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So the NYT had an essay contest awhile back concerning the ethics of eating meat. The all-too-simple task was to write an essay with the godlike rhetorical aptitude to convince Peter Singer to down an In-N-Out burger on the spot. Naturally, my essay was not chosen, although looking at the “winners”, I don’t exactly feel neglected. Here’s my essay (note: this is not a sustained reflection, but more of an extemporaneous thought experiment, i.e. allow your criticisms time to cool off before rampaging):
The quandaries of meat-eating. Many have come before this question, presenting the maxims of sundry ethical theories, and failed. To recapitulate: Utilitarianism relies on an ad hoc dismissal of animal happiness, otherwise it is clear that animals outnumber humans. Natural law theories disintegrate in the face of nature, red in tooth and claw. Situationism and other consequentialist theories fail to stand up to the sheer immensity of a death-conscious ethics. The problem with these theories, I believe, is first and foremost methodological. Rather than looking to heaven’s impeccable logic or earth’s ravish efficiency for an answer, let us analyze our general habits of reasoning in this regard. We should analyze how we reason about this matter already, and avoid the temptation of a golden calf.
To begin, animal torture appears obviously wrong to our sensibilities. And yet the death of animals, in abstracto, is less of a natural evil than human death. Why is this? The differend is key to understanding the ethics of meat-eating.
First, it is clear that stepping on an ant and killing a human being are acts which feature severely different moral import. Without a doubt, ants “feel pain” in the sense of sensory reception, i.e. the instinctual tendency to experience harm as unpleasant. Humans also feel pain in this way, though I contend that this is only the minimum case in which humans experience pain. In addition, humans also have a “surplus pain” added on via a self-inscribed ability to reflect self-consciously on pain. This might be called “the horror of pain.” Animals are ignorant of this phenomenon.
So what? Well, when translated into the realm of actual consumption of (hopefully, previously) living beings, the much more ominous specter of “death” haunts our reasoning. Is our reasoning above concerning single-tiered animal pain and two-tiered human pain proportional when moved to the realm of carnivorous activity? I believe it is. Pain is clearly to be avoided, ethically-speaking. Animals avoid it via adaptive processes in the nervous system, and humans, in addition to this sensory reception, avoid pain in surplus because it is the handmaiden of death – a fact they are only aware of because of the aforementioned meta-consciousness. This latter fact, and not the unconscious adaptive mechanism as such, is what truly gives human pain its moral significance. Death retroactively imbues pain with its immanent seriousness.
Finally, what advantage does this approach give us in regard to the ethical question of meat-eating? Well, for starters, it allows us without reserve to condemn the various practices of animal torture (including, in my view, hunting among more obvious activities). If humans can directly sympathize with animal pain qua sensory reception (first-tier pain), then they should admit unequivocally to their past mistakes as a dominant species. Any human, therefore, who finds joy in inflicting pain on animals is no different than a modern sociopath (i.e., first-tier pain is equivalent between animals and humans). However, without the surplus pain added on via human self-consciousness of death and mortality, I do not see why the selective death and consumption of animals can achieve the sacred weight of human life (a move which also necessarily forbids cannibalism, thankfully). This is, therefore, a careful, responsible carnivorous activity with the foundation of philosophical resolve.
Austin said:
in a roundabout way, isn’t salivating over a double-double a way of delighting in the infliction of pain caused on an animal? and by extension, an unconscious desire to see such pain continued so that such tasty snacks can be multiplied? naivete of and proximal distance to the direct application of pain in the slaughterhouses doesn’t get one away scot-free here, does it? of course, maybe i’m just being a purist now…
Austin said:
and really, the biggest problem with this whole debate and essay contest seems to be the way the question is formulated and common ways in which persons address the issue. first, it seems that ‘eating meat’ is not really the issue at all. in a few years there will likely be fda approved cloned meat anyway, so that’ll skirt the whole utilitarian logic of pain v pleasure. it’s the way in which such meat is produced that is of concern. which leads to another, and for me more pressing, matter: the socio-ethical concerns of factory farming and other such plunderous means of raising and/or gathering, the western over-consumption of meat products to the neglect of any global concern or responsibility for those who are highly under-nourished, and the problems of regulatory capture at the hands of big business, who can just basically put any shit into our food.
and one last thing: it’s pure conjecture at this point to try to argue that the means by which we kill future meat products (i.e. animals) is humane. just because we don’t bleed them out (on most occasions), or just because we kill them instantly in no way ensures that the trauma of that instant of death is somehow less than a more ‘cruel’ way of torture (or enter any other similar concept here). we are just ignorant of such differential ratios of pain, with no real way of measuring such… unless temple grandin can somehow start to understand that TOO about cows :)
Troy said:
Yeah, “roundabout” seems to be doing a lot of work in that critique, and I’m not exactly in favor of placing the four year old me who gleefully delighted on McDonald’s burgers on the couch for an extended session.
I do agree with you about the “biggest problems.” The essay contest is definitely skirting the issues of production and consumption in favor of bourgeois morality (“tell me why what I do is right, please”), and anyone with a mustard seed’s worth of faith in the leftist project should see how this is the case. But can you blame me for following the rules?
Lastly, I am pretty sure that I can safely state that ordering tiers of pain is not entirely out of epistemic possibility. Animal torture and instant death are clearly different things, and I think a hypothetical phenomenology can be of some service in delineating exactly how they differ (for instance: why is euthanizing grandma so repugnant even when she’s succumbed to various debilitating diseases? Because of the horror of pain and not the initial sensation I think). This is in no way a proof, but simply a way of saying the immediate reactionary posture of “death is horrifying” may not survive sustained reflection. Perhaps our mirror neurons have placed us on a wrong moral footing here. Now, on the other hand, I am sympathetic to the idea that the burden of ethical proof may be on the meat-eating populous, in which case a “let’s complicate things” gesture is little more than a preface. Not quite sure where to go with that just yet…bring on the synthetic double-doubles!
Austin said:
well of course the four year old you wouldn’t be under attack here, but neither is the four year old you considered culpable by marxist criticisms! it’s the general social milieu under consideration here.
and no, i can’t blame you for following the rules. i was more just ranting out loud on that point haha.
and while i agree that animal torture and instant death are different prima facie, what i’m saying is that the level of discourse about pain and awareness of pain just seems a bit too speculative considering the logical possibility that cataclysmic trauma may occur as the ‘no-country-for-old-men’ gun-thing that sigur used enters the cow’s head. we just don’t have any way of understanding such (possible) trauma. and since it’s so speculative i’d rather argue at a completely different level altogether.
mijnheer said:
If we agree that killing a “food animal” is normally not as morally serious as killing a human, the fact remains that, even in the best of circumstances, it involves terminating the life of a sentient being prematurely and unnecessarily. That needs solid justification, which I suggest is not easy to come up with.
Some books you may find of interest:
Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights
http://books.google.ca/books/about/Making_a_Killing.html?id=AvxBbJ0QSOgC&redir_esc=y
Zoographies: The Question of the Animal from Heidegger to Derrida
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14022-5/zoographies
Animals and Ethics: An Overview of the Philosophical Debate
http://www.broadviewpress.com/product.php?productid=951&cat=12&page=1