I dont see it here, so figured someone’s gotta post it. Here is the definition of veganism as made by the vegan society circa 1944:
“Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”
It is not a great definition in my opinion. The sentence “as far as is possible and practicable” is too vague. It makes people claim that when it is merely very inconvenient to get a vegan meal, it is vegan to eat something with animal products.
In my opinion veganism should be the extention of human rights to animals. That would mean that even killing a pig for a heart valve to safe a human would not be vegan. After all, we wouldn’t even kill one human to safe multiple others in a similar scenario because that would violate the rights of the to be killed individual. You could argue that it is better to safe more lives, sure. But it wouldn’t be the ‘pro-human rights’ thing to do.
I believe that is more in line with the philosophy the vegan society was founded to promote than their own current definition.
we wouldn’t even kill one human to safe multiple others in a similar scenario
Yeah, we would? In fact, we make decisions every day that put other’s lives in risk, just for our own convenience. Is the one millionth of a person that you kill driving to the grocery store worth it when you could just walk?
I think accidents and risks are different. We wouldn’t kill a person to safe 4 people with organ failure.
I think that line is important to explain that its impossible to completely wash our hands of any animal suffering, even as vegans, but I agree with your points that animals should given better rights (the first page or so of “animal liberation” by peter singer explains why the term “equal rights” is kind of unnecessary, but I know what you mean)
It’s vague because veganism is an entire moral philosophy. The so-called definition does not capture everything that veganism is, and the area you object to is left intentionally ambiguous in the definition because of the nuance involved.
Why should moral philosophies be vague? I think the problem is that this definition has one foot in one moral framework (deontology) and one in another (utilitarianism).
My application is not at all vague. Is yours?
I did not say the philosophy is vague. I mean that the definition only loosely approximates the actual philosophy because it must be expressed very briefly, and so it is necessarily going to contain vagaries.
I mean that the definition only loosely approximates the actual philosophy because it must be expressed very briefly, and so it is necessarily going to contain vagaries.
Sure, I guess a perfect definition without any ambiguity is impossible. Ultimately I don’t think vagueness is the main problem, but the implied inclusion of a utilitarian moral framework is, like I tried to explain here.
I think it should be something like 'the respecting of animal rights and the rejection of animal exploitation and speciesism '. Of course that also raises questions, but at least it would be rights based.
Could be a good idea to put the definition in the community description. Rule 1 already implies that this is about the ethical aspect and not just plantbased diet, but this would be more clear I guess.
We can tag @[email protected], I saw them active yesterday and they’re a mod here.
This is a great definition. One term I’d really like to see in there tho is commodification… that we are opposed to the buying and selling of animals bodies or derived products, turning them into objects for human use.
Nice
Yep, that’s it. Vegan society also got it right. Wikipedia is, to this day, isn’t great. I see many people misunderstanding, maybe on purpose, the nuance (as far as possible) because of poorly put definitions.
