(Four minute read)

TLDR Version:

Many vegan advocates claim that animals are not here for us but rather exist for their own ends, and of course they are right. While this is an obvious truth, the implication being drawn is that it is deeply immoral for humans to ever use an animal for any purpose at all, even when it is a critical benefit for us.

I don’t agree. Animals are, like all physical objects that we can utilise, available for our use. We use and always have used animals, but in the distant past this was part of a natural and almost egalitarian balance with nature. This changed with the development of agriculture and as a consequence, veganism is for the most part a modern response to the inharmonious and unjust manner in which we use animals today.

In a nutshell, veganism rejects our unfair and exploitative use of animals in our modern world and asks that when we can, we keep them free and protected from our unfair use. Animals can be resources, but vegan principles place moral constraint on that use. We “can” (are able to) use animals, while veganism directs that we “may” (are morally constrained to) use them only in particular contexts driven by necessity.

Full version:

“Veganism is essentially a doctrine of freedom” (Leslie Cross, 1954).

While veganism – in the very early days – was largely a practice-based philosophy by which vegans ate a wholly plant-sourced diet, it wasn’t long before the focus turned to broader questions of animal use and exploitation. After Donald Watson (widely regarded as the “inventor” of veganism) left the Vegan Society in 1948, the influential Leslie Cross became a pivotal figure in the Society.

Cross was an emancipationist. In 1950, he was instrumental in developing the first complete definition of veganism as the “doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals” and drafted a Constitution which described the object of the Society as “…to end the exploitation of animals by man”. In other writings, Cross regarded veganism as a principle in its own right: “that man has no right to exploit creatures for his own ends — and no variation occurs”.

However, underlying this goal of ending animal exploitation was the belief that only by setting domesticated animals free to return to nature would we properly redress this fundamental injustice, so in a very real sense Cross’ concern was to make (and keep) animals free. He saw this imperative as springing from the same source as that of human liberation, believing that at the deepest point within humans “we believe impregnably in freedom”. Ending our “enslavement” and exploitation of animals would not only set them free, but enlarge our own spiritual and moral evolution.

Interestingly, as far as I can tell Cross saw “exploitation” as mainly a productof modern life and he seems to have believed that overturning modern exploitation and making all animals free would mean a reformed and more harmonious relationship between people and other animals.

As he wrote in 1949, “(animal emancipation) means a return (of animals) to their own freely-discovered place within nature — a return to balance, sanity, and naturalness.”

Cross regarded agriculture – the domestication of animals – as a wrong turn in human evolution that led to a state of “enslavement (domestication) of animals”, similar to that of human beings. He refers to an issue of Vegan News in which it was stated that “We can see quite plainly that our present civilization is built upon the exploitation of animals, just as past civilizations were built upon the exploitation of slaves…”

I have not found any mention of how Cross, or indeed other members of the Society, regarded our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors. As explained above, in context it seems that the early founders of the Vegan Society were focused on modern Western civilisation and societies. It seems likely that even though Cross often spoke of the fundamental wrongness of believing that humans have the right to use animals as they wish, he would have been sympathetic to demands of the world that our ancestors found themselves in. Indeed, the natural world of which he speaks so glowingly is one in which animals are used by other animals.

Any moral belief that animals are not ours to use is only applicable in our modern world and was completely irrelevant to our ancient ancestors. Veganism is a modern response to the injustice of modern attitudes to other animals, attitudes that were not as much in evidence before the domestication of animals. In veganism, we find recognition of the inherent value and dignity of other animals and respect for their right to be free.

We could say – to borrow from another writer – that veganism offers us moral ambition:

1) We shouldn’t unnecessarily cause nonhuman animals to be treated as property and a mere means and to suffer or die.
2) Pleasure, convenience, and tradition can’t make something necessary.

The clear distinction is one of necessity. This raises, of course, the obvious point that we must have suitable alternatives (or we can simply do without) and that fact is amply illustrated by early writings and definitions. When animal use is necessary AND we have no clear alternatives, that animal use must continue.

A core aspect of vegan philosophy has always been the need for development and availability of suitable alternatives. For modern people to truly live without exploiting animals demands that we find effective ways to disentangle ourselves from all animal use for our benefit or convenience. This was not possible for our distant hunter-gatherer ancestors.

What stands out in that observation is that animals can be (and always have been) resources for people. The recognition that veganism also promotes developing alternatives is a tacit admission of this fact. Indeed, Leslie Cross even went so far as to recognise that milk was now so embedded in modern life that the only way to abolish animal use for that product was to develop a plant-based alternative, which led him to found the Plantmilk Society in 1956 and subsequently Plantmilk Ltd in 1961.

As he observed: “But whatever one’s personal feelings, milk is now woven into the fabric of living. The cup of tea, the cooking… doing without milk raises not only questions of diet, but social problems as well. Something is needed to help those willing to face the need for change.”

Moving forward to today, many modern vegan/rights advocates regard veganism as a principle of abolition; it is an abolitionist program that aims to prevent all use of animals by humans. This is often framed as “animals are not ours to use”, “animals are not for us(e)”, “animals are here for themselves, not for us” and so on.

Personally, I don’t like this framing because it confuses moral ambition with physical reality. Of course animals exist for their own purposes, but like any other physical object we can use to achieve our goals, they can be resources. It simply is a fact of the matter that animals have always been integral to human thriving and success and it is only in the modern, technological world that we have the opportunity to find alternatives to that animal use. Remember that even in those early days of the Vegan movement it was understood that animal use by man was often either necessary or very much embedded in everyday life and so part of the vegan journey had to be developing alternatives.

I think we must acknowledge that any abolitionist goal is a contingent goal; it depends on our capacity to make do without animal use. And it must also recognise that when we cannot for whatever reasons, animal use remains necessary. This doesn’t undermine the moral ambition of abolition, but it does place some genuine constraints on outcomes.

Veganism cannot be the blanket claim that animals are not and must not ever be used by people, regardless of circumstances. Indeed even the original definition of veganism recognises that in its use of the word “should” and the acknowledgement of the need to find alternatives (as Plamil amply illustrates). Animals can be resources for us to use – this is a statement of fact.

What I believe vegan principles are doing in reality is placing a moral constraint or boundary on that use. That constraint pivots upon what is necessary. This seems to fit better with most peoples’ intuitions about the question of animal use and aligns with every conception of veganism I’ve yet seen, all of which agree that while animals should not be exploited, exceptions exist when we are unable to choose otherwise.

Common examples of such contexts are:

• genuine food deserts where fresh plant foods aren’t available
• essential medications with no animal‑free alternatives, or where law mandates animal testing
• institutional settings such as hospitals, prisons, or the military
• extreme poverty or crisis conditions
• unavoidable infrastructure (glues, tyres, banknotes)

In summary, animals do not exist for our use – they are NOT “here for us”. However they can be resources for human beings as a matter of fact – like all physical things in the world they are available for use – while the moral ambition of veganism seeks to constrain or even abolish that use. We “can” (are able to) use animals, while veganism directs that we “may” (are morally constrained to) use them only in particular contexts.