Veganism is an Aesthetic Choice

Most people think of the choice to be vegan as a rational/ethical decision. Whether it’s utilitarian, deontological, or some other ethical system, people weigh the evidence and decide to go vegan. They look at the treatment of animals, the possibility of animal suffering, the environmental impact of raising animals, and decide to stop eating and using animal products. This piece will not argue for or against veganism or vegetarianism; it will assume that arguments for veganism and vegetarianism are generally valid. I am concerned with why these valid arguments are so ineffective at turning people into vegans.

One idea that has been floated is that people are only interested in being morally average. The idea is that most people understand the moral problems around consuming animal products, but they do it anyway. The reason they do it is basically because everyone else is doing it. They don’t want to be moral exemplars; they want to stay in the middle of the pack.

This explanation is lacking. I understand the psychological pressure to fit in, which seems to be the basis of the morally average argument. Going vegan would make a person stick out in a way they think is worse than being less good. However, that is all too explicit. If you ask a person if they want to be good, no one says, “Yes, but not too good.” No one actually does a personal cost/benefit analysis before prioritizing animal welfare.

A more likely reason why good arguments don’t work is that good arguments alone almost never work to change a person’s mind on any topic. As David Hume said, “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.” Reason is secondary. There has to be a feeling before reason can be effective. No one can reason themselves into a feeling, at least not exactly.

I say “not exactly” because reason can affect feelings. That’s especially true when a person has no particular feelings about something. For instance, I care nothing about cars. They are nothing more than a way of getting from point A to point B. So, when I need to get a car, I look at it reasonably. I look at the price, the milage, the fuel efficiency, the safety, the reliability, etc. Then I buy whichever car balances those things best. I only develop a feeling for my car after I’ve bought it. If it meets all the criteria I used, I like it. If it fails to meet all the criteria, I dislike it.

Food is different than cars, though. It’s impossible to live without some feelings about food. Aside from food being necessary for survival, we all have our likes and dislikes. One of the most common getting-to-know-you questions out there is, “What do you like to eat?” Whatever a person likes or doesn’t like to eat, reason can find a way to justify it.

So, what primes people to reason their way into being a vegan? It’s those feelings. And where do those feelings come from? Well, they come from experiences, specifically aesthetic experiences.

Eating is an aesthetic experience. It is appreciating something perceived by the senses without regard to any function it may serve. This wasn’t always the case. There was a time when people ate for the calories. Taste didn’t matter very much. But now, in the developed world at least, most people have the luxury of enough calories and balanced nutrition. This is certainly now true for both vegetarians and vegans. Food has become something that we enjoy and savor. It’s about the flavors and texture, not just about survival. Vegetarians and vegans now have the option to satisfy their preferences, by avoiding meat and animal products in favour of protein alternatives.

There is another way aesthetics comes into play with what we eat. People care about, and they have feelings about, how they want to present themselves to the world. That means that people develop a personal aesthetic. Some people are goth, some people are punks, some people are emo, and some people are straight edge. In a sense, these people are putting on a show. They are telling the world how they want to be seen. This is true, to some extent, for everyone, even if the performance category for most people is normal. For many vegetarians and vegans, the choice to avoid meat is part of their identity. It’s how they present to the world.

This is why even the best possible arguments won’t turn most people away from meat. For the people who eat meat, it is delicious. Plus, it allows those people to present as normal. Some even go so far as to make their carnivorousness part of their identity. It is an aesthetic choice, not a reasoned one. So, no Kantian or utilitarian arguments will change their minds. Their actions are visceral, and thus need to be met with an appeal to emotion rather than reason.

If vegetarians and vegans want to convince people to join them, they need to start making aesthetic appeals. It can’t be about animal rights or global warming or factory farms – meat eaters have already heard these arguments. They need to show that vegan and vegetarianism options are delicious. That they have pleasing taste and texture, even more so than meat. Words like ‘alternative’ or ‘substitute’ need to be abandoned. They imply an effort to replicate the original, superior product. Vegan and vegetarian food must stand in their own right, and not only as solutions to the environmental crisis.

Changing perceptions is no easy task, of course. An important step is through positive representation in the arts. Not only in niche academic books like Singer’s Animal Liberation (1975), but also through the visual arts with movies like Babe (1995). Art has a profound, yet underestimated impact on influencing our emotional responses, particularly when we are young. Introducing animal-friendly books into school curriculums could have strong long-lasting effects, encouraging future generations to feel more sympathy to the preferences of animals. There is plenty of vegan art, but it is confined to niche groups on Etsy and Instagram. It’s not even close to mainstream.

Fancy philosophical arguments will not be enough to promote veganism. What’s needed is a change in the way we feel about animals. Then, and only then, will large numbers of people convert and stop eating animals.