What is a Personal Choice?
One of the most common things people say in response to arguments for veganism goes something like this, “I have no problem with people being vegan. I think that’s great if it works for them. But I don’t go around telling anyone how to eat. And nobody should tell me how to eat. That’s a personal choice.”
At what point does it stop being a “personal choice” when our personal choices cause suffering and death to other sentient beings?
Morality is Subjective
A slightly more sophisticated argument gets into the idea that morality itself is a personal choice. While I can’t disagree with that argument, I can say that most people agree that we should try to not harm others if we can avoid it, and a smaller majority agree that we should help other in need when we can, even if we are not the cause of their suffering.
I would argue that most people are being inconsistent with their own values if they support the casual use of other feeling beings as resources. Why is it okay to make other animals suffer just because they are “only animals?” They don’t suffer any less than we do, and when it comes right down to it, almost all uses of nonhuman animals are for the sake of human pleasure or convenience. That includes eating them. It’s been well established that, with only rare exceptions, anyone at any stage of life can be healthy on a vegan diet.
And why, oh why, would some people want to kill someone who harmed their dog, and lovingly nurture an injured bird back to health, yet think nothing of eating a pig or chicken who lived in captivity and then died a horrible death at a young age?
Why Do Freedom, Non-discrimination, and Helping the Under-served Only Apply to Human Animals?
Naturally, there is a lot of discussion on Steemit about freedom and lack of censorship. Non-discrimination and helping the under-served are big topics as well. I recently listened to a podcast (not naming names because the point is not to call anyone out) where there was a discussion about a marketplace where the sale of live animals was a popular category because it’s regulated so heavily that it’s not usually available elsewhere. I’m not a fan of over-regulation, but isn’t the whole point of communities like this one to make the world a better place?
If you wouldn’t support selling brides from impoverished countries, why would you support a breeding industry that even at its best separates young animals from their families and places them into a human family to train them, a family they become quite attached to, and then sells them to other people for the pleasure of owning them?
And that’s at its best. Breeding farms can be quite brutal, and can breed characteristics that humans fetishize that cause discomfort or ill health in the animals being bred, like joint pain, breathing difficulty, heart problems, and greater risk of certain diseases due to inbreeding.
Do we want to let the market decide everything, or should we be opting out of the things that have real victims for whom certain transactions are objectively bad?
Veganism One Plate at a Time
Do I want to see other people go vegan? You bet. I think it’s not only the most moral choice, but the most logical one. I think you will, too, if you think about the values you already hold, and then try to justify causing suffering and death to fellow sentient beings just for the sake of pleasures of the palette. And if everyone stopped eating animals, we’d eliminate the largest and most easily preventable source of suffering in the world today. We’re talking about roughly 60 billion animals per year.
I’m not simply advocating shouting “Go Vegan!” and trying to change the world one plate at a time. It’s about an attitude towards nonhuman animals. It’s a choice not to harm other animals to the extent that it’s avoidable. Granted, there’s no way in the current world to completely avoid harming animals. Agriculture kills animals, though robotic precision agricultural is becoming cheaper and will become more and more able to avoid killing animals when tilling and harvesting.
Driving kills animals, though future technology will also be able to greatly reduce that, not only by reducing “road kill” deaths by self-driving cars and other lower-tech methods like animal bridges or tunnels, and poles that scare animals away by emitting flashing lights and sounds when car headlights hit sensors on the poles. There have also been proposals for little fans to gently blow insects away instead of letting them smash into windshields. So veganism is not about perfection. It’s not about a diet. It’s about an attitude. It’s about respect. It's doing what we can because it matters to us.
Attitudes and Norms Matter Most
I don’t think going vegan and trying to “convert” others is the way to go. We need to take a stand for animals. We need to speak up, write about it, talk about it, argue about it. We need to change societal norms more than individual behavior or institutions. Behavioral and institutional change will follow, but changes that start at those levels are inherently unstable.
Sure, it’s true that you can sometimes “fake it ‘til you make it” with behavioral changes, but how many stories have you heard of ex-vegans who “did some soul-searching” and decided it “just wasn’t right for their body”? The stable vegans are ethical vegans, because they changed their way of thinking and their attitudes towards nonhuman animals. And institutional changes don’t stick unless there is already a lot of public support for them.
Currently, the people who speak out for animals are considered aggressive freaks, and abusing animals for their use as food, clothing, entertainment, and labor is considered normal and necessary.
I challenge anyone committed to non-aggression to rethink their attitudes and relationships toward nonhuman animals, and to not only change their relationship to animals, but to speak up for animals until animal abuse is called what it is and is not considered normal but abhorrent.
Extremely detailed article. Have you seen a documentary called thee cowspiracy?
Thank you! I haven't seen it but from what I know of it, it's well worth watching.
The one good thing I should mention about vegans is that most really want to improve the world, whether I believe that the method is good to achieve the goal is irrelevant to the intention.
The problem with thinking on terms of suffering is that vegans tend to equate how sentient and intelligent these animals are by their ability to empathize with them. I don't meassure pain by comparing that pain to my own because I understand different creatures process things differently and that doesn't make their experiences more or less valuable.
I could look at an oyster, for example, and not be able to compare to any other animal I have seen, much less myself. This creature doesn't move like other creatures and can't scream in pain in a way I can relate to my own screaming when I am in pain. Because of this most people will tell you that they prefer to eat an oyster than say a rabbit, regardless of how their consumption of these creatures may affect the enviroment.
For many years, since I recognize that we eat too much meat and that has negative effects not only on us but everything else, I tried reaching out to vegans to join forces in trying to create enough awareness for people to eat less meat. But soon I discovered that eating less meat is not enough, I discovered that eating any meat that they consider sentient would make me a beast in their eyes, and I was simply not in the mood to be looked down upon which drove me to discard that movement entirely.
This doesn't mean that I don't see value in eating less meat, it just means I don't see enough value to spend my time not only dealing with people who think I am a monster, but dealing with people who could potentially drive others to do the exact thing they are trying to prevent.
Thank you, Tommy.
Sentience seems to be on a continuum, and we really don’t know about animals like oysters. For a time, it was thought that oysters weren’t sentient and so there was no problem with eating them from a vegan perspective, though there were concerns about vegans eating them simply because it would appear inconsistent and there isn’t the opportunity to explain the relevance of sentience to everyone all the time. Veganism is usually described as not harming animals, but really only sentient animals are relevant. If someone has a taste for sponges, I don’t care if they eat them all day long. Sponges are animals but they aren’t conscious and don’t feel. More recent evidence does show that oysters may feel some pain, but nothing like that of a rabbit or pig or chicken.
I agree that focusing on our ability to empathize is a problem. That can lead to people dismissing animals with vastly different ways of experiencing the world, like octopuses, who are pretty clearly sentient. It can also lead to a greater emphasis on defending “cute” or “smart” animals.
I know that a lot of arguments defending animals focus on how intelligent they are, but intelligence is not an important factor in animal sentience. I think there is some value, though, in broad comparisons of animals with centralized nervous systems. Most scientists agree that vertebrates tend to suffer similarly. But I don’t think that because dogs are more like humans and are smarter than cats, the suffering of cats matters less, or because pigs are smarter than cows, the suffering of cows matter less. And while smarter animals may be able to suffer in different ways (psychological ones), that doesn’t mean that the worst pain a smarter animal can suffer is worse than the worst pain of a less intelligent one.
I wrote a post about animal sentience in case you’re interested. https://steemit.com/philosophy/@goose/animals-as-persons-what-s-sentience-got-to-do-with-it
There is a small but vocal minority of vegans who think that people who eat animals are just bad people. I half understand where they’re coming from because to those of us who are “early adopters” of veganism, something just clicked, and we realized how horrific it is. It just seems objectively wrong if we care about the suffering of others. And it’s easy to get angry and frustrated that so many others so nonchalantly view animals as resources. But any vegan who is willing to stop and think about it for 30 seconds will realize that if non-vegans were bad people, that means that just about everyone they know and care about it is a bad person. That means 99% of the people in the northern hemisphere are just bad people. It doesn’t make any sense. The normalization of animal abuse is a social problem.
I don’t want to work with people who would view you as a monster, either, and neither would most vegans. At the same time, I don’t agree that we should be encouraging people to eat less meat. I think we should be asking people to think about the reasons to respect other animals and to care about their pain and suffering. And I think that will eventually lead to people seeing animals so differently that they don’t want to eat any meat at all.
If you’re on Facebook, you might like the Animal Ethics page: https://www.facebook.com/Animal-Ethics-1424658461139957/
Like I said, eating less meat is not enough.
This may not tackle the initial purpose which is to make suffering less, right?
I know there are vegans which don't care what other people do, they have made a choice not to contribute to what they see as suffering and that is something I can respect.
The problem I have with no one ever eating meat again relates to the consequences on the long run. Vegans often refer to their desire for all people to stop meat consumption as an evolutionary step, and it is, if we stop eating meat this would most surely have an effect on our bodies, our minds, our behavior. I simply don't think we've studied enough what those consequences would be to claim this (stop meat consumption completely) would help us (us includes other animals) in the overall picture. We need to get evolutionary scientists to do a projection so that we can at least have some idea of the changes we may expect with this massive dietary change.
You and I see the problem very differently. I agree that the goal is to reduce suffering, and I agree that people eating less meat reduces suffering, and I agree that attacking or vilifying people who eat any amount of meat is silly and unproductive. And I do think people like you help to move society forward on the issue of respecting animals. But I don’t agree that I should express your opinion. I should express mine. I want to work towards eliminating all unnecessary suffering. And it’s hard to find a clearer or bigger case of unnecessary suffering than people eating animals. I’m not going to say I think it’s great for people to just eat less meat, because I don’t think that. I think it’s unnecessary and it contributes to suffering for no good reason.
If someone really cares about the plight of animals, they will care very much what other people do, even if they choose not to express it. I think you are more valuable to helping animals than people like them. I would much rather see you blogging and talking about it, and challenging positions like mine and getting conversations going about it. You think it’s something that is worth talking about. That’s going to contribute more to helping shift societal attitudes than people quietly eating a vegan diet.
But I don’t think I should be encouraging people to eat less meat. I’m not just coming from a moral absolutist position. My goal is helping animals, and I will do it in whatever way I think will do the most good in the long run (including for future animals). My approach is subject to change based on new information, but based on the current state of knowledge on the issue, it’s not tactically smart to talk about eating less meat if what I want to see is a vegan world. It’s well known from other social movements that you always get less than you ask for. So when I say I think everyone should be vegan, the response of many people is likely to be, “Well, I’m not going to go vegan, but maybe I can eat less meat.” It may seem counter-intuitive, it may seem like when people are challenged with a message they see as extreme or “impossible,” they will just reject and ignore it. But decades of social movement research show that is simply not the case.
It’s even more important for me to continue repeating the “extreme” message because so few people are doing it. And the more it’s discussed in a reasonable manner, the more it becomes considered a legitimate view and topic of conversation. This is already (only recently) starting to be seen as a legitimate topic of discussion in academia, the law, and among effective altruists, and it’s because of the insistence of people who won’t compromise on the message and are able to back it up with logical arguments and evidence.
But actually the “vegan” message is not a huge part of my advocacy because what I really want people to do is start thinking about other animals differently, and I want people to think it’s important to speak up for animals – in their own way, even if they don’t agree with me.
This is a whole other topic of conversation (which I’m happy to have at some point). For now, I’ll just say that it’s been very well established that humans can be healthy on a vegan diet, so I’m not too interested in what evolutionary scientists have to say about it or whether it is “natural” or not.
Thank you for the conversation.
I just want you to know that it has nothing to do with it being considered natural or not by scientists, but scientists take the time to study what changes like this have caused in the past not only to our species but other species as we all connect. They can more easily predict what could happen in the future, and I mean thousands and thousands of years ahead.
It has little to do with our health right now too, what I am talking about is how we are going to look like, feel like, act like, due to this change in many generations. And how this relates to the suffering that we experience and cause.
The smallest change can have the greatest impact. I just don't think the responsible thing to do, knowing what I know, is advocate for a change this big without investing enough in studying whether it will be helpful at the end.
Thanks for sharing! There truly is value in striving to alter the way we see the rest of the creatures.
Nicely said, @goose. I've been a vegetarian for 23 years (since college), and a vegan 11 or 12 years. It varies between full and partial veganism. I take a hard line on "no meat whatsoever, and yes, fish and sea creatures count as meat, too." But, I sometimes use a little organic butter here and there, and pastured eggs, because I believe they were produced without harming the animal, and because they have health benefits. Whether I'm talking about being a vegetarian or a vegan, I get met with hostile attitudes by those who disagree. I used to be pretty evangelical about my belief in kindness toward ALL animals, but I don't talk about it as much now, because people just don't want to listen. I figure I'm doing my part on my own plate.
One thing I DO speak up about is my disgust of trophy and sport hunting. Killing animals just for fun is simply twisted to me, and indicative of a disturbed person.
Thank you for talking about this very important issue here.
Thanks, Steph. I was also vegetarian before vegan, and have been vegan for many years now. My thinking about it has gone up and down and all around over the years, but I have finally settled on the idea that it's about respect more than kindness. Just like I wouldn't call it kind to try not to discriminate against other groups of humans, I don't think that refusing to participate in animal abuse should be seen as kind, which almost implies something extra. I think it should just be the norm, the moral baseline.
I realize, though, that this is in some ways a "cold" approach, and that it can be effective to use the word kind, because it ties into the way most people want to see themselves. However you phrase it, I hope you will consider talking about it again. Even though most people don't want to listen, it doesn't mean the message isn't affecting them. A lot of the people I talk to who eventually went vegan said it wasn't any one thing that made them vegan; it was after many different things from many different sources that it finally all came together for them.
I upvoted! If you can, make sure to join us. https://steemit.chat/channel/vegan
Thanks, teamsteem. I am a member, but not an active one. I'll stop by more often. :)
It can be difficult for one to undo a lifetimes worth of conditioning. We are taught from a very young age that animals are dumb and that they are not as valuable as humans. It's unsurprising that by adulthood the majority of people begin to see animals only for what their value is to a human being.
Watching the documentary "Earthlings" and understanding the true depth of which animals are exploited just for our gain, is sure to make the majority of people reevaluate just how much an animal's life, and an animal's happiness, is truly worth.
A great piece. +1 follow +1 upvote.
Hope to read more from you soon.
Thank you! I agree that it takes a lot to undo that conditioning, and peer pressure and family pressure can be realy difficult to deal with. Thank you for the resteem. :)
No problem, I felt it is a piece that many could benefit from. Though, I don't have much of a following yet so I'm not sure how much of a help my resteem will even be to you.