What’s Wrong With Veganism?

Posted on January 24, 2016 | 1 Comment

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Provocative short piece here, from the current issue of the Journal of Practical Ethics (image: vegan food).

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One response to “What’s Wrong With Veganism?”

  1. Garret Merriam | January 25, 2016 at 2:57 am | Reply

    I’m not wholly clear on the exact thesis of this paper. If I’m reading it correctly, the author is saying we shouldn’t be vegans but should instead be ‘environmentarians’, which is… like veganism, only broadly applied to other behaviors that might hurt animals?

    If that’s correct, then I see several problems with the thesis. For one, the language is cumbersome and alienating. Tell someone you’re a vegan they know what you mean; tell someone you’re an environmentarian (and they should be, too!) they’ll look at you funny. Why not just use the words we already have: “I’m a vegan and an environmentalist.”? Much clearer, and seems to capture everything of interest. Introducing new, technical, and unnecessary verbiage seems confusing and pointless (and a bad habit of too many philosophers.)

    At it’s heart, this argument seems rather like an ad hominem: vegans aren’t really consistent, since they claim to care about animals (and thus don’t eat them), but yet they still do X. Even if that’s true, how is that an argument against veganism?

    In sum, I found the article both unclear and unconvincing.

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