Summary:

Long ago before people developed agriculture and civilisation, humans and other species shared the world as relatively equal participants in the enterprise of life. Veganism wasn’t necessary as we were all born free and able to pursue our own lives on our own terms. We changed all of this beginning around 10,000 years ago with the emergence of agriculture and later civilisation. The world of today is very different as a result. People now often use other species in whatever ways they wish, treating these animals as mere things to be used for our own ends. In doing so, we obstruct and prevent many species from the freedom to live their own lives. Other species exist to pursue their own ends just as we do. There is no reason to think that their wish to flourish is somehow less important than our own. While veganism wasn’t necessary in the distant past, today it is an idea that aims to restore some balance, indeed justice, to the relationship between humans and other species. All that veganism asks is that we make choices whenever we can that respect the rights of other species to live their own lives. In the end, veganism is about us more than it is about the other animals.

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The Full Story

In previous posts, I have described veganism as an idea about ethics – we should extend our moral consideration to include other species whenever we can. As I explain it, we can think of other species as having the same basic rights as humans and so, when it doesn’t intrude on our right to look after ourselves, we should treat other species accordingly. In this post, I’d like to explore where I think this idea comes from. Not so much in detail but rather as a general consideration of a fundamental change in our relationship with other animal species.

In the past – that is before the emergence of agriculture and settled, stable human cultures – there was no need for veganism. At that time, humans existed as an integral and relatively equal partner in the enterprise of life. Nearly all species were born free to make their own ways in the world and to live their lives on their own terms subject to the risks and constraints of natural living. In that world, humans depended on other species as natural resources available to them, much as did many other species. Using other animals for food, fibre, tools, etc has been an essential part of human culture for as long as there have been humans to have culture. For all of human history, it has been normal and natural for humans to use other animals in these ways.

However, human beings are a materially different species from all others with the capacity to affect the natural world far more than most other species. For much of our history, this effect was limited but nonetheless at times significant. Some of our activities may have led to noticeable changes, for example the use of fire to transform landscapes and the hunting – perhaps to extinction – of megafauna. Yet on the whole, we remained as we always had been, members of the natural community.

This changed around 10,000 years ago with the development of agriculture and later with the emergence of civilisation and more recently the use of fossil fuels for energy. Since then, we have seen a remarkable growth in both the scale of activities such as agriculture and also the size of the human population. Today, that somewhat equitable relationship with other species I mention above is very much out of balance. Our needs, wishes and preferences now impact almost every species on the planet. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of agriculture which has spread to cover much of the planet’s ice free surface and has affected ecosystems everywhere. We have demoted other species from fellow creatures with the right to pursue their own ends as best they can to nothing more than things, objects we can use as means to our own ends.

There seems to be a fundamental injustice in the idea that humans can use other species in the kinds of ways we so often do. Instead of sharing the natural world as relatively equal partners, modern humans dominate all other species in ways that substantially restrict their freedom to flourish on their own terms. We seem to believe there are no reasons to constrain where, when, how and why we intrude on the lives of all other species that share the world with us. We have become separated from nature, treating all other species as mere things to be used.

While veganism was not a concept necessary in the world of our distant ancestors, I believe that today it is an important idea about restoring some fairness – justice – to our relationship with the rest of nature. The reason it is important is that like us, other species have the right to pursue their own lives for their own ends and not merely exist to be means to our ends alone. All species have the fundamental and basic rights to want to flourish and take part in the world as free beings.

In the end, veganism isn’t only not eating meat or eating a healthy diet or saving the planet, though these are possible consequences. Rather, veganism is an idea about aiming by our actions to restore balance between us and the other species, a balance that once was a hallmark of how we fitted into the web of life.

That is why I think veganism just makes sense.