This piece is part of my “Arguments” series. In this collection of posts, I examine and respond to some of the most common arguments used to defend the exploitation of animals or to criticise veganism.
These articles are not intended to be exhaustive treatments of each topic. Rather, they are designed as practical reference pieces, helping readers reflect on these arguments more carefully and respond to them in a thoughtful, informed way.
You can find other entries in this series here.
The Claim
This claim is often made in response to vegan accusations of callousness or a lack of care towards animals. Sometimes, it is made pre-emptively, as a method of self-defence against what is perceived to be an attack on our self of self.
Identifying ourselves as an “animal lover,” is important to many of us, and pointing out the moral incongruence of both eating animals and claiming to love them can provoke strong reactions. The claim is often simply a statement of the idea that it is perfectly possible to both eat animals and simultaneously love them.
This idea feels intuitive and uncontroversial for many people, in the way that beliefs which have gone unexamined for many years often tend to be.
The Short Answer
You can feel affection for animals while still eating them, but under any meaningful definition of love, deliberately supporting their exploitation and killing is incompatible with genuinely loving them.
Love is shown through actions, not just feelings, and paying for harm contradicts claims of care.
The Detail
Love, Identity, and Defensiveness
Most people see themselves as animal lovers. For many, caring about animals is part of their personal identity, so having that questioned can feel threatening.
When vegans challenge this idea, they are not claiming that people who eat animals feel nothing for animals. Rather, the claim is narrower: You cannot meaningfully love an animal if you knowingly support practices that harm and kill them.
It is also important to recognise that veganism itself is not based on affection. Many vegans are deeply fond of animals, but some are indifferent, fearful, or even uncomfortable around them. Veganism is grounded in justice and non-harm, not emotional attachment.
You do not have to love animals to respect their interests. But to claim that you love them, you must act in ways that protect their wellbeing.
Love as Behaviour, Not Just Emotion
In everyday life, we understand that love is not just a feeling. It is expressed through consistent, caring behaviour. If you love someone, you will act in their best interests. This is an important point to keep in mind as we explore this argument.
If someone claimed to love another person but regularly acted in ways that harmed them, we would question that claim, regardless of how sincere their feelings seemed. Philosophers and psychologists alike emphasise that love involves commitment, concern, and protective action, not merely emotion.
If we allow “love” to mean nothing more than positive feelings, then the word loses its moral significance. It becomes interchangeable with liking, interest, or fascination. When applied to animals, the same principle holds – love must involve acting in their interests where reasonably possible.
Financial Support and Moral Responsibility
Eating animal products is not a neutral act. In modern societies, it involves purchasing goods that are produced through breeding, confinement, exploitation and killing (1).
By buying these products, consumers financially support systems that depend on animal suffering and death. Even when individuals feel disconnected from this process, their purchases help sustain it (2).
This matters because moral responsibility is not limited to direct physical harm, it also includes knowingly supporting harmful systems. If I were paying for the killing of a healthy dog, most people would reject the idea that I loved that dog. The same reasoning applies to pigs, cows, chickens, and fish. Our social categories or our feelings towards them do not change their moral status (3).
The Problem of Selective Compassion
Many people care deeply about certain animals, especially pets, while viewing farmed animals as food. This “moral compartmentalisation” is well documented in psychological research (4).
People learn to separate animals into categories: Companions, wildlife, pests, and livestock. Different moral rules are applied to each group, even though the animals involved often have similar cognitive and emotional capacities. This does not mean that people are dishonest about their feelings, it means that cultural norms strongly influence how empathy and moral consideration is distributed.
However, selective compassion is not the same as universal concern. Someone may love some animals sincerely while remaining indifferent to the suffering of others.
“But You Can’t Know How I Feel”
A common objection is that no one can judge another person’s inner emotions. Someone may feel a deep connection to animals, admire them, and care about them, while still eating them. This is true at the level of subjective experience. Feelings are private.
But love, properly understood, is not simply an emotional descriptor – it is a moral concept which is not defined only by feelings. Love and hate are not simply feelings, they are defined by patterns of behaviour. We assess love, trust, and respect largely through what people do, not only what they say (5).
If actions consistently contradict professed concern, it is reasonable to question how meaningful that profession really is.
Choice and Moral Constraint
There are exceptional circumstances in which people have no meaningful alternative to using animal products, such as a lack of access to plant-based alternatives, specific health issues or out of survival.
In these cases, moral blame is inappropriate and unfair, as is judging someone’s profession of love through the lens of behaviour that they did not freely choose. Responsibility presupposes genuine choice.
However, in most affluent societies, people have access to nutritionally adequate plant-based diets and alternatives (6). When harm is avoidable, choosing it becomes morally relevant. Where alternatives exist, continuing to support animal exploitation is inconsistent with truly loving concern.
Two Different Meanings of “Love”
Much of this debate rests on ambiguity in the word “love.” In a weak sense, love can mean enjoyment, interest, or positive feelings. In that sense, someone can “love” animals while eating them, just as they might “love” a car or a phone.
In a stronger moral sense, though – love involves respect, protection, and refusal to cause unnecessary harm. Under this stronger and more meaningful definition, deliberately supporting the killing of animals conflicts with the claim that you love them.
Summary
The claim that you can love animals and still eat them depends on how “love” is understood.
- Love is not just an emotion but a pattern of caring behaviour
- Eating animal products supports systems of exploitation and killing
- Moral responsibility includes financial and indirect harm
- In contexts where alternatives exist, harm is avoidable
People may sincerely care about animals while eating them, but under any morally robust definition, love requires acting in ways that protect animals’ interests. Where harm is chosen despite available alternatives, claims of love lose their ethical plausibility.
Bibliography
- FAO. (2006). Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
https://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e.pdf - Singer, P. (2011). Practical Ethics (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- Regan, T. (1983). The Case for Animal Rights. University of California Press.
- Loughnan, S., Haslam, N., & Bastian, B. (2010). “The Role of Meat Consumption in the Denial of Moral Status and Mind to Meat Animals.” Appetite, 55(1), 156–159.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2010.05.043 - Baier, A. (1986). “Trust and Antitrust.” Ethics, 96(2), 231–260.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2381376 - Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. (2025). “Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Vegetarian Diets.” Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 116(12), 2025.
https://www.jandonline.org/article/S2212-2672(25)00042-5/fulltext
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