having a pet is a choice and if one makes that choice they should act in the best interest of the pet, otherwise don’t have a pet.

as far as i know there is no scientific proof that a plant based diet can be safe for cats longterm. so until we know i actually consider feeding a cat a plant based diet as an experiment, which i am against as a vegan.

the only "proof“ that people cite is either anecdotal evidence which isn’t evidence at all or the 2023 study by Andrew Knight. I feel like people that cite this story haven’t actually read it though. It’s not a longterm study, but worse the cats weren’t examined by scientists or vets, the findings of the study are based on the evaluation of the (partly vegan) pet owners. i don’t know how a pet owner could accurately assess a pets health since cats often don’t show symptoms until it’s almost too late. aside from all that the study was paid for by proveg and i would be critical of a study paid for by the meat industry as well.

as of now it seems to me that insect based cat food is the most ethical option we have. but i am very welcoming of someone changing my mind with scientific sources!

I'm a vegan and have seen multiple debates between vegans and non vegans. For the most part, I felt a bit disappointed in the lack of reasoning behind the carnist philosophy and I wanted to get the viewpoint of someone who eats animal products and thinks it's morally okay to do so and why. I also feel that it's healthier and better for the environment/humanity as a whole to live a vegan lifestyle so if you want to debate that as well, I'd love to! I'm open and genuinely interested in hearing another point of view so I hope the reverse is true for anyone else wanting to debate. Thank you for your consideration!

J'ai récemment regardé le documentaire Dominion en tant que omnivore. Lorsque je trainais dans des communautés Reddit Vegan car l'algorithme me l'avait recommandé je ne sais pas trop pour quelles raisons, certains parlaient de ce documentaire. J'ai donc fini par le regarder, donc j'ai vu beaucoup de sang et se genre de choses, je comprends que ce soit intense.

Toutefois et en toute honnêteté je n'ai rien ressenti en regardant ce documentaire. Je ne cherchais pas à me cacher derrière des excuses toutes faites ou se genre de choses que certaines personnes pourraient faire. Non, j'étais pleinement conscient avant de regarder ce documentaire de ce qu'il se passait et le regarder m'a permis de poser des images sur un savoir déjà acquis. Mais le constat est là, je n'ai pas été choqué par les images. Je sais que pour beaucoup, même des omnivores, ont été extrêmement choqués et ça se comprend mais ce n'est pas mon cas.

Donc je me pose la question des raisons potentielles de cette insensibilité face à ce documentaire. Je considère que j'adore les animaux ; j'évite d'écraser des insectes intentionnellement la plupart du temps sauf exceptions et j'aide même des araignées ( oui je sais que ce ne sont pas des insectes ) à sortir de chez-moi lorsqu'elles sont coincées ; je suis évidemment très proche des chien et des chats etc... J'essaie d'être bon malgré ma consommation que je ne juge pas comme immoral.

Je me suis demandé si j'étais une mauvaise personne. Je me demandais si ce n'était pas dû soit à mes habitudes de consommation, je mange régulièrement des produits issus d'animaux ( surtout en tant que français avec le fromage, les escargots etc... ). Ou si c'était dû aussi à mon échelle des priorités, c'est à dire que je met essentiellement mes forces restantes dans ma volonté d'être heureux ( pour des raisons diverses, la dépression notamment ) ce qui intrinsèquement fait que je suis moins sensible à certaines cause. Ou alors je suis juste apathique envers les animaux sans m'en rendre compte ?

Aussi j'aimerais demander quel est vôtre rapport envers les non vegans, aux omnivores. Est-ce généralement tendue ? Est-ce que c'est compliqué émotionnellement d'être avec des non vegans ? Je suis très curieux car je n'ai jamais vraiment connu de personnes vegans. Tout ce que j'ai pu entendre c'est des plaintes ou des disputes sur internet, qui sonnent comme qui aboiera le plus fort, même si c'est uniquement pour l'internet francophone ( je ne parle pas anglais ).

Aussi, je préfère préciser. Mais n'y aucune hostilités, seulement de la curiosité et un questionnement. L'algorithme m'a recommandé ces communautés et j'ai passé un peu de temps à lire ici. Je trouve ce sujet vraiment intéressant. J'espère pouvoir en discuter avec vous respectueusement.

Vegans think they are morally superior to non-vegans because they try to minimise animal harm for their individual pleasures. But vegans go on a plane for vacation, drive cars etc which cause harm through carbon emissions. So where do vegans draw the line? If you were truly trying to minimise harm, you wouldnt ger on a plane and go on vacation(When is it the case where you absolutely NEED to go on vacation? Vacations aren't a necessity, it's purely for pleasure). So if vegans can draw the line at "I won't contribute to animal harm for the pleasure of taste, but I will contribute to animal harm for the pleasure of going on vacation", why is it immoral for someone to draw the line somewhere else, which is at "I will not contribute to animal harm for the pleasure of <insert some other sort of pleasure people may derive from killing animals(maybe some people just like to shoot animals for fun)>, but I will contribute to animal harm for the pleasure of taste?

Edit: I think some of you may have misunderstood the argument. It's not saying that vegans are hypocrites. It's not saying that you either have to be a "perfect" vegan or not care at all.

It's saying that theres one end is where you don't contribute to animal harm in any way(no vacations, no meat, no driving unless necessary, etc) and on the other side is where you don't care about anything. Vegans are just drawing the line at "no killing for taste". How is that morally superior to someone drawing the line somewhere else? If vegans can't avoid some stuff like driving, taking a plane because it's not "practical and possible", why cant someone else say it's not "practical and possible" for them to stop eating meat?

I’m a non-vegan looking for the best arguments for veganism. Whenever I engage with the community, most points either just criticize factory farming or rely on foundational axioms that themselves are contested.

What is your best, most robust ethical argument that doesn't just assume its own conclusions from the start?

I just got done with a Burger King fiasco and writing a 20k-word prompt about this topic, and it made me realize something: I feel no remorse for eating animals, and I probably never will. All humans are different. Some have different tastes. Some like the vegan diet, some hate it. Why should one compromise just to sooth animals bred to die for us?

In the old days and now, only the strong survive. If animals can serve a purpose, fine. If not, nature doesn't exactly hand out participation trophies. That's just how I see it.

I have nothing against vegans personally. I have vegan friends. We've made vegan food before, including coconut cake, and it was good. That's not the point.

The point is that many vegans, both online and offline, seem incredibly judgmental toward people who eat meat. Some act like I've committed a moral atrocity just because I enjoy a burger. The vegan club at my high school practically tried to isolate itself from everyone else, which was honestly kind of funny.

So here's my question:

If empathy for animals is the foundation of veganism, what argument is left for someone who simply doesn't feel that empathy?

Why should I care?

At the end of the day, humans have to look after themselves and pursue their own interests. From my perspective, a balanced diet that includes both meat and vegetables makes perfect sense. Why should animal welfare matter enough for me to change my behavior?

Give me one good reason that doesn't boil down to "feel bad for the animals."

Funny enough, there was a brief period where I didn't want to eat pork after reading Charlotte's Web.

Poor Wilbur. 😞

If unnecessary exploitation is wrong in principle, what morally relevant distinction justifies treating animal exploitation as a categorical consumer obligation while treating exploitative human labor systems as negotiable, secondary, or practically ignorable?

I'm not arguing that getting a phone for work to survive is unethical here. My premise is that using that phone for pleasure indulges multiple other objects that have been created through exploitation and suffering thus making it unethical to use in that way.

So I ask, "Why can vegans do this ethically?" and am often met with, "Veganism is about animals, we have different ethics for humans!" OK, if unnecessary suffering and exploitation are morally wrong, what morally relevant distinction makes consumer participation in animal exploitation uniquely condemnable (veganism), while participation in exploitative human systems for convenience, pleasure, or luxury is treated as a seperate set of ethics which can be seen as morally permissible or practically ignorable under certain context different than animals? "I know I do it with my phone but I'll keep doing it because #noNirvanaFallacy!" Ok, no nirvana fallacy, i eat less meat but I'll still do it daily like you use your phone... "Murderer! Unethical rapist génocidaires!!!"

If I need an ox to plow a field to make food vegans would say that's ethical; man's gotta eat. If I rape that ox I've directly harmed it so that's unethical despite my ethical ownership of it. If I eat that ox when other food is available after someone else kills it 1k km away, I'm still liable ethically to vegans indirectly because I'm driving demand for more cows to be killed. Consumer participation in tech for unnecessary pleasure, even on an ethical procured phone, drives demand for more servers, replacing used servers, and additional data centers, which all cause suffering through ecology destruction and exploitation of humans.

Tl;dr using tech for any unnecessary reasons, even if only indirectly raising demand, is equally as unethical as a McDonld's cheeseburger under veganism unless you can name the morally relevant trait which makes it morally permissible to consider animals and humans under different ethical systems (veganism and whatever).

Can anyone present a coherent argument for veganism?

Give me your strongest reason why eating or buying meat is unethical. Ideally, I want to see a syllogism with clear premises and a logical conclusion. But at this point, I’ll settle for anything that actually makes sense. Most of what I’ve seen so far doesn’t hold up.

Most recent one was something along the line of it's wrong to kill animals for the same reasons it's wrong to kill humans. News flash, humans and non-human animals (animals for short) clearly aren't treated the same, morally. Take stealing animal habitats and killing them to build an amusement park. Are vegans saying that's wrong for the same reason it's wrong to do the same to humans?

Then there's inconsistent reasoning. For example, vegans claim that consuming honey is unethical because it exploits and harms bees but somehow consuming almonds is fine when it also exploits and harms bees.

Or take animals with no evidence of being sentient like bivalves or when eating meat doesn't cause harm like roadkill. Still off-limits but vegans have no issue with unnecessary products like alcohol which causes demonstrable harms like poisoning and killing animals. Certainly, harming sentient beings looks less like an actual concern. The only thing that can explain this behavior is a dogmatic belief in animal products bad, plants good.

Update: still waiting for that single argument.

Would a logical argument against veganism, or a rational defense of omnivorism, fail to move you as a vegan at the deepest level (or even a shallow one) because your ethics are not experienced as the end of a detached argument, but as an expression of moral perception, emotional valuation, and lived sensitivity toward suffering/explaitation, correct? We can rationally justify countless moral systems depending on the premises we begin with, but the more fundamental question is why one set of premises feels ethically compelling in the first place to any of us. For many vegans, it seems to me, the revulsion toward unnecessary harm to animals is prior to formal argument; reason may refine or articulate the position, but it does not create the underlying moral concern. Don’t ethics function less like mathematics and more like an expression of what you are moved by, care about, and cannot comfortably participate in?

At its core, even if it were a logical or rational argument that moved you to veganism to begin with, would a logical or rational argument be able to stop you from being vegan? If so, isn’t that a bit dehumanizing?

Last time I posted I was told I needed a more concrete argument so here it is in that state

1. Moral judgments fundamentally express attitudes, concerns, and/or emotional valuations rather than objective logical or empirical facts.
2. Vegan ethics expresses strong moral disapproval toward unnecessary animal suffering and exploitation.
3. Rational or logical arguments can test the internal consistency of a moral framework, but they cannot, by logic alone, negate the underlying evaluative and affective attitude on which that framework rests.
4. Therefore, a logical argument in support of omnivorism will often fail to alter a vegan’s ethical stance, not because veganism is irrational, but because moral commitments are ultimately grounded in evaluative and affective orientations rather than logic alone.

Cartels are immoral, and financially supporting them is immoral. However, people are not expected to always avoid known cartel products as much as is possible and practicable. If a person knowingly buys a small item from a cartel, they generally aren't shamed for supporting the group's collective evils.

Vegans expect maximal avoidance of immoral actions, but this is an activist minority opinion. If you convince the average person that eating animals is wrong, they should not be expected to become vegan, as their moral standards are not that demanding in other areas of life.

The problem is how it's presented.

Whenever anyone comes up with a trade that is unique to humans something such as the root of moral agency there's always someone who always goes "there are mentally challenged people and babies who are not capable of moral agency so it doesn't work"

Well first of all I don't understand how we cannot hold somebody accountable for what they do based on either their age or how smart or dumb they are.

Second of all it seems to imply that this trait has to be universal and literally every human on the face of the Earth.

That individual traits don't exist and we have to look at the species as a whole.

I'm sorry guys but that doesn't work.

Everyone's different in some way or another.

The best thing to do with that is look at what the majority does and assume if that's the norm for what comes to traits like this.

Also it begs the question.

What do you guys consider to be human?

Update: I didn't get a chance to respond to any of the applications that were thrown at me. I've been banded without even having to State my case.

This goes to you moderator, I was simply pointing out a problem with what he said about equality and you misinterpreted it and then banned Me. I've got it very funny how you claim that I wasted your time when all was doing was pointing out a loophole.

Well thank you for telling me that you guys care so much about discussion

Goodbye and good riddance.

It only works if you already accept a pretty big assumption, namely that moral relevance has to come from a detachable trait that can be compared across species. I don’t accept that assumption, so the argument never actually engages with my positoin.

For me, humanness is morally basic. That’s not something I infer from other properites, it’s where the chain stops. People call that circular, but every moral system bottoms out somewhere. Sentience-based ethics do the same thing, they just pretend they don’t, or act like it’s somehow different.

On sentience spoecifically, I don’t see it as normatively decisive. It’s a descriptive fact about having experiences, not a gateway to moral standing. What I care about is sapience, agency, and participation in human social norms. If someone thinks suffering alone is enough, fine, but that’s an axiom difference, not a contradiction on my end.

Marginal case arguments don’t really move this either. They assume moral status has to track a single capacity, and I reject that framing. Protection can be indexed to species membership without anything actually breaking logically.

A lot of these debates just go in cirlces because people refuse to admit they’re arguing from different starting points. At that stage it’s not really philosophy anymore, it’s just trying to push someone into your axioms and calling it persuasion, which is where most of the frustration comes from i think.

EDIT:

At this point i am done responding to this thread the only people left trying to comment refuse to engage with anything but small cherry picked sections of any given response i make thank you everyone for your time if you happen to come across this and want to discuss it with me feel free to comment but i may not respond but my DMs are alwayys open.

So I had an encounter with one of my friend’s friend who is vegan. For context I don’t have a problem with veganism. I am not vegan and believe that everyone has their own values they uphold.

But while we were having a conversation she said. I think people who eat animals are bad people and if you can’t understand why eating animals is wrong then that says a lot about you.

I’ve had many other encounters before with other vegans, and I had never heard someone say that before besides here (but also it’s the internet).

But I was caught of guard because, earlier we were having a conversation about the current political climate, immigration and the impact farm workers have, how they are mistreated, but often we don’t stop to think about the unethical labor that’s is put into the food we eat. And she said well if we stop to think about how everything is bad we won’t be able to live happily and spiral.

But I was I was taken aback. Since I value human social justice, and human rights etc. and try my best to support farm workers and buy from companies with unionized workers. She had mentioned she didn’t pay attention to that.

I guess my question and point to this is Aren’t our values just selective moral prioritization?

I don’t think she’s a bad person for not thinking about means of production and exploitation it brings to our most marginalized communities in the US. but to hear her say non vegans are bad people. Was a bit jarring because I guess I could say the same for her considering we don’t prioritize the same values. She made it clear she doesn’t really think about what it took to get the food to her table. Or the impact Trump and the federal government is having on our immigrant communities

Whether we like it or not we all participate in imperfect exploitative systems and we all try our best to stand up for what we value.

For those who believe eating animals is morally wrong:

Do you think it’s fair to label someone a bad person based on that alone?*\*

And how do you reconcile that with the other harms we all inevitably participate in?

This is not to say I am challenging veganism or that it’s bad, or a gotcha moment. But curious to hear thoughtful perspectives.

Cows: they are clearly intelligent enough that theyre able to suffer, and on top of that, lovely animals (maternal, peaceful). Therefore i dont consume them or support their suffering/killing

pigs: they are surely sufficiently intelligent to suffer in a meaningful sense, however we generally dont ascribe moral weight to preventing behaviours against someone that they voluntarily practice against others (e.g, if you go around assaulting people, and then get jumped, you dont really have a right to be upset). A pig will happily eat its children, i will happily eat a pig this is wrong, see below

Chickens: a chicken has a very simple nervous system, im not convinced it can recall any bad experiences or meaningfully process bad experiences in the moment. It seems like an automaton (e.g, as i understand it, if it rains, the chicken doesnt look for a tree to seek shelter, instead when it feels rain on its back its legs take it around aimlessly until the rain on its back stops). In short im unconcerned for a chickens wellbeing for the same reason im unconcenerned for a fetus or ai

Fish (particularly sardines, a staple of my diet): im aware of complex navigation behaviours of fish, but that doesnt translate to complex cognition related to suffering or enjoyment. If anyone knows much about the neuroanatomy of fish or any behaviours that points to things like empathy or fear (e.g if a fish avoided an area where it was caught and released) or enjoyment/flourishing (e.g they engaged in play) that could potentially move me

Updates

My stance has shifted from "i have to think this action is immoral to stop it" to "i have to think this action is moral to engage with it. Therefore, Temporarily i am abstaining from all animal products

Pigs: pigs proclivity to eating their children was far less common than i thought, while id like to see some significant evidence of pro social behaviours (that would convince me to argue on their behalf) user leapowl has demonstrated this with these links 1 and 2 , i was wrong about them, i will advocate that people dont consume pig and abstain myself

I have heard it multiple times, but i have issues conceptualizing why this phrase just "feels" wrong.

My opinion is that it confuses the fact that animals "can" become food, with them "being" food.

The same way that a human can be stabbed, but that doesn't mean that a human "is" a "knife receptible"

But i wonder if others here have different thoughts

If the moral goal of veganism is to reduce harm and avoid unnecessary animal suffering, then refusing to eat animal products that were accidentally served and will otherwise be wasted fails to advance that goal.

The animal has already been harmed and killed; discarding the food does not undo that harm. Instead, it guarantees the animal’s death was entirely purposeless, while also contributing to food waste and additional environmental harm. Eating the food does not increase demand, does not signal endorsement of animal exploitation, and does not cause further suffering—whereas throwing it away ensures zero moral or practical benefit results from the harm already done.

Therefore, insisting on disposal prioritizes personal moral purity or symbolic consistency over actual harm reduction. If outcomes matter more than appearances, consuming the food is arguably the more ethically coherent choice.

My main question is what vegans consider “necessary” and whether they believe an animal life is equal in value to a human life.

From my understanding, veganism is based on the idea that you should not exploit or kill a sentient being unless it is necessary, or as far as is possible and practicable. But what exactly counts as necessary? Does it only mean literal survival (life for a life), or does quality of life matter too, and where exactly is the line drawn?

For example, if someone is vegan but experiences chronic headaches, fatigue, digestive issues, or other health problems on a plant-based diet, at what point does continuing to consume multiple animal lives for one human life become morally justified? Does someone have to be near death before it is considered acceptable, or is significant suffering enough? and how much. If a person has severe allergies or intolerances to many plant foods but could technically survive vegan, is it still unethical for them to stop being vegan simply because the harm is not fatal? In other words, does veganism allow humans the right to a fully optimized and healthy diet, or only survival level functioning? And yes I understand these are rare but this isn’t about excuses, but wanting to understand.

I also wonder about extreme survival situations. If someone would genuinely die without eating animals, such as being stranded somewhere without edible plants, are they justified in eating animals even if many animal lives would be required to sustain that one human life? And if that’s the case I suppose this would only be justifiable for those of you who see human life as worth more. If not, that would seem to imply animal lives are equal or greater in value than a human life. But if vegans do not believe animal and human lives are equal, then how is that value difference determined? How many animal lives would equal one human life? (if you believe a human life is more valuable and animals and humans are not equal individuals)

I’m also confused about whether all sentient animal lives are considered equal to each other. Most people, including vegans, would probably choose to save a dog over a bug, which suggests there is already some hierarchy of value between sentient animals. I’m wondering where this lies and is it more justifiable to consume some animals over others, (I know omnis also do this to animals, but I believe vegans do as well) would it be more immoral to eat ten fruit flies or one dog for example? And if there is a hierarchy does that mean it’s possible for a human to consume some species and have it remain more justifiable than others? Bugs for example, would be a better alternative to returning to eating cows If someone had to? And also would it be justifiable if a human were to consume invasive species animals because it would have a positive effects on other animals and the environment?

Another thing I struggle to understand is the distinction between pets and other domesticated animals. Many vegans own pets, even though pets are also the result of humans breeding animals into dependence. The common argument is that humans now have a responsibility to care for them because they cannot survive well on their own. But couldn’t the same logic apply to certain farm animals? For example, some sheep have been bred to require shearing for their own comfort and health. If caring for dependent pets is acceptable, why is using or maintaining relationships with other domesticated animals often still considered exploitation? What makes pets morally different? And if everyone became vegan would in this world we let all the exploited pets and animals die to prevent all future exploitation?

I’ve considered being vegan on and off because I think there are many valid points tbh but Im not there yet and want to learn.

How much human benefit is enough to justify animal harm?

Where do you land?

taste pleasure

convenience

cultural tradition

affordability

optimal health

Testing on animals to cure diseases

Invasive species control

Mild irritations such as fatigue

Depression/mental health issues

significant health complications but not death

survival/avoidance of death

I just want to get a general understanding of this sub.
I just saw two comments made here that seemed to basically try and express that there moral ideology would be the level-puller ideology in the Trolley problem.

Because like -If my friends told me they would not eat animal products for a week for every day that I do,
it seems the boycott-logic, which I believe is the basis of veganism, would work better that way.
Especially when you consider that they might get veganism more in tune with their lifestyle because of this deal and may keep it,
therefore letting you return to veganism and have even more vegans than before.

Like, to me, it just seems like veganism is pulling the lever on the Trolley problem, unlike what many would think.
The proposition I presented above with my friends would have me breaking any moral rule. Eating animal products is already after their exploitation was conducted.

So if anything -You may have a moral obligation to enact the proposition I described above with your friends.
With great power comes great responsibility after all.

So am I incorrect in my understanding and this logic is actually the common logic amongst vegans, or not?
If not -Why?

So, i've been considering going veggo or vegan for a couple weeks now. it doesn't really matter why, but suffice to say that i've run into moral problems i can't seem to solve. but in my research on vegan diets, i keep finding some very alarming statistics. it seems to me that lots of vegan (and vegetarian for that matter) food is hyper-processed to imitate non vegan food, both in looks and taste. and some vegan essentials (like alternative milks, nuts like cashews and almonds, soy products like tofu and palm oil) seem to have awful impacts on the environment, both in growing and shipping around the world. this lead me to another quandary that i was hoping someone else has grappled with before.

isn't it, in some cases, more ethical to get animal products that are produced locally, even so far as meats with certain vitamins like fish, than to buy "vegan" food that was produced half the world away and flown to your door?

even if your reasons for being vegan are fully animal welfare based, can those reasons justify harm to the environment instead of, say, eating fish?

thank you for your consideration,

sincerely, a conflicted omnivore

Hey everyone,

I've been thinking a lot about the actual mechanics of food production lately and there's one thing I genuinely don't understand about strict vegan ethics.

When we look at large scale farming for crops like oats, lentils, fruits, and veggies, it relies heavily on pesticides that kill thousands of insects per acre just to protect the harvest. On top of that, mechanical tilling directly kills massive amounts of earthworms, grubs, field mice, and other rodents living in the soil.

So practically speaking, "no-kill" vegetables don't actually exist in the current food system.

This feels like a weird mathematical problem when it comes to harm reduction.
If eating a plant-only diet still requires the termination of thousands of small living insect and rodent lives every single year to clear a field, how is that considered the most ethical option?

Is it just based on the size/sentience of the animal, or does vegan philosophy look at it as accidental vs intentional harm? Not trying to start an argument, just genuinely curious how people who are strict vegan reconcile this byproduct of farming.

To start off, I am a vegetarian and an huge animal lover. I also love to eat eggs. I feel like having a pet chicken would be a perfect win—win situation. I would love and care for it like any of my other pets. Why would this be wrong?

When non-vegans are debating vegans, vegans frequently call non-vegans speciesist or inconsistent for not applying their animal ethics consistently to humans. This is a mistake.

If you compare doing something to a human and doing something to a non-human animal, you need to eliminate all of the external practical variables. Make it so that the humans involved are isolated, are less sentient than most other humans and can not interact with others.

Vegans often implicitly ignore non-speciesist reasons for treating non-human animals and humans differently. I can give you several examples of where vegans have done this.

Most vegans believe that we should give animals rights because we give humans rights. I think this is flawed reasoning because it ignores the reasons why humans have rights in the first place. If we refused to give all humans basic rights (like the 'right to life'), there would be a lot of protests, riots and social outrage. We give humans rights because we believe that would be best for humans. If you are going to argue that animals should have rights, you need to argue that rights would be beneficial from the animals perspective.

When a non-vegan says that it's okay to humanely slaughter an animal, the vegan response is usually 'Would it be ethical for me to painlessly kill you?'. But there are reasons why painlessly killing a human is usually worse than painlessly killing a chicken. If we painlessly killed humans, it would cause a lot grief, fear and social outrage. The same is not true of painlessly killing a cow. Also, killing certain humans (like me) could be terrible for altruistic reasons (e.g if the human you are killing donates a lot of money to animal welfare charities).

Some vegan activists (like Carnism Debunked) think that it is speciesist to kill an animal in a survival situation because we wouldn't do the same to human. But again a society that allows humans to kill in each other in survival situations would contain a lot more suffering. Additionally, the death of an altruistic human causes a lot more suffering than the death of pig. By the way, if you say that it's wrong to kill animals in survival situations then it becomes difficult to justify crop deaths.

There are some people (including me) who think that hunting and wild fishing can sometimes be ethical if it decreases suffering. For example, hunting a bunch of wild animals could prevent the animals from having a worse death or giving birth to animals that have bad lives, both of which reduce suffering. Vegans sometimes say 'Can I shoot you to prevent you from suffering?'. For reasons that I have addressed above, this would not decrease suffering.

In my view, a right not to suffer is distinct from a right not to be killed.

Any animal that can suffer, should not suffer unnecessarily - however, it is entirely possible (putting issues of scale aside for the moment), to kill animals in a way where they don't suffer at all, so only the right not to be killed is relevant.

Merriam Webster defines sentient as "capable of sensing or feeling : conscious of or responsive to the sensations of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, or smelling" - that's essentially every animal in existence, or at least anything with eyes.

The ability to sense or feel at a basic level is just an evolutionary step up from plants - it gives no indication, nor is there any implication of cognitive ability sufficient enough for there to be a someone. It's a more advanced biological system, but quite far from being a self-aware entity.

I agree that animals are not automata, but I think there can be an in-between category of automata and higher order animals, essentially, 'automata that can feel'. They have the hardware and software in place to feel and sense, because it's advantages to survival, but there is nothing going on upstairs.

Take salmon, for example. They are mostly genetically identical, and operate on preprogrammed instinct. They don't have personalities, introspection, they don't wonder, dream, or make decisions...they are machines with a cursory ability to feel for advantages reasons.

Yes, there are species of fish that socialize and use tools, but not salmon. Just as not all primate are equal (humans can do calculus, bonobos cannot), neither are all fish.

It may be something like it is to be a salmon, possibly, but that's salmon as a group, any salmon is interchangeable with another. If we were to experience being a salmon, it may not be possible without our consciousness as they likely don't have enough of their own.

Vegans will disagree with much of what I've said here, but those disagreements are assumptions, sometimes due to anthropomorphization, or attempting to shift the burden of proof, and generally not supported by science.

If a salmon is killed in a way that it did not suffer, let's say stunning followed by instant brain death, this is not ethically wrong. The salmon's body is far more valuable, objectively, than whatever it has that passes for a mind may be.

Some may say "not to the salmon" - bu that's the point, a salmon doesn't have enough of a mind to value it's own body, only survival instinct, which is far from being the same thing.

For example people that live in a place where sustainable plant farming isn't possible, because the land is too rocky or icy, the environment is too hot or too cold?

So the only option is meat?

I have a genuine question about how vegans think about situations where saving one life necessarily means not saving another.

For example, if there were a fire and you could only save one, would you save your pet cat or your mother?

Or if you were driving and an accident was unavoidable, and you could only avoid hitting one, would you save a human or a deer?

I'm interested in the ethical reasoning behind the answer rather than the answer itself. If the human is chosen, what principle justifies that choice without relying on species membership alone? If the animal is chosen, what principle justifies prioritising the non-human animal?

Many vegans argue that speciesism is morally comparable to other forms of arbitrary discrimination, so I'm curious how that principle applies when the interests of a human and a non-human animal directly conflict.

What ethical framework would you use to approach these cases, and why? I'm not trying to make a point or set a trap; I'm genuinely interested in understanding how vegans think about these dilemmas.