Is veganism enough?

[Graeme M]

I might be out of step with vegan thinking about this issue, but I don't think we need to worry to the Nth degree about every small transgression of the "no animal products" rule. You have probably all seen the vast range of uses to which bits of animals are put and to avoid use of any of these would make everyday life difficult to navigate. My view is that primarily we are avoiding uses that directly contribute to the exploiting and harming of animals. Woolen jackets, goose down fillings, beef sausages, these kinds of products directly lead to the problems we wish to prevent. But does some tiny proportion of an animal product consequent to the use of animals in a primary industry really matter? No-one is going to raise beef cattle purely to produce whatever small amount of animal oil is used to make LCD screens. Those sorts of applications are largely opportunistic ones; in the absence of animal oils, some alternative might be found. The way to prevent exploitation of farmed animals is to take away the primary demand, which is using them directly for food and fibre.

Neither a smart phone nor a woolen jumper is vegan in and of itself - they are just products. As someone who practices a vegan ethical way of living, it's your call how you judge your use of those things. Will eating a food fried on the same plate as a piece of steak blot your moral landscape? No, because it makes no difference to anything but your personal sensitivity. Of course, that may be good enough reason for you to make that choice. And that's what we have here as I see it. The morally consistent choice is to aim to act in ways that send a negative signal to animal harming industries. Worrying about every little thing you use or buy probably isn't doing that. Those concerns might affect your personal sensibilities though and then it's on you to decide how much you want that to influence your life, I guess.

 

[David3]

I thought it was common knowledge for vegans.

.
A common misconception, perhaps.