Abstract
Contrary to what some may have us believe, veganism is not – or does not involve – some monolithic belief system. Vegans disagree with each other of many matters. At the level of cases, vegans disagree on whether we may eat honey or roadkill. At the level of theory, vegans disagree on whether veganism is an abolitionist stance or a welfarist stance. Among these vegan-vegan disagreements is a base-level disagreement about what the very term “veganism” means. The term “veganism” has come to have a variety of meanings in the philosophical and non-philosophical spheres. I list 30 non-equivalent definitions from the philosophical and non-philosophical literatures on veganism. I then introduce a series of disagreements that vegans have in the foreground of their discussions or might be having in the background of their discussions about what “veganism” means. These include disagreements on whether the definition of “veganism” includes content which concerns more than just non-human animals and whether the definition of “veganism” includes content which might make it conflict with the correct ethical theory (whatever that may turn out to be). I turn to focus on one particular disagreement, namely the disagreement on the number of wrong-makers that should be included in our preferred definition of “veganism.” I introduce a pair of puzzles for two-wrong-maker definitions, but conclude that these puzzles can be addressed satisfactorily, leaving two-wrong-maker definitions live and attractive options.