Ethical Veganism, Virtue Ethics, and the Great Soul

Millions of animals are brought into existence and raised for food every year. This has generated three serious problems: first, intensive animal farming is one of the leading causes of environmental degradation. Farming livestock contributes to a large amount of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere each year; it contributes to land and water degradation, biodiversity loss, coral reef degeneration, and deforestation. Second, raising animals for food causes millions of animals to suffer and be killed. And third, consumption of meat and animal products is linked with heart disease, diabetes, and various cancers. Consequently, a global change in the way that animals are treated is imperative.

Many moral philosophers have suggested a move toward vegetarianism. But vegetarianism, unfortunately, still relies on raising animals for food, and does not avoid the deleterious effects of animal products on human health. The right solution is ethical veganism, which is the avoidance of all animal products and by-products. Some moral philosophers have framed ethical veganism in terms of animals having the same fundamental rights as humans, a notion that is highly controversial. In any case, the view that animals have rights is not capable of generating the moral duty to embrace ethical veganism.

The answer is to adopt a virtue-oriented approach to the treatment of animals because the acquisition of virtues, such as compassion, magnanimity, temperance, and fairness enable people to see that raising and using animals for food is unfair, callous, and self-indulgent.