Most people have heard the standard arguments for vegetarianism: that buying meat supports the suffering of animals, wastes food and energy and puts stress on the environment. But most people continue to eat meat, which means they are justifying it to themselves in some way. Here are my thoughts on some of the common arguments offered in defense of being an omnivore.
“Animals are here to be eaten or to serve humanity.” If you believe this, then I respect that and probably won’t be able to talk you out of it. Beliefs such as this one are usually held dogmatically. But I ask that you recognize that as our our beliefs guide our actions, they matter to the rest of the world, and we owe it to one another to critically examine them. Does the belief that animals are here for our indiscriminate pleasure really hold up under scrutiny?
“Animals do not have feelings, are not conscious.” This, to be sure, is a difficult and deep question, and I don’t think anyone can claim to have discovered an adequate definition for what makes something conscious. But we have to go with the evidence we’ve got. For example, how do you reason that your best friend is conscious? Either you simply assume it or you infer it from the observations you make about their behavior, biological constitution or something else. We ought to apply the same criteria to everything around us. Biologically speaking, animals with nervous systems and brains sense the environment around them in essentially the same way humans do. While the animals we eat may not be able to write poetry or behave like your best friend, they do process information from their senses and there is no reason to think they don’t suffer when those sensations are painful.
“If animals have feelings, then don’t vegetables, too?” I grant that there is something of a point here, but rather than justifying eating animals it merely emphasizes that consciousness is a mysterious thing. Clearly we have to draw a line somewhere, in order to eat and survive. But on what grounds should we draw the line between humans and the other 10 million species on this planet? Why not instead draw the line where it corresponds to something we have good reason to think is relevant, such as the difference between having a central nervous system and not? Even if my carrot were, in fact, conscious, it still wouldn’t matter much if I took a bite out of it, because it does not have the physiological apparatus to sense the force of my teeth and feel it as pain. Animals do.
“Eating meat is natural.” This argument seems to me incredibly ad-hoc. How many other things do you justify solely on the grounds that they are natural? And why should all natural things be right? Does a rock have a moral right to fall on your head because that is natural?
“Being a vegetarian is a first-world luxury.” This is true, I suppose, in the sense that here in the first world most of us have access to a wide variety of food and can afford it. But while it is certainly unfair that we have dietary choices that most of the world is not privy to, it doesn’t mean that we should not use that freedom for good. A large quantity of edible vegetarian food goes into raising livestock, and were the demand for meat to decline, that food could end up in the mouths of hungry humans.
“Meat tastes good.” That’s nice, but you are not the only thing that matters in this world.
Many people want to do good in their lives but are confused about how go about it. Giving up meat is something that you can do right away, and will it spare the lives of at least several thousand animals throughout your lifetime. It can help save you money, reduce your ecological footprint, live more compassionately and allow more food to go to the poor. After the first few weeks, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner. There’s no harm in going green in a different way or, at the very least, giving it a shot.
Len Goff is a senior philosophy and physics major. He can be reached at lgoff@umd.edu.
