One of the most fundamentally flawed arguments I constantly see repeated is the idea that food is somehow exempt from morality. In no other context, in this community or in any other group concerned with morality and social justice, would the idea that all decisions, regardless of how much or how little harm they cause, are just “personal choices” and therefore morally equivalent. I cannot think of a single other moral issue where otherwise socially conscious people will happily maintain that one choice is as good as any other, and that people shouldn’t try to change each other’s behaviour, no matter how immoral or harmful that behaviour might be.
If your choices require unnecessary exploitation and death, environmental destruction, species extinction and unfair resource usage, then those decisions, assuming the are freely made, are open to moral critique. This should not be a controversial statement, and in any other context it wouldn’t be. So why is it that as soon as animal rights are mentioned, suddenly everyone is a moral nihilist who believes that morality is completely subjective and we should all do whatever we want and allow others to do the same? How did we get to a point where otherwise moral people who claim to be animal lovers point blank refuse to apply basic moral reasoning to their decisions to use and consume animals? Why are animal products so special and so sacred, that their use and consumption is completely exempt from our value system?
While there is no way of living which is completely free of harm, if a person has the option to reduce the amount of harm their lifestyle causes, to animals, to other humans and to the planet, and yet they actively choose not to, that decision is open to criticism. If an action causes harm there can be no justification for refusing to morally assess that action. There is absolutely no good reason why food choices, alone among all the decisions we make, should be somehow exempt from basic morality and ethics.
