It is not at all clear that being a 'by-product' exempts vellum from all the ethical problems of the meat industry.
It's worth being being painfully literal and explicit that the meat one buys in the shop comes from an animal that, obviously, has already been killed. Choosing not to eat meat on a given occasion won't bring animals back to life; it is, primarily, a means to *cut demand* for products that are produced by torturing and killing animals. The argument is not that, if you choose not to eat a burger, the very cow you would have eaten will be saved - that cow is already dead before you decide on dinner. The argument is that on the margin, loss of revenue for companies that produce meat will cause them to produce less meat in the future.
By supplying a source of income that is (a) reasonably uncorrelated with demand for the primary product, viz., meat (specifically veal) and (b) does not come at the expense of their primary source of income, by-products play the role of a costless hedge for the meat industry, reducing their risk exposure and thereby allowing them to expand production more than they would without the existence of a market for by-products, and to experiment with lower prices for meat that can bring in more customers. How big is this effect? I'm not sure, I've not seen a good quantitative estimate; but it's certainly not zero, not when you take into account the sheer diversity of 'by-products' the meat industry sells. When the demand for by-products falls, you get farmers and slaughterers actively complaining about how it puts financial pressure on them (see https://www.foodunfolded.com/article/are-edible-animal-by-products-being-wasted), which they wouldn't bother doing if the benefit from selling by-products was negligible.
You can also see this another way, via the point that the category 'by-product' is vague at best. OK, vellum is a by-product with 'no apparent value' to the slaughterer. But then, are not yoghurt and buttermilk by-products of dairy production? Hell, is not veal itself often a by-product of dairy production? You are essentially relying on a distinction between products that the industry _intends_ to produce, and products it merely _foresees_ the production of as a side-effect of intentional actions; a slippery metaphysical distinction that collapses under scrutiny and can't bear the weight of thinking about the impact of our actions in a globalised economy.
Sure, when you buy vellum, the death of the calf is already 'baked in', and there's nothing you can do to reverse it; in that sense it is a mere 'by-product'. But that's no different from buying a cut of veal. In both cases, the relevant question is one of demand: in econ jargon, how much is the demand curve for shifted right by your purchasing habits?; how much are your actions enabling meat industry practices, on the margin? Buying £X of vellum almost certainly contributes to the slaughter of fewer infant cattle than buying £X of veal, but the number is not zero. And, more generally, a willingness to purchase _all_ 'by-products' without any ethical worries means that the relevant contribution comes not just from vellum, but from all sorts of other 'by-products' too, whose contribution has to also be added in. Altogether it is not an ethically neutral picture.
Thanks as ever for reading. This is an interesting debate and reminds me of one we had years ago about a very old leather coat I used to wear. We thrashed out the idea of implicit rather than explicit support for items derived from animal slaughter. I remain pragmatic as I was back then, but for what it's worth I will try to hash out a consistent defence of my throwaway comment here.
I don't conceive of vegetarianism or veganism in the terms you're attacking, I've always understood it as a kind of economic boycott; not, therefore as the act of saving lives but a refusal to put money towards the industry that kills animals. In those terms, the directness with which money supports the meat industry matters. As you put it, the vellum trade is of less ethical concern than the 'main event' of meat eating, though non-zero.
I concede it may be non-zero. I am inclined to think, though, it is very close to zero. The idea that vellum in particular allows the meat trade to 'hedge' is untenable given just how tiny the vellum demand is. We're talking about a product that most people couldn't define, and has one producer in the UK with three employees. Veal, by contrast, is consumed to the tune of 3000 tonnes a year in the UK. I would say vellum is at least one thousandth as effectual on the meat trade as veal going by quantity alone.
Yoghurt and buttermilk? One could perhaps frame these as byproducts but their demand is vastly greater, and if you're framing things as an economic boycott, those are the terms that matter. Even if vellum has some small implicit support for the meat industry —even if it was just 'heritage washing' it, let's say— I think the continuing use of the material by a small number of scribes, artists and conservators is absolutely worth it. Were vellum to become more than a niche curiosity in the arts and drive demand to a greater extent, my position would change.
What things that we consume are ethically neutral? Certainly few art materials are ethically neutral. For example, the lightfast blue pigments (cobalt) greens (viridian) and yellow (cadmium, this remains the only reliable non-poisonous yellow) are all heavy metal pigments. Consequently, of course, they're both an environmental problem and consistently appear in news articles for dire working conditions.
The problem is that these materials and their alternatives aren't fungible, yet. I can imagine films of animal tissues that equate to vellum could be produced in laboratories. Perhaps this would even be easier than the petri-dish steaks (with connective tissues, etc) we dream of. That would be a good day.
It is not at all clear that being a 'by-product' exempts vellum from all the ethical problems of the meat industry.
It's worth being being painfully literal and explicit that the meat one buys in the shop comes from an animal that, obviously, has already been killed. Choosing not to eat meat on a given occasion won't bring animals back to life; it is, primarily, a means to *cut demand* for products that are produced by torturing and killing animals. The argument is not that, if you choose not to eat a burger, the very cow you would have eaten will be saved - that cow is already dead before you decide on dinner. The argument is that on the margin, loss of revenue for companies that produce meat will cause them to produce less meat in the future.
By supplying a source of income that is (a) reasonably uncorrelated with demand for the primary product, viz., meat (specifically veal) and (b) does not come at the expense of their primary source of income, by-products play the role of a costless hedge for the meat industry, reducing their risk exposure and thereby allowing them to expand production more than they would without the existence of a market for by-products, and to experiment with lower prices for meat that can bring in more customers. How big is this effect? I'm not sure, I've not seen a good quantitative estimate; but it's certainly not zero, not when you take into account the sheer diversity of 'by-products' the meat industry sells. When the demand for by-products falls, you get farmers and slaughterers actively complaining about how it puts financial pressure on them (see https://www.foodunfolded.com/article/are-edible-animal-by-products-being-wasted), which they wouldn't bother doing if the benefit from selling by-products was negligible.
You can also see this another way, via the point that the category 'by-product' is vague at best. OK, vellum is a by-product with 'no apparent value' to the slaughterer. But then, are not yoghurt and buttermilk by-products of dairy production? Hell, is not veal itself often a by-product of dairy production? You are essentially relying on a distinction between products that the industry _intends_ to produce, and products it merely _foresees_ the production of as a side-effect of intentional actions; a slippery metaphysical distinction that collapses under scrutiny and can't bear the weight of thinking about the impact of our actions in a globalised economy.
Sure, when you buy vellum, the death of the calf is already 'baked in', and there's nothing you can do to reverse it; in that sense it is a mere 'by-product'. But that's no different from buying a cut of veal. In both cases, the relevant question is one of demand: in econ jargon, how much is the demand curve for shifted right by your purchasing habits?; how much are your actions enabling meat industry practices, on the margin? Buying £X of vellum almost certainly contributes to the slaughter of fewer infant cattle than buying £X of veal, but the number is not zero. And, more generally, a willingness to purchase _all_ 'by-products' without any ethical worries means that the relevant contribution comes not just from vellum, but from all sorts of other 'by-products' too, whose contribution has to also be added in. Altogether it is not an ethically neutral picture.
Thanks as ever for reading. This is an interesting debate and reminds me of one we had years ago about a very old leather coat I used to wear. We thrashed out the idea of implicit rather than explicit support for items derived from animal slaughter. I remain pragmatic as I was back then, but for what it's worth I will try to hash out a consistent defence of my throwaway comment here.
I don't conceive of vegetarianism or veganism in the terms you're attacking, I've always understood it as a kind of economic boycott; not, therefore as the act of saving lives but a refusal to put money towards the industry that kills animals. In those terms, the directness with which money supports the meat industry matters. As you put it, the vellum trade is of less ethical concern than the 'main event' of meat eating, though non-zero.
I concede it may be non-zero. I am inclined to think, though, it is very close to zero. The idea that vellum in particular allows the meat trade to 'hedge' is untenable given just how tiny the vellum demand is. We're talking about a product that most people couldn't define, and has one producer in the UK with three employees. Veal, by contrast, is consumed to the tune of 3000 tonnes a year in the UK. I would say vellum is at least one thousandth as effectual on the meat trade as veal going by quantity alone.
Yoghurt and buttermilk? One could perhaps frame these as byproducts but their demand is vastly greater, and if you're framing things as an economic boycott, those are the terms that matter. Even if vellum has some small implicit support for the meat industry —even if it was just 'heritage washing' it, let's say— I think the continuing use of the material by a small number of scribes, artists and conservators is absolutely worth it. Were vellum to become more than a niche curiosity in the arts and drive demand to a greater extent, my position would change.
What things that we consume are ethically neutral? Certainly few art materials are ethically neutral. For example, the lightfast blue pigments (cobalt) greens (viridian) and yellow (cadmium, this remains the only reliable non-poisonous yellow) are all heavy metal pigments. Consequently, of course, they're both an environmental problem and consistently appear in news articles for dire working conditions.
The problem is that these materials and their alternatives aren't fungible, yet. I can imagine films of animal tissues that equate to vellum could be produced in laboratories. Perhaps this would even be easier than the petri-dish steaks (with connective tissues, etc) we dream of. That would be a good day.