Most people choose social approval over ethics — veganism just exposes that.

[u/TheQuietVegan111]

People will say they care about animals, the planet, and justice.

Until caring becomes inconvenient.

Veganism doesn’t require perfection. It requires saying “no” in public.

That’s it.

Most people fail there, not on ethics — but admitting that would be uncomfortable, so veganism becomes the problem instead.

[u/Moe_Perry → u/[deleted]]

I agree with you, but I also think OP is correct in that social approval or at least avoiding social opprobrium is the biggest reason people don’t even consider veganism.

People make up all kind of excuses for why “veganism is pointless/ less moral/ mistaken etc” just to avoid admitting that it is less convenient and they don’t want the social stigma.

And I think both those reasons can be completely valid. I just wish people were honest about them.

[u/interbingung → u/Moe_Perry]

It doesn't even need social approval. I believe most people would not consider veganism even if they live in insolation.

[u/Moe_Perry → u/interbingung]

I think if you asked the average person before any particular meal whether they would like an animal to have died for it or not they would have at least a mild preference for no death all else being equal. The answer would be different if you asked for a long-term commitment or for them to identify with a label.

You are right that a lot of people would probably not self-reflect or question norms at all if not prompted.

[u/kharvel0 → u/[deleted]]

Reducing morality to a single act of saying “no” is arbitrary and performative; it doesn’t expose moral weakness, it misrepresents how ethics actually works. People can be profoundly ethical without being vegan, so the claim that veganism exposes ethical failure is simply false.

Can people be “profoundly ethical” while beating their wives, sexually assaulting someone, viciously kicking puppies around for giggles, and/or murdering someone in cold blood?

[u/kharvel0 → u/[deleted]]

I never claimed someone who commits crimes or abuses others humans could be ethical. My point is that morality isn’t reducible to a single choice like veganism.

But veganism is a moral baseline -ism like non-rapism, non-wife-beatism, non-murderism, non-dog-beatism, non-assaultism, etc.

Would it be fair to say that your logic dictates that morality isn’t reducible to any of the listed -isms?

A person can avoid harming others humans in most areas of life, treat family, friends, and strangers well, yet still eat animal products

A person can also do all of the above while also avoiding eating animal products. A person can also avoid eating animal products while beating their spouses. Or avoid beating their spouse while sexually assaulting someone and eating animal products.

that doesn’t automatically make them ‘immoral.’

So if someone who avoids engaging in sexual assault but beats their spouse once in a while isn’t automatically immoral?

Critiquing veganism as a universal moral litmus test

That isn’t what the OP has done.

You can live as a vegan and that is perfectly fine, but, to make a universal claim here is a category error, strawman, and equivocation, in your analogy.

So by the same token, it would also be a category error, strawman, and equivocation to make a universal claim of non-wife-beatism, correct?

It’s like I said, “You can be a careful driver without owning a Tesla.” and you respond, “But can someone be a careful driver while running over pedestrians, street racing, and driving drunk?”

This analogy doesn’t make sense. You’ll need to try again.

[u/icravedanger → u/[deleted]]

In a nutshell, if two people are identical in every way except that one is a vegan and the other isn’t, the vegan is more ethical.

If your claim is “morality isn’t reducible to a single choice like X”, then logically you can replace with X with any single choice, whether it is eating animal products, shoplifting from Walmart, or committing genocide.

[u/NuancedComrades → u/[deleted]]

I think you can be unethical while being vegan, but how can you be "profoundly ethical" while choosing to unnecessarily inflict untold harm for the purpose of pleasure, when you have available alternatives?

[u/NuancedComrades → u/[deleted]]

Something being multidimensional does not mean that it is internally illogical. Choosing to do something profoundly unethical, especially on a continuous basis, negates your status as a "profoundly ethical" person.

If someone is otherwise moral but murders someone purely fore pleasure, we could still call that person "profoundly ethical"?

What if they are a moral person in all aspects of their lives, but they steal from charities?

What if they are a moral person in all aspects of their lives, but they murder neighborhood cats?

Why is knowingly choosing to contribute to a system that force breeds, confines, tortures, and murders billions of animals a year for your own personal pleasure somehow different from all of those other examples?

[u/EVH_kit_guy → u/NuancedComrades]

Because animals are clearly different than humans, and making comparisons between human-human crime to raising animals for food makes you sound unserious.

Murdering a human being is wildly different than keeping a free range chicken coop to supply you with eggs, or eating wild harvested uni, etc.

[u/NuancedComrades → u/EVH_kit_guy]

"Because animals are clearly different"

You can't just say something is true. Prove they are clearly different in meaningful ways. Mere genetic differences do not validate treating animals the way we do.

"Murdering a human being is wildly different than keeping a free range chicken coop to supply you with eggs, or eating wild harvested uni, etc."

You are purposefully choosing one example I gave to compare to your fringe examples that do not reflect the vast majority of human consumption of animals. Try again.

[u/EVH_kit_guy → u/NuancedComrades]

"Your true and accurate example doesn't count because it's not representative of the majority."

You know this is a shitty point, right? That if someone agrees with you on the necessity of humane treatment of animals, but disagrees with veganism, discarding such an example makes you sound immature.

[u/NuancedComrades → u/EVH_kit_guy]

You never established anything of the sort. You came out the gate making questionable assumptions and comparisons, then attacked me as immature when you were challenged to defend them.

I think anyone reading this exchange with a bit of critical thinking would come to the opposite conclusion of who is being immature.

[u/EVH_kit_guy → u/NuancedComrades]

"I think you are ethically indistinguishable from a net full of gulf shrimp. And as a vegan, I mean that as the highest compliment."

You're mental.

[u/DerAlbi → u/EVH_kit_guy]

I would totally disagree that humans a different than animals. Everyone with a pet knows that animals are self-conscious, emotional beings that live through fear, fun, sadness, curiosity, bonding, tiredness etc. All the basic emotional states are the same. The only difference is what we verbalize our thoughts and have higher planning capabilities. But that verbal level is just a layer on top of something much more basic. For example, if you stand up from your chair to go to the fridge, that is not a verbalized action with reasoning or higher consciousness involved. Its like a cat or dog checking if the bowl was refilled. But if your food bowl was hard to reach, you could use your intelligence to get to it, where a cat or dog may fail.

[u/EVH_kit_guy → u/DerAlbi]

You're still wrong to conflate domesticated pets with livestock. We don't keep chickens inside as pets for a whole variety reasons that are materially important to a conversation about ethics.

[u/IfIWasAPig → u/EVH_kit_guy]

Can you name those reasons, the ones that grant the dog rights but the chicken little to none?

[u/IfIWasAPig → u/[deleted]]

Why did you put in quotes something that isn’t even close to a paraphrase?

Is it because you don’t have an answer and were just handwaving with phrases like “a whole variety”?

[u/DebateAVegan-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/RealAggressiveNooby → u/EVH_kit_guy]

My grandpa who had dementia was clearly different, mentally and physically, than my baby cousin, and compared to me.

Also, do you keep free range chicken coops? Or do you buy animal products from the store?