I dont see it here, so figured someone’s gotta post it. Here is the definition of veganism as made by the vegan society circa 1944:
“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.”
The difference here is you go with an idealist approach and the vegan society definition is more materialist.
This is not to say that ‘materialist is better than idealist’. The materialist approach starts from our current reality and built an idea from that (we exploit animals for many things, we should try to avoid that). I think it is way more precise and approachable to say that we try to avoid animal oppression as much as possible instead of starting a conversation about rights extension. This second approach can be difficult to apprehend at first and raises many questions.
Also in the materialist approach states clearly the reason behind the concept : unnecessary suffering. Talking about rights is 100% necessary too, but it can raise the question on why : then we have to talk about the consequences and the end goal.
Introducing vegan concept from a materialist approach seems slightly better to me. Unless you know your audience who specifically be more inclined to an other approach this is a good default.
Last point : I felt like you criticizing the vegan society here “vegan society was founded to promote than their own current definition”. But really isn’t this the whole point? Like anti-racist, women rights, trans rights, etc organizations, whenever you advocate for ideas you need to advocate for a specific definition of them.
What if you get the question what animal oppression means or why it is bad? I think you can’t really avoid talking about animal rights unless it immediately clicks for them, which is rare.
Utilitarianism where the goal is to minimize suffering and maximize happiness is another popular approach that is very intuitive for many people. I assume this is what you mean with a materialist approach. Talking about the necessity of suffering raises another issue: how are we to define what is necessary? Necessary for what, survival? If that is the case, what about the crop deaths involved in the production of snacks we don’t need?
To criticize utilitarianism, you could ask people if they are against ‘happy (human) slavery’, or the rape where the rapists get more joy than the victim suffering (maybe if the victim was drugged).
The main issue with such an approach is that in my opinion, it doesn’t really lead to veganism. In practice it might make people abstain from purchasing animal products, but if there were to be ‘happy farms’, these people would not be against animal exploitation. I fail to see how exploitation can be condemned without this animal rights approach.
I think the concept of animal rights is not that hard to explain, although maybe a bit less intuitive. Animals are similar to us and can suffer like us, so they should get the same basic rights we benefit from. It is in their interest like our rights are in our interest. It’s not in their interest to drive or vote, as they can’t do those things, so they don’t need rights for those things. Just like males don’t need abortion rights. If you think human rights are crucial and don’t think the same way about animal rights, you should be able to name a trait that humans have and animals lack, that if humans were to lack should disqualify them from having human rights.
I’m not against a vegan definition. I just think that it should be based upon animal rights, and not a minimization of suffering, for the reasons explained above. I believe that the founders already had this animal rights mindset and that therefore the current definition is not entirely in line with their goals.