Different currents, same conclusion
When theories built on incompatible premises converge on the same practical conclusion, that convergence works as a corroboration no single theory offers. Many vegans still don't know these authors.
| Route | Author or group | Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Equal consideration | Peter Singer | Systematized the principle in 1975 and extended it beyond food |
| Contractualism | Mark Rowlands | Behind the veil of ignorance, no one would know whether they would be born human, which makes species as arbitrary as wealth |
| Capabilities | Martha Nussbaum | Anyone with sentience, emotion and movement toward their own good is a full subject of justice |
| Political critique | Cahiers antispécistes: Yves Bonnardel, David Olivier and Françoise Blanchon | Since 1991, analyzes speciesism as a system of domination |
| Focus on suffering | Magnus Vinding, Tobias Baumann, Brian Tomasik, Teo Ajantaival and Jamie Woodhouse | Reducing suffering at scale, including in the future |
| Wild animal suffering | Oscar Horta, Kyle Johannsen and Luciano Carlos Cunha | Extend the criterion to suffering no human caused, by consequentialist and deontological routes |
| Uncertainty | Jeff Sebo | Under uncertainty about who is sentient, we have reason to widen the circle, without waiting for a certainty that may never come |
| Technological change | Jacy Reese Anthis | How technology and institutions can speed up the end of animal farming |
| Abolishing biological suffering | David Pearce | Proposes consensual biotechnology to reduce the capacity to suffer, including intervening in predation |
| Harmless relationships | Alasdair Cochrane | Asks whether certain relationships involving no real harm would be compatible with a sentientist politics |
In Brazil, Luciano Carlos Cunha is the most prolific author in the field, with fourteen books, counting standalone titles and a twelve-volume collection.
What science has declared
- Cambridge Declaration (2012): humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness.
- New York Declaration (2024): strong evidence for mammals and birds, and a realistic possibility of conscious experience in all vertebrates and many invertebrates, including cephalopods, decapods and insects. It also states that certainty should not be a precondition for considering welfare risks.
- Montreal Declaration (2022): philosophers from different currents declared animal exploitation morally unacceptable.
The price of following the argument
When someone takes an argument as far as it logically goes, the most common reaction tends to be hostility, not counter-argument. Difficult proposals deserve to be refuted, not dismissed as eccentric. Agreeing with the authors above on every point is another discussion.
Sources and further reading
- Veganismo Baseado em Evidências (Evidence-Based Veganism, in Portuguese), chapter 14
- The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness
- The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
- Montreal Declaration on Animal Exploitation
- Wild Animal Ethics
- Frontiers of Justice; Justice for Animals
- Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves; The Moral Circle
- The End of Animal Farming
- The Hedonistic Imperative
- Animal Rights Without Liberation