The NYU Experience
Last night I spoke to an Animal Rights Law class at NYU. I more or less gave an overview of my book-in-progress, The Modern Savage, which takes a critical look at non-industrial animal agriculture. It was a small class, but one comprised of fiercely smart students who were more than happy to challenge my arguments, or at least bring more nuance to them. Lawyers. I never know now to evaluate how these kind of meetings go, but I figure if I leave with more to think about than I came in with, it went well. That happened.
One guy seized upon my grudging willingness to balance ethical purity and pragmatic reality in my activism—by, for example, not blowing a gasket over “meatless Mondays” while holding the line that exploitation of sentient beings is always wrong. So, he wondered, wasn’t the small-scale system of animal production just another case of society taking a bold step in the right direction? Why was I getting all worked up over one and not the other? (Lawyers.)
Honestly, probably because I’ve been centered so laser-like on tearing this small-scale model to shreds, I never thought about it in such terms. Small-scale animal agriculture has always struck me as more of a greenwashed sham than a positive step toward ending animal exploitation. But that’s largely an impression. My answer was thus to concede that, from the consumer’s perspective, this guy was onto something, despite my observation that many consumers of “humane and sustainable” animal products simply want no more than to enjoy a tasty hunk of flesh without guilt.
That said, the sustainable alternative, I reminded him (and myself), may actually be worse in some ways for the producer who, in working so closely with his animals, suffers the psychological fallout of not only slaughtering a sentient being, but slaughtering a sentient being who he raised and knew well. What benefit was there, I wondered, in claiming to care for the welfare of an animal and then killing that animal ? The moral schizophrenia (to paraphrase Francione) that results could only reverberate negatively throughout the food system, much less the society that aims to reform it.
Another woman asked a question that led us into the ethics of a painless killing. The animal is raised well and is killed without warning or pain. What’s the problem here? Lawyers. My answer drew upon an idea that takes me beyond Peter Singer, who essentially accepted such a scenario. It also took me into philosophically thorny terrain. Basically, I mumbled my way through why the enjoyment of life is not only about the past and the present. It’s about the future as well. To slaughter a being who enjoys the experience of life, has some level of memory, and a rudimentary sense of the future is thus to arbitrarily deny a future of experience—some or maybe a lot of it imbued with happiness. Who grants us this right?
A third issue involved meat substitutes. What did I think? On the whole I’m all for them, I explained, because they represent a great technological opportunity to dramatically reduce the consumption of animals. That said, I think that eating animal substitutes tacitly endorses the legitimacy of eating animals–sort of like that those bubble gum cigarettes they used to sell implicitly endorsed smoking. In any case, the question was soon settled when we all walked over to Blossom and ordered a seitan dish that looked like chicken cutlet. Delicious food. No slaughter required.
All in all, it was a mood-boosting, mind-stimulating pleasure to spend an evening with so many thoughtful and inquisitive people.
Tomorrow: why raising horses for meat will never work in the US
Peter Singer’s views have actually evolved on the topic of killing other animals. In the 3rd edition of Practical Ethics, he suggests that it is wrong to kill persons. You might think this is meant to only apply to many human beings, but Singer is using the word in a looser way.
By person, Singer means rational, self-conscious beings aware of themselves as distinct entities with a past and future. He doesn’t set the bar too high for any of these capacities. And he thinks that we have good evidence that many of the animals we eat, such as cows, pigs, chickens, and even fish, would count as persons. Even if the evidence is only suggestive, he thinks we should give these beings the benefit of the doubt.
Anyways, I thought this point was worth raising since Singer’s new position on the ethics of killing is often not recognized.
It’s true that Singer’s views have evolved in certain respects, but in terms of animal killing, I don’t think there is much distance between the second (1993) and third (2011) edition of Practical Ethics. http://davidsztybel.blogspot.com/2010/01/francione-totally-misinterprets-singer.html
Well, I don’t advocate for “meatless Mondays,” but isn’t there a difference between eating no animal flesh one day a week and eating family-farm-raised animal flesh that day?
I never saw a meatless Monday cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I’d rather see one than be …
… a small-producer, slaughtered cow.
(my apologies to poet Gelett Burgess)
Question: when you devoured the tastes-like-chicken seitan dish, James, did you think of your bubble gum cigarette analogy and feel like a reformed smoker?
“[I]sn’t there a difference between eating no animal flesh one day a week and eating family-farm-raised animal flesh that day?”
I think this is the right question, and the answer is clearly ‘yes.’ MM was recently implemented in k-12 LA public schools, specifically the Los Angeles Unified School District (which the second largest school district in the United States) and it’s estimated that cafeterias will serve 650,000 meatless meals *per day.* Hence a big difference. http://www.hlntv.com/video/2013/03/08/la-schools-go-meatless-mondays
The interesting thing about Meatless Monday is that it raises questions about collective versus individual phenomena. In terms of individual psychology and drive towards becoming vegan I have doubts that it will have much of an effect. However, the amount of animals that are saved suffering is significant, such that we can see each person on that day as essentially one seventh of a vegetarian or vegan. If seven people eat vegan for one day, that is the same amount of animal suffering stopped as one vegan on one day. We are a bit obsessed with the individual transformation in some ways, I think, to the detriment of these kinds of practicalities. This one-seventh effect really adds up. In fact a person who eats meatless or vegan one day for twenty years is saving more animals than someone who is gung-ho about veganism for one or two years but can’t quite get it right and ends up discouraged (statistics show this is the case with actually most folks who try veganism). Though Meatless Mondays is imperfect in some respects (which I could write a whole other post about), I think the knee-jerk critique of it is almost always fails to respond to these issues.
Interesting – wish I were there to take part.
Above all else, what gives us the right to take the life of another living creature.
Also, I eat “meatless meat” for many reasons just as I change the characteristics of tofu and tomatoes. Sure it looks like animal meat but I don’t think of it that way. It is real non-meat and often can be tasty.
Meatless Mondays are silly to me really but if it gives some people a reason to look and see the value it represents then it is a good thing
i think all of the points brought up can be countered by the Golden Rule-would you yourself want to be exploited if it were done using small scale, sustainable methods only 6 days a week instead of all 7? would it be OK if you or someone in your family were killed painlessly for the perceived benefit of others? looking at things from the very often ignored victims point of view solves many of these types of justifications and objections-if you do not want something done to you, do not force it upon others. think of how much better the world would be if people would treat all others how we ourselves wish to be treated.
There’s nothing “bold” about small-scale animal agriculture except the bold offensiveness of anyone trying to persuade others that it is in animals’ benefit.
Meatless Mondays, while not without its problems, is an effort to get people to move toward vegetarianism. Small-scale animal agriculture is nothing new, and promoting it helps instill the notion that it is alright for us to use animals for food, fiber, and whatever else we may fancy to do with them. It ingrains and perpetuates speciesism.
Some of the questions that were posed to you remind me that there were slave owners (USA circa pre-1865) who felt they took good care of their slaves, and that justified the practice — an analogy to small farms.
Regarding meatless Mondays, small farming, meat substitutes, etc.: They are not perfect, but a step in the right direction — that’s my vote!
: )
Regarding the acceptability of painlessly killing animals for food: it is commonly believed that Peter Singer, as a utilitarian, would find that acceptable. I had heard that so often in AR discussions that I asked him when I met him at a conference. He said no, in his view, even if an animal was killed painlessly, that animal still has interests. The animals interests in continuing his life would trump a humans desire to eat him.
That is correct: Singer does *not* regard painless animal killing as morally acceptable–he is very clear on this in chapter 5 of Practical Ethics. Most of the relevant quotes from that chapter are provided in this thread: http://philosophybites.com/2012/10/gary-l-francione-on-animal-abolitionism.html
Peter Singer’s view on painless killing is more sophisticated than you suggest. Have a look at what he says in Practical Ethics, particularly the chapter “Taking Life: Animals”.
My comment was directed to James, not Larry.
It might be noted that Singer’s prohibition against even painless killing applies in principle only to those individuals who have a sense of their own future and a desire to continue living. But he says:
“In any case, at the level of practical moral principles, it would be better to reject altogether the killing of animals for food, unless one must do so to survive. Killing animals for food makes us think of them as objects that we can use as we please. Their lives then count for little when weighed against our mere wants. As long as we continue to use animals in this way, to change our attitudes to animals in the way that they should be changed will be an impossible task. How can we encourage people to respect animals, and have equal concern for their interests, if they continue to eat them for their mere enjoyment? To foster the right attitudes of consideration for animals, including non-self-conscious ones, it may be best to make it a simple principle to avoid killing them for food.”
Singer broke with R.M. Hare on that one
It seems the thread got sort of side tracked towards discussing P Singer… Apologize if I misdirect the conversation ever further but I just wanted to share (in case no one has listened to it) an interview with Singer as he discusses hens and their “use” in obtaining eggs.
I think Singer makes it clear that no matter how much better in some small way “free range” might be – In the end… Humans still don’t need eggs for the amount of suffering eggs cause:
http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/table_to_farm/2013/03/table_to_farm_egg_episode_peter_singer_explains_why_it_s_wrong_to_eat_eggs.html
[...] http://james-mcwilliams.com/?p=3445 [...]