Law v. Singer: The Morality of Meat, Part III

This post is continued from "Stephen Law v. Peter Singer: The Morality of Meat, Part I" (2008, December 10) and "Law v. Singer: The Morality of Meat, Part II" (2008, December 20), below.

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In the previous two parts of this now longish essay, I've argued that the most serious problem in Law's support of his thesis that it is immoral to eat meat occurs immediately after his introduction, where he fails to take seriously enough, and fails to answer, both the idea that what matters is the quality of life lived by the animal and the animal's capabilities (2003). When we apply the principle that it ia morally wrong to cause needless suffering, which can be physical, psychological or otherwise, to particular circumstances, it appears, for example, that the Wilson's christmas turkey may be enjoyed with no moral worries: it led a happy life, free of suffering and worry, and was killed painlessly before Mrs Wilson turned it into christmas dinner. Gemma is free to choose not to eat this particular turkey, but it not at all clear that she has any good reason for objecting that it is immoral to eat it. On the other hand, eating mass produced chickens grown in cramped and painful mass production facilities of the type run by companies like CP is immoral: it is morally wrong to eat chicken produced under such inhumane and morally ugly conditions. If you have not already read them, you might like to read, or go back and reread, the first two parts.

At the end of both parts I and II, I suggested that although I think eating meat is in fact morally acceptable, that not everyone who agrees with me on that, and especially not everyone who has agreed with my supporting argument so far, would be so happy when they considered just what their agreement entails.

Ideas, principles and arguments have consequences, and just as you cannot ignore opposing arguments in a persuasive essay, neither can you ignore the consequences of your own supporting ideas. For example, people often argue that smoking must be banned in restaurants because it is unhealthy, in particular, that it harms non-smokers. This sounds plausible, but is really an awful argument. When analysed, it relies on the more general principle that if something is unhealthy or harms other people, then that is a good enough reason that it must be banned: smoking certainly harms others; therefore, it must be banned wherever there are others. The trouble is that smoking is not the only thing that is unhealthy or that harms others. The very tasty kao kha mu (ข้าวขาหมู) that is readily available on the streets of Bangkok is also unhealthy and harmful: it is full of very unhealthy fats and contains approximately zero vegetables, unless you cound some garlic and chillies. If we accept the principle that anything that is unhealthy or harms others must be banned, then all those sellers of that tasty Thai dish must be banned and perhaps thrown into prison! Worse, cars produce pollution that is unhealthy and harmful to everyone in Bangkok, including millions of non-motorists, therefore the government must ban the use of all private cars in Bangkok. These examples might sound ridiculous, and they are. However, they are ridiculous because the general principle is ridiculous. There is nothing ridiculous about the fact that pollution from cars is unhealthy. That is just a well established fact. The problem is in the principle that it is right to ban anything that is unhealthy or harms others. And once we realise that this principle is seriously flawed, it becomes much less obvious that it is right for the government to ban smoking in restaurants. There might still be good supporting reasons for such a ban, but they have to be better than the simple idea that anything unhealthy should be banned.

Similarly, there are consequences elsewhere of agreeing with the general moral principle that I've borrowed from Peter Singer to support the idea that eating meat is not necessarily immoral as Stephen Law argues. Those consequences are so upsetting to many people that Singer received death threats when he published them, which is not so unusual for philosophers. People think that philosophy is a nice, safe sort of occupation messing around with books and words, which is true, but those words have often upset people so much that the writers were either threatened with death or actually murdered. For example, Socrates, often seen as the father of Western philosophy, was murdered by the Athenian mob of democrats in 399 BC because of his ideas. The charges brought by the politician Meletus were that Socrates was corrupting the young and did not believe in the gods (Plato, trans. 1997); perhaps Peter Singer is not in such bad company.

The conclusion of my reason for disagreeing with Stephen Law's thesis that eating meat is immoral is a homework exercise: what are the consequences of the opposing argument I've outlined in parts I, II and III above that so upset people that they wanted to kill Peter Singer? What do you think about those consequences? Do you still think that the argument is right, that it is morally acceptable to eat meat? Feel welcome to share your ideas in a comment.

(I would not advise ending a TOEFL essay with a homework exercise for the marker, although a final question might be OK.)

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References

Law, S. (2003). Carving the roast beast. In The Xmas Files (pp.124 - 140). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Plato. Euthyphro. Gallop, D. (trans., 1997). In Plato: Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro, Crito (p. 1 - 23). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Singer, P. (2002). Animal Liberation. New York: ECCO.