In John Glionna’s article about China’s meat-eating habits the major issue is not the morality of meat-eating, or even the harmful effect on the environment, but the effect on those consuming the animal flesh. Glionna notes the peculiar and sometimes dangerous foods eaten in China, such as scorpions, silkworms, snakeheads, cats, and badgers. There have been many food scares in China, and outbreaks of illnesses that have been caused by the animals in the Chinese diet. Glionna says that the SARS outbreak in China is believed to have come from the consumption of Civet cats, a species commonly eaten in southern China. Unlike the American take on vegetarianism, Glionna points out that in poor areas of China the meatless diet is not exactly an option. He says, “In poor areas, residents have adapted their diet to whatever staples they can find, including cats, and even rats.” An issue in China that is not relevant in the U.S. is the slaughtering and consumption of rare and even endangered animals, such as turtles that are cooked in many high class restaurants. Another problem is that many of the delicacies in China are the most dangerous. A prime example is the savory treat known as “drunken shrimp”. The shrimp are dipped in alcohol and eaten alive after the head is pinched off. Shrimp carry many parasites that can be harmful if eaten raw, but this issue is made less important than the taste of the delicacy. The Chinese are promoting vegetarianism to develop a healthy food environment, not to protect the rights of animals.
I thought this article was so interesting, not only because of all the crazy foods that the Chinese consider delicious, but because not eating animals is not a moral issue to them as it is to us. Since we don’t experience a fraction of the sickness and disease that comes from animals as they do, we don’t consider much the health related reasons for a vegetarian diet. I think that even not eating certain animals is a priority in China rather than giving up meat altogether. What is interesting is that the argument against meat eating presented here is almost the opposite of Peter Singer’s argument. This argument simply considers the human needs and effects of meat, not the effects on the animals. It actually has nothing to do with the wellbeing of the animals. In China abstaining from meat is seen as something one might do to protect him or herself from disease, while in the U.S. it is immediately seen as a cry for animal rights.
Freston, Kathy. "Vegetarian is the New Prius." AlterNet. 7 Feb. 2007. 15 Mar. 2009
In Kathy Freston’s article “Vegetarianism is the New Prius” she explains the numerous environmental reasons for altering one’s diet to exclude meat. Freston says that "The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” She mentions the amount of crops we are required to grow in order to feed the animals we raise for slaughter, and the amount of transportation required to distribute the meat all over the country. According to the article, animal agriculture takes up about seventy percent of all agricultural land, and over thirty percent of the total land surface of the planet. Freston also takes into account the harmful gasses produced by factory farming such as methane and nitrous oxide. She notes that the U.S. slaughters over ten billion land animals each year. At the end of the article, Freston sort of hints at a society where there are more vegetarians than meat-eaters. She believes that this information about meat production’s harmful effects can be used as a tool to help save the environment.
I believe that Freston brings up shockingly relevant information about what our food culture is doing to the environment, but I also believe that any sort of expectation for a large quantity of people to change their diet to meatless because of this news is too high of an expectation. I think that, as of now, this information is not inaccessible, but that people are simply ignorant to the fact that their diet has any effect on the environment. The fact is that when we use today’s factory methods of raising animals for slaughter we waste a huge amount of food in the process and loose nutritional value. In many cultures a vegetarian diet would be almost impossible, so I think that many Americans might rebel against the idea if it were somehow enforced by saying that their meat eating must also be considered a necessity. It is a hope of mine that someday the majority of people will change their diet of their own accord, after realizing the effects of their meat consumption on the world
Singer, Peter. "Equality For Animals?" Practical Ethics. Cambridge UP, 1979. 1-14.
In chapter three of Peter Signer's book Practical Ethics he discusses the morality of the treatment of non-human animals and the ethics behind our food choices. His philosophical argument breaks down into two different parts: why it is wrong for animals to suffer and why it is wrong for us to kill and eat animals. He believes that we have a moral duty to extend the principle of equality to those animals that are non-human, and that if we do not, we are practicing a form of racism. He calls this type of discrimination "specieism, " and believes that we believe it is okay for us to use animals for our benefit for arbitrary reasons. In his words, "Specieists give greater weight to the interests of members of their own species when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of other species." Singer believes that our discrimination towards animals is no different than whites discriminating against blacks and so on. SInger believes that the only factor of important when it comes to considering a being's moral rights is that being's ability to suffer and/or experience pleasure. He describes how you cannot defend a lifestyle that causes animal suffrage by saying that they lack knowledge or skill, because there are many human beings who lack these things, but we consider it morally unacceptable to kill these humans. Singer explains how meat is not necessary for good health and therefore meat is, for most, a luxury. Therefore we are inflicting this suffering on animals in order to obtain something that we don't truly need. Singer makes it a point to recognize that there are many primitive cultures who may not be able to survive, at least in their current state, without the consumption of meat. He talks about eskimos, and tribes who hunt for their own food. He points out, however, that hunting for one's own food is a better method than today's mass production techniques that do not take the animals into consideration at all and simply treat them as objects to be sold. Singer ends the essay with a comparison of humans and animals, and notes that most of the differences between the two are differences of "degree rather than kind."
I believe Singer makes many relevant points in the essay, but that his argument has a fundamental problem. The debate Singer is attempting is one, I think, that cannot be won by philosophy. The argument presupposes that the "principle of equality" is a universal good; that if things are equal somehow they are better. Singer says, "having accepted the principle of equality as a sound moral basis for relations with others of our own species, we are also committed to accepting it as a sound moral basis for relations with those outside our own species." I, personally, accept this principle of equality, but there are many people who have not, and so we cannot ask them to consider extending a principle which they do not accept. I think that the exceptions to his rules are too many, and could be made more numerous by the ambiguity of words like "necessity" and "luxury." Every person has a different conception of their own needs. Singer believes that most animals are capable of suffering, but that if we cannot know if they have this capability, we should give them the benefit of the doubt and still try to eliminate their suffering even if we are not sure it exists. I think that if he would give the "benefit of the doubt" to animals like ants, then considering whether any animal suffers is irrelevant. We could give the benefit of the doubt to any living thing, like a plant, and then we wouldn't be able to eat anything. I tend to lean more towards Singer's arguments against factory farming and the way in which meat is produced, because of the environmental and nutritional consequences. I also agree with him that humans should not assume that animals were simply put on the earth for their benefit, and that we have a right to kill them because they don't have the skill or intelligence that we possess. I think that it is impossible to make any philosophical argument that is one hundred percent right or true, but I also believe Singer should re-evaluate the principle of equality and it's universality.
Anecdote:
The car I drive around (my brother's) has a bumper sticker that reads, "toss my salad, i'm a vegetarian!" Usually I neglect to remember that it's back there, but occassionally I'm reminded when I get a honk or a creepy stare from a fellow driver. I was a vegetarian for a little over a year between the ages of sixteen and seventeen. My main reason: my brother was a vegetarian and I wanted to be just like him. Other reasons included being disgusted at the thought of biting into flesh and caring about animal rights. After researching the moral arguments for vegetarianism I think that now I would choose the lifestyle not because of any moral argument, but because of the environmental consequences. Now whenever someone positively responds to the bumper sticker I wonder about their reasons for choosing a meatless diet; whether they're environmentally conscious, care about animal suffrage, or simply want to have a peace-loving, earthy, hippyish image.
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