Bad Arguments for veganism
Bad argument for veganism are harmful in several ways, partially by displacing good Arguments for veganism, and partially by directly making vegans look irrational or illogical, or even outright dishonest, which negatively influences intelligent non-vegans to reject or even oppose veganism.
See Seven Deadly Sins of Bad Vegan Activism for a more general outline (which goes beyond specific arguments) to bad vegan advocacy.
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NameTheTrait
Benatar's Asymmetry
Also Negative Utilitarianism.
Popular among Anti-natalists, this belief is that there is inherent negative value to life because pain has negative value but pleasure/happiness in short has either no value or inconsistent comparative positive value (such as the absence of pleasure not being bad, but the absence of pain being good) to make up for it.
My view is not merely that the odds favour a negative outcome, but that a negative outcome is guaranteed. The analogy I use is a procreational Russian Roulette in which all the chambers of the gun contain a live bullet. The basis for this claim is an important asymmetry between benefits and harms. The absence of harms is good even if there is nobody to enjoy that absence. However, the absence of a benefit is only bad if there is somebody who is deprived of that benefit. The upshot of this is that coming into existence has no advantages over never coming into existence, whereas never coming into existence has advantages over coming into existence. Thus so long as a life contains some harm, coming into existence is a net harm. -David Benatar[1]
While this argument logically leads to veganism, since the same is as true of non-human animals as humans, the assertion behind it is patently absurd and transparently ad hoc: that is, this supposed "asymmetry" was made up, not deduced, in order to support the beliefs of its advocates. Precisely the opposite can be just as easily asserted.
Beyond that, the implications of Anti-natalist beliefs are profoundly alienating to people (Which is throwing out the only real benefit of intuition based argument) and may even by dysgenic. See the page on Antinatalism for more details.
Conspiracy Theories
The most overt case of this goes something like, "There's a conspiracy to promote animal products" and implicitly, "therefore it's nefarious/used to control us for evil purposes and we should oppose it".
Beyond the most overt use, Conspiracy Theories are unfortunately very common within vegan arguments, and usually tie into Alt-Med beliefs or are used to defend pro-vegan pseudoscience, such as by cherry picking and rejecting all Industry funded studies.
Veganism is a credible mainstream practice, and it's supported to varying degrees by an assortment of professional Consensus statements from Academic, Governmental, and other scientific NGO sources.
While there is some reason to be concerned with conflicts of interest, such as in the USDA (which is NOT a conspiracy, it's a transparent case of bad policy and human bias), there is no need to appeal to pseudoscience to support veganism.
Conspiracy theories make us look loony, they're virtually Mathematically Impossible, and even if they were true they undermine far superior arguments which use appeal to credible authority on empirical matters -- like referencing Consensus. Just as much as an unfalsifiable conspiracy theory can support veganism, it can oppose it too, and abandoning mainstream evidence or holding obvious double standards (if it supports veganism it's true, if not it's a conspiracy) is not productive.
Gross-out arguments
For example: Eggs are chicken Periods, pus in milk, shit in meat.
Regardless of truth, something being subjectively disgusting does not make it objectively wrong. Arguments against homosexuality are a prime example (involving references to anal sex).
Another issue with this argument is that it works more short term; Many people, usually through cognitive dissonance (e.g. "It isn't that gross...") will just push the grossness factor out of their minds after a while, and eventually, will completely forget about it. It won't stick with them for as long as slaughterhouse footage, or compelling arguments from health, environment, and ethics.
While it's usually fine to use these arguments in a more casual setting where you're familiar with your audience, using these arguments in a discourse setting may make vegans seem childish and intellectually immature, since it really isn't that much different from playground children saying someone has "cooties." Using gross-out arguments in lieu of scientific and philosophically grounded ones is pretty ridiculous considering the opportunity cost.
However, gross-out arguments can sometimes be related to a good argument about Pathogens, since what is "dirty" is often dangerous in a public-health sense. Another compelling spin on this argument is describing the loss of taste for meat; Many Vegans report being disgusted by meat a while after quitting it, so adding that in an argument may help motivate people to go Vegan if they understand that the cravings for meat won't last forever.
Humans are Herbivores
Appeal to nature fallacy. Whether or not we were herbivores (we we herbivores and omnivores, and even mostly carnivorous at various points in our evolution depending on how far you go back) is not relevant to what we should do in terms of ethics. The relevant question is the harm vs. benefit of practices.
Thou Shalt Not Kill
And other simple misinterpretations of scripture.
Scriptural arguments are poor for anybody not part of the religion for which scripture is being used, but even if they are, misinterprting scripture is a short sighted one; all it takes is a simple Google search or a two minute conversation with a priest, pastor, rabbi, imam, or educated believer to reveal the mistake.
"Thou shalt not kill" for example, is better translated as "thou shalt not murder"; in many instances killing is commanded in the Bible, including of humans, as punishment for crime, in war, and in self defense, and different words are used for these. An engagement with this question is a nuanced discussion of blood guilt and the nature of sin against God. There are strong arguments from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic metaphysics (as well as other religions), but they're significantly harder to make than a one-line checkmate.
It can be argued that there is no truth in religion, and all thing scripture are subject to interpretation, but it should be obvious that there are practical limits to the plausibility of different interpretations, particularly when they come down more directly to translation and legal practice and lead less abstractly with the spirit of the text and religious ideals.
Meat Causes Osteoporosis
This argument is based on a now discredited hypothesis in nutritional science. Basically, when consuming meat, human blood becomes acidic, and calcium is urinated out after consumption. It was believed that the source of this calcium was from the bones (since at the time we didn't know calcium could come from other sources), and would thus lead to osteoporosis. However, we have since learned that the calcium that is excreted is from food, not the bones.
While this argument seems to have been compelling to many, those more familiar with the science won't be swayed by it. Vegans can be at risk for osteoporosis just as much as non-vegans if they lack calcium in their diet. There are other more compelling and science-based health arguments to make in favor of Veganism, and there isn't any shortage of them.
Animal Agriculture Causes World Hunger
This one is a bit tricky. When looking at the numbers and seeing that most of our crops such as soy and corn go to livestock instead of humans, intuitively, it does seem to be logical to conclude that animal agriculture is possibly the main cause of world hunger. However, the issue is a bit more nuanced than this.
Inarguably, feeding people with plant sources directly instead of animal products is far more efficient and sustainable (as indicated by thermodynamics), but just because we have all these crops doesn't mean that starving people will be automatically fed. Larger concerns about food security include fear-mongering around genetically modified organisms (many governments turn down foreign crops because they're genetically modified, which is a huge cause of hunger; So if you really care about food security, don't promote fear-mongering against GMOs). There is very likely merit to saying animal agriculture brings problems with food security, but saying it's the main cause is not accurate.
Of course, bringing up how we use all of these crops is important to add, and can easily show someone that it's possible to feed the world with plant sources.
