The
animal rights debate has necessitated much philosophical
re-evaluation of our relationship with animals as pets, consumable
livestock, and involuntary test subjects for human medical
experimentation. I will take the position that it is permissible to
eat the flesh of non-human mammals when there has been both an equal
consideration of these animals interests as well as their capacity
for pain, and the consequent mitigation of unnecessary suffering
alongside the enhancement of these animal's lives preceding their
deaths for human consumption because 'animal rights' does not
preclude animal husbandry or killing for consumption on an ethical
basis. This paper will not explore the vast bodies of literature
regarding the subjects broached and will thus not address all
possible supports and objections central to this very complex debate,
but will instead rely on two primary arguments to demonstrate its
points.
The
first is Peter Singer's prescription for universal animal rights as
addressed through his utilitarian approach within the framework of
the rights debate itself, and the second is the interpretive eastern
philosopher Alan Watts's simultaneous rebuff of both the commodified
industrial slaughter of factory farms as well as vegetarianism in its
uncompromisingly abolitionist forms, evaluating it to be an evasion
of the central truth that life does, ultimately, feed on other life.
Despite his critique of vegetarianism, Watts' did later take up the
dietary habit himself; when asked why he had done so, he famously
quipped, “because cows scream louder than carrots.”1
In this paper, I will be extrapolating, rephrasing, and, at some
points, re-interpreting Watts's main philosophical arguments and
contrasting them with Peter Singer's position in favor of full
animal rights as the equal consideration of individual interests.
What results is a position supporting animal welfare in a very broad
sense, wherein the basic sanctity of these lives is deeply respected
and the death is swift and painless when the time for consumption
arrives. As such, it is permissible to eat the flesh of a non-human
mammal if the life of said mammal has been given equal consideration
not only in an ethical death, but in the life preceding said death;
and, as will be demonstrated, this should logically also apply to an
equal consideration of the interests of plant-life, insofar as it is
known that plants do feel pain—but do not have the same complex
psychological capacity to consternate over said pain in the same way
humans can. More complex animal life, with some exceptions, cannot be
said to 'consternate' (as in, become filled with anxiety over) pain
in any anticipatory way entirely analogous to humans, unless they are
being physically harmed or threatened with such quite visibly. Their
reactions to pain, like ours, are hardwired in as basic instinct. The
difference is that our pain is often amplified into many different
forms of often uselessly or involuntarily prolonged psychological
(and thus physiological) suffering through excessively 'creative'
processes of thought and worries about the future or the past, thus
able to—and often—anticipating future pain or suffering, causing
greater commensurate suffering in the subjective life of the
individual.
In
its universal prescriptions for the total abolition of animal
agriculture and consumption, extreme elements of the animal rights
debate project anthropocentric characteristics on non-human beings in
a way similar—but not directly
equivalent—to the exploitative anthropocentric prejudices born of
the Judaeo-Christian psyche, in which animals, plants and everything
else are made for 'man,' whether in exploiting natural resources
including non-human
mammal flesh, or acting as their benevolent suzerains as designated
by Judaeo-Christian, or Western, cultural orthodoxy. Resting on such
assumptions, abolitionists ultimately choose to privilege the rights
of animal life based on an evolutionary proximal relatability in the
form of sentience and an ability to feel emotions often uncannily
like our own. If we can relate to animals based on Singer's
definition of equality as extrapolated from a criteria established on
the 'lowest common denominator' of similarities between humans and
animals, we can (and, by Singer's logic, must)
do the same for plants; though just as 'equal consideration of
interests' is dependent on the contextual 'interests' of the beings
or people involved, so would we reach a separate criteria of 'lowest
common denominator' similarities between humans and plant-life.
What
this yields is not the same moral sensation of equality in
consideration of interests as established between humans and animals,
but a new set of considerations relative to a separately measured
criteria wherein we do not treat plant-life and its capacity for pain
with an anthropocentric guilt complex, but instead recognize and
respect plant-life's capacity for pain within its own unique context.
Does it then inevitably follow that such consideration would preclude
us from consuming plant-life? Or does it simply imply 'ethical
consumption'? It has been shown that plants do indeed feel pain
insofar as they have some sort of nervous system, but that they do
not 'consternate' over such pain, just as many animals do not. The
difference is that non-human mammals still have a nervous system
centralizing and interpreting signals in the brain, thus able to feel
pain in a much more consolidated, self-conscious sense that does,
ethically, require a deeper consideration as regards the animal's
right to life and freedom from useless and unnecessary suffering.
Now, the question that is begged is whether this likewise should
preclude us from consuming non-human mammal flesh, or if this too is
a case requiring ethical consumption. It could even imply a more
nuanced measurement based not on broad generalizations (such as
'animals' or 'non-human mammals'), but on species in particular. This
does not imply that we are thus able to kill and eat our pet dogs and
cats as that would be said to be abrogating not only an established
convention of affection for these animals as pets in this context,
but an embedded cultural norm as well, as selectively discriminatory
as it is or may seem. Within differing parameters, it is not
inherently wrong to consume cats and dogs as livestock like we do
other non-human mammals providing they are given an equal
consideration of interests under such circumstances. This may almost
seem Kantian insofar as animals are portrayed as mere means to human
ends and never as ends in themselves, as Kant asserted humans to be.
What I would like to propose is not treating animals as mere means to
human ends, but as ends in themselves (just as plants are) who can
still ethically be a means to human consumption sans being
neurotically moralized from an elevated place of anthropocentric
moral indignation which extrapolates and overlays too much of our
manufactured rights debate onto our relationship with animals in a
way that suggests direct equivalency in context. Animals are seen as
being almost lower-format humans who operatively yearn for equivalent
treatment, as distinct from an equal consideration of each being's
interests.
Though
this is not the explicit message pushed by Singer, it seems to be the
implication of his musings on the matter that animals must be
considered not only with the same ethical weight, but through the
same complex social lens of the 'rights' debate. What reveals the
anthropocentrism central to such opinions is the fact that rights
will always be extrapolated, delegated, and applied to these animals
from 'on high'—as in, from humans socially contextualized enough to
consensually sign the implicit 'social contract' that comes with the
constructed rights debate. This is not to suggest the rights debate
is totally null or useless in regards to animals, but simply to point
out that our relationship with animals is deeply contextual and our
considerations of their interests must occur within this
understanding of said context just in the same way we find ways to
sustainably interact with, cultivate, and grow plant-life with a
consideration for its effect on a wider environment, its vague
capacity for pain, and the basic fact that it is life, the sanctity
of which must be deeply respected most especially as
regards consumption. When all is said and done, however, life
does—and always has—fed on other life. Our best hope and highest
calling as human beings is to make such a cycle of consumption an
ethical one for all life involved.
PLEASE NOTE: THIS WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN AS A SHORT ESSAY PIECE FOR A PHILOSOPHY CLASS I AM IN ON THE "MORAL PROBLEMS OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY" AT THE BEGINNING OF MAY OF 2017.
1 Sean
Voisen, "Staying Vegetarian", The Kōan, March 23,
2013, http://thekoan.org/staying-vegetarian/.
