Suppose where you live and where you work are fixed. You can drive and murder animals via climate change. Or you can ride your bike. But driving takes 30 min, and riding your bike takes 2 h. There is nothing dangerous or otherwise bad about riding your bike - it just takes an extra 3 h out of your day that you’d rather spend playing video games. As per the above definition, you can murder animals via climate change because it is “impractical” (ie, unpleasant because you are impatient) to ride your bike, and still call yourself a vegan.
Now, a new scenario. Suppose you are avoiding driving and are riding your bike 2h each way to get to work. But on the way to and from work, you pass a McD’s. Every time you pass it, your mouth waters. You are hungry. You really like the taste of their animal products. And the taste of a quarter pounder with cheese fills you with memories of a happy childhood. You want it so much, in fact, that not stopping there to buy a hamburger creates twice as much negative utility for you as biking instead of driving - ie, is twice as inconvenient to avoid eating a hamburger. Given this scenario and the above definition, eating hamburgers is vegan if you like them enough.
For the first situation, 3 h a day is a lot of time. I don’t think we should expect people to make such big sacrifices every day, at least if they work full time. People need leisure to stay healthy too. If it was 1h or 1:30h it would be reasonable to take the bike imo, but at 3h I’d cut them some slack. There are simply much more effective climate measures that we as a society should implement. They shouldn’t buy a new gas car if they can avoid it though.
For the second situation:
You want it so much, in fact, that not stopping there to buy a hamburger creates twice as much negative utility for you as biking instead of driving
But it also causes a lot more animal cruelty than the minuscule climate impact of one person commuting. Over the years, it would mean that many animals would have to endure an extremely miserable and painful life on factory farms with constant abuse and neglect, just to satisfy taste buds.
Compared to a warming of 0,00000000000000000001 °C or something like that, which has no measurable impact on any life on its own. Animal agriculture even has a larger climate impact than all cars on earth combined.
A more general analogy: By driving a car, you’ll do some miniscule harm to people and the environment. But if you’d knowingly chose to buy products that were produced in literal slavery conditions, and directly funded slavery that way, this would be a whole different ethical issue.
In reality, even if a person is addicted to burgers like a drug addict, they could easily buy plant-based burger patties that taste really similar to regular ones and make their own burgers. Vegan cheese isnt quite the same yet, but a little difference in taste certainly doesn’t justify torturing animals on factory farms. You still have essentially the same taste experience, especially after a small adjustment period.
In most countries, McDonalds even has plant based burgers available afaik.
Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals
Right. This is the part I’m curious about. If someone enjoys consuming animal products to such a degree that not consuming them is impractical, don’t they then have a claim to being vegan?
No, I mean like…
Suppose where you live and where you work are fixed. You can drive and murder animals via climate change. Or you can ride your bike. But driving takes 30 min, and riding your bike takes 2 h. There is nothing dangerous or otherwise bad about riding your bike - it just takes an extra 3 h out of your day that you’d rather spend playing video games. As per the above definition, you can murder animals via climate change because it is “impractical” (ie, unpleasant because you are impatient) to ride your bike, and still call yourself a vegan.
Now, a new scenario. Suppose you are avoiding driving and are riding your bike 2h each way to get to work. But on the way to and from work, you pass a McD’s. Every time you pass it, your mouth waters. You are hungry. You really like the taste of their animal products. And the taste of a quarter pounder with cheese fills you with memories of a happy childhood. You want it so much, in fact, that not stopping there to buy a hamburger creates twice as much negative utility for you as biking instead of driving - ie, is twice as inconvenient to avoid eating a hamburger. Given this scenario and the above definition, eating hamburgers is vegan if you like them enough.
For the first situation, 3 h a day is a lot of time. I don’t think we should expect people to make such big sacrifices every day, at least if they work full time. People need leisure to stay healthy too. If it was 1h or 1:30h it would be reasonable to take the bike imo, but at 3h I’d cut them some slack. There are simply much more effective climate measures that we as a society should implement. They shouldn’t buy a new gas car if they can avoid it though.
For the second situation:
But it also causes a lot more animal cruelty than the minuscule climate impact of one person commuting. Over the years, it would mean that many animals would have to endure an extremely miserable and painful life on factory farms with constant abuse and neglect, just to satisfy taste buds.
Compared to a warming of 0,00000000000000000001 °C or something like that, which has no measurable impact on any life on its own. Animal agriculture even has a larger climate impact than all cars on earth combined.
A more general analogy: By driving a car, you’ll do some miniscule harm to people and the environment. But if you’d knowingly chose to buy products that were produced in literal slavery conditions, and directly funded slavery that way, this would be a whole different ethical issue.
In reality, even if a person is addicted to burgers like a drug addict, they could easily buy plant-based burger patties that taste really similar to regular ones and make their own burgers. Vegan cheese isnt quite the same yet, but a little difference in taste certainly doesn’t justify torturing animals on factory farms. You still have essentially the same taste experience, especially after a small adjustment period.
In most countries, McDonalds even has plant based burgers available afaik.
it’s utilitarian, but not vegan
Why wouldn’t it be vegan?
Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals
Right. This is the part I’m curious about. If someone enjoys consuming animal products to such a degree that not consuming them is impractical, don’t they then have a claim to being vegan?
no. utilitarianism isn’t the basis of the vegan philosophy, and utility does not impact practicability