ABSTRACT
One of the motivating factors for adopting a vegan diet is the belief that it is wrong to inflict unnecessary death on nonhuman animals. Killing farmed animals for food and killing field animals to protect crops both involve forms of intentional agency. There are a number of responses that can be made to the argument from field deaths. First, one can dispute its empirical basis. A second line of argument is to point out that all else is not equal: There are many other compelling ethical reasons for adopting a vegan diet other than the avoidance of animal death. In the context of an armed conflict, most people agree that the intentional targeting of civilians is a particularly egregious form of waging warfare, even more so than other military operations that result in the “collateral” deaths of civilians. In the context of plant agriculture, the extent to which animals are killed depends on the methods of farming deployed.
