The Ultimate Act Of Solipsism
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The Atlantic has an article out right now about food politics. Here’s a little snippet from the article:
The food movement has taught us to doggedly investigate every facet of our food system. This noble imperative has led to an admirable increase in public awareness about the source and quality of everything we eat. But our collective effort to vet the food system of any and all abuse ironically slams on the brakes when reason get too close to the brink of animal rights.
Nonetheless, I wonder what we might discover if, somehow or other, we careened over the edge and seriously explored, in the popular press, the ethics of animal exploitation. What if we discussed the moral and legal rights of animals with the same level of detail we bring to discussion about where to find the best prosciutto?
Perhaps the most intellectually jarring conclusion we might reach is that our current philosophical justification for dominating the non-human world is embarrassingly antiquated.
You can read the whole thing at http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/05/foodies-vs-darwin-how-meat-eaters-ignore-science/239127/
The article is written by James McWilliams, author of Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly.
The best part is this recent Atlantic piece is this:
we can no longer blithely dismiss animals as driven by “pure instinct.” To the contrary, we have an obligation to contemplate the fact that non-human animals (especially higher ones) make conscious choices, experience genuine emotion, and might even (as in the case of elephants) have the mental and emotional wherewithal to seek revenge. In short, they have interests. To reject these findings—findings that have been fully established with relatively little investigation—would be, as Terry Tempest Williams puts it, “the ultimate act of solipsism.” Humans would be the ones following instinct—the deep-down instinct that says we’re inherently superior.
What do you think?
great post – so glad i saw this!