Comment & Debate
Most men and women eat meat, although some (mostly in rich countries) eat much more than others. Almost all of this meat is the flesh of domesticated livestock – animals born and raised on farms to be killed and sold for their meat. People who make a choice never to eat meat are vegetarians, although there are different views about what this can mean. Some vegetarians eat fish if it has been caught in the wild, but many will not eat flesh of any sort. Some people are vegans, choosing not to eat any animal product, including eggs and dairy (milk) foods such as cheese, butter and yogurt. Vegans and many vegetarians also refuse to wear leather or fur because it comes from animals. In this Issue Report, we cover the general debate surrounding the decision to avoid eating meat. The sub-debates involved include whether humans and animals are equal in value, if humans have “dominion” over animals, whether vegetarianism shows compassion to animals, if animals have rights, whether it is “natural” for humans to avoid eating meat, whether a vegetarian diet is healthier, and if vegetarianism is better for the environment. The arguments and quotes in each debate are considered below.
“To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.”
“Explanation: The philosophy of animal rights is respectful of our best science in general and evolutionary biology in particular. The latter teaches that, in Darwin’s words, humans differ from many other animals “in degree,” not in kind. Questions of line drawing to one side, it is obvious that the animals used in laboratories, raised for food, and hunted for pleasure or trapped for profit, for example, are our psychological kin. This is no fantasy, this is fact, proven by our best science.”
In modernity, too many humans have lost daily contact with animals, desensitizing us to our likeness.
Henry David Thoreau – “I saw deep in the eyes of the animals the human soul look out upon me. I saw where it was born deep down under feathers and fur, or condemned for a while to roam four-footed among the brambles, I caught the clinging mute glance of the prisoner and swore that I would be faithful.”[1] Many pet-owners believe that their pets have personalities. Socially, in many countries, eating typical house pets (dogs and cats) is considered a major social taboo. However, other animals (cows, pigs, chickens) are raised as food. This conflicting and inconsistent attitude towards animals indicates how socially determined our attitudes towards meat-eating is. Vegetarianism simply extends the typical attitude towards common household pets to other animals species.
Humans are uniquely capable of acting immorally, so capable of assuming a moral inferiority to animals.
Many of the physical abilities of animals are astonishing and far superior to the correlating abilities of humans. Eagles, for instance, have many times better eye-sight than humans. They are also better fliers. As such, it is wrong to claim that humans are, generally, superior and thus authorized to eat other animals; we’re simply different creatures of no greater or lesser value.
Similar to the Civil Rights movement, “differences” do not justify discrimination and mistreatment.
The best moral objective is to produce the greatest good for the greatest number of humans and animals. Differences do not matter in this equation.
“beings that lack a rational faculty also lack the capacity to contribute creatively to the values in nature. By contrast, human beings can create value, as a matter of our initiative, not merely exhibit it.” To the extent that animals are of lesser value than humans, it is appropriate to eat them.
Unlike animals, humans are capable of rational thought and can alter the world around them. Religious people would say that humans also have souls and a different relationship with God. Other creatures were put on this earth for mankind to use, and that includes eating meat. For all these reasons we say that men and women have rights and that animals don’t. This means that eating meat is in no way like murder.
“Surely this is one of the odder paradoxes of animal rights doctrine. It asks us to recognize all that we share with animals and then demands that we act toward them in a most unanimalistic way. Whether or not this is a good idea, we should at least acknowledge that our desire to eat meat is not a trivial matter, no mere ‘gastronomic preference.’ We might as well call sex–also now technically unnecessary–a mere ‘recreational preference.’ Whatever else it is, our meat eating is something very deep indeed.” Indeed, if we consider humans to be equal to animals and a part of the animal kingdom, it is natural that we find our instincts to eat meat to be of equivalent intensity as compared to other meat-eating animals. If humans are animals too, why should we deny these instincts?
Even if we apply the notion of “dominion” and deny animals rights, the principle of “dominion” should be applied in a way that requires humans to see themselves as “stewards”, not dominant exploiters. As “stewards”, inflicting suffering on animals by eating them is unacceptable.
Humans have evolved from animals and from a common single cell organism. Humans did not have dominion then over other animals; in-fact, we didn’t even exist. Therefore, how is it possible to claim that we now can have dominion? At a minimum, evolution forces us to recognize that humans do not have an innate-historical claim to “dominion”.
Chief Seattle – “We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumes flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle: these are our brothers. All things are connected like the blood which unites one’s family.”[2]
Animals lead independent lives with independent goals that typically have nothing at all to do with humans. A good example are fish living at the floor of the ocean. How can humans have “dominion” over these fully independent creatures?
Genesis 1:28 – “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” This means that humans have the right to subdue and control animals for man’s own purposes.
The notion of man’s dominion over animals need not be thought of as a blank check for man to exploit animals. Indeed, it may be appropriate to connect the notion of “dominion” to stewardship” over animals. Yet, humans can be good stewards of animals while continuing to eat them. It is merely necessary that humans maintain balance, order, and sustainability in the animal kingdom. But, again, this does not require the abandonment of meat-eating.
There are certain animals that have evolved with humans, through mutual self-interests in survival, to become “domesticated” by humans. Cats, dogs, pigs, and chickens are examples. Our “dominion” over these animals is certainly biological and evolutionary. Farming and eating these animals is merely a continuation of this evolutionary history of domestication. It is not wrong or right; it simply is.
If we can kill and take animal life for certain ends, don’t we undermine the value and dignity of life generally?
Animal testing and the subjugation of animals undermines a fundamental scientific reality; that humans and animals are kin. With humans and Chimpanzees sharing 99.4% of their genetic code, and humans and mice sharing 99% of their genetic code, it is important to recognize that humans are, on a scientific basis, the kin of animals. The testing of animals undermines this scientific understanding by subjugating animals. This is harmful to broader scientific progression in society.
Albert Einstein – “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
“A Case Against Vegetarianism”. Sulekha.com. Jan 23 2002 – “if we are vegetarians, does it follow that we will be kind and compassionate? Speaking in the Indian context, it would not seem so. Looking at some sordid and conspicuous aspects of Indian society, we are anything but kind and compassionate.”
Animals are given food, shelter and care if they become ill or injured. When it is time to slaughter them, the end is quick and pain-free. After all, unhappy and stressed animals provide poor meat, so it is in farmers’ interests to look after them well. Some intensive farming methods are hard to defend, but that is a reason for passing laws to protect animals better. There is nothing wrong in principle with farming livestock.
Animals invariably experience great suffering in the wild. Removing them from this environment can be very beneficial and reassuring for animals.
“Animal testing generally occurs as a result of developing a cost-benefit model. Basically, if the benefit of the research (to humans) looks high, then it is seen as being worth the costs (to animals). For instance it is seen that if animal research is likely to save the lives of many humans that it is worthwhile. However, it can be argued that all sentient beings have the same rights, and that costs to animals are as important as costs to humans. There is no moral basis for elevating the interests of one species over another this is specieism.”
Humans are animals too and it is not possible morally to set us apart from other species. Animals may not be as clever as people, but a baby is less intelligent than an ape and we don’t say that means it should have fewer rights. Like us, animals can feel pleasure and pain, and they suffer if they are shut up and forced to live and eat in unnatural ways. Many religious people believe that all life is sacred, and that nothing should be made to suffer without need. For these reasons killing and eating animals is a form of murder.
Farming involves animals like cows, sheep, pigs and chickens being kept in nasty conditions and usually cruelly killed. Some farming methods – such as battery chickens – are crueller than others, but all of them subject animals to suffering and pain. It is wrong for humans to subject animals to such pain and suffering…
Jeremy Bentham – “The question is not, ‘Can they reason?’ nor, ‘Can they talk?’ but rather, ‘Can they suffer?'”[3]
Jeremy Bentham – “While critics question where the line would be drawn, fearing that animal rights activists would grant rights to single cell organisms, the general consensus in the animal rights community is that rights should be conferred only to animals that can suffer. This is a psychological distinction that is possible to make in acceptable terms. And, the main right being granted is the right to avoid suffering at the hands of humans.”
Many opponents of animal rights and supporters of testing cite the fact that animals kill each other without public outcry, and ask, why humans should be held to a higher standard? The answer is that humans have the capacity to make the choice to inflict pain on animals. Animals, having no free will, so do not have this same ability to choose. Therefore, if we determine that it is morally ethical to do no harm to animals, since we have the choice, it is our unique responsibility to do no harm.
Leonardo Da Vinci – “The time will come when people such as I will look upon the murder of (other) animals as they now look upon the murder of human beings.”[4]
Christine Stevens – “The basis of all animal rights should be the Golden Rule: we should treat them as we would wish them to treat us, were any other species in our dominant position.”[5]
“6. Animals don’t respect our rights. Therefore, humans have no obligation to respect their rights either. Reply: There are many situations in which an individual who has rights is unable to respect the rights of others. This is true of infants, young children, and mentally enfeebled and deranged human beings. In their case we do not say that it is perfectly all right to treat them disrespectfully because they do not honor our rights. On the contrary, we recognize that we have a duty to treat them with respect, even though they have no duty to treat us in the same way.”
“To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. The more helpless the creature, the more that it is entitled to protection by man from the cruelty of man.”[6]
Supermarkets put huge pressure on farmers to produce meat, milk and eggs at rock bottom prices, so it is not surprising that animal welfare is neglected in a search for profit.
nimals don’t respect human rights. Therefore, humans have no obligation to respect their rights either. Animals do not deliberate on the morality of eating other animals nor humans. It is merely a matter of instinct. Therefore, why should humans deliberate on this question, particularly if we feel natural hunting and eating meat?
The ability to reason and to express free will is essential to rights. This is because rights require that an individual be capable of responsibility. Animals lack this capacity for moral judgement, so cannot possess rights.
“The differing targets, contents, and sources of rights, and their inevitable conflict, together weave a tangled web. Notwithstanding all such complications, this much is clear about rights in general: they are in every case claims, or potential claims, within a community of moral agents. Rights arise, and can be intelligibly defended, only among beings who actually do, or can, make moral claims against one another. Whatever else rights may be, therefore, they are necessarily human; their possessors are persons, human beings.”
This argument simply highlights the fact that animal rights are legally untenable.
This is frequent argument of animal rights activists; that animals deserve rights because they have at least as much capacity to reason as do some retarded humans, who retain rights. The problem with this argument is that it fails to see rights as a thing that must be shared among a group of creatures, not something that is extended on an individual basis. Therefore, the question is not whether some humans are incapable of having rights, but rather whether human kind, as a species, is capable of having rights. They are. Non-human animals, conversely, as a class of organisms, are not capable of holding rights. It is, therefore, appropriate to categorically draw the line on rights between humans and non-humans.
David R. Carlin, professor of philosophy and sociology at the Community College of Rhode Island – “By arguing that animals are equal to humans and thus deserve the same legal protection, animal rights proponents reduce human beings to nothing more than biological entities, on par with animals. Animal rights advocates’ view of humanity negates fundamental Christian, Platonic, and Stoic claims that man was created in the image and likeness of God. Humans are clearly superior to animals. Granting animals legal rights would be dangerous and degrading to humans.”
Offering animals rights impedes on many human rights. For instance, it makes it more difficult for a human to defend themselves or their crops or livestock against threatening animals.
Many supposed animal rights activists claim that they desire to see animals have a right against suffering at the hands of humans. This might be a good idea, but it is false to claim that it is a “right”. Such an idea can only be classified within the realm of animal welfare. The main reason is that it is only something that is practiced by humans unto animals, and can never be claimed or defended by animals out of their own accord. The idea only restricts humans against inflicting suffering on animals, but does not restrict animals from inflicting suffering on other animals (not even animals within their own species). Because it is a one-way relationship in this sense (from human-kind unto animals), it can only be seen as welfare, not a right that an animal might be able to carry and defend in all their relationships with other creatures.
“My first line of defense was obvious. Animals kill one another all the time. Why treat animals more ethically than they treat one another? (Ben Franklin tried this one long before me: during a fishing trip, he wondered, ‘If you eat one another, I don’t see why we may not eat you.’ He admits, however, that the rationale didn’t occur to him until the fish were in the frying pan, smelling ‘admirably well.’ The advantage of being a ‘reasonable creature,’ Franklin remarks, is that you can find a reason for whatever you want to do.) To the ‘they do it, too’ defense, the animal rightist has a devastating reply: do you really want to base your morality on the natural order? Murder and rape are natural, too. Besides, humans don’t need to kill other creatures in order to survive; animals do. (Though if my cat, Otis, is any guide, animals sometimes kill for sheer pleasure.)”
Some animals do kill others for food, but at least prey species live free and any suffering in the hunt is almost always over quickly. And unlike lions or wolves, humans are moral beings, who are aware of the suffering they can cause and able to choose a different way of life. For this reason vegetarians dislike hunting animals for meat (or for fun) just as much as farming them. Farming is actually worse than hunting as it inflicts long term cruelty on animals in a systematic way. Not only are farm conditions cruel, breeding for meat, dairy or wool has created livestock which suffer all sorts of unnatural and painful diseases and conditions.
Humans might have the physical equipment to eat meat, but we do not have to do so. People should make a moral choice not to eat other creatures. In just the same way we know that men are capable of great aggression and physical violence, but society says that such behaviour is unacceptable.
“nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own.”[7]
“It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.”[8]
“There is, too, the fact that we humans have been eating animals as long as we have lived on this earth. Humans may not need to eat meat in order to survive, yet doing so is part of our evolutionary heritage, reflected in the design of our teeth and the structure of our digestion. Eating meat helped make us what we are, in a social and biological sense. Under the pressure of the hunt, the human brain grew in size and complexity, and around the fire where the meat was cooked, human culture first flourished. Granting rights to animals may lift us up from the brutal world of predation, but it will entail the sacrifice of part of our identity–our own animality.”
Like our early ancestors, humans have teeth designed for tearing flesh as well as for crushing and chewing vegetable fibres. Our stomachs are also adapted to eating both meat and vegetable matter. All of this means that eating meat is part of being human. Like many other species, human beings were once hunters. In the wild animals kill and are killed, often very brutally and with no idea of “rights”. As mankind has progressed over thousands of years we have largely stopped hunting wild animals. Instead we have found kinder and less wasteful ways of getting the meat in our diets through domestication. Farm animals today are descended from the animals we once hunted in the wild.
Cows, sheep, chickens, etc as we know them today could not live a life in the wild any more, so if they were not kept as livestock these breeds of animal would rapidly become extinct. Is this the objective of Vegetarians? Causing mass extinction? Is this moral? Or, are domesticated farm animals meant to persist in their domesticated form, for human consumption? The later is correct.
Why should animals be free from obligations and responsibilities toward one-another in the animal kingdom, while humans might be obligated by “animal rights” to certain responsibilities toward them? Why should humans be alienated from the natural order of the animal kingdom in this way? The answer is that we should not be. Animal rights, therefore, should not exist.
There are certain animals that have evolved with humans, through mutual self-interests in survival, to become “domesticated” by humans. Cats, dogs, pigs, and chickens are examples. We provide shelter and sustenance in exchange for their work, bodily produce, or flesh. Indeed, domesticated farm animals have evolutionarily “succeeded” in this way, far outliving and out-proliferating their long-extinct ancestors.
Meat (and dairy) eaters eat unhealthily as they take in far too much fat, protein and cholesterol, and often far too little fibre and vitamins. Eating a varied range of cereals, fruits, nuts and vegetables is a delicious way of getting all the vitamins, minerals, fibre and protein your body needs.
Dioxins are poisons found in the environment largely as a bi-product of forms of industrial production. They are highly poisonous to humans. Because they are fat-soluble, they are predominantly found in meat and dairy products, as opposed to, for instance, vegetables and fruits.
Almost all dangerous types of food-poisoning (e.g. E-coli, salmonella) are passed on through meat or eggs. Close contact between humans and animals also leads to zoonosis – diseases such as bird ‘flu which can be passed on from animals to humans. Hunters eating apes and monkeys is thought to have brought HIV/AIDS to humans. And using animal brains in the processed feed for livestock led to BSE in cattle and to CJD in humans who ate beef from infected cows.
If eating meat is both bad for animals and for humans, it seems that the moral trade-off is fairly simply in favor of vegetarianism. And, even if eating meat is simply “unnecessary”, the fact that it is bad for animals makes the moral trade-off simple, and in-favor of vegetarianism.
Animal death involves a high degree of animal pain, which causes the release of many chemicals into the bloodstream of animals. These chemicals are consumed by meat-eaters. If the notion of “you are what you eat” applies, meat-eaters are consuming pain, suffering, and death, which some believe lead to greater aggression, anger, and insensitivity in humans.
“Plant foods can provide all essential amino acids and ensure adequate nitrogen retention and use in healthy adults, thus complementary proteins do not need to be consumed at the same meal.” – [Vegetarian Diets: Volume 109, Issue 7, (July 2009)]
Humans with vegetarian diets are more likely to suffer from fatigue, apathetic behavior, and a lack of concentration. These could negatively affect proficiency in school and the ability to perform well at the site of someone’s profession. Other conditions include frequently becoming ill, frequently becoming depressed, and malnourishment.
We should eat five or six portions of fruit and vegetables a day, but without adding some meat or fish it is hard to make sure our body is getting the protein and iron it needs to be healthy. It might be OK for adults to choose a vegetarian diet for themselves, but should we allow vegetarian parents to impose such a diet on their babies? Meats are an easy and reliable source of protein, an essential building-block for the human body.
“The assertion that dioxins accumulate specifically in animal products is simplistic and inaccurate, and in fact a diet rich in pastured animal products provides protective nutrients, especially vitamin A, that directly oppose the toxic actions of dioxins in animal experiments, while a diet rich in most plant fats provides compounds that enhance the actions of dioxin. The argument that we should avoid animal products because of their dioxin concentration is thus no less flawed than the argument that we should avoid animal products because they contain saturated fat and cholesterol.”
Food safety and hygiene are very important for everyone, and governments should act to ensure that high standards are in place. And just as meat production can raise health issues, so does the arable farming of plants – examples include GM crops and worries about pesticide residues on fruit and vegetables. None of this means that we should stop eating meat, just that we should ensure all food is produced in a safe and healthy way
It is a myth that fats contained in meat are unhealthy; they are healthy in moderation and unhealthy in excess.
Vegetarians are generally more health-conscious. This is the primary reason why they are healthy; it is less a cause of vegetarians avoiding meat. Similarly, obese people are obese because they are not health-conscious, more than because they are meat-eaters.
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