Reddit User Gives 6 Reasons Vegans Have a Moral Obligation to Donate Toward Ending Animal Exploitation

“This post is my argument that you, yes you personally who reads this post right now have a moral obligation to do more than just not participate in animal exploitation yourself, and Donate towards ending animal exploitation.”

The user added that the post is heavily inspired and takes many examples from Peter Singer’s book The Life You Can Save and also clarified that they are not associated with any of the organizations in the post. Through six main points, the user argued that vegans have the moral obligation to Donate to end animal exploitation.

1. Being Vegan is not enough.

The user explained that many people think that simply because they are vegan, they are already doing their part in ending animal exploitation. However, even if everyone else did this

“After all, if everyone else did the same, animals would no longer be exploited by humans.Here is the problem: Everyone else is not doing the same.”

The user then went on to give an example:

“A small thought experiment: You come across a pond and find 10 chickens drowning in that pond.9 other people are also seeing the drowning chickens, but none of them care to help them. Would you

a) Save one chicken, proclaim that you have done your part, and let the other nine chickens drown or

b) Save all ten chickens.

I am sure in this example the vast majority of vegans would save all ten chickens, even if doing so is doing more than your fair share in saving them. Other people being apathetic about saving animals, or about killing animals is not a justification for you to not help those animals.”

2. You almost certainly can Donate money for the animals, without giving up much comfort in your own life.

In this point, the user explained that the most common reason for not donating is people saying that they are students, poor, or cannot afford to Donate.

“I’m going to again take some examples from Singer: every time you buy bottled water instead of drinking from the tap, every time you go to a restaurant instead of making your own food, every time you go to a concert, you buy new clothes instead of second hand, go out for drinks, etc. (I’m sure you can think of many more examples in your own life), you could have saved that money.”

If you live in North America/Europe, you almost certainly have these kinds of unnecessary expenses, that add very little value to your own life, at most a few hours of entertainment, while the money would go a long way towards helping animals,” the user added.

3. You already know that an animal’s life has a higher value than any of the products above have to you.

Referring back to their earlier example, the user said, “but this time it is only one chicken drowning. You just bought new clothes worth 100€/$, that will be ruined if you jump in the pond to save the chicken. I’m sure most vegans would still jump in to save the chicken, even at this financial cost to themsevles. I would argue that we should apply this same logic to helping animals that are not dying directly in front of us.”

4. Saving an animal’s life is actually way cheaper than you think.

Next, the user discussed how much it would actually cost to save one animal from the animal industry.

“Now if we assume that the average participant in Veganuary would have gone Vegan anyways, but just went Vegan one year earlier because of Veganuary, and that one person going Vegan saves on average one animal per day, your donation of 1€/$ to Veganuary would have roughly saved three animal’s lives.”

“While it is obviously impossible to know the exact values, I think it is reasonable to say that every Dollar/Euro you give to a highly effective Vegan/Animal rights organization saves more than one life on average.”

5. What organization should you Donate to?

It is unfortunately not easy to estimate the amount of lives that would be saved from donating to certain organizations.

“Fortunately, there are organizations such as Animal Charity Evaluators that try to rank organizations based on how effective they are in saving animals. They also have a recommended charity fund that will split your donation between the highest rated charities. I personally believe that donating to that fund is likely one of the most effective way you can save animals, but if you disagree, find a charity that you think is very likely to be highly effective in saving animal’s lives and Donate what you can to them instead.”

6. So should we all sell all of our belongings and live in poverty to save animals?

The user explained that ethically, they believe that yes, that is what we should do. However, realistically they know that “very few people, including myself, are willing to go that far.”

“My personal take away from reading Singer’s book and from thinking about eveything you read above is that I will no longer take vacations abroad and opt for cheaper local options, will limit myself to visiting vegan restaurants no more than once a month, will buy all my clothes second hand instead of buying new clothes from vegan brands, will heat only one room in winter to save on gas, will buy cheaper staple foods instead of more expensive foods, and will generally have a second thought before buying any non-essential item.”

“None of these things will have a significant negative impact on my life, and I will be able to save and Donate 100+ Euros additionally per month this way. Which will save several hundred animals every month.”

“While they don’t suggest that all people should do the same as everyone has different circumstances, they say that “you personally and us all collectively can and should live more frugally, so we can Donate more for the animals, because we all have a moral obligation to Donate towards their liberation.”

Some users seemed to agree with the post.

“I think everyone should Donate, even students and lower income people. Even if it is $2 a month. Doing this will create the habit of giving which can continue on into the future if/when more money is available,” one user wrote.

However, some did not agree.