“Veganism” *is* bullshit. Here’s why. It claims to be an ethical
response to an ethical problem, but 1) there is no agreement that there
is an ethical problem in the human use of animals per se, and 2) the
response is ethically empty.

All “vegans” start by committing a logical fallacy, the fallacy of
denying the antecedent:

If I consume animal parts, I cause the suffering and death of animals.

I do not consume any animal parts;

therefore, I do not cause the suffering and death of animals.

The conclusion is wrong because consuming animal parts is not the only
way in which animals are caused to suffer and die. Crop agriculture
kills and maims uncounted millions of wild animals of the field –
usually not as large as the largest livestock, but millions of bird,
reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals; even animals as large as deer
are routinely killed by crop machinery. So, the conclusion is false.

All “vegans” also begin by saying they live a “cruelty free
‘lifestyle’”, but this is also bullshit, due to the fact of animal
collateral deaths elaborated above. Most “vegans” retreat from that
position to the weaker claim that they at least “minimize” animal
suffering and death, but that is also bullshit. To minimize, they must
count, and no one does that. It is conceivable to follow a
meat-including diet that actually causes less harm to animals than the
typical “vegan” diet, but even if one looks only at “vegan” diets, it is
obvious that some food crops cause less harm than others; unless a
“vegan” excludes everything but the least-harm vegetables from his diet,
he cannot be said to be minimizing the harm he causes.

The next retreat is to the claim of “doing the best I can,” but again
that is bullshit, for the same reason: unless one has undertaken to
measure the harm, it is unlikely one is doing the best one can; there
must be *some* change, say less rice and more soybeans, that would yield
an improvement.

In the end, the “vegan” has to retreat to the nastiest, vilest position
of all: “I’m doing better than you meat eaters.” That makes virtue into
a comparison with others, and that is morally repugnant. It also isn’t
true, and it also yields perverse results. The claim is morally
repugnant because virtue never consists in comparing one's behavior with
others; it consists solely in doing what is right. It isn’t true
because it is possible, as I said, to follow a meat-including diet that
is lower harm than the typical “vegan” diet. The perversion comes from
observing that even if the “vegan” is causing less harm than an
omnivore, his criterion for determining virtue would allow him to
INCREASE the amount of harm he causes to animals, but as long as it
remains less than that of omnivores, he would pronounce himself still
virtuous. How can increasing the harm one causes to animals be called
virtuous?

“Veganism” is bullshit through and through. It is a false moral pose
based wholly on self-exaltation.