From where does 'moral veganism/vegitarianism' source it's ethics?

Like justanediblefriend, I'm not sure what precisely you're looking for. So, I'm just adding a bit.

You can find arguments for vegetarianism/veganism f.e. under the three most popular kinds of normative ethical theories. Like: Korsgaard for (Kantian) deontology, Hursthouse for virtue ethics, and Singer for utilitarianism.

Taking the easiest to describe as an example: under utilitarianism we might argue that animals experience things like pain and that we have no reason not to take that info account when we want to maximize utility. So, just like we want to lessen suffering and maximize happiness for human beings, why ought we not take the happiness and suffering of other animals info account? In fact, we already do that when there's laws against f.e. torturing pets. So why don't we consistently do that? (The degree of moral consideration will then be tied to certain cognitive features.)

But if we want to decide on an issue of applied ethics then we might not even have to decide on a normative ethical theory, like another post mentioned.

Conversely, a Western theist would likely justify their choice to use animal products perhaps because they believe man is fundamentally different from animals, or have God-given dominion over them.

Just because there's a "dominion" doesn't mean that animals have no moral worth. Furthermore, we can also use indirect arguments. So if we can show that eating meat has bad impact on humans then we can still argue against eating meat. Environmental concerns would be one example. Of course we might also reject the truth of the particular theistic claim.

A naturalist would probably see the consumption of meat as acceptable because humans are omnivores and apex predators, and it's only natural we consume both plants and animals.

That just seems like a naturalistic fallacy. Just because something is natural doesn't mean that it's morally good or relevant. Not only must be shown that eating meat actually is natural but it also has it be given an argument for why this matters morally. One example would be if we were carnivores and couldn't live healthy without meat. But we aren't and we can be healthy without meat. So us being omnivores doesn't matter.

/r/askphilosophy Thread