I've come to realise that the #vegan position can't be argued or proven false. Because at its core it's really simple: to limit animal suffering as far as practicable. It is altruistic.
You either want to do this, or you don't.
If you don't, it's either because you hold hedonistic or speciesist views. The hedonistic viewpoint—i.e. "I eat it because it's tasty"—falls flat rather quickly because most reasonable people would agree that someone kicking a dog simply because it "makes them feel good" is "wrong".
The speciesist viewpoint, of which there are a few, like the call to "sapience", "sentience" or just "we're at the top of the food chain" are all logically flawed. Once again, most reasonable people would agree that killing and eating a human child (of a similar or even lesser "sentience" to that of a pig or a cow) would be a very bad thing to do. As for the food chain: that's circular reasoning since there's no connection between our supposed position in the food chain and the justifiability of eating animals that we intentionally put beneath us by eating them.
So yeah, bottom line is: all arguments against minimising animal suffering can be distilled down as such. Just eat plants—it's good for you and for the animals.
@icy Minimizing suffering does not require that one not kill animals but rather that they are raised and killed humanely. Industrial animal production does neither of these things. To argue that one must prolong life at all costs makes no sense for any kind of animal.
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