“the damage to people who implement veganism badly is less important to me than the damage to animals caused by eating them”
I agree with Soto on this, but think that suppressing truth-seeking causes far more damage than just making people implement veganism worse, including, importantly, making some people not go vegan at all.
If you believe that marginal health benefits don’t justify killing animals, I think that’s a far more effective line of argument. And it remains truthful/honest.
One of the best arguments for veganism I ever heard was “I don’t care if it makes me healthier, I wouldn’t eat humans for my health so I won’t eat animals”. I respect that viewpoint a lot.
But in practice, I don’t see vegans with serious dietary-caused health issues holding to this. The only person I know personally who made that argument has since entered a moral trade so they can drink milk, because their health was suffering.[1] This was someone who had been vegan for years, was (and is) deeply committed to the cause, and I’m sure tried everything they could to solve the problem via plants. Ultimately they needed animal products.
Which makes me think most of the people who say “better to starve than to eat animal products” are suffering from a failure of imagination on how bad malnutrition can get for some people.[2] And that I don’t respect, especially if they are deliberately suppressing evidence to the contrary.
Which I tentatively think is great, as a way to help themselves without increasing animal suffering. But it’s not consistent with “I would rather die than eat animal products”.
Not all of them. I’m sure there’s at least one person slowly starving to death rather than violate their principles, and I respect their resolve. But not many.
In practice, to my understanding, even scrupulous humans will at times eat consenting humans rather than starve to death. “For your health” is a broad range.
I agree. That’s why I said marginal health benefits, the sort that people argued many people are missing out on even on their usual diets because they’re suboptimal. So I’m definitely not saying “better to starve than to eat animal products”[1], in that case, eat animal products, and if you can try to eat ones that don’t come from factory farming, even better. In several years we’ll start having cultured meat and this problem will go away.
I agree with Soto on this, but think that suppressing truth-seeking causes far more damage than just making people implement veganism worse, including, importantly, making some people not go vegan at all.
If you believe that marginal health benefits don’t justify killing animals, I think that’s a far more effective line of argument. And it remains truthful/honest.
One of the best arguments for veganism I ever heard was “I don’t care if it makes me healthier, I wouldn’t eat humans for my health so I won’t eat animals”. I respect that viewpoint a lot.
But in practice, I don’t see vegans with serious dietary-caused health issues holding to this. The only person I know personally who made that argument has since entered a moral trade so they can drink milk, because their health was suffering.[1] This was someone who had been vegan for years, was (and is) deeply committed to the cause, and I’m sure tried everything they could to solve the problem via plants. Ultimately they needed animal products.
Which makes me think most of the people who say “better to starve than to eat animal products” are suffering from a failure of imagination on how bad malnutrition can get for some people.[2] And that I don’t respect, especially if they are deliberately suppressing evidence to the contrary.
Which I tentatively think is great, as a way to help themselves without increasing animal suffering. But it’s not consistent with “I would rather die than eat animal products”.
Not all of them. I’m sure there’s at least one person slowly starving to death rather than violate their principles, and I respect their resolve. But not many.
In practice, to my understanding, even scrupulous humans will at times eat consenting humans rather than starve to death. “For your health” is a broad range.
I agree. That’s why I said marginal health benefits, the sort that people argued many people are missing out on even on their usual diets because they’re suboptimal. So I’m definitely not saying “better to starve than to eat animal products”[1], in that case, eat animal products, and if you can try to eat ones that don’t come from factory farming, even better. In several years we’ll start having cultured meat and this problem will go away.
Though I can relate to these people, I did think that way when I became vegan at 11yo.