Making the Case: My Three Favorite Arguments

Once you're having the discussion, it's good to know the arguments that are most likely to sway others. It can often be more effective if you can give someone a vegetarian starter kit or a “Chew on This” DVD and talk about it with them later, because this allows them to review the information in a more relaxed, less defensive or argumentative atmosphere.

1. Farmed animals are smart, interesting, and unique individuals. One of the more common ideas in people's heads is that fish, chickens, and other animals are stupid or unfeeling, so that even in the face of the most lurid description of these animals' suffering, some people will still say, “So what?” They simply have no empathy for farmed animals, and if the person you're talking with doesn't empathize with the animals involved, no amount of describing the cruelty is going to move him or her to stop eating animals. So I have found that telling people about the varied personalities of farmed animals is a very effective tactic.

People really are interested in the fact that on cognitive functioning tests such as those that measure an animal's ability to navigate mazes or learn from one another, chickens score better than dogs or cats, and that pigs play video games more effectively than some primates and learn from one another and interact with one another in ways that have previously been observed only in primates.

There is also very good recent scientific evidence that fish have memories and use tools, which used to be what anthropologists claimed distinguished humans from other primates. Dr. Sylvia Earle, arguably the foremost living marine biologist, says that she would no more eat a fish than she would eat a cocker spaniel. Here's a person who would know, and she says that “fish are sensitive, they have personalities, they hurt when they're wounded.”

We've tried to make this easier for you because we've now posted online some of the best behavioral information about farmed animals that we've been able to dig up—we call this our “Hidden Lives” series, and we now have “The Hidden Lives of” fish, chickens, pigs, turkeys, cows, sheep and goats, ducks and geese, baboons, and rats and mice. Read more about the fascinating lives of farmed animals.

All of this shouldn't matter, of course—it's neither the degree of intelligence nor cognitive function, but rather the ability to suffer that is crucial. But for many people, it does matter; it helps them relate to animals—just as they relate better to you if you're dressed more like they are. So being able to explain things about animal intelligence and capacities that will help people to see other animals as more like their dogs and cats and more like us is a very effective way to move people toward agreement with animal liberation and toward a vegan diet. Of course, you don't want to bog your brain down with so many anecdotes that when you start talking, you can't figure out what to say. Simply mastering a few key facts and anecdotes about farmed animals will be more than enough when you are explaining why chickens, pigs, fish, and cows are every bit as interesting, sensitive, and deserving of concern as any dog or cat.

2. It's a matter of integrity. I also talk about basic integrity when people ask me why I'm a vegan: I don't want to pay others to do things to animals that I wouldn't want to do myself. Everyone agrees that cruelty to animals is a bad thing. Most people will express remorse at the horrible things that are done to farmed animals on factory farms and at slaughter. So the big question is, “Why pay people to do things that you don't support?” In explaining his vegetarianism, Percy Bysshe Shelley said that he wants no part of anything he can't write a pleasant poem about; we shouldn't be supporting things that revolt us. How many things are there in our lives that we're directly supporting, even as they revolt us? Of course, all of us could spend an afternoon picking grains, beans, fruits, or vegetables, but who among us would want, even once, to rip the testicles from a pig's scrotum without painkillers or to sear the beak off a tiny chick with a hot blade? Who among us would want to even watch any aspect of what is required to get chickens, fish, pigs, cattle, dairy products, or eggs to the table? Who would want to spend even five minutes in a slaughterhouse, with all the blood and horror? Raising this issue with people in a conversational way can help them to see that eating meat is ethically dubious—it's paying others to do things that they don't support or believe in.

3. It's empowering. Everyone wants to see the world become more just and peaceful. Everyone is worried about violence in the streets and in the world and wishes he or she could do something to stop it. I like to talk about how adopting a vegan diet allows us to take a stand in behalf of compassion and against violence and suffering every single time we order from a menu, go shopping, or open up the refrigerator. There is so much violence and suffering in the world, and we're basically powerless to do a lot about it. What do I do about starvation and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa? I give some money, I write letters, I try to get the government to intervene and to put more money into foreign aid, but all of those actions are fairly far removed from actually having a measurable effect.

When I sit down to eat, however, I make a concrete decision about who I am in the world. Do I want to add to the level of violence and misery and bloodshed in the world, or do I want to make a kind and compassionate choice? Simply put, the meat industry is violence we can stop. Plus, by going vegan, we stop supporting industries that devastate the environment and create (according to Human Rights Watch) the most dangerous conditions for workers in the nation. Personally, I find it empowering that every time I sit down to eat, I can make a choice that helps animals, the environment, worker rights, my health, and the battle against world hunger. I can't think of any other choices I make on a daily basis with such far-reaching effects.

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