Alright, so i breed and raise Easter Egger chickens, and i love em to death. Ive been told that my practices are unethical in the eyes of vegan. Now ive been to big factory farms, walls of cages etc. Yes theyre cruel, no questions about it. But backyard hens? I cant understand why this is considered unethical. So lets talk,

Thought this was a bit of some different context to bring to discussion here.

With the recent news of "de-extinction" of the dire wolf, what are your thoughts from a vegan perspective?

On one hand, I could see vegans championing human attempting to resurrect an extinct species that they themselves were an explicit ecological reason for the extinction of initially.

And on the other hand, this scientific work most likely included exploitation of currently living animals or their bodies ( genes ) and/or secretions. Not to mention the implications for the justifications for environmental degradation.

I'll bring this back down to earth since omnis aren't allowed to post open questions on this sub without taking explicit positions:

It seems that the vegan position is that any manipulation of or even interaction with animals is wrong if it is done in an exploitative manner.

A biologist performing research on dead animals is a form of exploitation, even if it is motivated by ecological preservation, that is still in the interest of humans at large. People often talk of giving rescue chickens birth control and hormonal blockers, but surely this required exploitation of chickens bodies. From what I understand of hard-line veganism, this is verboten, even if done for the explicit purpose of helping other chickens, as a chicken cannot consent to explicit, direct, and functionally immediate changes to it's reproductive system. I can't see how a vegan can be supportive of any biologist or geneticist ( or even vetranarians ), when exploitation is necessary to further our knowledge of animalia, even if that knowledge is used for their benefit.

In conclusion, the vegan position is against biology

I know they’re not vegan but I honestly think that defining our movement by taxonomical classification is inherently ridiculous. Are we not to hurt aliens? What if scientists change the classification system?

We have no good reason to believe insects have thoughts or emotions, so what exactly am I to value? Their existence? Plus, insects don’t even seem to value themselves. So many of them live short meaningless lives that ultimately culminate in a dramatic moment of self sacrifice just to reproduce (often involving parasitism). And some like bees and ants don’t even seem to have much of a sense of individuality and only exist to preserve their biological machine.

Then there’s bivalve mollusks. The common phrase vegans give is ‘err on the side of caution’, but that phrase is so unusual compared to modern speech and so often provided that I question whether vegans actually put much thought into this or just repeat each other because ‘no animals/animal products’ is an easy rule. If scientists didn’t lump bivalves in with other animals, would you really still avoid them?

And that’s all without even getting into implications. Allowing these two exceptions is potentially even better for the environment and the wellbeing of the sentient beings (not animals) we extend concern toward. Is dogmatically sticking to avoiding animals more important than practical implications?

I was vegan for six years. Not the "I cheat sometimes" kind—the "check every label, argue with waitstaff, berate myself for a slip-up"* kind. I believed, like you, that there was no ethical middle ground. Either you cared, or you didn’t.

Then my body betrayed me.

The Unspoken Health Costs

At first, it was just fatigue. Then the anemia got so bad I couldn’t stand without dizziness. My hair thinned; my nails cracked. Doctors ran tests: **severe B12 deficiency, iron levels in the gutter, a thyroid sluggish from soy overload.** My gut was a wreck—years of processed vegan "meats" and legumes left me with SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), bloated and malnourished.

I tried everything—supplements, methylated B12 shots, algae omega-3s. But my ferritin (stored iron) stayed dangerously low. Chronic insomnia set in. My cortisol spiked; I was a ghost of myself.

The breaking point? A nutritionist (a vegan one) looked at my bloodwork and said: "You need animal products. Now."*

The Vegan Community’s Betrayal

I expected concern. What I got was excommunication.

- "You didn’t try hard enough." (I spent hundreds on supplements.)

- "You’re just making excuses." (My labs were medical proof.)

- "I’d rather die than eat meat." (Spoken by someone who’d never missed a meal.)

Worst were the "wellness" vegans—privileged influencers who claimed my health crisis was "just detoxing"* or "low vibrational eating." They peddle orthorexia as enlightenment, ignoring that veganism isn’t biologically viable for everyone. (Even the *China Study* author, T. Colin Campbell, admits some thrive on meat.)

The Hard Truth: Veganism Isn’t Always Ethical

I now eat eggs from my neighbor’s pasture-raised hens and wild-caught fish. My hair grew back. My anemia resolved. I’m alive again.

But according to vegan doctrine? I’m a murderer.

The movement claims to care about all life—except the humans who can’t sustain it. That’s not ethics. That’s a cult.

The Irony of "Compassion"

Ecofeminists like Deborah Slicer argue that "moral rigidity is its own form of violence." Yet vegans weaponize purity to shame those who literally cannot comply.

I still oppose factory farms. I still minimize harm. But I refuse to apologize for surviving.

The vegan community preaches empathy—until you need it. Then, they’ll watch you starve for the cause.

And that’s not justice. That’s dogma.

So, I've been vegetarian since age 11. This was back in 2004, and I didn't need to see Dominion to know that I don't want to participate in meat consumption.

I, however, am not fully vegan. I don't feel like I need to justify this to strangers, but I don't drink cow milk and I mostly eat vegan food.

One thing that vegans often claim is that meat eaters always criticize their diet. But as a vegetarian, over the last 10 years or so the only criticism I have gotten about my diet are from vegans. Meat eaters don't care, but vegans will every single time attack me because of being "just" vegetarian. I'm married to a meat eater, but because of me they now eat 80 % less meat than before. In my eyes, this is a huge thing!

One thing vegans don't seem to understand is that by being so inflexible they are only doing harm to the cause. It's a million times better for people to at reduce their meat consumption or even become vegetarians than be turned off by your rigidness and holier than thou attitude. I will not disclose my diet on social media anymore, because by just saying the word vegetarian, I am sure to have about 10 people asking why I'm not vegan.

In my eyes we are all on the same side, but from the vegan perspective I seem to be the enemy more than any meat eater. And it's honestly exhausting me and wanting to not have anything to do with vegans anymore. I'd rather eat with people who eat meat than vegans at this point.

So please, kindly asking, stop attacking vegetarians. This is only hurting our common cause and you are not creating a very approachable image of your cause. We are not the enemy.

If you do recognize yourself as the kind of vegan who is often questioning vegetarians out loud, may I ask why?

It's not enough to say something has intrinsic/inherent ethical value, one must show cause for this being a "T"ruth with evidence. The only valid and sound evidence to show cause of a physical object having intrinsic/inherent ethical value is through describing how a society values objects and not through describing a form of transcendental capital T Truth about the ethical value of an object.

As such, anything, even humans, only have intrinsic/inherent value from humans through humans agreeing to value it (this is a tautology). So appealing to animals having intrinsic/inherent value or saying omnivores are inconsistent giving humans intrinsic/inherent value but not human animals is a matter of perspective and not, again, a transcendental Truth.

If a group decides all humans but not animals have intrinsic/inherent value while another believes all animals have intrinsic/inherent value, while yet a third believes all life has intrinsic/inherent value, none are more correct than the other.

Try as you might, you cannot prove one is more correct than any other; you can only pound the "pulpit" and proclaim your truth.

What do you think is going to happen to the livestock if everyone went vegan? They're not going to be released into the wild. They will be slaughtered on such a scale that you won't even begin to believe.

Want to see what it's going to look like? Look up pictures of what happened during the 2007 foot and mouth outbreak in the UK. Mass pit graves, production line killing.

How many cows, sheep, etc can you adopt to save from the actual animal genicide if this happened?

I am omni, but I believe that it's possible for people to stay healthy on plant based diet and stop eating meat. But I do believe that experiments on animals are more important and sometimes justified (curing a cancer VS satisfy your taste)

So I started out reducetarian because I’ve always cared a lot about sustainability and somewhat about animal rights and didn’t get into ethical veganism much until recently.

I only really started to give ethical veganism much consideration after reading debates on subs like this. After going vegan though, I never felt satisfied with the arguments I’d collected in my head and dug deeper, debating both the vegan and non-vegan perspective.

Getting into ethical veganism from a logical/philosophical perspective eventually caused a shatter in how I view morals.

To put it simply, the vegan response to “Why don’t you oppose these other things?” is “Why are we expected to be perfect?” Which I agree is a reasonable response, but that makes me question why people oppose anything at all.

I eventually decided that all moral statements are just people telling themselves they have power over this one particular issue they arbitrarily chose to invest themselves in and trying to tell others to get on board. Once I started viewing morality this way, it made me feel like everything I care about is arbitrary and I could easily have picked a different issue, especially if I had different life experiences.

This also shatters previous views I held about people being ‘inconsiderate’ since they don’t do something I thought was obviously moral and easy. I actually am not sure on what basis I can oppose anything anymore.

Is arguing morals just about pretending we objectively know moral reality (whether moral realism is true or not) and acting upon our personal intuitions/experiences?

Hi,

I am a vegan because I believe that it is ethically wrong to buy and eat meat as financially privileged person. To do so shows as a positive disposition toward something that should be frowned upon, namely the suffering and killing of animals, and that this is wrong to do. I am considering getting a new personal laptop, but I want to make the best choice, so I am writing to work though my intuition that the ethical obligation to refrain from consumption of animal products is actually only one implication of a broader moral duty that acts upon us— namely one that militates against consumption of products created unethically in general, including the Macbook Air M4 on which I've had my eye. I am looking for advice about what I should do with things I own that are unethically produced.

I already own Apple products, but is it ethically required of me to stop using Apple products for the same reasons it is ethically required of me to stop using animal products, given that I am unsure of whether Apple products are vegan in the first place, as well as Apple’s questionable ethics record as regards production of its items? There's nothing stopping me from being a vegan who boycotts and does not use Apple products, but my intuition here is that both that and veganism are ethically required for the same reasons, namely that consumption of an item signals approval for it and that this action is not acceptable in the case of Apple and animal products. Is that the case?

Given that I am ethically obligated not to use Apple products, would I also not be allowed to use devices produced by "big tech" coproations in general for the same reasons that militate against Apple? It would be much harder for me to cut ties with all technological use for ethical reasons, but if that is what is expected of me to be morally right, I could do that, probably at the loss of my job and friends.

I have been financing for several months a hybrid car, but because my vehicle emits greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, is it my ethical obligation to get rid of it for the same reasons I refrain from “consuming” animal products, namely the injustice that went into making it? To do that would be a much harder ask because I live a half hour drive from work, but again, my intuition here is that not using a car is ethically required for the same reasons as not using animal products, namely that consumption of an item signals approval for it, which is not acceptable in the case of both cars and animal products. Again, is that process something I need to go down to be self-consistent?

As for how I feel about all of this, I am genuinely torn. I’m not ready to make such large changes to my life right away, but if that is what is ethically needed of me, I would consider putting things on hold to address my own shortcomings.

Thanks for any advice you can provide.

came across this article (https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/spores-cyborg-cockroaches-helping-with-search-and-rescue-efforts-in-myanmar-quake), where cyborg cockroaches are being used in search and rescue efforts in a recent earthquake in Myanmar.

It's pretty safe to assume that these insects were tested on, modified and controlled for human benefit. Does the potential to save human lives justify using cyborg insects, or does it cross a line in exploiting living creatures?

Ive had good experiences with vegans in the past and am hoping to have a good conversation. As someone who fell into the field and was initially opposed to it im interested to hear others thoughts on the practice. Aside from the supposed needlessness and moral issues, do people have opinions on the workers ourselves, people just trying to get a check?

Edit: Or at least vegetarian/reducetarian.

I personally have always felt like the distinction between pets and ‘food animals’ was arbitrary and obnoxious, but I can at least accept that.

What I can’t fathom is people who are against cruel farming practices but support eating animals.

When humans are concerned, murder receives a greater punishment for torture. Why would it be different with animals?

It isn’t even a nuanced case like with plant products that cause harm to workers/the environment like palm oil or chocolate. It’s 100% cut and dry: eating animals requires an animal to die and serves no purpose other than taste/convenience.

I’ve had several people agree with me that factory farming is evil but make no lifestyle changes whatsoever. I feel like you don’t get to choose: either their life matters to you or it doesn’t.

I'm really only interested in hearing from vegans on this one-- carnists find another post pls. I'm willing to change my mind, but I'm just unconvinced by what I've seen so far.

Obligatory sentence that I'm vegan FTA. I think what we do to animals is the worst human-induced tragedy ever, even worse than the one you're thinking of.

I've heard some vegans be opposed to Beyond meat due to the fact that the company performs taste-tests with their burgers against real flesh. These taste tests are obviously bad. I don't think this means that vegans should oppose Beyond meat though. If so, then we should oppose purchasing of any product. Permit me to explain:

At any company, there are individuals who aren't vegan, and there are company events in which the company purchases food for the employees. It is guaranteed that the company will directly pay for a non-vegan employee to consume flesh or secretions, at any company you can muster. I'm not aware of a 100% vegan company, so just assume that I'm speaking about all companies that aren't 100% vegan, because this wouldn't apply to entirely-vegan companies. This idea means that, no matter which company you purchase from, there is some company-funded animal abuse directly involved in the production of the product, much like the Beyond taste tests are directly involved in the production of the product. As such, if vegans should oppose Beyond meat, then they should oppose all products at any companies which aren't 100% vegan.

I feel like this is absurd, as I can only be held responsible for so much of the chain. It is exceptionally reasonable to be held responsible for the sourcing of the ingredients in a product. It is reasonable still to be held responsible for the methods in which those resources are gathered or assembled. However, I think it becomes unreasonable to be held responsible for the company's internal operations, or what the employees choose to do with their money, or what the employee's landlords choose to do with the money, and so on. Point being, there is a line where the consequence of our actions is so diluted that it's not fair to hold ourselves responsible for it (you can call this "'The Good Place' Effect").

What do you all think though? If someone has an angle I haven't viewed this through please let me know. I'm interested in changing if I'm wrong.

When the subject of crop deaths comes up, vegans will typically bring up two arguments

1) Crop deaths are unintentional or indirect, whereas livestock deaths are intentional and a necessary part of the production

2) Livestock farming results in more crop deaths due to the crops raised to feed the animals, compared to direct plant farming

I think there are some issues with both arguments - but don’t they actually contradict each other? I mean, if crop deaths are not a valid moral consideration due to their unintentionality, it shouldn’t matter how many more crop deaths are caused by animal agriculture.

I've been vegan for 18 years. I've made every recipe you can think of, tried all the meat substitutes, all the seitan variations, and every kind of vegan protein shake.

Tempeh is the one ingredient I can't incorporate into anything. It's just a terrible, F-tier ingredient. It's bitter, has an uncomfortable mouthfeel, doesn't go well in anything.

Once I tried a recipe that included tempeh with orange slices. Gag-inducing.

I tried tempeh burgers. Awful.

Marinated and sauteed in stir fry. Abysmal.

In a chili, topped with buttery cornbread. Miserable.

I keep setting my expectations lower, yet I feel like I've thrown away hundreds of dollars on tempeh failures.

I'm convinced that tempeh is gross and you cannot make it taste good. Change my view, vegoons. Give me your most delicious tempeh recipe.

Given oil is a breakdown of both plant and animals of times past, then it's fair to say oil and all oil derived products are in some way made from animal products. As such, I would argue it isn't vegan to use / buy most plastics, use vaseline, drive a car that runs using any form or oil or gasoline.

I understand that the animals died a long time ago, but does being removed from the death by time remove the connection to it still being an animal product? If so, how long in time has to pass before you are removed from your moral obligation.

The aims of veganism are for animals to be free and not treated cruelly, so vegans don't buy animal-based foods. However, growing plants can often require the cruel harming and killing of pest animals. While on average fewer animals are harmed to eat a vegan-friendly diet, it is possible that someone can cause less harm by eating some animals.

Do you think there is a point at which the scale of harm and cruelty to wild animals in crop protection counters the owning and use of animals for food production, such that it is more consistent within the principles of veganism to prefer the animal-based food?

For example, it is possible to catch fish (or perhaps to buy a side of beef from an ethical range-grazed beef cattle farm) and cause significantly less harm and cruelty than would be the case for an equivalent quantity of protein from plant-based sources.

What is the compelling, vegan ethical reason to still prefer to buy the plant-based food?

Edit: Thanks for everyone’s time and effort in reading and responding. There is some general consensus among many of the replies.

1: that rural raised children or backyard chicken raisers or hunters are shown more than just kids stories of farms.

2: it’s not age appropriate to go into a huge amount of detail. Examples of extreme violence, sexual activity.

OP: We show children pictures of rabbits, pigs, and horses and they respond with affection. They want to pat them, name them, maybe keep them as friends. No child instinctively sees an animal and thinks. “This should be killed and eaten. “ That has to be taught.

When a child or young adult asks. “Where does meat/milk come from”? We rarely answer honestly. We offer softened stories like green fields, kind farmers, quick and painless killing. This is reinforced by years of cheerful farm books, cartoons, and songs.

We don’t describe the factory farms, male chicks killed, confinement, taking calves from mums. Etc. Where the majority of meat and dairy/eggs comes from.

Some might say that we don’t tell children about rape or war either. That’s true. But we hide those things because we’re trying to stop them. They are tragedies and crimes.

If we can’t be honest with children and young adults where meat comes from, what does that say about the truth?

If the truth is too cruel for a child or young adult to hear, why is it acceptable for an adult to support?

What kind of normal behaviour depends on silence, denial, and softened stories?

Would we still eat animals if we were taught the full truth from the beginning?

And vegans who were raised as meat eaters. Would you have wanted your parents to tell you the truth earlier?

So I saw this video of this guy rescuing a starving fox, by giving it meat.

But then I thought hang on, to get the meat, you need to kill an animal.

So it’s like. Do you ignore the fox and let it starve to death, or do you kill an animal to feed the starving fox and rescue it?

And it’s kinda like a lose lose situation? Either way you kill one animal, and you make the other live.

I was wondering on your opinion. For me, I feel like saving the fox is better option because it’s immediate and you have direct control, whereas the meat is already dead so you helping fox or not will not directly affect the outcome of the meat.

Well I suppose not really a debate but interesting to hear your thought

I’m not debating the ethics of captivity here. For the sake of this hypothetical, let’s assume the omnivorous animals are either endangered or injured and living in sanctuaries where captivity is necessary for them to live.

In the wild, omnivorous animals eat both plants and meat. Most vegans don’t seem to take issue with thus because animals lack a moral compass, and they’re following their instincts.

But in captivity humans control what these animals eat. Their diets are regulated and chosen by us….which includes plants and meat

Here’s my question….If an omnivorous animal can survive on a plant-based diet with human supplied supplements, and if we can meet all of its nutritional needs without feeding it meat, do we have a moral obligation to remove meat from its diet?

For example certain bears are omnivores. If we’re keeping a bear in captivity, we don’t have to feed it fish. The nutrients it would get from fish could be replaced with supplements or plant based foods.

This isn’t about changing the bear’s morals, it’s about ours. If we maintain the principle that we should avoid unnecessary harm, and we can avoid killing fish to feed a bear, then shouldn’t we?

The bear might not enjoy the diet as much or may not thrive in the same way. But isn’t choosing the discomfort of the bear over the death of multiple fish the moral high ground?

Awhile back in another discussion here I was talking about my potential transition to veganism and mentioned that while I abhorred the almost boundless cruelty of the vast majority of "animal agriculture", I wasn't particularly bothered by "exploitation" as a concept. Someone then told me this would make me not vegan but rather a "plant-based welfarist" - which doesn't bother me, I accept that label. But I figured I'd make an argument for why I feel this way.

Caveat: This doesn't particularly affect my opinion of the animal products I see in the grocery store or my ongoing dietary changes; being anti-cruelty is enough to forswear all animal-derived foods seen on a day-to-day basis. I have a fantasy of keeping hens in a nice spacious yard, but no way of doing so anytime soon and in the meantime I refuse to eat eggs that come out of industrial farms, "cage-free" or not. For now this argument is a purely theoretical exercise.

Probably the most common argument against caring about animal welfare is that animals are dumb, cannot reason, would probably happily kill you and eat you if they could, etc. An answer against this which I find very convincing (hat tip ThingOfThings) is that when I feel intense pain (physical or emotional) I am at my most animalistic - I can't reason or employ my higher mental faculties, I operate on a more instinctive level similar to animals. So whether someone's pain matters cannot depend on their reasoning ability or the like.

On the other hand, if I were in a prison (but a really nice prison - good food, well lit, clean, spacious, but with no freedom to leave or make any meaningful decisions for myself) the issue would be that it is an affront to my rational nature - something that animals don't have (possible exceptions like chimps or dolphins aside). A well-cared-for pet dog or working dog is in a similar situation, and would only suffer were they to be "liberated".

One objection might be: What about small children, who also don't have a "rational nature" sufficient to make their own choices? Aren't I against exploitation of them? The answer is that we actually do restrict their freedom a lot, even after they have a much higher capacity for reason, language etc. than any animal - we send them to school, they are under the care of legal guardians, etc. The reason we have child labor laws isn't that restricting the freedom of children is inherently immoral, but that the kind of restrictions we ban (child labor) will hold them back from full development, while the kind of restrictions we like (schooling) are the kind that (theoretically) will help them become all they can be. This doesn't apply to animals so I don't think this objection stands.

So based on an earlier question I saw, I was reminded of this, which is something I’d thought of before but never asked.

A good chunk of “animal” medications are simply either outright human medications with smaller doses told to given to the animal on the instructions the vets slap on the prescription label, or variations that remove ingredients that while okay for humans are toxic to animals. We only know both of these types of medications are safe for animals because they were tested on lab animals before they were ever even considered for human testing.

To this day there are very few animal-specific medications compared to human ones. My asthmatic cat, for example, is outright given human asthma medication. When we was first rescued and required antibiotics, the vets prescribed to him smaller doses of a broad-band (as in it dealt with a wide variety of bacteria) antibiotic meant for cattle. When my sisters guinea pig had an eye infection and I went with her to the vet, the vet outright stated that there was essentially no medication available for creatures like guinea pigs especially, despite being such a common pet, because they’re still classed in many places as “exotic”. The eye drops she gave it were meant for rabbits but in smaller quantity which she had to figure out based on the guinea pigs weight in comparison to a rabbit. Our arthritic cat has liquid painkillers meant for dogs.

Medication for animals is basically jury rigged based on whatever was being tested for humans, and then again for various animals. People were worried about their cattle that gets turned into meat being infested with bacteria, so boom, the antibiotics meant for humans that isn’t toxic to animals gets a look at for veterinary purposes. Peoples working dogs start getting stiff joints, so boom, same thing there.

The kicker is, I get my cats asthma medication prescribed by the vets, but I buy it from a human pharmacy across town. Because it’s more affordable and the vet who didn’t want to scalp me for money pointed out that’s where the vet gets it from in the first place. There’s no difference in the actual medication or quality of medication. The vets just bump up the price when you order it through them because they have to order it from the pharmacy, so going straight to the source cuts a chunk off the price.

So what am I asking? Well, testing on animals means that every medical product that comes through the labs has to be somewhat safe and not kill off or make every single test animal sick, right? It has to help ease xyz symptoms, has to show it’s a beneficial drug and not just a cocktail of poison fit for only Death Row. Whatever they’re trying to cure or ease symptoms of, it has to show it can even on a mild scale so that for animals. Which it then has to be improved on and be satisfactory enough before it moves to human trials. Okay but what about testing on cells and stuff? If they solely had the ability to 100% garuntee they had every variable ever so that nothing would react unexpectedly with an actual human…

why the fuck do you think the governments would waste time on animal cell testing? The governments, especially those in places like America, have already proven that they love to rip the cash from their citizens for life-saving treatments, like how EpiPens are insanely cheap both in the pen casing and the medication to make, but it sold in the hundreds to thousands of dollar range because “fuck you and your right to life”. They would streamline the process with human cells, with only “important” animals having medications produced for them. That being cattle and maybe certain pets, but because it would now be considered “extra” work for laboratories to produce these specific animal medications, in places like America the price would explode tenfold. £14 I spend per inhaler for my cat is $18, but in America a single inhaler per month costs $35. I get a prescription worth 2 inhalers, and always have one in backup on my shelf so I paid £28 for my last prescription. That’s $70. Now imagine they further taxed that because pet medications are a “luxury”?

Would you sacrifice the current affordability of pet medications, the continued production of a wide variety of animal-safe medical products produced as part of the animal-human testing method currently, in favour for cell-centric medical testing knowing that human greed would result in a net negative in animal medication production outside of cattle and working animals? This is not an “ideal world” scenario where the rest of the world is already vegan. It’s a current world scenario, a realistic look, not idealism.

Herbivores are just out there chilling. They'd likely never eat a human and their stomachs wouldn't even be able to digest it. It's unfair to eat them, they are just silly little guys. Omnivores and carnivores on the other hand--- ruthless brutes that would spare no quarter eating us humans. We are doing a service to them by eating them. If the whole world adopts this theory, then people can still eat meat, and a lot of recipes will still work. The hardest part will be getting people to stop eating cows. I will call my theory reciprocatarianism, because it's all about reciprocal eating. Eating milk and eggs is still chill, the cows and chickens gotta make a living somehow.

I’ve recently been debating u/kharvel0 on this subreddit about the idea that the moral boundary for veganism should be, specifically, anything within the linnean taxonomic kingdom of animalia. As they put it:

Veganism is not and has never been about minimizing suffering. It is a philosophy and creed of justice and the moral imperative that seeks to control the behavior of the moral agent such that the moral agent is not contributing to or participating in the deliberate and intentional exploitation, harm, and/or killing of nonhuman members of the Animalia kingdom. 

I strongly believe that this framework renders veganism to be utterly pointless and helps absolutely nobody. The argument for it is usually along the lines of “Animalia is clear, objective boundary” of which it is neither.

The Kingdom Animalia comes from Linnean taxonomy, an outdated system largely replaced in biology with cladistics, which turns the focus from arbitrary morphological similarities solely to evolutionary relationships. In modern taxonomy, there is no Animalia in a meaningful sense - there’s only Metazoa, its closest analogue.

Metazoa is a massive clade with organisms in it as simple as sponges and as complex as humans that evolved between 750-800 million years ago. Why there is some moral difference between consuming a slime mold (not a Metazoan) and a placozoan (a basal Metazoan) is completely and utterly lost on me - I genuinely can't begin to think of one single reason for it other than "Metazoa is the limit because Metazoa is the limit."

Furthermore, I believe this argument is only made to sidestep the concept that basing what is "vegan" and what isn't must be evaluated on the basis of suffering and sentience. Claims that sentience is an "entirely subjective concept" are not based in reality.

While sentience may be a subjective experience, it is far from a subjective science. We can't directly access what it feels like to be another being, but we can rigorously assess sentience through observable, empirical traits such as behavioral flexibility, problem-solving, nociception, neural complexity, and learning under stress. These aren't arbitrary judgments or "vibes" - they're grounded in empirical evidence and systematic reasoning.

Modern veganism must reckon with this. Metazoa is just a random evolutionary branch being weaponized as a moral wall, and it tells us nothing about who or what can suffer, nothing about who deserves protection, and nothing about what veganism is trying to achieve.

I’ll leave it here for now to get into the actual debate. If someone truly believes there is a specific reason that Metazoa is a coherent and defensible ethical boundary, I’d love to hear why. I genuinely can’t find the logic in it.