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Vegetarianism, Sentimental or Ethical?

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Abstract

In this paper, I provide some evidence for the view that a common charge against those who adopt vegetarianism is that they would be sentimental. I argue that this charge is pressed frequently by those who adopt moral absolutism, a position that I reject, before exploring the question if vegetarianism might make sense. I discuss three concerns that might motivate those who adopt vegetarian diets, including a concern with the human health and environmental costs of some alternative diets, a concern about inflicting pain on animals, and a concern with the killing of animals. While I argue that vegetarianism does not make sense in some situations, I hope that this paper shows that there are many good reasons why the adoption of vegetarian, and—even more so—vegan diets might be appropriate in some situations. In carving out this position, I focus primarily on the question whether a morally relevant distinction between the killing of plants and the killing of animals should be made. I engage primarily with the views of two of the most prominent authors on this issue, arguing that neither Peter Singer nor Tom Regan provide a satisfactory account on the ethics of killing nonhuman organisms. Two views are challenged in particular, the view that relatively simple animals such as molluscs, as well as plants, lack awareness, and the view that animals without a preference to continue living stand to lose little or nothing by being killed. I provide some evidence to support the claim that many share my view that it is more problematic to kill animals than to kill plants, before analyzing why some suppress the negative feelings they associate with killing animals. By exploring these issues I hope to shed some light on the issue of whether the feelings of those who adopt vegetarianism are sentimental or make sense, and to stimulate reflection amongst those with an interest in food ethics.

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Notes

  1. Its meaning must not be confused with the meaning the word has when it is used to refer to the meta-ethical doctrine of “moral sentimentalism” or the doctrine that holds that moral evaluation is—in the words of D’Arms and Jacobson (2000, p. 722)—“somehow grounded in human sentiment”. See also Slote (2003).

  2. It is not my ambition here to discuss these meta-ethical positions, as I have done so elsewhere (Deckers 2007). For the sake of clarity, however, I expand briefly on the nature of Pyrrhonian moral scepticism. If I adopt such a view, the possibility is accepted that someone who has radically different values from the values that I have may not have the wrong values. This does not follow from the conviction that there are no right or wrong values, yet from the belief that my values may be wrong, rather than the values of someone with radically different values. A paedophile, for example, may act in accordance with the particular feelings he has for children. Neither their actions nor their feelings may be wrong, even if they might appear to be very wrong to me. So the belief that there are things that are universally right and wrong is not abandoned, but a Pyrrhonian moral sceptic does not claim certainty about their account of what is right and wrong, or—to put it differently—does not claim to know that those with different views are irrational. Because a Pyrrhonian moral sceptic suspends judgment about what is right and wrong, I believe that the adoption of such a meta-ethical stance, especially when combined with a quest for what is right and wrong, is congenial to the promotion of academic debate.

  3. The “Deliberating the Environment” project was carried out during 2003–2004 by Derek Bell, Tim Gray, Mary Brennan, Nicola Thompson, and Jan Deckers, and funded by the “Science in Society” programme of the Economics and Social Research Council.

  4. In this paper, I use personal pronouns to refer to nonhuman animals as I agree with Kheel (2008, p. 7) that using the words “that” or “it” “fail to respect subjective identity”.

  5. Land degradation has been defined as “a reduction of resources potential by one or a combination of processes acting on the land, such as: (1) soil erosion by wind and/or water; (2) deterioration of the physical, chemical and biological or economic properties of soil; and (3) long-term loss of natural vegetation” (UNEP 2002: cited in Steinfeld et al. 2006, p. 29).

  6. More specifically, the LEAD study has estimated that the farm animal sector is responsible for 65% of all anthropogenic emissions of nitrous oxide, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, and for 37% of all anthropogenic methane emissions (Steinfeld et al. 2006, p. xxi). While anaerobic digestion plants can turn some manure into biogas, which can be used as an energy source, as well as digestate, which can be used as a soil improver, the use of such plants is not always feasible. Since the economic viability of such plants depends on the availability of large quantities of manure or slurry, they rely on intensive facilities, raising a range of human and nonhuman welfare issues. In extensive systems, as has been remarked by Working Group III of the IPCC, “there is little opportunity for manure management, treatment, or storage” (IPCC 2007, p. 511).

  7. Following Broom (2007, p. 102), pain could be defined as “an aversive sensation and feeling associated with actual or potential tissue damage”.

  8. A further question is how much pain could be tolerated, for example if humans should avoid any deliberate infliction of pain on nonhuman animals, or—as Fox (1978, p. 113) has claimed—merely make sure that they are not “made to suffer needlessly or excessively,” or just oppose “the cruelty involved in factory farming,” which Singer (1978, p. 124) has defined as his “argument for vegetarianism”. Incidentally, while vegetarian diets do not fail to inflict pain on animals, they might inflict less pain on them compared with omnivorous diets. For a defence of this position, see Matheny (2003) and Lamey (2007). The latter also supports the view—which I endorse—that a morally relevant distinction should be made between accidental (yet foreseeable) and deliberate harm, whereby the former is justified more easily than the latter. On this view, diets that inflict pain on a given number of animals accidentally would, ceteris paribus, be morally preferable to those that inflict pain deliberately on the same number of animals with equal capacities to feel pain.

  9. A similar doubt has been expressed by Warren (2000, p. 62 footnote 28), who complicates the picture by driving a wedge between younger and older oysters where she writes that “like many bivalves, oysters begin their lives as free-swimming larvae, which appear to have greater capacities for perception and sentience than do the much more sedentary adults.” While I shall not engage with this issue here, the existence of such a distinction between younger and older oysters seems doubtful.

  10. The ability to respond appropriately to a range of stimuli is by no means an isolated phenomenon in the world of the invertebrates. An experiment with snails (Helix sp.) carried out by Balaban and Maksimova (1993) required snails to displace the end of a rod to receive electrical stimulation. Snails who received stimulation to the parietal ganglion decreased the frequency of touching the rod, while snails who received stimulation to the mesocerebrum (which fulfils a role in sexual activity) increased the frequency compared to a control group. Sherwin (2001, S111) has commented that “if this experiment had been conducted with a vertebrate species, we would almost certainly ascribe these responses as being due to the animal experiencing sensations of pain or discomfort when self-stimulating the parietal ganglion, and pleasure when self-stimulating the mesocerebrum.”

  11. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to defend that plants have such a right, I share the view—adopted, for example, by Taylor (1986)—that plants can be harmed and should not be harmed without justification. While Taylor does not apply the concept of “right” here, it could be argued that they therefore have a prima facie right to life. For such a right to exist, all that is required is that the lives of plants deserve at least some iota of moral respect (which we owe to them, rather than to others who might benefit from their lives). The view that they do has been defended recently by the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-human Biotechnology (ECNH) (2008).

  12. For a recent advocate of this position, see Gamlund (2007, p. 8). Gamlund (2006) refrains from using the “rights” concept in this context.

  13. Like Regan, Singer appears to focus his attention on a rather narrow selection of animals when he discusses the ethics of killing animals. While he does not answer the question of which “capacities are relevant to the question of taking life,” he proceeds by stating that “the life of a self-aware being, capable of abstract thought, of planning for the future, of complex acts of communication, and so on, is more valuable than the life of a being without these capacities” (1990, p. 20).

  14. The name that has been given to this ontology is panexperientialism, or the view that reality is a collection of experiencing things. For this notion of “experience,” see for example Cobb (1978, p. 138): “Experience has a subject-object or self-world structure. All experience is experience of something or, more accurately, of many things. It is the way in which what is given objectively becomes subjectively appropriated, integrated, and transcended. Within experience, therefore, we can distinguish what is felt from how it is felt. The “what” is the objective pole of the experience, the “how” is the subjective pole.” The chief alternatives to this ontology are materialism, wherein only material things that lack awareness are deemed to exist; and dualism, whereby experiencing things exist separately from such material things or emerge from them. For a defence of panexperientialism against these alternatives, see Griffin (1998).

  15. Accordingly, Whitehead (1978, p. 108) wrote that “a tree is a democracy”, yet his wife Evelyn disagreed with him on this issue (Weiss 1980).

  16. I take Singer to mean that he can respect such a stance, rather than respect those who adopt such a stance.

  17. The recognition that animals can exert a great deal more control over their lives compared with plants may also underlie the fascination some people have with controlling animals. By controlling the lives of other animals, for example through hunting and butchering, people may gain a temporary release from the insecurity that may result from the realization that our own lives are not controlled completely by our own decisions.

  18. Or, for a farmer, an important feeling might be some kind of satisfaction associated with being able to reap the financial benefits from using animals. Salt (1900) wrote that in a “system of society, where almost everything is measured, even for men, by the merely commercial standard, it is impossible that animals should be generally treated with gentleness and consideration,” and he “feared that at least another century” would have to pass before this might have changed (1900, p. 217).

  19. A similar view has been adopted by Telfer (2004, p. 61): “If death is an ill for animals, we cannot justify causing it merely on the ground that the animal will suffer this ill one day anyway … .”

  20. As mentioned before, farm animals require significant amounts of resources, including land and water. I take the view that many of these resources should be used to grow plant foods and other resources (for example, wood) to provide for the needs of our rapidly expanding human population. Should these Hare Krishna methods be adopted widely, this would result in great increases in land and water use and pollution, and in the emissions of greenhouse and other polluting gases.

  21. It goes without saying that not all vegan diets are healthy, yet I embrace the view, adopted by the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada (2003, p. 748), that “well-planned” vegan diets are healthy. Should this view not survive critical scrutiny, it could then be concluded that the feelings that motivate the adoption of vegan diets would be sentimental. While I do not have the scope to debate the health benefits or otherwise of vegan diets, for a discussion see, for example, the collection of articles introduced by Comstock (1994) in this journal.

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Acknowledgments

This paper contains data from the “Deliberating the Environment” project, funded by the “Science in Society” program of the Economics and Social Research Council (grant number: RES 151250014). I also thank the anonymous reviewers who stimulated reflection by commenting on a previous version of this paper, and those who invited me to present and commented on earlier versions by participating in meetings organised by the North Shields Probus Club, Café Culture at Newcastle, the Newcastle Ethics, Legal, and Political Philosophy Group, and VegNE.

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Deckers, J. Vegetarianism, Sentimental or Ethical?. J Agric Environ Ethics 22, 573–597 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-009-9176-3

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