Nonhuman animals
If you're an educated person, there's more than a slight chance you would have encountered some form of argument against eating meat. If you have had such an encounter, be it through newspapers, documentaries, or articles online, there's more than a moderate chance you would have continued your meat-eating ways.
I've had my fair share of encounters. I still continue my meat-eating ways, with one notable difference: I've resolved to cut down on beef, because by some estimate producing beef is one of the more inefficient activity that has negative consequences to the environment and to humans.
I do feel guilty eating meat, though only when I think of the articles I've read or the documentaries I've watched, not when my mind is busy with the company of friends or something else. I feel guilty because many of the arguments I've read are compelling. The way I justify my meat-eating ways lies not in refuting those arguments, which probably should be the way to go if one wants to defend one's practice of eating meat, but in thinking that I'm not necessarily motivated to do what's right.
A lot of us think otherwise. We may think that for any person A, if A thinks x is wrong, A wouldn't do x. If you think this way, then you should either refute anti-meat eating arguments or give up eating meat altogether.
In any case, here's an excerpt from one of the well-known writings on the topic.
It is not merely the act of killing that indicates what we are ready to do to other species in order to gratify our tastes. The suffering we inflict on the animals while they are alive is perhaps an even clearer indication of our speciesism than the fact that we are prepared to kill them. In order to have meat on the table at a price that people can afford, our society tolerates methods of meat production that confine sentient animals in cramped, unsuitable conditions for the entire durations of their lives. Animals are treated like machines that convert fodder into flesh, and any innovation that results in a higher "conversion ratio" is liable to be adopted. As one authority on the subject has said, "cruelty is acknowledged only when profitability ceases." So hens are crowded four or five to a cage with a floor area of twenty inches by eighteen inches, or around the size of a single page of the New York Times. The cages have wire floors, since this reduces cleaning costs, though wire is unsuitable for the hens' feet; the floors slope, since this makes the eggs roll down for easy collection, although this makes it difficult for the hens to rest comfortably. In these conditions all the birds' natural instincts are thwarted: they cannot stretch their wings fully, walk freely, dust-bathe, scratch the ground, or build a nest. Although they have never known other conditions, observers noticed that the birds vainly try to perform these actions. Frustrated at their inability to do so, they often develop what farmers call "vices," and peck each other to death. To prevent this, the beaks of young birds are often cut off...
Since, as l have said, none of these practices cater for anything more than our pleasures of taste, our practice of rearing and killing other animals in order to eat them is a clear instance of the sacrifice of the most important interests of other beings in order to satisfy trivial interests of our own. To avoid speciesism we must stop this practice, and each of us has a moral obligation to cease supporting the practice. Our custom is all the support that the meat-industry needs. The decision to cease giving it that support may be difficult, but it is no more difficult than it would have been for a white Southerner to go against the traditions of his society and free his slaves: if we do not change our dietary habits, how can we censure those slaveholders who would not change their own way of living?
The same form of discrimination may be observed in the widespread practice of experimenting on other species in order to see if certain substances are safe for human beings, or to test some psychological theory about the effect of severe punishment on learning, or to try out various new compounds just in case something turns up. People sometimes think that all this experimentation is for vital medical purposes, and so will reduce suffering overall. This comfortable belief is very wide of the mark. Drug companies test new shampoos and cosmetics that they are intending to put on the market by dropping them into the eyes of rabbits, held open by metal clips, in order to observe what damage results. Food additives, like artificial colourings and preservatives, are tested by what is known as the "LD50" - a test designed to find the level of consumption at which 50% of a group of animals will die. In the process, nearly all of the animals are made very sick before some finally die, and others pull through. If the substance is relatively harmless, as it often is, huge doses have to be force-fed to the animals, until in some cases sheer volume or concentration of the substance causes death.
- Singer, All Animals are Equal
This article was written two decades ago, so conditions may have improved. Or maybe not. One of the things mentioned is the Draize test, Wiki here. In any case, even if farm or animal experimentation conditions have improved markedly, Singer's stand runs deeper: if we would not allow human imbeciles or infants to be farmed commercially, for whatever reason, or used as subjects in scientific tests, but allow animals to be so used, then we are guilty of speciesism. Speciesism is akin to racism. If we object to the latter, we should object to the former. And if we do object to speciesism, then the way we live our lives will have to be changed drastically.
The article can be found here, though some finer details are left out in that version.
I am inclined to the thought that centuries from now, people will be shaking their heads at the way we treat and think of animals, in the same way as we oppose human slavery now. Yes, we've heard this and all of the above before. What are we doing about it?
I've had my fair share of encounters. I still continue my meat-eating ways, with one notable difference: I've resolved to cut down on beef, because by some estimate producing beef is one of the more inefficient activity that has negative consequences to the environment and to humans.
I do feel guilty eating meat, though only when I think of the articles I've read or the documentaries I've watched, not when my mind is busy with the company of friends or something else. I feel guilty because many of the arguments I've read are compelling. The way I justify my meat-eating ways lies not in refuting those arguments, which probably should be the way to go if one wants to defend one's practice of eating meat, but in thinking that I'm not necessarily motivated to do what's right.
A lot of us think otherwise. We may think that for any person A, if A thinks x is wrong, A wouldn't do x. If you think this way, then you should either refute anti-meat eating arguments or give up eating meat altogether.
In any case, here's an excerpt from one of the well-known writings on the topic.
It is not merely the act of killing that indicates what we are ready to do to other species in order to gratify our tastes. The suffering we inflict on the animals while they are alive is perhaps an even clearer indication of our speciesism than the fact that we are prepared to kill them. In order to have meat on the table at a price that people can afford, our society tolerates methods of meat production that confine sentient animals in cramped, unsuitable conditions for the entire durations of their lives. Animals are treated like machines that convert fodder into flesh, and any innovation that results in a higher "conversion ratio" is liable to be adopted. As one authority on the subject has said, "cruelty is acknowledged only when profitability ceases." So hens are crowded four or five to a cage with a floor area of twenty inches by eighteen inches, or around the size of a single page of the New York Times. The cages have wire floors, since this reduces cleaning costs, though wire is unsuitable for the hens' feet; the floors slope, since this makes the eggs roll down for easy collection, although this makes it difficult for the hens to rest comfortably. In these conditions all the birds' natural instincts are thwarted: they cannot stretch their wings fully, walk freely, dust-bathe, scratch the ground, or build a nest. Although they have never known other conditions, observers noticed that the birds vainly try to perform these actions. Frustrated at their inability to do so, they often develop what farmers call "vices," and peck each other to death. To prevent this, the beaks of young birds are often cut off...
Since, as l have said, none of these practices cater for anything more than our pleasures of taste, our practice of rearing and killing other animals in order to eat them is a clear instance of the sacrifice of the most important interests of other beings in order to satisfy trivial interests of our own. To avoid speciesism we must stop this practice, and each of us has a moral obligation to cease supporting the practice. Our custom is all the support that the meat-industry needs. The decision to cease giving it that support may be difficult, but it is no more difficult than it would have been for a white Southerner to go against the traditions of his society and free his slaves: if we do not change our dietary habits, how can we censure those slaveholders who would not change their own way of living?
The same form of discrimination may be observed in the widespread practice of experimenting on other species in order to see if certain substances are safe for human beings, or to test some psychological theory about the effect of severe punishment on learning, or to try out various new compounds just in case something turns up. People sometimes think that all this experimentation is for vital medical purposes, and so will reduce suffering overall. This comfortable belief is very wide of the mark. Drug companies test new shampoos and cosmetics that they are intending to put on the market by dropping them into the eyes of rabbits, held open by metal clips, in order to observe what damage results. Food additives, like artificial colourings and preservatives, are tested by what is known as the "LD50" - a test designed to find the level of consumption at which 50% of a group of animals will die. In the process, nearly all of the animals are made very sick before some finally die, and others pull through. If the substance is relatively harmless, as it often is, huge doses have to be force-fed to the animals, until in some cases sheer volume or concentration of the substance causes death.
- Singer, All Animals are Equal
This article was written two decades ago, so conditions may have improved. Or maybe not. One of the things mentioned is the Draize test, Wiki here. In any case, even if farm or animal experimentation conditions have improved markedly, Singer's stand runs deeper: if we would not allow human imbeciles or infants to be farmed commercially, for whatever reason, or used as subjects in scientific tests, but allow animals to be so used, then we are guilty of speciesism. Speciesism is akin to racism. If we object to the latter, we should object to the former. And if we do object to speciesism, then the way we live our lives will have to be changed drastically.
The article can be found here, though some finer details are left out in that version.
I am inclined to the thought that centuries from now, people will be shaking their heads at the way we treat and think of animals, in the same way as we oppose human slavery now. Yes, we've heard this and all of the above before. What are we doing about it?
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