The increased awareness of the environmental impact of the meat and other animal product industries has led to an increasing number of people seriously considering a vegetarian or vegan diet. This opens up the possibility of for a substantial shift towards more sustainable methods of producing food, gradually leaving behind our dependence on livestock. However, in order to use this opportunity as effectively as possible, a major shift in the attitude towards veganism and vegetarianism is required; otherwise the diets avoiding animal products risk to permanently remain in the marginal without ever entering into the mainstream. Namely, I am calling for a shift on two axes; firstly, rather than seeing a vegetarian or vegan diet as an individual choice or preference, we should emphasize its contribution to our collective effort towards more sensible usage of resources. Moreover, this should be done avoiding the moralization and certainly without glorification of vegetarianism. Secondly, instead of perceiving veganism and vegetarianism as some abstract set of rules to be followed precisely, more attention should be paid to the overall environmental impact of our everyday choices. What I call statistical vegetarianism does not, perhaps, achieve these two objectives, but, I claim, it takes the step into the correct direction.

It is commonplace to think of a vegan and vegetarian diets as following a set of rules; I will not eat anything that used to be a part of animal; or, I will not eat anything that is dead animal etc. While the rules of this kind are convenient, as they indeed make the diet easy to follow, and to an extent unavoidable, they comfort us into the feeling of false security by reducing the moral choice to an algorithm. It is indeed all too easy to fall into thinking that by merely following a simple set of rules one is doing everything there is to be done about the environmental issues. That is, the choice of diet risks to become, paradoxically enough, a means not to think about the problems it is induced by. What is dissolved by the ‘algorithmic morality’, facilitating the avoidance of thinking, is the anxiety about one’s ethical choices so crucial for human morality.

Ultimately, the fundamental, metaphysical even, problem of algorithmic morality is to present veganism as a binary, highly individualised choice; you either are a vegan, or, if you could not resist the temptation and ate a slice of cheese, you are not. If following a set of rules becomes an end in itself, the slightest deviation from the rules is consequently sufficient to collapse the entire system. In more concrete terms, this can be illustrated by the following scenario; “Oh, I accidentally had a chicken nugget, therefore I’ve failed at being a vegetarian, and might as well go back to eating meat.” As a consequence of the narrow definitions imposed by the strict rules, it is easy to ignore them as impractical, or, as in the example, there is always an easy pretext to escape, to stop following them. A possible solution to this is to make vegetarianism or veganism more statistical1, that is, to take care that one’s diet does not contribute to consumption of animals on a large scale. To illustrate this, consider what the rational approach in the above scenario would be; “If I (accidentally) eat meat once a year, it makes no difference whatsoever in contrast to me not eating meat for the rest of the year.”; that is, what matters is the consumption of meat on average. Importantly, the statistical approach removes the requirement of absoluteness in one’s diet providing more flexibility, thus making it easier to take up by a larger number of people. For instance, it is by far more effective if a very large proportion of population decides to limit their eating of meat to once per week, say, rather than a small proportion of population refraining from eating meat completely.

Another shift we need is precisely the shift from veganism as an individual choice to a more collective vision. To begin with, we need to recognise that the sustainability of food production is a problem concerning everyone, thus requiring actions not only by the societies and states, but also on the supranational level2; the problem, therefore, cannot be solved by individualising the responsibility. The statistical outlook is indeed a good start in shifting the perspective. As briefly mentioned above, for a vegetarian or a vegan, there is always a danger to fall into thinking that the problem can in fact be solved by radical individualisation; this is vaguely expressed in the sentiment “if everyone was a vegan, there would be no sustainability issue, no animal cruelty etc.”3 While perhaps expressing a correct fact, the phrase is often used for a dubious kind of rhetoric and ideology; namely, it contributes to the false sense of moral superiority, externalising the responsibility to the others. The radical individualisation of the sustainability issue hypocritically accuses the ‘meat eaters’ of problems that are deeply structural. Furthermore, by the moralist, confrontational approach, and by actively seeking for conflicts instead of dialogues, the radical individualisation gets alarmingly close to the state in which one does not even want to change anything, but rather seeks to preserve the role of a marginal minority one is playing. It is hence important to keep in mind that one does not automatically become a better person simply by the virtue of being a vegetarian or a vegan.

Quite clearly, the statistical vegetarianism and veganism are on their own not sufficient to solve the environmental problems of the food industry, as they remain too much dependent on the individual choice. Let me emphasize that much more fundamental, structural changes are necessary in order to adequately account for the sustainability issues in the food production process4; so I by no means claim that statistical vegetarianism/veganism constitutes a solution to the problem; it is, however, a small step towards the right direction, and it certainly contributes to the pressure put on the system to change, as is recognised in the report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations5.

To summarise, the main point of the statistical outlook is perhaps in changing the attitude towards vegetarianism and veganism in the way that would make significantly more people think about the environmental impact of their diet, without accusing anyone of systematic problems. Here I have indeed concentrated on the environmental considerations as the main motivating factor for veganism and vegetarianism; I, of course, acknowledge that many vegans and vegetarians have broader and deeper reasons for avoiding animal products, like animal welfare and the ethical considerations regarding the non-human animals. Therefore, I would like to emphasize that my aim here is certainly not in substituting every type of veganism/vegetarianism with the statistical one, but rather in normalising a diet whose goal is to reduce the environment impact by reducing the consumption of animal products rather than following a set of rules. While the two are far from being mutually exclusive, we should be aware that in some situations the algorithmic approach counteracts the initial goals. I further claim that this is the only way vegetarianism can break from being in the marginal into the mainstream; which should be the ultimate objective provided that we take the sustainability issue of the food production seriously.

Leo Lobski, June 2017

The ideas presented here are to a large extent a thought in progress, and I would appreciate any comments, remarks or thoughts, especially those concerning the relationship between statistical and traditional vegetarianism/veganism.

1Quantitative would perhaps be a more accurate term, though I prefer statistical to emphasize the broad, cumulative perspective.

2and I literally mean supranational, not merely international

3Don’t get me wrong here, the statement is most likely factually true, all I’m saying is that it is not particularly useful in making veganism more widespread.

4Some of the possible changes are outlined at the end of this detailed report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM.

5e.g. on page 269 “– it may well be argued that environmental damage by livestock may be significantly reduced by lowering excessive consumption of livestock products among wealthy people.”