The reason for not consuming animal products, regardless of the magnitude of the impact, is that doing so would be a betrayal: a betrayal of the animal who had to endure physical and mental pain, or whose life was untimely ended, for making said ‘product’. Eating the product of such suffering does not harm the animal in any direct way, but it does break the respect that we have for what the animal was, what she went through. Partaking in the product of the animal’s misery amounts to denying that her suffering and life mattered, even if they are no longer there.
SILVIA CAPRIOGLIO PANIZZA: One of the most common, and most obvious, reasons for ethical veganism is to save animal lives and reduce suffering. This reason is based on broadly consequentialist thinking: animal consumption causes suffering and death; reducing the demand will reduce the number of animals bred and raised for exploitation and slaughter. There are well known intermediaries along this causal chain, as the great majority of consumers of animal products rely on others to bring the animal, their parts of products, to their table. On a large market, this means that a single vegan will make a very small difference to the scale of production. Vegans therefore rely on a critical mass, actual and hoped for, to achieve the practical outcome of reducing suffering and death.
Even just one animal spared (meaning not brought into the world to be used and killed throughout her short life) is a significant achievement, for each animal brought into the world in this way loses everything.But there are cases in which even the contribution of a larger group cannot achieve this aim, and these are the situations in which justifications for a vegan diet – for it is still and typically the case that it is the vegan who is called to justify her practice, presumably because of her divergence from the norm – take a different and not fully explored – turn. These are situations in which whether one consumes or not the steak, cheese, or egg in question will not have any impact whatsoever on the production or any existing animal…
One answer can be that refusing to eat animal products, even without any expected short-term consequence for the animal, can signal to others the existence of a different way of living alongside animals, one where we do not consider them and the products of their bodies, something to eat. It can also have the practical effect of a protest, to show others that not everyone considers widespread consumer practices to be just ‘the norm’. This may be true, and it may, in some cases, achieve the desired effect, perhaps even increasing the number of vegans…
One possible way to explain the reasons for sticking to vegan practices in cases where they make little or no material difference is appeal to virtue… While virtues are traits that belong to us, they are based on patterns of behaviour, feeling, and thinking that are good for something in the world. What is the integrity of the vegan, in this case, based on?
I want to suggest a reason for not taking part in the consumption of animals which, besides explaining these marginal cases, extends further and in fact contributes to the larger reason for veganism as such. The reason for not consuming animal products, regardless of the magnitude of the impact, is that doing so would be a betrayal: a betrayal of the animal who had to endure physical and mental pain, or whose life was untimely ended, for making said ‘product’.
Now the concept of betrayal is more typically invoked in relation to trust, as Steven Cooke does in arguing that we betray animals by establishing a relationship with them and then leading them to slaughter. That kind of betrayal is based upon mutuality, on a trust that is built together and then broken by one party. The betrayal I have in mind requires no mutual relationship. And yet I still want to claim both that it is a betrayal, and that it is a betrayal not so much of ourselves but of them–of her, or him, of that specific individual, or group of individuals, whose lives ended in the production of this piece of cheese. The concept holds even though in such cases we normally do not know these individuals in their particularity…
Betrayal requires the sense of a bond that can be broken, and something for that bond to rest on. In this case, I want to suggest that the bond that the vegan individual in question has with the animal lies on her knowledge of what was done to the animal, her recognition of the fact that the animal’s life, which was taken, and the animal’s suffering matter, and hence a sense of respect for that animal, her life and struggles and her end. Eating the product of such suffering does not harm the animal in any direct way, but it does break the respect that we have for what the animal was, what she went through. Partaking in the product of the animal’s misery amounts to denying that her suffering and life mattered, even if they are no longer there.
Regardless of the consequences, eating an ‘animal product’ means participating in a specific practice. In this case, it is a practice – no matter how widespread – that, on the one hand, routinely causes suffering and death to animals, and on the other, is grounded on an implicit denial of the intrinsic value of the animal’s lives and of the relative importance of the quality of their experience compared to largely less severe human experiences. Hence, participating in this practice means implicitly assenting to both. That is why it counts as a betrayal of the animal’s life and suffering, even without material consequences. SOURCE…
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