Category talk:Veganism

Category being used wrongly

Today a lot of people were added to this "veganism" category. However, we already have categories for this such as veganism activists Psychologist Guy (talk) 18:56, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Dispute

@MaynardClark:, @Timelezz:, @Randy Kryn: there was a recent dispute on this category about including the "vegetarianism" category (see category history). It should be noted that up until 14 December 2022 the "vegetarianism" category was not included in this veganism category, it has since been removed. I don't think it is a huge issue but I would agree with MaynardClark that "veganism involves a vegan form of vegetarian diet". The modern vegan movement grew out of the vegetarian movement but I can understand why modern philosophical vegans want to dissociate with anything vegetarian. I don't object to including the category but it doesn't bother me either if it stays removed. I can understand both viewpoints. Psychologist Guy (talk) 22:42, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this forward on the talk page @Psychologist Guy. I would like to add that the name giver(s) of veganism were already pointing out the philosophical side of veganism. (e.g. https://www.vegfest.co.uk/and-if-you-know-your-history/). Veganism - not to be confused with a plant food diet - is based on animal rights (non-exploitation is explicitly in the definition), as feminism is based on equal rights indifferent of gender/sex and is not limited to a diet. Vegetarianism is limited to the diet - wearing a leather jacket fits in vegetarianism - and in principal lacks a philosophy, which explains why proto-vegans joined with vegetarians in the early days, when they were a tiny pocket amongst the population. The origin of the vegan diet is a philosophical way of living, just like halal and kosjer are diets with an origin in a philosophical (more specific: religious) way of living. Therefore, I consider veganism more related to feminism than to vegetarianism. Timelezz (talk) 14:48, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the link that dives into the early Vegan Society. You are talking about philosophical veganism, but some of the early vegans were dietary vegans with no interest in animal rights. Non-dairy vegetarian was an early term used for vegan (there were other terms before this in France), I don't think we can say all those early vegans who gave up dairy were doing it for just philosophical reasons. There are many motives at play.

But one thing you might be forgetting is that vegetarianism also has a philosophical side to some of its advocates. In the academic literature there have been hundreds of papers published on philosophical vegetarianism (also known as moral vegetarianism) for decades [1]. Just one example, James Rachels wrote an influential paper in 2004, The Basic Argument for Vegetarianism. I get what you are saying because the standard stereotype of a vegetarian is just someone who eats a plant-based diet but as the vegetarianism article notes, there are many different reasons for someone being vegetarian, they may be for dietary, ethical, religious or philosophical reasons. I am definitely not trying to equate veganism with vegetarianism, we all know the differences I do not object to the modern claim that veganism is now a philosophy but I can certainly see why veganism is still sometimes described as a type of vegetarianism. In regard to this category to avoid any confusions, I agree that it's best to keep the category vegetarianism removed from here. MaynardClark might have something to add here but I see this as a non-issue. Psychologist Guy (talk) 15:59, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out. I've looked it up and read the paper by James Rachels. It is interesting that James proposes the argument that made him go vegetarian as "the basic argument". It is clear the vegetarian movement was looking for some foundational argumentation at the time. Currently the Vegetarian Society does not seem to have this argumentation included in their definition, defining vegetarianism merely as a diet excluding ingredients derived from the body of animals: https://vegsoc.org/info-hub/definition/. "Philosophical veganism" seems a pleonasm to me, since veganism in itself is (as well) a philosophy. (by the way, my compliments for the pleasant way in which you engage in disucussion) Timelezz (talk) 16:34, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Timelezz, sometimes it helps to step back a little to see better what oneself is doing. There are different definitions of veganism and the term has a history. Please understand that what you are doing is pushing a single definition, bulldozing all others. The articles here are very balanced and well-sourced. Wikipedia is not about finding out what is „the single truth“ but about finding a balanced presentation of the historic and current ambiguity. CarlFromVienna (talk) 17:38, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Then why is the discussion of veganism being removed from the discussion of ethical theories if a highly prominent approach to being vegan is profoundly grounded in moral reasoning? This recent middle-of-the-night - or late-night (11 pm) - edit (deleting ethical theories from the categories where the term is found) could appear to profoundly modify the historical and ethical discussion of the topic. MaynardClark (talk) 06:11, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I think this was my edit. Category:Veganism is included under Category:Applied ethics, which is a subcategory of Category:Ethical theories. I apologize for any confusion, the intention here is to make this easier to find in the category tree for ethics. I fully agree that Veganism is grounded in moral reasoning, and it is an important topic in applied ethics. - car chasm (talk) 09:00, 2 February 2023 (UTC)