Vegan Practically

Really I don’t need to invite you to be imperfect. We are all already imperfect in so many ways. A frequent rejoinder these days is “don’t be so hard on yourself.” Few people are harder on themselves (or frankly on others), than people who have strong ethical convictions that they sometimes fail to live up to. This includes, but is by no means limited, to people who try to make food choices guided by ethical considerations or principles such as compassion for others, the desire to minimize harm and suffering, or concern for the planet and for future generations.

Yes, I had a lament the other day about how challenging it can be to go out for a meal with others. But my whole purpose when I started the blog was to say, “hey, I’m vegan and sometimes I am not perfect at it. If you’ve been thinking about taking a step in that direction but it feels too hard, let me encourage you and reassure you that it’s not as hard as many people imagine it to be.” Maybe it would be more accurate to say that it’s sometimes challenging but on balance more do-able than you might think.

I am not setting out to convert people who have never considered why certain food choices might have ethical implications to start caring — though of course that would be great and over time I do believe that it is going to become harder and harder not to care. And that won’t be just because of my efforts, but because as more and more people take a curious interest, we may reach a point where caring is more normal than compartmentalizing off any ethical or environmental concerns.

A friend the other day said the post about dining with others confirmed her own experience. She recounted stories of palpable anger at her choice to be vegetarian. And noted, as I too have experienced, the sense of relief people often express when she admits to being a “cheater vegan.” I urge the language of imperfection over the language of cheating, but it comes to the same thing in this context.

The relief-response she senses in others is, I think, because being a “cheater vegan” or an “imperfect vegan” somehow injects a human element and is less threatening. A person who allows that they are not perfect immediately becomes more relatable, more approachable, and more tolerable. As philosopher Susan Wolf suggests in her paper “Moral Saints,” being a moral saint is no fun, and being around a moral saint is no fun. And that’s the reputation vegans have: as un-fun buzz-killers ready to throw a wet blanket on the lip-smacking food-fest. Another friend (who doesn’t claim to be vegan but does have something of an ethical approach to her choices) said, “I care until someone presents me with a plate of wings–then all bets are off.”

Now, of course there is a limit to how imperfect we can be while still considering ourselves to be vegan. But there is a difference between a vegan who is imperfect and a vegetarian who typically thinks of dairy and eggs as a regular part of their vegetarian diet. The difference is in their practice of the ethical principles that guide their choices. Early on in my studies of philosophy, probably when I read Aristotle as an undergrad, I started to think of actions as conclusions of practical reasoning. In other words, if I believe X and Y and Z, then the logical conclusion of those beliefs is this action or set of actions.

So if I believe factory farming causes immense and unnecessary animal suffering, and I believe that if enough people took a stand against it that would change, and if I believe that part of taking a stand against it means not eating or using animal products, then the logical conclusion of those beliefs is choosing, in my actions, not to eat or use animal products. [I’m not saying the argument is actually this simple, but you get the gist]

The practical reasoning of a vegan concludes with actions that follow from the reasons in support of being vegan. What about a “cheater” vegan or an “imperfect” vegan, who falters in their practice? They falter not because they reject the reasoning but because, understanding their actions as the conclusions, they sometimes get the “conclusion” wrong. They are not vegetarians who, presumably, have reasons that do not lead them to the same “conclusions” (i.e. actions). In other words, vegans, even imperfect vegans, are guided by reasons that support veganism even when they waver in their follow-through. Vegetarians who make the same choices don’t consider themselves to be faltering.

As someone who believes there are good reasons (which I have not yet blogged about in any detail) for being vegan, I think being a sometimes-imperfect vegan is a stronger position than being an always-vegetarian. If more people adopted a less rigid version of this ethical practice, it would be good for the non-human animals and good for the planet.

So I invite you to aim for a target that seems to you difficult (or impossible) to meet, based on where you are today, accepting from the get-go that, being human, you’ll fall short at least sometimes. There are different ways to be imperfect, for course. And I often think about whether, knowing we’re going to be imperfect sometimes, it makes sense to be able to choose when that will be (for example: vegan except for really tempting baked goods or vegan except for breakfast at a diner or vegan except for mum’s trifle at Christmas time). In some ways it makes sense to choose wisely if you’re going to misstep. But at the same time, it seems as if ethical imperfection is something that happens to us, not something we conveniently choose when something is too yummy to turn down.

That’s a detail for another day–whether it makes sense to choose our imperfection with delicious precision. But it’s not as if I made this up. People often attribute to Voltaire some version of “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” If the thought of being perfect is a hindrance to the possibility of aiming for better, then how about setting a target not quite as high?