The dilemma I explore in this paper concerns two advocacy-oriented aims which, though not mutually exclusive per se, are nonetheless quite difficult for vegans to jointly satisfy in practice. The first concerns the need for individual vegans to rebuff certain familiar stereotypes about vegans as ‘militant,’ ‘angry,’ ‘self-righteous,’ etc.; the second concerns the need to tactfully resist familiar prompts to, as it were, conversationally parse the logic of one’s own convictions ad nauseam. To bet…
Read moreThe dilemma I explore in this paper concerns two advocacy-oriented aims which, though not mutually exclusive per se, are nonetheless quite difficult for vegans to jointly satisfy in practice. The first concerns the need for individual vegans to rebuff certain familiar stereotypes about vegans as ‘militant,’ ‘angry,’ ‘self-righteous,’ etc.; the second concerns the need to tactfully resist familiar prompts to, as it were, conversationally parse the logic of one’s own convictions ad nauseam. To better explain, and partially respond to, this dilemma, I exploit an instructive analogy with the ‘analytic question’ in epistemology. I conclude by suggesting that, just as not having a fully worked-out theoretical answer to this question is not grounds for epistemic skepticism, neither is not having a fully developed ‘theory of veganism’ a reason for not becoming vegan.
