Talk:Can One Vegan Consumer Make A Difference?

Relevant thread: Problem with utilitarian argument for veganism? --BrimstoneSaladWiki

Maybe name change to Why go Vegan? It's difficult because page ideas are going to start to overlap, so this could also fit into Staying Vegan i.e. avoiding rationalizations for wanting to eat meat or All the arguments against. The thread basically asking 'can one person be effective?' Is pretty limited to consequentialist concerns through an ethical consumer mindset. Other concerns like the loneliness of being one ethical person would fit pretty well into the Staying Vegan page.

In the advocacy section we can do a page on whether to promote the Ethical Consumer vs Boycott Mentality or somewhere in between.

Consequentialist

You can be the 100th person out of a group of 100 to tip the consumer balance. Maybe difficult motivation factor if you think you can cheat the slim odds to meaning anything.

Virtue

You don't want to be someone who puts dead animals who suffered in their mouth. Maybe difficult if you think going to a place where they only offer animal products is important to you developing your character in other areas of life.

Deontology

You have a duty to the animals you know suffered. Difficult if you think humans are morally thick values in that you don't think you should have to take time developing a duty to animals?

Not sure about that last one, Cora Diamond a vegetarian wrote a paper called Eating Meat, Eating People in response to Singer and anti-speciesist arguments. And I know for a lot of vegetarians in my life including family, they don't feel they have a duty to animal products not derived from slaughter because there is theoretically a way to get them without suffering, and it's a problem with the system that affects humans too.

Table of Contents

I think both consequentialism and deontology borrow from virtue ethics here and why we need to have a non-sub-categorised page to explain the distinct history and how it will continue to affect the vegan movement, it's clear the 'yuck factor' in virtue ethics helps individual consequentialists vote together, and helps deontologists want to care. You can still have a page on how Rule Based Consequentialism amalgamated the virtues if you don't like what you read about Virtue Ethics in general.