Animal agriculture and the use of animals as commodities has been a normalised part of global culture for millennia. Industrial animal agriculture has sped up and multiplied the use of animals to billions, if not trillions, through a moral framework treating animals as exclusively available for human ends. In this course, Emilia Leese walks through Think Like a Vegan: Embracing Ethics in a Plant-Powered World, rejecting the premise that veganism is merely a personal dietary choice or a set of lifestyle hacks.

 

Instead, we will examine speciesism as a structural logic, inseparable from systems of ownership, use, and profit. As the book argues, the problem is not simply cruelty but the assumption that animals exist for us; an assumption mirroring the mechanisms of other -isms and which cannot be reformed away through welfare labels or niche alternatives like "no-kill" eggs.

 

We will work through the book's core arguments: why "use is the problem," how the human‑context framework exposes inconsistent moral reasoning vis à vis animals, and why veganism must be understood as a justice movement. Drawing on personal narratives, studies and data, the book refrains from abstract philosophy in favour of lived ethical struggle. It also confronts uncomfortable questions: Can veganism be reconciled with poverty? What do the mechanisms of patriarchy share with speciesism? And are we so different from climate change deniers when we refuse to see the environmental devastation of animal agriculture?

 

This book asks readers to recognise that ethical consistency, not harm reduction, is the baseline. The question is not whether we can live perfectly without animal use. The question is whether we can afford to keep pretending the current arrangement is anything other than a catastrophe.

Course materials will be available Monday, November 2, 2026. Zoom Live Q&A will take place on Fridays from 9-10 a.m. PT, November 6, 13, 20, and 27, 2026. Length - 4 hours Self-Study; 4 hours live Q&A

Instructor

Emilia Leese