Why I may soon eradicate animal flesh from my diet.

When I revealed this to my mother, she accepted it with much more ease than I ever could have imagined. My father though, was a completely different account. A few nights ago at the dinner table, my mother, who I had already told, made a comment in passing about me thinking about not eating meat anymore. My dad then asked me if it was true, and I said yes. He couldn't believe it. It was probably the funniest show of unsupportive parenting I've seen a while. I could hardly suppress laughter. Moving on though to why I might actually take the plunge away from animal flesh consumption...

For most of my life, I never thought twice about eating meat. Well, maybe once or twice, but the Bible says that humans are meant to have domain over all other animals, and then without another thought, I ate my cheeseburger. Now, this doesn't work for everyone. Many people don't believe what the Bible says, and for morals/ethics, I don't think that you can use religion to define it. This never occurred to me until taking a moral philosophy class last quarter at OSU. It makes sense though, not using religion as a basis for morals. Not everyone believes in religion, so why should they follow a moral code from something they see as a complete farce? Also, the Bible doesn't always give you clear ways to act morally, so you have to fill in the gaps. This is where moral theory comes in. You wipe religion out of the equation, and develop a system that everyone can follow, regardless of faith. Now, there are many theories and theorists, but that is a completely different discussion. The only one I am going to go into is Peter Singer and a book called Animal Liberation.

Singer wrote it, and for my Philosophy 130 (ethics) we read one passage. The argument is pretty straightforward, as most Singer is, but the conclusion isn't quite as clear. The basis of the argument is animals can feel pain. That is undeniable. If animals can feel pain, then they have interests, avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure (basic utilitarianism). Because they have these interests, it is wrong to cause them pain. The second part of this is that some animals have something above just interests, they have the rigth to life. If an animal is self-aware and can feel pain, it is morally wrong to end its life. There is no way the satisfaction of a cheeseburger outweighs ending the life of a cow. Now, there is much debate about self awareness, but most simply defined, it is the ability of the animal to perceive itself as existing as the same being in the future. Basically, it knows what is going on and if you end its life, you are clearly in the wrong because of the similarity to humans. Debate about self awareness and the ability to tell if an animal is self aware aside, killing an animal is pretty easy to be seen as wrong with this logic.

Now, the conclusion, isn't quite so neat. Since the basis of the "interests" argument is pain and pleasure, if you don't cause pain to a non-self aware animal, are you in the right? Well, yes, sort of. Is it possible? I do not think so. If you can kill a non-self aware animal painlessly, you can eat it, but can that be done? I'm still waiting for someone to name a way. Thus, it is only logical that according to Singer, vegetarianism is required from a moral standpoint.

I find this difficult to disagree with. Yeah, meat tastes good and I eat it a fair amount, but does my pleasure outweigh the pain of ending an animals life or is even necessary for me to be eating animal flesh? No and no. Ending a life is presumably the biggest loss you can incur upon a being, and your simple pleasure of a good taste in your mouth can't outweigh that. For the latter comment, is eating meat necessary? I think that eating meat is completely NOT necessary. Now, thousands of years ago, hunter-gatherers needed to kill animals to survive. In today's world though, do we actually have to kill animals to survive? Absolutely not! You can live and eat quite healthy without eating meat. If someone can give a good, unreputable explanation why eating meat in our civilized society is necessary, let 'er rip because I want to hear it. And "it tastes good" is NOT a legitimate reason. Now, in poorer nations where they do have to eat meat to survive, is it wrong? To be logically consistent, yes, but is starving a logical alternative? No it is not. This is sort of like how I see abortion. Wrong, yes, but in some situations, it may well be necessary to avoid an undue amount of pain and suffering. Starving children seems to be undue pain and suffering.

In conclusion, I believe that eating meat is wrong, and I might be stopping soon. The biggest obstacle in my way is probably eating at home. There won't always be a vegetarian option, like at school. Also, it seems wrong for me to impose on friends or other people if I'm at their house and require vegetarian food in contrast with their non-vegetarian food. There is also the ridicule from family and friends, but I don't really care about that. If they really think I'm a loon, they can read this post to see where I'm coming from or realize that quite a few people think deeper about what goes into our meat eating habit. The biggest hurdle however, is getting over never eating so many foods that I love so much. I love cheeseburgers, steak, BBQ chicken, lamb, etc... It is hard to see life without those foods. But, in the end, does my pleasure outweigh that of ending the life of an animal? And that answer I believe, is a no.