We Have Bigger Problems to Solve

Argument #9 of 13

The Argument

Look at the world right now. There are active genocides happening. Wars displacing millions of people. Children dying of preventable diseases. Extreme poverty affecting billions. Human trafficking. Climate change threatening civilization. Mass homelessness in wealthy countries. Mental health crises. Drug epidemics. And vegans want us to spend our limited moral energy worrying about whether it's okay to eat a chicken?

We have finite time, money, attention, and emotional capacity for moral causes. Every hour spent advocating for veganism is an hour not spent fighting human suffering. Every dollar donated to animal sanctuaries is a dollar not going to feed starving children or provide clean water to villages. Every bit of political capital used to push for animal welfare legislation is capital that could have been used to address actual human crises.

It's not that animal suffering doesn't matter at all—it's that we need to practice moral triage. When a hospital has limited resources, doctors don't treat the patient with a broken finger before treating the patient bleeding out from a gunshot wound. Similarly, when humanity has limited capacity to address ethical problems, we should focus on the most urgent and severe issues first. Animal agriculture doesn't even make the top 20 list of problems we should be prioritizing.

The luxury of caring about animal welfare is itself evidence of privilege. People who are worried about where their next meal is coming from aren't concerned about the ethics of that meal. The fact that vegans have the time and energy to think about this issue proves they've already solved their more pressing problems. Maybe once we've eliminated war, poverty, and human suffering, we can circle back to worrying about chickens. But not before.

The Response

Let's first clarify what this argument is actually claiming. Is it saying:

"There are worse things happening in the world right now. Therefore, we are relieved of having to ethically justify other actions that we take, especially if they are less significant."

If that's the claim, then we should be able to apply it consistently. By this logic:

• "There's a genocide happening, so I don't need to justify shoplifting."
• "Children are starving, so I don't need to justify littering."
• "There are wars happening, so I don't need to justify cheating on my partner."

Obviously, this doesn't work. The existence of greater evils doesn't ethically permit lesser evils. We don't get a free pass to do harmful things just because worse things are happening elsewhere.

The argument also assumes we can only care about one thing at a time. But humans are capable of addressing multiple ethical concerns simultaneously. I can oppose genocide and choose not to eat animals. These aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, for most people, being vegan requires virtually no additional time or effort once the habit is formed—you're eating anyway, you're just choosing different foods.

If the argument is that animal suffering should be lower on our priority list, fine—let's have that conversation. But "there are bigger problems" isn't an argument against veganism. It's an excuse to avoid thinking about the ethical implications of a choice we're already making three times a day.