Philosophical Vegan Forum

I don't want to even dive into too much detail here, but rather just ask the overall question of whether most vegans rely on the theories of utilitarian ethics. As I get deeper into my tipping point of veganism I've been studying quite a bit of philosophy, between some older philosophers (Bentham, Mills, Locke, etc.) and some newer philosophers refined by our past (Michael Sandel, Peter Singer, etc.). It seems to me the more I read on this site, and the more books I read from Peter Singer, is that I see many references to things I've seen Singer say (which seems to directly be stemmed with the Bentham/Mills type of ideology). I feel I frequently see arguments from "least suffering" here. Maybe it is not all on this site, and I'm not trying to convey I completely disagree with this, but I wanted to know the majority moral theory being used for the debates here.

To put an example to bring it out to light, if killing one cow in front of a crowd of 100 people would ultimately cause those 100 people to stop eating cows out of understanding the suffering (let's say for this purpose they each eat 1 burger each month, and that's their 'cow consumption rate'), would you cause that one cow to suffer for the greater good of the larger population of cows?

From what I've noticed, the majority of our vegan forum members are consequentialists. I'm not sure if that's representative of the general vegan population though. Many vegans just have a feeling inside them that the meat and dairy industry are wrong and haven't given the issue any philosophical thought. I've also noticed that most vegans don't think much of Peter Singer, but that might be because he is not entirely vegan.

As for the cow; yes I would kill her.

Veganism isn't always based on rational ethics, since some people are vegan for health, or just personal aesthetic/emotional disagreement with harming animals.

In the case of ethical veganism, it may be based on deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics. Formulations of these may have varying degrees of rationality though.

Some people, believing that ALL of deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics support veganism, don't even decide between them. If it's true that every possible permutation of ethics supports veganism, you don't have to choose sides to recognize that whoever is right, it's still right to be vegan.

This isn't entirely accurate, though, because not all ethics are rational, and irrational ethics can come to all kinds of arbitrary conclusions.
ex falso quodlibet, "from a falsehood, anything follows"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion

Deontology, for example, has irrational premises, so it can be twisted to justify or defend anything arbitrarily.
I would recommend you read this thread: https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... ?f=7&t=785

Virtue ethics isn't really its own thing; it only seems to be because it's not entirely consistent in its framing or proponents. Sometimes it draws from deontology, sometimes it draws from consequentialism. Sometimes it tries to mix them. When it draws from deontology at all (even one drop), it's irrational (a poisoned well), when it draws from consequentialism entirely it's an excellent and insightful framework with a lot to offer ethical theory, but properly not its own domain, but a subset of consequentialism.

Which brings us to consequentialism: A broad field of ethical thought.
It means only that consequences (actual or probable or sometimes even just expected) are what imbue value at the core of ethical propositions.

Utilitarianism is only one branch (although the most popular) of consequentialism.
And even it breaks down into many, many subtle variations.

Then there are non-utilitarian formulations, from Altruism to Virtue ethics.

It would take some doing to go over them all, but all but the most deviant and wicked philosophers recognize that animal agriculture as it is broadly practiced today is morally wrong, and that veganism is a practical moral necessity today in the developed world (opinions on whether it may be possible to have sustainable and moral animal agriculture in the future vary).

It's much easier to talk about the very few consequentialist formulations -- those which are deviant and wicked -- which would not necessitate veganism today in the developed world.

One is that of the OOS crowd; the idea that humanity is inherently wicked, and that life is nothing but suffering, and life should be wiped from the planet.
Animal agriculture, as destructive as it is, would be one way to attempt that, significantly weakening humanity's chances of survival and increasing the chance of cataclysmic war.

Again, I must stress that these are wicked and deviant philosophies (which also don't stand up very well to empirical scrutiny).

All others which would be seen as anything resembling an ethics you would recognize, and that are rational, naturally advise veganism. Not just Utilitarianism, but Virtue ethics, Altruism, etc.

I hope that helps.