Thinking: June 2008 Archives

Asparagus scream! Plants are alive - why is it okay to make them suffer?

Okay, let's begin with the obvious questions of fact. We can then move into the correlated philosophical question.

Other authors have expounded on this issue of fact therefore we need only repeat some of their arguments:

Peter Singer and Gary Francione argue that sentience is a means to an end. That end is life. Pain, for example, has its obvious evolutionary advantages: Painful stimuli is experienced as harmful; in response, sentient beings move away from the source of pain as a means to preserve life. The capacity to experience pain and mobility then, are products of evolution. As Singer argues, why would trees for example, have evolved to experience pain - sentience - if they did not also evolve the ability to flee the source of pain? To argue that necessarily stationary objects have evolved to subjectively feel a burn is dubious at best.

This move's into a second response: When grass is cut, do the blades of grass show some external sign that they are suffering? Do they avoid the grass clippers? Is their coloration altered? Does a blade of grass indicate any external signs that it is aware of the lawn mowing experience? Clearly, no.  

Finally, as Francione argues, plants and rocks have no indicia of sentience. They do not have a central nervous system; they don't have an epicenter where stimuli fires and messages are exchanged (a brain); they don't produce chemicals suggestive of sentience; etc.; etc.

When viewed as a whole then, the evidence must lead you to the assumption that plants are not sentient. Likewise, it would be un-parsimonious, given this same evidentiary structure, to claim that most nonhumans don't subjectively experience their lives like most humans - that they are not internalizing their lived experiences as you and I do.

When presented with this perfectly cogent argument the response is as predictable as it is poorly reasoned: "Okay, I understand all that, but you still don't know that plants suffer, nor do you know that nonhumans do." Subtext - neither plants nor nonhumans speak human language therefore you can never know.

Unfortunately for the proponent of this damaged argument, herein lies the rub: Neither you nor I, nor anybody else knows that any other individual, human and nonhuman alike, feels the way you do - experiences the things you do - suffers the way you do - can be happy like you. We don't know because we cannot know; we assume.

From the moment individuals began thinking about what ought to guide our interactions with others - is there a limit to what I can do to you? - ethical theorists, theology, philosophers, and moralists necessarily make one foundational assumption: Other people feel.

Think about it:

It's a part of our condition that we sometimes lie - what if I'm being deceptive when I say this hurts?

Perhaps others are mere "automata," living machines: we make audible noises when damaged, like stricking a cord in a clock; however, the experience is not felt?  

Maybe every other person in this world is simply a well designed robot - cleverly programmed to mimic your responses to specific external stimuli?

We just cannot know in the same way the person advancing the argument that we don't know that plants are not suffering seems to suggest is necessary. The best we can do is gather the relevant evidence (e.g., evolutionary history, common physiology, how a being reacts to something that I would experience as painful), and assume.

Of course, some assumptions are sound - founded on evidence - while others are not; they are based on faith, which is belief without evidence. It's curious that those who would press me on this issue ask for this kind of knowledge while they unknowingly rely on assumptions when having a discourse about how we ought to treat each other.

The double standard is palpable, but it's prudent and I understand. As Francione argues, it's most likely the result of some discomfort with their own diet, which means this is a conversation we vegans and vegetarians will have hundreds if not thousands of times. Therefore we must provide good reasons why this inane counter-argument is so deeply flawed. That's okay with me because we have reason on our side.

I often leave it at this: If I were holding a baby pig in one hand and an apple in the other, and you were to see me throw both against a brick wall as hard as I could, is there some moral and empirical difference between what I've done to the pig and what I've done to the apple? Hypotheticals such as this have been articulated by many different people and they're all equally persuasive because the answer is both a priori and a posteriori so obious: Of course there's a difference - the baby pig suffers the pain and distress of the experience, while the apple just is.     

Of course we could also discuss how veganism is the morally correct choice even if plants suffer because of the inefficiency and wastefulness inherent in funneling plant protein through nonhumans so as to produce animal protein. If plants feel pain, we ought to consume them directly as opposed to wasting them through food production: sending 15-25 pounds of plant protein through a nonhuman to get 1 edible pound of animal protein in return is a lot of unnecessary suffering given that we could simply eat all those plants directly.  

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox 

Are we vegan because we're attempting to avoid harming a nonhuman animal that does not yet exist? Do we boycott those industries that unjustly exploit nonhumans not necessarily for the sake of those already suffering but because we hope to prevent the suffering of those nonhumans that will be brought into existence to be likewise tortured and treated as mere objects?

It's often argued that we actually benefit nonhumans by our actions because they otherwise would not have existed absent our intervention: We give them a chance to live however short and miserable that life may be. We respond by showing how this doesn't follow as a matter of logic because one cannot benefit (or harm) something or someone that doesn't exist. As I wrote in a previous post, 

This is illogical on its face: the argument attributes interests or desires to a being that does not yet exist.

• The chicken that was slaughtered to provide me with his flesh desired to be born prior to his actual conception - the chicken had an interest in being alive during his pre-life existence. 
• The life force that eventually became the pig had an interest in our intervention in the affairs of the mother and father pigs because this intervention resulted in the conception of the baby pig that was formerly the life force with the initial interest.

Sounds stupid right?

I'm not so sure anymore. If those who believe that suffering is intrinsically evil and ought to be limited to the greatest extent possible go vegan to prevent the torture and exploitation of future generations of nonhumans, the inverse must also be true: We can benefit a nonexistent being.

Doesn't it follow as a matter of logic that we ought to bring nonhumans into existence if they are going to lead a good life?   

Practically of course this doesn't hold if we're to accord equal consideration to the interests of all sentient beings as it would imply that we should intervene in the affairs of nonhumans whereby we force the conception of other nonhumans. This would undermine our argument that animals are not things: Individual nonhumans exist as separate entities, like human animals do; therefore, violating their bodily integrity harms an interest that ought to be protected - they have live's of their own. This practical difficulty enters the realm of moral harm.

This argument also suggests, as Peter Singer noted in Animal Liberation, that we ought to bring as many humans into existence as possible (on the presupposition that they will lead a good life). This is flawed as well, although not for the same reason as in the case of nonhumans, assuming that we don't force procreation. Given certain limitations (finite resources, for example), it's implausible that we could bring a limitless number of humans into existence while securing a good life for everyone involved.

I'm sure there are other practical and moral issues involved; however, as a matter of logic, it might be true that we can benefit a nonexistent being. This is all very random I know. It's a non-issue for our purposes given that those who would appeal to this as a justification for breeding and raising animals as property are being internally contradictory: 

Treating a person as property is a fundamental moral harm that cannot be justified by this argument because it violates the presupposition that for a nonexistent being to be benefited he/she must be secure in a good life when brought into this world. Me being your property does not a good life make! Therefore it fails tremendously as a sound reason for what we do to billions of nonhumans annually.

However, Jen and I have spoken about this recently. I also had a conversation to this effect with a friend of mine, and I think it's interesting.    

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox

"They're food animals." "Why else would they be here?" "What does a chicken do otherwise?" 

These are common responses that animal rights advocates receive when attempting to have a conversation about annually killing billions of individuals for gastronomical reasons. 

What's being implied here is the existence of a natural hierarchy. By "natural" I mean designed:

Any statement that suggests a reason for existence ("What does a cow exist for?") presupposes a divine intention - a thing or being was created for a purpose. Statements of this kind, then, assume a deity (god) that initiated and defined the outcome of the physical world - Creation.         

How do you respond to someone who implicitly claims to have access to knowledge that they couldn't possibly have ("God created nonhumans as a means to an end. That end being man.")? By definition, faith is belief in the absence of evidence. Therefore, it's inherently unreasonable. This is a particularly acute problem for those of us who believe that suffering is intrinsically evil therefore it ought to be limited to the greatest extent possible as a matter of ethics. Our argument has reason on its side, however, even the most reasonable arguments are often ignored by those who rely on non-reason to guide them in their moral decision-making.  

It seems a reasonable start to inform the person justifying their consumption of body parts by appealing to design by telling them that that is what they are doing. Oftentimes this argument is motivated not so much by thought but mere impulse.

What could follow from this attempt to enlighten them of their assumption is the question: "Do those few genes that make us human animals really justify the breeding of entire species of nonhumans for the sole purpose of suffering a lifetime of harm and inevitably a painful death?" One could inquire further into the basis of their belief in god and if they, on this greatest-of-all-and-most-controversial-assumptions-possible, truly feel it's justified to starve a white fox so as to allow her skin to loosen from rapid weight loss, only to then remove the fur from her body while she's conscious.

These questions, however, rely on sentiment, perhaps empathy, to provide the impetus to alter their speciesist habits. The main appeal here is emotional: It's not about questioning the assumption but merely illuminating the grounds for their arguments and attempting to show how, even if such an assumption were sound, it may not be able to justify treating nonhumans like a pair of old shoes.  

One could further argue that relying on statements such as "Nature just is this way" is selective reasoning:

Civilization is marked by progression in the form of removing ourselves from those natural conditions of pre-society. From communication, to transportation, to our relationships, to government, and morality human's shape, through a kind of violence, what might be described as the natural order - if order is even an appropriate term.

There is nothing natural about processes of food production. Indeed, we've mechanized production; turning a feeling being into bacon has become wholly unnatural by our design. We disrupt nature for our ends - we don't live in it, we change it, making it barely recognizable.  

Therefore, appeals to "nature" are found wanting for even decent arguments in support of them.

Finally (fatally to the argument for design?), we can rely on Charles Darwin to resolve this conflict. "Design" is contrary to evolution; evolution is a testable and proven theory (you know, like gravity) meaning it's reality:  

The species Homo sapien descended from animals; man is in fact a species of animal. We evolved through a process of natural selection: chance mutation. Chance! There is no underlying purpose to the result, no hierarchy by design. It's luck; it's arbitrary. To borrow from Rawls, we are the result of the "natural lottery." 

Design is a fiction; a story told and re-told by man for man's ego. The assumption of a "natural order" is merely cover for our psychological and moral shortcomings: We desire to set ourselves apart from the rest of nature because we selfishly want everything for free. Free from any moral consideration, all those externalities, a rational estimation of the costs our actions have on future generations, that noble virtue kindness...We're gluttons, glorified sinners.     

More can be said about Darwin's destruction of this baseless assumption, however, it's irrefutable therefore nothing else needs to be said. But therein rests our dilemma:

This refutation is based on reason and evidence, which as I stated before, may not move the person who relies on faith to justify their actions.

Enter David Hume I suppose: Show them the suffering; trigger that hardwired sense of empathy (again, evolution not design!) and compel them to demand the appropriate actions that accord with their sentiments.

We have options.

Plutarch said,

"But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy."

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox       

Showing Animals Respect and Kindness - S.H.A.R.K.

What you see in this video is the logical result of our species' unjustifiable belief that the interests of nonhumans should not be considered in our moral decision making. We treat them as unconscious objects - they're its that don't feel or need or want or desire. We've reduced them from individuals to things. Every animal in this video not only exists in this world as does a rock but they experience the lives that they live - this hell we have constructed for them to suffer in is felt.

Think about it, the hunger you sometimes feel, the pain you experience, the sadness, all that happiness, those simple pleasures like hugging your mother: As potent as those emotions, psychological, and physical experiences are for you, every nonhuman suffering in this video can relate. Can you even imagine that? And it's done for our entertainment.

I might appeal to Kantian ethics whereby nonhumans ought to be protected against such cruelty due to its indirect effects on some members of our species: We have an indirect duty to avoid cruelty because it may make us more prone to be cruel to some other human beings - we'd become hardened to the plight of other moral agents therefore violating direct duties we owe them.

Sounds reasonable, but I frankly couldn't possibly care less. It's not: We shouldn't torture another sentient being because maybe I'll be more likely to kick a cowboy's face in with a steal toed boot, which would be immoral (according to Kant) - It's rather: We shouldn't torture a nonhuman because that nonhuman experiences the torture:

Every harm, all that suffering we inflict, they themselves, as individuals, experience - Not you! Nor I! Nor your mother or father! Nor your child! They feel it; they scream. And because of this, they are owed, as a matter of justice, the right to be free from this treatment. Suffering ought to be avoided and happiness ought to be realized.

Look at your own ethics, it's all right there. This is about the suffering (in all it's horrible forms) and happiness (in all it's wonder) of other sentient beings. It is irrationality and prejudice that prevents you from admitting this.    

I often wish Hell existed because we all belong there.

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox

 

Hong Kong:

Hong Kong authorities announced Wednesday that they planned to kill all chickens in the territory's retail markets because of fears of a dangerous bird-flu outbreak. Health officials said they detected the deadly H5N1 virus last week in chickens at a stall in the Kowloon area and slaughtered about 2,700 animals in that neighborhood to prevent its spread. But more cases were uncovered this week at four markets in the New Territories and Hong Kong island, leading to the order to get rid of all remaining live chickens in retail markets, stalls and stores.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP):

South Korea will cull over half a million fowl in a bid to prevent the spread of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, having already killed 150,000 chickens...

*** Cull: euphemism for murder.

They plan to slaughter a total of 236,000 poultry, as well as an unspecified number of other animals, including pigs, and all dogs and cats in the area by Thursday, the ministry said. About 6 million eggs also will be destroyed, it said.

Slaughtering cats and dogs near an area infected with bird flu would be highly unusual in Asia. Indonesia has killed pigs in the past, but most countries concentrate solely on destroying poultry. However, it would not be the first time for South Korea to kill cats and dogs due bird flu concerns. An official at the Agriculture Ministry said South Korea had slaughtered cats and dogs along with 5.3 million birds during the last known outbreak of bird flu in 2003.

AP; 30 Jan 2008:

Saudi Arabia said Tuesday it had killed some 158,000 chickens after the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain was found at an infected farm.

It's hard to believe how many nonhumans are being killed because of this - just look at those numbers - and that's a fraction of what is happening. 

The virus is excreted in bird feces. It can be spread by bedding, straw, cages, feathers and other contaminated objects. The virus is spread in crowded, often unsanitary live poultry markets, which are common throughout Asia, trade among farms, and mass confinement operations (i.e., factory farms).  

From Bird Flu: A Virus Of Our Own Hatching:

All bird flu viruses seem to start out harmless to both birds and people. In its natural state, the influenza virus has existed for millions of years as an innocuous, intestinal, waterborne infection of aquatic birds such as ducks. If the true home of influenza viruses is the gut of wild waterfowl, the human lung is a long way from home.

How does a waterfowl's intestinal bug end up in a human cough? Free-ranging flocks and wild birds have been blamed for the recent emergence of H5N1, but people have kept chickens in their backyards for thousands of years, and birds have been migrating for millions.

In a sense, pandemics aren't born--they're made. H5N1 may be a virus of our own hatching coming home to roost.

According to a spokesperson for the World Health Organization,

"The bottom line is that humans have to think about how they treat their animals, how they farm them, and how they market them--basically the whole relationship between the animal kingdom and the human kingdom is coming under stress."

Along with human culpability, though, comes hope. If changes in human behavior can cause new plagues, changes in human behavior may prevent them in the future.  

So let's recap: Our trivial desire to eat chickens - and our refusal to acknowledge each individual animal's capacity to suffer and experience their lives - creates these cesspools, which are the conditions necessary for the disease to easily spread. This situation makes it difficult to contain the virus absent of these mass murders.  

Therefore everyone dies, chickens, pigs, dogs, cats, and any other nonhuman that may have been in contact with the virus. Not to mention all the mice tortured, infected and murdered so that scientists may better understand how this disease affects human animals - we are the animals, of course, that systematizes the propagation of the disease that we are now murdering nonhumans to find a way to stop. A vicious cycle, but not for us.    

Why not; they're just things, like old shoes, throw them out and start again.      

John & Kate plus Eight is a particularly effective form of psychological birth control. Jen and I watch it because it's entertaining to witness all those processes of domestication whereby children are gradually formed into little adults en masse.

In one episode we see the family attend a farm or fair (this detail escapes me), where various domesticated animals - bulls, cows, pigs - are put on display for the masses to interact with. I had a eureka moment as the children were introduced to several bulls and hogs.

The children were predictably excited, of course, as were the adults. As I watched this display I thought to myself, what if John and Kate were to adopt a policy of honesty with their eight children? By this I mean what if John interrupted his son's enthusiastic interaction with a large turkey with a brief conversation about the gruesome fate which awaits that turkey and other individuals just like him? As the children moved down the line of confined bulls, perhaps Kate interjects with a brief statement: "The bull you are petting and innocently gushing over today will soon be slaughtered so you can stick your fork into him tomorrow." John steps in, perhaps, interrupting his daughters while they mimick the hogs' snorting sounds of enthusiasm with a statement such as "The ham sandwich you had for lunch could never have been possible without the death of your new friend's mother and father."

(It was sickening to watch those children hugging their dinner. John and Kate's ignorance was even more sickening.)

Imagine that though, a world where we we're honest with our children. Maybe parents would openly question those children's books and movies that portray farmed animals as gleefully enjoying their existence, a live unimpeded by human interference. (Why wouldn't they enjoy their lives, "Babe" had all his friends to hang out with, including farmer Hoggett!)

Suicide Food, a brilliant website, exposes those ad campaigns which imply that nonhumans actually exist in those fictional and idealic settings, thrusted on our children as "truth," for what they are: irrational (and disturbing) depictions of animals that act as though they wish to be consumed..."Suicide Food" actively participates in or celebrates its own demise. Can you think of anything - anything - more absurd than what is being suggested in these books and advertisements? A little honesty could shed some light on this macabre silliness John and Kate. I know we don't think about it this way, but that doesn't make it any less ridiculous.   

This honesty need not be defined by the animal rights philosophy, it's merely an open conversation about the connection between those chickens John and Kate's children were playing with and the contents of a bucket from K.F.C. Simple, yet infinitely powerful. Imagine the situation when groups of children ask their school principles why millions of baby cows had to be orphaned so they could drink milk - all they're doing is exercising their reason, but perhaps we don't want that.

Indeed, I believe that a paradigm shift away from viewing nonhumans as things, like hedge clippers for example, is a generation away. Achieving this shift, however, requires convincing parents that this honesty is important - a difficult end to say the least. Therefore we must articulate our goals carefully, participate in outreach campaigns accordingly, discuss this topic with one parent at a time, etc. But think about it, as one child connects the necessary murder of the feeling hogs and bulls to their pepperoni pizza, it's likely that yet another person considers vegetarianism. (Why is this likely I wonder? You can ask yourself that, but you know it's true.) 

But as a hypothetical I think there is something to this argument: Remove each brick from the wall that we have unconsciously built as a means to conceal certain realities, be transparent and allow truth to speak to these processes. The property status of animals is not fixed, or even "real" outside of legal apparatuses and ideology. This situation has been constructed therefore it can be de-constructed. Indeed, it's preserved in large part out of ignorance not knowledge. I cannot count how many times I've heard stories such as the following:

Michelle writes, "It's funny... when I was little I had no idea meat came from real live animals. I though it was just named after them. When I found out the truth, I was horrified. I had no idea I had been eating food that once had a face, had once been alive and full of feeling and emotion. By age eight I had become a vegetarian." - A Search for Compassion

The enormity of this myth - these unconscious lies we tell - is almost incomprehensible. But what I'm talking about here is a doable end because this prescription of being honest is hardly controversial. Yes, the topic is controversial, but the suggestion that we ought to not lie (unconsciously or otherwise) to our children, isn't.

The fact that those organizations who give children pamphlets describing the torture and slaughter of nonhumans are derided by the public writ large, is telling of the prowess of information. The reality is dirty, bloody, and frightening, but it is the reality, so don't hide people from the consequences of our prejudices.

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox    

When physical immediacy with the subject being shocked increased, 'compliance' decreased. Likewise, as the authority's physical proximity decreased, so did the compliance. 

When the authority telephoned the instructions to continue shocking, some participants lied to him about the fact that they had ceased to shock their subject. 

Adding additional cohorts -  'peers' of the subject - changed the subject's willingness to continue shocking their counterpart. If two peers refused to continue with the shocks, only 1% of people continued with the experiment. This experiment was repeated in 2006 and peer pressure was found to have less of an influence on stopping the experiment. 

When this experiment was repeated for real (i.e. real shocks and, I'm assuming, real death) with a puppy instead of a human, 76% of participants continued to the end. All those who refused to continue on were male. The 13 women involved in the study all wept openly, but continued on with what they were instructed to do. 

David Hume said that reason is and ought to be a slave of the passions. Hume should not be interpreted as favoring our rational assent to those irrational sentiments, beliefs or emotions that consume us as a species. But rather, as Bernard E. Rollin writes, "he was pointing out the fact that arguments alone do not move people; one must have an emotional pull toward actualizing the results of one's reasoning."

For Hume, then, 

"the ultimate basis of morality was feeling: we act on our moral positions because we are born with a psychological predisposition toward empathy or fellow feeling with other persons, because we are made uncomfortable by their suffering."   

As a vegan, the most common response I have when discussing our slaughter of 9 billion plus feeling animals for food is the following statement: "I don't want to hear about this...It will ruin my dinner." Doesn't this suggest that people do in fact feel uncomfortable because of the suffering that characterizes these processes, or about the way we treat animals more generally? Indeed, doesn't this reponse imply the validity of Hume's argument? I think yes.  

Gary Francione has argued that a refusal to be informed indicates an awareness of our moral schizophrenia when it comes to nonhuman animals. Moral schizophrenia can be characterized as follows:     

"Many of us live with dogs, cats, or other animals and regard them as family members. Yet we stick dinner forks into other animals who are no different from the ones we consider family members. This is odd behavior when you think about it. And on the broader social level, nearly everyone would agree that it is immoral to impose unnecessary suffering on animals -- which, by any definition of the term, means that it can't be right to impose suffering on them for human amusement, pleasure, or convenience. After all, a rule that says it is wrong to impose suffering on animals unless we find it pleasurable and amusing would sound silly. And yet, 99.9 percent of our use of other animals cannot be justified by any reason other than human amusement and convenience...No one maintains that we need to eat meat to lead an optimally healthy lifestyle. Indeed, an increasing number of health care professionals warn that eating meat and dairy is detrimental to human health. And animal agriculture is an ecological disaster...Our best justification for eating meat is that it tastes good. Our best justification for rodeos, circuses, zoos, hunting, and so forth is entertainment. In short, western culture claims to take animal interests seriously, and we all claim to eschew unnecessary suffering; yet we impose suffering and death on animals in situations that cannot be described as involving necessity of any sort (see Francione)."

Francione argues further that this response (i.e., "Don't tell me because it makes me sad") is an open invitation to continue the discussion further and try to educate the person. 

Paul and Linda McCartney said "If all the slaughterhouses were made of glass we would all be vegetarians." I think they were correct in so far as this statement appeals to the replacement of our unfamiliarity with knowledge, which if Hume is correct, will help to resolve our moral blindness in regards to various totally immoral practices. I wrote once, expanding on the McCartney's' statement:

"If slaughterhouses and animal testing laboratories, circuses, fur farms, puppy mills, zoos, factory farms, hunting events, etc. were made of glass (metaphorically) we would all be vegans."

I believe this is correct. One need not accept the philosophy of animal rights to decry unecessary, abject, suffering. I've argued that this is (or should be) the purpose of those well-funded organizations such as P.E.T.A. or the Humane Society of the United States: exposing all these animal abuse industries and distributing the message throughout the public sphere. (Spare us the self-defeating "happy meat" campaigns and show us the videos!)  

Make the videos, show people what is occuring and trigger that empathy that we have psychologically hard-wired into us. It's there just waiting to be found, or how else could we possibly explain the feeling that Francione's insight is premised on: the love we feel for our dog and cat companions.

We must appeal to our collective passions, which as I see it, is the only method to bring this discourse down from the abstract to the real - the concrete. 

Consider the outcome for a moment: If someone views a video of a flailing chicken going into a scalding bath of water - to be boiled while conscious of the experience - due to the speed and inaccuracy of the process, and yet finds nothing morally objectionable therein, they are implicitly approving of cruelty. They are as a matter-of-fact saying that such acts of cruelty are perfectly acceptable; "we are okay that this is happening," indeed, so okay "I'm going to continue to purchase and eat chickens that were possibly boiled to death."

Who's going to say that, either implicitly or explicitly?

And people believe that animal rights activists are "crazy," radical," "nuts," etc. Really? Who is the dangerous group here - those who say No! to slitting open the throat of a conscious hog who has been suspended upside down, or those who say Yes! and purchase their perfectly packaged ham?  

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox         

1. That statistics and evidence suggesting the many negative environmental impacts (externalities) of processes through which individual sentient animals are turned into food, are accurate or approach accuracy; that the U.N.'s report (and many others like it), which argue that "...raising chickens, turkeys, pigs, and other animals for food causes more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks and other forms of transportation combined," and that the environmental impacts writ large of "farmed animals" is an ecological disaster, is correct. And, 
2. What happens to the environment matters, or is an issue that creates direct binding moral or prudent obligations on us...    

If you accept these two statements, on what grounds, moral or otherwise, can you refuse to consider changing what you eat for dinner?

Leaving aside what I believe to be the validity of the philosophy of animal rights, it's undeniable that we eat meat out of habit, not need: we like how nonhumans taste, there's no need to consume them. Indeed, many within the health community argue that a diet free of nonhumans secures an optimally minimum healthy life; in fact evidence supports the claim that a vegan diet is healthier than omnivorism. Therefore, as mere taste is trivial when considering what is reasonable to ask individuals to give up (or allow to evolve) when concerning issues as dire as global warming, it's odd that any person truly concerned about the environment would refuse to consider sacrificing the pleasure they get out of eating a pig. 

Further, assuming that some sacrifice is necessitated by the enormity of the environmental problems that confront our world (a sound assumption I believe), I'm wondering how any environmentalist can attempt to compel - through legislation, discourse, education, etc. -individuals (or nations, the "world community," etc.) to change their environmentally unfriendly habits, which of course requires sacrifice, if they themselves are not willing to even entertain the idea of changing those direct actions (i.e., eating meat, dairy, eggs) in their own lives that most degrade and harm the environment they seemingly aim to protect and defend.     

This is not the "blame game," I simply believe that we ought to be logically and morally consistent in our claims - a seemingly uncontroversial requirement that those environmentalist who refuse to go vegan, fail to recognize.

In the end, it's willpower, an effort greatly simplified because you know that you are doing the right thing. Veganism isn't crazy or radical, any more than driving a hybrid car, riding a bike, opening your window instead of using the air conditioner, or passing 'cap and trade' legislation is crazy or radical. It's aimed at the same end, and if you accept that end as legitimate or good, it's perfectly irrational - maybe even morally wrong - to do anything other than changing your eating habits. Nobody's perfect; however, this isn't difficult or obscure, simply don't purchase dead cows.   

Let me ground what I'm saying to better expose this contradiction (hypocrisy?):

This isn't some monumental effort to convince Washington of the necessity of 'cap and trade' legislation, or compelling the auto industry to increase fuel standards; this isn't like the devastating economic harm that a truck driver, for example, would suffer if we asked him to drive less; or the trauma of converting the U.S. energy infrastructure from fossil, nuclear, and coal to clean and renewable energy sources, etc. etc. It's as simple as using different light bulbs.

Indeed, I downplay the pyschological difficulties of giving up cows, chickens, turkeys, and pigs. However, as I've done just that and I'm certainly not so bold (or ignorant) to proclaim my extra-worldly or human-plus prowess and ability, it can be done when you allow yourself to accept that it is as a matter-of-fact the right thing to do.  

From Compassion Over Killing (COK) and Peter Singer.

According to a recent United Nations report, "Livestocks Long Shadow,"

"...raising chickens, turkeys, pigs, and other animals for food causes more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks and other forms of tansportation combined."

1. A single dairy cow produces approximately 120 pounds of wet manure per day, which is equivalent to that of 20 to 40 humans. And unlike human sewage, cow waste is not processed or elaborately treated therefore its negative environmental impacts are not negated. 
2. Peter Singer writes in The Ethics of What We Eat,

"An adult pig produces about four times the amount of feces of a human, so a large confinement operation with, say, fifty thousand pigs, creates a million pounds of pig urine and excrement every day." These factory farmed pigs amount to about 90% of the pigs killed and eaten in the U.S. today.

Singer continues,

"...a University of Delaware study found that Sussex County, Delaware, which produces 232 million chickens annually...only has enough land to cope with the manure from 64 million chickens. Up to half of the nutrients in the excess manure washes off into the rivers and streams, or gets into the groundwater. A third of the shallow wells in the Delmarva Peninsula, including those going into the underground aquifer used for drinking water, have nitrate levels above the federal safe drinking water standards, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In the rivers and bay, these nutrients stimulate too much algae growth. The algae decomposes, sucking oxygen out of the water, and fish and other forms of water life die. The bay now has "dead zones" that cannot support fish, crabs, oysters, or other species of ecological significance. In July 2003, a dead zone stretched for 100 miles down the central portion of the bay."    

Researchers from the University of Chicago came to a similar conclusion, reporting that when all levels of production are factored in - from livestock crop production (i.e., feed) to shipping animals to slaughter - a vegetarian diet is the most energy efficient, and the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by not eating meat, eggs, and dairy than by switching to a hybrid car.

It also takes more land, water, and energy to produce meat than it does to grow foods for a vegetarian diet. Eating plants directly is more efficient than growing and harvesting them in order to funnel them through farmed animals.

• 70% of the grain grown and 50% of the water consumed in the U.S. are used by the meat industry.
• It's estimated that it takes between 15-25 pounds of plant protein to produce a single edible pound of meat protein.
• On average 990 liters of water are required to produce one liter of milk.
• More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow grain for livestock.
• A 2007 journal published by the American Dietetic Association states that researchers found "meat protein production required 26 times more water than vegetable protein on rain-fed lands."
• "Feedlots thrive because in the U.S.," Singer writes, "bulk corn sells for about 4 cents a pound - less than the cost of production, thanks to the billions of taxpayers' dollars the government gives in subsidies to the growers. (Most of the cash goes to people who are already very wealthy). The corn in turn requires chemical fertilizers, which are made from oil. So a corn-fattened feedlot steer is...the very last thing we need: a fossil-fuel machine...[It is estimated that] 284 gallons of oil went into fattening 534 [steer] to their 'slaughter weight' of 1,250 pounds."

These are just a few examples that prove my point: environmentalism ought to be analogous with veganism if environmentalism is to be taken seriously. "Radical environmentalism," or a Green Movement more generally, that does not take veganism as a necessary (not just a sufficient) condition is a contradiction on its face.   

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson writes in his great book When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals,

"Animals are, like us, endangered species on an endangered planet, and we are the ones who are endangering them, it, and ourselves. They (nonhumans) are innocent sufferers in a hell of our making."    

This was said in a different context, however, it's apt. I might add, our children, and future generations alike, will also be condemned to hell on earth if we continue along this path of ours.

Fuel efficient vehicles? Clean energy? Public transportation? Regulate carbon? Clean air? Pollution tax? Re-forestation? Yes!

But what about that which stares you in the face every morning, noon, and night: your meal. The question is, do you really care or are you just pretending?   

Will be crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox  

Watch this video. Before you do, however, you should know that the dogs survived the shooting; although one will loose an eye.

Here is the back-story.

Witnesses argue that these two husky dogs had been playing with each other in the pasture and the surrounding areas for approximately two hours prior to being shot. The man seen shooting the dogs, over seven times if I'm accurate, has attempted to justify his actions by suggesting that he was "protecting his friends property" (properly known as cows!) from these two "predators" - wolves, he said.

Witnesses dismiss this justification because the dogs were in fact posing no threat at all. Indeed, as the dogs had been in the area for hours playing and making their presence known to all, including the cows, this "threat" defense is baseless. The dogs also had tags, and their person can be seen running into the video as the shooting began. It is clear from the evidence that the dogs were simply off-leash, acting as dogs do, indeed as two friendly animals (and people) behave when together: playing, or doing whatever two individuals do.

Officials apparently thought, however, that such behavior warrented a death sentence, as they initially allowed the shooter to leave without being charged with a crime. However, when the video surfaced, showing the man walking up to the stationary animals and shooting them, which he continued to do as they ran away from him and as their person appealed to the shooter to stop, authorities have apparently re-opened the case and are considering animal cruelty charges. An outcome that is likely, from what I understand.

You felt that moral pang inside when you watched the video didn't you? The person recording this indefensable act certainly did.

Now, please watch this video. 

This is occurring everyday. It's happening as you read this sentence, in our country and throughout the world.

You feel the same moral pang don't you?

The experimenters will deny that they feel such a pang, insisting that "animals can't suffer" (well, why do we care about the dogs then?). If you pay attention when discussing this with scientists you will notice that this insistence that animals can't suffer is a little too emotional, to the point of a tantrum, to be plausibly considered driven by a serious consideration of the issue and common sense as opposed to mere necessity. Why do they do this? Because if these scientists admit reality then they are implicitly admitting to cruelty, and they don't want to do that even though they know they are in fact performing acts of torure. 

Bernard E. Rollin points out how the experimenter will use linguistic disguises like "sacrifice," suggesting some kind of noble selfless act for the greater good being undertaken by the monkey, to hide their moral culpability. Do you believe that those monkeys are being "sacrificed" or simply brutalized?

Why, then, the outrage over the dogs and not the monkeys?

"Having granted some protections to animals," Matthew Scully writes,

"we are constantly confronted with the logic of our own laws, troubled by perfectly rational connections between the random "wanton" acts of cruelty that the law forbids and the systematic, institutional cruelties it still permits. If this animal is to be protected, why not his identical one, too?"

Indeed, Mr. Scully. Let's charge the shooter for his attempted murder of the dogs, and let's charge the scientists for their torture and murder of the monkeys. Or we could simply remain irrational and arbitrary, clinging to the old ways like the husband-patriarch who "loves his wife" but refuses to acknowledge and respect her decision to leave the home and find a job of her own because it's natural for her to cook dinner and receive a weekly allowance.    

Crossposted @ Vegan Soapbox

This was posted at ARCO's Abolitionists - A Vegan Forum. It's an upstart forum with some interesting discussions.

The following is a letter dated 1951, titled Veganism Defined by Leslie Cross, then Vice President of The Vegan Society in England. (The letter clarifies what had always been the goal of the vegan movement.) 

VEGAN(ism) DEFINED

Recently the Vegan Society adopted revised and extended rules which among other things clarify the goal towards which the movement aspires.

The Society's object and meaning of the word "veganism," which have until now been matters of inference and personal predilection, are now defined as follows:

The object of the Society shall be to end the exploitation of animals by man; and the word veganism shall mean the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals.

The Society pledges itself in pursuance of its object to seek to end the use of animals by man for food, commodities, work, hunting, vivisection and all other uses involving exploitation of animal life by man.

The effect of this development is to make veganism unique among movements concerned with animal welfare. For it has crystallised as a whole and not, as are all other such movements, as an abstraction. Where every other movement deals with a segment - and therefore deals directly with practices rather than with principles - veganism is itself a principle, from which certain practices logically flow.

If, for example, the vegan principle is applied to diet, it can at once be seen why it must be vegetarian in the strictest sense and why it cannot contain any foods derived from animals. One may become a vegetarian for a variety of reasons - humanitarian, health, or mere preference for such a diet; The principle is a matter of personal feeling, and varies accordingly. Veganism, however, is a principle - that man has no right to exploit the creatures for his own ends - and no variation occurs. A vegan diet is therefore derived entirely from fruits, nuts, vegetables, grains and other wholesome non-animal products, and excludes flesh, fish, fowl, eggs, honey and animal milk and its derivatives.

In a vegan world the creatures would be reintegrated within the balance and sanity of nature as she is in herself. A great and historic wrong, whose effect upon the course of evolution must have been stupendous, would be righted. The idea that his fellow creatures might be used by man for self-interested purposes would be so alien to human thought as to be almost unthinkable. In this light, veganism is not so much welfare as liberation, for the creatures and for the mind and heart of man; not so much an effort to [make] the present relationship bearable, as an uncompromising recognition that because it is in the main one of master and slave, it has to be abolished before something better and finer can be built.

Veganism is in truth an affirmation that where justice is, exploitation vanishes. It possesses historical continuity with the movement that set free the human slaves. Were it put into effect, every basic wrong done to animals by man would automatically disappear. At its heart is the healing power of compassion, the highest expression of love of which man is capable. For it is a giving without hope of a getting. And yet, because he would free himself from many of the demands made by his own lower nature, the benefit to man himself would be incalculable.

This letter articulates well the animal rights position proffered on this blog, an argument contrasted by the animal welfare position, which "refers to the viewpoint that it is morally acceptable for humans to use nonhuman animals for food, in animal research, as clothing, and in entertainment, so long as unnecessary suffering is avoided."

The welfarist position is logically inconsistent, and ethically confused.

Consider the term "unnecessary." To use a being capable of suffering (as this position admits) instrumentally, as a means to your ends, necessarily involves many forms of suffering. Therefore, the question arises: Is any exploitation of nonhumans necessary?

A growing body of evidence, including arguments by members of the medical community, suggests that a vegan diet may actually improve the health and well-being of an individual. At the very least, maintaining a vegan diet does support an optimal minimum level of health, common sense supports this claim. Ergo, it's always unnecessary to suffer any harm on a nonhuman for the end of food. Preference or taste does not make suffering necessary.      

Does our enjoyment of bull fighting make the bull's suffering necessary? Can "entertainment" ever suffice to reasonably justify any suffering at all? To me, it's laughable to suggest that one can use a nonhuman for purposes of entertainment while justifying this exploitation on the basis of a welfarist position. To use "entertainment" or "clothing" for that matter - do we need cow skin shoes? - in the definition belies the claim that animals ought to be an object of moral concern. If I can exploit you because there is a market for belts made from human skin, or because the majority of people enjoy watching you fight another to the death, you do not matter morally. It's self-deception that would allow us to argue otherwise. Saying that horses should be prevented from unnecessarily suffering while forcing them to participate in activities that put their health at great risk (e.g., horse racing) because "its entertainment!" is a contradiction on its face. 

Medical research is a more difficult matter, although product testing (e.g., botox), for example, is morally unjustifiable for reasons I have previously discussed. There are many more reasons to question the necessity of the "animal model." Consider what can only be called the torture of nonhumans in psychological experiments, or testing the affects of heroine addiction. More here.    

However, 9 billion, 9 thousand million nonhumans are exploited annually in the U.S. alone for food, entertainment and clothing, which is undeniably unecessary.

Interestingly enough, the majority of people, non-vegans and vegans alike, would agree that "unecessary suffering" ought to be avoided as a matter of principle: "It's just wrong to torture a squirrel because I enjoy the sight of suffering." This is an uncontroversial position when discussing uncommon examples of nonhuman exploitation. However, when taken to its logical and ethical conclusion, thus challenging those common institutions like food production, those who previously defended this position create random, nonsensical, and erroneous arguments supporting their "right" to eat a nonhuman. Actually, they don't even attempt to provide support for their argument they simply assume its validity.  

It seems like moral cowardice to me.