I like the general idea underlying veganism: @silvergold described it earlier in the thread as being "about doing the least harm." @KarmaPolice elaborated that it's about minimizing harm to yourself, to the environment, and to animals.
I'm on board with all of that.
What I don't like about veganism is that its rules don't seem carefully designed to meet those objectives, but it has nonetheless claimed for itself a morally superior status that it hasn't earned. (Not in all cases, of course, but there are plenty of examples of smugly moralistic but factually mistaken vegans on YouTube.)
Here are some examples of vegan principles that I don't think make sense.
1. Oysters. Some vegans think that eating oysters and other bivalves is fine, but the majority position among vegans seems to be that, since oysters are animals, people who eat them are not true vegans and are therefore morally inferior.
This is really stupid because eating oysters does less harm than eating fruits and vegetabls. If vegans really wanted to minimize harm to animals and the environment, they would eat a diet rich in bivalves.
Bivalves, like strawberries, lack central nervous systems and are therefore incapable of suffering. If we're concerned about animal welfare, we do not need to be concerned about the senseless slaughter of oysters, because oysters -- like strawberries -- have no welfare. They have no subjective experience. Moreover, while farming strawberries involves the killing of many insects, farming oysters does not. If you care about the welfare of insects (as vegans claim to -- see point #2), oysters are ethically superior to strawberries.
And they are environmentally superior as well. The farming of oysters and other bivalves in aquacultures is a
net good for the environment. The commercial farming of strawberries appears to be
a net bad.
2. Honey. Like oysters, honey is forbidden by mainstream veganism. The theory is that we're exploiting bees by stealing their honey. But this is kind of stupid when you consider that veganism allows the consumption of fruits and vegetables. Every single plant food that is grown on a farm involves the mass killing of insects. Surely it's worse to kill insects than to steal their honey, isn't it?
3. Cruelty-free milk and eggs. This one is not as clear cut as oysters and honey. Every dairy farm I know of invovles the slaughter of male cattle; and every egg producer I know of involves the slaughter of male chicklings. Let's put those issues aside for the moment, however, and deal with them down in the meat category. For present purposes, let's consider only the milk- and egg-producing animals themselves.
Factory farms are horrible. Moreover, cows and chickens raised for their milk and eggs are generally raised in even worse conditions than those raised for their meat. If you eat conventional animals products and you think you're doing animals a favor by being a vegetarian, think again. In terms of animal welfare, you'd probably be better off eating beef and chicken while skipping dairy and eggs.
But not all farms are of the concentration-camp variety. There are dairy farms where the cows appear to be happy and healthy. Organic Pastures Dairy in California is a good example. The cows reproduce by sex with bulls rather than by artificial insemination. They are raised outdoors on pasture, eating grasses, clovers, legumes, etc. When they give birth, the calves are not separated from their moms and do not become veal (though the males do become grass-fed beef later on). They produce much less milk per day than the cows on factory farms do (because they are not ridiculously overmilked). They tend to live to be 12-15 years old instead of 3-4 years old because they live healthy lives. And when they can no longer produce milk, they live out the rest of their natural lives on pasture.
It all seems like a pretty good deal for the cows. While cows on factory farms would probably be better off if they were slaughtered at birth, the cows on farms like Organic Pastures seem to live good lives, and are probably glad they were born. What would happen to them, though, if everyone gave up dairy? Those cows would no longer exist. Modern cows can't live in the wild. They depend on humans. And most humans wouldn't keep a cow as a pet if they weren't interested in consuming its milk. If demand for dairy dried up, those friendly cows will stop being born. If slaughtering happy, adult cattle for meat is bad, isn't snuffing out their lives at the outset -- never affording them happiness at all -- even worse?
Same goes for eggs. There are farms where the chickens wander around freely on pasture, eating sprouts, insects, worms, etc., and just generally bgeing happy chickens. Would it not be a shame if demand for their eggs dried up and those chickens stopped coming into existence?
4. Humanely raised meat. Piggybacking on that last point, I note that cows, pigs, and chickens raised for their meat depend, for their existence, on omnivores. If the world went vegan, those animals would no longer exist, or at least would see their numbers plummet drastically. In the case of factory-farmed animals, this is likely a good thing. They'd probably be better off if they'd never lived. If I could end the practice of conventional animal agriculture tomorrow, I would. (WHY IS THIS NOT A CAMPAIGN ISSUE?) But there are pasture-based farms where it seems like the existence of their animals is a net good.
This point is not as strong as numbers 1-3, IMO, and there are some respectable philosophical arguments that slaughtering animals for food is morally worse than not raising them in the first place, even if their lives are, on net, happy. I'll put those aside for now and come back to them if there is any interest. For now, I'll say that such arguments are unpersuasive to me because I tend to prefer something closer to utilitarianism than to virtue ethics.
(ETA: I'll also add that while factory farming is an environmental catastrophe, pasture-based farming is beneficial to the environment in some important ways -- improving the quality of topsoil, for example. Still, cattle do fart a lot, which contributes to global warming.)
5. Plant agriculture. Okay, so we're not going to eat meat, eggs, or dairy. What are we going to eat? I suppose the answer is fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, legumes, and fungi.
That sounds good. I'm in favor of eating all of those things. But then, that's only because I'm not against killing animals in order to produce food. If I were against killing animals, I would not be able to eat fruits, vegetables, grains, etc. The production of all of those foods involves killing lots of animals. The commercial farming of all of those foods uses plenty of pesticides -- the whole point of which is to kill insects. And it's not just insects that are killed, either. On giant farms that produce wheat, soy, corn, rice, etc., lots of cute vertebrates are killed. Lots and lots of field mice, for example. And their deaths (often by poison) seem to involve more suffering than those of slaughtered farm animals.
In fact, the only analysis I've seen seeking to estimate the number of animals killed in plant agriculture versus (pastured) animal agriculture concluded that producing a hamburger bun kills more animals than producing the (grass-fed) beef patty. (I can't find the analysis I'm thinking of, but in Googling for it, I came across
this article, which makes a similar point.)
Conclusion. I respect anyone who makes conscious food choices with the thought of minimizing harm to animals or the environment. Vegans accomplish this goal way better than your average person eating the standard American diet. But while I will not criticize vegans for killing animals to produce their food, I will criticize the ones who are oblivious to that killing and act like they have no blood on their hands. I will especially criticize those who adopt an air of moral superiority because they eat strawberries instead of oysters, and bread instead of honey. They're doing it wrong, IMO.
Nonetheless, I am posting this not because I oppose the spirit of veganism, but because I share the vegan spirit of wanting to eat ethically, and I am trying to think my way through how to do that. This is part of my thinking out loud.
I didn't touch on nutritional considerations. Suffice it to say that I think eating a few oysters here and there would be a good addition to vegan diets for nutritional as well as ethical and environmental reasons.
Thoughts?