Home / F. Edge cases and hypotheticals / Part DIR
"On a desert island, would you eat an animal?"
maybe so, and that changes nothing. An extreme survival situation doesn't justify the practice under normal conditions. We also accept that a starving person may steal food, and no one concludes that stealing is acceptable in everyday life. The hypothetical case only shows that real necessity can justify exceptions, and most people who ask aren't on an island.
Short answer
Maybe I would, just as a starving person may steal food, and no one concludes that stealing is acceptable in everyday life. Extreme needs can justify exceptions; they don't justify the practice when there's no need. None of us is on a desert island: we live near stores full of alternatives. The question isn't what I'd do to survive, but what I do when I don't need to.
For children
If you were lost in a forest with nothing to eat, you might have to do things you normally wouldn't. But that doesn't mean you can do those things every day, when you're at home with a full fridge. An emergency is different from normal life.
"Are you on a desert island right now, or somewhere with a grocery store?"
Como pode aparecer
"On a desert island, would you eat an animal?"
"What if you were starving?"
"In an apocalypse you'd eat meat."
"Every vegan turns carnivore at the first sign of hunger."
"Would you let your child starve?"
"If the rule admits exceptions, it isn't absolute."
"Indigenous and traditional peoples eat animals." (which is D3)
The strongest version
"What if you were starving? In an apocalypse you'd eat meat."
Strongest version (steelman):
- P1In a situation of extreme hunger, even a vegan would eat an animal to survive.
- P2If eating an animal is acceptable in some case, then it isn't wrong in itself.
- P3What isn't wrong in itself depends only on circumstances and personal choice.
- CSo eating animals is acceptable, and veganism is a preference.
P1 may be true. The problem lies in P2 and P3: almost no moral rule is absolute, and the existence of extreme exceptions doesn't make the practice acceptable under normal conditions.
The argument is valid. Its soundness fails at P3, which treats "may be justified in extreme cases" as "may be done at any time".
Full answer
- a
Reconstruction and diagnosis
The argument uses an extreme case to draw a conclusion about the ordinary one:
Situation Is there necessity? What morality allows Desert island, extreme hunger Yes Perhaps an exception Supermarket with alternatives No The general rule: don't cause unnecessary harm - b
Where the argument breaks
1. Exceptions don't cancel rules.
Almost every moral rule admits extreme exceptions: killing in self-defense, stealing so as not to starve, lying to save a life. No one concludes that killing, stealing or lying are acceptable in general.
2. Veganism already allows for necessity.
The classic definition speaks of avoiding exploitation "as far as is possible and practicable" (D3). On the island, not eating an animal may be beyond what's possible.
3. The extreme case confirms the principle.
If only extreme hunger justifies eating an animal, then under normal conditions, without that necessity, there's no justification.
4. The question shifts the focus.
The debate is about what we do every day, not about what we'd do in a shipwreck.
5. Extreme situations would justify even more.
In real survival cases, people have resorted to extreme measures, including eating the human dead. No one draws a rule for normal life from that.
- c
Data and sources
Source What it says Note The Vegan Society, definition of veganism Veganism seeks to exclude exploitation "as far as is possible and practicable" The exception for necessity is already in the definition - d
The strongest counter-reply: veganism isn't absolute, so it's a preference
The most serious version says that if a vegan admits eating animals in some case, they agree the question depends on circumstances, and then everyone can assess their own.
- e
Why the counter-reply doesn't reach the conclusion
Depending on circumstances isn't being a preference.
The prohibition on killing also depends on circumstances (self-defense), and it isn't a preference.
The relevant circumstances are objective.
Extreme hunger is a real necessity; liking the taste isn't.
The person isn't in the exceptional circumstance.
What holds on the island doesn't hold in the supermarket.
Reasoning errors
Logical
Is the form valid?
Fallacy of accident (converse)
False dilemma
Epistemological
Does the evidence support it?
Irrelevant case
Moral
Is the criterion coherent?
Invented necessity
Biases
Motivated reasoning
An extreme case serves to excuse change in the ordinary case
General literature on motivated cognition
Rationalization through the 4Ns
"Necessary" stretched to where there's no necessity
Extrapolations
The principle being tested is: "if something is allowed in an emergency, it's always allowed".
If it applied to…Stealing out of hungerTap to see
Stealing would always be acceptable
No one accepts this
If it applied to…Self-defenseTap to see
Killing would always be acceptable
No one accepts this
If it applied to…Running a red light to get someone to hospitalTap to see
Running red lights would always be acceptable
No one accepts this
Contradictions
Self-defense doesn't make homicide acceptable.
The question describes a situation that isn't theirs.
Including things they'd never eat at home.
What the argument gets right
What is true
The hypothetical has a legitimate point: veganism isn't an absolute, blind rule, and real necessity changes what can be morally required. It's honest to recognize this, and animal advocates don't need to pretend they'd let someone starve on principle.
But
But that is exactly why the argument doesn't work. If only extreme necessity justifies eating animals, then in ordinary life, without that necessity, the justification disappears.
Connections
Usually comes before
Usually comes after
Go deeper in Questão de Ética
Chapters from the open-access collection A Journey Through Animal Ethics that discuss this argument in more detail:
- Does It Matter What We Would Do on a Desert Island or in… Vol. IV, ch. 8