Home / K. Effectiveness and individual responsibility / Part IND
"Vegans will always be a minority"
being a minority doesn't make a position wrong, and the number of people who agree with something doesn't decide whether it's just. Many moral changes began with minorities that seemed to have no chance. And you don't need to be a majority to reduce suffering: each person who stops buying animal products reduces demand, and animal protection laws have been passed without a vegan majority.
Short answer
Being a minority doesn't make something wrong. Many moral changes began with a few people who seemed to have no chance. And you don't need to be a majority to reduce suffering: each person who stops buying animal products lowers demand, and animal protection laws have been passed without a vegan majority.
For children
Sometimes only a few children in the class think it isn't right to leave a classmate out of a game. They're few, but they're right, and often the others end up changing their minds. Being few doesn't mean being wrong. And even if the others don't change, whoever doesn't leave the classmate out is already doing the right thing.
"If something is unjust, does it stop being unjust because few people oppose it?"
Como pode aparecer
"You'll always be a minority."
"The world will never go vegan."
"Why bother, if no one's going to change?"
"Vegans are 1%; nobody cares."
"Everybody eats meat." (which is D6)
"A vegan world is utopian." (which is J15)
The strongest version
"You'll always be a minority. The world will never go vegan, so why bother?"
Strongest version (steelman):
- P1Vegans are a small part of the population, and that has changed little over the decades.
- P2Social change only happens when the majority comes on board.
- P3It's unlikely the majority will become vegan in the near future.
- CSo veganism won't change anything, and it isn't worth adopting.
P1 is true today almost everywhere. P3 is plausible. The problem lies in P2 and the conclusion: important changes happen without a majority, and the question of what's right doesn't depend on how many agree.
The argument is invalid as a moral objection: from a position being rare it doesn't follow that it's wrong or useless.
Full answer
- a
Reconstruction and diagnosis
The argument mixes two questions:
Question Type Depends on the number of supporters? Is it just to exploit animals? Moral No Will veganism become the majority? Prediction Yes, by definition The second question is interesting, but it doesn't answer the first.
- b
Where the argument breaks
1. Popularity doesn't decide what's right.
That a position is held by few doesn't show it's wrong. It's the appeal to the majority (D6).
2. Change begins with minorities.
Many moral and legal changes, such as ending practices once accepted by the majority, began with small groups. In experiments on social conventions, a committed minority of about 25% managed to change the group's norm. It's a laboratory result, not a prediction, but it shows norms can tip without a majority.
3. You don't need a majority to reduce harm.
Each person who stops buying animal products reduces, on average, demand and the number of animals bred (K1). The effect exists even if veganism never becomes the majority.
4. Laws change before the majority does.
The European Union banned battery cages for laying hens in a 1999 directive, and the United Kingdom recognized the sentience of several kinds of animals in law in 2022, without a vegan majority in either place.
5. The prediction may be wrong.
Technologies such as cultivated meat and precision fermentation may make products free of exploitation cheaper and more common. There's no guarantee, but there's no guarantee of the opposite either (K5).
- c
Data and sources
Source What it says Note Centola et al., 2018 In experiments, a committed minority of about 25% changed the convention adopted by the group Science, 360; a laboratory result European Union, Directive 1999/74/EC Lays down standards for laying hens, banning conventional battery cages United Kingdom, Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 Recognizes in law the sentience of vertebrates, cephalopods and decapod crustaceans - d
The strongest counter-reply: without a majority, suffering stays almost the same
The most serious version says: even if each vegan reduces demand a little, as long as the majority eats meat, billions of animals will keep being killed. The individual effort would be almost irrelevant next to the scale.
- e
Why the counter-reply doesn't reach the conclusion
Almost irrelevant isn't irrelevant.
For each animal that isn't bred, the difference is total.
The argument works against any cause.
No individual ends hunger or poverty alone, and helping still makes sense (K1).
The moral question remains.
Even if it were useless, taking part in something unjust would still be taking part in something unjust.
- f
Back to the moral question
Even if vegans were always a minority, the question would be the same: is it just to make animals suffer and die for the pleasure of taste? The number of people who agree doesn't change the answer.
Reasoning errors
Logical
Is the form valid?
Appeal to the majority
False dilemma
Epistemological
Does the evidence support it?
Prediction taken as certainty
Moral
Is the criterion coherent?
Confusing effectiveness with justice
Biases
Social proof
What the majority does seems right
General literature on conformity
Extrapolations
The principle being tested is: "if a position is a minority one, it's wrong or useless".
If it applied to…Unpopular causes of the pastTap to see
Those who championed them as a minority would have been wrong
History judges otherwise in many cases
If it applied to…DonationsTap to see
Giving would be useless, because most people don't give
Each donation helps someone
If it applied to…Any social changeTap to see
None could ever begin
Every change starts with a few
Contradictions
But uses unpopularity against veganism.
And demands that veganism change everything at once.
And assumes this one never will.
What the argument gets right
What is true
It's right that vegans are a minority today, that deep cultural change is slow and that the majority probably won't become vegan in the near future. It's also reasonable to think about strategies that reduce suffering even without mass adoption, such as laws, technologies and institutional change.
But
But being a minority doesn't decide what's right, and you don't need to be a majority to make a difference. Each animal that isn't bred to die is a real difference.
Connections
Usually comes before
Usually comes after