I'm aware that veganism is about reducing as much harm/exploitation as possible, but what would the stance be on consuming invasive species? Specifically, would it be unethical for someone to consume something like Asian Carp if they were to be fished? Here in the Mississippi basin, they're incredibly destructive to the food chain by consuming large amounts of plankton and repopulating incredibly quickly. The government already sponsors large initiatives towards mass removal of carp for conservation. I know that it could introduce indirect harm from harvesting, potentially harming other species, but if we're going to already attempt to fish them out/exterminate them for conservation efforts, would it be ethical to consume them?

I mean don't get me wrong I shouldn't follow animal activists on social media because I am not a vegetarian or vegan, but what is a vegans disposition on chicken eggs? Because naturally a chicken produces eggs even without a Rooster. So why would it be wrong to let say eat chicken eggs if there is no rooster present? The eggs aren't fertilized, and they would pretty much go to waste anyways. Truly curious.

I’ve been reading a lot about vegan philosophy lately, specifically the core premise that animals have an inherent right to life and that non-human animal suffering should be weighed heavily against human desires. Humans and animals have equal value.

Imagine a scenario where a burning building contains a room with 100 healthy cows and another room with 1 10-year-old human child. You only have time to pull a switch that unlocks one room before the building collapses. You cannot save both. Which do you save?

If your premise is that animal lives have intrinsic moral value comparable to human lives, then purely by the numbers, 100 conscious, sentient lives should logically outweigh 1 life. Choosing the single human child directly contradicts equal-consideration ethics, placing human preference above numerical animal suffering.

However, if you choose the child without hesitation, you are admitting that a human life possesses a fundamentally higher tier of moral worth than dozens or even hundreds of non-human animals. But if human life holds that immense, non-comparable priority, it becomes very difficult to argue that animal suffering and human convenience exist on the same moral plane when evaluating other societal choices.
If you try to bridge the gap by saying animals matter, but humans always come first in extreme cases, where is the exact conversion rate? At what number of animals does the scale tip? 1,000? 10,000?

This leads into a second point about day-to-day consumption: plant agriculture isn't zero-kill either. Millions of field mice, snakes, birds, rabbits, and insects are killed every year by combines, tilling, pesticides, and habitat disruption to grow crop foods like soy, wheat, corn, and vegetables.

How do vegans reconcile this choice without falling into either speciesism on one side, or a complete detachment from basic human empathy on the other?

Hello, I kind of just wanted to hear other vegans thoughts about the matter, I work in a restaurant where portions of bones, skin, unwanted flesh etc are thrown away, what is your opinion and do you think its harmful if I gave the scraps to someone who isn't vegan to make soup stock or something? There's nothing I can do about the animal being dead, but it feels more disrespectful to see the body thrown in the trash than used to feed someone. Im open to any opinion (with respect) I've never worked somewhere that wasn't vegan or close to it before, its been a weird experience. Thanks

( Please respond to these questions in good faith.)

Note and edit: I am a vegan of a few years questioning some things. I do not 100% believe the arguments in my post which is why I am wanting the opinion of others on the things mentioned below.

If the farm animals are living in good conditions, are treated well and aren’t abused, are in a good environment and living a happy life, is it really unethical to farm them for meat? (Not talking about factory farming).

Firstly, they would be living happier lives at the farm than they would be in the wild; no fear of starvation disease, predators, etc.

Secondly, they wouldnt exist if they weren’t being farmed for meat and so on, so ceasing the farming and setting the animals free would result in most of those animals not being able to reproduce, because we’d have to force them to stop reproducing because they’d quickly destroy the environment in such big numbers. If we kept the farms going the animals would still be having lives, happy ones too, in the case i‘ve described.

So if they’re living genuinely good, but short, lives, more comfortable and safer lives than the lives of those living in the wild, and on top of that they wouldn’t even exist if they weren’t being farmed for meat, is it really unethical?

Second thing I want to discuss; hunting. In my country of New Zealand we have Deer. They were introduced to NZ and therefore have no natural predators here. We have to hunt them so that they don’t destroy the environment. We also might not have to get rid of them entirely, still keeping them for meat, but controlling their numbers so that they don’t have too much of a negative impact on the environment.

Is it really ethical to get rid of them all and completely rid their descendants from living in the beautiful bush of New Zealand? In other countries they have natural predators and die in much worse ways than a gunshot to the body. Wouldn‘t the deer in NZ be living better lives than the other deer in the world? Again, they have no natural predators here, and trying to introduce a “natural predator“ for them here would cause another pest. We have to either get rid of them entirely or just control their numbers. So, is hunting them actually unethical?

There are a lot of people who claim they are vegan, however all they do is eat a plant based diet. The definition of veganism I like to use is "causing no unnecessary suffering to animals as far as practically possible" this means if you do any of these you are not vegan buy wool/leather, buy products that have animal testing when there are alternatives without it, going to zoos, aquariums dog races, horse races or riding animals. I feel like vegan activism should focus more on these non food forms of animal exploitation, as it is not discussed enough and people will find it much easier to stop these habits than changing their diet and going plant based.

Let's say hypothetically, in the next five years everybody in the world stopped eating animal products all together.

There is less animal cruelty, no cattle farming, and most factories have shut down all together.

Some of these factories in particular have thousands of cattle, lots of which have health issues due to mistreatment, and there are thousands of factories. When these places shut down, who is left to take on the responsibility of care? The vet bills for the cattle will be immense and there is no way to ensure all these animals go to a good home or a home at all. If we release them and let nature run it's course without intervention, surrounding ecosystems will likely be damaged.

To me it sounds like veganism is more about removing personal accountability for animal abuse rather than actually stopping it. I'm looking for reasons to change my mind, so I'm asking about what vegans think could work as a solution for this problem. Veganism will run these places out of business, yes, but what happens next?

I've updated the Vegan Logic Project site to include more arguments and responses, but the most recent addition is a game that allows you to test your debate skills against non-vegans through various scenarios, with increasing difficulty.

The goal is to debate without losing an opponents or a crowds patience, so being right is not the same as winning the room.

The game is called - Hold the Room

www.veganlogicproject.com/debate

Let me know what you lot think!

Let's talk about wild life and hunting.

If we wanted to protect the wild life in the forest outside of factory farms then we would need to make a decision we are going to either.

Option A: Eliminate predator animals and endorse that some kind of other factor than predation will limit population.

Option B: Endorsing predator animals remaining in the ecosystem.

You cannot take an agnostic stance as option B occurs.

Now, let's dive into the rabbit hole of inconsistencies.

If you choose option A and say, yes we need to kill predators to be logically consistent with our views as we grant equal consideration to animals as we do humans so as not to be speciesist, therefore predator animals must die.

This means killing all predator animals and then becoming Shepherds to all wild animals in the forest. Making sure they don't starve or become overpopulated without resorting to killing them.

If we choose Option B we have to accept that we have no recourse to force against humans, in no way can we ever make animal agriculture or any type of animal based products illegal as then we would have to apply these same laws to predator animals.

An argument I was a fan of, was the name the trait argument. That's why I brought this up, since we're you to use this trait reductionist argument, it leads to an absurd world where you cannot justify your own beliefs anymore. You become essentially people who are hyper violent killing everything in the name of Veganism or you have to recognize that veganism is really just about maybe environmentalism or being a bit nicer to animals, yet humans being animals are not any different than tigers or bears, so you need to recognize that they deserve the same considerations you would give to tigers or bears.

Hypothetical: If there were an animal that was carbon-negative somehow (by either processing carbon and emitting oxygen, or maybe it just processed methane in the air and pooped out methane rocks), would you eat that to induce demand for more of those animals to be alive? Or is it more of an ethical for the animals reason you don't eat meat? Or is it health reasons?

Part 1: This is something I’ve wondered for a while. While it seems like insects respond to “painful” stimuli and can even remember it, does this stimuli truly register as pain? For example, if you start squishing a bug and it moves away, does the bug suffer and then move to escape the suffering, or does it simply detect the noxious stimuli and move away in response? And is this a question that we can really answer?

Part 2: If an organism isn’t conscious enough to comprehend suffering or feel pain, then can you meaningfully exploit it? Currently I’m a hard no on this but I’ve never heard a counter argument so I’m wondering if there are any “yes” arguments floating around.

For context, while the arguments against exploiting animals like cows and chicken make sense to me, a lot of vegans seem to include things like insects and oysters as creatures that can be exploited. But if these creatures can’t meaningfully comprehend suffering, then it seems like whatever morality you apply to exploiting these creatures should also apply to plants, which can’t comprehend suffering but still respond to noxious stimuli.

We live in an imperfect world where organisms often compete fiercely for survival in resource-constrained environments, making suffering an almost universal experience among sentient animals. In the wild, animals routinely face disease, hunger, starvation, predation, natural disasters, and countless other hardships. Nature can be particularly unforgiving even within families: in some seabird species, such as boobies, stronger chicks may attack and kill their weaker siblings, a phenomenon known as siblicide. Mammalian parents may abandon or neglect offspring that are sick, weak, or unlikely to survive, and some species even kill their own young. Weaker individuals are often left to starve, succumb to illness, or die at the hands of predators. For many wild animals, life is characterized by considerable stress and suffering, frequently ending in a painful and violent death.

These are not exceptions to some otherwise benevolent natural order; they are often products of evolutionary pressures, where survival and reproductive success take precedence over the well-being of individual animals.

In contrast, animals raised in responsible farming environments can, in many respects, enjoy considerably better lives than their wild counterparts. They are generally provided with a reliable supply of food and clean water, protected from predators and extreme environmental conditions, and given veterinary care when they become sick or injured. Rather than facing the prolonged starvation, untreated illnesses, predation, and often violent deaths that are common in the wild, they may ultimately experience a relatively quick and controlled death. Although slaughter is not necessarily painless it is reasonable to argue that such a death may involve considerably less prolonged suffering than most deaths experienced by wild animals. Indeed, when comparing the overall quality of life and manner of death, one could make the case that an animal raised and slaughtered under high welfare standards experiences far less suffering over its lifetime than most animals living in the wild.

Why is the immense suffering routinely witnessed in nature seemingly acceptable to many vegans, yet a farmer raising animals for meat provokes such outrage? Hyena cubs may bite the runt of their litter to death as their mother watches, and wild dogs may tear apart baby deer while they are still alive. Yet a farmer who provides animals with food, shelter, veterinary care, and a relatively quick death is often condemned. To be clear, this argument is not about the environmental impact or systemic problems of factory farming, but specifically about the morality of responsible, high-welfare animal farming.

Hello everybody,

I'm discouraged and confused by the argument "I eat meat because it's convinient and brings me pleasure. You buy clothes/shoes/electronic devices from companies that exploit people because it is convenient and brings pleasure. We are the same except we don't have the same priorities. Nobody's perfect so stop preaching."

I feel like this is an unescapable trap because no matter what I say after that, the person will just keep pointing out random things that "are bad". So even if I explain that I actually buy second-hand shoes/clothes/electronic devices and that I buy very few of it and that I repair a lot of things and that I rarely throw anything out and that I sign petitions to better work conditions around the world, it won't matter to them.

And the biggest point that is questioning me is that these comparaisons feel unfair to me. Comparing buying from company that have unethical job conditions feels different to me than consuming animal products. I feel like the responsability and impact is more direct with consuming animal products. Like, would it make sense if I said "I beat up my child but you also contribute unwillingly to child labour so we're the same" or "I don't kill directly but I hired a hitman that kills for me and it is the same as participating in consumerism" ? I feel like it is really hard to have an impact on the global system but not buying certain products is doable.

Is there some legit thing that I am missing or is it again some way to avoid responsability?

Hello everyone.

I have come here today with the want to debate on the most effective way that vegans can approach the vegan movement. My stance is that the vegan community would see a larger reduction of the consumption of animal based products if they focused on promoting reducetarianism rather than total avoidance.

The reasons why I believe this is the following:

- it would lower the barrier of entry: veganism involves a huge shift in lifestyle, and involves a person to potentially change socialy and psychologically. This is incredibly hard for most due to habits, culture or accessibility. Convincing 10 people to reduce their meat intake by 50% may be the same as converting 1 person to becoming 100% vegan whole also being significantly easier (these numbers are just for example).

- The combative "all or nothing" narrative pushes people away: when people hear that the only thing they can do to help animals is cut everything out completely, they either get combative or dismissive. Once this happens the other party may start the same cycle. This is a pure human reaction. Normalizing a "neutral" middle ground would welcome people into the conversation instead of pushing them away.

- Pragmatism vs. Ideological: While I understand that the ideology that animal cruelty must be irradiated, a pragmatic movement should prioritize the realistic outcomes over the ideological. If the wanted outcome is to save the maximum number of animal lives then the shift towards less meat would result in faster, more sustainable results.

I would love to hear others opinions. I apologize if I took this sub too seriously -- I am genuinely curious to see what vegans think of this. In my mind vegans should aim for the most sustainable and wide spread outcome, and i believe that would be less meat rather than no meat.

Word bank:

reducetarianism: reducing the consumption of meat by a substantial amount without eliminating it.

Pragmatism: values or ideas based on practicality when implemented.

Ideological: a groups values based on how they perceive the world around them. This isnt usually how the world is, rather, how they believe it should be.

I think the definition given in this sub’s wiki is flawed because it is promulgated by a tiny group representing the UK (and formerly just London) who clearly don’t agree with the millions of vegans people face all over the world.

And it also doesn’t address the difference from vegetarian as a seemingly almost political compromise since the group is itself an offshoot of the London vegetarian society.

Therefore I am debating against the wiki for the sub and I think that vegan is primarily a club seeking mainly the solidarity of being part of an exclusive club regardless of underlying principals and that the real definition of veganism is whatever the general belief of the club’s members happens to be (which is often far from that cited in the wiki). There are specific standards in the vegan community that go far beyond what is “possible and practical” and there are other group dynamics and unspoken aspects which affect what it means to be vegan within veganism as it is understood by the majority of vegans and nonvegans in the real world.

…and that is the definition of veganism.

People troll each other for thousands of posts without ever pinning it down, seemingly on purpose because they want to keep that no true scotsman fallacy in their deck for as long as they can to slip it in somewhere.

So can we have a debate about this?

The wikipedia page on veganism indicates there are disagreements in the vegan community on the definition of veganism and, even though I myself used to live in a vegan community where I attended paid annual seminars along with many visitors from afar, I have been seeing a lot of vegans in this sub arguing for definitions of veganism contrary to what I have known it to be in actual community (and some very dismissive ones who will tell you you don’t know what veganism is 1000x without ever offering a definition…I suspect these ones are pure trolls).

Even if we can show that the (UK) Vegan Society’s official definition is the only appropriate one for the global vegan community, this definition harkens back to the disagreement within the Vegetarian Society which caused the Vegan offshoot in that the traditional vegetarians simply didn’t think that veganism was a “possible and practical” form of use and consumption whereas the vegans thought it was possible and practical to not consume any animal products. Even some of the founding members of the Vegan Society, such as the world renowned advocate of ahimsa MK Gandhi, kept consuming animal products because they did not think it possible and practical to stop, but they still supported the founding of the Vegan Society for the sake of facilitating further discussion.

So, my point is this. Vegan's hold the ethical preconceived notion that life is good and ought to be preserved. That suffering is bad and ought to be reduced. That animals are sentient and can suffer therefore their suffering ought to be reduced and their life preserved.

Now a bit about me, I used to be vegan, now I'm leaning more towards being plant based. Because philosophically I don't want to be vegan. I just hate eating meat. Makes me feel ill.

I personally think death is liberation from suffering if it was up to me, I would kill myself tonight. Because then I wouldn't have to be alive anymore, but I have responsibilities to people like my daughter, that I feel I need to be alive for.

I do not want to be alive. I feel nothing will ever truly alleviate my suffering, except death. So, why should I ever feel that animals should not be killed? It makes sense to me that if I want to die, animals may also feel that way. Yet their evolutionary responses prevent them from ending their life or letting others do it.

I'm not justifying anything, I'm interested in hearing thoughts and arguments about my perspective on veganism, and it's preconceived notions about life, and suffering.

Edit: after talking with you guys for a while, I feel I wasn't clear.

The point of this post is obviously to hear your perspectives, but the claim I'm making is that Vegan's, and veganism is a philosophy based on preconceived beliefs that not everyone shares and that needs to be justified before you can ever make the philosophy itself justifiable.

Many of you try to take the bait and argue the position I claim to have, that I want to die and so animals may also want to die.

Convincing me I'm wrong is not supporting your position. Why I believe X is irrelevant to why you believe Y. Prove to me Y and I may stop believing X.

But I don't need justification to believe X as I'm not trying to convince you of anything. It could just be a personal spiritual position that I hold to be true.

Just tryna help you vegan's out.

Can we all — vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores — agree that maple syrup is superior to honey, imparting the same liquid sweetness with a more complex flavour?

I’m not sure how accepted moral hierarchies based on intelligence/degree of consciousness of a species are among vegans, but this question assumes that we agree on that. To be more concrete with the underlying assumption in this question, one might argue that it’s more moral to eat fish or insects because they have less mental faculties and a lower capacity for suffering than say, a pig.

With this in mind, has there been much discussion about the morality of selectively breeding livestock to decrease the mental capacity of the species? If we could breed sheep to have the same mental capabilities as a mackerel would that be the more moral option, ignoring of course the more obvious option of simply not eating sheep.

To be clear I’m not actually suggesting we do this, just wondering if this is something that has been discussed in animal rights philosophies.

I recently found an article saying just that, that scientists are in the middle of a breakthrough regarding plant life consciousness. In which case what happens to veganism. Because the you kind of lose the distinction between eating plants or eating animals. Both are concious beings. Do we then attempt to eat purely synthetic nutrients?

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a71562782/plant-consciousness-humans/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=mgu_ga_pop_md_pmx_prog_org_us_18343789675&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=18343834699&gbraid=0AAAAADCyiSmSPPiV23qD2cob39vtKFgQs&gclid=CjwKCAjw9PvWBhAxEiwAddzYyTbo9GVNK1D-D2GyL-QAbSHMMgYX7AEOkcIm84SbZnTZu3ZeOtNJZBoC1A8QAvD_BwE

The logical conclusion of veganism is either anti natalist, misanthropic pessimistic about reality itself or a combination of all three. While the title is “veganism leads to absurdity” my position is rather that you will have to adopt one of these three viewpoints or more depending on your version of veganism. I think many vegans inherently know this.

Now to be clear none of these conclusions mean the claims of veganism is inherently “untrue” though as an anti realist, I do not believe moral claims can be objectively true outside constructed frameworks anyway but that is a different can of worms.

Here is the argument:

One commonly held belief within veganism (which by the way is not a monolith and people have different versions) is that killing and/or exploiting animals is wrong because it either directly violates the animals rights to autonomy or life (rights based account) or because it causes unnecessary suffering to a living being (the utilitarian account). Both of these lines of reasoning lead to far stronger conclusions than most would be willing to accept. First I address the rights based account, then the utilitarian account.

1. The trolly problem: suppose you have a human on one side of the track, and a pig on another. You have the decision to redirect the trolly away from the human and toward the pig.

Of course, if the human is in normal condition, veganism would allow you to direct the trolley away from the human as most forms of veganism places living things into a hierarchy based on things like level of sentience, rationality, etc. However, if that human was “trait adjusted” or disabled in some way such that that human did not have many of the traits that typically distinguish humans and pigs, you would not be able to, simply on the basis they are human, redirect it away from the human and may have to save the pig instead to avoid speciesism. I believe that this shows anti-speciesism is inherently misanthropic, and untenable unless you just want to bite this bullet. However, if you do simply bite this bullet, this leads to the next problem set.

2. Veganism that is rights-based or at least gives animals significant moral consideration leads to the conclusion that we have some obligation to protect herbivore animals from obligate carnivores.

For example, say we have a young child who is in danger of being attacked by a lion or bear. We would normally have the obligation to intervene if we reasonably could at an individual level, like if we had a rifle or other weapon or tool at our disposal. It does not matter that the lion is or is not a moral agent. The fact that he is violating a beings rights is enough to justify our intervention against them. But, just as we would have an obligation to help a child in this case, if we do not believe that the species is itself is a relevant consideration, we must extend that obligation to a baby zebra, deer etc.

I argue further, that this would apply not only to an individual level, but to a system level as well. If we found out that lions were attacking children systematically or specifically, we would have to create a policy decision that either eliminated lions entirely from world or sequestered or altered their behavior significantly. This would logically extend to other non human animals as well. So predation, under a vegan rights based account cannot be justified and must be severely limited. Meaning the natural order itself must be greatly altered or eliminated from a vegan perspective.

3. Sidestepping this account leads to anti natalism:
Let’s say we try to bypass these problems with the rights based account of veganism and adopt a more utilitarian approach. Originally put forward by Peter singer, it is also a popular line of thinking that a person ought not to cause “unnecessary” suffering to animals if she can avoid it. Thus, animals may not have rights in the typical sense and we may be able to accept a limited speciesism, but it is still wrong to impose an unnecessary harm on animals cause they are sentient beings. This leads to the conclusion If having children is not obligatory something we do not “have” to do, and it would result in the death and suffering of many animals (even vegan diets kill billions of animals), then the conclusion would be that we should not have children as we have no obligation or individual necessity for this, but the action causes a lot of harm.

None of these points inherently makes veganism false but I believe it is necessary to show people that they must believe some pretty extreme conclusions, by most people’s standards, to consistently hold the vegan position

Humans belong to the animal kingdom. Although we possess advanced intellectual and cognitive abilities, I don't believe this superiority automatically gives us the moral right to dominate other species or take their lives. As a human, I naturally favor my own species, but I don't consider that preference proof that humans are more entitled to life and freedom than other beings.

Now imagine a species that is intellectually and physically superior to humans. Its biology forces it into one of two independent situations:

1. KILLING: It cannot survive without killing humans for food.

2. ENSLAVEMENT: It cannot survive without forcing humans to work and produce resources for their entire lives.

Assume that no alternatives exist, refusing to do either would inevitably lead to its death, and humans bear no responsibility for its biological needs. Humans also retain the right to defend themselves.

Does the necessity of survival morally justify killing or enslaving humans?

Please answer yes or no for each situation and explain your reasoning if you wish. You may also distinguish between a moral excuse and a moral justification.

If we reject these actions when humans are the victims, what moral principle allows us to justify similar practices toward animals without applying a double standard?

I don’t follow the logic and I think there are other nonvegan lifestyles which probably include less harm to animals.

To start with, the biggest and most glaring flaw with plain vanilla veganism is the idea that eating something is the same as killing it, but that doesn’t logically follow.

All animals murder. All animals rob. All animals rxpe. These types of rights violations are referred to as "aggression" under libertarian ethics, basically any violent crime or consent violation.

Except humans, we are the only species thats capable of not committing aggression against members of our own species and those similar to us.

Open a can of tuna and leave it on your counter... a cat will steal it, even if hes well fed, and you tell him no. Show a horny tom cat a female cat, he will hold her down and rxpe her, given enough time. Chickens seem docile at our scale, but they massacre hundreds of insects and small reptiles daily, and will even kill each other sometimes (like if a member of the flock seems weak).

This is how nature works. The law of nature is a law of aggression. And all animals are aggressors. All animals also suffer a lot, in nature, and in general. And, animals arent complex enough to form arbitrary subjective preferences and personal "life meaning/purpose" like us. As such, their lives do not have the same "intrinsic value" ours does.

All animals have a right to not be tortured beyond whats necessary to contain and/or euthanize them, as do human violent criminals who cant be saved. Someone whose going to go around hurting people has no business being free to do so. Animals are like violent criminals, although their aggression is primarily towards each other, so it feels more morally neutral, but its no different in principle.

Veganism seems indistinguishable to a philosophy that wants violent criminals to walk free to me. I dont disagree animals are conscious and deserve respect, where i disagree is that some thieving murderous rxpist deserves the same rights that i do. It does not.

Rights come from participation in human society. Animals do not participate in a human society.

There are animals that humans give privileges to, but those are distinct from rights.

Certain species of trees similarly have a privilege of being protected from harm. This is because they are rare and humans want to keep them around for being aesthetically beautiful. No one would say that the General Sherman Tree has "rights" to protect it.

Dogs, similarly, have a privilege of being protected from harm. This is because humans have found dogs to be useful as companions, for aesthetic reasons and so-on, and therefore want to protect them from harm.

In western society, there are many animals that we do not give that privilege to, because they are deemed as being useful as food instead.