1. Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk
Eating animals
Michael Lacewing
© Michael Lacewing

2. Utilitarianism Happiness is pleasure and the absence of pain
Bentham: The question is not ‘Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?’
Happiness is good (pain is bad) no matter what creature feels it
Singer: speciesism is immoral discrimination against animals just because they are not human
But surely there are important differences here, e.g. reason, emotional depth, self-awareness, moral agency
Reply: true, but these are not relevant to causing suffering
© Michael Lacewing

3. Implications Should we stop eating meat?
Would doing so reduce the amount of (animal) suffering in the world more than it would increase (human) suffering?
Suffering is wrong, but killing is not
Happy animals that are replaced
© Michael Lacewing

4. Kant
‘Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.’
‘Everyone’ = ‘everyone with a rational will’, which animals don’t have.
So any maxim concerning eating animals can be universalised
Human beings are ends in themselves.
We have a rational will and can adopt ends.
This is the only thing that is unconditionally good.
The goodness of every other end depends upon being adopted by a will.
Animals are not rational, and so are not ends in themselves.
So they can be treated as means to our ends.
© Michael Lacewing

5. Kant
We have no duties to animals, but we do have duties – to people – regarding animals
We must not become unkind through how we treat animals
Objection: the harm to the animal, not ourselves, is what is wrong
Objection: do we have duties to other human beings who aren’t rational?
© Michael Lacewing

6. Aristotle Animals are not rational and cannot share in eudaimonia
So our moral concern with eudaimonia has little place for considering animals
Recent virtue theory: there are virtuous and vicious ways of treating animals
© Michael Lacewing

7. Diamond
Eating meat is often wrong, but speciesism misunderstands ethics and what is important about our relationships to people and animals
We don’t eat our dead
Not because it would cause them suffering, not because killing them for food would violate their rights
A person is not something to eat
But many animals are ‘things to eat’
© Michael Lacewing

8. Diamond
There is a moral difference between having sex with a person of a different race and having sex with a (consenting) gorilla
The approach of speciesism can’t explain this
An animal is not something to have sex with
In both cases, the capacities of animals and people don’t explain why we treat them differently
We name, not number, children. We celebrate birth, death, marriage. But not for animals
These practices are part of what it is to relate to someone as a ‘human being’
© Michael Lacewing

9. Diamond
The source of the moral life isn’t the capacities of the animal homo sapiens. Instead, it originates in recognising this animal as a human being – this includes the idea of having moral duties.
Vegetarianism can’t be defended by eradicating the differences between human beings and animals.
© Michael Lacewing

10. Eating animals
There are many different practices that could be involved in eating meat
E.g. rearing your own pigs & killing them humanely v. the meat industry
Many feelings and responses to animals, e.g. nursery rhymes, feeding birds, preventing child cruelty to animals, conflict with meat industry
We are ‘fellow creatures’, ‘in the same boat’ as other animals as living beings
They can die, lead their lives beyond our knowledge, provide company – we can respect them
© Michael Lacewing

11. Eating animals
As fellow creatures, we may eat them, but we need to treat them well or hunt them fairly
Respect and pity (compassion)
Reducing animals to means is selfish and callous
To treat animals in the right way, with the right feelings, for the right reasons…
© Michael Lacewing