I have explained elsewhere why I think of veganism as an ethical matter. Some think of veganism as a diet or a means to improve health or to address climate change, but really these are simply strategies to an end which can be swapped out for other strategies if need be. However when considered as an ethical matter, veganism can never be diminished in its essence.

As an ethical concern, I believe that we can summarise veganism as the idea that other species deserve to be treated fairly by regarding them as having the same basic rights as humans, whenever we can. Of course, human rights are usually protected at law whereas animal rights generally are not. For now, the best we can do is to behave as though such rights exist. That is, we can make choices that limit unfair treatment of other species by not contributing to, for example, using other species as a means to an end or as property or subjecting them to cruel practices.

On these grounds, I think advocating for justice for other species is best approached from the perspective of encouraging people to act accordingly. In other words, advocacy might make greater inroads simply by providing information about how animals are treated unjustly, illustrating how we can prevent these injustices and guiding people towards more ethical practices.

In particular, I think we might do better to move away from the idea that by devoting oneself unswervingly to a very strict set of behaviours one can become “a vegan”. Pursuing the idea that someone should be a vegan entrenches the idea of a division, ie people are vegan or non-vegan. It also helps to precipitate and prolong divisive argumentation about whether one thing or the other is more ethical. On the other hand, eliminating this concept of being a vegan and instead encouraging the idea that there just are people who make ethical choices might reduce this kind of tribalism and even encourage a more positive general opinion about the idea.

Now, I am not suggesting abandoning the labels “veganism” and “vegan”. Instead, I think veganism is the best term for describing the idea of extending our moral consideration to include other species whenever we can. Promoting veganism as an idea about moral consideration and ethical practice provides a consistent foundation for advocacy and general adoption.

Insofar as the term “vegan” goes, I propose looking back to previous social justice campaigns in relation to human rights. In that context, particular labels were attached to advocates/activists seeking social change. Consider abolitionists and suffragettes. The general community didn’t think of themselves as such. Nor when slavery was abolished and women got the vote did people more generally become abolitionists and suffragettes. Instead, once change was achieved, all we had were people as members of the newly extended moral community.

I think something the same could apply to veganism, which after all is really the idea of extending the moral community to include other species when we can. Thought of in that way, a “vegan” might be an actual advocate/activist, someone who goes out of their way to encourage social change. On the other hand, people who are convinced and want to endorse the idea and change their ethical practice are just that. People within a more extended moral community.

Advocacy then is undertaken by vegans who promote veganism by education, illumination and guidance. People wishing to learn from these efforts and who wish to make changes for themselves aren’t vegans, they are just people. There is no need for judging people’s degree of vegan-ness, for gatekeeping the vegan community or for toxic debates about how evil or immoral others are.

We are already, most of us, vegan for other people. And in time, we might all be vegan for other species as well. What progress we can make towards this goal is worth celebrating.

I have talked about why I believe that veganism is a an ethical position aligned with everyday ethical views about how we treat others. I have also explained how on these grounds we can evaluate which kinds of food production are most ethical. I concluded that we are almost always better to farm only crops than to farm crops AND other animals.

Nonetheless, pest control in cropping remains a significant concern. Given that we very likely cause substantial suffering and death to invertebrate species in particular and that pest management practices are threatening many species with extinction, I think we have to give further thought to how the decision to grow only crops can withstand scrutiny.

The basis for offering moral consideration to other species really rests on sentience. It can only be the case that we have that kind of ethical duty to other species when we can be reasonably confident that they experience the world from a first-person perspective. That is, there is something it is like to be them. Perhaps we might even restrict our concern to those species that can feel pain.

Today, evidence strongly suggests that many invertebrate species are sentient and some may even feel pain. Given it is possible that quadrillions of insects are killed worldwide each year to grow crops, we seem to be causing considerable harm to pest species such as insects and I have argued that it seems wrong to inflict unnecessary harm and suffering on other species. Where to from here?

One option I will propose is that we take into account certain biological factors. The one I am interested in here is reproductive strategy. Species tend to be either K or r strategists. I know that this idea is less favoured these days as an explanation about survival strategies in species, but as a broad-brush consideration I think it still holds some value. K-strategists are longer lived, have few offspring, care for them longer and invest greater resources in their survival. K-strategists tend to be larger animals. An example is cattle. R-strategists on the other hand are shorter-lived, have many offspring, often invest little effort in raising their offspring and are smaller animals. An example is insects. Rodents are also r-strategists.

Consistent with the natural “intent” inherent in the evolution of these two kinds of reproductive strtagey, I propose that we owe a greater duty to individuals of K-selected species and a lesser duty to individuals of r-selected species. K-strategists tend to experience pain in ways that support behaviour adaptation and learning, leading to greater concern for how the self and any offspring go in the world. R-strategists may not even feel pain in many cases (insects) and often show less concern for individual experiences. As K-strategists hope to achieve species success from individual success, we can see why worrying about each animal as an individual is very important. R-strategists on the other hand achieve species success from an overall maximal reproductive potential – many offspring lead to many survivors, even if many die young (which they do).

At the individual level then, we owe a greater duty to K-strategist individuals than we do to r-strategist individuals. Just the same, in both cases, we owe a collective duty to the species to prevent unnecessary harmful impacts such as extreme thinning of populations and/or extinction. On that view, killing pest insects (and rodents) to protect crops is defensible on practical grounds (we have to grow food to live and insects threaten our success) and on relative ethical grounds of least harm (the experiences of individual insects matter sufficiently less that we can ignore this concern for all practical purposes – we are doing less harm to kill r-strategist individuals than to kill K-strategist individuals).

However, our duty to the species and the environment is such that we cannot be indiscriminate in pest control when the results affect biodiversity, ecosystems and threaten species with extinction. We should encourage improved pest control techniques in order to minimise risks to insect populations and prevent species extinction, but not feel that we have to apologise for killing individual r-strategist pests.