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Is Veganism a moral requirement?



Veganism is a lifestyle in which a person avoids consuming animal products in any way. Many of these people do this for ethical reasons which raises the question of whether veganism is a requirement of morality. This essay looks at veganism through the lens of different ethical philosophies such as Kantianism, utilitarianism and virtue ethics to prove that veganism is only a requirement of morality in our current late-capitalist society.


In order to determine whether it is or not, we must first determine the value of an animal’s life. Philosophers such as Peter Singer view animals on a similar level as that of humans and accuse those who disagree of being “Speciecist”. He argues that just as a few hundred years ago owning someone of a different race was very common and now we find it horrific, perhaps our grandchildren will find the idea of treating animals in such a way to be horrific.


Aristotle theorised that the main distinguishing feature between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom is our rationality. Humans are able to reason in a way in which animals cannot. He believes that reason is humans’ ergon and that is exclusive to our species. According to Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean, a virtuous character trait would be something that is the intermediate between two extremes. In the case of veganism, being a vegan would be one extreme and being a carnivore would be the other extreme. In this case, a virtuous person would look like someone who only eats meat in moderation and tries to get it locally sourced. However, when we consider the fact that buying meat in any form is contributing to the meat industry which will feed into the negative production methods held by some meat companies we can see that the intermediate option does not seem as virtuous.



A utilitarian such as Peter Singer or Bentham would say that if being moral means reducing the amount of pain and maximising the amount of pleasure, then we would have no reason to discount the pain of animals. Therefore, in most circumstances, we should be vegan in order to reduce animal suffering.


There are however examples in which you can justify eating meat through the eyes of a utilitarian. If Smith is on a deserted island full of pigs and there is no other food source, it would then be justifiable to murder a pig because the pain caused by Smith starving to death would be greater than the pain caused to the pig by killing it quickly. While this example shows us that there are circumstances in which someone can eat meat, this is not very helpful in terms of helping determine whether it is moral to do so in our current world. A majority of the population live in an industrial, capitalist society where we have access to many different types of food. In this case, according to a utilitarian, there is no excuse for not being vegan.


This point is amplified when one considers that under our current capitalist mode of production, for the sake of profit maximising, most of the meat and animal products available to us come as a result of animal torture. On top of this, there are environmental implications involved in the meat industry. Many industrial cow farms dump their animal waste into nearby rivers, polluting the water and affecting the towns nearby. This would urge a utilitarian even further to avoid buying animal products as it would minimise even more pain.


If we approach veganism from a Kantian perspective, one could justify consuming meat products. Kantianism says that we should not treat someone as a means to an end. If we look at animals as having a similar value to humans then we shouldn’t treat them as a means. Kant himself, however, did not view animals as having the same value as humans. He saw animals as a means and therefore it does not break the categorical imperative to treat them as such. If we follow Kant’s logic however, we would still be polluting and eventually lead to huge natural disasters due to years of climate change. This lack of consequentialism is problematic when dealing with what is seemingly a small action that has drastic effects in the long term.


In conclusion, if we take a utilitarian approach, we can see that, while eating meat and using animal products might be morally acceptable in certain circumstances such as a life or death situation or a society that relies on subsistence farming, in our current capitalist mode of production, the way in which animals are raised is not only bad for the animals but bad for the environment and there is therefore no reason why veganism shouldn’t be a moral requirement.


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