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The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Philip E. Devine
Philip E. Devine
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, La Crosse
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Extract

If someone abstains from meat-eating for reasons of taste or personal economics, no moral or philosophical question arises. But when a vegetarian attempts to persuade others that they, too, should adopt his diet, then what he says requires philosophical attention. While a vegetarian might argue in any number of ways, this essay will be concerned only with the argument for a vegetarian diet resting on a moral objection to the rearing and killing of animals for the human table. The vegetarian, in this laense, does not merely require us to change or justify our eating habits, but to reconsider our attitudes and behaviour towards members of other species across a wide range of practices.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 53 , Issue 206 , October 1978 , pp. 481 - 505
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1978

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References

1 Pride of place among contemporary philosophical vegetarians probably belongs to Peter Singer. Singer's contribution includes an article (in Moral Problems, Rachels, James (ed.), 2nd ed. (New York: 1975)Google Scholar) and a book (New York Review, 1975)Google Scholar, both sharing the title ‘Animal Liberation’.

Singer's essay started life as a review (in The New York Review of Books) of Animals, Man and Morals, Stanley, and Godlovitch, Roslind and Harris, John. (eds), (New York: Grove, n.d.)Google Scholar. Another anthology is Animal Rights and Human Obligations, Singer, Peter and Regan, Tom (eds), (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976).Google Scholar

Also worthy of mention are Regan, Tom, ‘The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, V, No. 2 (10, 1975)Google Scholar and the discussion in Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford: Blackwell, n.d.), 35 ffGoogle Scholar. Clark, Stephen R. L., The Moral Status of Animals (Oxford, 1977)Google Scholar, is of special interest as a Christian vegetarian, but does not contribute much to the vegetarian argument. See also Maclver, A. M., ‘Ethics and the Beetle’, in Ethics, Thomson, Judith J. and Dworkin, Gerald (eds), (New York: Harper & Row, 1968).Google Scholar

Useful critical discussions include Donaghy, Kevin, ‘Singer on Speciesism’, Philosophic Exchange (Summer, 1974)Google Scholar; Steinbock, Bonnie, ‘Speciesism and the Idea of Equality’, American Philosophical Association (Eastern Division), 1975 (published in Philosophy, 04, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ronald DeSousa's comments on Steinbock's paper.

I am also indebted to the following for criticisms and suggestions: Merritt Abrash, Albert Flores, Roger Guttentag, James Hanink, John Koller, Joseph Ryshpan and David Wieck.

I discuss the issues concerning the killing of human beings touched on in this paper in The Ethics of Homicide (Cornell University Press, 1978).Google Scholar

2 One might object to the use of the word ‘animal’ in this context, as concealing the fact that human beings are also a kind of animal. But while this objection has greater merit than most ideological objections to common usage, it would be pedantic to attempt a greater revolutionary purity than that achieved by the revolutionaries themselves.

3 This is the criterion proposed by Mill, John Stuart, Collected Works, X, Robson, J. M. (ed.), (Toronto: 1969), 187.Google Scholar

4 The relevant passage in Bentham is n. 330 to An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. In The Utilitarians (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1961), 380–381.Google Scholar

5 The phrase ‘permanently and by their nature’ distinguishes animal pain from that of human infants for example.

6 For an attempt to sort out these elements, see Trigg, Roger, Pain and Emotion (Oxford: 1970).Google Scholar

7 Harris, John, ‘Killing for Food’, Animals, Men and Morals, op. cit., n. i, p. 99.Google Scholar

8 Anscombe, G. E. M., ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’Google Scholar, in Thomson, and Dworkin, (eds), op. cit., n. 1, 206–207.Google Scholar

9 Regan, , op. cit., n. 1, 199.Google Scholar

10 The strategy embedded in the word ‘sexism’ is already questionable. For a brilliant critique see Dummett, Ann, ‘Racism and Sexism’, New Blackfriars, 56Google Scholar

11 See the passage from ‘Human Duties and Animal Rights’, an unpublished essay under copyright by the Humane Society of America, quoted in Regan, , op. cit., n. 1, 187.Google Scholar

12 Animal Liberation, op. cit., n. 1, 6.Google Scholar

13 See his debate with Wrong, Dennis in A Dissenter's Guide to Foreign Policy, Howe, Irving (ed.), (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1968), Pt. IIIGoogle Scholar. The quotation is from Heilbroner, 's ‘Rebuttal’, 274, n. 2.Google Scholar

14 Godlovitch, Roslind, ‘Animals and Morals’, in Animals, Men and Morals, op. cit., n. 1.Google Scholar

15 Animal Liberation, op. cit., n. 1, 245–246.Google Scholar

16 This is the point of Orwell, George's discussion (The Road to Wigan Pier (New York: 1958), pp. 173–175).Google Scholar

17 Wertheimer, Roger, ‘Philosophy on Humanity’, in Abortion, Perkins, Robert L. (ed.), (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1974), 123.Google Scholar

18 See for instance Jenkins, Peter, ‘Ask No Questions’, in Animal Rights and Human Obligations, op. cit., n. 1.Google Scholar

19 The questions of abortion and contraception are raised in this context by Singer, , ‘Animal Liberation’, op. cit., n. 1, 172Google Scholar. (A vegetarian may of course also be an opponent of abortion; see Clark, , op. cit., n. 1, esp. 74–76.)Google Scholar

20 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard, 1972), 506.Google Scholar

21 See Montagu, Ashley, Man's Most Dangerous Myth, 4th ed. (Cleveland: 1964).Google Scholar

22 For detailed discussion see Lucas, J. R., ‘“Because You are a Woman”’, in Moral Problems, op. cit., n. 1.Google Scholar

23 Letter to Grégoire, Henri, 25 02 1809Google Scholar. Quoted in Animal Liberation, op. cit. n. 1, 7.Google Scholar

24 Nagel, Thomas, ‘Equal Treatment and Compensatory Discrimination’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 4 (1973), esp. 356–358 and 362–363.Google Scholar

25 Singer draws the line further down the scale, arguing that while we should abstain from ordinary fish, we may eat oysters and other molluscs (but not octopus), Animal Liberation, op. cit., n. 1, 188.Google Scholar

26 For Aquinas see Summa Theologiae, IIa, IIae, Q 64 a. 1. and la IIae, Q 102 a. 6 and 8; also Summa Contra Gentiles, III, 112Google Scholar. For Kant see Lectures on Ethics, tr. Infeld, Louis (New York: 1963), 239–241.Google Scholar

27 Augustine, , City of God, I, 20Google Scholar. Tr. Dodds, Marcus (New York: Modern Library, 1950), 26.Google Scholar