(Image from UK Vegan Society website)

(Four minute read)

Humans are moral creatures and we have been working out morality for most of our existence, though with the focus squarely on our own species. Having moral regard for other animals on the other hand is a more recent phenomenon, perhaps as recent as the past several thousand years. For example, some ancient Greek philosophers held that other animals deserve our moral regard when working out what’s best to do when our actions affect them.

Over the years attitudes to this idea have fluctuated from disregard to quite determined support for fairer treatment of animals. One famous example is the concern over vivisection in Britain during the 19th century. The anti-vivisection movement, largely led by women, became one of the prominent social activist causes of the time. It was not uncommon in those times for people to regard other animals as almost unfeeling automatons.

For some time there have been people we would loosely describe as vegetarians. The Jains in India for several thousand years have believed in the principle of non-violence, including all living things within their scope. In Britain, the Vegetarian Society was formed in 1847 as a natural follow on from growing interest in moral concern for other animals. The Vegetarian Society promoted a meat-free diet for its members. Even today, the Society claims to be “UK’s original and leading voice for the vegetarian and vegan movement… driven by their convictions and hungry for change”.

In the late 1940s, some members of the Vegetarian Society sought to go further and promoted the idea of dairy-free, egg-free vegetarianism. Donald Watson and several others formed a sub-group which promoted a “vegan” diet. The term “vegan” was formed from the first and last letters of “vegetarian”. The first newsletter appeared in 1945 and the Vegan Society came into being.

The Vegan Society’s main aim was for members to avoid any animal products as food, but it also encouraged members to avoid the use of “animal commodities”. However, while its original meaning largely referred to diet, the idea for veganism came from an underlying motivation to treat other animals better. That is, veganism embraced the moral belief that humans should free animals from human use and ill-treatment and restore a fairer relationship with them.

The original definition Watson offered was:

• VEGANISM is the practice of living on fruits, nuts, vegetables, grains and other wholesome non-animal products.
• VEGANISM excludes as human food: flesh, fish, fowl, eggs, honey, and animals’ milk, butter and cheese.
• VEGANISM aims at encouraging the manufacture and use of alternatives to animal products.

Watson himself was vegan on compassionate and health grounds, believing as he did that a vegan diet was best for human health. While he had a vision for what veganism might mean, he didn’t remain with the Vegan Society very long. By 1949 Watson had no further active involvement in the Society.

At the November 1948 General Meeting, Leslie J Cross was elected to the committee. Cross was an emancipationist, which today we would think of as an animal rights advocate. He believed that the Vegan Society should be more vocal in support of animal emancipation, ie animal rights. Cross introduced a new Constitution in 1950 and proposed a new definition for Veganism:

• The object of the Society shall be to end the exploitation of animals by man… The word veganism shall mean the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals… The Society pledges itself in pursuance of its object to seek to end the use of animals by man for food, commodities, work, hunting, vivisection and all other uses involving exploitation of animal life by man.

There followed a rather up and down time for some years during which the definition of veganism and what people wanted it to represent changed often. Broadly speaking, it swung back and forth between being primarily about diet and health to being about animal rights first and foremost. Interestingly, membership seemed to rise and fall in concert with this – more members when diet-focused while fewer members when rights-focused.

In 1962, the definition became:

• Veganism is a way of living which excludes all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, the animal kingdom ….

The definition ever since has largely remained true to the aim of preventing animal exploitation and cruelty. Of course, people didn’t think in terms of “animal rights” as such in those early days but rather in general terms of “emancipation” of animals from human mistreatment. Animal rights as a concept really emerged in the 1970s, probably in response to Peter Singer’s controversial and influential book Animal Liberation. Singer also introduced to a wider audience the idea of “speciesism”, a term first coined in 1970 by British psychologist Richard Ryder.

Interestingly, vegan societies in other countries varied from the UK Society with most focusing primarily on a plant-based diet rather than an animal rights motivation. The American Vegan Society was founded by Jay Dinshah in 1960. This organisation focused on veganism as a plant-based diet but introduced Ahimsa as the basis for its beliefs about animal treatment. That remains the case to this day with the AVS describing veganism as a lifestyle that embraces eating only plants while integrating Ahimsa into one’s everyday life. Ahimsa is a spiritual tradition common to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, expressing the ethical principle of not causing harm to living things.

Today, the UK Vegan Society definition is:

• 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.

While the definition, meaning and enactment of veganism has varied over the years, progress in the broader field of animal protection and rights consideration has similarly been evolving. Today there exists a deep and comprehensive literature around the matter as well as many highly influential thinkers whose ideas have ranged across notions of care, compassion, protection and rights.

This suggests to me that the core idea that we should have moral concern for other sentient species has taken solid root. It is no longer odd to consider this as a major feature of our relations with other species and significant progress has been made both in general philosophical terms as well as hard legislative reform.

However, I believe that in the public mind, the field remains somewhat uncertain and ill-defined. Veganism in particular seems to address and be concerned with diet, health, the environment and animal rights. Veganism today is a global movement of sorts that has well and truly outgrown its beginnings to the extent that the original UK Vegan Society is today a minor player. Yet for many, the Society sets the bar for what veganism IS.

My own view is that we need a basic reformation of the concept and its practice and promotion. When we strip all of these ideas down to their most basic form, we find that veganism as an ethical concern and animal rights as a concept are facets of one underlying moral motivation – that we should be fair to other animals whenever we can. Our relationship with other species should be marked by fairness and justice to the extent that is reasonably possible. How we might do this is open to discussion and informed debate, but as a fundamental feature of human relations with other animals I think this is how we should now think about our obligations to other species.

Given the long history and now deeply entrenched awareness of veganism, I believe that veganism remains the best term available to us to describe our moral obligation to other species, but suggest that a change in the public perception is needed for broader public engagement. I am not proposing a change to the several definitions of veganism, but rather that we come to believe that veganism embraces all possible ways that we can aim to do right by our fellow beings. Veganism is, if you like, the domain of moral concern for other sentient species, equivalent to the fundamental idea that we owe moral regard to the animals our actions affect.

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“Veganism recognises the inherent value and dignity of other species and aims to treat them fairly by our choices whenever we can”

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Read more:

So Why Veganism?

Does Vegan Advocacy Need A Reform?

My Vegan Elevator Pitch