I feel like whatever the answer is, it has to be the same as "is eating mushrooms vegan?"
ITT: people misunderstanding the difference between vegetarianism and veganism
Here's the quick version: Vegetarians don't eat animals. Vegans don't eat stuff made of animal suffering.
Fly traps are made of animal suffering.
Which side of the debate were you on, OP?
Both, but with a leaning towards 'not vegan'
Edit: thank you for all the thoughtful replies from the people who downvoted but left an explanation!
The more I think about this question, the more complexities it creates. I am not a vegan, so I can only guess what the average vegan would think...
- If you eat a plant that causes harm to a living being like an insect, are you doing a moral good from a vegan perspective because you are reducing harm?
- Would it be morally good for a vegan to use vegan means to prevent more harm to animals?
- Would it be the ultimate moral good for vegans to hunt down every wild Venus flytrap and consume them?
- What if the Venus flytrap only ate insects that significantly harmed animal or human populations by spreading diseases?
- If vegans could alter the environment using non-vegan means, in such a way that bats stopped eating mosquitoes without upsetting the overall ecosystem, but these mosquitoes started spreading a terrible but non-deadly disease in humans, would it be moral for them to do so, or would it be immoral for them to avoid it?
Unfortunately, I don't know the calculus a vegan uses when placing value on the life of a human versus an animal, so the bat mosquito thing is entirely up in the air for me up in the air for me
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