Killing Your Conscience?
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Yes! Magazine has a powerful essay on the ethics of eating animals. In fact, the entire issue is about animals. See the video preview:
Here is one section of the essay, part of a debate on the question “Should We Eat Animals?”, below, but please go read the entire thing, available online at http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/can-animals-save-us/humane-meat-no-such-thing.
The essay’s subtitle is: “If you have to kill your conscience to eat, it’s not worth it.”
Niman—along with others who support sustainable meat—says that animals’ emotions are not an argument against eating meat—just an argument against cruelty. These conscientious omnivores argue that the justification for meat-eating lies elsewhere. They say we must overcome our empathy with an individual animal’s will to live to grasp something greater—Nature.
Nature is one of the most common justifications for animal exploitation. The arguments range from romantic declarations about the cycles of nature to nuanced discussions of sustainable farming. But the assertion that something is “natural” (or “unnatural”) has long been used to rationalize terrible things.
As a disabled person I find arguments based on what’s “natural” highly problematic. Throughout history and all over the world, I would have, at worst, been killed at birth or, at best, culturally marginalized—and nature would have been a leading justification. Disability is often seen as a personal tragedy that naturally leads to marginalization, rather than as a political and civil rights issue. Many people now reject using “nature” to justify things like sexism, white supremacy, and homophobia but still accept it as a rationale for animal exploitation and disability discrimination.
That’s really the essence of veganism: respect and empathy for others.
Check out the entire issue here >>
I think a lot of “conscientious meat-eater” arguments seem to commit what I’ve come to call “the red-handed politician’s gambit.” This is where you proclaim yourself to be doing X, as a way of avoiding doing X.
Basically, the archetypal politicians’ gambit goes something like this:
(scene: press conference)
Politician: …so, in conclusion I am deeply sorry that I embezzled from the state pension fund to pay for my re-election campaign. I take full responsibility for what happened, and it was my choice and no one else’s.
Journalist: So, does that mean you’re going to resign, and then plead guilty to the charges you’re facing?
Politician: What? No! I just took full responsibility by proclaiming that I had done so. Nothing further is required.
Okay, those last two lines are a bit silly: journalists usually don’t ask that sort of question, and the politician would never put what he’s doing so plainly (if he’s even aware of it himself). The point is, the politician is attempting to use a declaration that’s he’s taking responsibility as a substitute for actually taking responsibility.
A lot of the articles I see in the “conscientious carnivore” vein seem similar — they attempt to use a declaration of awareness and conscientiousness as proof of the properties being declared.
I’m inclined to think this can’t have been the approach these people took to get through college. It wouldn’t have worked too well, I’d think.
“Q: Describe some of the factors leading to the Taiping Rebellion.”
“A: While the journey was not an easy one, I felt like the Chinese history class had been a worthwhile growing experience. I left the lecture hall with a deeper understanding of Chinese history — and of how Chinese history relates to the present, both to the Chinese and the rest of the world — than I had ever had before.”
“Q: Suppose tert-butyl bromide and sodium methoxide are combined. Will the reaction primarily proceed via the SN1 pathway or the SN2 pathway?
“A: Learning organic chemistry from all of the angles, not just angles I hadn’t considered before, but angles of which I previously could not even conceive, has profoundly enriched my understanding. The depth and complexity of these issues ensure that there are no easy answers, but a new awareness of the issues involved has permanently altered and clarified my perspective on the world and our place in it as carbon-based beings.”
I think that in the case of the exhortation to overcome your conscience, something which isn’t quite the red-handed politicians’ gambit, but which is similar in nature, is going on. Basically, there really are times when perhaps you might have to do something which seems wrong but is ultimately necessary. For instance, if you have a substance abusing family member who refuses to get help, then cutting that person off might be painful, and if you see that person suffering in ways you could help them avoid, then maybe you’ll feel like you have to “kill your conscience” to go through with it.
The long form argument goes something like this: “It’s difficult, but ultimately enabling your loved one’s alcoholism isn’t helping her. It’s really in her long-term interest to make her realize she needs help, even if she suffers in the short term. Your immediate sentiments might be leading you astray.”
This is sometimes shortened to “Sometimes you’ve got to overcome the sentimentality of your conscience and cut her off until she gets help.”
Then conscious carnivores use the short form like so: “Sometimes you’ve got to overcome the sentimentality of your conscience and slaughter a pig.”
However, a long-form version of of that shortened argument couldn’t possibly look like the long-form version of the stop-enabling-the-addict argument.
It is in this that the red-handed politician’s gambit is similar to “transcend your petty conscience and sentimentality” arguments. In the politician’s gambit, the fact that declaring you’re doing X (e.g. saying “I take full responsibility”) and actually doing X (e.g. resigning and turning yourself in) are frequently associated is used to use declaring you’re doing X as a substitute for doing X. In the “kill your conscience” version, the fact that short-form arguments which amount to “you’ve got to overcome your initial sentiments and do this even if your conscience objects” are often associated with longer-form arguments which include more detailed reasoning for why this is necessary is used to give the illusion that short-form arguments of the “overcome your conscience” variety must have some validity, even if the longer-form arguments don’t exist.