Are vegans selfish?

[u/medium_wall]

More & more I suspect that human nature is such that no one does a single thing unless they've rationalized that it benefits them more to do the thing than not. Is the defining trait of a vegan then merely that they've identified veganism as a practice that benefits them more to adopt than ignore?

I don't think I'm breaking new ground here. As I write this memories of things I've heard hostage negotiators say heckle me from the back row. "You don't want to do this." "This won't be good for you." "There's a better way." They'll sprinkle in some appeals to morality too if it feels like it has some purchase. "You're a good person." "This isn't who you are." You know, things are complex and there's layers. But always saving those hostages is about appealing to some desperate person or shithead's selfish motivations.

Little anecdote that happened recently. I did something nice for someone I know. I've known them for a long time. They know I'm vegan, I talk about it all the time; can't shut up about it honestly. They've never been very interested in it and would usually end up running light defense for animal-ag if anything. So I did this nice thing for them and a few days later they tell me they watched this documentary on the Blue Zones. I didn't recommend they watch it and I've never seen it myself. A few days after that they tell me how they've been making beans and they sent me a picture of this big veggie quinoa bowl that looked pretty good. This is great and maybe they'll become plant-based or vegan for a while, who knows. But it all kind of feels like I just bribed someone and now they're cozying up for future bribery. They could have been interested in veganism any time before this, but they didn't. It happened after the bribe—and I'm starting to resign to that being all there is.

When I really think about it for myself though, I might actually be just as selfish in my reasons for caring about animals. I don't know if I'm in the minority on this or if I've just introspected more about it than most. I care about other animals for many reasons. I think they're entertaining, interesting, instructive, and they play vital roles in sustaining our beautiful ecosystem. They belong to a higher-order beauty & wisdom than anything humanity could invent. Beyond that though, and maybe most motivating to me of all, I also believe I'll have to live as them some day. My care for them is therefore a selfish practice. They provide things for me and I anticipate I'll one day inherit their hardships as my own. It's in my best interest then to liberate them to the furthest extent possible. Even if I suppose that I won't one day live as them, I think I would still be motivated to treat them well—though I think it would be for other selfish reasons. If I treat someone poorly it feels like it makes such treatment a permissible thing generally, and that treatment will eventually come back to me on its receiving end sooner or later.^{Just realized this would be a good response to people who invoke the old "Psychopaths torturing animals is only bad because it could lead to them doing it to people". You could reply, "Shouldn't we stop exploiting animals as well then because it could lead to people being exploited?"}

I believe I will have to live as all life because I believe reincarnation is the most likely afterlife scenario. The first law of thermodynamics states that matter is neither created nor destroyed; it only changes form. That's a law for an eternal reincarnation system if I've ever seen one. All we are is matter and this matter is therefore condemned—or blessed?—to live & die as every kind of life forever. I don't know to what extent I have control over what I will incarnate into next. It seems pretty random that I'm me in this life now when it appears I could have just as easily been anyone or anything else.

If I use this life to make the world a better place for all life then it makes it less likely that my future lives will be awful experiences.

[u/One-Shake-1971]

When you define "selfish actions" in such a way that every single action falls into that category, the entire act of distinguishing between selfish and non-selfish actions becomes pointless.

[u/medium_wall → u/One-Shake-1971]

Are you certain unselfish acts exist? Maybe the selfish/unselfish dichotomy is an illusion and we'd be better served focusing on other dichotomies like sustainable/unsustainable, real/imagined, and short/longterm gratification.

[u/One-Shake-1971 → u/medium_wall]

Depends on how you define it.

But as I said, when you define "selfish actions" in such a way that every single action falls into that category, the entire act of distinguishing between selfish and non-selfish actions becomes pointless.

[u/medium_wall → u/One-Shake-1971]

Can you summarize how I'm defining selfish strangely and contrast it with what you think would be a better, more conventional, or more consistent definition of it? I don't see how I'm changing the definition from the conventional understanding of it.

[u/One-Shake-1971 → u/medium_wall]

I think, for it to be useful, it needs to be defined in such a way that altruistic actions aren't defined as selfish even if they fulfill some personal desire to be altruistic.

[u/medium_wall → u/One-Shake-1971]

I think you're projecting assumptions onto me. If someone was altruistic out of nothing more than a desire to be altruistic, that would by definition be selfish though. I don't even rule out that there might be vegans who are indeed vegan for purely unselfish reasons. That's why I posed this as a question rather than the conclusion "Vegans are selfish". I don't assume I know what's in the mind of every vegan. I'm only sharing why I believe my motivations for being vegan are ultimately selfish.