This seems like a very interesting topic that can easily get into pointless discussion, so I’m going to try to summarize my points in a logical and dry way.
We can divide Buddhist veganism into two different positions:
1 Not being vegan is wrong;
2 Being vegan is more compassionate than not being so.
(Because of lack of time, I won’t discuss the argument for the environment)
Even though I do believe that they come from the good intention of making the world a better place, I believe both positions are incorrect, each because of different reasons. In order to refute them, I’m going to assume the following:
1 Wrong means kammically unwholesome
2 It’s possible to be morally perfect (an Ararat, for example, can’t do bad kamma)
3 Buddhist morality aims at overcoming unwholesomeness completely, not decreasing it to the least possible amount
Moving to the objections to the first position: if not being vegan is wrong, then that implies that the Buddha was creating bad kamma, which is a contradiction. Of course, I don’t want to create a straw man fallacy here: I’m aware most Buddhists who hold this view would reply saying that it wasn’t possible to be vegan at that time.
However, what does it mean to say that it wasn’t possible? That one would die if they were vegan? This would presume that a kammically bad action isn’t bad if it’s for the sake of one’s life. This isn’t supported by the EBTs at all: bad kamma is bad kamma independently of the consequences. No buts. Therefore, if not being vegan were wrong because you’re throwing your bad kamma over somebody else’s back, so would it have been for the Buddha.
Furthermore, there are those who would say, “but, in the past, getting meat didn’t involve such a horrible industry as we see today.” Indeed! Animals today suffer deeply in the meat industry, and this is an undeniable fact. However, this is still not a good objection. As stated in assumption 3, Buddhist morality isn’t about decreasing kammically unwholesome actions, but eliminating them. If, as most vegans argue, we hold moral responsibility for the whole chain before our acquisition, then so would the Buddha since he would get meat from lay disciples, who would either need to kill or buy from somebody who killed the animal.
The Buddha would be against killing and would advise disciples to follow the five precepts. However, he would still eat meat. Meat industry was way less gross, but killing was still what is has always been: unwholesome. Given that the Buddha was morally perfect, being a meat eater can’t be seen as bad kamma.
To those who feel like defending non-killing and buying meat is hypocrisy, I wanna say that there’s a HUGE difference between killing or telling somebody to kill and buying meat. In fact, the intention to kill is unwholesome, and telling somebody else to do that is also unwholesome. When you decide to kill, the animal dies, but when you decide not to, the animal survives. You’re directly influencing whether or not there will be one life more in this world. However, when you decide to buy meat, it’s dead meat, but when you decide not to buy it… well… it’s still dead. We aren’t paying the industry to kill, rather we’re paying the industry to let us take the meat that they have ALREADY killed. Kammically, this changes everything. This also explains why it’s wrong to eat where you know that the animal will be killed for you, but not when the animal is already dead.
In other words, the meat industry kills by statistics. It’s not killing FOR you; it’s killing based on the amount of people they expect to buy their meat. Once they kill, it’s already dead, and there isn’t anything you can do to avoid it. Giving money to the industry will only guarantee that, when you take the meat out of the supermarket, you’re buying it instead of stealing it.
This position of veganism is based on the false assumption that if an action is necessary for you to have X, then you have reponsability for this action. This is incorrect. As an example, we don’t create bad kamma by living in a country that kills criminals. Even though we may enjoy the safety and pay our taxes, we still don’t have bad kamma for that. We’re pretty much paying somebody to do the dirt job that we, followers of the five precepts, aren’t willing to do.
The thing is that the Buddhism is NOT intended to lay down the foundations of a society. Doing bad kamma is bad for you, so don’t do it, but if somebody else did it, then making use of it will change neither their destination nor yours. If a soldier dies in war to protect your country, they still created bad kamma, and you will still enjoy the safety, but there won’t be any bad kamma for you.
Now moving to the second position, I want to stress that the current situation IS bad. Period. It’s indeed horrible. There’s no way we could downplay that and call ourselves Buddhists. Compassion should be directed towards all beings, like humans, dogs, cats, cows, pigs, and… insects too.
IMHO, the main reason why this view is wrong is because it completely ignores the ants, beetles, and even small animals like moles that need to die in crops. Killing either cattle or insects is killing, and I’m not sure crops kill less insects than the meat industry kills animals, nor am I sure that small animals suffer less.
There’s also another reason why I think it isn’t necessarily more compassionate to be vegan: it completely forgets that we actually don’t have that much power of influence in the end of the day. If one decides to stop eating meat, that doesn’t change how many animals will die tomorrow. One’s decision is so small compared to the giant industry, that they don’t bother decreasing the amount of cattle they’re gonna kill. “But if everybody thinks like this, then we will never change the world” yeah, our action indeed won’t change the world. The sad fact is that this activist mindset is too naive. In other words, this view could be expressed succinctly as, “I alone am weak, but we together are strong.” I’d like to rephrase my objection similarly as well: I alone am weak, and I together am insignificant. That is, if enough many people join veganism to the point that some animal will be saved, trust me, your choice of not becoming vegan wouldn’t have changed anything either since the result will be determined by what the millions of people decided, not what you did. Stark statement, I know, but it’s still true (notice this argument applies to pretty much any type of activism).
On the other hand, there IS a way that we can save millions of animals: we can attain awakening. One out of samsara, one less to eat, so plenty of deaths will be unnecessary
Btw, I’m not saying that vegans aren’t being compassionate. I do believe you guys. Also, as a fun fact, I don’t have any problem with vegan food. IMO, vegan food usually tastes better than meat