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Ethics of Vegetarianism
by Deepak Trivedi
The idea that our choice of food constitutes a moral choice is not easily recognized by many of us. In fact, our civilization has always had a firm belief that the choice of food, being entirely a matter of individual taste and health considerations, is not a choice that is morally relevant. This is why maxims like de gustibus non disputandum came into being in their literal sense. This point of view works well as long as we look at the whole issue from an individualistic point of view. The moment we look at it from a point of view that is any broader, we come to recognize the moral issue involved. A speciesist, for example, would immediately recognize the immorality of cannibalism. From an animal rights perspective, we would immediately recognize that since we do not have the capability to satisfy our nutritional requirements on our own: we totally depend on other organisms for our nutrition, hence, we have to ensure that we are not acting against their interests.
Ecologically, organisms are classified on the basis of their mode of nutrition because nutrition is the most important ecological activity. It directly deals with valuable resources of the ecosystem. Ecologically, our role is defined as that of producers, consumers or decomposers.
All ecological activity is aimed at creating and maintaining a state of internal order, or a condition of low entropy. To maintain order in an ecosystem, energy must be expended to pump out disorder. The more we demand from nature, the less energy nature has for maintenance. As long as humans were incapable of making any major difference to the ecological balance, a moral system taking into account the whole ecosystem was not required. But in the last two centuries, we have certainly acquired the power to affect our ecosystem to a large extent. There is a frequent conflict between the short-term interests of humans and the interests of nature. In this situation, universal obedience to certain rules overriding self-interest and short-term pleasures would produce a state of affairs which serves the overall interests of the whole ecosystem – of which humans are a part -- much better than unaided pursuit of it. Moral rules concerning the ecosystem are universal rules designed to override those of short-term human interests when following the latter is harmful to the ecosystem. We have to ensure that our choice of food does not go against these moral rules.
My aim in this paper is to discuss the ethical problems involved with adopting non-vegetarianism. I will do that on two grounds. First, I will discuss how, in the light of our new understanding of the world around us -- especially since Darwin -- our notions of equality and justice are biased; and that an unbiased notion of equality would imply that if there exists something called a right to life, animals too have it, and hence non-vegetarianism is immoral because it involves killing. However, the existence of right to life is by no means necessary to discuss the morality of vegetarianism, because our moral responsibilities towards our ecosystem provide a sufficient basis for vegetarianism.
Many believe that after recognizing racism and sexism as forms of discrimination, no further universally accepted forms of discrimination exist any more. But we have learned that while making such statements, one should remember that unless a prejudice is forcefully pointed out, it is almost impossible to be aware of the prejudice. Worse, if it is impossible for the oppressed section to present its case, then the discrimination may go on without anybody being aware of it. Peter Singer points out how such an incapability of animals is a reason why our discrimination against them has continued:
"The animals themselves are incapable of demanding their own liberation, or of protesting against their condition with votes, demonstrations, or bombs. Human beings have the power to continue to oppress other species forever, or until we make this planet unsuitable for living beings. Will our tyranny continue, proving that we really are the selfish tyrants that the most cynical of poets and philosophers have always said we are? Or will we rise to the challenge and prove our capacity for genuine altruism by ending our ruthless exploitation of the species in our power, not because we are forced to do so by rebels or terrorists, but because we recognize that our position is morally indefensible?
The way in which we answer this question depends on the way in which each one of us, individually, answers it."
The sexist violates the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of his own sex, when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of the other sex. Similarly, the anthropocentrist allows the minor interests of the human species to override the greater interests of members of other species. Anthropocentrism refers to the idea that humans are the crown of creation, the source of all value and the measure of all things. This idea is deeply embedded in our culture and consciousness. Most people will eat that pork chop or hamburger and only see the meat as something that comes on a Styrofoam plate, wrapped in plastic, and priced. Or they will watch a National Geographic special on animals in the wild, yet admire those fur coats. They will not know where the food they eat comes from or about the trials and tribulations animals go through in the web of the food-industry. Non-human animals are seen as objects to be treated in any way humans see fit.
As Aristotle put the utilitarian ethos of western thought so well, "plants exist for the sake of animals, and brute beasts for the sake of man ... Since nature makes nothing purposeless or in vain, it is undeniably true that she has made all animals for the sake of man."
If everything was made for man, then he only need discover the laws of the universe to apply them toward the control of life; this was the vision of Bacon and Descartes at the dawn of the modern world; in Bacon's words, "let the human race recover that right over nature which belongs to it by divine bequest." Descartes rigidly separated mind from body, humans from animals, and saw the world as a vast machine; he urged men to become "lords and possessors of nature." By desacrilizing nature, the western mind could exploit it without the qualms other cultures had in disturbing a living, evolving process; to cite another crucial figure in the early development of modern science, Robert Boyle: "the veneration wherewith men are imbued for what they call nature has been a discouraging impediment to the empire of man over the inferior creatures of god."
Plato suggested that there is a big difference between us and animals, a difference worthy of respect and cultivation. He thought that human beings have a special ingredient that puts them in a different ontological category than brutes. Respect for this ingredient provides a reason for people to be nice to each other. Not many subscribe to this view: Anti-Platonists like Nietzsche reply that attempts to get people to stop murdering, raping, and castrating one another are, in the long run, doomed to failure – for the real truth about human nature is that we are a uniquely nasty and dangerous kind of animal. Albert Einstein also opposed such a view:
"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us the 'Universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security."
The bible says: "..And God said, Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness: and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepth upon the earth.", "And God blessed them, Be fruitful and multiply, and subdue the earth; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."[8]
Kant believed, that "humans have an inherent dignity that makes them ends in themselves, whereas animals are mere means to our ends." Between Kant’s time and ours, Darwin argued every intellectual out of the view that human beings contained a special added ingredient. He convinced most of us that we were exceptionally talented animals. Still, the concept of "inherent dignity" continues even today. Janet E. Smith in her article Rethinking Capital Punishment has this to say about Pope John Paul II: "Perhaps he thinks capital punishment comes dangerously close to treating the human person as one without inherent dignity and as having descended to the status of animals." Peter Singer in his All Animals are Equal quotes William Frankena's well known article The Concept of Social Justice. Frankena defends egalitarianism by proposing:
" . . . all men are to be treated as equals, not because they are equal, in any respect, but simply because they are human. They are human because they have emotions and desires, and are able to think, and hence are capable of enjoying a good life in a sense in which other animals are not."
It is unclear what concept of "good life" is he talking about which only humans can enjoy. Other animals have emotions and desires, and appear to be capable of enjoying a good life. The capacity for enjoyment and satisfaction, or pain and suffering, differs in degree and not in kind among various animals. It is difficult to see what Frankena’s principle of equality has to do with simply being human.
Anthropocentrists such as Plato and Kant, in this situation, would say regardless of whether animals can enjoy good life or not, they do not have the "intrinsic dignity" that the human individual has. What they say implies that humans, and only humans, are "ends in themselves", while "everything other than a person can only have value for a person."
What is the problem with attributing "intrinsic dignity" or "intrinsic worth" to ourselves? Are we not smarter, more intelligent, and better off then other animals?
Today, a species is defined genetically. The question then becomes: Why should dignity be conferred solely on the basis of a certain arrangement of genes? Among the genes that determine one's eye color, etc., which gene is it that confers dignity? A thoughtful person might find having their rights determined by a molecular sequence to be a bit absurd. It is no better than basing rights on the pigmentation of one's skin (which is also determined by the individual's genetic code).
The truth is that the appeal to the intrinsic dignity of human beings appears to solve the egalitarians’ problems only as long as it goes unchallenged. Once we start asking why it should be that all humans regardless of their capabilities should have an intrinsic worth that no elephant, pig, or chimpanzee can ever achieve, we see that this question is as difficult to answer as our original request for some relevant fact that justifies the inequality of humans and other animals. We, at once realize that any morally relevant criterion for the possession of rights that excludes animals such as chimpanzees from the class of rights-holders will also exclude severely impaired humans from the class of rights-holders; which is not acceptable to most of us. Even severely impaired humans have some rights, and thus fall within the class of rights-holders.
Since his approach to rights based on criteria such as possession of some properties fails, the Anthropocentrist tries to find other ways in which he'll defend exclusion of animals from his moral sphere. He will propose a theory of social contract [for example, 6], which implies that, even though animals feel pain, human pain is the only pain that is morally significant. For, direct obligations apply only to those who contract into a moral system, and this requires understanding the nature of the contract. Morality is like a club you can join, only if you know the rules of the club. And, since animals cannot understand the rules of the club, they cannot be members and thus cannot have a direct moral standing. Although infants and mentally retarded people can also not join the club, we may like to treat them well out of compassion or sentimental attachment. Our treatment of animals would also be a matter of compassion and not of ethics [3].
By saying this, the contractarian implies that since animals are incapable of showing moral behavior, you do not have to be moral to them. In other words, you do nothing that does not in some way guarantee a return in material form from your neighbour. Morality is a business to you: a kind of barter system. Can this be called altruism? People will say, this is "reciprocal altruism." But isn’t the term an oxymoron?
The people of this mindset two hundred years ago, were perfectly contented owning slaves since the slaves did not show the promise to belong to their moral club. According to these people, infants and the mentally retarded have no moral rights, something not many of us will readily subscribe to.
Let us try to invoke another principle of rights, to see if animals have the right to life. This is called the interests principle, and it states that an entity cannot have a particular right, unless it is at least capable of having some interest, which the right would protect.
For example, it does not follow that since the same people are campaigning for equality between men and women they must support the right of men to have abortions too. Since a man cannot have an abortion, it is meaningless to talk of his right to have one. Since a pig cannot vote, it is meaningless to talk of its right to vote. Future generations and infants have rights because we expect them to have interests in the future, and our actions today will affect their interests tomorrow. We know that interest in living is a central feature of the animal kingdom, and that it is impracticable for a species to evolve which doesn’t have the desire to survive; because the guiding feature of evolution is the desire to survive. All evolution has occurred because of this desire to survive.
Of course, plants have also evolved with an immense desire to survive. This can be demonstrated, for example, by showing that plants exhibit phototropism (shoot bending towards light) and geotropism (root bending towards the ground.) One comment often raised by non-vegetarians hints at possible hypocrisy of vegetarians who claim that concerns about animal cruelty are even part of the reason for their choice: "You claim that vegetarianism respects life, but you eat plants. Plants are living creatures, too." There are two issues raised by such a comment. One is the distinction between "life" and "consciousness" in ascribing value to life, and the other is the inherent error about biological issues incorporated in the comment. First of all, making the point that plants have "life" and can therefore be equated with the value of higher animals ignores the basis on which differing valuations of life are ascribed. It is not "life" itself, which is valuable, but the process of consciousness and meaningful sentience prominent in humans and vertebrates and essentially non-existent in plants, bacteria, viruses or other simple life forms. We are willing to kill millions of one-celled bacteria, each one an autonomous, individual organism, to save one conscious, sentient human. We recognise consciousness and highly advanced mental abilities in dolphins, chimpanzees and even household pets, which we do not recognise in flies, cockroaches or algae. While we may have valid reasons based on environmental considerations for protecting other species to maintain ecological balances, we almost always recognise that there is an inherent value in animals with greater sentience or consciousness than those that lack it. And few would assert any consciousness at all in plants.
Most plants have adaptations that make their usage as food beneficial to the plants themselves. For example, the sole purpose of bearing of fruits in plants is to tempt animals to eat them, and in this way help them in dispersal of their seeds. This provides a basis for fruitarianism, the practice of using only fruits for nutrition.
Eating food grains does not violate the interests principle, because they are obtained from plants after their life cycle (typically of three to four months) has been completed. Some people would argue that seeds of plants are comparable to eggs of animals, and same arguments hold for both of them. There is however a fundamental difference. While the animal in the egg has already started its life cycle, the "plant" in the seed has not.
What about sterile eggs, like the ones produced by the modern farms? In what way is it different from food grains? The difference lies in the way the hen feels towards it. We have cheated the hen in making it produce a sterile egg. But the reason the hen took all the pain to lay the eggs is that she expects the egg to hatch one day. Besides, there are other far more non-trivial considerations we must take into account, which I shall do later.
Utilitarians argue that even in case of conscious beings, a painless killing can be justified, because it does not cause suffering. Such a painless killing of humans cannot be justified because humans, being useful to the society, help in increasing the total happiness of the society, or at least the happiness of their loved ones. Such arguments are flawed on many accounts. For example what about people who are actually a liability to the society. Are their lives expendable? What about orphans? Secondly, the scope of utility used for these arguments is mistaken. Why should animals be expected to be of utility to the society? Anthropocentrism is clearly reflected in such arguments: Utility is equated to ‘utility to humanity.’ The appropriate scope of utility in discussing Animal-Human morality should be that of utility to the ecosystem. This is because the ecosystem is the only community that is of equal relevance to all animals, human and non-human. Every animal has some utility in the ecosystem; they are not worthless beings. This utility implies that even if animal rights were non-existent, we have enough ethical reasons for not being non-vegetarians. Even if animals had no ecological worth, such as the animals reared in farmhouses, we still can argue for vegetarianism. This is due to the fact that ecologically, it’s not the killing of these farm animals that is immoral, but the whole process of bringing them to existence, rearing them, and processing, cooking and consuming them.
Even a strict Anthropocentrist will have to agree on moral responsibility towards the ecosystem, although on purely selfish grounds. This is because the survival of the human race itself is totally dependent on the ecosystem, and hence the ecosystem is valuable to mankind. Future human generations have a right to a healthy environment that we must protect.
Let us see how we can develop a system of morality that fits with our moral responsibility towards our ecosystem. Certainly, this system should not base itself on criteria that tend to be partial, like the Rawlsian contract theory discussed earlier. Such a criterion should be independent of details that change with time, space and species, and validity of our notions of the universe, and should be relevant to all the members of the ecosystem.
It is interesting to note that the words "economics" and "ecology" have the same root, oikos, which refers to "house." It can be said that economics deals with financial housekeeping and ecology deals with environmental housekeeping. While energy can be thought of as the "currency" of ecology, energy and money are not the same because they flow in opposite directions, and money circulates while energy does not. Energy keeps on moving toward an ever less available and more dispersed state, as required by the second law of thermodynamics. A very small portion of the light energy absorbed by green plants is transformed into potential or food energy; most of it goes into heat. An animal takes in chemical potential energy of food and converts a large part into heat to enable a small part of the energy to be reestablished as the chemical potential energy of new protoplasm. At each step in the transfer of energy from one organism to another a large part of the energy is degraded to heat, bringing in entropy or disorder to the system. Antithermal maintenance is the number one priority in any complex system of the real world. As Schrodinger has shown, the continual work of pumping out "disorder" is necessary if one wishes to maintain internal "order" in the presence of thermal vibrations in any system above absolute zero temperature.
Disorder or entropy is the most fundamental property of any system. Entropy is more fundamental a property as mass and length, because it is unchanged even with relativity taken into account. It is as absolute as energy. When we talk of fairness and justice as, say equal distribution of food, among the labour for equal amount of work, we find no problem using mass as a basis of measuring equal amount of food. Modern notion of mass may theoretically challenge this, but the practical efficacy of using mass for measurement justifies the practice. Entropy is more fundamental than mass, which cannot be similarly challenged. There should be no problem in devising a moral system based on certain values, and using quantities like mass and entropy as mere means to attain those values, as long as we don’t use any "theory" or "fact" based on these measures. For examples, as long as we recognize justice as our guiding moral principle, we should find no problem using "mass" as a means of ensuring justice. As long as we recognize ecological values as our guiding principle, we should find no problem using "entropy" as a means to ensure that ecological values are preserved. The only reason why some people find it difficult to imagine using entropy as a measure of orderliness is that we do not have any sense organ that makes us "feel" entropy.
What form of a moral principle can we make based on entropy? We know that without low entropy there is no possibility for the continuation/existence of life -no chance for the existence of time and the universe itself in fact [4]. Morality could be related to entropy creating, conserving and preserving mechanisms in the universe. We should choose actions that minimize the increase in entropy.
A utilitarian has to know what exactly would cause maximum happiness to maximum people. For this, he has to have the knowledge of economics, for example. Similarly, a fuller understanding of what constitutes moral behaviour, in the light of entropitarianism requires an awareness of the bioenergetics of ecosystems. An interested reader may refer to [7]. Here, I shall present the conclusion without detail.
On the basis of twenty four well established criteria like biodiversity and nutrient conservation, we can safely conclude that natural ecosystems, operating on natural processes optimised over billions of years, have a lower entropy, a higher stability and a higher information content than any artificial ecosystem. The ‘natural’ manner in which a process occurs is the most efficient way in which the process can occur, and it increases entropy to the least possible extent. [9]
One may argue that natural processes may not be the most efficient. For example, in the US, where sophisticated techniques are used, the productivity of wheat is three times that of India, where the method of production is closer to nature. The comparison parameter is of course incorrect. The energy requirement per tonne of wheat production in the US is ten times that of India, and the difference in entropy increase per tonne of production between the two ways of production is similarly high.
Man, of course, more than any other species attempts to modify the physical environment to "improve" his quality of life, but in doing so he is increasingly disrupting, even destroying, the biotic components which are necessary for his physiological existence. Any change in the natural composition of the environment goes against nature, as the life forms can not adapt the modified environment. Since man is a heterotroph, his dependency on the natural environment remains no matter how sophisticated his technology becomes. The great cities are still only parasites in the biosphere when we consider what have been aptly called the vital resources, namely air, water and food. So far, man has been so busy "conquering" nature that he has yet given little thought or effort towards reconciling the conflicts in his dual role, that of manipulator of and inhabitant in the ecosystem.
Looking at man’s impact on the biosphere, his density is now one person to about 2 hectares of land. When we add the domestic animals, the density is one population equivalent (Borgstrom, 1965) to about 0.3 hectare. This is less than one acre for every man and man-sized domestic animal consumer! If the population doubles in the next forty years and if we wish to continue to eat animals, then there will be only half an acre to supply all the needs (water, oxygen, minerals, fibers, living space, as well as food) for each 50-kilogram consumer, and this does not include pets and wildlife that contribute so much to the quality of human life. [9]
The dictum "the greatest good for the greatest number (of humans)" seemed like a good goal for society when we were not crowded, but not any more. In Cybernetic language, a system composed of dependent parts that function together can exist in two general states: (1) a "transient" state in which the whole is growing or otherwise changing in time; and (2) a "steady state" in which the system is maintained in equilibrium, a condition of balanced inputs and outputs. For the purposes of our analogy, we can think of the transient state as "youth" and the steady state as "maturity." A growth or "youthful," stage is under the influence of what is called "positive feedback" in that each increase accelerates another increase, often in geometric progression. For the individual or the population, as for a new business, growth and positive feedback are necessary for survival. All living organisms and populations have a strong, inherent tendency to grow, born out of the necessity for survival.
However, growth does not and cannot continue unrestricted because "negative feedback control" also comes into play, either due to some limitation imposed by the external environment or due to the action of an internal "governor" that brings about an orderly slowdown and establishes a "set point" at which growth stops. As a living system becomes larger and more complex, more of the energy that it transforms must be "fed back" to maintain and control the intricate structure; quality maintenance replaces mere quantitative growth as "the strategy of survival" in the mature system. Hence, ultimate survival depends on both positive and negative feedback and on a set-point control mechanism that prevents perturbations from causing damaging oscillations. Sooner or later all levels of life and society must face the transition from youth to maturity, whether they be cells, teenagers, or an ecosystem. If growth does not stop at maturity, the results are cancer and ultimate death of the whole system.
Humans, however, are under the illusion that to seek happiness, they must control the negative feedback mechanisms of nature like diseases and should improve the positive feedback. We are too much under the influence of positive feedback, and therefore must be subjected to negative feedback, because it is essential for a healthy ecosystem. Advances in Medical science, famine control, and agriculture in no way make our life happier. It is becoming increasingly evident that the optimum population density for humans should not be keyed to the quality of the living space and not to food calories. The world can feed a lot more "warm bodies" than it can support quality human beings that have reasonable chance for liberty and pursuit of happiness. Kenneth Boulding (1966), an economist, has made what is an excellent ecological statement of the situation as follows: "The essential measure of success of the economy is not production and consumption at all, but the nature, extent, quality and complexity of the total capital stock, including in this the state of the human bodies and minds included in the system." The human animal today is much weaker than she used to be a few thousand years ago. The clothes we wear and the various gadgets we use make us less adaptive to our environment. Our natural immunity to disease is greatly hampered by the clinical way of living we have adopted. Should not man, like nature, maximize for the quality and diversity of the "biomass" rather than for the rate of production and consumption as such? Entropitarianism and ecocentrism do provide a realistic basis for placing society’s "pursuit of happiness" goal on a qualitative rather than on a quantitative basis.
Ecocentrism is not an argument that all organisms have equivalent value. It is neither an anti-human argument nor a put-down of those seeking social justice. It does not deny that myriad important homocentric problems exist. But it stands aside from these smaller, short-term issues in order to consider Ecological Reality. Reflecting on the ecological status of all organisms, it comprehends the Ecosphere as a Being that transcends in importance any one single species, even the self-named sapient one. Ecocentrism is a new way of thinking. It proposes an ethic whose reference point is supra-human, placing Ecosphere health before human welfare. It points the way to solving questions that, within humanistic or biocentric frameworks, are virtually unsolvable: the Growth Problem, the Population Problem, the Technology Problem. It gives new and constructive direction to philosophers, economists, scientists, and engineers. We must learn to look outward instead of inward, learn to see ourselves as dependent Earthlings and not the center, recognize our interesting partners - 30 million other kinds of creatures - joined with us in a yearly whirl 'round the sun, climb down from our self-erected pedestal and show a little humility.
Entropitarianism and ecocentrism are not incompatible with most existing moral theories like non-violence. Someone may like to quote Gandhi to justify going against nature in the following way: Gandhi said:
"If I wish to be an agriculturist and stay in a jungle, I will have to use the minimum unavoidable violence, in order to protect my fields. I will have to kill monkeys, birds and insects, which eat up my crops. If I do not wish to do so myself, I will have to engage someone to do it for me. There is not much difference between the two. To allow crops to be eaten up by animals, in the name of ahimsa, while there is a famine in the land, is certainly a sin."
How all this is related to our case for vegetarianism? Agriculture is an evil, and we must minimize it. Of all agricultural land in the US, 87 percent is used to raise animals for food. These animals are fed more than 80 percent of the corn and 95 percent of oats the US produces. Meat animals of the world alone consume food equal to calorific needs of 9 billion people – more than the entire human population on Earth. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, but only 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat. There is a very real entropy overhead in producing meat the current way by growing plants to use as food for the meat animal. Lots of entropy is needlessly generated in the whole process of producing and consuming meat.
Even according to utilitarianism, which I claim can also be derived from the entropy-principle, meat eating is immoral, for exactly the same fundamental reason. Meat eating results in a lot of wastage of food that would otherwise have fed many more people, hence making them happier. As a matter of fact, considering the accepted conversion ratio of ten per cent, a vegetarian food will make ten times as many humans happier than a non-vegetarian one, not counting the happiness gained by animals. Hence, even if animals didn’t have rights, and even if the proposed entropitarian principle runs into controversies, utilitarianism requires us to be vegetarians. The world at the present date produces enough vegetarian food to feed more than 15 billion people. But we are incapable of feeding just six billion. This is not merely a problem of distribution. A huge amount of this food is force-fed to farm animals for meat production. If the Americans just change one in ten of their non-vegetarian meals to vegetarian ones, the world will have enough food to feed forty million more people. Every second 2.3 children die because they didn’t get anything to eat. Of course, every time you eat meat, you are not only responsible of killing the animal, but also, in part, killing a human.
Of course you might say that no one in the US dies of starvation, and what’s wrong if they can produce enough to feed themselves with meat. But you don’t know all the facts. Developed countries import a lot food grains from poor agricultural countries. For example, within a few years, Indian farmers have started growing a lot of soybean. These poor, but deeply religious Hindu farmers are not aware that a large part of the soybean they produce is fed to cows in the developed countries, which are then slaughtered.
Non-vegetarianism is also closely related to deforestation. The land area under cultivation required to feed the world population of 5-6 billion on a vegetarian diet is surprisingly low. To raise more and more farm animals, we need more and more food grains, and thus we clear more and more rainforest. Approximately, one animal requires about 3000 square metres of land area for about at least five years for producing meat that would be sufficient to fulfil one person’s requirement for about fifty days. So every five years, this system would allow one human to eat for fifty days. On the other hand, the same land area is sufficient to fulfil all the nutrition requirements of a vegetarian family of four people every day throughout the year. Imagine how much of our land resource, which should have been under forest cover is wasted in this fashion. Fifty-five square feet of rain forest needs to be razed to produce just one quarter-pound hamburger. Each vegetarian saves an acre of rainforest every year! Non vegetarianism is much more hazardous to the environment than industrialization.
Such facts as these generally used to defend vegetarianism, imply the following: Meat-eating is not from its nature harmful to the ecosystem. It may be harmful only if a great many people in the society engage in it. No harm is done if a few people eat meat, but the ecosystem is ruined if everyone does so. No harm is done if one person uses the air-conditioner; but if everyone uses it during peak hours, then there might be a power failure, and everyone will be adversely affected. This does not prove that air-conditioning itself is immoral, but only when a large number of people use it together, it becomes harmful for everybody. Kurt Baier in his The Moral Point of View discusses the morality of such behaviour. He concludes that if the behaviour in question is such that (a) the consequences would be undesirable if everyone did it, (b) all are equally entitled to engage in it, and © engaging in this sort of behaviour is an indulgence, not a sacrifice, then such a behaviour should be prohibited by the morality of the group.
Baier goes further asking if such behaviour were wrong all the same if it were not prohibited. By indulging in the behaviour in question, I am not doing any harm, my behaviour is not wrong in itself, but only when taken in conjunction with that of others. I cannot prevent the evil by refraining. Others must refrain too. It is no good arguing that I am not entitled to do wrong just because other people might or probably would. I need no justification or excuse, for my behaviour is wrong only if I have no reason to think that others will refuse to make the sacrifice. If I have reason to think they will refuse to make it, then I have reason to think that my own sacrifice will be in vain; hence I have reason against making it. If the results are very undesirable and my sacrifice is very small, and I am not very certain what others will do, I should take the risk of making the sacrifice even if it turns out to have been in vain.
There are obvious problems with the above line of argument. For example, from here we cannot conclude that suicide is wrong. Suicide is no more wrong than celibacy and for the same reason. People are less keen on suicide even than on celibacy. There is no danger of the race dying out. In fact, all over the world people are so keen on procreation that the suicide rate could go up a long way before anyone need be alarmed. Nonetheless, on the demand of those who subscribe to Baier’s arguments, I shall no more emphasize on the perils of collective meat eating, but discuss other standpoints.
One standpoint against meat eating is the Sanctity of Life (SL) principle, which claims that the inherent sacrosanctity of life is unchallengable and has to be accepted as a first principle. Albert Schweitzer was a major exponent of the SL principle. His justification for the principle was the following: (a) I have a will to live (Will to Live Thesis), (b) When I am healthy and sincere towards myself, I feel reverence for my will to life (Self Affirmation Thesis), © All other organisms have a similar will to live (Analogy Thesis), (d) I experience empathy with other life as I reflect honestly, dwelling on its similarity to my own life (Empathy Thesis), (e) My empathy generates sympathy, caring, and a "compulsion" to approach other life with the same reverence I feel for my life (Life Affirmation Thesis), and (f) Hence, reverence for life is a fundamental virtue that consists in "preserving life, promoting and developing all life that is capable of development to its highest possible value" and in not "destroying life, injuring life, repressing life that is capable of development."
This approach implies that our belief in SL is an outcome of our self-centeredness. Our respect for life arises from our fear of death. Beyond this fear of death and our desire to survive, there is nothing more to SL. But desires and feelings may be misguided. Just because they are natural does not mean they are justified. "There is a compulsion to feel reverence of life." How does that establish that we ought to cultivate it, or that it is a fundamental virtue?
Actually there is nothing more than our own egocenteredness which makes us value life. Valuing life is not wrong, but it cannot be a guiding moral principle, and I would certainly not be using it to defend my case against meat eating.
The principle of Ahimsa requires us to abstain from killing, but that is not because it attaches any value to life, but because according to it, non-violence itself needs to be upheld. In fact, the Hindu-Buddhist-Jain philosophies that profess that Ahimsa is the most important guiding principle of morality do not grant any value to life. Bodies are looked upon as temporary abodes of a permanent soul, and death is looked upon as a minor halt in a mega-journey, as an essential part of the whole cycle of existence.
Morality based on SL can create major problems. For example, what will happen if we happen to discover a medicine that enables us to live as long as we wish. The SL ideology would require that we continue living forever, and keep on producing more and more life. Would that choice be ethical? A firm believer of SL will be forced to say that it would be an ethical choice, but she knows for herself that it won’t be: it would be a disaster.
Clearly the notion that the value of life exceeds all other values, and that no other value could override it, must be given up. Death must be accepted as an essential part of the cycle of existence. We must invoke higher principles like Ahimsa to devise our system of morality.
Ahimsa, in the Vedic tradition, means "having no ill feeling for any living being, in all manners possible and for all times." The Laws of Manu, one of the sacred texts of the Hinduism, states that "Without the killing of living beings, meat cannot be made available, and since killing is contrary to the principles of ahimsa, one must give up eating meat."
The Ahimsa ideal is throughout the Gita, which inspired Gandhi. In the Gita every action of the enlightened person is said to be "wed to the welfare of fellow creatures". Lord Krishna in the Gita says 'That yogi..is established in union with me, who worships me devoutly in all beings. Who burns with the bliss and suffers the sorrow of every creature. Him I hold the highest of all the yogis" .."A man should not hate any living creature. Let him be friendly and compassionate to all"
Gandhi believed in a moral basis of vegetarianism. In a speech delivered at a social meeting organized by the London Vegetarian Society in 1931, Gandhi talked at length about the necessity of a moral basis of vegetarianism:
"I made it a point, out of curiosity, and to study the possibilities of vegetarianism and vegetarian restaurants in London, to visit every one of them. Naturally, therefore, I came into close contact with many vegetarians. I found, at the tables, that largely the conversation turned upon food and disease. I found also that the vegetarians who were struggling to stick to their vegetarianism were finding it difficult from the health point of view.
I do not know whether, nowadays, you have those debates, but I used at that time to attend debates that were held between vegetarians and vegetarians, and between vegetarians and non-vegetarians. I remember one such debate, between Dr. Densmore and the late Dr. T. R. Allinson. Then vegetarians had a habit of talking of nothing but food and nothing but disease. I feel that that is the worst way of going about the business. I notice also that it is those persons who become vegetarians because they are suffering from some disease or other that is, from purely the health point of view it is those persons who largely fall back. I discovered that for remaining staunch to vegetarianism a man requires a moral basis."
"The basis of my vegetarianism is not physical, but moral. If anybody said that I should die if I did not take beef tea or mutton, even on medical advice, I would prefer death. That is the basis of my vegetarianism." [5]
Gandhi's abstention from meat and periods of fasting from food were about abstaining from selfishness, anger, lust for power and working for a higher purpose and a moral -social harmony. Mahatma Gandhi was a powerful example of righteousness with social service as a religious duty. His faith in non-violence, pacifism, shifted Hindu thought towards a popular egalitarian social order rather than the hierarchy of class and caste.
For those who derive their morality from religion, there are theological reasons to pursue vegetarianism. Most religions appeal to the human emotions of love, compassion and non-violence. The first sila of Buddhism for example is "do not kill." Eating meat is the cause of killing animals and it is clearly a violation of the First Sila. Buddhists want to save others from dukkha. Non-vegetarianism, of course would not allow this, because it involves dukkha to other creatures.
Hindu scriptures prohibit meat eating on the grounds of ahimsa. The Mahabharata, for example, says:
"The purchaser of flesh performs himsa (violence) by his wealth; he who eats flesh does so by enjoying its taste; the killer does himsa by actually tying and killing the animal. Thus, there are three forms of killing. He who brings flesh or sends for it, he who cuts of the limbs of an animal, and he who purchases, sells, or cooks flesh and eats it-all of these are to be considered meat-eaters."
Hindu scriptures recognize spirituality in all living species. This is seen in the incarnations of the Hindu gods in various non-human life forms. The Vedic viewpoint even acknowledges the ability of ordinary animals to achieve exalted states of spirituality! This is so because of the viewpoint that spirituality is not limited to the human form and that ultimately the external body is a temporary housing for the eternal spiritual soul. Hinduism also equates wastage and misuse of natural resources to stealing. Hinduism’s ecocentric philosophy is evident from the Upanishadic maxim that states that the whole ecosystem is a large family.
The Sixth Commandment of Moses "Thou shalt not kill", seals the general teachings relating to carnivorous habits. The implication is that one shall not kill unnecessarily and the oft-used translation "thou shalt not commit murder" wrongfully restricts the original meaning of the word. Certainly today, the abundance of non-flesh health giving foods unquestionably means that every time a creature is killed for food a sin against God has been committed.
Philip L. Pick has an interesting interpretation of the story of Cain and Abel:
"Until the Noahtic period it was a capital offence to kill an animal even as it was to kill a man. This is confirmed by the statement in Genesis "To man and all creatures wherein is a living soul." Note that the word soul is applicable in the same way to man as to animals. Bearing this in mind many have wondered at the story of Cain and Abel, and in this context it becomes understandable. Why was the beautiful white lamb, which Abel slaughtered, acceptable to God as an offering? And if this was so why did Cain whose offering was scant in substance and begrudging in spirit, kill Abel? The story has two morals. First, that in giving, one should be generous and openhearted and not count the cost. This Cain did not do, but Abel gave of his best. Secondly, notwithstanding this, the cardinal sin of killing a creature warranted capital punishment by the immutable law of retribution, and Abel paid the penalty."
The idea of vegetarianism appeals to the human sentimentality also. Foundationalist philosophers, such as Plato, Aquinas, and Kant, believed that sentimentality has got nothing to do with morality, and that something called "moral knowledge" existed. But now suppose we ask: is there this sort of knowledge? The Platonic-Kantian view suggests that "good" people know something that the "bad" people do not know and that it is probably their own silly fault that they do not know it: All they have to do, after all, is to think a little harder, be a little more self-conscious, a little more rational. By insisting that he could reeducate people who had matured without acquiring appropriate moral sentiments by invoking a higher power than sentiment, the power of reason, Plato got moral philosophy on the wrong foot. Most of the work of changing moral intuitions is done by manipulating our feelings rather than by increasing our knowledge. This is a reason to think that there is no knowledge of the sort that philosophers like Plato, Kant and Aquinas hoped to get. Contemporary moral philosophers like Annette Baier have shown us how the rapid moral progress of the last two centuries can be best understood in terms of an astonishingly rapid progress of sentiments.
The shocking stories of greed, neglect, and inhumane treatment of animals in the slaughterhouses of the meat industry are enough to arouse anybody’s sentiments. Here is an account by PETA of what happens to chickens in the meat industry:
"The majority of "broiler chickens" and "laying hens" live in vast warehouses where lighting and ventilation are controlled by machines and where a system failure means mass death. To increase profits, farmers genetically manipulate broiler chickens; as a result, many birds suffer from painful, crippling bone disorders and spinal defects. Laying hens are confined four to six to a cage; their wings atrophy from disuse, and their legs and feet grow twisted and deformed from standing on slanted wire cage bottoms. Up to 100,000 birds live in a typical warehouse, 1,000 times more birds that can possibly establish a pecking order. In such large numbers, chickens vent their stress and frustration by pecking at each other. To reduce losses, farmers use red-hot blades to slice off chicks’ beaks just hours after the birds hatch. The procedure, which requires cutting through tender tissue similar to the flesh under human fingernails, is so painful that many chicks die of shock. Some die of starvation, when eating becomes too painful. Every year in the laying industry, 280 million newly hatched male chicks – who can’t produce eggs themselves – are thrown into garbage bags or grinders, to suffocate or be crushed or hacked to death."
Imagine you're walking through a beautiful forest and stumble across the day-old carcass of a cow. What's your reaction? Are you hungry? For a real carnivore, like a wolf or leopard, it would be a mouth-watering sight. If you think it's natural for humans to eat meat, put a three-year-old child in a crib with an apple and a live chicken and watch which one he eats and which one he plays with. If you give the same apple and chicken to a young cat of equivalent maturity, it will play with the apple and eagerly kill and eat the chicken, all by itself! Killing is clearly not a natural human act and must originally have been as traumatic an aberration for our species as for any other non-carnivorous animal.
Another principle related to sentimentality is compassion, developing an empathetic bond between oneself and non-human animals. In its most authentic sense, compassion knows no boundaries and is a universal form of love. Just as it would be ludicrous to say one is compassionate only toward members of one's own age, race, gender, religion, or nation, it is absurd to limit compassion to one's own species. The standpoint of compassion shows respect for all forms of life and is moved by the suffering of any living being, whether it can solve mathematical problems or not.
Since the compassionate person would never want to cause harm to any other living being, the next major principle of the vegetarian life is choice. Based on the connections one draws at both the intellectual and emotional levels, it is important to draw the practical consequences and make the right choices in everyday life. As Peter Singer points out in Animal Liberation, "almost all vegetarians were indoctrinated into a meat and cruelty-based culture since birth; until that fateful moment when, by one means or another, we were lucky enough to encounter a vegetarian viewpoint, we really didn't have the choice to be anything but a flesh-eater." Of course, one can still choose to consume flesh after knowledge of its full effects, but the choice would not be rational, responsible, or compassionate.
If one recognizes that we also have moral responsibilities towards our own bodies, then there are plenty of other moral reasons to pursue vegetarianism. The list of physical and psychological problems caused by non-vegetarian diets is seemingly endless. Vegetarian diets are undoubtedly healthier for humans because we were not designed by nature to eat flesh.
References:
- Peter Singer, All Animals are Equal
- Janet E. Smith, Rethinking Capital Punishment
- Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights
- Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time
- Speech delivered by Gandhi at a Social Meeting organized by the London Vegetarian Society, 20 November 1931
- Tibor R. Machan, The Myth of Animal Rights
- Eugene P. Odum, Fundamentals of Ecology
- Holy Bible, Genesis, Chapter 1.
Eugene P. Odum, The Strategy of Ecosystem Development, The Crisis of Survival
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