Practical vs Principle

The distinction I want to draw here is between two competing ways that the ideas of veganism are put forth. Many ethical conversations on the topic of veganism will have aspects of a practical and principled conversation. The practical questions ask us to address animal agriculture practices as they stand, while principled questions ask us to address an animal agriculture industry or general human activity under any reasonable hypothetical condition. To illustrate the separation, I'll divide them into examples of the sorts of questions that each seeks to answer.

Practical

1) Are the ways we are raising and slaughtering animals currently acceptable?

2) Is obtaining milk by forcefully impregnating cows and removing their young acceptable?

3) Is grinding young chicks up acceptable?

4) Is gassing pigs as a means of knocking unconsciously acceptable?

5) Are the environmental tolls of animal agriculture as they stand acceptable?

Principled

1) Are there any acceptable ways to raise and slaughter animals?

2) Is there such a thing as "humane" slaughter?

3) Is having a pet ethical?

4) Is human activity X worth the toll on animal lives?

5) What deserves moral consideration?

One way relationship

Principled questions are broader and encompassing, as they seek to address any possible situations, while practical questions don't. Let's look at the first 2 example questions here.

Practical: 1) Are the ways we are raising and slaughtering animals currently acceptable?

Principled: 1) Are there any acceptable ways to raise and slaughter animals?

If you give a "no" answer to this principled question, then the practical question is automatically answered as well. This, however, does not work in reverse. A "no" answer to the practical question does not give us any information for what the principled question's answer will be. It could still be yes or no. Someone could be against the way we currently raise animals, but still, believe there are hypothetical ways to raise and slaughter animals that *are* acceptable. This is the one-way relationship. Answering a practical question will never tell you someones principled stance.

Veganism vs Non-veganism

Important to note here is that veganism always answers "no" to the first principled question. (Not counting situations where you need to for health/life reasons.) The others are contentious among vegans. For the vegan, there exists no acceptable way to raise and slaughter animals outside of necessity for life/health. That is a fundamental part of the ethical vegan stance.

For a non-vegan, every other stance is possible, so long as you say yes. That will, however, not inform us of the practical question, of whether it is okay to do it the way we are currently doing it. That leaves, for the non-vegan, stances anywhere from "Do whatever you want to animals, anything at all, it doesn't matter" to "Pamper and spa the animals during their entire life, let them live until old age, then slaughter them at old age". The entire range between these two positions are non-vegan stances.

Why is this important?

Much of the conversations between vegans and non-vegans get blurred between these two lines in a very unproductive fashion. Often non-vegans and vegans will start on a principled question, asking questions about whether we should be killing animals for food at all and then unproductively try and make their points with appeals to factory farm videos and practical argumentation. The problem is, it is within the non-vegans discretion to disagree with current practices or some/part of the practices and remain with a non-vegan stance. It does nothing to the entirety of possible non-vegan stances to make argumentation with practical concerns. It may, however, convince someone to stop contributing to current practices, but that does not make someone vegan. It remains a viable position to stop participating until laws/practices change and then go back to eating meat. This is a position that an ethical vegan would not consider adequate.

In general, I consider appeals to practical concerns in order to convince someone to take a principled stance to be at best an emotional appeal and at worst, propaganda. There is an attempt to discourage someone from considering any inbetween stances and thus bypass someone's reasoning. If one is to make a sincere and honest effort to convince someone of a principled vegan stance, they should convince them there are *no* conditions that are acceptable, being able to combat even the most generous hypotheticals. This includes the "grass-fed high welfare cow" and "out in the lake fishing".