Non-Violence and the Doubtful Meaning of "Vegan"

A lot of people might think that the standard definition of a "vegan" in the animal rights movement, as someone who avoids all animal products, is perfectly acceptable, transparent, straightforward, and coherent. Those people are wrong. Coming up with an appropriate sense for what a "vegan" is can be difficult, and is a challenge for thinking persons. This short paper will try to shed light on this territory as I have neither seen nor heard of any satisfactory resolution of this debate. The skeptics seem to have the upper hand, presently, and I do not think that is a rightful state of affairs, even if it is right to say that it presently exists.

To motivate this discussion, and to get a sense of where the very real problems start to creep in, please consider the following. My friend, Prad Basu, brought to my attention the "Nobody Is A Vegan" Argument. Let us call it NIAVA for short. Prior to that I only heard the "nobody is a perfect vegan" claim, which is much more modest and not particularly problematic, I suppose. After all, who is perfect? The more radical, and challenging NIAVA proposition is discussed in the article that Prad referred to me.

As I would reconstruct it, the NIAVA argument, rendered in standard form for philosophy discussions, seems to consist in the following:

1. A vegan is someone who consumes no animal products.
2. But even self-styled "vegans" are implicated in stearate in the consumption of tires, the glue on fruit-stickers, or in fixatives underneath computer keys.
3. Therefore self-styled "vegans" consume animal products.
4. Therefore self-styled "vegans" are not really vegan.
5. Everybody consists of self-styled "vegans" and everybody else.
6. Everybody else is not vegan either.
7. That leaves us with: Nobody is a vegan.

This is a powerful argument. Someone might say that one could be a perfect dietary vegan. I have met activists who have declared themselves to be dietary vegans. But this is naive. Many small animals are killed in the growing of crops, and not just insects. Rodents and rabbits too. And birds on the ground. In any case, a lot of people would agree that the premises of the above argument are true, but that the conclusion could not possibly be right. It could be demonstrated that the deduction of the conclusions from the premises (the earlier statements in the argument, or the basis of the conclusion being argued) is valid. That means that if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true or we end up with a self-contradiction. For example, we cannot assert both that a vegan consumes no animal products, but that the actual vegan lifestyle involves the consumption of animal products. That would be patently incoherent because self-contradictory. No, it is not the logical validity of the conclusions flowing from the premises that is the problem. Rather, it is the truth of the "common-sense" definition in the very first line, as it turns out. But I need to defend this position.

Consider the article in question by Jon Fergus, as retrieved on August 6, 2012. He may change or abolish it later, but in any case, I will use information retrieved presently as part of my discussion here, for illustrative purposes. The author in question argues that there should be a minimum threshold for veganism. Just as light and dark does not involve absolute light and absolute dark, he skillfully argues, so we can say the same thing for veganism. But although I admire his thoughtful approach, there are still two key problems with his counter-argument to NIAVA (in effect, since he does not spell out a NIAVA in his short essay). First, would it not be arbitrary to set a threshold? What is the criterion for the threshold? Veganism? But that is just our original problem. (Actually, his threshhold is "the minimum requirement", discussed below; but I argue below that this amounts to veganism). The other problem is that this counter-argument undermines the idea of veganism as an absolute thing. So one can drink some milk and still be a vegan? After all, one does not need to be perfect on this argument. But that seems wrong.

Furthermore, according to Mr. Fergus (whom I do not know), the minimum requirement for being vegan is, and I quote his article here:

The minimum requirement to be vegan is to no longer directly, actively, knowingly participating in the exploitation and imposed-suffering of sentient beings.

Unfortunately, though, one could contend that someone who rides on tires, buys bananas with animal-glue stickers, and uses computer keyboards is not vegan, because using these things is active and direct enough, and knowing (if one knows). Mr. Fergus suggests that veganism is an unreachable ideal, and that we need to pursue it, but the implication is that we can only succeed by degrees. And if it is not a reachable ideal, then it sounds like no one will reach the status of being vegan, and therefore no one will be a vegan, again reducing to NIAVA. And the argument pro the minimum requirement he gave in the passage quoted above might rule out dairy (because of its implication in exploitation and imposed suffering), but at the price of seemingly ruling out veganism in general. I say this because as I just showed, he would have to rule out keyboard-glue and the rest of it too. And in that case, there goes veganism, because there would be no vegans in that case. Unless someone is ultra-fanatical and abstains from associating with absolutely all animal products everywhere. They might not be able to enter a lot of buildings though! And who knows what else.

I would prefer a different approach to answering NIAVA, lest veganism wash over a cliff into oblivion as we see with the mighty waters continuously heaving over NIAGARA Falls. Let's not go over the NIAVA Falls. My wife has a relative who tried going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. That person made it, but will our own counter-argument?

Okay. First, we need to distinguish between vegans as persons and veganism as an idea. Some thing that is vegan is devoid of animal products. Fair enough? If I buy buns with cheese in them, they are not vegan. But veganism meaning no animal products and vegan things containing no animal products are different from ethical vegans. If I define an ethical vegan as I did in the NIAVA argument, I do indeed run into logical troubles as the argument shows. So I cannot define a "vegan" as "someone who consumes no animal products".

But the definition I will use is common-sensical enough, and avoids the following problems:

1. arbitrary thresholds
2. conceding that ethical veganism is not absolute, and instead some kind of "fuzzy" relative notion
3. making veganism a matter of degrees; it is then debatable whether whether it can really be achieved
4. allowing really non-vegan products in through the back door, such as a bit of dairy in that muffin because no one is perfect, and no vegan has to be. One might try to confine the imperfection to odd bits as in our three examples, but so far that seems to be completely arbitrary, and so we might as well allow one if we allow the other, for all that has been really argued

How do we avoid these problems?

I will address this definitional problem by arguing that a vegan is someone who is seeking to avoid animal products as much as is possible for anyone in life who uses the principle of non-violent approximation. I will need to explain. Notice that this is different from Mr. Fergus' definition of someone who "no longer directly, actively, knowingly participates in the exploitation and imposed-suffering of sentient beings". Because I admit that the keyboard I am typing on may involve glue from animals. And I could conceivably never type on a keyboard again. Note that I defend ethical veganism on the basis of non-violence ethics in my essay, "Veganism versus Violence".

In that essay, I coin a principle called "the principle of non-violent approximation". The way it runs is something like this. Whenever it is possible for us simply to avoid all violence in a situation, we should go ahead and do that. That means no more meat, dairy, honey, and so on. However, in a situation in which violence is inevitable, that is, choosing in ways that conduce towards the violation of sentient beings, then we should choose the option with the lesser violence. That literally approximates non-violence as much as possible. Hence the name of my principle. The example I gave in the essay is defence. Violence will happen either way if someone is intent on attacking. And the least violence may well be defence, especially given that the attacker may want to be violent.

Okay, well, let's revisit our examples in this new light. I could stop buying fruit with labels using animal glue. But then I might not be healthy in some situations in which that is the only kind of fruit available without taking the car a long distance and thus contributing to environmental effects that violate sentient beings. Or without paying exorbitant amounts of cash that (a) I do not possess; and (b) could go towards saving sentient beings from violation, including monies payable to Oxfam, or animal rights causes, or what-have-you. But this is not a black-and-white issue. It WOULD be highly appropriate of me to be mindful of this issue and perhaps avoid produce with sticky-labels, at least some of the time. And clearly, since absolute non-violence is to be practised where possible, society SHOULD ban the use of all animal glue eventually. Indeed, ASAP.

I could stop typing right now and leave off computers for the rest of my life, as a sort of crude non-violence. That is, washing my hands of anything connected with violence. But the harm of my not contributing as an activist author would be far greater than anything I could accomplish by personally and permanently boycotting keyboard glues. Similar arguments apply to my not banning car, plane and other sorts of travel. I'm sure planes, trains, and automobiles all have animal products in them. But they also feature me as an animal product occasionally too, an animal rights sort of animal. (I am, in part anyway, an animal product in the sense that my parents got my genetic stuff together, and I also benefited from their animalian ministrations.)

So the best sense or definition of "vegan" seems to be:

Vegan

Someone who practices a non-violent lifestyle in terms of products and services consumed and therefore:

1. avoids animal products as much as possible by practising non-violence absolutely where possible (e.g., no flesh foods or dairy)
2. approximating non-violence as much as possible in all other cases by choosing the lesser harm (e.g., not boycotting computers, a campaign that would have very little positive effect - we'll get there when someone makes a vegan computer - and instead using computers as part of high-powered activism); and
3. calling for a vegan society - simply - in the long run.

Or a vegan avoids animal products in general as a short definition. The exceptions to the rule can be left to more detailed analysis such as I have started here.

Vegan animal rights activists are sometimes dismissive of theory. But I do not honestly see how we can make a sound definition of "vegan" without a refined non-violence theory that goes beyond simply avoiding anything to do with violence - which is impossible anyway as I in effect pointed out. As existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, argued, it is not valid for someone to claim to choose not to choose, for that too is a choice. Whatever life we will generally choose in this age has violent consequences to some degree, and in various ways.

So this theory of veganism as a sophisticated non-violent lifestyle avoids definitions or senses of "vegan" that simply do not work:

1. Someone who avoids all animal products - that leads to NIAVA
2. Kicking all theory aside and saying one is "practical" in one's sense of "vegan". Well, guess what? You cannot just practice the definition of "vegan" that is current, or rather, no one seems to wish to - and rightly so.
3. Or Jon Fergus' definition of a vegan as someone who at minimum "no longer [sic - actually, some vegans from birth are an exception to his language here] directly, actively, knowingly participating in the exploitation and imposed-suffering of sentient beings", which also leads to NIAVA, or so I have argued; and other definitions such as
4. Someone who avoids all violence in their dietary and other consumption habits
5. Someone whose consumption habits respect animal rights (such as the right to life, liberty, and well-being); this too is vulnerable to NIAVA
6. Someone who has a "reasonable" restriction of animal products, which is an example of a non-criterion criterion just because it is so uselessly vague
7. Definitions of vegan that provide lists of truly vegan animal uses and lists of non-vegan animal uses, which seems incoherent and also does not provide a criterion (like the last definition)
8. Defining a vegan as someone who aims in all ways to use no animal products. This would seem to need no perfection. However, people make mistakes in what they aim for. Some ignoramuses do not know honey is nonvegan, for example. Or are ignorant of bees and thus discount them. It follows that it could never be enough in serious activism simply to aim to be vegan. One must successfully aim to be vegan. Then it becomes a question: What is it successfully to try to be vegan? The usual answer is avoiding all animal products, including honey. But this leads directly to NIAVA. Aiming to be vegan could also mean truly avoiding all contact with animal products, as in the case of our fanatic, or doing as our non-violent approximater does. This last "definition" does not resolve anything but only raises questions.

My sense of "vegan", based in somewhat advanced non-violence theory (although there is so very much more to articulate), has many advantages:

• it allows clear criteria for practice
• there is no problematic arbitrariness in indicating what is vegan and what is not
• the list of vegan and non-vegan practices accords with common-sense in animal rights discourse
• there is no self-contradiction like other definitions considered
• it allows the long-term goal of individuals and societies that are entirely lifted out of the immoral morass of animal products
• there is healthy room for debate over whether certain items are vegan, inquiring along the lines as to what is the greater or lesser harm

Someone might insightfully object (as a pundit-friend did who was helpfully trying to test my case) that although my definition has the advantages just outlined, it is itself arbitrary. That might be true if I were an intuitionist who just asserts or stipulates whatever seems convenient. However, I am not an intuitionist. I will defend my non-violence theory I think more thoroughly than anyone has ever defended any ethical theory before. (I could be wrong about that, of course. But I leave it to everyone to decide for himself/herself.) Anyway, if I can successfully defend my non-violence theory (a tall order, I know), then patterns of consumption would have to conform to the theory, which would mean that this sense or definition of veganism - far from being "arbitrary" - would actually be logically entailed by the theory itself.

You see? Sometimes theory really can help us to be practical!

Fend Off Evil: Stamping Out State Anti-Cruelty Laws

Note: This entry needed to be revised with apologies. I thought King passed his amendment into law because the article, which never clarifies in this respect, said: "King...brags that his legislation 'wipes out everything they’ve [animal rights advocates] done with pork and veal.'" The article also discussed what "would" happen given his amendment. This could be interpreted as: (1) what would happen once the existing law is applied [which is what the last quote suggests]; or (2) what would happen if his bill becomes law. The article never makes it clear that it means (2) only. His bill has not yet passed! What a relief! I have revised my essay accordingly. Unfortunately, the language of the article is not only unclear, but misleading. They should have referred to his language as proposed legislation or the like.

~ ~ ~

The word "evil" used to be all the rage. No one doubted that evil really existed and it did indeed enrage in many quarters. In this day and age, it is unfashionable even to use the word "evil". It conjures up feelings of smiling embarrassment--how could anyone be so "ridiculous" as to use such a label? At a superficial level, employing the term is thought to be quaint. At the deepest level, evil-bashing is said to be naive to the findings of moral theory that evil does not really exist. Or that disagreement over evil-doing is so palpable that no one can fairly judge anyone by a single standard. Well, as I have argued in my writings, all sentient beings do not wish to be violated, unless, for example, they are demented. People can come to a growing consensus about non-violence if they put their hearts and minds to the matter. We do not need any fancy definitions of evil. We can just say that someone is evil if they inflict or allow violence--or violation--uncaringly. It is evil to be coldly indifferent to such suffering, but the most malignant form of maleficence is to rejoice in cruelty. Well, it is this last form of evil that has come to light in breaking news of American politics concerning so-called animal "welfare" laws. We need to start talking about evil again, folks.

So let's talk. Republican Steve King, like his literary "nominal" cousin, is seeking to create works steeped in horror. Only the horror is real that is being contemplated in the American polity. And although Steven King sells millions of books, the political King's actions could potentially affect many billions of animals with a great deal more terror and abject misery. Let's just talk about the political animal King now. He is smugly triumphant that he is getting serious consideration of a law (to be precise, an amendment to the House Farm Bill) that forbids states from creating anti-cruelty laws. Keep in mind that this man was the leading opponent of laws to ban dog-fighting, ladies and gentlemen. Let the crazed canines mutilate and kill each other, spurred on to this violence solely by their trusted "masters".

According to the article that brought me this news, King brags that his proposed legislation "wipes out everything they’ve [animal rights advocates] done with pork [sic] and veal [sic]." Countless hours of toil set off state ballot initiatives, enabling ordinary people (but extraordinary individuals who are really admirable) to mount legislative changes that had results of curbing torture. These measures resulted in even far, far more uncountable hours of some real relief for animals.

As the article relates, nine states banned the "iron maiden" sow confinement system, where nursing pigs must lie confined since they kill piglets in the literally insane squalor of factory farms--unlike practically everywhere else. Literally insane, since animals actually become severely mentally ill under such conditions. They piss and shit where they lie, develop sores, and who knows what kinds of deep wounds of the psyche. Seven states banned confining so-called "veal" calves where they cannot even turn around and must again lie in their own excrement, kept very sick with borderline anemia so that their flesh is pale. And missing their mothers who are only allowed to suckle these babies for a few days. These are only brief sketches of the horrors. And then there are the three states that banned tail-docking.

Francionists deny there is significant relief here anyway, but their hypocrisy is illuminated if you imagine them treated as these animals are but smiling and brushing it aside with their hand as "insignificant". Keeping them confined so they can only rise and lie in their waste products. Lopping off their tail-bones without so much as an anesthetic. Then let them be so cavalier. As with debating ordinary speciesists, the lie is often shown in a true light when we substitute humans for the other animals in question. Thankfully, we can keep this at the level of the thought experiment. We do not need to put them to the actual test which they would surely fail.

Those who actively oppose others who seek relief from such tortures for animals are complicit in the evil's continuance. This includes some animal rights supporters who are obviously soft on pushing the right to be free from torture as far as it can be extended. But this politician's "achievement", especially if it comes to pass as law, ranks with the orchestrators of the Holocaust. The suffering that would directly ensue from what this "gentleman" and colleagues would establish in American law is an aggregate that, if envisionable all at once, might remind us of the Holocaust that consumed many of my family members, and any number of others who all deserved to be properly cared about.

But King does care. Otherwise, you see, he would not have been so spurred to damnable action. Yet he betrays the cares of evil in a world that is blind to the very existence of evil, and would allow unplumbably deep violations to proliferate. We perceive such violations from glimpses that briefly illuminate the largely hidden world of factory farming. Among other atrocities. "Shame on King" would be too understated. Those who have no conscience in the relevant sense cannot be shamed anyway. It is up to the public, so many of whom are out there in TV Land, wandering in the pastures of shopping malls, who

oppose

cruelty in every poll by a huge majority, to take control of democracy and do all they can to oppose evil--including that of King.

FURTHER READING ON ANIMAL RIGHTS INCREMENTALISM

A Selection of Related Articles

Sztybel, David. "Animal Rights Law: Fundamentalism versus Pragmatism". Journal for Critical Animal Studies 5 (1) (2007): 1-37.

go there

Short version of "Animal Rights Law".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Incrementalist Animal Law: Welcome to the Real World".

go there

Sztybel, David. "Sztybelian Pragmatism versus Francionist Pseudo-Pragmatism".

go there

A Selection of Related Blog Entries

Anti-Cruelty Laws and Non-Violent Approximation

Use Not Treatment: Francione’s Cracked Nutshell

Francione Flees Debate with Me Again, Runs into the “Animal Jury”

The False Dilemma: Veganizing versus Legalizing

Veganism as a Baseline for Animal Rights: Two Different Senses

Francione's Three Feeble Critiques of My Views

Startling Decline in Meat Consumption Proves Francionists Are Wrong Once Again!

The Greatness of the Great Ape Project under Attack!

Francione Totally Misinterprets Singer

Francione's Animal Rights Theory

Francione on Unnecessary Suffering

My Appearance on AR Zone

D-Day for Francionists

Sztybel versus Francione on Animals' Property Status

The Red Carpet

Playing into the Hands of Animal Exploiters

The Abolitionist ApproachES

Francione's Mighty Boomerang

Dr. David Sztybel Home Page

Should Animal Rightists Only Argue Animal Rights?

Dr. Katherine Perlo, in The Journal for Critical Animal Studies, argues that it would be wrong for animal rights advocates prominently to feature arguments such as meat-eating is unhealthy and environmentally disastrous, and that animal experimentation does not work. Like Professor Gary L. Francione's arguments against anti-cruelty laws, Dr. Perlo's reasoning needs to be widely discredited because it obstructs very important paths of meaningful progress for nonhuman animals. I responded to her article in a discussion paper, to which she responded, and I had the final response which I believe did a demolition job on her faulty reasoning. To see all four installments in the controversy, go HERE.

Contributions to Scholarship

Many of my supporters wish to see my work get out there. (Many new and improved arguments wait in the wings though.) Anyway, such individuals will be pleased to know that my animal law approach is contributing to scholarship. A few people wrote to me this week along these lines. I will keep their identities concealed because I do not wish them to be targets of anonymous harassing e-mails such as I have received from Francionists. A British lawyer who wishes to do a doctorate sent me a paper she wrote which is very erudite, reflecting a huge array of sources in animal law, and she nevertheless settles on my essential argument as a basis for anti-cruelty legislation. A man is doing a graduate dissertation in California analyzing Francione's "abolitionist approach" and indicates that he is using my work to reply to many of the ideas in question. Delighted to learn of such developments, and I believe I have much more useful material still to contribute in the future.

Unconsenting Kitty Blood Donors: Quote in Article

As I was waiting to go to North Carolina for my summer vacation, I checked my e-mail in the Porter Airlines waiting area and got a request for a comment on this slavery practice. I think that staff reporter with the Toronto Star, Sarah-Taissir Bencharif, gets across how disturbing the practice is. The article appeared on June 25, 2012.

My views were more or less accurately represented as follows:

Though these donations can save the lives of other cats, not everyone agrees the ends justify the means. Animal ethicist David Sztybel likens programs like this to nonhuman slavery.

“I respect the good intentions of these medical professionals, and they are saving lives. I appreciate that some effort may be made to socialize the slave-cats, play with them, and so on. But I do not agree with slavery, and oppose human slavery even though many benefits were squeezed from the practice,” he writes in an email.

The author probably intended to write that I liken the practice to human slavery, not "nonhuman slavery" as she writes. I do not liken this to nonhuman slavery in any event. It is a straigtforward and literal example of enslaving nonhumans.

Encouraging Hit Stats

Greetings. I am pleased to announce that hits on the new web site vastly exceed all expectations. My web master advised me yesterday that in the 55 days since the launch which was April 21, 2012, there have been 45,924 hits. That averages out to 835 hits on the website per day. That works out to 304,755 hits per year. Approaching a third of a million. That would be about three and a half million hits in a decade, or a million hits every 3 years or so. I hope to drive up numbers by contributing ever more qualitative works. Some of the visitors are so-called "web spiders", as they are called, but he said those will help to enhance site ranking.

We must keep in perspective what a hit is. According to a website called "Open Tracker": "Each file sent to a browser by a web server is an individual hit." A page with many pictures will count each image as a hit. So we are not talking about numbers of visitors here. But we are also talking about a lot of web activity. There are not many photos on my site, with the exception of the Holocaust Comparison Project. A single visitor may generate many hits, but that is a good thing because it suggests that someone might be learning from the site or otherwise finding it to be useful. However you cut it, it is a great many times that the web site's files are being accessed.

And the Francionists, we saw in their response to my AR Zone appearance, essentially said I am not a significant entity in animal rights debates. Yes, self-delusion, I speculate, seems to be one of their key specialties. I will try to show this more clearly, in qualitative ways, in forthcoming work that I am fairly excited about.

To me, these stats indicate a strong interest in what I have to offer in scholarly work, since I am an academic, after all. But also, I think it must suggest that I am contributing to discourse for general audiences, which has obviously been a steady goal of mine, as the long-standing "General Audience" section of my website silently attests. Indeed, the General Audience menu comes up on Google as outranking the academic writings.

I can assure you, I am still just getting started.

Thank you everyone for your support, and I only hope that my work is a support for your own positive endeavours in this deeply troubled world.

Short Video Clip on Critical Thinking and Veganism

Michael Sizer took the initiative to film this bit as per title.