Challenging burger veganism with an argument from virtue ethics

Burger vegans argue against adopting a plant-based diet, but for consuming meat and milk of grassfed cows from an animal rights perspective. They argue crop farming leads to more dead animals than farming grass-fed cows. In this article, I show that current rebuttals do not suffice to philosophically reject burger veganism. Subsequently, I introduce a new argument against burger veganism based on virtue ethics. I claim that humans possess empathy based on resonance, which inhibits them from committing acts of violence and that acting based on empathy is virtuous, while overriding empathy is vicious. Moreover, I argue that killing a cow requires a higher level of overriding empathy than spreading pesticides or killing small animals in other agricultural tasks. This makes burger veganism less virtuous than arable farming.