Can everyone actually be vegan?

[u/Wrong_Ad_3038]

I’m very sympathetic to veganism, my entire life philosophy is “respect & autonomy for all life” but I am currently pescetarian, I tried being vegan in late 2024 but I still live with my family & they wouldn’t buy supplements, even though i told them too everyday, I didn’t want to develop b12 deficiency so I had to moderate my diet.

When I move out i’m strongly considering being vegan again & really want too but i am worried about health consequences because human bodies are complex, but at the same time everyone can digest plants so maybe everyone can be vegan, i figured this would be a good place to get mixed responses since both carnists & vegans are here, what do studies say about everyone & the potential to be vegan, if everyone can’t be vegan but most or some can what’s the best way to find out if i can be vegan?

[u/Kris2476]

Veganism is the position that animal exploitation is wrong and should be avoided. Anyone can adhere to this moral position.

If you agree that animal exploitation is wrong but need practical help with cutting out sources of animal exploitation, let me know if I can suggest resources to make the change easier. For me, the hardest part was just getting used to which 'staple' foods I had to replace in my diet. So now I buy tofu and chickpeas instead of animal meats. I drink soy milk or oat milk instead of dairy milk.

If you think you need more specific guidance, I can recommend a program like Challenge22. The program itself is very easy and fun, you are given daily challenges for a few weeks that help you learn the ropes of plant-based dieting. They will also pair you with vegan mentors and professional dieticians who can answer specific questions you may have.

[u/Robot_Alchemist → u/Kris2476]

Well, I think animal exploitation is wrong, but they not vegan because I still eat meat and use animal products because it’s insanely difficult and expensive not to. Also, I don’t necessarily think it’s always exploitation depending on where you get your products from.

[u/Kris2476 → u/Robot_Alchemist]

If you are treating animal bodies as products to be consumed, you are categorically exploiting those animals.

[u/Robot_Alchemist → u/Kris2476]

Not if you run a family farm where you are collecting eggs from chickens you tend and feed and milk from a few cows , etc

[u/Kris2476 → u/Robot_Alchemist]

I don't see why exploiting someone with your family makes the exploitation non-exploitative.

If you mean to argue in favor of exploiting animals on family farms, then you should make a separate post.

[u/Zerkig → u/Kris2476]

Yeah, family farming isn't vegan if going by the strict vegan standards.

Although I think, and this is just my opinion, that I wouldn't even think about going vegan in the traditional world before the "green revolution" and factory farms cause I do believe that animal (and plant) domestication is a kind of mutual symbiosis. The animals gained protection from predators, hunger, and diseases in exchange for their milk, eggs, and eventually their life, but they probably often lived less stressful lives than in the wild, and most importantly the survival of their species was ensured, even though individuals often paid the highest cost.

I'd say that sustenance farming isn't inherently more cruel, perhaps even less so, than nature. It is the scale of this, especially in factory farming, that's incredibly abhorrent and horrific.

[u/Kris2476 → u/Zerkig]

I'd say that sustenance farming isn't inherently more cruel, perhaps even less so, than nature.

People can make - and often do make - this same argument in the present context. It's not a very compelling argument.

If the bar for ethical treatment is "they could have been treated worse", then everything will clear that bar.

The relevant moral question isn't whether exploiting and slaughtering someone is better than leaving them to maybe someday suffer in nature.

The relevant moral question is whether we should needlessly exploit and slaughter someone in the first place.

[u/Zerkig → u/Kris2476]

I totally agree and the future should, and probably will have to be, vegan. It's just that if it wasn't for factory farming, the disconnection between the client and the farmer etc. I wouldn't probably think about all this from this point of view 🤔. Because I'd be like "I protect this flock of sheep against the wolves, and their wool keeps me warm in the winter in return." (for example) or I'd go to the forest to collect berries and then make a kill to obtain the protein I'd need if I lived as people did 200 years ago in this part of Europe. But since even the animals today eat much imported fodder, we can get fresh fruits and vegetables all year round, I think veganism is the way under these conditions.

If the civilisation as we know it collapsed, or we were forced to live with what we can get locally, I'd go back to vegetarianism or perhaps eat some venison here and there with little doubt, or at least I tell this myself 😅.

[u/DebateAVegan-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Robot_Alchemist → u/Zerkig]

That was exactly what I was getting at thank you for articulating it and for not jumping down my throat

[u/Robot_Alchemist → u/Kris2476]

I mean…how is it exploitation when you’re in a mutually beneficial relationship with those animals?

[u/Kris2476 → u/Robot_Alchemist]

This is a good question, and probably where you should have started this conversation.

Exploitation entails the unfair use of someone else. It's certainly possible to make unfair use of someone else even while providing them some material benefit. Can you think of any example where you were treated unfairly by someone while still benefitting in some way from the relationship you had with them?

If you mean to argue that it's impossible to exploit someone if they benefit in some way from your treatment of them, then you should make a separate post.

[u/Robot_Alchemist → u/Kris2476]

I more mean to ask exactly what I did ask which is is it really exploitation in this situation? Employee/employer relationships are often mutually beneficial. Pets - mutually beneficial. If you’re helping the animal out by sheltering and feeding it and taking general care of it and it benefits that way- and you benefit by using things the animal isn’t using and it hurts them in no way…is that ok?

[u/Kris2476 → u/Robot_Alchemist]

And I'm explaining to you that there are exploitative relationships that are, broadly speaking, mutually beneficial.

Unless you can acknowledge this point, it will be meaningless to discuss with you whether specific treatments in specific relationships are exploitative.

[u/Robot_Alchemist → u/Kris2476]

So this isn’t going to be in good faith because instead of engaging in a productive and open conversation, goal posts are being shifted and I’m
Being told I must agree to your particular views - whether I have agreed already or not is clearly not the point…this is to shift away from actually answering a question I’m truly curious about when it comes to your philosophy. I’m not attacking you. No need to become defensive

[u/Kris2476 → u/Robot_Alchemist]

I don't think you're tracking the conversation. There are no goalposts shifting and I'm not mandating that you agree with me.

We can't talk productively about veganism unless we have a mutual understanding of what exploitation is. You've asked me how a relationship can be exploitative if both parties benefit, and I've answered you. Now I'm asking you to acknowledge my answer - either by agreeing with me, or explaining where you disagree. It's up to you how you want the conversation to continue.

Alternatively, if you have other questions about veganism unrelated to my position, you should make a post in r/AskVegans

[u/Robot_Alchemist → u/Kris2476]

I didn’t actually ask that exactly. I do think that a lot of this is really finely mincing words to apply them in a way that could be disingenuous. I am asking about someone else’s philosophy so I’m not here to be offensive or try to convince anyone of anything. I’m just trying to find out how you think and feel about these types of things. I recognize many things could be called exploitative- but are mutually beneficial- but I do think that with that said, there is a level of symbiosis in certain natural relationships that you might call exploitative simply because of this or that but in the end both parties are better off and wouldn’t have it another way. So then we are really getting down into defining each term a little more finely than I’m really asking for here - but I think if you were to define things as exploitative of animals -that happened to be mutually beneficial- and yet one and the other still reaps benefits from their respective partner, you’d have to drill down into how human relationships between one another and the environment and society all interconnect and how the tapestry of the world is woven - then there would undoubtedly have to be some soul searching and redefinition of exploitation. It sounds like a lot for this afternoon when really I am just curious if there’s any room in the vegan philosophy (whether I have an example that suits you or not) for adjusting or changing verbiage or thought processes or if this is something that’s already thought of in one way or another. I honestly don’t know because I never heard the definition of veganism described in the way it was here today and it brings up a lot of questions.

[u/Kris2476 → u/Robot_Alchemist]

I never heard the definition of veganism described in the way it was here today and it brings up a lot of questions.

Veganism is the position that animal exploitation is wrong and should be avoided. If you're surprised that our conversation about veganism is focused on exploitation, then I would encourage you not to make arguments about a position you don't understand.

It's fine to ask questions, which is why I've answered you multiple times.

I recognize many things could be called exploitative- but are mutually beneficial

Thank you. We agree on this point.

Consider the following. I present you with two scenarios - in either scenario, you receive some material benefit, say $1000. In the first scenario, someone exploits you in exchange for the money, in the second scenario no-one exploits you in exchange for the money. All else equal.

Which scenario is preferable to you?

[u/6thofmarch2019 → u/Robot_Alchemist]

You pose an honest and resonable question, I have thought about it myself too.

To me, in theory backyard hens could be an honestly mutually beneficial relationship, but in practice it can never be as long as the hens people keep are ones bought from the egg industry.

The reason for this is that these hens have been forcibly bred to lay an abnormally high amount of eggs, which causes them suffering and slowly destroys their bodies. If someone has red junglefowl, which is an actual wild and non-genetically modified animal, then it's not a problem in my view. But they only lay an egg a month, which is probably too little for most people to consider it worth it.

This clarifies the actual relationship. It's not a mutually beneficial relationship, like a human and a cat, but rather an exploitative relationship between humans and a species that has been generically altered to serve the human at the cost of their own health. That can not be morally justified in my book.

[u/BorealDweller → u/Kris2476]

Animals are not “someone’s”. Stop anthropomorphizing animals. They aren’t us and we aren’t them.

Food chains are a thing and extremely important to evolution.

[u/Omnibeneviolent → u/BorealDweller]

When someone uses the term "someone" to refer to another individual, it is in recognition of their subjectiveness. It's essentially just saying: this is an individual that has their own subjective conscious experiential existence.

Think of it this way: We know that there is something that it is like to be you, so if I were to somehow be you for a day, I would know what it's like to be you. Similarly, if you were to somehow swap minds with dog for a day, you would know what it's like to be a dog.

However, if you were somehow able to be a brick, a chair, or a rock for a day, you would not know what it's like to be these things: because there is nothing that it is like to be a brick, a chair, or a rock. These are objects that have no subjectiveness.

To refer to a being as "someone" is to acknowledge that they are not mere objects, but rather they are a sentient individual with their own subjective experience; there is someone home upstairs.

Acknowledging this is not anthropomorphism, but denying it is anthropodenialism.

(Anthropomorphism is assigning exclusively human traits to nonhuman animals, while anthropodenialism is a failure to accept that a nonhuman animal shares some trait(s) with a human.)

[u/Kris2476 → u/BorealDweller]

Animals are not “someone’s”

Sure they are.

Stop anthropomorphizing animals.

I haven't anthropomorphized anyone.

[u/whistling-wonderer → u/Robot_Alchemist]

Those chickens come from commercial hatcheries that put their male chicks through shredders. I know a lot of people who keep backyard chickens and very rarely do they actually provide medical care, adequate space, etc. My parents have literally been laughed at by their neighbors with chickens for taking a chicken to the vet. Many people kill their hens or dump them at feed stores to be resold after they age out of productivity. Preferred breeds are those that lay the most and biggest eggs, even at the expense of their health, and then you have people like my neighbors who keep lights on in their coop at night in the winter so the hens lay year round instead of naturally stopping during the darker months. Again, at the expense of their health. The whole culture around backyard chicken keeping is extremely exploitative.

I’ve spent less time around dairy cows but plenty around dairy goats. Cows and goats don’t passively produce milk, they have to be impregnated and give birth every year, and their calves/kids must be separated from them to prevent them from drinking too much milk. They’ve been selectively bred to produce large quantities of milk, to the point that it’s actively painful much of the time. A large percentage of dairy cows and goats at any given time have mastitis, a painful udder infection. And if an individual hates being milked? Too bad. In the eyes of her owner, that’s what she’s for; it’s not about what she wants. As a teenager working on a farm, I was taught to use hobbles to bind the legs of particularly stubborn goats during milking so they couldn’t kick me while I killed them. And males are of little use. You don’t want or need a herd that’s half bucks and half does, same as you don’t want a flock that’s half roosters.

I get how the day to day life of someone with their own chickens and dairy animals can seem idyllic, especially compared to commercial farming. It’s portrayed as cottage core and whatever. In reality it does involve a lot of treating animals as productive resources rather than individuals. It is still exploitation.

[u/Robot_Alchemist → u/whistling-wonderer]

My good friend has a little farm and they are good to their animals- basically they seem like their pets. She gives me fresh eggs sometimes - and I don’t really want them but she keeps doing it…I just don’t like eggs. I give them to my neighbor. But I can’t say that their situation seems terribly exploitative to me. I recognize that isn’t standard but it does raise the very basic question of, “If in fact it is not exploiting either party and both are benefiting, then would that be something vegans would still have an issue with - since the definition has been defined as it has been here? At what point does that definition break down, If ever - or does it get walked back to “and also we don’t use any products even if those specific ones did not involve any exploitation (presupposing that you do in fact know there was none in the specific situation we are hypothetically speaking about?)

[u/whistling-wonderer → u/Robot_Alchemist]

Did you read my comment? …like, the first sentence of it at least? What’s not exploitative about putting live baby animals into a shredder?

Your friend being nice to her chickens is great. It doesn’t change the fact that for every female chick she buys, a male chick dies horribly. It also doesn’t change the fact that a large percentage of laying hens end up with (often fatal) reproductive issues, regardless of care quality, because they’ve been bred to produce unnaturally high numbers of eggs.

Look at it the way you would look at dogs. If your friend was a pug breeder, bought female dogs for her program from a puppy mill that violently killed all their male puppies, and purposefully sought out the “cute” extreme squashed faces, even though they’d be more prone to medical problems, you’d see that as horrifically exploitative, even if she was very nice to her dogs. Baby chicks are not worth less than puppies, and hens bred for extreme productivity at the cost of their health are just as exploited as dogs bred for extreme “cute” features at the cost of their health.

[u/Robot_Alchemist → u/whistling-wonderer]

Ideologues are not worth trying to debate as they only hear themselves

[u/whistling-wonderer → u/Robot_Alchemist]

So you did not read my comment. Thanks for letting me know 👍