Some reasons not to primarily argue for veganism on health/climate change grounds
I’ve often heard animal advocates claim that since non-vegans are generally more receptive to arguments from health benefits and reducing climate impact, we should prioritize those arguments, in order to reduce farmed animal suffering most effectively.
On its face, this is pretty reasonable, and I personally don’t care intrinsically about how virtuous people’s motivations for going vegan are. Suffering is suffering, no matter its sociological cause.
But there are some reasons I’m nervous about this approach, at least if it comes at the opportunity cost of moral advocacy. None of these are original to me, but I want to summarize them here since I think this is a somewhat neglected point:
Plausibly many who are persuaded by the health/CC arguments won’t want to make the full change to veganism, so they’ll substitute cows for chickens and fish. Both of which are evidently less bad for one’s health and CC risk, but because these animals are so small and have fewer welfare protections, this switch causes a lot more suffering per calorie. More speculatively, there could be a switch to insect consumption.
Health/CC arguments don’t apply to reducing wild animal suffering, and indeed emphasizing environmental motivations for going vegan might exacerbate support for conservation for its own sake, independent of individual animals’ welfare. (To be fair, moral arguments can also backfire if the emphasis is on general care for animals, rather than specifically preventing extreme suffering.)
Relatedly, health/CC arguments don’t motivate one to oppose other potential sources of suffering in voiceless sentient beings, like reckless terraforming and panspermia, or unregulated advanced simulations. This isn’t to say all anti-speciesists will make that connection, but caring about animals themselves rather than avoiding exploiting them for human-centric reasons seems likely to increase concern for other minds.
While the evidence re: CC seems quite robust, nutrition science is super uncertain and messy. Based on both this prior about the field and suspicious convergence concerns, I’d be surprised if a scientific consensus established veganism as systematically better for one’s health than alternatives. That said, I’d also be very surprised about a consensus that it’s worse, and clearly even primarily ethics-based arguments for veganism should also clarify that it’s feasible to live (very) healthily on a vegan diet.
Quick comment. With respect to your first point, this has always struck me as one of the better points as to why non ethical arguments should primarily avoided when it comes to making the case for veganism. However, after reading Tobias Leenaert’s ‘How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach’, I’ve become a bit more agnostic on this notion. He notes a few studies from The Humane League that show that red-meat reducers/avoiders tend to eat less chicken than your standard omnivore. He also referenced a few studies from Nick Cooney’s book, Veganomics, which covers some of this on p. 107-111. Combined with the overall impact non-ethical vegans could have on supply/demand for other vegan products (and their improvement in quality), I’ve been a bit less worried about this reason.
I think your other reasons are all extremely important and underrated, though, so still lean overall that the ethical argument should be relied on when possible :)
Some reasons not to primarily argue for veganism on health/climate change grounds
I’ve often heard animal advocates claim that since non-vegans are generally more receptive to arguments from health benefits and reducing climate impact, we should prioritize those arguments, in order to reduce farmed animal suffering most effectively.
On its face, this is pretty reasonable, and I personally don’t care intrinsically about how virtuous people’s motivations for going vegan are. Suffering is suffering, no matter its sociological cause.
But there are some reasons I’m nervous about this approach, at least if it comes at the opportunity cost of moral advocacy. None of these are original to me, but I want to summarize them here since I think this is a somewhat neglected point:
Plausibly many who are persuaded by the health/CC arguments won’t want to make the full change to veganism, so they’ll substitute cows for chickens and fish. Both of which are evidently less bad for one’s health and CC risk, but because these animals are so small and have fewer welfare protections, this switch causes a lot more suffering per calorie. More speculatively, there could be a switch to insect consumption.
Health/CC arguments don’t apply to reducing wild animal suffering, and indeed emphasizing environmental motivations for going vegan might exacerbate support for conservation for its own sake, independent of individual animals’ welfare. (To be fair, moral arguments can also backfire if the emphasis is on general care for animals, rather than specifically preventing extreme suffering.)
Relatedly, health/CC arguments don’t motivate one to oppose other potential sources of suffering in voiceless sentient beings, like reckless terraforming and panspermia, or unregulated advanced simulations. This isn’t to say all anti-speciesists will make that connection, but caring about animals themselves rather than avoiding exploiting them for human-centric reasons seems likely to increase concern for other minds.
While the evidence re: CC seems quite robust, nutrition science is super uncertain and messy. Based on both this prior about the field and suspicious convergence concerns, I’d be surprised if a scientific consensus established veganism as systematically better for one’s health than alternatives. That said, I’d also be very surprised about a consensus that it’s worse, and clearly even primarily ethics-based arguments for veganism should also clarify that it’s feasible to live (very) healthily on a vegan diet.
Quick comment. With respect to your first point, this has always struck me as one of the better points as to why non ethical arguments should primarily avoided when it comes to making the case for veganism. However, after reading Tobias Leenaert’s ‘How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach’, I’ve become a bit more agnostic on this notion. He notes a few studies from The Humane League that show that red-meat reducers/avoiders tend to eat less chicken than your standard omnivore. He also referenced a few studies from Nick Cooney’s book, Veganomics, which covers some of this on p. 107-111. Combined with the overall impact non-ethical vegans could have on supply/demand for other vegan products (and their improvement in quality), I’ve been a bit less worried about this reason.
I think your other reasons are all extremely important and underrated, though, so still lean overall that the ethical argument should be relied on when possible :)
Wow, that’s promising news! Thanks for sharing.