E.G.

We should not just be in the neighborhood of vegan. For example, we should not be vegetarian. We should not be flexitarian. We should not be reducetarian. We should be vegan, specifically, rather than any of those other things. That's my view.

But veganism—real veganism—is unattractive to many philosophers, because they think it involves restraining yourself in ways that are pointless, or fetishistic, or somehow irrational.

For example, being vegan means not eating leftover turkey sandwiches, even when they're going to be thrown away if you don't eat them, and even when no one (apart from you) will ever know you did it.

And being vegan means not eating bivalves, even though bivalves don't have brains, which means they probably aren't sentient and are incapable of suffering, and are therefore probably similar in morally relevant respects to soybeans, and bananas, and so on.

Broadly, being vegan means following the rules of veganism, consistently and constantly. That turns many philosophers off. Many philosophers will say something like this:

Yes, we should recognize that not all consumption choices are morally acceptable. We should not buy hamburgers from McDonald's, for instance. But no, we should not be fetishistically attached to veganism's rules. Instead, we should be rational. In any given situation, we should do whatever we've got most reason to do. We shouldn't just adopt a set of rules and follow them, come what may, without paying attention to the particularities of the situations in which we find ourselves. Perhaps we should be mostly vegan, most of the time, but being strictly vegan means being rule-governed rather than reason-governed, and that's not a good thing to be.

My view, by contrast, is that we should be vegan and we should be fetishistic about it—insofar as being fetishistic about it means adopting and living by veganism's rules, consistently and constantly, i.e., faithfully. I will explain why I think these things.

***

South Carolina recently killed Mikal Mahdi by firing squad. Here's what reportedly happened after they shot him:

Mahdi let out a loud groan as soon as the bullets struck him, then took several shallow breaths. He let out several softer groans about 45 seconds later, then let out a low moan. Mahdi took one final, heaving breath, in which he expanded, then contracted his chest before he stopped moving, witnesses described. A doctor then entered the room and declared Mahdi dead.

It sounds as if Mahdi's suffering after the bullets struck him lasted for about a minute, at most. A great deal of agony can be experienced in a minute's time.

I believe Mahdi was the only human being who was legally executed in the United States on April 11, 2025. About 25 million animals were slaughtered in the United States on that same day. That's how many animals are slaughtered every day in the United States, on average, year round.

If each of those animals suffers one minute of agony per killing and no more, then we are inflicting 47 years of agony per day (or >17,000 years of agony per year).

Every one of those animals is completely innocent. They trust us; we betray them. I do not believe that Mahdi should have been killed but there was at least a pretense of justice being done, a claim that his killing was deserved. No one claims that the animals deserve to be killed, but we kill them anyway.

Mahdi's killers were able to do their work with a level of care and attention that would be impossible in an industrial slaughterhouse. A target was placed on Mahdi's chest; there were three shooters; they took aim and fired all at once. Three simultaneous chances to directly hit the heart. No such redundancies exist, or could possibly exist, in the places where we are killing animals by the millions.

A common cattle slaughter method is to bolt-gun them in their heads, which is supposed to "stun" them instantly. But we're doing this in assembly-line fashion, so there's plenty of room for error. So, sometimes the animal jerks unexpectedly and the worker misses their mark. Sometimes the bolt goes sideways into the animal's eye, sometimes it crushes her cheekbone, etc.

Similar agonies attend all other commonly used killing methods, e.g., gas chambers. Our methods are designed to cheaply and efficiently convert millions of living bodies into edible flesh. They are not designed to minimize agony.

Our slaughter methods vividly illustrate our callous cruelty, which is why it makes sense to focus on slaughter. But killing the animals is not the most reprehensible thing we do to them. It's what we do to them, and what we take from them, in the weeks and months and years of their lives. Watch Dominion. 

***

If we were to put an end to animal agriculture, then we would no longer be doing the horrible things to animals that I have just described. All of that would finally be in our civilization's rear view mirror. Which would be wonderful.

It is conceivable that we could stop doing these horrible things to animals without putting an end to animal agriculture. For example, one can imagine a world where all of the animals are treated exceedingly well while they are alive, and then are killed as painlessly as possible. But it is not reasonable to hope for that.

As long as animal agriculture exists, it will be a for-profit industry. And cruel treatment of animals is vastly more profitable than good treatment of animals. So there will always be massive economic pressure toward treating animals cruelly, and massive political pressure toward legally permitting animals to be treated cruelly. We should expect these economic and political pressures to be permanently overwhelming.

So, if we hope to stop doing the vile things to animals that we are doing, then we must hope to put an end to animal agriculture. And it is reasonable, in my opinion, to hope for that.

A world without animal agriculture would be a world where almost everything is the same, except (a) farmers don't raise animals for slaughter, and instead do other sorts of work (e.g., grow soybeans); and (b) consumers continue to consume almost all the things they presently consume, except for meat, dairy, and eggs.

It is easy to imagine a world like that. Vegans, who comprise about 1% of Americans, have already preemptively restricted themselves to what would be available in such a world. I assure you: It's not much different.

It was (or should have been) easy for people in 1900 to imagine that they would soon be in a world where cars have replaced horses as modes of transportation, and it is (or should be) easy for us in 2025 to imagine that we will soon be in a world where electric vehicles have replaced gas-powered cars, etc. Many once-huge industries have died out, sometimes rapidly. This will just be another such extinction event.

***

How could animal agriculture be brought to an end in the near term? Here are four imaginable pathways, only the last of which is worth hoping for.

(1) Political agents decide to end animal agriculture

Imagine, for example, that the heroic Senator Cory Booker (who is the only vegan US senator, to my knowledge) uses his considerable powers of rational argument to assemble a bipartisan coalition in Congress to outlaw animal agriculture in the United States.

That would be great, but nothing like that will happen as long as there is a huge market for animal products. The industry can buy enough political influence to prevent it from happening. And as long as 99% of Americans are carnists, they will not put up with their political leaders moving to end, or even substantially limit, animal agriculture.

(2) Business leaders decide to end animal agriculture

This will not happen. Even if Donnie King, the CEO of Tyson Foods, were to try to convert his company into a vegan company, it would not matter. He would simply be ousted, and the company would continue its violence against animals without interruption. And even if King were, against all odds, to succeed in transforming Tyson Foods into a vegan company, this wouldn't stop or even reduce the violence. It would only mean that other companies would step into the industry niche that Tyson Foods currently occupies.

(3) Civilizational collapse

For example, an asteroid could strike, or a nuclear war could happen, etc. These would definitely be ways for animal agriculture to come to end. We should hope for a happier solution.

(4) Voluntary changes in consumer behavior lead to the end of animal agriculture

That is, consumers could decide, in sufficient numbers, that they no longer want to consume animal products. So, the demand goes away, and animal products are no longer produced. So, animal agriculture ends.

This, in my judgment, is something that is worth hoping for, and striving for, and fighting for. I think this consumer-driven route is probably the only feasible way for animal agriculture to end without civilizational collapse.

And I think it is not an outlandish possibility. Perhaps it is unlikely for consumers to make the necessary voluntary changes but I do not think it is extremely unlikely. Crazier things have happened.

Our hope should be founded in the observation that people are already psychologically equipped to care about animals. We do not need to get people to care; they already care.

Things would be much less hopeful if, for example, farm animals looked like scary monsters, or serial killers, or were in some way unsympathetic. But people already like pigs, chickens, cows, goats, and so on. These animals are cute.

So, it will not be particularly surprising if large numbers of people come to a recognition that their consumer choices are massively harmful to these animals, and decide on that basis to stop making those choices.

Actually, an alien observer who understands some of the key biologically-based facts about our species—our evolved disposition to care about cute creatures; our capacity to survive and thrive without eating animal products—might be surprised that we have not already done this.

The fact that some people have chosen to be vegan is not mysterious. It is the stubborn persistence of carnism among the vast majority of people that is mysterious.

We should also derive hope from the fact that our moment is a moment of upheaval. Many longstanding traditions are being transformed or abandoned. Some of the traditions we are abandoning are good, and it is a shame to see them die. For example it's horrible to see America turning its back on its long tradition of welcoming immigrants. Nevertheless, the fact that our society is choosing to embrace various kinds of deep social change should be heartening to those of us who want the death of animal agriculture. It is no longer reasonable to say things of the form "X is a longstanding tradition in our society; therefore, it is certain that X will not go away anytime soon."

***

How could voluntary changes in consumer behavior lead to the end of animal agriculture? Many pathways are imaginable. We should look for a code of behavior C that has these features:

(i) C is effective: If C is adopted and correctly applied by sufficiently many people, then we'll end up in a world without animal agriculture.

(ii) C is contagious: When your associates have adopted C, this can inspire you to adopt C yourself.

(iii) C is easily applicable: People know how to correctly apply C when they are making decisions; people do not regularly make mistakes in applying C.

(iv) C is backed by an already-existing movement, the bigger the better.

All of these features come in degrees. A code with ample supplies of each of these features will be a relatively more feasible pathway to a world without animal agriculture, all else equal.

My general claim is this: If, in the future, we will decide to make voluntary changes in our consumption choices which lead to the end of animal agriculture—then this will most likely happen because we adopt a code of behavior that has high levels of each of these four features. 

And I think I can argue that veganism has a better mixture of these four features than the various often-discussed alternatives to veganism.

***

For example, vegetarianism fails in the effectiveness department. Even if everyone in America were to go vegetarian, we'd still have a massive, and unacceptably violent, system of animal agriculture. Animal agriculture would be transformed, but it would continue. Dairy farmers would still be abusing and killing hundreds of thousands of calves per year; there'd still be millions of egg-laying hens confined in densely crowded sheds; there'd still be hundreds of millions of male chicks being macerated alive, and so on.

Similar points can be made about other commonly discussed alternatives to veganism such as reducetarianism and flexitarianism. A world where we all became reducetarians and flexitarians would still be a world of abominable cruelty to animals.

***

Here's another code to consider: the "ethical" carnism of the philosophers, as it might be called. This is the code of behavior that seems to be popular among animal ethicists and food ethicists (and few others). I think the main rule of this code is something like this:

The case-by-case criterion: Whenever you can see that a consumption choice will result in harm to animals, don't do it. Whenever you can see that a consumption choice will not result in harm to animals, feel free to do it.

Philosophers who mostly avoid consumption of animal products routinely appeal to this sort of criterion to explain why they think they can eat leftover turkey sandwiches, and eat bivalves, and so on. They believe that they can see that these consumption choices do not result in harm to animals, so they feel free to make these choices.

Any code that incorporates the case-by-case criterion will have a very low level of easy applicability. This is because most people are very bad at making judgments about whether their consumption choices cause harm to animals. They're bad at this for many reasons, including: (a) people are bad at economic reasoning; (b) more broadly, people are bad at causal reasoning; (c) people are prone to motivated reasoning, especially when it comes to food; (d) people overestimate their willpower (e.g., they fail to anticipate that consuming leftover turkey sandwiches now might make them less likely to resist purchasing turkey sandwiches later).

For all of these reasons, a typical person who adopts the "ethical" carnism of the philosophers is likely to regularly misapply it. Indeed I suspect that the ability to correctly apply this code in a consistent manner is rare. I have known many philosophers who have adopted this code but who routinely misapply it simply because they are confused about basic facts about economics.

If philosophers have so much difficulty with this then we should not hope that the great majority of people will do better. A person who adopts the "ethical" carnism of the philosophers may well find ways to convince herself that she can continue to engage in many, or even all, of her favorite consumption patterns without doing harm to animals. She will be helped in this by the propaganda of the industry, much of which aims to mislead customers about how the animals are treated.

It is for this reason that I am worried about what the world will be like if large numbers of people are persuaded to endorse the "ethical" carnism of the philosophers rather than to simply be vegan. My worry is that, in such a world, people will engage in a great deal of confused, biased, self-serving thinking about which consumption patterns cause harm and which don't, with the end result being that people simply find ways to give themselves excuses to continue doing most of what they are antecedently inclined to do.

Veganism is much better on this score. Almost all vegans know, with a high degree of precision, what veganism allows, and what it forbids. The rules are simple and it's easy to find out what they are. There is little room for self-serving rationalization.

***

Another problem with the "ethical" carnism of the philosophers is that there is no already-existing movement behind it. About 1% of Americans are vegans. There's already millions of us and we've been growing for decades. By contrast almost no one accepts or is even aware of the "ethical" carnism of the philosophers. The philosophers' code is in an embryonic state.

All else equal, if a code has an already-existing movement behind it, then it is much more likely for it to become widespread. This is so because (a) a code can become widespread only if it is powered by a movement, and (b) it is much harder to build a new movement from scratch than it is to continue and expand an already-existing movement. Movements are like beetles. Almost all of the larvae die before they ever reach maturity. A movement that has reached maturity is a precious thing that should be nurtured—provided, of course, it is a good movement.

***

And I doubt that the philosophers' "ethical" carnism is as contagious as veganism. I've got several reasons for this doubt. I'll mention two of them here.

First, the fact that veganism has already won millions of converts is evidence of its contagiousness. There must be something about veganism that has enabled it to get as far as it has gotten. By contrast, the philosophers' "ethical" carnism has almost no converts so far. It is so unpopular that it doesn't even have a name, which is why I've had to give it one.

Second, veganism is conspicuously principled. It is a flat-out rejection of the use of animals as a food source. Veganism wears its principledness on its sleeve. People say many disparaging things about vegans, but they rarely deny that we are principled.

The philosophers' "ethical" carnism may in fact be principled, but I do not think it will look that way to most people. It is hard to see that there is any principle governing the behavior of someone who, for example, sometimes eats meat and sometimes refuses to do so. The principle that (supposedly) underlies the "ethical" carnism of the philosophers is a restriction against causing harm, but this principle is unobvious in practice. The "ethical" carnist needs to announce her principle, and explain how it permits her to (say) consume meat in a given situation, before observers even have a chance of understanding how her behavior is principled.

In general, I think that a code that looks and feels principled, i.e., is conspicuously principled, is likely to be more contagious than a code that doesn't have that appearance, all else equal. This is because people admire, and are (in the right conditions) disposed to emulate, behavior that they take to be principled.

***

My overall opinion is that veganism is the code that has the best mixture of the above-mentioned features. Veganism is relatively effective, contagious, easily applicable, and backed by an already-existing movement; it has these features to a better degree than any of the other codes that get mentioned in these discussions, including alternatives such as vegetarianism, flexitarianism, reducetarianism, and the "ethical" carnism of the philosophers.

It is for this reason that I believe that, if voluntary changes in consumer behavior will lead to the end of animal agriculture, this will most likely happen because people go vegan in large numbers. And I think this means that those of us who want to see the end of animal agriculture should support veganism as a social movement. 

Further, supporting veganism as a social movement will almost always require being vegan oneself. I think this is true of pretty much everyone, apart from a few exceptions (e.g., isolated hermits). I think this is especially true of public figures and people who speak in front of large audiences (this includes most professional philosophers).

We should be vegan because:

(1) being vegan is the way to support veganism as a social movement, and

(2) supporting veganism as a social movement is the way to help push our society toward a future in which animal agriculture ends as a result of voluntary changes in consumer behavior, and

(3) such voluntary changes in consumer behavior are our only reasonable hope of ending animal agriculture.