Vegetarianism/Veganism

At the risk of sounding provocative, my current attitude towards vegetarianism might be best summed up by Greg G in a debate on the subject on the Freedomain Radio forums:

‘Fuck the wales, SAVE ME!’

For years I have moralized the issue, railed against meat eaters for not caring about animal welfare, written to politicians, gone to protests, handed out leaflets and maintained a strict vegan diet. In the last year this all stopped, and I’ve gone back to being just plain veggie, nonetheless the moral question is still on my mind. In this post I want to lay the subject to rest. I know from plenty of personal experience that with such a murky and politicised area of ethics, there’s no bullet-proof argument I can use. At least I’ve not once found a debate end in peaceful agreement or understanding.

Whilst I don’t think killing animals is wrong, torturing them certainly is, and eating too much of it is of course unhealthy. Nonetheless meat and/or dairy products are essential parts of the human diet. Whilst you can apparently get by on supplements of vitamin B12, calcium, zinc and Vitamin D (the list goes on) it would be irresponsible to raise a child veggie, just as it would to maintain the diet whilst pregnant or breastfeeding in the face of the dire risk of malnourishment and protein deficiencies.

If we’re to test the hypothesis that ‘eating meat is bad’ is a valid moral claim, we can run through the logic using the rational framework of what is universally preferable behaviour. Before we can say it stands to reason, it must apply to all people with the capacity for free will in all places at all times.  Surely the statement falls at the first hurdle. Ethics doesn’t apply to animals since they don’t have free will. Of course nobody of a sound mind would argue that a lion is immoral for taking down a gazel, nor that all carnivorous species should die out in order to conform to this ethical rule on their behaviour. This doesn’t mean however that we can’t have compassion for their welfare, and extend to farm animals the right to descent and humane conditions and treatment. Any individual who prefers this should be free to act on it, and I’ve every reason to expect less meat consumption and higher standards of animal welfare in the absence of a government which subsidizes production.

This leads me to the real focus of my argument against the politicized and moralized vegetarian agenda. When we live in a world where children go mistreated and unheard in their billions, where wars devastate whole continents and obliterate entire cities, where whole classes are held in poverty through coercive state policies, shouldn’t we seriously be be reassessing our idea of triage before worrying so much about issues like this? My thoughts on this aspect also echo those of Stef, who posted in the same thread as the quote above:

‘I say: Let’s focus on saving animals after we have stopped the murder and imprisonment of millions of people through the state and the church’