A Carnivore’s Shame
Bearing in mind the recent seasonal gorging, here’s another Classic Sentence from the Guardian. This time courtesy of Neel Mukherjee and his deep ruminations on vegetarianism.
It slowly dawned on me that there were no rational, intellectual or moral arguments to be made for carnivorousness.
Heavens, he’s bold. There simply isn’t a good reason to partake of the flesh. None whatsoever. I do hope there’s a devastating argument to support such a claim.
The meat-eaters had always already lost. This is not the place to rehearse all those arguments.
Ah. Not the place. Isn’t it wonderful when arguments can be won entirely in your own head, with none of that messy business with evidence, logic and stuff you hadn’t thought of? Mr Mukherjee does, however, indulge us with one attempt at reasoning:
Far more convincing for me than all kinds of shocking exposés of the meat industry and the way a piece of steak makes it way on to our plates… was the unimpeachable moral argument against speciesism: because we are the most powerful animals in the animal kingdom, because all animals are at our mercy and we can choose to do whatever we want with them, it is our moral duty not to decimate, factory farm and eat them. It is an argument of such majesty and generosity that its force is almost emotional.
Note the invention of an entirely new prejudice for those so inclined to feel guilty about – speciesism. Note too the sly conflation of meat eating with factory farming and decimation. This “unimpeachable moral argument” could of course be expressed a little less tendentiously,
Because we can eat animals it’s our duty not to.
But then – amazingly – it loses much of its persuasive force. To say nothing of its majesty.
Yes, it’s easy to mock, but I suspect there’s a serious purpose to outpourings of this kind. It just isn’t the one being affected by the writer and much of his readership. Clearly, the object isn’t to test the moral premise of vegetarianism:
This is not the place to rehearse all those arguments.
Indeed. This is a place for something else – something that for many Guardianistas is much more important. It’s a chance to signal attitudes that are ostentatious, self-involved and most likely dishonest: “Watch me agonise over meat. Look at how concerned I am. See how I fret.” The point is to display The Passion of Neel Mukherjee as he wrestles with temptation:
I still haven’t been able to stop eating meat. In any restaurant, my eyes alight first, as if by an atavistic pull, on the meat dishes on the menu. In any dinner party I throw, I think of the non-vegetarian dish as central. I view this as a combination of weakness, greed and moral failure. Someone please help.
Again, note the key ingredients – gratuitous personal drama and pretentious guilt. This posturing nonsense is pretty much a Guardian staple. Readers may recall Cath Elliott being politically distressed by peanut butter residue, and note the similarities between her dietary drama and that of Mr Mukherjee. Perhaps such things are best understood as a kind of theatre for people who wish to agonise and be seen agonising, so as to indicate just how concerned and moral they are, if only to people who are equally conflicted and pretentious.
“Because we have no good evidence that plants are sentient. Everything that we currently know about biology, comparative physiology and homology forces us to conclude that relatively complex brains cause sentience. Plants do not have these.
There is no arbitrary line drawn between plants and animals; quite the opposite.”
Jim
Plants defend themselves from attack (thorns, thick bark, noxious chemicals) just like animals; plants seek the greatest available access to resources for themselves just like animals; plants try to give their young the best chance of survival (spread them far and wide with delicious fruit, protect them behind tough casings like nuts) as do animals (albeit through different methods)… so it sounds to me like they are aware they are alive, and wish to stay that way.
I suppose one could argue that their actions are simply biological/chemical… they are unthinking reactions programmed into them by their genes, but even that difference disappears when one reviews the latest “research” into human/animal neurobiology, where that entire branch of science seems determined to prove that there is no such thing as free will, and all human thoughts/emotions/actions are just electrochemical responses built on preconditioning and biology. If so, then the line is once again arbitrary… based on a prejudice toward one method of reacting (brain based) and against another (holistic based).
When/If these scientist get their way, then all of sentience will be simply a chemical reaction… just a variation on a theme.
Can you point me at anything in nature and say – ” there, that is what a morality looks like”.
And don’t go talking about my attitude towards disabled people – they are living humans and to them I have a duty of care. No, I have no bloodlust whatsoever; I just recognise reality.
Many people here apparently don’t. We have no duty to any other species. None at all. I do, however, have a duty to myself – a duty to do my best to stay alive by any means without limit.
Approach a really big hungry anaconda and explain to her that she really ought to reconsider eating you as it is immoral. It is a carnivore and will eat you anyway. We are omnivores which is very fortunate for us as it means we can eat anything. Explain to me why I have a DUTY not to eat animals? I’m not thick, indeed far from it, but I cannot see why I should have a duty to any species other than my own.
I really do think some people have too much time on their hands and could do with reconnecting with nature as she is, not nature as you would like her to be.
And while I’m here – all those cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, etc on farms now – how long do you think ANY of them would live if humans stopped eating them?
I noticed that the ad hominem had started. You can’t control the message so attack the messenger. Standard procedure for the Righteous.
Do animal rights devolve down to the micro-orgasm level? “Save the smallpox virus” will look great as a slogan, wont it. Thanks but no thanks.
Morgan,
I’m sorry for calling you mental. Most of those questions are answered in the paper. Yet you refuse to read it. I’m not sure what more I can do.
Stevieray,
If you wish to believe that plants are conscious because they:
1. Defend themselves from attack
2. Compete for resources
3. Have strategies which influence the probability of their offspring surviving
then be my guest. I’m going to stick with the idea that relatively complex brains cause sentience.
I don’t know who “these” scientists are who claim that sentience can be meaningfully understood as a chemical reaction. Certainly none that I am aware of. Perhaps you can give me examples?
Ed – I don’t actually consider Iraq or Afghanistan to be Just wars.
Admittedly, it’s a more difficult judgement for Afghanistan than Iraq. Iraq was out-and-out an illegal War of Aggression, as defined at Nurembourg.
And if I was an Afghan, I’d be doing my best to kill every foreign invader I saw. And I do support our servicemen (I was one once). I support them so much I want them all brought home immediately … all nationalities.
America has a nearer Just case for Afghanistan than does Britain. Our case would revolve around membership of NATO, where an attack on one is an attack on all – but that had nothing to do with the Talibs. A quick in, seal off and destroy the groups that arranged the attack on New York, then out again WOULD in my opinion have been justified. There is no case for Iraq.
But this is wandering off topic. And in general terms, I agree with what you said – there is no bloodlust involved (whoever it was who said that).
I’m just in the process of getting a copy of your paper. I promise I will read it – and Moral Philosophy was a minor topic (two years) of mine at university (got graded First for it).
So as you know – I wont be quick. Moral Philosophy is ALWAYS a hard read. It’s in its nature. I know that from experience. It’ll probably be well into tomorrow before I can respond to it. But I WILL read it. I can appreciate well-argued stuff even if I disagree with it (which I don’t know I will – I’ll take it as I find it).
I have just received my copy.
There are ways and means … I lurrrve the internet – wish it had been around when I was a boy. We didn’t even have pocket calculators in those days, and operating a calculating machine was an occupation in its own right. This time, and way of life, gap may explain much of our differences. Nature was much closer when I was a boy. I was bred, born and raised in rural Wales – supposedly an advanced part of the world – but it was still one of my chores to go to the well for two buckets of drinking water every day (eldest boy in family). Completely different reality from today’s world. First time I ever remember seeing my grandfather – I was younger than two – he was lying on the ground in a farmer’s shed with his arm half-way up the back of a sheep trying to reposition a lamb.
Maybe explains many aspects of different worldviews.
Ed – so you know I’m not lying:
On The Argument from Marginal Cases
Is The Argument from Marginal Cases persuasive?
Do animals warrant direct moral consideration?
1. PREAMBLE
1.1. Background
According to traditional moral conceptions, human beings enjoy a privileged and distinct moral position: all
humans are granted direct moral consideration1, while all non-human sentient2 animals (henceforth: animals) are
granted, at most, indirect moral consideration3.
A PDF file. I really do have a copy, and I really will read it, and seriously think about it.
Ed,
Wow, this discussion really diverged in just a few hours…however getting back to your questions about my questions in your paper…Your response to my questions appear to me to be based on a mathematically based logic, which please understand I have much faith in concerning the vast majority of real world problem solving. However when we digress into the deeper waters of morality (and even some software problems that I am familiar with but would be too boring to discuss here…or most anywhere) the idea that somethings are absolutely true or absolutely false start to break down. It’s not just about “all” properties satisfying “all” or “none” or “two” or “three” conditions, it’s the integral nature of the logic of what the boundaries of a “property” are. “Integral” in the Lebesgue sense I suppose…just looked this word up so I can’t comment on it more deeply without more study but it seems to be the gist of what I am trying to get at.
Don’t get me wrong in that the effort of your paper is not interesting or worthy in a philosophical context. It can even be “wrong” in either my own or anybody else’s perspective and yet still have value and contain worthy truths. But should I have time to delve more deeply into your paper (and I hope to do so but life is calling and I’ve wasted enough time on this damn machine today) I want to understand where your approach is starting from.
KRW/WTP,
Could you please give us some examples of the kinds of statements that no longer obey the laws of bivalence as “we digress into the deeper waters of morality”?
Jim,
Well the glib response would be the liar’s paradox of “This statement is false”, but in the context I was addressing perhaps Sorites paradox would be more fitting? Maybe a better analogy is digital vs. analog. At a certain sample rate they are indistinguishable but the perception of a difference is dependent upon the sensitivity of the observer.
I am by no means a trained philosopher but I do have direct experience implementing, and indirectly by observing the most professional attempts at implementing, real-world models in software design. Over time, the best designs eventually break down, often due to the difficulty of defining properties and their boundaries. I’m not saying attempts to do so are all eventually doomed to failure, but when attempting to drive logic down to deeper levels, and I perceive morality as one of the deepest, logic starts to fall apart.
Morgan,
I can understand how frivolous these kinds of arguments might initially sound some people, especially those with rustic backgrounds like yours. Anyway, I appreciate you giving it some time.
KRW/WTP,
I can’t say I follow what you’re saying totally – especially the part about morality being “one of the deepest” levels of logic – but if you can provide some specific examples of how logic breaking down and/or the distinction between analogue and digital might cause problems for my argument, I’d be interested. (Though I’d imagine any such problems would equally affect arguments against racism, sexism, slavery, etc.)
Ed,
My poor language skills are getting in the way of what I am trying to communicate, but let me try to restate. Your paper is an attempt to address a moral issue on a logical basis. See the Wiki page concerning Sorites paradox regarding the difficulty of defining even what a pile of sand is. In your paper, right off the bat you state “What is it about all humans – and only humans..”. From a logical standpoint, you could argue what is a human? A fetus? A person in a persistent vegetative state? You condescend to Morgan regarding his “rustic background” that might cause him to consider your arguments frivolous…well you may be having the same attitude toward mine, but you put forward the proposition for a “conclusive” moral argument. To be “conclusive” you must give consideration to the frivolous.
And again, I don’t want to speak for Morgan, but the “rustic background” you refer to does not preclude one from understanding an ivory tower argument any more than possessing a philosophical point of view would preclude one from understanding a practical decision.
As for racism, sexism, and slavery, well the first two anyway, consider the genetic factors in behavior. Over the centuries different lines of dogs have been bred to herd animals, or like water, or be more aggressive, etc. Does this genetic factor for behavior only apply to the lower animals and not to humans? If so, is that speciesist? If not, might that justify some degree of racism and sexism? I AM BY NO MEANS ENDORSING SUCH, but neither do I believe in “conclusive” moral arguments. Tying racism and sexism in with a “moral diet”? You are playing with far more variables than are humanly possible to relate.
Do you understand what I am getting at?
KRW/WTP,
I have no idea how the Sorites paradox is relevant to this. Could you please specify what exactly follows from the fact that we have difficulty with logical formulations of vagueness. It seems to me you are saying something like this:
There is no current philosophical/mathematical consensus on how to solve the Sorites Paradox, therefore objects cannot have properties.
KRW/WTP,
As far as I’m concerned, you can quibble over the definition of human all you like. It’ll only help my argument. In presupposing a hard and fast definition of human, and an equally definite distinction between humans and non-human animals, I’m actually doing the “speciesist” side a favour: it’s them who need it, not me. But you’d know this if you’d actually read the paper rather than making capricious objections to fairly prosaic aspects of the first half of the first page.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at with your third paragraph. I am, though, indeed connecting racism/sexism to “speciesism”: as I’ve said, while they’re not morally equivalent, they’re the same breed of prejudice.
Jim,
Observer your perception of what I have stated:
“There is no current philosophical/mathematical consensus on how to solve the Sorites Paradox, therefore objects cannot have properties.”
I did not exclude objects from having properties. I am saying the more you try to see things as they “really are”, the more you will discover flaws in your original assumptions. For the most part, these flaws are irrelevant, however the deeper you look into a subject, the more flaws you are likely to find. And this increases exponentially by the number of other people involved in the analysis. To state that all humans or all animals have such and such moral properties is a very unstable platform for making further logical deductions. As you may be able to see from the attempts to define properties for something
as concrete as a pile of sand…or maybe not. Perhaps a mistake on my part.
What I have been trying to gently, politely point out that an attempt to take a moral argument to a definitive conclusion is folly from the beginning. Not saying that you can’t learn something from it.
But to state that “Well there are fairly conclusive arguments to show that speciesism…are(is) morally wrong” is quite pretentious. While I would not argue that morality lacks a logical basis, it is quite grander to imply that you can “prove” something as complex as a moral tenant. Presenting as proof of one’s conclusion a paper that appeals to our logical analysis yet fails to understand these potential pitfalls may be an indication that it the paper is not worth looking into. As appears to be the case for me based on our little discussion here.
Ed, it appears we are just wasting each others time. Let’s leave it at that.
KRW,
Can I get your opinion on what this is?
There is no morally relevant difference between men and women which justifies the subjugation of women. If there is no morally relevant difference between men and women which justifies the subjugation of women then these practices should be stopped. Therefore, these practices should be stopped.
Jim,
Servers are all hosed up today, so since I’ve plenty of time on my hands, I’ll bite…
It’s a bunch of words that form two grammatically correct sentences. But that’s just my opinion as I got C’s in English and could very well be wrong about its grammatical correctness.
The overriding difference between men and women in this context is size/strength. This advantage has enabled men (in most societies) to be able to subjugate women with out much effort. Women on the other hand, have evolved a significant degree of cunning and guile (along with their inherent sexual leverage) to construct or influence various social structures to work to their advantage. Morals being one of them?
Or maybe morals are just a shortcut to a foregone conclusion? But that’s just my opinion, which you asked for. I wouldn’t try to build anything on it. It’s certainly not “conclusive” in an absolute sense, it just works for me.
KRW/WTP,
Thank you for indulging me. I now see we have very different ideas about what is acceptable. Have a great New Year! I hope it is free of undue sabotage and interference by those “cunning” women folk!
Jim,
I don’t think that I opined on what I thought was acceptable, I only related where I think our concepts of acceptability originate and what would justify forcing them upon another party.
We probably have very similar ideas about what is acceptable for the most part. Except maybe what to have for dinner. Have a Happy New Year yourself, but stay away from the pudding…’cause of course you can’t have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat…Sorry, but that damn song has been in my head all afternoon now and I have to infect someone else with it to make it go away.
KMKY/WAP,
It’s possible we are – but I hope not. In any event, look at it this way: you seem reasonably sure there’s some underlying problem with my paper – yet you refuse to actually read the feffing thing; so, you took a guess at what a problem might be (the supposed difficulties with defining “human”) which turns out, when you read it, to be the precise opposite. Even so, I’m still very open to thoughtful conversation. So, if you can identify a specific claim or presupposition I make with which you can identify and clearly explain a problem, I’m still interested: there might yet be some of that Christmas ham left, and even meat on the turn tastes better than Quorn, I assure you.
Incidentally, we’re not so alienated – you in your datacentre and us in our ivory towers – given my highest qualification is a C in GCSE English and I’m a server admin., too.
KRW/WTP
Nobody is trying to derive moral principles from logic (alone), moral vegetarians are simply pointing out that consistency demands you treat likes alike. Hence treating sentient animals like humans in some regards. Of course, no one claims they should be able to vote, open bank accounts or file for divorce. Rather, we should refrain from inflicting pain and death on them in the absence of good reason. The moral principle is imported from the shared beliefs we already have regarding the moral irrelevance of gender, race, etc., not derived from logic. I assume that these beliefs are shared, but reading over your penultimate reply to Jim it seems you might believe there is no moral problem with sexism and discrimination based on gender. That is regrettable.
sigh…Ed and Jim run a webblog called the “Logic Police”. Ed’s paper is an attempt to use logic to establish a “conclusive argument” to prove “speciesism” is “morally wrong” (Ed’s words). Also, my arguments in relation to sexism and discrimination were in reference to what the source of these morals might (might, get it?) be. They were not an endorsement of them. Please search this page for the phrase “I AM BY NO MEANS ENDORSING SUCH”. I used capital letters there for a reason.
I’ve been fool enough to continue this discussion to this point (see Mark Twain on the topic) thinking that I might be able to use reason to get through this thick-headedness. I see no reason to continue, especially as no one else seems interested in Ed’s paper either.
KRW/WTP,
I’m not sure what the name of our blog (it’s 26h, incidentally, not Logic Police) and your one-line summary of the paper have to do with anything. Nor do I know why logic is now something to be sneered at. In any event, as I say, if you can identify a specific claim or presupposition I make with which you can identify and clearly explain a problem, I’d be interested. Without even knowing what your objections are, it’s rather hard to tell whether they’re valid. First you tell me I’m wrong, now you tell me I’m thick – yet you refuse to elaborate on why. It’s possible, of course, that you don’t know why – that you’re unable to find any such problem. If that’s the case, then you could simply have said so.