Vegan Arguments About Exploitation

Exploitation is a term often used in labor relations. It refers to treating workers unfairly in order to benefit from their labor, and it is made possible by the power imbalance between workers and their bosses.

But many uses of animals can also be viewed as labor.

The term “exploitation” is used by vegans frequently when talking about dairy and eggs. To say that dairy cows are “exploited for their milk” is to say that the cows are treated like machines or resources—things—in order to extract a commodity (milk) from their bodies.

So anti-exploitation arguments are maybe similar to Tom Regan’s view ( above ) of animals having moral rights because they are “subjects-of-a-life.” Exploitation is wrong because it denies animals that status of being subjects-of-a-life . Instead, it treats them as things.

Vegans also argue that animals are exploited in circuses, as they’re forced to perform labor like sitting up on two legs or balancing a ball on their head.

Animals are exploited in scientific research, as well, because they’re being used as tools to generate knowledge instead of being respected for just existing and given a right to live their life how they would want to.

Exploitation is whenever we treat animals as a resource we can freely extract value from—when we’re not respecting them as individuals with their own lives and right to bodily autonomy.

A Striking Example of Animal Exploitation

I was watching the documentary Dominion , which is uploaded free on Youtube, and I was so moved by the description of what happens to mother sows on pork farms. Even after 13 years of being vegan, it shook me.

After showing several minutes of the gross and cruel conditions that pigs on pork farms live in, the narrator explained the full life cycle of these mother pigs.

Mother sows go through four cycles of pregnancy and nursing over two years. Their bodies are used to create four litters of new pigs. These mothers go through all the mistreatment and abuse of factory farm life for those two years, and then… what happens next?

They’re killed. Then it’s just over.

These pigs are brought into existence to be used as birthing machines. They’re shown no respect, treated like garbage for two years, they produce four litters of piglets to be taken away and grown to become pork—that is, they produce profit for the pork industry—and then they’re killed.

It just really illustrates how useless the animal agriculture industry views these pigs to be outside of producing profit for them.

Because from a profit standpoint, of course, the mother pigs are killed afterward. Of course. When it’s no longer profitable to keep these pigs, why would you keep feeding and housing them?

But they are living, feeling creatures. They have a life. They care about their life. Couldn’t you at least give a decent life to the animals who are creating all this profit for you?

But on modern factory farms, their entire life is horror—and then, even that existence is taken away from them.

Pigs on factory farms live, suffer, and die solely to make a profit for the owners of the pork companies. Their life is reduced to just that. It’s the clearest example of exploitation I can think of.

5. Intersectional Veganism and Anti-Oppression Veganism

Intersectional vegans (or pro-intersectional vegans) focus on veganism as a parallel and partner to social justice movements like feminism, anti-racism, anti-colonialism, gay and trans liberation, anti-capitalism, and other anti-oppression efforts.

In a basic sense, most ethical vegans feel that veganism is a parallel to movements like feminism. But intersectional vegans put this fact up front and center.

The ethics of intersectional veganism are informed by intersectional anti-oppression politics in the human sphere. Principles about power, privilege, hierarchy, ideology, exploitation, and consent are applied over to human/nonhuman relationships.

What Is Intersectionality?

The word “intersectional” was originally applied to feminism.

Certain prominent, early feminists focused mainly on the liberation of middle-class housewives. But black feminists like bell hooks pointed out that women of color are already in the workforce in greater numbers, being exploited, and they face a different set of struggles.

Intersectionality demands that you pay attention to the intersections of different systems of oppression. Yes, all women face certain struggles—but black women and white women face very different struggles.

When applied to veganism, intersectionality means paying attention to how class inequality, for example, affects who has access to healthy vegan food. So intersectional vegans will talk more than most vegans about the issue of food deserts and overall food justice.

Intersectional veganism means paying attention to the fact that Latino workers are often horribly exploited as factory farm workers, and not only talking about the animals being abused.

So it’s about trying to respect all the issues and how they come together, interact, and overlap with one another. At its best, intersectionality allows us to take a nuanced view of what is really going wrong in our society.

Comparisons Between Nonhuman Oppression and Human Oppression

Intersectional vegans sometimes make comparisons between the oppression of nonhuman animals and the oppression of specific human groups.

This is the whole basis of the influential book on vegan ethics, The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery by Marjorie Spiegel.

Intersectional vegans also sometimes draw comparisons between the exploitation of dairy cows and the exploitation of women. These activists will argue that reproductive justice is important both for human women and nonhuman animals like cows.

But these comparisons can be very contentious.

Although intersectional vegans are dedicated feminists and anti-racists, they still receive pushback from non-vegan feminists and anti-racists at times for comparing the oppression of women or people of color to the oppression of animals.

Indeed, PETA (which is not a particularly “intersectional” group) is often called out for its crude comparisons between human and animal oppression, referring to animal agriculture as slavery, rape, or a holocaust. I remember an old blog called Vegans Against PETA , which was a whole catalog of problematic campaigns from PETA.

Arguably the biggest problem with PETA’s comparisons between factory farms and the holocaust, though, is that PETA isn’t actually fighting antisemitism at all. They’re just using this graphic comparison to antisemitism in order to promote veganism.

That’s the difference between intersectional vegans and PETA when they make these comparisons: Intersectional vegans are dedicated to fighting racism and sexism today, and a good chunk of their focus is actually directly on that. PETA, on the other hand, just uses the comparison to promote veganism.

Fighting Racism and Sexism Within the Vegan Movement

Intersectional vegans also focus a lot on fighting racism, sexism, and other -isms within the vegan movement. Part of their agenda is to make the vegan movement more of a broadly leftist and socially progressive movement.

Intersectional vegans will criticize the “whiteness” of certain vegan spaces in hopes of creating a more diverse vegan movement. And they call attention to capitalism as a root problem behind the abuses in factory farms.

In many cases, it can seem like intersectional vegans—in a similar way as Francione and the abolitionists ( above )—spend more time criticizing the rest of the vegan movement than criticizing the animal agriculture industry itself.

To some vegans, this can seem annoying or counter-productive. But hopefully, in making their critiques, intersectional vegans make the movement a better place for all.

For more of the intersectional anti-oppression perspective, check out Sistah Vegan , the Vegan Vanguard podcast , A privileged vegan , and the Vegan Princess Warriors Attack podcast .

6. Environmental Arguments for Veganism

Going vegan is said to help with a whole plethora of environmental problems.

• Deforestation, particularly in the Amazon rainforest, is largely being carried out to make room for cattle ranching and, from what I’ve heard, large-scale planting of soybeans to be used as animal feed.

• Climate Change. Methane gas emissions from cattle farming, i.e. cow farts, are causing the greenhouse effect and accelerating climate change. In fact, methane is 29 times more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. It’s often said that the #1 action you can take to reduce your carbon footprint is to go vegan.

• Ocean acidification. The methane gas produced by animal agriculture also contributes to the acidification of our oceans.

• Water use. So many gallons of water go into producing a single hamburger. If we just eat plants, it’s much less resource-intensive.

This section could be a lot longer, but it’s not an area that I’ve personally focused on in my vegan journey.

For more of the common environmental arguments for a vegan diet, check out the documentary Cowspiracy .

7. Arguments About How Veganism Can End World Hunger

Claims that veganism can help end world hunger may strike you as simply misinformed or unrealistic. The problem with world hunger isn’t simply a lack of food —it’s a matter of distributing the food to the people who need it.

That said, it’s worth looking at how worldwide veganism (or anything closer to it) could help free up resources to make hunger alleviation easier.

As covered in the previous section, animal agriculture is not very efficient with regard to the use of water and land. When you feed 100 calories of grains to an animal, you don’t get 100 calories of meat. You get much less!

So it’s long been argued by vegans that we should just feed the grain to the humans that need it. Unfortunately, that’s not how capitalism works. Someone needs to be able to pay for the grain in order for anyone to want to grow it in the first place. In capitalism, there’s not much incentive for farmers to grow food for people who don’t have money.

But still, is there an argument here? Could worldwide veganism help?

The following video from Mic the Vegan makes a pretty thorough argument into how a widespread vegan diet could still help alleviate hunger—even without taking us all the way to “ending world hunger.”

8. The Treatment of Farmworkers and Slaughterhouse Employees

Another reason to boycott meat, dairy, and eggs could actually be the treatment of human workers caught up in the system.

Workers are often injured in slaughterhouses due especially to the speed at which animals are killed. The line moves fast to keep production high and labor expenses low.

One slaughterhouse worker had this to say: “The line is so fast, there is no time to sharpen the knife. The knife gets dull and you have to cut harder. That’s when it really starts to hurt, and that’s when you cut yourself” ( source ).

Slaughterhouse workers also suffer psychological harm and desensitization from repeatedly killing animals and seeing them in states of fear and pain. Here’s a quote from a former kill floor manager:

“The worst thing, worse than the physical danger, is the emotional toll… Pigs down on the kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them—beat them to death with a pipe. I can’t care.” ( source )

As dramatized in the movies Fast Food Nation , slaughterhouses often employ illegal immigrants, which they can then abuse more freely since the workers have to stay “under the radar” to not be deported.

Some vegan organizations don’t focus much on the abuses of human workers at slaughterhouses, but others do include it as a central argument for why you should oppose the animal agriculture industry. Food Empowerment Project is one of these orgs that fight for human rights along with animal rights.

You can learn more about the abuse of factory farm workers here and slaughterhouse workers here .

9. Veganism and the Sanctity of Life

In my post about how vegans view abortion , I explained how it really depends on your underlying philosophical beliefs. One pro-life view that some vegans share is that life is sacred.

The writer at vegblogger.com, for example, has written , “Veganism is about respecting and protecting life. Abortion is about taking life. End of story.”

Now, this is a very different view from that held by Peter Singer, whose utilitarian ethics I covered above. Singer cares about reducing suffering . He doesn’t care at all about “life” in and of itself.

But I think most vegans intuitively just find something wrong about killing other animals . For some of those vegans, it may come back to the sanctity of life as described by various religions .

Western religion tends to view the “sanctity of life” only applying to human life, but some Eastern religions have a view of the sanctity of life for all sentient beings, including nonhuman animals. Many Buddhists are vegetarians for this reason.

10. Speciesism and Anti-Speciesism

Speciesism is, of course, an equivalent term to racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination and oppression between human groups.

Calling attention to speciesism is a central part of what vegan activists seek to do. There are many things our society does to nonhuman animals which, if done to humans, would be universally condemned.

For example: No reasonable person would argue that it’s okay to buy a human from someone else, chain her up, impregnate her without her consent, then take away her baby and hook her up to milking machines each day, and kill her baby to sell it as meat after about 4 months of it living in a small crate!

The fact that our society is okay with that happening to cows in the dairy industry is, therefore, speciesist.

What Anti-Speciesism Really Means

Humans and nonhuman animals are not the same—and many of our differences are significant in ways that are morally relevant.

Certain things that may cause suffering to a human may not bother a nonhuman animal. So that needs to be factored in when talking about speciesism.

But usually, what vegans are arguing is the following: Many of the things we do to cows, pigs, and chickens clearly cause them pain and distress —and that pain and distress cannot be considered morally irrelevant due to the species of animal experiencing it.

11. The Importance of Sentience (And Why It’s Okay to Kill Plants)

Many vegan arguments hinge on the distinction that animals are sentient and plants are not. It matters what we do to other animals because they are sentient—because they feel and experience sensations.

By this same logic, vegans are typically okay with killing plants because the general consensus is that plants are not sentient.

Sometimes, you do run into people saying that plants are sentient based on some research… But most of us have an intuitive sense that plants do not have a central nervous system that resembles our own at all. They likely do not suffer in a way that is at all comparable.

12. “Expanding the Circle” of Moral Concern

“Expanding the circle” is a visual metaphor used by many animal rights activists and theorists, which refers to adding more and more groups of individuals into our circle of moral concern.

The explanation may go like this: When we’re acting most selfishly, we only care about ourselves. Then the next level of concern for others is usually focused on your family. Then maybe your broader “tribe” after that. Then maybe your country, your race, or your gender. Then we care about the rights of all humans. And what’s next after that?

Next, you expand the circle to include nonhuman animals!

Tom Regan’s philosophy takes an established idea of “moral rights” and expands it to include moral rights for other animals. Intersectional vegans take an established idea of intersectional anti-oppression and expand it to include the human/nonhuman relationship.

We should “expand the circle” of our moral concern to include nonhuman animals, whichever ethical model we’re using. Or that’s what vegans argue anyway!

Peter Singer even has a whole book about ethics called The Expanding Circle .

What About Being Human Gives Us Moral Rights?

A common line of argument in the philosophy of Peter Singer, as well as that of Tom Regan and other animal rights philosophers, is that it’s very difficult to draw any logically consistent line between all humans and all nonhuman animals ethically.

If you say that humans deserve to be respected and treated well because of intelligence or rational thinking , well, not all humans can think rationally. And we still care about how we treat the severely mentally impaired, for example.

So, we have to think more deeply than just “Humans matter, animals don’t.” We have to specifically ask, What about being human gives us moral rights ? And is it actually something that doesn’t apply to nonhuman animals?

Peter Singer says what really matters is that we suffer, we experience happiness, and we have preferences. Tom Regan says what matters is that we are the “subject-of-a-life” and we care what happens to us.

And both of those apply to nonhuman animals, too.

13. Veganism and Nonviolence

Many vegans understand their position as one of nonviolence . “Nonviolence” could mean different things to different people, though.

A common-sense understanding of nonviolence might be that violence is wrong and should be avoided if at all possible. And the implication when saying that veganism is nonviolence is that meat and other animal use are forms of violence.

Gary Francione has this to say: “If the principle of nonviolence means anything , it means that you cannot justify any killing or suffering for transparently frivolous reasons such as pleasure, amusement, or convenience” ( source ).

Francione seems to be saying that it is violent to use animals in these ways—so being nonviolent requires no longer supporting those practices. Being nonviolent requires veganism.

For Some Vegans, There Is No Philosophy: It’s Just a Gut Feeling

The following video I’m going to link to is not bloody or graphic. But even so, it’s one of the most emotional videos of animals in our food system—because it tells a story.

Watch this video of two cows waiting in line to be slaughtered at the slaughterhouse. And just see how it makes you feel. It’s just 3 minutes.

Now, when you watch this footage, do you feel that it’s a good thing? Is your gut reaction that this is fine?

Or does it feel sad? Does it feel like a pretty bad thing? Do you feel like it’d be better if cows didn’t have to experience this? For some vegans, it’s simply a gut feeling like that.

So I’ll end the post with that. My personal vegan ethics are, as much as anything, based on this emotional reaction.

Causing fear, pain, and death for other animals just doesn’t feel like a great thing to do. If we can be healthy and happy without killing other animals, that just seems like the preferable way to live.

Two More Recommendations for Your Plant-Based Journey

1. This is the best free video training I’ve found on plant-based nutrition. You’ll learn how to reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and obesity—all with plant-based food. Watch the free “Food for Health Masterclass” here .

2. This is the  best vegan multivitamin I’ve found  in my 14 years of being vegan.  It has vitamin B12, vitamin D, omega-3—and nothing else. Translation: It only has the nutrients vegans are  actually low in . Read my  full review of Future Kind’s multivitamin here  (with 10% discount).

If you found this post helpful and don’t want to lose it, consider saving the Pin below to your Pinterest “Veganism” or “Vegan Ethics” boards!

I’m Tyler McFarland, the editor and main author here. When I first went vegan 13 years ago, convenience products like veggie burgers and soy milk were a lot harder to find. Now they’re everywhere!

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Why we shouldn’t all be vegan

Visiting Research Fellow in Philosophy, University of Hertfordshire

Professor of Food Science and Biotechnology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Disclosure statement

Martin Cohen has no formal conflicts of interests although in a wider sense he is a long-time campaigner on ecological issues and the author of a recent book advancing philosophical and sociological arguments for a more ethical and holistic approach to food.

Frédéric Leroy receives research funding from various foundations and councils, incuding the Research Foundation Flanders and his University's Research Council. He is affiliated pro-bono with both the Belgian Association of Meat Science and Technology, a non-funded academic organisation grouping various Belgian scientists, and the scientific committee of the Institute Danone Belgium.

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After decades in which the number of people choosing to cut out meat from their diet has steadily increased, 2019 is set to be the year the world changes the way that it eats. Or at least, that’s the ambitious aim of a major campaign under the umbrella of an organisation simply called EAT . The core message is to discourage meat and dairy, seen as part of an “over-consumption of protein” – and specifically to target consumption of beef.

The push comes at a time when consumer behaviour already seems to be shifting. In the three years following 2014, according to research firm GlobalData, there was a six-fold increase in people identifying as vegans in the US, a huge rise – albeit from a very low base. It’s a similar story in the UK, where the number of vegans has increased by 350%, compared to a decade ago, at least according to research commissioned by the Vegan Society.

And across Asia, many governments are promoting plant-based diets. New government dietary guidelines in China, for example, call on the nation’s 1.3 billion people to reduce their meat consumption by 50% . Flexitarianism, a mostly plant-based diet with the occasional inclusion of meat, is also on the rise .

‘Conquering the world’

Big food companies have noticed the shift and have jumped onto the vegan wagon, the most prominent ones tightly associated with EAT through its FReSH program . Unilever, for instance, is a very vocal partner. Recently, the multinational announced it was acquiring a meat-substitute company called “The Vegetarian Butcher”. It described the acquisition as part of a strategy to expand “into plant-based foods that are healthier and have a lower environmental impact”. Currently, Unilever sells just under 700 products under the “V-label” in Europe.

“The Vegetarian Butcher” was conceived in 2007 by farmer Jaap Kortweg, chef Paul Brom and marketer Niko Koffeman, a Dutch Seventh-Day Adventist who is vegetarian for religious and ideological reasons. Koffeman is also at the origin of the Partij voor de Dieren , a political party advocating for animal rights in The Netherlands. Like EAT, the Vegetarian Butcher seeks to “ conquer the world ”. Its mission is “to make plant-based ‘meat’ the standard” – and the alliance with Unilever paves the way.

The dietary shift would require a remarkable turn around in consumer habits. Of course, there is much that both can and should be done to improve the way that we eat, both in terms of consumer health and environmental impact. And yes, a key plank of the strategy will be shifting consumers away from beef. But the extreme vision of some of the campaign’s backers is somewhat startling. Former UN official Christiana Figueres, for example, thinks that anyone who wants a steak should be banished. “How about restaurants in ten to 15 years start treating carnivores the same way that smokers are treated?”, Figueres suggested during a recent conference. “If they want to eat meat, they can do it outside the restaurant.”

This statement is typical of what social scientists call “ bootlegger and Baptist ” coalitions, in which groups with very different ideas – and values – seek to rally under a common banner. And this is what worries us. The campaign to “conquer the world” can be rather simplistic and one-sided, and we think this has some dangerous implications.

A skewed view?

EAT, for example, describes itself as a science-based global platform for food system transformation . It has partnered with Oxford and Harvard universities, as well as with the medical journal The Lancet. But we have concerns that some of the science behind the campaign and the policy is partial and misleading.

It is long on things that we all know are bad, such as some excesses of factory farming and rainforest clearing to raise beef cattle. But it is mostly silent on such things as the nutritional assets of animal products, especially for children in rural African settings, and the sustainability benefits of livestock in areas as diverse as sub-Saharan Africa to traditional European upland valleys. And, if vegetarian diets show that traditional markers for heart disease, such as “total cholesterol”, are usually improved, this is not the case for the more predictive (and thus valuable) markers such as the triglyceride/HDL (or “good” cholesterol) ratio, which even tend to deteriorate .

More importantly, most nutritional “evidence” originates from epidemiology, which is not able to show causation but only statistical correlations. Not only are the associations weak , the research is generally confounded by lifestyle and other dietary factors . Not to mention that part of the epidemiological data, such as the PURE study , show that the consumption of meat and dairy can be associated with less – rather than more – chronic disease.

Not so simple

In any case, even if plant-based diets can in theory provide the nutrients people need, as long as they are supplemented with critical micronutrients (such as vitamin B12 and certain long-chain fatty acids), that is not to say that in practice shifting people towards them will not result in a great many people following poorly balanced diets and suffering ill health in consequence. And when a vegan diet fails, for instance due to poor supplementation, it may result in serious physical and cognitive impairment and failure to thrive .

The approach seems particularly risky during pregnancy and for the very young , as also documented by a long list of clinical case reports in medical literature. Animal products are exceptionally nutrient-dense dietary sources – removing them from the diet compromises metabolic robustness. Without sufficient insight in the complexities of nutrition and human metabolism, it is easy to overlook important issues as the proportion of nutrients that can be absorbed from the diet, nutrient interactions and protein quality.

The same debate needs to be had when it comes to consideration of the environmental question. Too fast or radical a shift towards “plant-based” diets risks losing realistic and achievable goals, such as increasing the benefits of natural grazing and embracing farming techniques that reduce the wasteful feeding of crops to animals, lower climate impact and enhance biodoversity.

A shift towards a radically plant-based planetary diet loses the many benefits of livestock – including its deployment on land that is not suitable for crop production, its contribution to livelihoods, and the many other benefits that animals provide. It mistakenly assumes that land use can be swiftly altered and ignores the potential of farming techniques that may even have mitigating effects .

Sustainable, ecological and harmonious animal production really should be part of the solution of the “world food problem”, considered from both the nutritional and environmental scenarios. The Earth is an extraordinarily complex ecosystem – any one-size-fits-all solution risks wreaking havoc with it.

More articles about vegetarianism and veganism , written by academic experts:

Vegan diet: how your body changes from day one

Why aren’t more people vegetarian?

Vegans: why they inspire fear and loathing among meat eaters

For more evidence-based articles by academics, subscribe to our newsletter .

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• The Strongest Argument for Veganism

This collection of articles was first published on the website of Sentience Politics .

Strong arguments derive their (surprising, counter-intuitive and far-reaching) conclusions from modest premises that everybody accepts. Here’s one such premise:

(1) We shouldn’t be cruel to animals, i.e. we shouldn’t harm animals unnecessarily.

(2) The consumption of animal products harms animals.

This is quite obvious for meat, but it’s also true for milk and eggs . Animals often suffer terribly as a result of overbreeding, from dreadful conditions on farms, during transportation and in the slaughterhouse. Studies show that stunning fails regularly . The egg industry painfully gasses all male chicks right after they hatch. In short: The production of animal foods generally leads to lots of acts of violence against animals and large amounts of suffering. – Here’s a further premise:

(3) The consumption of animal products is unnecessary.

One might ask how this third premise could be uncontroversial, given that food production is a pretty necessary practice. The question, however, is not “Is food necessary?”, but “Is animal food necessary (here and now)?” – Or in other words: “Are there viable nutritional alternatives to animal products?” For one cannot plausibly argue that something is necessary in the presence of viable alternatives. So let’s take a look at the scientific facts: The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics – the largest nutritional organisation in the world – has a position paper stating that “appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.” Official health bodies around the globe support this view . And the existence of millions of healthy vegans and a growing number of vegan top athletes bears it out. Also, “appropriate planning” is very easy in today’s world – healthy and tasty vegan (or at least vegetarian) food is available everywhere.

To sum it up: If our own health depended on eating animals, then there could be an argument for violence against animals (serving nutritional purposes) being necessary. But that’s not the case. We’re not inflicting horrible suffering on animals in order to preserve our own health and thus prevent our own suffering. We’re inflicting suffering on billions of animals in order to get a little more culinary pleasure at most. And very likely not even that: In an experiment at the University of Bochum , 90% of the students didn’t notice that their “beef goulash” was vegan. The availability of vegan gourmet food is increasing rapidly too. Last but not least, it’s largely a matter of culinary socialization anyway: Nobody craves exotic foods (such as dog, dolphin or chimp meat) that don’t exist and are taboo in our society. The same would be true in a vegan society (providing plenty tasty cruelty-free meats) with regard to all meat that requires violence against any sentient animal.

The (rather trivial) premises (1) – (3) logically imply that the consumption of animal products harms animals unnecessarily and satisfies the definition of “cruelty to animals”, which leads to the conclusion:

To recap the Strongest Argument for Veganism:

(1) We shouldn’t be cruel to animals, i.e. we shouldn’t harm animals unnecessarily. (2) The consumption of animal products harms animals. (3) The consumption of animal products is unnecessary. (4) Therefore, we shouldn’t consume animal products.

At which point could one plausibly block this line of reasoning?

• The Case against Speciesism
• Effective Strategies: Politics, Getting Rich And Other Strategies To Multiply Our Impact
• The Relevance of Wild Animal Suffering
• The Importance of the Far Future
• The Benefits of Cause-Neutrality

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Veganism in The Meat Industry

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Against Veganism

Chris belshaw makes the case for rearing animals for their meat and produce..

Vegans want us to think carefully about what we eat. Certainly the bad practices rife in intensive farming generate powerful arguments against meat, dairy, eggs. But it may be harder to build a case against what might be called ‘humane’ farming (though some think there is no such thing). Pain can be reduced or eliminated in the better farming practices. So then the emphasis concerns killing. But is it really clear that we absolutely ought not to kill and then eat animals? There are three main arguments against this: we’re told that the production and consumption of meat is bad for us, bad for the environment, and bad for the animals who get eaten. Here I’ll be interested in the third claim.

Before getting into the argument, there’s some shorthand that needs explaining. I’m going to say that death isn’t bad for animals. Yet this needs clarifying. It certainly is bad for cows to be made into burgers, just as it’s bad for trees to be turned into pencils. But our concern will be with things that are bad in a way that matters , or which give us reasons against that thing. I’m also going to discuss what is permitted, required, or forbidden. Again, this is shorthand. There will usually be some special circumstances in which there might be good reason to do what is in general forbidden; or reasons not to do what is in general permitted, or even required. Even most vegans will allow meat-eating if that is the only way a person can keep themselves, or their family, alive. My concern will be with what is forbidden in general , or forbidden, other things being equal .

Arguments Permitting Animal Killing

Here are three arguments that killing and eating animals is permissible. The first has affinities with anti-natalism , some versions of which say how we shouldn’t start lives that will involve suffering. Even the best lives are temporary and involve pain and grief, so the anti-natalist says that we shouldn’t even have babies. Apply this logic to animals and we shouldn’t breed them. Can we extend that argument to say that we should end the lives of animals already living, on farms or in the wild? There might be good reason to do so, since pain is certainly bad for them, and in their case pain is uncompensated by pleasure, even when it is outweighed by it. For no animal thinks, as we might think, that the present pain – it’s hungry, or caught in a trap, or distressed at losing its young – will soon be over. So, the argument goes, given the inevitability of pain, it’s better for animals overall if their lives are ended. But if we’ve decided now to kill them, it seems there’s no reason then not to eat them, especially if that might alleviate hunger in our own lives.

Not many people will be impressed with this argument. They may prefer, as do I, a second argument, surely less counter-intuitive, which says that even if animals can have overall good lives, such that the pleasure outweighs and compensates for the pain, it is nevertheless not bad for them painlessly to die. Give them a good life; end it with a good, clean death; and then feel free to eat them. But how can I claim that their death isn’t bad? Because, unlike us, animals lack a consciously-formulated desire for survival. In this sense, they don’t want to live on. So it’s not bad that they die prematurely. Maybe we should concede that self-conscious animals such as whales, elephants, chimps, even dogs, are different here. But these are not the animals we eat.

Perhaps, other things equal, we should ensure that animal don’t die prematurely, but rather live on and die of old age. Yet a third argument insists that other things aren’t equal, and so eating meat is permitted. Consider just humane farming, and the animals alive right now. Our options are: continue with business as usual; kill them all now; care for them into their old age and death by natural causes; or finally, set them all free. Given that these animals don’t have a bad life, there is no reason to kill them now. What about the third option, caring for the animals until their natural deaths in old age? It may be easy enough for animal rights activists to steal a new-born lamb and give it a life of bliss in someone’s garden, but it’s less easy to apply this ideal on a global, industrial scale. We can’t choose to breed tens of billions of animals, then give all of them life-time care. So even if we might occasionally act to keep a farm animal from death, we can’t make this into a rule. What then about just setting them free? This last would be the worst option for most farm animals. Domesticated animals generally can’t look after themselves in the wild – especially when the wild is littered with towns and motorways. If this is what animal liberation is about, so much the pity.

What we should think about well-tended farm animals, then, is that even if their lives aren’t the best possible, they are nevertheless worth living, and generally the best lives available for them. A short, good life with a pain-free death; or no life at all. Which would you prefer?

In Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel Never Let Me Go there are two kinds of people. Most have lives more or less like ours, but some are clones, created and raised as a source of replacement organs. The clones could live into their eighties or nineties or beyond, as do the others, but instead they are pressured to ‘donate’ organs in early adulthood, and are ‘completed’ at the latest by their early thirties. Horrible? It seems so. But although a melancholy air hangs over their lives, there’s no suggestion that they think it would have been better if they’d never been born. And at the end of the novel, the main character suggests that on reflection their lives are not very different from those of other people. Shorter, yes; but death is pretty much the same for all of us – it’s usually bad that it happens, and it usually happens too soon.

I can’t decide whether we’re supposed to think there’s self-deception here, and that these lives, even if worth living, are in fact much worse than ours. For the clones are aware that death is coming sooner for them than it will for most of the people they see around them. They can think about, imagine, regret the longer life they’ll never have. Melancholy is the least we might expect.

But it’s not at all like this for animals. The sheep on the farms around here appear completely unaware that other animals – the dogs and cats, perhaps the horses – have long and cossetted lives. That they fare less well is no concern to them. So far as we can tell, they don’t think about it at all.

Arguments Requiring Animal Rearing

If killing and eating animals is in some circumstances permissible , and you want to eat meat, then go ahead. But three more ambitious arguments have it that this killing and eating of animals is morally required . The first of these is in certain respects a bad argument. The two that follow are better.

According to the so-called ‘Logic of the Larder’, we actually benefit animals – do them a favour – by bringing them into existence, even if for a short life. As Leslie Stephen put it, no one has more interest in bacon than the pigs who provide it ( Social Rights and Duties , 1896).

Sophistry? Well, there are things wrong here, but not as much as may seem. Any actual pig, it will be said, is harmed rather than benefited by being killed, brined, and sliced. But if it’s good for non-actual pigs to be made actual – to be brought into existence – and this happens only if we’re going eventually to eat them, then indeed our appetites are also working in their favour.

On this view, a short life really is better than no life at all. Yet even if we allow that good lives should be continued, we can still deny that such lives should be started. There’s nothing speciesist about this. Many of us feel more secure with the claim that we should make existing people happy, than that we should bring new people – similarly happy – into existence.

Yet it still might be good – but this time good for us – if certain animals are deliberately brought into existence, quite apart from whether we plan to eat them or not. We regret the threat of extinction that hangs over many rare breeds – Saddleback pigs, Ryeland sheep, Chillingham cattle, to name only three – and would prefer to keep them in existence. We acknowledge our connectedness to the past this way, and preserving these breeds through humane farming allows this connectedness to continue into the future.

A third argument, somewhat similar, focuses on landscape and environment. It reflects a simple but important aesthetic concern. The countryside we like, feel at home in, and want to explore, is very much shaped by farmers and their animals, and has been so for centuries. Remove the animals, and much of what we value in the countryside disappears. There is also a future-facing practical concern to take into account. It’s been recently rediscovered that in various ways the animals we rear can stimulate the regrowth of ancient woodland, increase biodiversity, help mend broken habitats. So these animals also have a more straightforward instrumental value.

This is all presently achieved by farm-rearing animals for meat and produce. Are there vegan-friendly routes to the same ends? We could keep a few examples of rare breeds in animal sanctuaries, charging for admission; and we could, at some cost, manage the landscape so as to preserve its traditional appearance, even without the help of animals. But those objections often raised against zoos and theme parks also apply here. Divorced from their long-standing rationale – and that involves, of course, most aspects of farming – these animals, and these environs, lose in meaning and value.

The Vegan Counter-Attack

Finally, I’ll consider three counter-arguments to the effect that we should believe that eating animals is wrong. There’s no spoiler in my saying now that these arguments fail.

I’ve focused on the alleged badness of death, and assumed that we can eliminate the anxiety, distress, and pain in killing animals. But, it is objected, this is wishful thinking. It’s inevitable that animals will in some ways suffer as they die.

Suppose I concede this. What follows? Is this intended as an across the board reason to keep animals out of existence? Then we’re back to the anti-natalist argument I mentioned earlier, and whose conclusion I said most people will surely view as extreme – that it is better for many farm animals to never have lived. It’s also hard to see how the argument can target just farm animals, as their lives in general, and their deaths in particular, are usually less painful than those of equivalent animals living in the wild.

There are also concerns about a slippery slope. People may say, give the all-clear to free-range chickens, and it’s just a small step to factory-farmed birds, lark pie, and roast albatross. A similar argument suggests that if voluntary euthanasia is permitted, we’ll soon be back with death camps. It’s hard to believe these arguments are ever made sincerely, and are not just rhetorical devices wheeled out to support foregone conclusions. But since they are so hopelessly pessimistic about human nature, such arguments are never made well.

Closely connected is what I’ll call the ‘splitting hairs’ argument. Even allowing that we won’t descend into murder and mayhem, still, ethical meat-eating demands that we busy ourselves with some rather fine distinctions. Mightn’t we instead agree with Peter Singer when he says, “Going vegan is a simpler choice that sets a clearcut example for others to follow”? However there are also suspects practices in tea and coffee production; similarly with avocado and soy; and notoriously so in clothing manufacture. No one suggests that we should therefore go about thirsty, hungry, and naked. My point though is that the requisite responses are not ones we all need to make personally. Surely governments and regulatory authorities can and should do much of the spade work here, as they ought to do with the other industries, determining which animal husbandry procedures should be permitted, which proscribed, and enforcing these decisions by demanding frequent and effective inspections, insisting on clear and useful labelling, and so on. Then, as individuals, we can more easily avoid getting things hopelessly wrong, while still having some choice about what to eat.

Some will say we shouldn’t eat meat whatever the cause of the animal’s death, because in doing so we show a lack of respect. But how is this disrespectful? More detail is needed here. If the suggestion is that there’s fault in eating something just because it was once alive, then it seems we should give up our fruit and vegetables also. Perhaps then synthetic food is the future?

Conclusions

I’ve said there’s no reason, for their sake, to bring animals or indeed people into existence. Nor is there good reason to keep animals (though often there is reason to keep people) in existence. But if we do bring animals into existence, there are good reasons to give them a good life.

The second of these claims is the most controversial. So suppose it’s false, and that there are reasons to keep animals in existence. Farming, I say, is still permitted. It’s not ideal for the animals, but it’s not bad for them either; as indeed it’s not bad for people to have a good but short life.

So I’m against veganism as an absolute principle. But is there nothing, other than the concessions I made at the beginning, to be said for it?

Think about pacifism. We might agree that total and implacable opposition to war in all its forms offered an important and necessary corrective to attitudes prevailing almost everywhere right up to the twentieth century, even while thinking that the complexity of our imperfect world calls for a more nuanced position. It’s the same with veganism. There’s much that needed to be, and has been, learned. All of us who care about animals are indebted to the vegan flag-flyers, even if we disagree with them.

Those who care about food are also indebted to them, for another benefit of veganism is its encouraging the development of good alternatives to a meat-based diet. No longer are the options simply the pretentious but dreary omelette aux fines herbes , or the less pretentious but equally dreary nut roast.

© Dr Chris Belshaw 2021

Chris Belshaw is an honorary Fellow in Philosophy at both the Open University and the University of York.

Question of the Month

Do you think you can do better than these arguments, or counter them? You still may have time to submit an answer to ‘Question of the Month’ for Issue 147. The question is: Can Eating Meat Be Justified? Please justify it, or reveal it as unjustified, in less than 400 words. The prize is a semi-random book from our book mountain. Subject lines should be marked ‘Question of the Month’, and must be received by 18th October 2021. If you want a chance of getting a book, please include your physical address.

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Improvise With Swiss Chard

It can star in a creamy pasta or casserole, or be the understudy to kale in a spring minestrone.

By Tanya Sichynsky

For almost two years, I had managed to avoid a New York inevitability: attending an improv comedy show. That streak came to an end this month.

Thankfully, it was at the hands of my hilarious friend Meg, who invited me to her improv class’s showcase. Equipped with a classmate’s prompt about working at a farmers’ market, she stepped forward.

Meg was now Brett, a surly Swiss chard farmer. Brett was on a date with a woman, Carly, who did not know what Swiss chard was. The two began harvesting chard visible only to them.

“Is it like the enemy of kale?” asked Carly. “Many have said,” Brett replied, wistfully. I cackled, loudly.

One-Pot Braised Chard With Gnocchi, Peas and Leeks

View this recipe.

Swiss chard has toiled in the shadow cast by kale for long enough . Step forward like Meg did, chard! It shines alongside springy peas and leeks in Melissa Clark’s one-pot braise with gnocchi , pulls double-duty in Ali Slagle’s citrusy lentil and sweet potato soup and anchors Alexa Weibel’s creamy pasta with leeks, tarragon and lemon zest .

A hearty, leafy green, Swiss chard can grow ribs and stems in a variety of vibrant colors , making it perhaps worthier of your dinner spotlight than its cruciferous nemesis. (Fun fact: Chard is part of the amaranth family, along with beets and spinach.) There’s chard with ruby-red stems, chard with caution-tape yellow ribs, chard with millennial-pink stalks. There’s even rainbow chard, which is not a single varietal but a kaleidoscopic bundling of several.

Any of those stems would look beautiful blistered on a grill and served with garlic oil , as the chef Gabrielle Hamilton recommends. It’s a smart way to use up vegetable scraps, but I’d work in the reverse: Set out to make that recipe, and save the leaves for the verdant, nutrient-dense filling of David Tanis’s creamy casserole, dolloped with ricotta and showered with bread crumbs .

Though there are ample recipes that use up the entire vegetable at once. Melissa’s, Ali’s and Alexa’s above do, as does this recipe from the chef Rahanna Bisseret Martinez , in which she sautées the greens, quick-pickles the stems and pairs it all with mushrooms atop a bowl of creamy vegan grits.

You don’t even have to seek out a Swiss chard recipe to eat Swiss chard. The next time you stumble upon, say, a kale pasta or kale soup , make like Meg and improvise.

Swiss Chard Pasta With Leeks, Tarragon and Lemon Zest

Citrusy lentil and sweet potato soup, creamy grits with mushrooms and chard, one more thing.

Reading : “ Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter ,” by Phoebe Damrosch, catalogs her experiences at Per Se in New York. The book, published in 2008, draws attention to the restaurant’s culture of calling everyone from the reservationist to the coffee server “chef” — now a habit of many nonservice workers, too, thanks to “ The Bear .”

Watching : The trailer for “ The Idea of You ,” the fan fiction-style rom-com starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, who was profiled this week by the Cut .

Listening : In anticipation of Dua Lipa’s third album, “Radical Optimism,” dropping in May (yes, I preordered the picture disc), here’s the singer performing an acoustic version of its second single, “Training Season .”

Thanks for reading, and see you next week.

Email us at [email protected] . Newsletters will be archived here . Reach out to my colleagues at [email protected] if you have questions about your account.

An earlier version of this newsletter incorrectly stated that the movie “The Idea of You” is now streaming. It available on Amazon’s Prime Video service on May 2; it premiered at the South by Southwest Conference and Festivals earlier this month.

How we handle corrections

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Dear Abby: Spouse unhappy with wife who eats, drinks and breathes veganism

• Published: Mar. 22, 2024, 4:00 a.m.

Dear Abby, written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, answers a question about a spouse whose wife eats, sleeps and breathes veganism. Canva

• Abigail Van Buren

DEAR ABBY: My wife and I have been teachers since 1999. We married in 2011. She became vegan in 2017. It helped her beat diabetes, which I love. However, she’s pure vegan for animal rights and listens to vegan podcasts all day long after teaching and on the weekends. I mean all day, EVERY day with earbuds in. I have to say, “Knock, Knock” to even talk with her.

Right now, she’s listening to podcasts and messaging vegan people on social media and doesn’t even realize I’m typing. I love my wife, but I can’t escape the frustration of not being able to have a conversation with her about anything.

We have no kids together, but I raised her son from 7 years old. He moved to live with his dad because of her obsessions with work and veganism. I love her, but the fridge is filled with kale. Should I stay, or should I go? -- AFTERTHOUGHT IN OREGON

DEAR AFTERTHOUGHT: Tap your wife on the shoulder and ask her to remove her earbuds. When she does, give her an earful. Tell her you love her but you need a partner who is willing to be more of a companion than she has become. Tell her you shouldn’t have to ask permission to talk to her because of her preoccupation (obsession) with her podcasts.

If you want food in the house that isn’t vegan, go out and buy some. And if she’s unwilling or unable to accept and adapt, try marriage counseling before calling a lawyer. The marriage you have described is not a happy one, or you wouldn’t have written to me.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

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Ask Lucas: My family and friends shun me because of my vegan diet

• Published: Mar. 27, 2024, 12:57 p.m.

My God, that is the sexiest cabbage I have ever seen. Put this sultry lady on a billboard and the fellas (many ladies too I imagine) will be lining up at Trader Joes to stock up on quinoa and tofu. vlntn - stock.adobe.com

• Lucas Daprile, cleveland.com

Dear Lucas : I am a vegan, as are two of my adult children. Sometimes we don’t get invited places, including family gatherings, because of our bizarre and deviant lifestyle. No one seems impressed by our low cholesterol and blood pressure readings. We are willing to bring a vegan dish to share or to bring our own food to eat. I won’t give up veganism, but it does seem to be socially ostracizing. How should I handle this dilemma?

Dear Reader : Okay, to be fair I am also not impressed by your low blood pressure readings. However, it’s a shame your family/friends disdain your ascetic diet to the point they shun you.

Then again, I’m taking you at your word that they’re uninviting you simply for being vegan. Are you sure it’s not because you showed up to Thanksgiving that one time with roadkill on a shovel screaming at poor Uncle Herb:

“LOOK INTO ITS COLD EYES. GAZE INTO THE ABYSS AND SEE YOUR CARNIVOROUS SOUL REFLECTED IN THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE OF SUFFERING. YOU HASTEN DEATH FOR ALL BUT YOU AND YOUR OWN. REPENT, HYPOCRITES!”

While I question some vegan ideas – I think chickens are too stupid to have feelings – it’s in bad taste to exclude someone just because they don’t eat meat. Plus, veganism is good for the environment and the animals. I lack the discipline or selflessness to join you, but I respect your commitment to doing the right thing.

The best way to spread propaganda is through food; just look at the French. Even Vietnam, which had good reason to despise their former colonial overlords , had to admit baguettes were pretty good. The fusion of French bread, Vietnamese herbs and thinly sliced meat blessed humanity with the Banh Mi sandwich .

Sorry, bad example.

There are plenty of delicious vegan things you can bring your friends and family to convince them you aren’t just some bored person, desperately searching for a sense of identity in a world oversaturated with performative virtue-signaling.

Next time there’s a party, try bringing over something like bruschetta, guacamole, hummus, baba ghanoush, soft pretzels or something that’s both delicious and consistent with your values.

It doesn’t even have to be super tasty. You may be a bad cook, but at least you’re not bringing over roadkill again.

Previous questions

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Look at this handsome fella. His name is Lucas and he will be writing more columns like this, despite common sense saying this should stop while he’s ahead. If you want to send hate mail or, for some reason, ask for his advice, please send an email to [email protected] .

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Britain's longest-serving butcher, 85, hangs up her meat cleaver after 66 years - as she blames rise of veganism and eco concerns for drop in trade

• Pat Jenkins has worked continuously in butchers Mason's since 1958
• But she thinks traditional butcher shops are finished in the modern era
• READ MORE: Cillian Murphy reveals that he's adopted a vegan diet

Britain's longest-serving butcher is hanging up her cleaver after more than six decades serving her community - as she blamed vegans and environmental concerns for a drop in trade in the last decade .

Pat Jenkins, 85, has worked in her late father's butcher shop in Pokesdown, Bournemouth, Dorset since 1958 but will pull the shutters down for the last time on Saturday after 66 years of continuous service.

But with the renewal of her lease coming up, which would have chained her to the unit for another decade, Ms Jenkins has decided to give herself the chop - both for her own sake and because meat is no longer 'in vogue'.

She believes younger generations' attitudes towards meat consumption are partially to blame for custom dropping off by a third in the last 10 years.

Ms Jenkins has reluctantly chosen to retire now because otherwise a lease will tie her to the unit for another ten years, by which time she would be 95. 

She said: 'I never would have thought that when I first started working here all those years ago I would still be doing it well into my 80s.

'I have never thought about retiring and I don't want to retire just yet but the timing makes sense. I don't think I can still do it at 95.

'I will be bored out of my head and I am already looking at situations vacant to see if there is something else I can do.'

READ MORE:  Britain's longest-serving butcher, 80, who has worked in same shop for more than 60 years fears her business faces the chop due to rise of veganism 

Ms Jenkins' father Albert Musselwhite took over the family business, Mason's Butchers, in 1945 from the previous owner, Mr Mason. 

Because everyone knew it as Mason's he decided to keep the name going - and it has remained the same since.

Mr Musselwhite died in 1973, prompting Ms Jenkins to step up and take the reins of the business herself.

Her son Andrew joined her in 1981 and he still works there at the age of 60, and grandson Fraser has worked in the shop too.

Throughout her decades-long tenure, the grandmother has dealt with the introduction of decimalisation, the mad cow disease crisis of the 1980s and the rise of veganism .

And as society has changed, so too has the high street of the Bournemouth suburb. Mason's is now the last one standing of what were 11 butchers on the three-mile stretch of Christchurch Road.

She added: 'The business has changed a lot over the years. Years ago meat was the thing to have, everyone had their meat and two veg with every meal and had roasts twice a week.

'But people have gone off meat, it is not in vogue at the moment. It has had some bad publicity and people now think it is not good for you or good for the planet.

'Veganism and vegetarianism is the hot topic with younger people. It seems that each generation coming up is less meat-orientated. But we have regular customers who have kept us going.'

Ms Jenkins also believes the increase in supermarkets has also led to a decline in customers.

At its peak the business employed five members of staff, but Mason's is now run by just Ms Jenkins and her son, who has retrained as a gas engineer.

She actually predicted the end of her business five years ago, as she feared the death of the high street would come for her shop.

She said in 2019: 'The main reason we have been able to keep going is our reputation - people know they will get top quality meat from us. They still say "if you want something good, you better go to Mason's".

'We have some regular customers that still come in every week but we only see most customers at Christmas for their turkey or if they want something special because they have visitors coming or something like that.

'But mostly people won't make a special trip anymore because there's nothing else on the high street. There used to be butchers and greengrocers and fishmongers, now it's just estate agents and beauty salons here.

'I doubt there will be any small shops left in five or ten years' time, including ours. The high street is dying, it definitely is.

'My grandchildren come and help out but they don't want to have anything to do with carrying on the family business. I don't think I would encourage them to anyway, because butchers and high street shops like this are a thing of the past.

'Business is a struggle but it's a way of life to me. We will keep going as long as we can.'

All-vegan Soy Concha Bakery is closing its doors in Santa Ana

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Like any other day in the kitchen, Kathy Lopez readied ingredients to bake sweet treats like Gansito tres leches and chocoflan cakes at Soy Concha Bakery in Santa Ana.

A wafting saccharine aroma from a row of freshly baked pan dulce greeted customers walking through the doors.

But a month ago, the vegan panadería announced that it would not be renewing its lease at Bristol Civic Plaza, where it had made its home since 2017.

“It was a hard decision,” said Lopez, the bakery’s co-owner and cake decorator. “But I think it’s the best decision for my family. And I don’t feel as sad because I know we’re not fully stepping away.”

Before serving Mexican sweet bread free of eggs, milk or lard, Lopez and Ross Mazariegoes, her husband, originally opened up Victoria’s Bakery in the same location in 2011. It served pupusas, tortas and birria along with traditional pan dulce.

The panadería converted to vegan food after Lopez’s brother Earvin, who helped open Victoria’s Bakery, made the dietary change for himself.

Lopez admitted she hadn’t heard of veganism before that.

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Mazariegoes, as the head baker, and his brother-in-law began experimenting with different recipes to remake cultural staples free of animal-derived ingredients.

“They tried to ‘veganize’ pan dulce without eggs or milk,” Lopez said. “After many trials, they eventually got it right.”

The bakery fully transitioned to animal-free fare, changed its name to Vegan by Victoria and made a successful pop-up appearance at SoCal VegFest, a vegan food festival at the OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa, before rebranding as Soy Concha Bakery.

At first bite, customers couldn’t even tell that the conchas, orejas, cuernitos and other sweet treats were vegan unless they were told.

“We try to keep the closest possible authenticity to the culture,” Lopez said. “We use almond, soy and coconut milk substitutes, but the flavor is still there. The sazón of how the recipes were originally taught to us is there. We’re keeping the family traditions in all the recipes that we make, even as they’re vegan.”

The bakery even made vegan Rosca de Reyes, an oval-shaped crown-decorated cake traditionally eaten to celebrate El Día de los Reyes Magos, or Three Kings Day, on Jan. 6.

Once informed of the swap, the Latino community kept coming back, especially during the difficult days of the pandemic.

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Feb. 16, 2022

“The older generation didn’t know much about veganism,” Lopez said. “It is a healthier option, and they have taken a liking to it. Apart from that, we have a lot of support from the vegan community itself.”

News of Soy Concha Bakery’s closing struck both communities as bittersweet as it stands as a rarity in being a fully vegan panadería in Southern California.

Its last day of business is Saturday.

The location is already being remodeled by new tenants set to move in on Monday.

The family-owned bakery still maintains a second location in East Los Angeles off of the famed Whittier Boulevard thoroughfare, but Earvin is looking to shop the “Soy Concha” brand altogether.

Until then, the bakery will take delivery orders from around Orange County through its website , business phone and social media accounts. Soy Concha will also announce pop-up appearances from time to time.

“We are really grateful to the vegan and Orange County communities,” Lopez said. “We’re here to keep serving them the best that we can.”

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Gabriel San Román is a feature writer for TimesOC. He previously worked at OC Weekly – as a reporter, podcast producer and columnist – until the newspaper’s closing in late 2019. San Román also loves the game of basketball. He may or may not be the tallest Mexican in O.C.

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