Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.
Those of us living in affluent consumer culture under late capitalism, where plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy are readily available, are morally obligated to adopt vegan practice.
Those of us living in affluent consumer culture under late capitalism,
where plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy are readily available, are
morally obligated to adopt vegan practice. The source of this obligation is
grounded in a widely held belief, namely, that—all else being
equal—unnecessary suffering and premature death are bad things and that
acting with relatively minimal cost to oneself to contribute to a decrease
in violence, objectification, domination, exploitation, and oppression is
something we should all aspire to.
When I say that we are obligated to adopt vegan practice, not just any type
of “vegan practice” will do, so I want to argue for a specific type of
veganism I call political veganism.
First I want to establish that it is morally wrong for the vast majority of
us living in high-income, highly industrialized, consumer cultures— such as
the majority of us living in the Global North—to consume animal products.
To clarify, the argument is not an argument for some kind of universal
veganism; that is, I will not argue that every human being on the planet is
morally obligated to become vegan. Not because I don’t believe it—I do—but
because (a) the question of whether an indigenous Inuit sub- sistence hunter
must stop consuming all animal products is complicated and not my focus in
this chapter, and (b) I prefer to focus my argument on those of us living in
Western societies.
Read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE (pdf).
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