Not because vegans are morally superior. But when you follow the logic honestly, the final destination is clear.
1. We’d rarely take our kids to watch a slaughter, but we’ll happily take them strawberry picking.
Think about the trips that make a wholesome family outing, such as strawberry fields, apple orchards, etc. There is something parents instinctively understand about these places that witnessing the process, from soil to fruit, feels like an overall positive experience.
Now imagine suggesting a trip to watch a pig being slaughtered. The idea produces an almost universal recoil to adults and children alike. Most people who eat animals their entire lives never once witness the act that makes it possible. Even if people have a day out at the farm, with a shop attached that sells the flesh of those animals, the public isn’t generally invited to witness the animals’ forced deaths.
For some, this day out takes place, and it becomes a notably traumatic event for adults who are often present-day vegans.
If the act were genuinely morally untroubling, there would be no reason for many to shy away from this act. Or, if witnessed, it shouldn’t be so mentally scarring. We don’t shield children from strawberry picking. We don’t feel queasy describing how bread is made. The discomfort can allude to a cognitive dissonance. An icky feeling isn’t the whole picture of what is morally acceptable, but it is important to note.
2. The arguments against veganism don’t hold up, because if they did, they’d justify harming humans, too.
The most common arguments against veganism follow a recognisable pattern.
- “Animals aren’t as intelligent as we are.”
- “They don’t have the same emotional complexity.”
- “They can’t reason or make moral choices, so they don’t have the same moral status.”
A moment of checking for consistency should ring alarm bells. If low intelligence justifies using an animal however we like, what do we say about humans who aren’t as intelligent as others? If the capacity for complex reasoning is what earns moral protection, do human infants qualify? If the ability to reciprocate moral consideration is the threshold, does that mean we can harm those who are unable to do so?
This is what philosophers call the ‘argument from marginal cases’, and it is devastating to most attempted justifications for eating animals. The characteristics used to exclude animals from moral consideration, be it intelligence, language, or self-awareness, are characteristics that some humans lack, and that some non-human animals possess in greater measure than we assume. Any principle that permits the harming of animals, if applied consistently, would permit things we consider monstrous when done to humans. Given that it can’t be a consistent view for most who claim it to be the argument they believe in, the argument falls apart.
3. There is no morally significant difference between them and us.
We are also animals, and typically, the attributes that we value in humans that protect their existence are also present in other animals.
What actually seems to matter morally is the experience of the subject – to feel pain, fear, distress, grief, etc. But pigs are cognitively complex. Cows form social bonds and show signs of grief. Fish feel pain, despite decades of convenient assumptions to the contrary.
If that characteristic is why harming humans is wrong, it is also why harming other animals is wrong. If they have an experience we can violate or remove from existence, then taking that from them would also be wrong.
4. We already believe future generations will judge us, and we say it like it’s someone else’s problem.
“One day, people will look back on factory farming the way we look back on other horrific acts throughout history.” Vegan advocates hear this from non-vegans who claim to have no plans to change.
But this is a bizarre statement to make when action isn’t taken to stop the behaviour. To sincerely believe that an act will be considered morally indefensible by future generations and to continue that behaviour anyway makes it clearer why bad things indeed took place in the past, or take place in the present day. Because this can be said by some without inspiring alternative ways of behaving.
We cannot outsource our moral responsibility to a future generation. Showing introspection doesn’t absolve us. The fact that this is said should ring loud alarms that the current support of this should be avoided.
5. Almost everyone already agrees with the principle; they just haven’t followed it to where it leads.
Here is perhaps the most striking thing about the vegan argument: you almost never have to start from scratch. Ask almost anyone whether animals can suffer, and they will say yes. Ask whether their experience matters morally, and they will say yes most of the time, depending on the specific animal. Say, for example, they’re an animal that they don’t know they impact negatively, like an animal who doesn’t live anywhere near them. Ask whether animals should be exploited, and they will commonly say no.
Before the conversation focuses on animals that a given human may exploit, the non-vegan sounds like an animal rights advocate.
Most people aren’t arguing against veganism. They’re arguing against the discomfort of applying their own values consistently, or having to drop something they believe is integral to their identity, which can often be something that uses animals against their best interests.
None of the five points above requires a new value to be adopted in many cases. They invite you to observe the values you already hold and ask: Do my actions match them?
We already know deep down that veganism is the correct principle to hold to. If it were not, there would be a consistent moral position that doesn’t then put the best interests of humans in danger, or we’d be more comfortable and unapologetic about harming animals.
