(Or omnivorous, per Michael Pollan in "Omnivore's Dilemma"...)
If you care about animals, you should eat them. It is not just that you may do so, but you should do so. In fact, you owe it to animals to eat them. It is your duty. Why? Because eating animals benefits them and has benefitted them for a long time. Breeding and eating animals is a very long-standing cultural institution that is a mutually beneficial relationship between human beings and animals. We bring animals into existence, care for them, rear them, and then kill and eat them. From this, we get food and other animal products, and they get life. Both sides benefit. I should say that by ‘animals’ here, I mean nonhuman animals. It is true that we are also animals, but we are also more than that, in a way that makes a difference... aeon
Quite an interesting read. Not convinced it isnt satire. I think the thought process of "Human beings suffer, and their deaths are often miserable. But few would deem their entire lives worthless because of that." is not as comparable to animals lives as the author makes it seem. The author could have brought up an argument of how we have domesticated farm animals thus we are quasi responsible (as spoken about cats and dogs in last class and later in the passage), but the author did not take that route.
ReplyDeleteThe author opens up a big can of worms "because they reason, human beings have rights, whereas animals lack rights because they cannot reason. Since they lack rights, we can paternalistically consider what is good for them". The fact that this follows his statement of babies cant reason and
"we may say that human beings are rational animals, despite human babies and adult human beings with mental disabilities that preclude reasoning, because mature human beings often have reasons for what they think, do and decide" is really dangerous. Lots of assumptions that many would deem completely inhumane could be drawn from this.
Good point. The case for moral consideration surely rests not on a capacity for reason but on sentience and the susceptibility to suffering.
DeleteThe problems present with the frankly baseless claims that our "rationality" fundamentally separates us from animals in a meaningful way, granting us rights, is honestly disturbing. First and foremost it appears to imply a sense of godliness in humans, placing us as grand arbiter of the lives of all else. Second, it distances ourselves from the natural world, a topic briefly discussed in class, allowing the commodification of life with little moral deliberation. However, one main thing that bothers me about this article is the claim that these animals have superior lives in captivity. The author excludes factory farms, rightfully so, as even they can't perform the mental gymnastics required to defend the practice. They wish to value the pleasures of the cattle pre-slaughter before damning the practice, a request I'll comply with.
ReplyDeleteThe average lifespan of a cow is 15-20 years. The "ideal" lifespan of a captive cattle bred for slaughter is, on the high end, 42 months (Citation: https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards/slaughter-cattle-grades-and-standards). On the most generous level, that's a little below 25% of the expected lifespan lived by a captive cattle (42/180=23.33%). Applied to OUR life expectancy (Citation: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/life-expectancy.htm), that would be the equivalent of living to be 18 years old (77*0.2333=17.96). Forgive me for disregarding the fundamental argument of the article, that humans have more right to life than any other, as I ask this:
It is our moral obligation to allow each and every human being a life of absolute pleasure. Imagine a life free of pain, imagine booming populations, imagine peace and prosperity. Oh, I should mention everyone is killed promptly at the age of 18. It's the only way to ensure this idyllic life, of course.
Is that our ideal of a beneficial life? If not for us, then why should we impose it on another being? If it IS, then for what reason could you argue in it's favor?
Michael Pollan makes a better case.
ReplyDelete"An Animal's Place" - https://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/an-animals-place/
DeleteAnd ch.17 of "Omnivore's Dilemma"