A Twisted Ethical Logic
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James McWilliams, Associate Professor of history at Texas State University, San Marcos, and author of Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly, writes:
“It’s difficult to imagine any other issue where such a basic sense of right and wrong is so thoroughly perverted. But when it comes to slaughtering animals, even animals raised under the strictest welfare standards, a twisted ethical logic prevails. Killing a sentient being becomes a common good celebrated by food writers and environmentalists in glossy and well-respected publications. But trying to prevent that killing, something vegans and animal rights activists throughout the world do every day (with minimal recognition), is deemed a violation of nature and consumer choice, if not just an all-out massive bummer.”
I find the McWilliams piece interesting (and, to tell the truth, a little strange) because he seems to leave the idea that nature is normative unchallenged. I’m not sure whether that’s what he actually thinks, or whether it’s just that he wanted to keep his post narrowly focused on the question of “how natural is free range meat” rather than delve into other questions which might detract from it. If he actually is a real believe in nature-is-normative, though, that would be very interesting, since Natural Law advocates seem to often be so reactionary (on a lot of issues, especially on the gender/sexuality axis, but often on animals too).
I liked the article and was disturbed by so many of the comments, which reinforced McWilliams’ point.
mmmm bacon