(Image from UK Vegan Society website)
(Three minute read)
Humans 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.
Ever since the emergence of agriculture and stable societies, there have been people we would loosely describe as vegetarians. For example, some ancient Greek philosophers held that other animals deserve our moral consideration when working out what’s best to do when our actions affect them. The Jains in India have believed – for several thousands of years – in the principle of non-violence, including all living things within their scope.
More recently, the Vegetarian Society was formed in Britain in 1847 as a natural follow on from a growing interest in the kinder treatment of 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.
Watson himself was vegan on compassionate and health grounds, believing as he did that a vegan-friendly, plant-based diet was best for human health and animal well-being. 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 animal 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 and liberation. Cross introduced a new Constitution in 1950 and proposed a new definition for Veganism focused on ending the “exploitation of animals by man”.
Over the next decade or so, the definition of veganism changed between focusing on diet and being more concerned with the emancipation of animals (animal “rights”). By 1962 it had settled on something quite similar to the definition today, stating that 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. 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 often varied from the UK Society by 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 practice of veganism has varied over the years, progress in the broader field of animal protection and rights consideration has similarly been evolving. Today there is a deep and comprehensive literature around animal rights and justice as well as many highly influential thinkers whose ideas have ranged across notions of care, compassion, protection and freedom from exploitation.
Given that these ideas have emerged from the kind of reasoning that gave rise to the concept of veganism, it seems reasonable today to regard veganism as 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. I cannot think of any way in which we could act to treat other animals with fairness and compassion that would not be consistent with veganism.
“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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