vegan-ethics

Ancient Hunter-Gatherers Were Vegan

~ Graeme M ~ Leave a comment

Let me be clear – I do not mean that ancient hunter-gatherer peoples were vegans. Of course they weren’t, not in the spirit of the modern meaning of veganism where “vegans” are people who do not use animals and/or animal-based products.

But let’s look a little deeper. Veganism has just two aims – that animals are free, and protected from our cruelty and unfair use when we can do that. In other words, veganism is an ethical framework – a set of ethical principles based on the belief that other animals deserve our moral concern – which seeks to let other animals be free, have bodily autonomy, not be used unfairly and not treated cruelly, to the extent that’s possible.

If animals are owned and used for exploitative purposes, such as horses in commercial horse racing or trained animals in circuses or farmed animals for food and fibres, then clearly they aren’t free. So long as those industries exist, those animals will never be free. Withdrawing economic support – which is what vegans do – will not cause the animals to be freed but rather for fewer to be created by those industries. If those industries disappeared then no more animals would exist in those industries. The animals left in the world would be free. We should remember that by and large in the case of exploitative animal-using industries, the aim of veganism is not to “save” animals, but to prevent them existing in the first place.

Importantly, while vegan ethics propose that we shouldn’t eat or use animals when alternatives exist, if there are no alternatives it is quite permissible to do so. Vegan ethical principles do not demand that we starve to death rather than eat an animal.

Taking all of this together, it is clear that in ancient times, the wild animals in the world were all free. The humans that existed had few alternatives and eating and using animals was necessary. They simply did not have the knowledge, nor the reason, to adopt a hands-off approach to their relations with other animals. Were they cruel? Very probably, but within the context of the times perhaps understandable. The scale of cruelty in those times was many orders of magnitude less than we practice today.

In the end, ancient hunter/gatherers lived consistently with the aims of veganism to the extent that was possible or practicable for their time and context. Our ancestors were vegan, at least in the sense I have described. While they were not actual vegans, people today can be – or at the least, be guided in their choices by vegan ethical principles.

Voltaire and Veganism

~ Graeme M ~ Leave a comment

Hang on, you exclaim, Voltaire was a French writer and philosopher who lived over two hundred years ago. What on earth does he have to do with veganism?

Well, he said something that has resonated down the ages and which has a particular relevance to veganism. So, what DID he say?

“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”

Google AI tells us this quote is often attributed to Voltaire. The original French phrase is “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien,” which translates to “The best is the enemy of the good”.

Why is this quote important? Voltaire used this phrase to encourage people to take practical steps toward improvement, rather than getting stuck chasing perfection.

I think what he meant is that if our aim from the outset is perfection, we may hesitate to even start. Perhaps we’ll abandon our efforts because we can never be good enough. But if we let this happen, if we allow our resolve to be undermined by doubts or feeling that the project dwarfs our puny abilities, we can never progress.

So what if all we can do is our best? Or not even our very best, but something? Surely having a goal in mind and doing what we can do with who we are in our circumstances still takes us down the road towards our goal.

This is very good advice, to be sure. And it’s not the only form in which the idea of moving forward and not simply giving up or procrastinating has been stated. You may have heard of the “if you can’t do everything” fallacy. Google tells us this is a logical fallacy where someone argues that because a solution isn’t perfect or doesn’t address every aspect of a problem, it should be completely disregarded, essentially rejecting any action at all, even if it provides some positive impact; it’s a form of the “Nirvana fallacy.”

OK, so we have pretty good advice that encourages us to go forward rather than giving up or settling for the worst. How does this relate to veganism? Well, I think it sets the tone for how we can apply vegan ethics in our everyday lives, as well as defending against those detractors and bullies who try to undermine our resolve to do better.

Veganism at heart wants us to be fair to other animals when we can do that. Its goals are simple – other animals should be free whenever possible and we should choose not to be cruel to them by our actions.

How we go about this is up to each of us. What counts is believing other animals have an inherent value that demands a duty of fairness from us. If we are honest in that belief, we’ll do what we can to make the best choices we can. Even when they aren’t the most perfect choices. And we are all free to keep on refining the choices we make and finding even better ways to do what we can to make a fairer world for other animals.

Finally, don’t let the bullies get you down. When you hear someone telling you that you are a hypocrite or a failure because you still use a computer, or drive a motor vehicle, or rely on medicines tested on animals, ignore them. What they want is for you to give up, and THAT Voltaire would never have wanted us to do.

Doing something positive is always better than doing nothing.