Eating meat is a quintessential part of societies all over the world. What would the world be if not for a juicy hamburger or bacon with eggs? The giant turkey leg is one of the most iconic snacks in Disneyworld, the land of magic. But, with the increase of vegetarians worldwide, and more people having the choice to live solely off vegetables, the practice of eating meat comes into question. Is it ethical to eat meat? This question, although ancient, has grown over time, with overwhelming evidence to go vegan or vegetarian. However. while eating meat in today’s society is unethical, that doesn’t necessarily mean people have to give it up.
There aren’t a lot of points meat-eaters can make. One of the most common ones is that any carnivore or omnivore does it – without them, herbivores would run loose, overpopulating habitats worldwide, or even the opposite – they’ll go extinct. However, this argument is flawed in that if the demand for livestock goes down the natural supply of livestock naturally decreases. Some people have the choice to reduce animal suffering – yet many don’t. From an anti-meat eating viewpoint, eating meat just for pleasure, just because it tastes good, is rationally and morally unjustifiable.
Another argument is that humans have been eating meat for at least 2.6 million years, according to Smithsonian paleoanthropologist Briana Pobiner (Nature). Why change that? In addition, animals have been domesticated for thousands of years, with humans and animals living side by side. In Nick Zangwill’s, “Our Moral Duty to Eat Meat,” he argues that we must eat meat because domesticated animals rely on us – just as we rely on them. In the past, with disregard to current extremely cruel factory farming, humans have given animals, in general, good lives. To put it plainly, he states that a happy cow that is raised to be slaughtered is better than no cow at all (Zangwill). The major counter-argument to this is that, no matter how they come into life, no animal wants to suffer. Farmed animals lived without us and some people are now able to live without them as well.
There are countless reasons to stop or decrease meat intake; health, environmental, and in particular, animal welfare. Livestock production takes up a fifth of the world’s carbon emissions and requires tens of times of land and water (Nuwer). There are countless horrors of factory farming, and that’s one of the driving reasons why people go vegan. However, most don’t. That’s because each person is a blend of their cultures – many of which have meat consumption engrained deeply within them. People were raised eating meat, they have family recipes and comfort foods. To expect people to be in a position where they can let go of a part of themselves is unreasonable.
The community of vegans and vegetarians is a culture as well, and people are free to enter and leave that community – just as someone wouldn’t push their religious views on someone else, meat-eating should be treated similarly. People are not fully rational and most people choose to do so. It takes time to change; people in future generations will not have the same connection to meat as we or our ancestors have. Through these changes, “ethical omnivores” have been born – people who are opposed to factory farming and support free-range farming and other more “ethical” ways of meat consumption. And while there may not be any form of “ethical” animal farming, it is still a colossal step from a few centuries ago, when scientists like Rene Descartes, called animals unconscious and unable to feel pain (Smith). Because it’s unrealistic for people to drop parts of their cultures, I believe that people don’t have to give up eating meat, at least not immediately, even though meat consumption is inherently unethical.
-Max
Works Cited
Nuwer, Rachel. “Raising Beef Uses Ten Times More Resources than Poultry, Dairy, Eggs or Pork.” Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian Institution, 21 July 2014, www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-times-more-resources-poultry-dairy-eggs-pork-180952103/.
Pobiner, Briana. “Evidence for Meat-Eating by Early Humans.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 2013, www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/evidence-for-meat-eating-by-early-humans-103874273/.
Smith, Jack. "Vegetarianism and Veganism: Animals and Moral Status." The Missouri Review, vol. 39 no. 2, 2016, p. 179-190. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/mis.2016.0031, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/623544/.
Zangwill, Nick. Our Moral Duty to Eat Meat. Cambridge University Press, 2021, Cambridge University Press, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-american-philosophical-association/article/our-moral-duty-to-eat-meat/8FBE9042D1AFDBDE56F6CE1B56D25C82.
