Humans treat animals as things that exist as means to human ends. That's morally wrong. Sexism promotes the idea that women are things that exist as means to the ends of men. That's morally wrong. We need to stop treating all persons - whether human or nonhuman - as things.
Veganism is not a "sacrifice." It is a joy.
Animal rights without veganism is like human rights with slavery. It makes no sense. None whatsoever.
You don't have to love animals to recognize that it is immoral and unjust to exploit them. But if you do love animals, but you continue to participate in their exploitation, you need to rethink your idea of what love means.
We do not need to eat animals, wear animals, or use animals for entertainment purposes, and our only defense of these uses is our pleasure, amusement, and convenience.
Veganism is the application of the principle of abolition in your own life; it represents your recognition that animals are not things. Veganism is the recognition of the moral personhood of nonhuman animals.
People need to be educated so that they can make intelligent moral choices
Any serious social, political, and economic change must include veganism.
...eating animals involves an intentional decision to participate in the suffering and death of nonhumans where there is no plausible moral justification.
It's really not rocket science. If animals are not mere things; if they have moral value, we cannot justify eating, wearing, or using them particularly when we have no better reason than palate pleasure or fashion. If you are eating, wearing, or using animals, then your actions say that you regard them as mere things, despite what your words say.
If you care about animals, there is one and only one choice: go vegan. Can you choose not to be vegan? Sure. You can choose not to care.
They are nonhuman persons. They are not food. If animals matter morally at all, there is one and only one rational response: go vegan. Everything else is just participation in animal exploitation.
To say that a being who is sentient has no interest in continuing to live is like saying that a being with eyes has no interest in continuing to see. Death—however “humane”—is a harm for humans and nonhumans alike.
There is no moral distinction between fur and other materials made from animals, such as leather, which also is the result of the suffering and death of sentient beings.
Speciesism is morally objectionable because, like racism, sexism, and heterosexism, it links personhood with an irrelevant criterion. Those who reject speciesism are committed to rejecting racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of discrimination as well.
Ethical veganism results in a profound revolution within the individual; a complete rejection of the paradigm of oppression and violence that she has been taught from childhood to accept as the natural order. It changes her life and the lives of those with whom she shares this vision of nonviolence. Ethical veganism is anything but passive; on the contrary, it is the active refusal to cooperate with injustice
If you claim to 'love' animals but you eat animal products, you need to think critically about how you understand love.
The distinction between meat and other animal products is total nonsense. Vegetarianism is a morally incoherent position. If you regard animals as members of the moral community, you really don’t have a choice but to go vegan.
People say that being a vegan creates a social problem in that others may react negatively. But isnt that the case if you take a principled position on any issue, whether its racism, sexism, heterosexism, violence as a general matter—or speciesism? The key is to educate others about *why* you take the position.
Veganism must be the baseline if we are to have any hope of shifting the paradigm away from animals as things and toward animals as nonhuman persons.
Forty-two years after Dr. King was murdered, we are still a nation of inequality. People of color, women, gays, lesbians, and others are still treated as second-class citizens. Yes, things have changed but we have still not achieved equality among all humans. And nonhuman animals continue to be chattel property without any inherent value.
Does veganism require a “sacrifice”? Yes. It requires that you give up that which you never had any right to in the first place.
It costs us so little to go vegan. It costs animals so much if we don't.
We are vegans not simply because being vegan will reduce suffering. We are vegan because every sentient being values her or his life even if no one else does. We are vegan because justice minimally requires that we not take life for trivial purposes.
There is no 'need' for us to eat meat, dairy or eggs. Indeed, these foods are increasingly linked to various human diseases and animal agriculture is an environmental disaster for the planet.
