Summary

Vegans claim they are doing least harm (or even no harm!) to other species, but critics point to animals killed in crop farming as evidence this is not true. However, critics misunderstand what vegan ethics aim to do. While we might hope to cause less harm as vegans, that is not why we make many of the choices we do.

Veganism is an idea about justice for other species and consequently our main priority within vegan philosophy is to prevent exploiting them. If animal using industries were abolished as a result of making vegan choices there would no longer be any harm to the animals concerned. Reducing harm in such industries is a welfare matter and vegans do not make economic choices that support improving welfare. Nonetheless, vegans should support better welfare policies because a secondary priority for veganism is to prevent cruelty whenever possible.

Least harm, on the other hand, is a principle for finding the better path when two or more options for doing something are not beneficial. One can weigh up the options and choose the one which results in the least harm (or at least, harms the fewest). This might be relevant when making purchasing decisions about vegan-friendly products. For example, while we should remain aware that animals are harmed when growing crops, there may be some ethical justification for controlling pests.

Vegans should avoid claiming that we seek to do least harm by buying plant foods rather than animal based foods because that is not our intention nor is it necessarily true. Least harm more correctly describes how we should approach choices about vegan-friendly products because we also wish to prevent cruelty whenever possible and practicable.

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The Full Story

A common claim is that by being vegan someone is doing least harm to other species, but critics point to animals killed in crop farming as evidence this is not true. This is difficult to defend because we do not have enough information to make a strong claim about this. After all it might be that a non-animal using world would need to use more land for crops, meaning that the numbers of animals harmed could be greater in this system. This seems unlikely, but we do not know because either claim is hypothetical. So, what’s the truth? Well, as with anything it gets complicated very quickly. Just the same we can make some pretty straight-forward observations that might help to make things clearer.

First up it is important to clarify our starting point and this is something that many people misunderstand. When people choose not to buy animal products or take advantage of animals for their own benefit, they aren’t really doing so to reduce or prevent harm to other animals. Instead, they are responding to a different ethical imperative – the wish to prevent the exploitation of other species. As I frame this imperative, we aim to treat other species justly by according them basic rights whenever we can. This is our primary duty within the vegan philosophy.

Consider dairy milk as an example case. It is not because cows are harmed that vegans choose not to buy milk but rather because the cows are used as a means to an end; that is, they are exploited. Buying dairy milk contributes to that happening and so vegans choose not to. The problem of harm and suffering by cows is not relevant in this regard. That is a welfare issue. If we could eliminate the ownership of cows to produce milk, there would be no welfare concerns. We can see from this example that vegans aren’t trying directly to reduce or prevent animals being harmed by animal using industries, instead they are seeking to prevent these industries from using animals in the first place.

Our secondary duty is to prevent cruelty to other animals whenever we can. We should want to support efforts to do this and there are situations in which the welfare of other animals is all that we can affect, for example having policies in place to protect domestic companion animals. Nonetheless, vegans do not make choices that send economic signals to industries to enact better welfare. That is, they aren’t likely to buy milk from a more ethical producer. Vegans are not aiming to reduce harm or achieve “least harm” in animal using industries.

Next we should understand what is really meant by “least harm”. Broadly speaking, the aim of least harm is to find the better path when two or more options are not beneficial. To help us decide which we should choose, we can examine the options and determine which one will result in the least harm (or at least, harm the fewest).

As explained above, vegans are not placed in the position of choosing between the two options of buying or using products from either animal farming or crop farming. Rather we are responding to a question of justice when we choose not to buy or use animal products (by acting as though other species have basic rights).Were we successful in preventing all animal exploitation no animals would be harmed by these industries (as they’d no longer exist).

To put this another way, we aren’t choosing to avoid products from animal using industries in order to do less harm than products from some other industry. This can be illustrated by considering the case of almond milk. Almond milk is an alternative food to dairy milk, but vegans don’t drink almond milk because it is less harmful than dairy. We drink almond milk because it doesn’t require exploitation of other species.

Really, vegans are more likely to confront the least harm principle when buying or using vegan-friendly products that may have required harms to other species. For example, growing crops to replace animal products can cause many animals to be harmed and even killed. There are several possible ways this can happen. First, because of land clearing to make room for crops; second, from on-farm activities such as harvesting; and lastly from pest control. Both land clearing and on-farm activities are necessary but the deaths of other animals are somewhat incidental. That is, we don’t set out to harm other animals by growing crops. Still, animals will be harmed and this should be considered because vegans should be seeking to prevent cruelty to animals.

Pest control is a major ethical concern for vegans as it is possible that very many animals are harmed and killed from pest management activities, especially if we include invertebrates. Worse, the impact of pest control has affected entire species and ecosystems, so clearly we have an ethical concern. I have explained elsewhere that we may be able to somewhat mitigate this concern in terms of our right to defend ourselves. Briefly, we have the right to produce food and defend its production. It seems less of an ethical failure to grow crops rather than use other animals, even if pest animals must be killed to protect our crops. In particular, it might be the case that in this context we owe a lesser ethical duty to some species than others.

Some have suggested that vegans are under an obligation to make choices that cause least harm when it comes to the foods that we eat where we are doing so merely for pleasure (eg cake or ice-cream). If it goes – critics argue – that we buy a cake for the pleasure of eating it and animals are harmed to produce that cake, then we should choose not to buy the cake on the grounds that doing so causes harm to other animals. We should either forego the cake or simply buy foods that have a lower harm attached to their production.

This seems reasonable, but on practical grounds may be something of a red herring. After all, we really don’t have enough information about whether we are causing more animals to be killed by buying a cake (discretionary) versus a kilogram of lentils (non-discretionary). There is no practical way to say whether it is better or worse to eat one thing or the other as part of a vegan-friendly diet. It seems wrong to buy an unnecessary food and cause animals to be killed, but in the end we can’t be certain whether it makes any difference at all. For sure, we should all keep such concerns in mind and make the best choices we can. And we should be open to learning more whenever we can.

In summary then, I don’t think vegans should appeal to the ethical principle of “least harm” to defend veganism because that is not our direct intention nor is it necessarily true. At best, this principle is useful in guiding us to make good choices when available options will all cause harm. Least harm more correctly describes how we should approach choices about vegan-friendly products because we also wish to prevent cruelty whenever possible and practicable.

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.

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.

Veganism is an ethical position – the idea that we extend moral concern to other species. Simply put, we should want other animals to be free and in charge of their own lives without being treated badly by us, as much as is possible. These are, if you like, our moral duties to them.

As I have suggested elsewhere, these duties mirror the duties we have to other people as explained in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We can therefore say that we should treat other animals as though they have the same three fundamental rights as expressed in Articles 3-5 of the Declaration:

• The right to life and liberty (that is, to be in charge of their own lives and not to be exploited)
• The right not to be held in slavery or servitude (that is, not to be owned and used as a commodity)
• The right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (that is, not to be harmed unnecessarily)

These three principles should govern our relationship with other species. As a consequence, the moral case for not farming animals like cows and pigs emerges from the first two of these principles. That is, we have a duty to respect their right to be free and in charge of their own lives whenever we can. They should not be treated as commodities and used as a means to our ends, whenever we have the option not to.

According to our third principle, we also have a duty to prevent other beings from experiencing unnecessary cruelty. Generally speaking we believe we owe this duty to each individual and that’s why, for example, animal welfare laws exist. While animals continue to be treated as property and used by us, we still have an ethical duty to ensure they are afforded the best possible welfare under the circumstances.

Veganism therefore seeks not only to prevent us from owning and using other animals, but also to ensure that when we do have a relationship with other animals we want to prevent them being treated cruelly.

A criticism often raised when we talk about veganism in the context of food production is the killing of pest animals in cropping. Critics say, for example, that millions of small animals like mice are killed by various practices. Even worse, trillions of insects are killed by the use of pesticides. Don’t we owe the same duty to these animals as we owe to the farmed animals? If not, isn’t it hypocrisy to worry about the farmed animals but not the wild animals that we harm?

We can examine this problem in terms of our three ethical principles. Obviously we have to produce food and we can be certain that as with everything else, we cannot avoid causing some harm to other species. But how much does food production transgress our principles and can we align food production with vegan ethics?

In the case of farming animals, we seem to be violaing all three principles. That is, farmed animals are owned and exploited, they are not free and they are harmed. Perhaps we could overlook this if we had to farm animals, but clearly we can grow plants for food instead, at least much of the time.

If we choose to grow crops for food rather than also farming animals, we seem likely to be violating just one of these principles when we cause harm and death to pest animals. How so? First, the wild animals managed as pests are free. Secondly, we have a right to protect ourselves; that is, ethically we may kill another in self-defence. Pest animals threaten our well-being by attacking our food supply and may not be reasoned with so we are within our rights to kill them. In the end, it seems we might only be guilty of causing unnecessary pain and suffering. While this is still an important problem, as consumers we may be hard-pressed to either buy foods that aren’t the result of such practices or influence how farmers treat pests.

It seems therefore that it is a lesser ethical failure to only grow crops for food than to grow crops AND to farm animals. Nonetheless, we might hope to buy plant-based foods that require minimal pest management and/or support pest control practices that minimise harm to pest species.

Summary: Consciousness (experience, awareness) has long been a mystery. It has been called the “hard problem” because it has successfully eluded explanation for centuries, however I believe that modern accounts have gone a long way to dispelling the mystery. It seems that the key to understanding consciousness may be to regard our experience not as that of a discrete observer but rather as a model of our relationship to the external world. The perceiver is inherent to this model.

By way of example, we tend to think that when we see an external object we are inside our heads looking at some kind of image. Instead, it seems more likely that the object we experience is simply a description, a logical carrier of information about our relationship to that external object. We have a constellation of such descriptions, tied together by meta-descriptions. One such meta-description might be the feeling we have that we are inside our heads. We can act upon these descriptions, including reporting upon them. When we say “that ball is red” we are reporting upon information contained within the descriptions our brains compute from sensory input and stored concepts.

The world as we experience it is a virtual world, a description that is only as complex as we need to act into the external world. It may not always represent the actual world but to us, it IS the world.

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An enduring mystery is that of consciousness or awareness. We believe that we are aware in a particular way, that “we” are in our heads. This is because we have experiences and can talk about them. We see colours (eg red), we feel pain and we can be happy or sad. Strangely however we cannot really say what red, pain or happiness actually are – the best we can do is agree that we each see a red ball when a red ball is present. That ball seems to us to be out there but obviously it isn’t. It must somehow be in our heads, like a photograph or movie being shown for us on the screen of our minds. Someone, it seems, is inside our heads, in some kind of inner space, watching the movie of experience.

This someone is what we might think of as the soul or at the very least as an observer – an actual thing that is separate from yet co-existing with our physical body. But the problem with thinking this is that it is a non-explanation. If an internal observer “sees” our experiences, then how does this observer do that? Could there be an observer inside the observer? Maybe, but then we seem to need a further observer and so on. We can never bottom out into a true physical explanation of what the observer is.

The philosopher Daniel Dennett is famous for his dismissal of this kind of idea. He tells us that there can be no Cartesian Theatre, no inner screen on which the movie of experience plays for our observer. He takes the view that we are misled somehow, that our experience is in some way an illusion. He doesn’t mean by this that we are not having experiences – after all, we describe our experiences by what they signify (the red of the ball, for example). Experiences exist.

However, while experiences exist, does it follow that we are indeed inside our heads, contrary to Dennett’s claim? Or is it the case that other than the brain doing stuff, there is nothing else happening? After all, as physical systems brains just do physical things, so unless something non-physical is happening we aren’t really in there. Perhaps we simply do not have a soul after all – maybe the truth is that no-one is home. I wrote about this in my short essay, “Do animals have souls?“, where I say that my answer to this is that no, we are not really home and we do not have souls. I should add the caveat though that in one very real way there IS something it is like to be us. How does this happen if we agree that there can’t be an observer inside our heads?

The most likely explanation is that experience – the “what it’s like” – just is how brains compute (manipulate) information in order to produce behaviours. The idea that brains compute information is known as computationalism. There has been plenty of criticism for the idea but it remains the dominant paradigm to explain cognition and by extension consciousness. I tend to think that a fundamental capability of material universes is computation – the right kinds of systems can gain information by manipulating other information according to some rule (ie logic). Brains do this.

Consider a sort of paradigm example. Light is not really illumination or colour – it is a narrow frequency range of electro-magnetic radiation reflected from or emitted by material objects. Sensory apparatus can detect light and use the resulting interaction between light and the detection of light to gain information about objects. In such a manner brains can use this information along with a range of stored sensory and affordance data to model the world and relations with the world. The things we “see” don’t really look like anything at all out in the world; what we see is entirely an abstract construction of our brains using the information rendered by the interaction between light and our eyes.

The usefulness of this kind of abstracted information is obvious – it facilitates  behaviours. More complex behavioural possibilities are uncovered both by environmental conditions and improved detection/processing/actioning capabilities. In the same way physical forms are optimised by evolution to better suit adaptation to changing environments so too is the computability of information derived from interactions between the organism and its external and internal environments. In a very real sense, the “instruction set” for programming brains/nervous systems is derived evolutionarily over long stretches of time.

The end result is that in our heads are no more than the models we use to direct behaviours and the objects in these models (for example, red balls and “me”) are more like organisational artefacts – they stand in for (represent) how we use information to direct internal activity to generate external behaviours. Our brains construct a virtual world using information sampled from the outside world.

Put another way, our experiences are not OF the world, they ARE the world. And in this world is a kind of control model – a sense of self that coordinates and modulates behaviour based on perceptual information prioritised according to behavioural goals. This self is in effect a control model that ties together the artefacts of these processes and enables us to observe, monitor and report upon progress. Michael Graziano has offered a compelling and cogent explanation for how attention mediates this control model when he describes his Attention Schema Theory.

You can see from this that when I agree that consciousness is an illusion, I don’t mean we are not having experiences. Rather I mean that our experiences are not really an inner being “seeing” and “hearing” things and having a genuine “self”. Sensory perceptions are abstracted informational objects – objects of organisation and process. The different sensory modalities simply wrap up the information in handy codes. A red ball (vision) contains information that is pared down for easier manipulation – it isn’t the state of all the bits of the brain but is rather an abstraction that contains shape, colour, location, distance and so on upon which we can undertake ongoing behavioural computations (eg how to catch the ball). The sound of a bell is the same thing but for sound waves (audition). The underlying brain cells are the same and they do the same things, but the information being manipulated is different as are the affordances offered. I think that J. Kevin O’Regan has explained this idea very well when he describes his sensori-motor theory in his excellent book “Why Red Doesn’t Sound Like A Bell“.

Now, can other computational systems have experiences? I am inclined to say yes. All computations that manipulate information may be accompanied by some kind of “what it’s like”. However, it seems likely that the computational devices we have built are limited by the narrowness of their functionality and a paucity of broadly integrated complexity (eg complex feed-back and feed-forward circuits). More than this, I tend to think that without a particular kind of memory system, it seems very unlikely that these computational activities have any kind of awareness, much less self-awareness.

That said, as complexity increases so too does the potential for experience and therefore computational devices that mirror the circuitry of brains and incorporate the right kinds of memory should have experience (recall that consciousness is a kind of logical information space in which relationships are modelled). In particular, as memory morphs into the kind of global workspace (for want of a better description) as outlined by people like Baars then the experiences become accessible to the system as a form of awareness. Very complex systems with the right system capabilities would be aware. Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory is probably very much on the right track in this regard.

While consciousness as experience might be explained as the product of brains computing information, it is unlikely that the unitary everyday experience we enjoy is directly affecting behaviour. The reason for this is that it seems to come too late. The consciousness we have seems fully formed and informative yet to process perceptual input, access stored content, create a virtual world of experience and then to decide responses takes time and time is of the essence for creatures in the world.

It is more likely that our brains are constantly predicting and revising those predictions as it shapes behaviour to external circumstances. This may be accompanied by some kind of what it’s like experience, but this is likely not to be what we call everyday awareness/consciousness. As the brain computes various scenarios and generates draft narratives of what’s happening to us, behavioural plans are created, discarded and executed. All in tiny fractions of time, such is the computing power of the brain. Only once behaviour is complete is it likely that a full and final draft (as it were) is produced for storage in memory systems. This final draft is a pared down, information rich abstraction of what just happened and is probably most useful for learning. My best guess is that it also informs ongoing processes and behaviour in a complex feedback/re-entrant looping mechanism.

While ongoing internal brain processes may be manipulating informational objects, true conscious experience – our unified unfolding narrative – is more likely to be an after the fact construction. This is why I see memory as critical to enjoying a rich conscious experience. In memory, the abstracted information that describes external world, behavioural responses and functional outcomes is stored for learning and ongoing comparitive feedback. I suspect that our moment by moment awareness of the world is in fact a memory function.

It is in this sense that some researchers have proposed the hippocampal formation as critical to these activities and I think this makes sense. While I simply don’t know enough to say yay or nay, I think propositions such as those of Ralf-Peter Behrendt and Matt Faw may be on the right track. Faw’s suggestion that moment by moment experience is the first instantiation of a memory seems to fit the bill. Even if not exactly right, this proposition seems to give us grounds for viewing everyday consciousness as primarily a memory function.

Placing this into a simpler explanatory framework, brains have evolved to interpret and manipulate information about the body and the external world in order to manage behaviour. The world we experience is a kind of “logical space” in which information is abstracted into a model of how the brain processes and organises that information and the behaviours available to be enacted.

Essential to the complete experience that complex organisms like humans enjoy is a memory system that permits a recurrent, re-entrant process of remembering moment by moment, informed both by prior stored concepts/experiences and predictive refinements in order to model relations betwen the organism and the external world. Such models facilitate increasingly complex and dynamic behavioural responses.

In the end, we are simply very good natural simulations.

“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.”  UK Vegan Society

I wrote a longer piece about this recently, but this is meant to be my “elevator pitch” version. Cutting to the chase, rather than being only a diet or environmental fix or even a rigid ideology, I consider veganism to be a way of looking at the world which is essential to my personal moral outlook. This is because veganism is consistent with everyday ideas of right and wrong – we already believe all that it asks of us, we just need to extend those beliefs to include other animals.

It works like this.

I think of veganism as how my choices and actions affect others. I suppose we can boil it down to the Golden Rule – treat others as you’d like to be treated yourself. If we try to do that in our relations with other people and other animals as far as possible… well, isn’t that “veganism”? Veganism just is what it means to do your best to be good to others. We are already vegan as far as other people are concerned, so how hard can it be to extend this attitude to include other animals?

Mind you, we can’t always live our ideals; sometimes circumstances dictate otherwise. For example, normally one ought prefer not to kill another person but one must in wartime. We can only do our best. Our best, I suggest, is something of an ongoing project for most of us. For me, veganism is how I see that project.

All veganism asks of me is that I do the best I can being the person I am in my particular circumstances, as long as my aim genuinely is to do well by others as much as I can. In the case of other animals, I want to take into account how my choices and actions could affect them for the better. My situation may not mean I can be my best at all times, but I still hope to do the best I can when I can. All this requires is an open mind and the willingness to do things differently when I see a real benefit to others.

That right there is veganism as I see it.

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A Practical Guide

A couple of people have said to me, OK, that’s all well and good but what are you really saying? I see what they are getting at. My pitch above is meant to outline why I think veganism makes sense and can be taken on board by anyone at all. It’s meant to defuse the argument that veganism is a rigid diet that is too hard, perhaps even dangerous, to follow.

I am saying that what counts is your own personal commitment to treating others well and that I believe other animals should be included in that commitment. This is not strictly how veganism is defined, so I am only offering up my take on this. However, I think my take on the matter can be quickly and easily embraced by most people because it only demands that you do what you think best.

It should be clear that I don’t much endorse the idea of “going vegan” or being a vegan; what really counts is your own willingness to question the way we do things. I call this embracing vegan ethics. How far you go is up to you but the idea is that you be open to finding out more about how we treat other animals and thinking about how you could help to change the bad things we do. It doesn’t necessarily mean never using or harming or killing another animal unless that’s how far you want to go. Most purist vegans do go that far, but I suspect many people would not. That’s OK. You can still be “vegan” by my definition. Because in the end it’s your personal choice on how best to act.

I classify my interpretation as essentially vegan rather than say reducetarianism or ethical omnivorism because I am looking to the full range of our relationships with others and because I remain focused on how my choices affect others. Ethical Omnivorism for example seems mostly confined to our food choices and seems not to come with any built in constraints on how far we go.

Someone embracing vegan ethics in this way might take small practical changes to how they live that are consistent with the goal of doing good by others. Another might go much further and become a purist vegan and animal rights activist. It’s up to you. Your journey may never end because we can always learn more and do more.

So, here are some practical examples.

My own personal situation came about when I found out how we treat pigs in the food system. You can read more about that here. These days, my wife and I eat a mostly plant-based diet. I don’t die in a ditch if my food is cooked in a pan along with meat, I do eat oysters and mussels, I have no problem with eating insects. I am not sure about wool and cotton, but we aim to minimise the number of clothes we buy. I am OK with eating meat if someone offers me some but I explain why I’d prefer not to.

Chickens and pigs are very badly treated in our food system. Choosing never to eat chicken or pork from commercial intensive systems is a great way to contribute to a better food system. You may even prefer to never eat chicken and pork at all. Here is an example of a farm where animals are raised with high welfare: http://jonaifarms.com.au/

Many animals can be harmed in the cosmetics industry, To help reduce this problem, choose cosmetics with the leaping bunny logo on them. The Leaping Bunny Logo is the only internationally recognized symbol guaranteeing consumers that no new animal tests were used in the development of any product displaying it. The Logo can be seen on packaging, advertising, and websites for cosmetics and household products around the world. There are other similar logos, to find out which ones you can trust, please visit this website: https://ethicalelephant.com/cruelty-free-logos/

If you support charities and worthy causes, consider supporting a charity that works to better the lives of other animals. You can choose one whose work or values agree with you. I volunteer to help Animal Aid Abroad, an Australian organisation whose goal is to help every working animal live a life free from suffering and to be treated with respect and compassion.  https://www.animalaidabroad.org/

Yolanda is a sheep and cattle farmer. She believes in ensuring the best possible welfare for her herd and she is committed to protecting them as much as possible from the harsh realities of nature and to give them a fulfilling life and a good death. Yolanda is dedicated to constantly observing and checking them, often dragging herself out at all hours and in all types of weather. She is well known for bringing in the sick or abandoned to protect them from predators, always choosing to ignore the little voice that often says “it will be right till tomorrow”, no matter how exhausted, cold or hungry she is. The thing is, people eat meat and we farm animals so there are people like Yolanda out there farming. None of them have to go the extra yard so it’s wonderful to see someone who does.

To join in a conversation between farmers and vegans, you could join the Farmers and Vegans Discussions Facebook group. This is a small but growing group where people can find out more about farming and talk to both farmers and vegans about how our food system works. https://www.facebook.com/groups/296536041626729

Veganism – once a fringe concept – has become increasingly mainstream in recent years. However, with this has come a change in the public perception of veganism. Originally an essentially moral philosophy, I think many people now see plant-based and vegan as meaning the same thing (a diet) and they see it in terms of personal benefit (health, environment, climate change). That’s fine, I guess, but I’d rather retain the idea that veganism denotes a moral attitude or stance. For me, veganism isn’t anything special – it’s just my everyday moral attitude extended to include other animals as much as I can. That’s about it.

In practice, just like all our other moral stances, how I behave depends a bit on circumstances, convention and evidence. I do my best to do what I think is right but what I do may not be the same as you. I may be more or less fastidious in my moral actions than you. I think that’s how the world works – we work out a general idea of right and wrong and then we each tackle that as we think best.

When it comes to veganism, I probably take what is broadly a welfarist position. I guess I boil it down to caring or being kind. If I can avoid it, why would I harm another creature? I am pretty sure that’s the essence of the Golden Rule. So, my moral stance in the world just is that. However, the world itself isn’t kind or just, that’s just a thing we do. The result is that we can’t be perfect and we can’t always be entirely true to our own moral convinctions. By and large, I think, we just do our best.

If it turns out that someone has to eat meat for good health or because they don’t have access to other decent food, I don’t think that is a bad thing. If someone must use another animal for their own ends, for example an assistance dog, that’s just the way of it. But within that there is no reason still not to do the best we can for the animals our presence effects. Hopefully, we can learn more and use that knowledge and our ideals to act well. That’s what I try to do and it influences the choices I make.

I eat mussels and oysters. I don’t mind eating a piece of meat or whatever if someone offers it to me. I don’t even have a problem with killing and eating animals when it is necessary. I am not that far from ethical omnivorism in dietary terms. Except that I think things like that – or reducetarianism, for example – are largely self focused and I’d rather be a bit more other focused. This might not be what a vegan purist would think is veganism, but it is my personal moral stance, deeply informed by vegan ethics.

And here’s the thing. I don’t see why that means that everyone else cannot do the same. Why, on this flavour of veganism, can’t everyone be “vegan”? In the end, it’s no more than following your existing moral instincts and doing your best for other animals – people included. If veganism is a moral stance, essentially everyday morality, then it follows anyone can be vegan. Farmers included. It’s not clear to me why everyone isn’t!

My point here is that if veganism really is just everyday ethics then it can be integrated into everyday behaviours and choices. Seen as a sort of continuum of moral attitudes that may extend to more purist ideals but which nonetheless remains accessible to common ideas of right and wrong it is possible veganism could be taken as a default stance, rather than an object of opposition and derision. In such a light, veganism is understood and practised just as we tackle all other ethical issues – as best we can with the people we are in our particular circumstances. One might take a strong position on this and become an animal rights activist, another might simply make what they think are the best choices in the things they do.

Such a view of the world can then be informed by actual empirical matters as well as personal circumstances. So long as my interest is to do my best for other animals, the stance I settle on is mine alone and can be refined as better information becomes available to me.

Put another way, for me the goal of veganism as a moral stance is that our ethical attitude to other animals mirrors our ethical attitude to other people. We aim to do our best. Circumstances might mean we can’t apply our ethics equally as well for other animals as for other humans, but so long as we take the same strategy of regarding others’ interests and well-being as important, then I think that’s all we can ask of veganism.