Derek wrote:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

> There's no getting away from it; the collateral deaths argument
> against veganism is a fallacy.

Glorfindel wrote:

Yes, that is true, for several reasons.

Current methods of crop production (probably; presumptively ) may
involve collateral deaths, but raising, transporting, and marketing
animals for food *certainly* do, and always will. The question of
which diet involves fewer cannot be answered on a black-and-white
basis, because each individual diet must be evaluated independently.
However, given the optimum example of each type, a vegan diet will
always involve fewer deaths than a diet including meat, given the
same parameters in each case. An *ideal* vegan diet would indeed
involve no animal deaths at all, while even an *ideal* omnivore
diet would involve at least some animal deaths. As Derek has noted,
the ideal in either case is probably impossible in the real world,
so it cannot be used to critique any specific diet in the real
world. It can only be used as a goal, or theoretical concept, and
in that case, the vegan diet must be better for animals.

Secondly, as far as the concept of animal rights, or animal liberation,
is concerned, the vegan diet wins hands-down. Even a diet of hunted
meat involves a violation of the rights of the hunted animal by
its death at human hands. An equivalent diet of gathering need not
involve any intentional killing of rights-bearing animals at all.
If we consider a diet involving farmed animals, the animals' rights
are violated both by the entire process of breeding and raising
them, and the basic injustice of treating them as property, and
again in the process of slaughtering them. Collateral deaths in
the field, or in protection of food in storage, would involve, at the
most, the single injustice of lack of consideration of the animals'
rights in "pest control."

There is absolutely no way a diet involving meat can be seen as more
just for animals, or less harmful for them, if the same criteria are
applied to any individual example. It is only by comparing vastly
different examples ("comparing apples and oranges" ) that any diet
including meat can be seen as less harmful on a utilitarian basis.
This must be a dishonest approach to the issue.

BTW, Jane Goodall has recently published a new book on the issue of
animal- and environmentally-friendly diet, for those who are interested.