a look at the 'anti-vegan zinger': animal rights, autonomy and self-ownership
“ A common response to vegan philosophy – seemingly considered as something of a zinger – is that to go vegan would mean extinction of the vast majority of farm animals alive today. The only response to this is that it is far better to never exist than to live a life of abject horror and pain of the sort that factory-farmed animals endure. Would you like to live in constant darkness, growing up in a cage in which you cannot move, be mutilated, branded, and brutalised, no parents to guide you, no space to socialise, all to the constant screaming and braying of your kinsmen, whose bloodcurdling cries instinctively warn you of your inevitable slaughter? I would rather be dead. “ – Matthew Chalmers , Expanding the Original Position to Animals , 2021 In his article on the veil of ignorance and animal rights – a discussion I’d like to revisit and challenge extensively to better understand my own intuitions regarding animal rights, if nothing else – Matthew Chalmers makes the...