A Moral Misfire: The insect deaths argument against veganism
There’s a familiar critique that often poses as ethical concern when confronting the vegan message: 'Veganism is hypocritical — you avoid meat, but your vegetables still kill insects and bees.' When this critique is raised, it rarely stems from genuine concern for insects. Instead, it often functions as a defense mechanism to avoid confronting the violence embedded in animal agriculture. It’s a rhetorical sleight of hand: shift the focus from cows and pigs to aphids and pollinators, and suddenly the conversation feels less urgent, less personal.
ROLAND AZAR: There’s a familiar critique that often poses as ethical concern when confronting the vegan message: “Veganism is hypocritical — you avoid meat, but your vegetables still kill insects. Even bees die in the process. So what’s the point?” It’s a claim that resurfaces often — sometimes as a quick escape, sometimes as a rhetorical shield. But what does it actually mean? Is it a sincere ethical challenge, or a convenient deflection?
Does it conflate incidental harm with systemic exploitation — as if the unintended death of insects during crop harvesting were morally equivalent to breeding, confining, and slaughtering sentient beings? This article isn’t a defense of perfection. It’s a defense of intention — and a challenge to the logic that invokes insect deaths to justify the continued killing of animals who suffer, scream, and want to live.
When this critique is raised, it rarely stems from genuine concern for insects or bees. Instead, it often functions as a defense mechanism — a way to sidestep discomfort, to avoid confronting the violence embedded in animal agriculture. It’s a rhetorical sleight of hand: shift the focus from cows and pigs to aphids and pollinators, and suddenly the conversation feels less urgent, less personal.
But this shift isn’t neutral. It protects a system built on deliberate harm — one that breeds sentient beings into existence only to confine, exploit, and kill them. To equate that with the unintended consequences of crop harvesting is not just misleading — it’s morally incoherent…
So when someone says, “But insects die too,” we must ask: Are they truly advocating for insects and bees? Or are they using them as a moral loophole — a way to justify the continued exploitation of cows, pigs, chickens, and others?
This critique doesn’t dismantle vegan ethics. It reveals a discomfort with confronting the reality of animal suffering — and a reluctance to change… Veganism was never about claiming perfection. It’s about refusing unnecessary exploitation and violence in a world where harm is often woven into the fabric of survival — and masked by convenience. SOURCE…
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