This excuse seeks to validate a non-vegan diet by claiming that we shouldn’t be held responsible for our immoral activities because our selfish impulses are too strong to be suppressed and as such, we can’t be held morally accountable for the actions that we make. But where do we draw the line? Would this argument hold up in court if a murderer in their own defense said, “but I could never give up murdering because I enjoy it too much.”?

 It requires more than sensory pleasure to morally justify something  - and the inconvenience people go through by giving up cheese,⁹ for example, is not even remotely comparable to the pain a dairy cow goes through being forcibly impregnated repeatedly, having her children taken away from her and being painfully pumped for her milk before she becomes too weak and is sent off to be slaughtered. →

 The fear of death is not unique to humans.  Most of us fear dying and hope it will happen peacefully, surrounded by the ones we love without pain. The scariest thing we can think of is being tortured and ultimately murdered. But this isn’t a horror film for the trillions of animals that are slaughtered each year.¹⁰ It’s real, the pain, the fear, it is all real - and then they die and they are gone forever.

We need only put ourselves in the position of the animals, as they look up at the human who’s about to murder them and imagine their fear and confusion, to understand why taste can never justify this incomprehensible atrocity. →