Why I Am a Vegan

[unspeakablehorror]

I view sentience as worthy of moral consideration, which is why I think all animals* are worthy of moral consideration.  I also think the majority of people are kind of dead-set against this philosophy for the same reason that so many people oppose leftism in general--because it says that the status quo, the way we've always done things and are continuing to do them, the traditions and very basis upon which we've built society, should change.  And of course the very first objection that people often have is that to change the status quo is unrealistic.  But firstly, I don't think morality should be based on how easy a goal is to accomplish--I think it should be based on what produces the least suffering and allows the most dignity and autonomy.  

And secondly, I don't think we as humans have good intuitions for what changes are possible.  I don't think most people even a hundred years ago would have imagined the world as it is today.  This world would have been unthinkable to them, just as their world (the post World War I world), would have been unthinkable to a person who had lived a century before them.  Our world changes dramatically, and many of these changes, for better and for worse, have been wrought by humanity.  We as individuals live short lives and have limited perception of the world, and so we cannot use intuitions based on our personal experiences to understand what changes are possible in the world.  An even short perusal of world history shows us that unthinkable changes, both positive and negative, happen all the time.  

Unfortunately, we live in a world filled with suffering, and, more than that, filled with unnecessary suffering.  Most of us have directly experienced that unnecessary suffering, some more than others.  But whether our suffering was preventable or not, either way, it is not desirable.  To me, it seems clear that this is as true for other animals as it is for humans.  To me, it seems clear that reducing the suffering of others is of moral value.  I also do not accept the idea that to care about other animals is to not care about humans, as I have seen so many people assert.  Does it mean that I do not care about myself just because I care about other humans? Do I dilute my caring if I consider the comfort and happiness of people outside my family or friends?  Of those outside my town? My country?  There are certainly people who would assert such caring is a moral dilution, but I would hardly call such a sentiment leftist.  And I don't view such conservative ideology as a moral good.  

And so, it is because I value sentience, and because I am a leftist, that I am a vegan.  I recognize that not everyone comes to their ideals for the same reasons, and so  I oppose, for example, fascist vegans for the same reasons I oppose fascist  non-vegans.  But to me, all these ideals are related, and so to convince me that animal rights are not important, it would also be necessary to convince me that sentience is not of moral value, and that leftism is evil.

*I assume sentience applies to all animals, though I don't think there is equal evidence for the sentience of all animals (eg. corals or sponges). And while I do not currently believe it exists, I also do not preclude the possibility of sentience in other lifeforms (eg. plants, fungi, bacteria) or even nonliving phenomena, and I am open to discussion on this topic, but I also see no reason why the existence of non-animal sentience would preclude caring about animal sentience, any more than I think the existence of animal sentience precludes caring about human sentience, or the existence of non-me sentience precludes caring about myself.