It's Wrong to Kill Meat-Eaters

I read Peter Singer when I was a sophomore philosophy major and was convinced of this argument about eating meat and animal suffering and all that. It wasn't until a few years later that i finally gave up meat and brought my actions in line with my values.

I don't buy the spiritual, animistic garbage that Charles is selling. The money quote from Isa is "is it okay for me to kill you, so long as I understand the consequences and feel compassion for you?"

Arbitrary hierarchies are morally wrong. Reasoned hierarchies are not. Sentience is a reasonable hierarchy based on suffering. I have not found any way to argue with Singer's basic logic.

From the "Autobiography":

"Our People set about catching Cod, & haul’d up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my Resolution of not eating animal Food; and on this Occasion, I consider’d … the taking every Fish as a kind of unprovok’d Murder, since none of them had or ever could do us any Injury that might justify the Slaughter. All this seem’d very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great Lover of Fish, & when this came hot out of the Frying Pan, it smeled admirably well. I balanc’d some time between Principle & Inclination: till I recollected, that when the Fish were opened, I saw smaller Fish taken out of their Stomachs: Then thought I, if you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you. So I din’d upon Cod very heartily and continu’d to eat with other People, returning only now & then occasionally to a vegetable Diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do."

In this schema, it's self-consciousness, not sentience, that determines the ethic of meat-eating. It proceeds from the elementary proposition that one is worthy of rights only insofar as one is capable of respecting them. To reformulate your ethic: self-consciousness is a reasoned hierarchy based on reciprocity. You may disagree, but this position is equally worthy of respect.

I suppose I have to add...the foregoing in no way means that I condone factory farming and the like. I believe treating animals as inanimate matter degrades animals and human beings alike. It only means that I don't consider, as J.M. Coetzee and perhaps Isa does, that history will "someday judge us as harshly as it judges the Germans who went about their ordinary lives in the shadow of Treblinka."

Can the ethic of sentience make such a distinction? I think not.

Well Franklin's reasoning may aid in his own conscious, I can't say mine is as easily calmed, or if you would, fooled. Yes, in nature other animals often rip each other apart and consume the muscles of the fallen, in fact there are also (although few) human animals who eat other human animals, however the knowledge of this fact does not make my mouth water every time I see a newborn.

Animals eat other animals because they need to survive, where as we humans do not. It is the same with human murder; would not a young girl who stabs and kills the larger man who was attempting to rape and kill her be forgiven for her crimes? Self defence is not the same as murder. If the same girl simply stabbed an equally large man who was tying his shoe, would her punishment be the same? When given the option between killing or being killed, most living beings will choose the former as it is the rosier outcome of the two.

Although the ideal farming practices idealized by Mr. Charles are far superior to the factory farm alternative, the simple fact remains that it is the unnecessary taking of another life, for no purpose or reason and I believe the word for that is murder.

-Luv B.A.D.

Wasn't a vegan couple in New York just jailed for life for starving their baby to death by feeding it only soy milk? Vegans are idiots.

If someone knocked you out so you were half brain dead but could still feel fear and pain, would you then be ok with someone killing you? I think not. It's not about self-consciousness, it's about what suffers. Animals can suffer, we have the duty to protect them.

That couple's vegan principles (assuming they really were vegan) has nothing to do with the death of their child. That was piss-poor parenting, which can be found among any population, and it's idiotic to suggest otherwise. If you read beyond the misleading headlines, even the prosecutor acknowledged this and *proved* that a vegan diet is, in fact, healthful for all stages of human life.

Bravo, Isa. Personally, I think veganism goes beyond reducing suffering, but it's not a bad place to start, and it is certainly effective in that regard.

Re: "It proceeds from the elementary proposition that one is worthy of rights only insofar as one is capable of respecting them."

If we followed this proposition, it would be morally acceptable to hurt babies and the severely retarded for pleasure since they are incapable of respecting the right to refrain from hurting others.

It makes no moral sense that to be awarded a basic right, one has to understand the right or be capable of reciprocating. The only requirement is that the right-holder would suffer, or have profound interests violated in the absence of the right. There is no moral basis for charging a quid-pro-quo admission fee for the most basic rights.

As a moral agent, I have an obligation to refrain, within reason, from inflicting avoidable harm on other sentient beings. My obligation stems from the fact that I understand the consequences of my actions and have a choice. Whether the would-be victim of my harm is able to reciprocate has no bearing on my obligation.

This "elementary proposition," like so many self-serving, grand-sounding theories of the past, is typically invoked- if not fabricated - as an excuse to exploit others.

In response to the well-thought-out vegan attack:

There were people who starved their child (probably unintentionally) on a diet of hardly and soy milk and apple juice. This isn't a vegan diet. This is starvation. Please educate yourself on proper vegan nutrition. A vegan diet can and does provide well-balanced and healthful living.
If I were to use your logic and get the statistics of people abusing their children, it's in favour of the vegans. The fact that some people who eat meat abuse their kid doesn't mean another person who eats meat will abuse their kid. Same with vegans. It would be beneficial if you actually used intelligent arguments instead of name-calling.
Nice try though.

So if you don't give a baby milk, what do you feed it? Soy milk and apple juice! Hardly the ideal diet for a baby. And this is not the first vegan baby to die of starvation. There have been a lot of other cases. Babies need a reasonably high amount of protein in their diet, and vegetable protein is inferior to animal protein.

Vegans and vegetarians show so much compassion for farm animals bred for food, but none whatsoever for wild animals driven to the brink of extinction by increasing human population and the growing farmland to feed them.

"If you don't give a baby milk, what do you feed it?"
1. You feed it human breastmilk. If that is not an option, you use a pediatrican approved vegan formula. And they exist in plenty.

"And this is not the first vegan baby to die of starvation."
2. There are many more omnivore babies that die of malnutrition. That baby's death had nothing to do with veganism and everything to do with terrible decisions on the parents' part. Quoting Pamela, soymilk and apple juice is not a vegan diet, it is starvation.

"...vegetable protein is inferior to animal protein."
3. Untrue.

"Vegans and vegetarians show so much compassion for farm animals bred for food, but none whatsoever for wild animals driven to the brink of extinction by increasing human population and the growing farmland to feed them."
4. Also untrue. Many, and perhaps even most vegans care very much about animal welfare in general, not just the the welfare of food animals. Besides which, it takes much more farmland to feed the cow that you eat than to feed a vegan.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9F0DE0D71438F9...

Couple Guilty Of Assault In Vegan Case
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By GREG RETSINAS
Published: April 5, 2003
A Queens couple who fed their baby daughter a strict vegetarian diet, including homemade infant formula, were convicted yesterday of nearly starving her to death.

The results of the Swintons' care, prosecutors and medical experts said, were disastrous. By the time the authorities intervened when the child was 15 months old, she was toothless, had rickets, broken bones and internal injuries. She was severely malnourished and weighed 10 pounds -- less than half the normal weight for a young toddler.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5204a1.htm

Neurologic Impairment in Children Associated with Maternal Dietary Deficiency of Cobalamin --- Georgia, 2001

During 2001, neurologic impairment resulting from cobalamin (vitamin B12) deficiency was diagnosed in two children in Georgia. The children were breastfed by mothers who followed vegetarian diets.

Shall we also pull the thousands of headlines of negligent and abusive treatment to infants by meat-eating parents, and condemn all meat-eaters as baby abusers?

Tens of thousands of babies have been born to vegan parents and have grown into vibrant, healthy, beautiful children. Exceptions do not prove the rule, and that's even saying that these cases had to do with veganism as a way of life, as opposed to nutritional education.

Eisenstein says "the ultimate crime is not killing, but preventing another creature from fulfilling its life purpose. And so the problem with today’s meat industry is not that animals die; it is that they are living a hellish life. "  The second sentence, though phrased as logical conclusion, doesn't follow from the first unless you make the unstated assumption that an animal's "life purpose" is to be killed and eaten.

 Bravo Isa for a concise and beautiful rebuttal. 

There are so many great books out there on this topic, if you'd like to get more information.  I can highly recommend "The Food Revolution" by John Robbins. And if you would like to taste how delicious vegan food can be, I can highly recommend Isa's cookbooks, which make living a compassionate life no sacrifice at all. 

Amazing how the conversation still revolves around the core arguments outlined in Animal Liberation (Peter Singer). One thing that seems to be causing confusion here is the question of 'Sentience' vs. 'Pain'. I don't think these need to be contrasted. Animals have nervous systems and experience pain and as a society we have deemed it unethical to cause pain to fellow humans for the same reason (not because we are 'self-aware'). Thus, in response to apnobel above, it may very well be that a hierarchy based on 'sentience' would put 'self-conscious' beings at the top and imply that beings existentially aware of their incarceration and demise suffer more. However, that does not imply that other beings, animals do not suffer (that's some kind of formal argumentative fallacy--I can't remember which one). If if did, perhaps only brilliant artists and philosophers should be protected by the law and idiots could be killed at their whim? At what level of IQ do you deserve the protection of an ethical system based on 'self-awareness'? I can name several people working next to me in this cubicle farm right now that deserve to die based on your criteria...

I am responding to the comment "Arbitrary hierarchies are morally wrong. Reasoned hierarchies are not." And yet, Isa, who is reluctant to discuss the difference between the animal kingdom and the plant kingdom, because it is so obvious, goes on to define this difference: sentience. She then admits that we create a hierarchy of animals over plants, but denies that this means placing humans at the top. Nevertheless, she goes on to say, "Humans, on the other hand, are fortunate in that we can choose to abstain from this kind of violence. We have an omnivore’s digestive system, and brains capable of making ethical assessments and modifying our behavior accordingly." This raises a serious philosophical question: why is the ability to choose and make ethical assessments less of a difference than sentience? Could not the ability to choose itself become the rationale of a reasoned hierarchy? According to Isa, animals are distinct from plants by virtue of their sentience, and humans distinct from animals by virtue of their ability to choose and think. Yet, according to Isa, the distinction of sentience creates a hierarchy, while the ability to make ethical assessments does not. I do not believe that it can be demonstrated from a philosophical point of view that the second difference is any less significant than the first. If anything, the opposite is true. The attribute of free choice and the ability to make ethical assessments would seem to be the more profound difference. Admittedly, it is a difference that does not relate, to the same extent, to the issue of suffering. Nevertheless, it is a distinction that is deeply persuasive to many meat-eaters to the effect that humans and (other?) animals are no more equals to each other than are animals and plants.

So the only issues remaining in the debate are: 1. death, and 2. suffering. Now we know these two are not synonymous. Quite to the contrary, many people are proponents of active euthanasia, or even physician-assisted suicide, precisley because it brings suffering to an end. So unless we are speaking to a vegan who is a sanctity-of-life fundamentalist opposed to euthanasia, the moral attitude of that vegan towards death could only by described as situational: sometimes it´s okay, sometimes it´s not.

Which leaves suffering. This is a serious issues. But it is possible to believe that meat-eating is not immoral, whereas causing an animal to suffer is immoral. Indeed, this is the viewpoint postulated by Jewish law. The point that too many meat-eaters ingnore the problem of suffering to animals is well-taken. But this does not render meat-eating, per se, as something immoral.

My intention is not to "weigh in" on the meat-eaters versus vegan question, but to point out that Isa does indeed describe a difference between humans and animals that is no less formidable than the sentience that they share with each other.

Many vegetarians are in favor of some form of euthanasia, demonstrating that they maintain that the active termination of life is acceptable under some circumstances. Of course, they would vigorously argue that this cannot be compared to killing animals, since the subject of euthanasia makes a conscious choice. In theory, if animals could consent to their slaughter, it would become moral in the eyes of (many) vegetarians, something like the right to human-assisted suicide. Yet, according to Isa´s own words, animals are incapable of making any kind of choice whatsoever, whether it be for or against their own demise. It is this profound distinction that leads many humans to consider themselves as the choice-makers in the stewardship of the plant and animal kingdoms.

Good work, Isa!

Also, regarding the vegan couple in Arkansas, anonymous douchebag, it is YOU who is the idiot. Vegans can be idiots, but that doesn't mean all idiots are vegans or all vegans are idiots. It is simply neither here nor there.

The couple in Arkansas were idiots, but their veganism doesn't factor in. The baby would have died if it had been fed only cows milk and apple juice just the way it died when fed only soymilk and AJ. Even the DA who prosecuted that case admitted that veganism was not an issue in the case but rather the apparent complete lack of perception and common sense on the part of the parents.

For the record, many vegan parents breastfeed (since most vegans with any kind of brainpower realize that it's perfectly okay to drink the milk that is MEANT FOR YOU SPECIFICALLY and that has been offered to you by your mother) and have very happy and healthy children. Many omnivores abuse and neglect their children and sometimes kill them. Does this mean that all omnivores are idiots?

You could talk in circles forever about hierarchies. The fact is that the ethics of vegan eating are only good as far as they can be applied. And in my experience, vegans take the stance that they will cause as little suffering as is practical.

The vegan parents whose baby died were in Georgia. I've been waiting for "the other shoe" on this case to drop. I suspect that the parents didn't have health insurance (which is why mother and baby had no contact with a health professional whatsoever) and that the baby was premature (which could have explained the baby's failure to thrive). In other words, if this family had been in Canada, Britain, or France, the baby would probably have survived. We have an appallingly high infant mortality rate here in the United States. The solution is not to jail ignorant poor people when their baby dies.

Hi everyone, I just popped in from care2 and read this thread and am as always pleasantly reassured by the intelligent and articulate arguments from the vegans and not surprised at all by the idiotic and ignorant rantings of the flesh-eater/troll amongst you. Loving your work. xxx

I'm with Mr. Eisenstein on this one. Frankly, the condescension, solipsism, and arrogance of holier-than-thou vegans like Isa Moskovitz turns me off.

I have respect for the vegan choice. Anyone who makes that choice has my respect, and even my admiration. I also appreciate that Eisenstein's logic may sound peculiar, but having read a lot of his writing, I agree with it. And I also agree that vegans' castigations of meat eaters (like environmentalists') won't solve the problems with our civilization.

"I feel silly even addressing the difference between plant life and animal life. It’s simply sentience. Yes, perhaps we do set up a hierarchy by valuing animal life over plant life."

But if the entire universe has consciousness of a sort, if the universe is itself an ANIMATE universe, then plants DO have sentience. And there is scientific proof for such a notion. Here again, Eisenstein is correct.

"An ethical vegan extends moral community to the rest of the animal kingdom."

With all due respect, ethical vegans have never had to face certain difficult choices. I myself am extremely underweight without meat. The reason is because of my INHERITED metabolism. I'm an ectomorph. The basic flaw in the entire vegan worldview is the blatantly false assertion that

"Humans.... are fortunate in that we can choose to abstain from this kind of violence. We have an omnivore’s digestive system..."

Um, sorry, actually we don't. Not in the sense implied here. I don't have an omnivore's digestive system. Oh, I can digest fruit and vegetables, of course, but I CANNOT get all the protein I need to build muscle from a vegan diet. Sorry, but it's quite literally impossible at this moment in time. Because of my inherited metabolism. Try to squirm around this fact any way you want, but you're not the one living this life, I am. Without meat, and lots of it, I'm skin and bones. Why should I go through life with my ribcage sticking out and being so frail and skinny and puny I get nasty remarks? I resent being guilt-tripped about my reliance on meat. It's not an ethical choice, because it's not a choice at all. For those of us unfortunate enough to be born with a hyper-fast metabolism, we MUST include meat in our diets, or we'll look like skeletons. For me, the vegan approach is NOT a remotely healthy lifestyle choice. On the contrary, it the surest way for me to become sick, bony, and frail. Now, for someone who had the pure luck of being born with a slow metabolism, with a digestive system that can get all it needs, protein-wise, from vegan food sources, good for you: go for it! I applaud your choice. But the "we are all omnivores" assertion is a half-truth at best. I am not you. My digestive system and my metabolic rate and my physiology and biochemistry are not yours. Therefore, for me, veganism is not merely an impractical choice, but an impossible one unless I'm happy to go through life looking (and feeling) like a Holocaust victim. That is a biological fact, Ms. Moskowitz: Period.

First and foremost, the depth of this discussion is pretty impressive - deep and passionate!

I'm a vegan out of love.  Love for my body, love for my planet (ok, ok, it's ours! :), and love for animals - oh, and love for other people too!

 I love plants too and if I could figure out a way to be nourished solely by the spirit of God then I'd stop eating them as well.  It calms my spirit and my mind to know that I'm doing everything I can to minimize suffering for anything I can.  Bottom line, it makes me very happy!