I feel like whatever the answer is, it has to be the same as "is eating mushrooms vegan?"
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Which side of the debate were you on, OP?
Both, but with a leaning towards 'not 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.
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