Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Deontological Constraints on Animal Products, published by emre kaplan on April 9, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.

Introduction

There is a memetically powerful argument within animal advocacy circles which goes like the following: "We would never ask child abusers to commit less child abuse, so we can't ask other people to reduce their animal product consumption. We must ask them to end it."

In this post I try to construct and evaluate a part of this argument. First, I explain my motivation for evaluating the strength of this argument. Second, I note that it's morally permissible to ask for reductions in some kinds of wrongdoings and list different ways animal production consumption can be morally wrong. I create the category of "non-negotiably wrong" to refer to actions that can't be asked to be reduced.

Third, I look into whether animal product use might be non-negotiably wrong by listing several deontological constraints that might be non-negotiable.

A Venn Diagram summarising results

I don't have any strong conclusions. I aim to reduce my own confusion and get more input from professional moral philosophers on this topic through this post. I'm also not sure if I should keep writing such posts, so if this post is helpful to you in any way, please let me know.

Many thanks to Michael St. Jules and Bob Fischer for their helpful feedback. All errors are my own.

Motivation

Some animal advocates argue for the following positions because they believe people have a non-negotiable duty to avoid consuming animal products:

Only vegans can speak at animal advocacy events

Only vegans can be members of animal advocacy organisations

Non-vegans shouldn't join animal advocacy protests

All animal advocacy organisations have a responsibility to prominently advocate for veganism because it's the main obligation to animals

It's morally forbidden to use the following sentences because they condone some animal product use or don't explicitly reject all animal product use:

Go vegetarian.

Meat should be taxed.

Our school should have Meatless Mondays.

Costco should go cage-free.

The default school meals at Grenoble should be vegetarian.

The public schools in New York City should serve exclusively plant-based food on Fridays.

Take the vegan-22 challenge, go vegan for 22 days.

Maybe you should try going plant-based except for cheese.

According to this line of argument, animal product use is not merely harmful(akin to carbon emissions) but also violation of a very strong moral constraint(akin to direct physical violence or owning slaves). It is non-negotiably wrong. For that reason, including non-vegans in animal advocacy is similar to including slave-owners in anti-slavery advocacy. Asking for a reduction in animal product use is akin to asking for a reduction in physical violence("don't beat your wife in January").

To clarify, as it is the case with many issues, there is a spectrum of opinions here. Some people will endorse some of the positions above while rejecting others.

I have been sympathetic to these arguments when it comes to my own consumption. I'm very sympathetic to the idea that since animals are not well-represented, we're likely to have a bias against their interests. When animal interests and my own interests get into conflict, it makes sense for me to be extra cautious to compensate for my own bias. So I'm happy with being strict in avoiding animal products in clothing and food.

On the other hand, I also suspect being too restrictive in animal advocacy might result in more animals being killed and tortured compared to alternatives. Some reasons offered are the following:

There might be a Laffer curve to the behaviour change created by your demands. Being too demanding might result in less change than being moderately demanding. (Example: The New York City officials won...