Types of Vegan
There are a lot of accusations of Vegans being close-minded and dogmatic, as if to imply that Vegan is a sort of quasi-religion where everyone thinks the same thing. Little do these folks know, Vegans disagree on everything. Whether it's oysters, palm oil, honey, best means of activism, ethical philosophy, dietary preferences, what the science even says, etc. Vegans are bickering with each other all the time that it arguably even gets in the way of us doing animal-activism. Finding two Vegans who agree on every relevant issue is a tall order, and these are typically only found between people who already share the same mindset and approach. Needless to say, Vegans come from all different backgrounds and viewpoints, and all view Veganism differently from each other.
Like with our list of Anti-Vegans, this is more meant as a summary of the various types of Vegans that are out there, and isn't trying to pigeonhole anybody; This article serves to give you an idea of the different Vegans that exist, and what their general viewpoints are.
Contents
The Consequentialist
AKA the Cool Vegans 😎
For the unitiated, consequentialism is an ethical school that believes that the consequences of an ethical action are the deciding factor in whether or not it's ethical. Within consequentialism are various schools within it, and while we're not going to discuss ALL of them here, the ones you need to know about are Utilitarianism and Altruism. There's also "Egoism" but that's a complete joke so let's just talk about those other two.
It's fair to assume that most Vegans are consequentialist in one way or the other to various extents, though they still may have some confliciting deontological (opposite of consequentialism) views.
While we here at Philosophical Vegan are all committed consequentialists and will always examine the available evidence and information in order to make the best moral desicions in different situations, while most Vegans share this thinking, they may not be entirely consistent with it.
Consequentialists come in all different types, but the overwhelming majority of consequentialist Vegans are either altruists or utilitarians.
When we understand that things like murder or rape are wrong, or in more extreme examples, the Holocaust and slavery, it isn't hard to piece together other things that are unethical. If we're angry about humans or animals we like (dogs and cats) suffering, why shouldn't we pay any mind to the other animals? Cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, fish, goats, turkeys? From a consequentialist perspective, causing suffering or violating preferences is wrong, and not giving money to these industries reduces suffering, and does not violate the preferences of animals. People in general understand this in one way or the other, but Vegans are the ones who put it into practice.
That does not necessarily mean they've really delved that deeply into studying moral philosophy (they're likely only particularly familiar with the basic principles of Utilitarianism, which is an intuitive and mostly sound ethical school), they know enough about it to understand that what is done to animals in the meat, dairy, and egg industries is nothing but cruel, and if we want to be consistent with our values and genuinely be good people, we can not contribute to such an obvious source of suffering. We all pride ourselves on being socially aware and supporting progressive social movement, and that's great and all, but the lip-service provided to these matters are of very little consequence. Going Vegan and saving thousands of animal lives and reducing carbon emissions? That's something of much greater consequence.
The Deontologist
And here we have the folks who are opposite of consequentialists, the deontologists.
Deontology is a complex subject and we're just going to provide a crash course of it here, but the principle idea behind it is, actions are wrong in and of themselves, regardless of consequences. For instance, Immanuel Kant, the founder of the ethical school, argued that lying is always wrong, even if it's to a murderer asking where his victim is. Yep.
It creates a nice convienent (and arbitrary) list of things that are bad, such as lying, stealing, killing, and while that seems fair on paper, the issue arises when it fails to evaluate the harms done by each; A deontologist asserts that all of these negative actions are equally bad. Lying to save someone's life is just as bad as stealing medicine from a 89 year old woman.
So, a deontological Vegan would assert that using animals is wrong, no matter the scenario.
The Misanthrope
These ones are really just more cringe than anything else.
As activists, we are completely sympathetic to the frustration you feel when you see your fellow human beings who are SUPPOSED to be intelligent and understanding, trot out idiotic and ignorant arguments so they can justify to themselves consuming animal products, something that has no place in the modern age.
Where these guys go wrong however, is when they completely give up on humans and don't have faith anymore in even helping the animal rights movement, as what happened with Gary Yourofsky. Better that humans all be dead than even be Vegan. When people eat meat, 99% of the time it isn't done out of malice, it's done out of either habit since childhood, or apathy. No one likes the fact that animals need to die for it.
The main problem with this type of thinking is that it lacks nuance. Humans are not the evil, cruel, heartless monsters that they make them out to be. Most humans are not bad, they are otherwise decent people just doing a bad thing, and admitting to yourself that you're doing a bad thing is a challenge, even for the best of us, and the fact that we understand our flaws shows that we understand that there's a problem, and we've since developed technologies that address the problems with our current methods of conduct.
If you're just going to give up on humans being good because you think we're a lost cause since we're too selfish, how would that NOT be ignoring all the other battles for justice that have been won? The battles that have been fought in the name of anti-Slavery, civil rights, anti-poverty, medicine, technology, science, humanitarianism, democracy, human rights and a million other things? Most people DO care about animals (which is why they get defensive when the immorality of meat-consumption is brought up), they just don't feel as though it's something they can do.
Really though, the only reason humans are more destructive than animals is because we are the only ones capable of being so. If other animals were able to use language and develop technology, they'd very likely being doing the same shit we're doing. If it weren't for humans, some other species would have come along to bring desutruction and fuck the environment. At least humans have shown themselves able to improve, as things have been over the past few hundred years, technologically, socially, and morally. Sure, there are terrible things happening to other humans done by other humans even right now, but you may be interested in knowing that violent crimes, war, and abuse have been steadily declining since World War 2, and it's important to keep in mind that most of the cruelty against humans is being done is carried out by a fairly small minority of people.
From an environmentalist perspective, we can easily support our current population and thensome easily with modern technology (nuclear power, genetic modification) as well as moving towards sustainable policies, so the idea that humanity can only thrive when abusing the rest of the planet is just objectively incorrect. In fact, we'd thrive MORE if we didn't rely on destroying the environment, since ecomoderinst technology is not only more efficient, but also since the primary harms of things like climate change are pretty much going to be on humans (if you're a misanthrope, you should cheer on climate change since it'll kill a LOT of people).
For much of our history, we never really had a major negative effect on the environment anyway, and it only really happened when the Industrial Revolution started since we really didn't know any better. Now we do know better, and although progress may be alarmingly slow, it isn't like zero steps are being taken.
The Leftist
Leftists either tend to reject Veganism (as explained in the corresponding section of our Types of Anti-Vegan article), or embrance it either out of wanting to be more consistent with their left-wing values, or think that Veganism is some sort of stance against capitalism.
We will say this as many times as need be: Veganism is NOT a political ideology, nor does it have anything to do with being a stance against capitalism. If you want to be a leftist AND a vegan fine whatever, but PLEASE do not make it out as if you HAVE to be a leftist if you want to be a "true" Vegan (otherwise, you're just plant-based or whatever bullshit pejorative they've come up with, even if you are literally paying for zero animals to be abused).
Political polarization is already a big enough problem, and we're already concerned about Veganism being viewed as a symptom of the "Woke" crowd. We want EVERYONE to go Vegan, regardless of their political affiliations. When you make it this thing that only leftists can do properly, you're cutting off the overwhelming majority of society from doing this (Hmmm, not sure how that helps animals all that much).
It's one thing for a leftist to be Vegan since they understand it's rather hypocritical to be oppressing other sentient beings and releasing greenhouse gas emissions needlessly, when your whole ideology is about fighting oppression and ensuring the well-being of the environment (in the same way a Libertarian may feel hypocritical by denying the freedom of animals and violating their respective rights), it's something completely different to then attempt to coopt what Veganism is really about and attempt to shoehorn it into whatever ideology you like and try to claim it for your own.
While it's possible and has many examples of happening with other ideologies trying to claim Veganism for themselves, it seems to be most common amongst leftists (especially since Veganism is widely understood to be better for the environment, a value supported by them).
To those we are criticising here: Veganism isn't about YOUR political goals; It's about relieving the suffering of billions of animals, and you don't need to abolish capitalism to do that. While it MAY be true that animals are treated worse when there's a profit incentive, that doesn't change the fact that regardless of what system we're under, people are going to want to eat meat. Animal agriculture is not going to magically disappear if we institute anarcho-communism or (insert leftist ideology here) When there's a high demand and a need to keep up with that it, corners will be cut.
If anything, capitalism might be one off the best chances we have of achieving a vegan world. By encouraging the production of Vegan alternatives, companies will have an incentive to transition their product lines to ones that require no animal to suffer and die. Oh wait, but these jack offs also oppose buying Vegan products from otherwise non-Vegan companies (something they label as "Plant-based Capitalism," a term so fucking idiotic I physically recoiled in pain just typing it). Fucking hell.
Which is worse? The leftist who can't accept that they're hypocrites for eating meat and will shield themselves under any excuse that's tantamount to "Capitalism fault no me", or the leftist who is hurting more animals by trying to conflate their ideology with Veganism? We don't know.
The Bleeding Heart
While the criticism by many carnists that Vegans are just crybabies who are overly sensitive about animals dying is almost always wrong, a fair few of Vegans do fall under this category. We are all affected by our emotions more than our reason, however some take it too far and base all their positions on emotion alone.
These ones have a tenuous understanding of ethics at best, and just go Vegan out of emotional reaction to seeing how horrible slaughterhouses are They won't understand why something is wrong, just that it feels wrong. They are unfamiliar with the principles of consequentialism, and are often unwitting deontologists.
They tend to falter when someone challenges them on ethics (they won't have their minds changed usually since emotion overtakes reason for them, at least not right away). And usually, they're on the younger side as well, often in their teens to early 20s, during a time when emotion and rebellion are more prominent. More often than not, the spark will burn out and they'll eventually go back to eating meat within a few years or possibly even months.
Contrary to popular belief, it is not necessary at all that, in order for you to be an ethical vegan, you have to be an animal lover, or at the very least care a little about them. While that would certainly help, there is no need to care even a little bit about animals in order to stop eating them (You probably know nothing about the guy who lives down the street and will never care about him, but would you feel comfortable being responsible for his death?). All that's necessary is to have an understanding of ethics, that animals are sentient beings that do not want to suffer, and by supporting the meat, dairy, and egg industries, you are making them suffer.
The Overly-Squeamish
Similar in terms of their emotionality to the Bleeding Hearts, though differing in that it's more about physical disgust rather than moral. Consequentially, they also have a dubious grasp on morality if any (probably even worse than the Bleeding Hearts). It should be noted however that BH Vegans may also use gross-out appeal as part of their argumentation, though that isn't their core motivation.
Basically the only reason why they won't eat animal products is because they think they're gross. They may use lines such as "Eggs are chicken periods," "Milk has pus," "Honey is vomit," or "Shit in meat."
While mutilated body parts are decidedly gross by the vast majority of people, this isn't morally or usually even healthfully relevant since grossness is completely subjective.
You are unlikely to find them doing any discussions or forms of activism since they see it as a personal issue rather than an ethical one, so while they may not be that harmful to the movement, they aren't really helpful either.
The Fruitarian
This is someone who pretty much makes the same fallacy as the Carnivore dieter, just in the opposite direction.
We need a variety of foods in our lives if we want to live long, healthy lives and fulfil all of our daily nutritional requirements. While fruits are fine to have in your diet and contain their share of nutrients, they should at most only be a small part of your diet. Your diet should primarily consist of vegetables, legumes, nuts, and grains.
The Fruitarian makes an appeal to nature fallacy of saying humans are "frugivores" (which is objectively incorrect), and we can survive only on fruits like many of our primate cousins, while ignoring the fact that many great apes have been observed consuming meat, and that, you know, we aren't chimpanzees either.
If you want to be a good representative of Veganism, you should try to be as healthful as possible. If your diet only consists of fruits, you're going to be severely deficient in many nutrients, especially protein, but also many of the B vitamins, calcium, zinc, and iron.
The Identity Vegan
The Health Vegan
These ones may be otherwise easy going or absolutely insufferable. We are going to be covering the latter here, mainly because it's more entertaining.
The Vegan Purist
Similar to the Leftist Vegan and the Deontologist, these ones also do more harm than good for the movement, just without any political ideology shoehorned into it.
They tend to condemn things such as people going Vegan for health reasons, advocating reducitarianism, buying Vegan products from non-Vegan companies (similar to the Leftist, but not from an anti-capitalist perspective), eating Freegan meat, animal welfare legislation, not having any problem with oysters, or in-Vitro meat.
I think it's obvious how problematic this is. Veganism already is seen as a somewhat fringe lifestyle by a large piece of society, so when we come across as uncompromising and hard-headed, all that does is push people away from the movement. Veganism is more of an ideology rather than something we do because we care about animals, and it'll make people feel more comfortable eating meat when they think that Veganism is just some weird cult-like religion with sacred truths that mustn't be questioned (despite the fact that as we've said elsewhere Vegans disagree on fucking everything).
