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When the issue of the ethics of eating meat comes up, people often regard the matter as being primarily of academic concern. Or, far worse, a matter than only really matters to those who hug (and perhaps eat) trees. However, the ethics of meat does matter on a much broader scale.
Since the subject is rather substantial, I have decided to devote a short series of blog posts on this matter. I’ll begin with making the case as to why meat matters. I will, of course, endeavor to do so without begging any questions for or against meat.
One obvious way to motivate the concern is to point out that what we do to animals would be regarded as rather evil if it were done to human beings. A little dialogue should illustrate this point nicely.
Bill: “Hi Sally. Wow, that sandwich you’re eating smells great! And are those new shoes and a new leather jacket?”
Sally: “Why yes.”
Bill: “Can I have a bite?”
Sally: “Sure.”
Bill: “Yum! What is it?”
Sally: “One of my neighbors. They crossed me for the last time, so I had to kill them. I didn’t want the meat to go to waste, so I barbecued them using my mother’s secret BBQ sauce. Of course, the secret is she buys it at the supermarket.”
Bill: “Gaaaah….I don’t believe it!”
Sally: “No, really. I just bought the sauce right off the shelf.”
Bill: “Not that…I can’t believe that you are eating human meat!”
Sally: “Well, you did, too. Plus, you eat meat all the time. Hmm, I probably shouldn’t tell you that I made my coat and shoes out of their skins. Waste not, want not…as my mom used to say.”
Bill: “I’m going to be sick…”
Sally: “Oh, you silly goose. Of course I didn’t skin and cook my neighbors! This is just a pulled pork sandwich and the boots and shoes are cow leather!”
Bill: “Oh, that is okay!”
Sally: “But why?”
On the face of it, things that are wicked and evil to do to humans should also be wicked and evil to do to animals. As such, we should not just assume that eating animals is okay-anymore than we should assume that killing and eating humans is okay. There might be relevant differences between humans and animals that justify the difference in treatment, but this is something that must be argued rather than merely assumed. At the very least, the possibility that we are doing great evil is something that should give us pause-if only between bites.
A second reason that shows why meat matters is based in religion. Interestingly enough, Christian thinkers such as St. Augustine and St. Aquinas took the issue of killing animals very seriously. After all, killing is supposed to be a sin and animals can obviously be killed. While, as we will see, Augustine and Aquinas concluded that eating meat was both theologically and morally acceptable, they did show that it is an issue well worth considering. There are, of course, religions that take a rather strict theological and ethical position about meat and killing animals. As such, this makes the matter worth considering. Naturally enough, religion and ethics are distinct, but it is possible to make inferences from the one normative domain to the other (provided that the proper steps are taken).
A third reason is based in practical concerns. The raising of meat for food is rather resource intensive and it generally takes several pounds of feed/grain to produce a pound of meat. Given the limited resources of our planet, this does raise both a practical and a related moral concern about eating meat (or at least certain types of meat). Another practical concern is the matter of health. While there is some debate about the details, it is well established that meat intensive diets are less healthy when compared to diets that are less meat intensive. Since how we treat our bodies can be taken as a moral concern, this also provides moral grounds as to why meat matters.
In this post I have just sketched out some reasons why the issue matters. In my next post on the subject I will start examining the morality of meat.
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As you’ve argued in this article, veganism seems to win the environmental, dietary and moral arguments. You also point out the cognitive dissonance intrinsic to eating meat. Counter arguments to veganism are rather unimpressive. To me it’s simple though. I don’t want animals to suffer so I don’t eat meat.
Actually he points out that a meat intensive diet is less healthy, not that veganism wins the dietary argument.
I trust you will consider the *moral* position regarding killing humans for food and the eating of dead humans.
I emphasize moral, as the legal position is simple - I want it to be illegal to kill me, I don’t care if it’s immoral.
I’ve always abstained from eating meat for the simple reason that slaughter house practice is extremely cruel… and to make matters worse. Not to mention, a vegetarian diet is full of benefits all on its own, so removing meat (in a nutritional sense) is by no means detrimental.
As I’ve argued elsewhere, my opinion is that meat is an adquired taste. Very small children (I’ve raised 3 and a stepchild) don’t like meat, although they eat watered down meat products like hamburgers with lots of ketchup or hot dogs with various dressings. With most people in Western culture, meat is associated with family togetherness and love. I had the good or bad fortune to be raised in a family in which meal times, full of meat, were like interrogations sessions with the Stasi. As a result, when I left my family home at age 18, I began to avoid meat and all other foods that formed the family menu. My sister followed the same path. Little did I think of the suffering of animals, until recently. Although I ate very little meat, because I didn’t especially like it, I did not become a systematic vegetarian until about ten years ago (I’m almost 64). What’s more, I recall that as a very small child, I didn’t like meat either, but I began to eat it because it was the principle family dish and because eating meat was associated in my family mindset with manliness.
Morality. What is it?
I think I have asked this question many times before – if not in public then at least to myself. Apparently I have still not come to any reasonable conclusion.
Ethics. What’s the difference? Are these personal things or universal necessities for the well being of humans (or animals – I haven’t quite sorted that one in my mind either. Maybe we should just say “living things”)
Is the eating of meat a moral or ethical debate - or both? Perhaps this is the nature of the issue.
With the advancement of technology (and presumably also then the advancement of the human brain) moral situations come upon us faster than we can even create the questions, much less find the answers..
So what is the difference between the two, if any, and does it matter ?
Some people believe that humans hold a special place in creation, and morality can be summed up in one ultimate “law” of reason – that which all duties and obligations derive from. Kant stated that an imperative such as this is when a certain action, or inaction, is necessary, but in general to basic human life. When we are hungry, we need to eat, when we are thirsty we drink.
But another imperative is that there are no real conditions to it. An act where by the nature of this act asserts authority in any circumstance. An end in itself.
Where you can “will that it become a universal law”. Kant believed that this “law” could never be better or stronger than one that says for example, murder is wrong because it is not good for the greatest number of people. This of course is not relevant to those who are only concerned with maximising benefits only for themselves.
So back to meat eating. I love the example discussion of not eating your neighbour but eating a cow. As has been commented on, perhaps it’s something to do with the way we are “brought up”. I eat meat, my children eat meat.We get it from a shop ready to cook.My partner shoots pheasants, rabbits etc and skins and cooks them. I eat them because I don’t watch them being prepared. I don’t find this either moral or ethical - just plain cowardly I have to admit !
Genuine question - why don’t we take into account what animals do in the wild? Namely - eat meat.
The analogy above is an issue of canibalism, surely a seperate issue from eating meat generally. No-one judges a lion morally bankrupt for eating a zebra (let’s face it, we even accept it as ‘natural’ when it eats other lion cubs). Animals eat other animals, as animals why should we be any different?
If you don’t like meat - that’s fair enough, but I don’t consider my dislike of strawberry jam a moral point.
And yes, a lot of slaughter house practise is cruel (and I believe shoudl be stopped) - but again, isn’t that a seperate issue from the morality of eating meat, and again we don’t make moral judgements on predators that slowly poison their prey for a long drawn out death.
If we should respect animals as our fellow creatures on earth - why the “double standard”?
Is anyone aware of this NY Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/science/22angi.html?_r=2) which seems to suggest that plants, too, feel pain and try to defend themselves? If this is true, what is the vegetarian to do?
Luke,
The idea that plants have some awareness has been around for a while (I actually remember seeing that on Space 1999 when I was a kid…). If this is true, then many of the same arguments used to argue about meat would apply to plants as well.
If these arguments work, then the right thing to do might be to only eat certain plant parts (like the fruits) and grow artificial food stuff. Or maybe we can generically modify ourselves so we produce some of our own energy via sunlight (talk about going green…).
Karen,
Actually, I really, really, really like meat. Despite the best efforts of my vegetarian friends, I’m still an omnivore.
As far as the animals eat animals argument, that has some merit. After all, we could use the notion of what is part of the natural process is morally acceptable and so on (of course, many things happen in nature that we would tend to regard as rather horrible) to argue that eating meat is morally okay.
The usual way to reply to this, though, is to argue that since humans are more intelligent and can seek alternatives, then we do not need to eat meat. To use an analogy, we accept killing in self defense, but reject it when a person kills when they have no such need. So, while an lion killing a zebra is ok because the lion cannot grow crops or create synthetic meat, the same is not true of us.
Amos,
Well, all tastes are probably acquired in a sense. But, eating other animals seems “natural” for humans-after all, other animals do it “by nature” and it seems likely that the same applies to us.
Mike,
I guess my questions were a bit rhetorical. I have always been aware of the notion that plants have some awareness; I’d just never seen the idea tested by the scientific community.
If the awareness of plants is a strong possibility, why is it that the idea never gets much play from mainstream philosophers who’ve discussed vegetarianism, like Peter Singer? Or maybe it does and I’m not aware of the arguments…
Mike: All tastes are acquired?
Did you ever meet a child or adult who doesn’t like chocolate ice cream or good butter or (I hate to say this) Coca Cola? However, remember the first time you tried liver or mutton or clams or whisky or asparagus? Did you like any of them? Acquired tastes often become habits which are impossible to break, because of their associations. I’m addicted to red wine (which I also didn’t like the first time I tried): each glass has literary associations going back to Homer, Plato, the Bible, the French existentialists, the first philosophers I read, not to mention personal associations with friendships and lovers. 40 years of drinking red wine, and now I have been diagnosed with pre-diabetes, so I understand that acquired tastes, especially those with strong associations, are hard to break. However, there is nothing “natural” about them in the sense that we contrast “nature” with “nuture”.
Luke, I don’t think NYT science reporter Natalie Angier is really saying that plants are aware. There’s a lot of color, metaphor, and humor in that article. She’s saying they have chemical defense systems that ward off herbivores. So they don’t “want” to be eaten–but “want” is very much in quotation marks.
Jean,
I guess the question is, What is awareness? Couldn’t it be said that animals like Deer have “a chemical defense system that wards off carnivores” (that is, running for escape when a predator is approaching)?
But even if it’s up in the air (and it certainly seems to be) whether plants are aware in the same way animals are, why is this possibility rarely explored, or dismissed outright?
It seems to me that this is a threat to vegetarianism. And if plants are aware, vegetarians have to take the route of eating only fruits or artificial foods as Mike suggests. For isn’t most vegetarianism predicated on the idea that animals are aware and feel pain? What if plants are aware and feel pain? Will vegetarians be ready to change their eating habits to accommodate their beliefs?
Karen,
The thing is, no one can know if humans are natrually ‘meant’ to eat the amount of meat we do today.
A lion has no choice - they are carnivores, and cannot survive without meat.
Humans are, at the most, omnivores, but arguments about big canines and eyes on the front of the head only go so far - we are most like monkeys, which are primarily vegetarian. Baboons have massive canines, but no one can argue they are more carnivorous than lions. It is not that simple. Lots of primates have frontal eyes and eat nothing but fruit.
Without tools, in fact, how would humans even kill most of the animals they eat today? I do not think a human could kill a bull the way a lion could, so it is not ‘natural’ in that way- it is artificial, because we need extras to kill for food.
In addition to this, lots of red meat in the (human) diet increases risk of cancer and heart disease, along with many other conditions.
Not to mention the fact farming is not natural, and therefore could still be opposed even if we agree that humans should eat animals.
I could go on and on… I dont wholly oppose meat eating, but I think the world, especially richer countries, have the wrong idea about it and assume that meat and two veg is good for us, when probably we should be eating a lot less meat than we currently do.
i would have to point at amos and place emphasis on the philosophical symbolism of taste in apatite, and have a great big point about metaphysics and the downfall of morals that would be the result of consumption as the Capitol of con is cons if you loose capitol on con and that is moral ethics…