Jordi Casamitjana, author of the book “Why Vegans Don’t”, discusses how veganism provides what most compassionate people are looking for
I used to carry them all the time.
When paying with cash was a normal thing (it has almost disappeared in some of the London environments I frequent), I used to carry one-pound coins in one of my pockets all the time. If I ran out, I would change a 5-pound note to refill it. The purpose? To be able to give to homeless people who asked me to “spare some change”.
At one point in my life — I don’t remember when exactly — I decided that I should always give cash to any homeless person who asked me politely, and I decided that giving less than one pound would be far too humiliating for such a person, so the minimum I should give had to be one pound. I know many people argue that we should not give money to homeless people because they may use it for alcohol or drugs (or to buy animal products), but I find this is more a justification for not having given it, as opposed to a good reason not to give it. The way I think about it is that, if I am motivated by ethics (do “good” and not do “bad”) and an urge to help everyone (assuming money helps in the current society when you have very little of it and not even have a home), not giving cash to someone who desperately needs it is far worse than giving cash to someone who does not, and has tricked you into giving it. I would rather act naively than selfishly, and I should be humble enough to recognise that I cannot possibly know beforehand, with just a look and perhaps even an exchange of a few words, if the cash given will effectively help.
It’s a gamble, but as I am not an utilitarian or selective altruist who uses metrics to decide when to help (and who would rather choose a donation for future long-term increased benefit than to help a “drowning child” you just happen to come across to — referring to Peter Singer’s classic dilemma), I give my pound coin without knowing if I really help, and I am happy to keep doing it this way.
I must say that, these days, as I hardly ever carry cash anymore, I feel a bit guilty because I do it far less often (and I think I may be meeting fewer homeless people who ask me, perhaps because there are fewer homeless people in the areas I normally go, or they simply ask less now). However, I did not drop the rule.
Why did I do it, though? What is it that drives me to give a pound to a stranger who asks me? Is it a false sense of stewardship? Is it a way to deal with guilt? Is it peer pressure? Is it wanting to look good? No, it’s compassion. I want to write a bit about this concept and its connection with veganism — because, yes, I have been vegan for decades, and I made my “pound rule” when I was already a vegan. I want to write about it because I believe most ethical vegans are compassionate people, and if you are a compassionate person but not vegan yet, this article may help you.
What does compassion mean?
Compassion is a complex, multi-layered phenomenon that bridges biology, psychology, culture, and ethics. At its most basic, compassion can be defined as the visceral awareness of another’s suffering coupled with the desire to alleviate it. It’s not just empathy — feeling what others feel or think, either instinctively or through learning — or sympathy — awareness of the problems of others and concern about them without necessarily sharing the emotional state. It is a type of empathy but one that focuses on the negative feelings felt by another and — and that is essential — is always coupled with a desire to help such another. Compassion contains the recognition that sympathy brings, the experience that empathy brings, but also the motivation to act. In my pound-rule example, sympathy is the concern for the person who seems to be homeless; empathy is feeling the person’s hunger, cold, sadness, or shame; and compassion is, after feeling this, having an urge to help (which leads to giving the person some cash).
Because when we have negative experiences we act trying to resolve them (that’s the whole biological reason to have them, to inform the body that something is happening that is bad for us, so we should either leave or do something to change the situation in our favour) when we have the negative experience of someone else’s through empathy, this often leads to a similar urge to act to resolve the problem. If we are feeling such an urge, we are experiencing compassion. We can either act or not, but the compassion was there even if we just felt it and did nothing (because we could not, we did not know what to do, or simply decided not to act).
It is not the action that defines compassion, but the urge to act, regardless of whether the act took place. Therefore, compassion is not something you learn to do, but it’s something that happens to you because you were born with the capacity to experience compassion. Compassion is not an action driven by morality, but by feelings. You can create the right moral action based on sympathy and logic (or applying an ethical or religious doctrine), but to be a compassionate action (even if it is the same action), the empathic feeling must have occurred. The action was motivated by the urge to act, which came from feeling the negative experience of the other through empathy. As both the empathy and the urge to act “happen” to you, compassion is essentially biological, not cultural. The action you choose to quench that urge will be based on morals and culture, but the urge to act after the feeling experienced is more visceral, not intellectual.
When the action taken by the person who experienced compassion cannot result in helping the person that triggered the compassionate empathy, the negative experience persists in both (I call “suffering” an unresolved lingering negative experience). This creates a negative feeling that could manifest as sadness, disappointment, shame, or even anger. That may trigger a new set of actions, perhaps different from the first one, which may work to resolve the problem, and this is why compassion may lead to other feelings. What started as a compassionate feeling may end up channelled into a socio-political revolution that changes the world, so we should not underestimate compassion as a force for change.
When a person often experiences compassion and often acts accordingly, trying to solve the problem, we call such a person a “compassionate person”. Such a person will be spending a long time feeling what others feel (what people sometimes refer to as being an “empath” — not to be confused with the paranormal corruption of the term, as being an empath is perfectly normal and natural) and will try to help in many ways. However, more often than not, the problems are not resolved with the action, so the shared “suffering” may become unbearable after some time. We call this “compassion fatigue”, which may lead to depression and hopelessness, or burnout and desensitisation (closing of the “empathic eye”).
If we have a compassionate person at one end of the compassion spectrum, at the other end we will find a violent psychopath, who, for being a psychopath, would lack the capacity to empathise, and for being violent, would try to harm rather than help. This spectrum is mostly genetic, so you are kind of “born” in a particular place in the spectrum, although you can modulate how you express your level of compassion through learning — and you could learn how a compassionate person should behave and just imitate such behaviour without the “feeling it” part. It’s possible that some neurodivergent people may experience compassion differently either because their empathy may be regulated differently or they may be more — or less — sensitive to the feelings of others. Equally, indoctrination can force you to be selective toward whom to channel your natural compassion, but also compassion can be cultivated and expanded beyond your normal baseline with education and practice, so initial indoctrinations that muffle it can be removed.
I think I am a compassionate person, and I have experienced compassion fatigue. I often feel the negative experiences of others (I do have a sensitive “empathic eye”, perhaps more sensitive than the average person due to my brain architecture), and often I try to help — even when I know I cannot really help. I don’t do it all the time, and sometimes my empathic eye is closed (especially if I feel overwhelmed by something), but I think I have done it enough through my life to be qualified as a compassionate person. This reflects on my behaviour (I avoid harming anyone) and attitude (I try to be polite and civil), on my political views (I am progressive, pro-human rights, against discrimination of any minority, and generally “lefty”), and on the philosophies I follow (veganism, animal rights, human rights, pacifism, environmentalism, independentism, etc.). So, as a compassionate person, I can write this article from direct experience.
Compassion in society
The word “Compassion” comes from the Latin compati, the union of com (with or together) with pati (to suffer). Literally, it means “to suffer together”. This etymology shows its relational nature. In a social species like us, many of the things we do have a relational foundation. Compassion momentarily dissolves the boundary between self and other, allowing another’s suffering to become morally relevant to us and make us act not just for our own benefit, but for the benefit of the others (and ultimately, of the group).
From an evolutionary standpoint, compassion likely emerged as an adaptive trait. In social species like ours, cooperation enhances survival. Individuals who responded to the distress of others would have contributed to group cohesion and resilience. Over time, these tendencies could have been selected for, giving rise to what we now recognise as prosocial behaviours. Frans de Waal’s work on nonhuman primates, for instance, documents behaviours resembling consolation and helping, showing that the roots of compassion predate humanity. However, evolution alone does not dictate how compassion is expressed, or which moral rules are used to act from it.
From a psychological perspective, compassion is underpinned by both emotional and cognitive processes. Neuroscientific research indicates that experiencing compassion activates brain regions associated with affiliation and reward — such as the ventral striatum and medial orbitofrontal cortex — rather than the distress-related circuits activated by personal suffering. This suggests that compassion is not merely shared pain, but a distinct, regulated state.
Psychologists such as C. Daniel Batson have explored the “empathy–altruism hypothesis”, proposing that empathic concern can motivate genuinely altruistic behaviour — actions aimed at benefiting others without expectation of reward. While debate continues about whether true altruism exists, there is strong evidence that humans are among the species that are capable of acting in ways that prioritise others’ welfare, even at personal cost.
Historically, compassion has occupied a central place in many philosophical and religious traditions. In ancient Greek philosophy, compassion was discussed widely. Early Stoic thinkers, such as Zeno and Chrysippus, were wary of emotions like pity (eleos), viewing them as disturbances that could undermine rational judgement. The Stoic ideal was apatheia — a state of being free from destructive emotions — which led to criticisms that Stoicism discouraged compassion. However, later Stoic philosophers, including Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, articulated a more nuanced view. They emphasised oikeiosis (the process of recognising others as part of a shared moral community), which fosters a rational form of concern for others’ well-being. This reframing suggested that compassion does not need to always be an irrational emotional reaction, but could also be grounded in reason, justice, and an understanding of our interconnectedness.
The earliest uses of the term “compassion” in moral discourse were closely tied to virtue ethics (an alternative ethical framework to the utilitarianism we commonly see in animal welfare and the deontology we commonly see in animal rights), a way of thinking about morality that focuses less on rules or consequences and more on the kind of person one ought to become. In virtue ethics, the central question is not simply “What should I do?” but “What sort of character should I cultivate?” Within this framework, compassion is understood as a virtue (a stable and admirable disposition that shapes how a person perceives and responds to the suffering of others). Rather than treating compassion as a mere emotion, virtue ethics frames it as part of moral excellence.
In Buddhism, compassion — or karuṇā — is not merely encouraged but cultivated as a disciplined practice. It is one of the Four Immeasurables (Brahmavihāras) or Divine Abodes, alongside loving-kindness (mettā), sympathetic joy (muditā), and equanimity (upekkhā). Compassion, in this context, is the sincere wish that all sentient beings be free from suffering, and it is explicitly universal. It is not limited by species, status, or personal relationship. Buddhist teachings, particularly in the early Pali Canon, emphasise that compassion must extend impartially to all beings capable of experiencing suffering. Practices such as loving-kindness meditation are designed to systematically expand one’s circle of compassion, dissolving boundaries that typically constrain it.
In Hinduism, compassion is a deeply significant virtue, closely linked to dharma, ahimsa (non-violence), and the recognition of the divine presence in all beings. The Sanskrit term karuṇā used in Buddhism is also used in Hinduism for compassion, while dayā also conveys mercy, tenderness, and concern for the suffering of others. Hindu teachings often present compassion not as an optional sentiment, but as a moral and spiritual discipline that should shape thought, speech, and action. This is especially visible in devotional traditions, where compassion is associated with divine qualities, and in philosophical traditions that stress the unity of existence, encouraging one to see others not as separate from oneself, but as part of the same sacred reality.
In Christianity, compassion is often framed through the concept of agape — a form of love characterised by selflessness, sacrifice, and unconditional care. Agape is central to the teachings attributed to Jesus in the New Testament, where acts of mercy, healing, and concern for the marginalised are presented as moral exemplars. The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37), for instance, illustrates compassion as an active responsibility that transcends social and cultural divisions. Christian compassion is often linked with the idea of imitating divine love. However, while Christian compassion is often expressed through care for human neighbours and the marginalised, interpretations have varied, with some traditions historically emphasising humans while others — such as the Nazarenes, Ebionites, or later figures like St. Francis — extended it more broadly to all “creation”.
In Islam, compassion is deeply embedded in the concept of rahmah — a term often translated as mercy, but which also encompasses compassion, tenderness, and care. Rahmah is a defining attribute of Allah, as reflected in the repeated invocation “Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim” (“In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful”) at the beginning of most chapters of the Qur’an. Islamic teachings encourage believers to embody this divine compassion in their conduct, promoting kindness, charity (zakat), and concern for others. Some hadiths (sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad) extend this compassion beyond humans, including guidance on the treatment of non-human animals, such as the well-known narration of a person forgiven for giving water to a thirsty dog. As with other traditions, however, interpretations and practices have varied widely across cultures and historical contexts.
Modern philosophers working in a broader secular approach have also argued that a moral life must take the suffering of others seriously, which makes compassion a recurring foundation. Secular Humanism and other non-religious philosophies also consider compassion an important quality to possess and a driver of moral action. One of them is Sentientism (I can consider myself a Sentientist too), whose motto is “Evidence, Reason and Compassion for all sentient beings”. Jamie Woodhouse, an advocate for Sentientism who runs a website and podcast on the subject, wrote this to me in relation to the concept of compassion: “The Sentientism worldview only has two tenets: that we should understand our world using evidence and reasoning, and that we should have compassion for all sentient beings. Universal compassion, for all beings, is essential to the worldview. That compassion must be serious; it can’t be just something we say, it must be something we act on.”
Virtue ethicists have continued to treat compassion as one of the character traits that make a flourishing moral life possible. For example, Philippa Foot, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Martha Nussbaum have each helped to revitalise virtue ethics in modern philosophy, stressing that ethical life is rooted in the cultivation of good character rather than in abstract rules alone. For Nussbaum, compassion is not just an emotion or a virtue that guides people to a perfect system of morality but is potentially a vehicle for everyone to learn and understand the essence of morality itself.
Despite these traditions, compassion has often been selectively applied because although the capacity for compassion may be innate and universal, its scope and application are culturally dependent.
Veganism and Compassion
You don’t have to be compassionate to become vegan, but if you are compassionate, it is likely that you will become vegan at some point. This is because veganism is a philosophy that suits the compassionate person perfectly.
As philosophies go, veganism is very well defined, and even if people create their own definitions and deviate from it in all directions, there is an official definition and an orthodox interpretation that works as strong guidance to understanding it.
The official definition created by the Vegan Society in 1944 and finalised in 1988 is: “Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practicable — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms, it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”
People whose way of living is based on applying this definition to the full in all aspects of their lives are known as “ethical vegans” (which is another way to say a “true vegan”, to differentiate them from anyone who claims to be vegan but only applies veganism in, for instance, their food).
Definitions, though, are never sufficient to have a true understanding of any fully fleshed-out philosophy. The philosophy of veganism needs a list of the main core principles to understand not only what vegans do (and don’t do, something I wrote extensively about in my latest book, Why Vegans Don’t), but also why. In this regard, I have identified the following five core axioms that all true vegans should follow:
THE AXIOM OF AHIMSA: ‘Trying not to harm anyone is the moral baseline’
THE AXIOM OF ANIMAL SENTIENCE: ‘All members of the Animal Kingdom should be considered sentient beings’
THE AXIOM OF ANTI-EXPLOITATION: ‘All exploitation of sentient beings harms them’
THE AXIOM OF ANTI-SPECIESISM: ‘Not discriminating against anyone is the right ethical way’
THE AXIOM OF VICARIOUSNESS: ‘Indirect harm to a sentient being caused by another person is still harm we must try to avoid’
When we deconstruct veganism into its core principles (or “axioms”, which just means statements of conviction that are given as true within the community that follows the philosophy), these five above are not only the most crucial and universal, but they are presented here in order of importance. Therefore, the principle of ahimsa, a Sanskrit word that means “do no harm” or “nonviolence”, which has become an important tenet of several Dharmic religions (including Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism), is the most important principle of veganism too. Avoiding harming others is the reason why vegans seek to exclude any form of exploitation and cruelty, as these always harm other sentient beings.
Veganism also has several developmental stages. It’s not just a philosophy but, over the years, has grown into something much bigger. At its core, it continues being an ethical philosophy that shows people what is wrong (harming others) and what is right (try to avoid harming others as far as possible and practicable within your circumstances), but it has also led to a lifestyle that led to an identity that led to a community that led to a global transformative socio-political movement that aims to change the entire world (creating what we call “the Vegan World” where oppression and exploitation of anyone, human or otherwise, will no longer be systemic).
Additionally, people enter veganism via different gateways that reflect the main dimensions of the vegan philosophy and movement (namely animals, the environment, health, spirituality, and social justice), and most vegans who have been vegan for a long time will end up embracing all such dimensions, even if they may still be attached to the gateway they first used to enter what I metaphorically call “the vegan mansion”. Each of these gateways can also create different types of vegans, who specialise in those (i.e. eco-vegans, social justice vegans, spiritual vegans, etc.).
So, by knowing the definition, the five main axioms, the five developmental stages, and the five dimensions/gateways, one can have a good grasp of what veganism is in a succinct but complete way.
However, if we look at all this, we can see that the concept of compassion does not appear to be, strictly speaking, fundamental to veganism (at least my interpretation of it). It’s not explicitly part of the definition, main axioms, stages, or gateways. In fact, you can be an ethical vegan who does not “love” others or feel any empathy for them, yet continue to seek to avoid harming them and prevent others from harming them too, because there is no need to “feel” veganism; it can be applied purely intellectually by following a vegan moral code established by the vegan community. However, if you do “feel” it, you are more likely to stay vegan for life, as you will have an internal motivator. One that is very effective in helping you to understand the problems veganism tries to solve, and that gives you the energy and inspiration to help in the right way.
Therefore, as vegans, we should not underestimate how important the concept of compassion is for the vegan movement, because although it may not be foundational or fundamental, it certainly plays an important role in “recruiting” new vegans and keeping them vegan for life.
Many vegans use the term “compassion” when they discuss vegan philosophy because it is useful when describing the feeling — and even the character virtues — associated with avoiding harming others. It gives a clear and easy-to-understand “why” of vegans’ behaviour when trying to avoid exploitation and cruelty (because they feel compassion for the victims, or they are compassionate people). In a way, compassion plays the role of motivator in veganism, linking the cold moral intellectual rational to the warm visceral psychological — and even spiritual — feeling, and thus “completing” the picture, making it real, palpable and quintessentially human. Veganism and compassion align well and synergise even better.
It is not surprising, then, that most ethical vegans are likely to be compassionate people too. Although I never met any of the pioneers of the Vegan Society, their writings suggest to me they were compassionate people, and any survey done of vegans always shows a majority identifying as women, the gender traditionally associated with more compassionate tendencies. The chances are that if you are a vegan who entered veganism via any gateway other than the health gateway, you are also a compassionate person. The question is, though, if you are a compassionate person but not yet vegan, should you become one?
Compassion is the great vegan motivator.
A compassionate person has an urge to act to eliminate the bad experiences others have, but if this happens often enough to deserve the adjective, it is likely that such a person may have developed a “method” to deal with it. Either via personal rules (such as my one-pound rule), joining groups or organisations that work within a compassionate framework (such as a charity or a church), or joining a social movement that embraces compassion.
The veganism movement is one of them. It provides compassionate people a coherent and consistent way to resolve their internal suffering caused by unresolved compassion (one that urges you to help, but you don’t feel you are helping enough). It gives you a way to channel all your compassion effectively and to do the most with it. It gives your compassion the chance to become action, not just feeling, and doing it every day, in a wide enough way so you cover as many “others” as possible.
But if you are a compassionate person who only cares about humans, how can veganism help you? Well, because of the social justice dimension of veganism, that also covers marginalised human communities. Veganism opposes the exploitation of sentient beings and challenges the current structures that normalise such exploitation, trying to dismantle the systems of domination, which rarely operate in isolation. These are the same forces which also oppress marginalised groups of humans and nonhuman animals, so veganism gives you a coherent way to address all the problems at once by going straight to the roots. That approach will not only be effective, but it will open your circle of compassion, making you realise that you should not restrict it to humans alone. When you do that, when you start looking at fellow animals as “someone”, you will start feeling them too (because your empathic eye works across species, although indoctrination may have forced you to activate it only with humans).
For many vegans, the concept of compassion is very important, and their compassionate nature is what led them to veganism. Kim Stallwood, a prominent vegan animal rights campaigner, scholar, and author, said this about compassion when discussing with me his book “Growl”: “Growl was a memoir of my involvement with animal rights and it’s got two parallel narrative arcs. First, it is basically a story of myself and how my interest in animals began. What influenced me, what I think and how I saw it within a progressive agenda of social justice. And then the second parallel narrative arc is the history of my involvement with various animal organisations and the work that I did for them. The two arcs come together because I talk about the four key values of animal rights as I understand them. These are: Compassion, Truth, Non-violence and Justice. They sort of overarch. I’m not a philosopher. I don’t espouse a philosophical view, but what I do articulate is a way of thinking about animal rights which is embedded by these four key values.”
The vegan real-life influencer Sean O’Callagham (aka Fat Gay Vegan) wrote a book titled “Fat Gay Vegan: Eat, Drink and Live Like You Give a Sh!t”. When asked about its key message by the Vegan Society, he said, “The main goal of the book is to ask people to unlock a blueprint of compassion they can use to navigate life. Our concern for animals can be acted upon at the same time as we work to redress other injustices. We don’t need to limit our compassion to simply non-human animals. I would like people to see that healthy communities and social responsibility are crucial elements of a compassionate life.”
The prominent vegan animal rights philosopher Tom Regan said this in one of his most famous speeches at an anti-vivisection rally in Los Angeles in 1988: “We will not rest, we will not rest! Until every animal is out of every cage in every lab! We can do this! We shall do this! The day WILL come when all the cages will be empty, when ALL the animals will be liberated, when all decent, compassionate people can shout with joy, echoing Martin Luther King’s famous words: ‘Free at last! Free at last! FREE AT LAST!”
If you are a compassionate person of the kind Regan refers to, it must be hard for you to live in modern life where there is so much information reaching you, making you “feel” the suffering and injustice of so many others while it seems that you can do so little to alleviate it. If you see — and feel if you have a sufficiently sensitive empathic eye — our fellow animals as “others” too (as you should), that’s even worse. However, veganism does provide you with a good and satisfying way to deal with all this, because every time you reject a product or activity linked to the exploitation of others, you are materialising the urge to act that your compassionate nature constantly exposes you to. By being a vegan, you act every day to help others, so you can finally find some internal peace. If you embrace veganism as the philosophy that will guide your life, you will find a way to be compassionate in a ruthless world and not only feel relief but also fulfilment.
The vegan community is full of compassionate people who found a home in veganism because they had to find a coherent way to act, helping everyone without leaving anyone behind. If you are a compassionate person and have not become vegan yet, don’t miss out. Veganism will give you what you need. It will make you feel that your “action” to help others is meaningful and not performative. It will give you an outlet for you to enjoy being compassionate — as opposed to just enduring it and wishing you felt nothing for others. It will complete you.
If you are compassionate, you should become vegan.
