The morality of eating meat
I do not think that ethics will ever remove all its notions of hierarchy--such as, for instance, the relationship between humans and animals. It seems reasonable to suppose that animals are entitled to certain forms of consideration. But the claim that animals have all the same entitlements to consideration as human beings seems clearly controversial. In fact, this seems to be one of the major weaknesses of Peter Singer's ethics. On the one hand, it does include consideration for animal welfare, but on the other hand, it goes so far as to say that animals deserve equal consideration to human beings--and I don't see how that's ever going to be the case. For example, Singer claims that veganism is the only morally acceptable diet because the diet of meat creates unnecessary suffering. Admittedly some hippies and bleeding-heart left-wingers do actually think like that, but it hardly seems morally impinging upon me not to eat a hamburger.
I am sympathetic to the basic argument, but what do you have to say about this?
Peter Singer, "Animal Liberation at 30", New York Review of Books, Volume 50, Number 8, May 15, 2003, Section 1.
If nothing else, you have to admit that he argues his case very well.
Exactly what is it that Singer thinks is immoral about killing an animal? Here he simply seems to be implying that it is equally immoral to kill an animal as it is to kill a human being... but according to his ethics, this cannot be the case. Singer is a preference utilitarian1, which means that he believes in maximising the satisfaction of preferences for everyone around the world, including animals. The standard preference utilitarian approach is that it is morally worse to kill a human being than it is to kill an animal, ceteris paribus2. An animal, so the standard argument goes, does not have any awareness of itself existing over time, as does a human being. Therefore, an animal cannot logically have a preference for itself existing over time as does a human being. What makes killing a human being immoral, according to a preference utilitarian, is simply that one is frustrating her inherent preference for her continued existence over time. Therefore, killing a human being is inherently immoral, ceteris paribus. On the other hand, if one kills an animal, one is not frustrating any preference that it has for its own existence over time, because it has no such preference to begin with. Therefore, killing an animal is not inherently immoral, and is in fact quite justifiable under certain circumstances.
Therefore, Singer cannot use his second counterexample in this passage: "Nor, of course, would we tolerate confining them in small cages and then slaughtering them in order to eat them." After all, as long as the animal in question does not suffer, then there can be nothing wrong in principle with killing it for personal amusement, let alone eating it. Singer has therefore already resorted to misleading rhetoric in his own article about animal liberation.
Suppose that an animal were not made to suffer during its life on a farm, and then were killed quickly and painlessly. Singer is committed to saying that there is nothing wrong with this scenario, which presumably lasted in one way or another for thousands of years. However, it is alleged that in modern-day factory farming, animals do indeed suffer terribly for the sake of someone's meal.
We need some information about those procedures in order to assess this claim--in another section!
1For example, see the following TMP Portal Article for a defence of Singer's for his preference utilitarianism. (http://www.philosophers.co.uk/portal_article.php?id=75)
2I read this in Anne Maclean's The Elimination of Morality.
I am sympathetic to the basic argument, but what do you have to say about this?
In the text that followed, I urged that despite obvious differences between humans and nonhuman animals, we share with them a capacity to suffer, and this means that they, like us, have interests. If we ignore or discount their interests, simply on the grounds that they are not members of our species, the logic of our position is similar to that of the most blatant racists or sexists who think that those who belong to their race or sex have superior moral status, simply in virtue of their race or sex, and irrespective of other characteristics or qualities. Although most humans may be superior in reasoning or in other intellectual capacities to nonhuman animals, that is not enough to justify the line we draw between humans and animals. Some humans--infants and those with severe intellectual disabilities--have intellectual capacities inferior to some animals, but we would, rightly, be shocked by anyone who proposed that we inflict slow, painful deaths on these intellectually inferior humans in order to test the safety of household products. Nor, of course, would we tolerate confining them in small cages and then slaughtering them in order to eat them. The fact that we are prepared to do these things to nonhuman animals is therefore a sign of "speciesism"--a prejudice that survives because it is convenient for the dominant group--in this case not whites or males, but all humans.
Peter Singer, "Animal Liberation at 30", New York Review of Books, Volume 50, Number 8, May 15, 2003, Section 1.
If nothing else, you have to admit that he argues his case very well.
Exactly what is it that Singer thinks is immoral about killing an animal? Here he simply seems to be implying that it is equally immoral to kill an animal as it is to kill a human being... but according to his ethics, this cannot be the case. Singer is a preference utilitarian1, which means that he believes in maximising the satisfaction of preferences for everyone around the world, including animals. The standard preference utilitarian approach is that it is morally worse to kill a human being than it is to kill an animal, ceteris paribus2. An animal, so the standard argument goes, does not have any awareness of itself existing over time, as does a human being. Therefore, an animal cannot logically have a preference for itself existing over time as does a human being. What makes killing a human being immoral, according to a preference utilitarian, is simply that one is frustrating her inherent preference for her continued existence over time. Therefore, killing a human being is inherently immoral, ceteris paribus. On the other hand, if one kills an animal, one is not frustrating any preference that it has for its own existence over time, because it has no such preference to begin with. Therefore, killing an animal is not inherently immoral, and is in fact quite justifiable under certain circumstances.
Therefore, Singer cannot use his second counterexample in this passage: "Nor, of course, would we tolerate confining them in small cages and then slaughtering them in order to eat them." After all, as long as the animal in question does not suffer, then there can be nothing wrong in principle with killing it for personal amusement, let alone eating it. Singer has therefore already resorted to misleading rhetoric in his own article about animal liberation.
Suppose that an animal were not made to suffer during its life on a farm, and then were killed quickly and painlessly. Singer is committed to saying that there is nothing wrong with this scenario, which presumably lasted in one way or another for thousands of years. However, it is alleged that in modern-day factory farming, animals do indeed suffer terribly for the sake of someone's meal.
We need some information about those procedures in order to assess this claim--in another section!
Notes
1For example, see the following TMP Portal Article for a defence of Singer's for his preference utilitarianism. (http://www.philosophers.co.uk/portal_article.php?id=75)
2I read this in Anne Maclean's The Elimination of Morality.
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