This page provides a clear definition of Veganism, explaining What Veganism is, Why humans should go vegan, and How to practice Veganism everyday for the rest of your life. You are also encouraged to Take the Vegan Pledge and share it widely and Subscribe to This Blog.
VEGANISM DEFINED
“Veganism is the moral philosophy and practice of humans respecting the basic rights of all sentient non-human animals”
Vegans refuse to be part of any injustice against non-human animals by:
- Not partaking in the use or exploitation of non-human animals.
- Avoiding all products, services, and activities that involve non-human animal use, and
- Abstaining from unfair practices or activities that cause any needless or avoidable harm or violate their basic rights and freedoms.
This includes, but is not limited to, using animals for food, clothing, items, entertainment, experimentation, work, or any other purpose — as well as hunting, culling, abuse, neglect, cruelty, or any other form of intentional harm, even if the animal is not being ‘used’ or ‘exploited’. This makes Veganism not just a philosophy but also a practical way of living and behaving, rooted in the concept of justice.
Whether you are new to veganism or seeking a precise definition to share with others, this page explains the essential concepts of Veganism in a very simple, direct, accurate, and concise format.
1. Who Is an Animal?
Animals are sentient lifeforms — including both human and non-human beings — who are distinct from plants, fungi, germs, or other lifeforms in nature, because they possess the capacity to feel. This capacity includes sensations such as pain, pleasure, comfort, fear, and physical, mental, or emotional states. Non-human animals, just like humans, are individuals too, with thoughts, interests, experiences, and their own inner worlds that sentience provides.
2. What Is Sentience?
Sentience is the ability to have subjective experiences. A sentient being can feel, perceive, and experience sensations and emotions. Sentience comes with the capacity to sense suffering, and the capacity for well-being. This is the foundation upon which ethical considerations and rights must be based: if a being can feel sensitively, they have an interest in avoiding harm; but if they can experience joy or peace, they have an interest in achieving those states. While science may not yet be able to confirm sentience in all animals such as mollusks, as a precautionary principle, all animals are regarded as sentient. This includes species such as jellyfish, oysters, worms, mollusks, or other animals that move, wiggle, flee, or react to perceived threats in addition to vertebrates and other legally recognized sentient animals such as fish and crustaceans.
Animals vs. Plants, Fungi, and Germs in Terms of Sentience
Animals: Animals have nervous systems or equivalent neural networks, which allow them to perceive, think, feel, and have subjective experiences, such as pain, pleasure, fear, stress, or comfort. Their responses — fleeing, wriggling, vocalizing, or producing defensive chemicals — are linked to experience and potential suffering, which forms the basis for ethical concern in veganism. Therefore, they are considered sentient.
Plants, Algae, and Fungi: Plants, algae, and fungi may respond to stimuli (e.g., touch-sensitive movements, chemical release when cut, or growth toward light). However, these responses are automatic physiological or biochemical processes; they lack a nervous system, brain, or known capacity for subjective experience. While they react to stimuli, there is no evidence to indicate that they experience pleasure, pain, fear, or stress in the way sentient animals do. Therefore, they are not considered sentient.
Germs and Single-Celled Organisms: Single-celled organisms, whether prokaryotic (e.g., bacteria) or eukaryotic (e.g., amoebas), lack a nervous system and cannot experience sensations. Therefore, they are not considered sentient.
3. Basic Rights Based on Sentience
Because sentient beings share the fundamental capacity to feel and experience life, we as human beings should recognize some of their inherent rights that should be respected regardless of their species. All sentient beings deserve freedom from unfair practices as part of their basic rights. Let us delineate these Basic and Inalienable Rights as the following:
The Eight Basic Rights of Sentient Living Beings
1. To Life, 2. To Bodily Integrity, 3. Freedom from Use, 4. Freedom from Exploitation, 5. Freedom from Harm, 6. Freedom from Confinement, 7. Freedom from Oppression and Abuse, 8. Freedom from Discrimination
In addition to the above, for an expanded framework of all rights, please see the groundbreaking, complete and comprehensive, Animal Right Declaration.
These basic rights apply to all sentient living beings, whether human or non-human animal. While human rights are already well known and acted upon or in the process of being enacted where they are missing, non-human animal rights have been marginalised geatly. Therefore Veganism focuses on our human responsibility to avoid causing harm, exploitation, or injustice, to non-human animals wherever we can reasonably act and enact laws to prevent them.
Exceptions apply only in cases of genuine self-defence, safety, protection, or unavoidable accidents, never for convenience, profit, taste, pleasure, culture, beliefs, tradition, domination, control, or any other personal gain or selfish objective. Whether or not laws existing so far may have recognized these rights, Veganism remains valid as the right thing to learn, practice and teach others widely.
4. Why Choose Veganism?
Human beings are animals who have evolved from herbivorous primates, and infact are one of the great apes. Our physiology does not require the consumption or use of non-human animals or their milk, ovulation, or regurgitation, for our survival or well-being. Modern nutrition, science, and lived experience show that humans can thrive on plant-based foods and cruelty-free alternatives.
Additionally, humans possess moral awareness, the ability to distinguish right from wrong, and empathy, which allows us to recognize and avoid causing suffering. Because we do not require the use of non-human animals for any essential purpose, using or harming them unfairly, becomes an avoidable form of rights abuse.
Other beings such as non human animals or AI might lack the moral capacity to go Vegan. Humans however must be expected to be Vegan as a part of basic moral human behavior. Veganism should be recognized as a moral baseline for all human beings, be taught in schools as part of basic moral education, and form the foundation of all laws surrounding non-human animals.
5. How to Be Vegan: What to Refuse, and What to Choose Instead
Veganism involves refusing the use of animals or animal-derived products in all areas of life, and choosing Vegan alternatives.
Avoid Using, Buying, Selling, or Participating In:
Animal-based food items: such as animal meat, fish, dairy, eggs, honey
Animal-derived clothing: such as leather, wool, silk, fur, feathers
Animal-tested products: such as cosmetics, household items, chemicals
* Note: A product labeled cruelty-free may simply mean it was not tested on non-human animals, but it may still contain or other animal-derived ingredients
Activities involving harm: such as hunting, fishing, trapping, culling (including so-called population control of deer, grey squirrels, or any other animals)
Animal entertainment: such as zoos, circuses, marine parks, horse riding, racing, use in cinema or media
Animal-based products: such as animal gelatin, collagen, lanolin, beeswax, tallow, carmine insect dye, shellac insect excreta, vanillin beaver anal flavouring, or any other derivative or E number
Breeding, buying, keeping, or selling animals as commodities or livestock
Services dependent on animal exploitation: such as horse-drawn carriages, camel rides, elephant rides, and so on.
Choose Vegan Alternatives:
Plant-based Vegan foods and fortified vegan nutrition (avoiding anything animal derived or tested). Vegan alternatives, options, and recipes, are available widely for everything from plant based meats, chocolates, cookies, cakes, yogurt, omelettes, to just about anything you can imagine.
Vegan ingredients in all items such as plant-based fibers or synthetics for clothing, and non-animal derived accessories, substances, chemicals, jewellery, shoes, furnishing, stationery, cleaning products, personal care, cosmetics, accessories, gadgets, machines, and so on. These are also widely available in shops, supermarkets and online.
Products that are both vegan and not tested on animals — avoiding the term cruelty-free in isolation, because some items labeled cruelty-free may still contain animal-derived ingredients for example household, cosmetics, or personal care items.
Ethical, non-exploitative activities such as nature walks, plant-based learning experiences, genuine animal sanctuaries, use of simulation or computer generated images, videos, and art to replace animal use in zoos, circuses, marine parks, rodeos, sports, cinema, hunting, fishing, etc.
Adoption only if needed by the non human animal for their rescue, instead of breeding or purchasing non human animals for human use, and using Vegan food options including Vegan pet food designed to suit their biology which are proven by science and research to be healthy and enough for pets.
6. Key Differences: Vegan vs. Cruelty-Free, Welfarism, and Plant Based Environmentalism,
Veganism is not limited to animal welfare, avoiding animal testing or reducing cruelty. It is grounded in a complete and consistent understanding of animal rights — the rights of all sentient beings not to be used, exploited, needlessly harmed, or treated as commodities. Therefore, veganism requires choosing items that are fully vegan, meaning they contain no animal-derived ingredients and also involve no animal exploitation in production including non-human animal testing (cruelty free).
Veganism is not about degrees of cruelty, welfare standards, or reducing harm — it is about the abolition of all practices, products, services, and activities that violate the basic or fundamental rights of non-human animals.
Veganism is also not an environmental choice for the reason that while eco-friendly options do exist among Vegan items, the reason for being Vegan is a moral one, and not climate change or environment. Veganism is about making the world a better place inside out by aligning our outer actions with moral values, in order to create a world where animals, and not just human animals, are respected as individuals. This is how we heal the world and make it a better place for all beings, not just human beings.
7. Learn More and Share
For further information, practical guides, and educational materials,
Please Download: Free Vegan Leaflet
And Kindly: Take the Vegan Pledge
Read the Blog: Free Articles
This information is an essential read for all human beings, filling a major need gap, with clear facts that our governments and our legal, education, spiritual, and medical systems have so far completely failed to understand themselves, or deliver truthfully to human society.
Many people might have so far received incomplete or misleading information on the subject of Veganism, with media often confusing it with cruelty-free labeling, plant-based diet trends, environmentalism, or animal welfare. Please help us clarify facts accurately present a moral and rights-based definition to the public by sharing this information far and wide.
Please feel free to re-use and re-distribute this article or its contents and definition with credit or back-link for the purpose of creating awareness.
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