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Whether you are new vegans or veterans, I hope you arrived here because you internalized
three things that most vegans have not yet fully grasped.

The first thing is the degree of injustice that animals undergo. Trillions of victims every year are
exploited in slaughterhouses, dairy farms, chicken coops, testing labs, fishing pools, oceans,
zoos, and a variety of other places that consecrate human supremacy and put the whims of
humans above the natural right of animals to live free without any human feeling entitled to use
their bodies. The exploitation of animals includes unfathomable hell and suffering.

The second thing is that over 99% of the population are active participants in this injustice.
Because most of humanity is non-vegan – our family, friends, and colleagues – they are the
reason why animals are exploited to death.

The third thing is that animals are incapable of speaking for themselves in our language. They
do express their feelings and pain clearly, but humans choose to ignore them, or these cries are
well-hidden behind concrete walls. Unlike other struggles in history, here the victims
cannot organize, protest, or defend themselves.

By internalizing these three things, it is unequivocally clear that this is the greatest and most
ongoing injustice in the world. This places us vegans in a very clear position – we are the only
ones the animals can lean on. Choosing to be neutral in the war humans have declared is not
an option. If you were in the helpless position of the animals, you would not accept vegans
choosing to remain silent. You would want them to fight for you as much as they are capable.

In other words, you cannot say you are truly on the side of animals, if you do not speak for
them.

When you become vegan activists, thanks to you – animals have a chance to be rescued from
the injustice they experience. And the advantage for you is that at the end of your life, you will
be able to say you did not stand by while the greatest injustice in the world happened before
your eyes.

This guide is intended for vegans who want to sharpen their skills in order to serve the animals
in the most proper way. As an activist for over 10 years, after getting to experiment with a variety
of activities and methods, I am here to pass on all my insights, standing on the shoulders of
giants – great activists who came before me and advanced the animal rights movement.

I also want to promote critical thinking. This is why I am going to detail the reasons behind my
recommendations on how to be a good activist. Just as non-vegans need to internalize why they
stop exploiting animals, it is important that vegans deeply understand why they act in a certain
way, not just because something is popular, “works”, or “that’s how we do it”.

The first step is to understand what our goal is. So let’s begin:

The Basics

Unfortunately, I meet many activists who, despite their good intentions, act out of basic assumptions that are inaccurate at best, and completely wrong at worst.

A justice movement that cannot agree on its basics is doomed to fail. We can, and even should, have discussions about the variety of actions that will advance the animal liberation movement and what works better or worse. But to do so, we must first establish an agreement on the meaning of the concepts we use.

This leads us to the definition of veganism. While it is not surprising that most non-vegans don’t know how to define what veganism is, it is even more surprising that most vegans you ask to define what veganism is, will provide an incorrect or partial answer.

The original definition of veganism was defined in 1951 by Leslie Cross of the Vegan Society in the UK:

“The doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals.”

Since this language is outdated, the definition can be formulated in the following modern way:

“The ethical principle that humans should live without exploiting other animals.”

As Cross said, according to this definition veganism is not a set of practices, but naturally, from adopting veganism certain practices stem – such as avoiding eating meat, drinking milk, wearing leather and feathers, going to zoos, and more.

What is exploitation? Exploitation is defined as using someone else for your own goals. Animals, similar to young children, are incapable of giving informed consent, and therefore any use of their bodies, lives, or products for our desires is exploitation. I will clarify that the intention here is the use of animals as a means to a human end (labor, clothing, entertainment, etc.), and not a relationship of patronage and care (similar to young children we care for and do not exploit).

You can find Leslie Cross’s full speech, “The Vegan Story,” which summarizes Cross’s position, in the attached link.

Note that by definition, veganism is abolitionist. Abolitionism was originally the movement for the absolute abolition of black slavery in America. Just as the movement to free black slaves in America did not ask for longer chains or an easing of conditions for the slaves but demanded their absolute release from the status of property, in the context of the animal rights movement, the abolitionist position does not demand an improvement in the conditions in which animals are held – it demands the cessation of their exploitation by humans.

I wrote an extensive article on the severe problematic nature of promoting animal welfare and why it stands in complete contrast to promoting veganism, which you can read here.

Today, most organizations in the animal rights movement focus on the conditions in which animals are kept – the suffering, the confinement, the crowding. But they barely talk about the inherent problem in the fact that animals are kept as slaves for humans in the first place.

But the very oppressive relationship humans have cultivated against other animals – is the problem.

Note that any manifestation of exploitation, violence, and abuse of animals, is merely a symptom that comes from a sense of entitlement humans feel over the bodies of other animals. I expand deeply on this oppressive mentality and how to dismantle it, in the article “5 Reasons Why People Are Not Vegan”.

Veganism relies on two fundamental points:
1. All sentient beings (capable of feeling, subjective experience, and emotion) are unique individuals.
2. The basic right of every individual is to live free.

From this stems the recognition that using someone as a “means to an end” means denying them their freedom. Without consent, no one has the right to turn another living creature into a factory or a product.

Finally, it is important to emphasize: veganism deals solely with the treatment of humans towards other animals, and therefore it is a moral and justice position only. It is not related to health, spirituality, or the environment, even if there are benefits in these areas as a result of practicing vegan habits. Whoever stops consuming animals only for health or environmental reasons has not adopted the principle of non-exploitation, and therefore will likely return to animal products the moment their personal interest changes, and will not hesitate to exploit animals when it does not concern their personal health or the environment – for example, zoos or riding elephants in Thailand. We will touch on the fundamental importance of this point later.

Common Misunderstandings

If you examine the web pages of prominent activists and organizations in the world that define themselves as vegan, you will encounter a variety of messages that create confusion at best, and cause real damage at worst. Here are some common examples:

• “Veganism – for your health!”
• “Sign the petition for a ban on battery cages!”
• “Go vegan, you will save water and help the environment!”
• “Reduce meat consumption!”
• “Trying veganism together!”
• “Veganism isn’t about being perfect, it’s about reducing suffering as much as possible!”

On the surface, many people are sure that these are slogans that promote the cause, and many will wonder why I choose to criticize them. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, or as the malaphor I personally love to say goes: the road to hell wasn’t built in a day.

Contrary to the accusations of others intended to silence the discussion, my criticism does not come from a place of purism, self-righteousness, or blind dogmatism. It stems from absolute commitment to what puts animals first – not only as a moral principle, but also because it is the only way that brings real results and maximizes impact on the ground. I hope that after the next chapters, the conveyed message will be clear and preferably unquestionable both in principle and in practice.

To clarify, let’s first clarify what veganism is not:

• A diet: This is the most common misunderstanding. Framing a justice discourse as a matter of culinary preference prevents people from taking the victims seriously, and completely ignores the hundreds of different ways humans exploit animals. A 2026 study shows that interest in the nutritional aspects of a plant-based diet did not last and even declined over time, while interest in veganism as a moral stance grew.
• A lifestyle: The moral decision not to exploit someone is not equivalent to a decision like where you decide to live or how many times you work out a month.
• Love/compassion: Not exploiting children is not driven by love and compassion, it is driven by basic decency. This obligation applies in exactly the same way to other animals.
• A matter of health/environment: There is a fundamental difference between side effects on people’s health and the environment as an accompanying result of implementing veganism. One who eats plant-based for health reasons will wear leather shoes, go to a zoo, and eat meat if the doctor tells him he lacks vitamins.
• Reduction of suffering: Reducing suffering as a guiding principle is an abstract concept, full of holes, subject to interpretation, that still sees animals as resources and still allows their exploitation. There is no boundary defining what a “proper” degree of suffering reduction is.
• Something to “try”: A moral principle is not something to “try”. It implies that the freedom of animals is subject to how convenient or inconvenient it is for a human to allow it.

The sentences I gave as examples above and similar ones, stem from distorting the definition of veganism (intentionally or out of ignorance), or from a compromising utilitarian view, and mostly both together.

So let’s dive into these two concepts, what misunderstandings have arisen from them, and why they cause damage.

Distortion of the Definition of Veganism

As I wrote earlier, veganism is the moral principle that humans should live without exploiting other animals. This is how it was officially defined according to Leslie Cross of the Vegan Society in 1951.

This definition is simple, clear, easy to remember, and easy to explain.

The problem is that this original definition has been eroded and forgotten over the years, as a result of political and economic interests of institutionalization and compromise.

If we go today to the Vegan Society’s website, we will see a completely different definition:

“Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”

Suddenly we encounter a long, complex, and confusing formulation, which cannot be memorized, introducing vague concepts: “as far as is possible and practicable”, “cruelty”, and concern “for the benefit of humans and the environment”. When vegan organizations today try to promote veganism, they almost always rely on this distorted definition, or its derivatives.

Many will claim in defense of the modern wording that the caveat “as far as is possible and practicable” is necessary. After all, in the modern world, it is impossible to be a “100% pure vegan” – life-saving medications were tested on animals, insects are squashed on car windshields, and animal-based glues exist in the electronics industry. This caveat was originally intended to protect veganism from this impossible “purism trap”.

But in practice, an opposite and dangerous thing happened: this caveat became a flexible escape hatch that everyone interprets according to their personal level of convenience, rather than a genuine necessity of reality. Once the boundary becomes subjective, non-vegans (and compromising activists) use it to validate moral inconsistency – ranging from “it’s impossible to be perfect, so it’s not terrible if I buy leather shoes once a year” to “for me right now it’s not practically possible to give up cheese, so I’m still okay”. The definition of a justice movement cannot rely on the convenience index of the oppressor.

It is important to understand why these changes in the definition were introduced, and what damage they cause.

These changes were not born in a vacuum. They were introduced out of processes of institutionalization and bureaucracy. The Vegan Society was registered as a corporate entity (Limited Company) in 1979 (as noted in the link above). This move marked its transformation from a radical, ideological, and fighting NGO – to an institutionalized body, which began to worry first and foremost about internal politics, easy fundraising, and later the commercialization of its official mark (the famous V mark found on European products).

This organizational change occurred in the same month that another critical event took place – the death of Leslie Cross. All substantive changes in the definition of veganism were made after Cross was no longer there to protect the original abolitionist spirit. The definition was softened and broadened to give the non-vegan public “moral convenience” and not deter them, but it’s the animals who truly paid the cost for this compromise.

In the past, Leslie Cross and the Vegan Society were pioneers in the field of animal liberation and promoting an abolitionist message for animals.

Today, the society has lost its conceptual relevance other than its marking of vegan-friendly products in England, and it is simply no longer relevant today – and so is its current definition. However, the damage has already been done.

With the introduction of environmental and health messages, alongside setting boundaries subject to personal interpretation (“as far as is possible and practicable”), the focus of the animal movement shifted towards what the victimizers have to gain. Those who were supposed to represent the animals became responsible for erasing the very victims they were supposed to represent.

I understand that for some readers, the connection between the distortion of the definition and the damage on the ground is still not obvious. To clarify this, we must analyze the moral philosophy that currently – unjustifiably – dominates animal activism circles: the utilitarian approach.

The Harm in Utilitarianism

To explain what utilitarianism is, why it is related to the animal rights movement, and why its common use causes damage to the movement, and consequently why the distortion of the definition of veganism caused damage, I will briefly talk a bit about philosophy. But don’t worry – I’ll make sure it stays as simple as possible!

In moral philosophy, there is the concept of “normative ethics”, which describes how humans should behave morally.

Under normative ethics, there are two main and opposing schools of thought.

The first school is deontology. According to it, a moral action is determined by whether the action itself is moral or not, regardless of its consequences. Deontology establishes moral rules meant to protect the individual, for example – do not murder, do not steal, do not exploit.

The second school is utilitarianism (or consequentialism). According to it, an action is measured by how much it maximizes well-being and minimizes pain and suffering for the collective. Utilitarianism does not see unique individuals before its eyes; for it, living beings are merely numbers in a mathematical formula, where “the ends justify the means”.

To understand the difference, let’s ask – what happens if a doctor decides to kill one healthy patient who came for a routine checkup, to harvest his organs and save five terminally ill patients? From a strictly utilitarian perspective, this is a moral action (saving five lives versus losing one life). From a deontological perspective, it is a heinous crime, since the healthy patient has absolute right over his body and must not be used as a means to achieve a goal, even if that goal is seemingly noble.

The adoption of pure utilitarianism leads to terrifying social consequences: it validates the enslavement of minorities if the majority profits from it, or allows throwing an innocent person in jail to calm riots in the streets. Pure utilitarianism has three severe structural weaknesses:

• Lack of intrinsic value: A human (or animal) is perceived as a poker chip that can be exploited and sacrificed when the need arises.
• Breaking of trust: You cannot trust anyone’s word, because the moment the utility is great enough, they will stab you in the back.
• Corruption: Immoral actions carried out by those in power receive moral validation from pure utilitarians under the guise of “the greater good”.

Let’s return the discussion now to animals. When veganism was originally defined as the moral principle that humans must live without exploiting animals, it was a clear deontological principle.

There are no numbers here.

There are no calculations here.

There is only treating each individual as an entire world.

But it seems that most activists and organizations in the animal movement act according to utilitarianism, and I assume this happens without them even realizing they are taking a utilitarian stance in the first place. This leads to a crazy paradox – while the goal of the movement is to recognize the right of individuals to live free, the activists themselves perform mathematical calculations that erase the victims from the equation, ostensibly in the name of “the greater goal”.

There are activists who will defend this utilitarian approach and say: “But animals don’t care about the reason they stop being exploited! The main thing is that their suffering is reduced”.

I do not intend to turn the discussion into a debate around which normative ethics is optimal. It is clear that blind adoption of only one school, whether deontology or utilitarianism, misses the complexity of reality. Instead, I want to show that even in a strictly utilitarian view, promoting a superficial and compromising message acts as a boomerang and inflicts catastrophic damage in the long run, and that it is better to adopt an abolitionist message even if your morality tends to be more utilitarian by nature.

Even if reducing suffering is a matter that is important to you, the ways in which utilitarianism is promoted often come from thinking about the short term only without considering long-term effectiveness and negative consequences that actually do not reduce suffering – but increase it.

I will preface by saying there is no fundamental problem with someone who promotes a plant-based diet through messages of health, environment, or anything else. But there is a fundamental difference between saying “eat plant-based for your health”, and trying to market the concept of veganism through this prism. Trying to promote veganism as a health matter is like saying you shouldn’t steal because running from the police will give us an ulcer – it might be true, but it completely misses the point.

The main problem is that utilitarian approaches tend to focus on symptoms and not the root of the problem. The exploitative sense of entitlement humans feel over animals must be challenged. Otherwise, its symptoms, like exploiting animals to eat them, are destined to return sooner or later. Read in the attached link about the 5 real reasons why people are not vegan, where I expand on treating the root of the problems that prevent people from transitioning to veganism.

Even if you convinced a person to switch to a plant-based diet for cholesterol or climate reasons, without moral internalization of the non-exploitation principle, it is only a matter of time until their life circumstances change (for example, a personal crisis where they won’t have the energy to worry about their health) and they return to consuming animals.

Another thing that is always unmentioned in these discussions is that focusing on symptoms will never roll the idea forward. In other words, utilitarian activism does not replicate itself.

Abolitionist activists who convey an unambiguous message inspire people to raise their voices as well and become powerful activists themselves. In contrast, no dedicated activist was born from sentences like “eat tofu scramble instead of eggs to avoid cholesterol”.

Anyone who relies on studies to show that diluted and watered-down messages “work better” on the general public (as done, for example, by the Belgian activist Tobias Leenaert), suffers from a double fallacy:

First, they completely ignore the social domino effect. If you turned one person into a moral and abolitionist vegan, there is a high chance they will start spreading the word in their circles and create ten more vegans. If you convinced someone to give up meat once a week, you got a small, temporary, static reduction that will not roll anywhere.

Second, and this is the heart of the matter – the utilitarian argument mistakenly assumes that if we demand absolute abolitionism, we will miss those people who are not ready for full change and thus “lose” their immediate suffering reduction (“I prefer 100 reducetarians over one perfect vegan!”). But reality on the ground proves the opposite: when we present an uncompromising abolitionist message, the reduction in consumption happens anyway as a natural byproduct. In fact, even when my demand is very clear – veganism as a moral minimum, most people I talk with about  vegan on the streets tell me “I will reduce”, “I will become vegetarian”, or “I will try veganism”.

A person exposed to the shocking moral truth of the exploitation they are responsible for may not become vegan overnight, but their conscience will no longer allow them to continue consuming at the same volumes. They will start reducing on their own, simply because they understand it is an injustice. The profound difference is that as abolitionist activists, we achieved this reduction as a byproduct without giving it moral validation, and without signaling to them that this reduction is the goal. We kept the aspiration clear, while a campaign that in advance only asks to “reduce”, signals to the victimizer that they have done more than enough, and thus relieves the non-vegan of responsibility.

While the problems of addressing symptoms only and the inability to cause the idea to spread point to inefficiency in promoting messages via a utilitarian method, there is another problem born from the utilitarian concept that causes real damage. This problem is the encouragement of exploitation implicitly and explicitly, which causes not only a reduction in the likelihood that the exploitation by the non-vegan will stop, but also an extension of the time the exploitation will continue.

This problem, first and foremost, is the promotion of animal welfare. I wrote extensively on the subject in the article attached in the link.