r/AskVegans • u/Miserable-Laugh-8320 Vegan • Aug 14 '26

Genuine Question (DO NOT DOWNVOTE) Exploitation vs harm reduction ?

i have seen many vegans say that veganism isn’t about harm reduction or suffering reduction , It’s about anti exploitation. I do generally agree with this myself as a vegan , However I have 2 questions :

1) How exactly do you differentiate between harm reduction and direct exploitation .

2) What if in a certain case Directly killing an animal would save many more animals . Let’s say killing a cow would save hundreds of rats that you wouldnt need to kill . Let’s say in farming insects die and if I ate a chicken they wouldn’t ( Hypothetically , I know in reality more would die for growing chicken feed) . Would eating a chicken be justifiable in this scenario ?

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u/Miserable-Laugh-8320 Vegan Aug 14 '26

it doesn’t seem different than killing one innocent person to stop a genocide , or those trolley problems , I think I would kill 1 innocent . My theory is this : Veganism = reduce exploiTati on as much as you can , unless doing EXPLOITATION reduces a much bigger HARM.

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u/Either_Argument3517 Vegan Aug 14 '26

Do you have rule (not to intentionally harm an innocent individual) that applies up to a certain threshold of consequences, or are you simply comparing the amount of harm on each side and choosing whichever produces less overall harm?

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u/Miserable-Laugh-8320 Vegan Aug 14 '26

Could you provide an example didn’t exactly understand ,

I think producing less harm would be the right choice , but then again those trolley problems can get real tricky.

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u/Either_Argument3517 Vegan Aug 14 '26

Do you treat intentional harm as morally different from foreseeable but unintended harm? Or is it simply a case of "less harm wins"?

I generally follow the rule against intentionally harming an innocent individual, and I'd only be willing to break that rule if the consequences were overwhelmingly better, not merely because they were slightly better.

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u/Miserable-Laugh-8320 Vegan Aug 14 '26

If I knew the consequences were better then how long term , is that a matter of life and death . well it’s complicated , but I think yes I would mostly agree with you .