Beyond Zoocentrism: Enhancing Veganism’s Transformative Potential

Overview

This article examines conceptual limitations within mainstream vegan discourse and advocacy, particularly organizational framings that prioritize sentient animal welfare. The author identifies problematic zoocentrism in prominent vegan organizations' messaging, wherein advocacy relies on human-animal binaries that inadvertently reinforce anthropocentric hierarchies and exclude broader ecological considerations. The analysis draws on post-anthropocentric and decolonial theoretical frameworks to interrogate how conventional vegan ethics, despite progressive intent, may constrain the movement's capacity for systemic transformation.

Methods and approach

The article employs critical discourse analysis of vegan organizational messaging, examining how dominant ethical frameworks construct distinctions among humans, animals, and plants. Theoretical grounding in post-anthropocentric philosophy and decolonial thought provides the analytical scaffolding for identifying internal contradictions within vegan advocacy. The methodology incorporates case study analysis to illustrate how alternative framings might address identified conceptual limitations, situating vegan politics within broader liberation frameworks that account for intersecting systems of domination.

Key Findings

The analysis reveals that contemporary mainstream vegan discourse frequently reproduces zoocentrism through emphasis on sentience-based moral consideration, which paradoxically maintains human-exceptional frameworks while critiquing animal exploitation. This approach constructs animals as worthy subjects of protection through their proximity to human-defined ethical categories, thereby excluding nonsentient biota and replicating hierarchical epistemologies. The article demonstrates that organizational advocacy centered on respect for sentient life, while addressing immediate welfare concerns, may fundamentally constrain possibilities for more comprehensive biospheric ethics.

Implications

Reconceptualizing vegan movements toward genuine multispecies relationality requires theoretical reorientation beyond sentience-centric ethics. The research suggests that movements must engage with indeterminacy and complexity inherent in biospheric entanglements rather than deploying fixed categorical boundaries. This shift necessitates broadened understandings of personhood that resist both anthropocentric and selective zoocentric framings, enabling recognition of diverse forms of being and agency across ecological systems. Simultaneously, movements must integrate analysis of intersecting oppressive systems to strengthen political coherence and transformative capacity.

Scope and limitations

This summary is based on the study abstract and available metadata. It does not include a full analysis of the complete paper, supplementary materials, or underlying datasets unless explicitly stated. Findings should be interpreted in the context of the original publication.