Veganism
Last updated
Last updated
Veganism is a moral philosophy of not participating in causing needless harm or rights violations to sentient individuals, regardless of species, as far as practicable. Someone who incorporates this philosophy into their actions is a vegan. The opposite of veganism is speciesism - the belief that it's ethical to disregard someone's interests and deny them moral consideration purely because of their species.
Vegans eat fully plant-based as far as practicable, because animal products cause massive amounts of harm and rights violations.
Even the oldest definitions of veganism echo this sentiment: "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" Crucially, veganism is defined as what's practicable. If it you must harm animals for your own wellbeing, whether it were overall ethical or not, it would be beyond the scope of veganism. Veganism is a moral baseline. Since veganism is a moral philosophy and not a diet, anyone can be vegan, because anyone can believe that we shouldn't cause needless harm. While veganism is a moral philosophy and not a diet, a diet can itself be vegan, so 'a vegan diet' is an accurate description of some diets. In fact, it is possible for a food to be plant-based but not vegan and vice versa. A food that has only plant ingredients but was made using animal exploitation would be plant-based but not vegan, while lab-grown meat made without harming any sentient individuals would be vegan but not plant-based.
Because laypeople popularized it in diet fads there has been some misuse of the term 'vegan' as a synonym to 'plant-based', however vegans don't (for example) buy leather, which isn't edible, so it isn't a diet. Someone can be either plant-based or vegan, or both - they intersect heavily but are different.