Ethical Veganism
Feb. 3rd, 2024 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unspeakablehorrorI'm an ethical vegan, so that's the primary reason I avoid meat and other animal products. Doesn't mean I don't think there aren't other benefits to doing so, just that even if there weren't, I would still be vegan, because I'm vegan first and foremost for the animals. This also means, for example, that while I value getting good nutrition, I'm not going to prioritize making all my food 100% maximally healthy, especially if that comes at the detriment of my enjoyment of my food. And though veganism is quite important for environmentalism, even if it weren't, it would still be a moral imperative for me, just as the survival and happiness of humans is a moral imperative to me irrespective of whether that is maximally beneficial for the environment (though environmentalism is also inextricably tied to justice both for humans and other animals). To me, veganism is about avoiding killing and exploiting animals, and that's it.
But I will sacrifice some enjoyment if necessary to avoid killing and exploiting others. Because I value the lives and happiness of other animals. And it doesn't matter to me that I can't save all or even most of them, because ethics is not about fixing everything and knowing all the answers. It's about learning what you can, and doing the best you can.
And for the same reason I do what I can to avoid funding the exploitation of other humans, I do what I can to avoid funding the exploitation of other animals, even though I know that in both cases, it's impossible to avoid funding all exploitation or even murder just in order to survive, because the very core of society is built on systems of death and exploitation. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't do whatever I can to help dismantle those systems.
But I will sacrifice some enjoyment if necessary to avoid killing and exploiting others. Because I value the lives and happiness of other animals. And it doesn't matter to me that I can't save all or even most of them, because ethics is not about fixing everything and knowing all the answers. It's about learning what you can, and doing the best you can.
And for the same reason I do what I can to avoid funding the exploitation of other humans, I do what I can to avoid funding the exploitation of other animals, even though I know that in both cases, it's impossible to avoid funding all exploitation or even murder just in order to survive, because the very core of society is built on systems of death and exploitation. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't do whatever I can to help dismantle those systems.