Veganism is a slippery slope

“Okay so you’re vegan, but what next and where do you stop? Are you just going to end up becoming a Jain monk and avoid all harm to living beings up in the mountains somewhere?”

My friend brought this argument up, and at first I thought it fit into my discussion on the perfectionist fallacy, the idea that being vegan is meaningless if I can’t be perfectly harm-free. He’s actually pointing out a different concern which is the idea that one step towards reducing harm will inevitably lead to extreme and impractical measures.

Where do I draw the line, and why would I draw it there rather than going further to prevent more harm? If there’s no clear stopping point, is there any reason to reduce harm at all? Why bother moving my baseline? I might as well just go back to eating meat!

Let me check out if this could help me not be vegan!

Slip ‘n’ Slide

This is the Slippery Slope Fallacy, which claims that one reasonable step will inevitably lead to a chain of increasingly extreme ones, without explaining why each step has to follow the last.

Drawing a line

Before I’d even heard of veganism, I already had lines I’d subconsciously drawn. I didn’t kick dogs or cats for fun. I think almost everyone draws that same line against animal cruelty, and it doesn’t normally end up with us becoming Jain monks. Drawing a line isn’t the problem. Everyone does it. The question is just where it makes sense to draw it.

My old lines came from learned behaviour and my upbringing, without much critical thought. I was hoping my vegan line was the same, because then I could just unlearn it. But every time I tried to argue my way back to meat, the steps and every argument I’ve tried kept sending me back to the same place.

“As Far as Is Possible and Practicable”

Okay, but surely veganism itself wants me to keep sliding? Let me check the Vegan Society’s definition of veganism.

It calls for avoiding animal exploitation and cruelty “as far as is possible and practicable”. So it already has a stopping point built in. It doesn’t demand perfection, just that I avoid harm as much as I reasonably can.

And 99% of the time, the only things I have to change are about what I eat, which is something I have direct control over. For example, it’s not hard for me to:

• Choose tofu over chicken at the store
• Take B12 regularly and eat more whole plant foods than I used to
• Check restaurant menus for vegan options
• Let friends and family know ahead of family gatherings, so they can accommodate my dietary choices, or bring my own vegan dishes to share

I was kind of hoping these would be harder. They’re pretty reasonable steps (for me personally), even in a non-vegan world, and they clearly reduce harm to animals.

Jain reaction

If veganism was as extreme as becoming a Jain monk, then I could dismiss it as impractical and not worry about it.

But veganism turns out to be the lowest-cost way to reduce suffering for animals, and it’s better for the environment too. I can essentially live the same life I did before, just with a few mindful changes to my diet and lifestyle.

Anything beyond that gets increasingly difficult and impractical, with diminishing returns in terms of harm reduction. My friend is right that I could go further, all the way to Jain monk. But that’s a massive sacrifice for a lot less extra benefit, and unrealistic for most people. Veganism is nowhere near that end of the slope.

So if I went back to meat now, wouldn’t I just be knowingly causing harm to animals that I could easily avoid?

So, Where Does It End?

For me, it ends somewhere pretty normal. I eat beans and tofu instead of chicken, and I still live a regular life.

Stopping one clear harm doesn’t commit me to an extreme. It just means I took one step I can’t really argue my way back out of. And trust me, I’ve tried.