This article argues for limiting the definition of the term “veganism” to a minimal one that denotes veganism as the abstention from the consumption of animal-derived products, thereby treating it as a neutral term exclusively describing a pattern of action. As the practice of veganism has become popularized, the promotion of veganism and animal rights has gained mainstream attention, and scholarly research on veganism has proliferated, the term veganism has often come to be used to denote an ethical or political (...) position. We argue that this slippage from treating veganism as a practice to treating it as a belief complicates and confuses both scholarly analysis of, and plain-language conversations about, veganism. We examine the history of the term, its different uses, and motivations individuals may have for arriving at vegan practice to show that there is no coherent basis for treating veganism as anything other than a material practice. We argue that using veganism strictly to describe practice is not only logically appropriate and conducive to more clarity in discussions and research about veganism, but will encourage clearer and more nuanced engagement with the ethics, activism, and everyday practices of vegans in all their variety. (shrink)

Philosophers often enroll disabled bodies and minds as objects of thought in their arguments from marginal cases and in thought experiments: for example, arguments for animal ethics use cognitively disabled people as a contrast case, and Merleau-Ponty uses a blind man with a cane as an exemplar of the relationship of technology to the human, of how technology mediates. However, these philosophers enroll disabled people without engaging significantly in any way with disabled people themselves. Instead, disabled people are treated in (...) philosophy as literal objects—and in many cases, as less than human. (This sense of a categorical difference between disabled and nondisabled people is becoming especially clear during the Covid-19 pandemic, as I write this article.) Philosophical reflection thus makes assumptions—often wrong—about disabled people’s lives, experiences, and relationships to technology. Outside of philosophy as well as in, disabled people are not regarded as experts about our own experiences and lives; our testimony is paternalistically written over. We need better consideration of disabled people as people as we consider the future. Lack of disabled people’s points of view in philosophy colors—and sometimes invalidates—views of technological change. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that there are good, scientifically credible reasons for thinking that some nonhuman animals might have genders. We begin by considering why the sex/gender distinction has been important for feminist politics yet has also been difficult to maintain. We contrast contemporary views that trouble gender with those typical of traditional sex difference research, which has enjoyed considerable feminist critique, and argue that the anthropocentric focus of feminist accounts of gender weakens these critiques. Then, drawing from Jordan-Young’s (...) concept of gendered norms of reaction and van Anders’ Sexual Configurations Theory, we consider what it might mean to say that animals other than humans are gendered in a scientifically robust sense that does not simply reduce gender to sex or project human gender norms onto other animals. It is important that such an account is not only sensitive to its political ramifications for feminist and queer politics but is also sensitive to the ways in which troubling the human–nonhuman animal divide may seem to threaten those humans whose oppression is constituted by dehumanization and animalization. We suggest that, in fact, the contrary is true. We find that decolonial feminists have plausibly argued that animalizing oppression is premised on the human–animal divide and that the idea of nonhuman animal genders fits naturally with some traditional Indigenous ways of thinking about other animals and their relations with humans. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the question of whether there is justification for regulations that place limits on food choices. I begin by discussing Sarah Conly’s recent defense of paternalist limits on food choice. I argue that Conly’s argument is flawed because it assumes a particular conception of health that is not universally shared. I examine this conception of health in some detail, and I argue that we need to shift our focus from individual behaviors and lifestyle to the broader (...) social and environmental context. Such a shift allows us to see the ways in which industry practices are negatively impacting our well-being (a broader concept than “health”). I argue that state regulatory activity surrounding the conditions under which food is grown, processed, marketed, and sold needs to be strengthened. As a result, there are likely to be some indirect limitations on food choice. These indirect limitations are justified, but regulations in which the goal is to change individual behavior or lifestyle are not. (shrink)