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Loading...Why It’s Ethical to Eat Meat
Back in the spring, the New York Times’s Ethicist column ran an essay contest that challenged omnivores to defend the practice of eating meat. “Ethically speaking, vegetables get all the glory,” wrote Ariel Kaminer as she announced the contest. “In recent years, vegetarians — and to an even greater degree vegans, their hard-core inner circle — have dominated the discussion about the ethics of eating… In response, those who love meat have had surprisingly little to say.”
In 600 words or fewer, omnivores were asked to make the strongest possible case for why it is ethical to eat meat. Judges included Mark Bittman, Jonathan Safran Foer, Andrew Light, Michael Pollan and Peter Singer. The contest was criticized by many readers, who variously called it sexist, racist, pro-meat propaganda, antimeat propaganda and elitist. In the end the Times received 3,000 entries.
Below you’ll find my entry for the contest. As a disclaimer, I’ll say I found out about the contest close to the deadline and could have used more time to work out my argument. In fact I would have built my essay on the same premise that the winner did — that “eating meat in specific circumstances is ethical; eating meat raised in other circumstances is unethical.” I continue to be convinced of this.
At any rate, and without further ado, here is the essay I did write and enter on why it is ethical to eat meat.
Eating Meat to Survive
A lion topples a giraffe, a bear slays a fawn, a seal captures squid, and nobody objects. (Non-human) animals will be animals, and they do what they have to to subsist and, if possible, prosper. The circumstances for humans are otherwise. Ethical eaters argue that it’s wrong for humans to kill animals for food where survival is not at stake. As omnivores with a conscience, humans have a choice in what we eat and understand the ethical implications of our choices. This is why we are held to a higher standard. But how did humans, unlike every other animal in nature, evolve the cognitive capacity to consider the ethics of our choices in the first place?
Part of the answer is, by eating animals. “The first requirement for evolving a big brain,” Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham writes in”Catching Fire,” “is the ability to fuel it, and to do so reliably.” Dense in energy and easy to digest, meat (especially when cooked) provided an excellent source of food for the brain. In fact, most anthropologists believe that it was by beginning to eat meat that our ancestors saw a substantial gain in relative brain size millions of years ago. Bigger brains of course could accommodate more advanced cognitive functions, including abstract thought and language. So you could say that eating meat made it possible for us to deliberate the ethics of eating meat. For our ancestors, the choice to partake of other animals may not have been a question of survival, but their choice did contribute to the evolution of the species we are today — that is, to modern human existence. As such, can it be considered unethical?
Then again, that was then. Now that we are the ethical, rational species we are, we have a responsibility to act accordingly. And this makes it wrong for us to eat products derived from factory farm animals, who are subjected to terrible and unnecessary suffering in confinement. Moreover, as vegan and vegetarian eaters and societies have shown us, eating meat is not critical for our survival; it is possible to enjoy well-being on plant foods alone. So how can it be ethical to kill any animals, humanely raised or not, for food?
In today’s food environment, eating meat may in fact be the best bet for survival for many Americans. It is a more reliable way for them to get the energy and nourishment they need. In many areas of the country, fruits, vegetables and whole grains are hard to come by, and adhering to a plant-only diet would — calorie for calorie, gram for gram — costs more money (and time that can’t be spared) than one consisting of bacon-topped burgers and fried chicken, which are subsidized by our country’s industrial agricultural system. Composing a complete and balanced plant-only diet, moreover, requires a level of knowledge of foods, nutrients and supplements that most Americans are nowhere near having. Abolishing meat from the diets of Americans would not be unlike throwing them to the wolves.
Eating meat in America today is ethical because many of us have come to rely on it, to an extent, for our survival. And this is in no small measure a byproduct of the American food system, which promotes a meat-based diet while obstructing other ways of eating. But surely we’ll continue to evolve as a species and as a society, and it’s possible to imagine how someday meat-eating will be considered unequivocally unethical.
Related Stories:
Former Vegans Explain Why They Eat Meat: Are You Convinced?
Read more: eating meat, food ethics, new-york-times, omnivores, vegan, vegetarian
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Recent Comments from Causes
Thnaks, interesting article and viewpoint.
@Pamela W. Now now, don't be nasty, I'm certain our poor Henri graduated from prep school, at least!!!…
Harper needs to go, plain and simple. Petition signed.
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+ add your ownI eat beef very sparingly, and only free range animals , pastured, organic, antibiotic free, not factory farmed. Recently I talked wth a local farmer (at a weekly loca-vore open air market) about maybe each summer getting an order of 'free range humanely slaughtered pig 'bacon for a few summertine BLTs. I haven't eaten veal for 30 years, nor pork for 7 due to the awful penning up of these animals while alive. Free range hormone and antibiotic free chicken about once a week (trying to really be sure they really are free range) and free range eggs, some type fish , generally wild caught salmon, maybe mussels or shrimp, a couple of times a week. So - chicken weekly, fish 2 x week, the rest not, rarely beef, one order of bacon. To my mind, we're omnivores, and we can ethically include a little animal protein IF we raise and slaughter -- or hunt -- with responsibility for the process to the whole ecosystem and the animal.
Eating meat is ethical?! What a crap.
As we evolve there will be less people eat meat, more vegans. The way we eat is primitive.
It's the way a food is raised, it's impact on the environment that makes it ethical or unethical. I belive it's more ethical to eat sustainably, humanely raised/slaughtered beef than to eat a vegetarian diet of industrially farmed plant foods. However, I can't afford such meat, so I am veggie and doing my best to buy local/organic.
Thank you for most interesting article!
loved the article. thanks
Well, well, well, my comment has been copied twice. I assume my complaint about Care2 currently giving me the technical glitch of already being signed in, then being asked to sign in yet again while the comment disappears will also reappear...except this time both comments appeared. Maybe this is an improvement and it will soon also stop asking me to sign in again when going to another article.
Does Mother Nature have to come back down to the Earth and redesign the DNA of every entity on this planet? When she becomes vegan and morphs us into eating inorganic rock pate then I assume these endless debates on what humans consume to sustain ourselves will finally fizzle out. Until then, face it...we are stuck with our present DNA.
If one wants to be vegan or vegetarian then abstain from eating animals or in the case of vegans...honey, eggs, dairy. If you have meat in the diet then try portions the size of a deck of cards hopefully from non-factory farm sources. Kindly consume organic veggies not doused in the present allotment of pesticides. Monsanto's icy tentacles are encircling the globe and may well cross contaminate all natural plant based food within 30 years. Accomplishing this, we may soon all glow in the dark as the long term effects from GMO foods are not yet known. Thanks for nothing Monsanto, tell me - will we glow green, corn yellow or Agent Orange? Time will tell.
Does Mother Nature have to come back down to the Earth and redesign the DNA of every entity on this planet? When she becomes vegan and morphs us into eating inorganic rock pate then I assume these endless debates on what humans consume to sustain ourselves will finally fizzle out. Until then, face it...we are stuck with our present DNA.
If one wants to be vegan/vegetarian then abstain from eating animals or in the case of vegans...honey, eggs, dairy. Meat in the diet? Try portions the size of a deck of cards hopefully from non-factory farm sources. Kindly consume organic veggies not doused in the present allotment of pesticides. Monsanto's icy tentacles are encircling the globe and may well cross contaminate all natural plant based food within 30 years. We may soon all glow in the dark as the long term effects from GMO foods are not yet known. Will we glow green, yellow or Agent Orange?
Dalila, our discourse has been pleasant and I have enjoyed it, but I’m afraid I can’t really ignore your behaviour towards Diane L any further. Calling her an “immature, misinformed, self righteous, bag of flesh” is just going too far.
Diane has been my dear friend for years. I have cried with her as she has lost many loved companions, many rescues that no one else would have, and gone through terrible times. She has comforted me greatly in my times of crisis or sadness. You do not know her, you only form a judgement from her comments in a C2 thread. Would you like someone to speak to you the way you have spoken to her? How would you feel if someone called your mother those things?
I saw that she misinterpreted a few things you said, but you misinterpreted things she said as well, along with the tone in which she meant it. Instead of trying to clarify things or address the confusion in a nice way - as you did with me - you got frustrated and assumed she was attacking you. You were wrong. You claim you would lay down and die rather than eat meat because of your love and respect for other living things, yet you intentionally abused and hurt one of your own kind? I’m sorry, but I can’t enjoy a conversation with you while you are abusing and hurting my friend. Good-bye.
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