I view the value of veganism for effective altruists as a way to purchase moral consistency. If you take animal suffering very seriously but aren’t vegan, it can be a bit emotionally uneasy unless you have a strong ability to dissociate your choices. There are costs to purchasing moral consistency of course, but no more than many other luxuries.
This way of approaching veganism mirrors a countersignaling framework:
Normal people who don’t care at all about animals see veganism as a personal choice
People who care quite a bit about animal suffering see veganism as a moral imperative, not a personal choice.
Consequentialists who just want to reduce suffering, and are impartial to the methods they use to reduce suffering, tend to think that veganism is only worth it if the personal costs aren’t high.
Tobias Leenaert has used the word post-vegan to describe the third stage, and I quite like the label myself.
I agree with this if you’re comparing complete veganism to something like “reducing one’s former consumption of animal products to <10%.” But I’d be interested in discussion of the <10% thing. I don’t quite like the framing of “purchasing consistency” for that because it doesn’t seem like one gets a lot of moral fuzzies from being “sort of almost close to vegan.” And many of the arguments against veganism also apply against the <10% thing. And yet, it feels quite problematic to me to think that I don’t want to be the type of person who does the <10% thing. What’s that driven by? (Not asking you to reply; I’m just thinking out loud.)
I view the value of veganism for effective altruists as a way to purchase moral consistency. If you take animal suffering very seriously but aren’t vegan, it can be a bit emotionally uneasy unless you have a strong ability to dissociate your choices. There are costs to purchasing moral consistency of course, but no more than many other luxuries.
This way of approaching veganism mirrors a countersignaling framework:
Normal people who don’t care at all about animals see veganism as a personal choice
People who care quite a bit about animal suffering see veganism as a moral imperative, not a personal choice.
Consequentialists who just want to reduce suffering, and are impartial to the methods they use to reduce suffering, tend to think that veganism is only worth it if the personal costs aren’t high.
Tobias Leenaert has used the word post-vegan to describe the third stage, and I quite like the label myself.
I agree with this if you’re comparing complete veganism to something like “reducing one’s former consumption of animal products to <10%.” But I’d be interested in discussion of the <10% thing. I don’t quite like the framing of “purchasing consistency” for that because it doesn’t seem like one gets a lot of moral fuzzies from being “sort of almost close to vegan.” And many of the arguments against veganism also apply against the <10% thing. And yet, it feels quite problematic to me to think that I don’t want to be the type of person who does the <10% thing. What’s that driven by? (Not asking you to reply; I’m just thinking out loud.)