WHY YOU ARE COMMITTED TO THE IMMORALITY OF EATING MEAT

Mylan Engel Jr.

Most arguments for the obligatoriness of vegetarianism either follow Singer’s lead and demand equal consideration for animals on utilitarian grounds,[1] or follow Regan’s deontological rights-based approach and insist that most of the animals we routinely consume possess the very same rights-conferring properties which confer rights on humans.[2] While many people have been persuaded to alter their dietary habits on the basis of one of these arguments, most philosophers have not. My experience has been that when confronted with these arguments meat-loving philosophers often casually dismiss them as follows:

Singer’s preference utilitarianism is irremediably flawed, as is Regan’s theory of moral rights. Since Singer’s and Regan’s arguments for vegetarianism are predicated on flawed ethical theories, their arguments are also flawed. Until someone can provide me with clear moral reasons for not eating meat, I will continue to eat what I please.

A moment’s reflection reveals the self-serving sophistry of such a reply. Since no ethical theory to date is immune to objection, one could fashion a similar reply to “justify” or rationalize virtually any behavior. One could “justify” rape as follows: An opponent of rape might appeal to utilitarian, Kantian, or contractarian grounds to establish the immorality of rape. Our fictitious rape-loving philosopher could then point out that all of these ethical theories are flawed and ipso facto so too are all the arguments against rape. Our rape proponent might then assert: “Until someone can provide me with clear moral reasons for not committing rape, I will continue to rape whomever I please.”

The speciousness of such a “justification” of rape should be obvious. No one who seriously considered the brutality of rape could think that it is somehow justified/permissible simply because all current ethical theories are flawed. But such specious reasoning is used to “justify” the equally brutal raising, confining, mutilating, transporting, killing and eating of animals all the time. My aim is to block this spurious reply by providing an argument for the immorality of eating meat which does not rest on any particular ethical approach. Rather, it rests on beliefs which you already hold.[3]

Before turning to your beliefs, a prefatory observation is in order. Unlike other ethical arguments for vegetarianism, my argument is not predicated on the wrongness of speciesism,[4] nor does it depend on your believing that all animals are equal or that all animals have a right to life. The significance of this can be explained as follows: Some philosophers remain unmoved by Singer’s and Regan’s arguments for a different reason than the one cited above. These philosophers find that the nonspeciesistic implications of Singer’s and Regan’s arguments just feel wrong to them. They sincerely feel that humans are more important than nonhumans.[5] Perhaps, these feelings are irrational in light of evolutionary theory and our biological kinship with other species, but these feelings are nonetheless real. My argument is neutral with respect to such sentiments. It is compatible with both an anthropocentric and a biocentric worldview. In short, my argument is designed to show that even those of you who are steadfastly committed to valuing humans over nonhumans are nevertheless committed to the immorality of eating meat, given your other beliefs. Enough by way of preamble, on to your beliefs.

1. The Things You Believe

The beliefs attributed to you herein would normally be considered noncontentious. In most contexts, we would take someone who didn’t hold these beliefs to be either morally defective or irrational. But, in most contexts, these beliefs are not a threat to enjoying hamburgers, hotdogs, chitlins, and spam. Even with burgers in the balance, you will, I think, readily admit believing the following propositions: (p₁)Other things being equal, a world with less pain and suffering is better than a world with more pain and suffering; and (p₂)A world with less unnecessary suffering is better than a world with more unnecessary suffering.[6] You also believe: (p₃)Unnecessary cruelty is wrong and prima facie should not be supported or encouraged. You probably believe: (p₄)We ought to take steps to make the world a better place. But even if you reject (p₄) on the grounds that we have no positive duties to benefit, you still think there are negative duties to do no harm, and so you believe: (p_4’)We ought to do what we reasonably can to avoid making the world a worse place. And you believe: (p₅)A morally good person will take steps to make the world a better place and even stronger steps to avoid making the world a worse place; and (p₆)Even a “minimally decent individual”[7] would take steps to reduce the amount of unnecessary pain and suffering in the world, if s/he could do so with very little effort on her/his part.

You also have beliefs about yourself. You believe one of the following propositions when indexed to yourself: (p₇)I am a morally good person; or (p₈)I am at least a minimally decent individual. You also believe of yourself: (p₉)I am the sort of person who would certainly help to reduce the amount of pain and suffering in the world, if I could do so with very little effort on my part. Enough about you. On to your beliefs about nonhuman animals and our obligations toward them.

You believe: (p₁₀)Many nonhuman animals (certainly all vertebrates) are capable of feeling pain; (p₁₁)It is morally wrong to cause an animal unnecessary pain or suffering; and (p₁₂)It is morally wrong and despicable to treat animals inhumanely for no good reason.[8] In addition to your beliefs about the wrongness of causing animals unnecessary pain, you also have beliefs about the appropriateness of killing animals, e.g. you believe: (p₁₃) We ought to euthanatize untreatably injured, suffering animals to put them out of their misery whenever feasible; and (p₁₄) Other things being equal, it is worse to kill a conscious sentient animal than it is to kill a plant. Finally, you believe: (p₁₅)We have a duty to preserve the environment for future generations;[9] and consequently, you believe: (p₁₆)One ought to minimize one’s contribution toward environmental degradation, especially in those ways requiring minimal effort on one’s part.

2. Factory Farming and Modern Slaughter: The Cruelty Behind the Cellophane

Before they become someone’s dinner, most farm animals raised in the U.S. must endure intense pain and suffering in “factory farms.” Factory farms are intensive confinement facilities where animals are forced to live in inhospitable unnatural conditions for the duration of their lives. The first step in intensive farming is early separation of mother and offspring.[10] The offspring are then housed in overcrowded confinement facilities. Broiler chickens are warehoused in sheds containing anywhere from 10,000-50,000 birds;[11]^,[12] veal calves are kept in crates chained at the neck;[13] pigs are confined in metal crates situated on concrete slatted floors with no straw or bedding;[14] and beef cattle are housed in feedlots containing up to 100,000 animals.[15] The inappropriate, unforgiving surfaces on which the animals must stand produce foot and leg injuries.[16] Since they cannot move about, they must stand in their own waste. In these cramped, unsanitary conditions, virtually all of the animals’ basic instinctual urges (e.g. to nurse, stretch, move around, root, groom, establish social orders, build nests, rut) are frustrated, causing boredom and stress in the animals. The stress and unsanitary conditions compromise their immune systems. To prevent large losses due to disease, the animals are fed a steady diet of antibiotics and growth hormones.[17] When it comes to feed, disease prevention isn’t the only consideration. Another is cost. The USDA has approved all sorts of cost-cutting dietary “innovations” including: (i)adding the ground up remains of dead diseased animals (unfit for human consumption) to these herbivorous animals’ feed,[18]^,[19] (ii)adding cement dust to cattle feed to promote rapid weight gain,[20] and (iii)adding the animals’ own feces to their feed.[21]

The animals react to these inhumane, stressful conditions by developing “stereotypies”[22] and other unnatural behaviors including cannibalism.[23] For example, chickens unable to develop a pecking order often try to peck each other to death, and pigs, bored due to forced immobility, routinely bite the tail of the pig caged in front of them. To prevent losses due to cannibalism and aggression, the animals receive preventative mutilations. To prevent chickens and turkeys from pecking each other to death, the birds are “debeaked” using a scalding hot blade which slices through the highly sensitive horn of the beak leaving blisters in the mouth;[24] to prevent them from “back ripping,”[25] their toes are amputated using the same hot knife machine.[26] Other routine mutilations include: tail docking, branding, dehorning, ear tagging, ear clipping, teeth pulling, castration, and ovariectomy. In the interest of cost efficiency, all of these excruciating procedures are performed without anaesthesia. Unanaesthetized branding, dehorning, ear tagging, ear clipping, and castration are standard procedures on nonintensive farms, as well.[27]

Lives of frustration and torment finally culminate as the animals are inhumanely loaded onto trucks and shipped long distances to slaughterhouses without food or water and without adequate protection from the elements. Each year tens of thousands of animals die and millions are severely injured as a result of such handling and transportation.[28] At the slaughterhouse, the animals are hung upside down [Pigs, cattle, and sheep are suspended by one hind leg which often breaks.] and are brought via conveyor to the slaughterer who slits their throats, severs their jugular veins, and punctures their hearts with a butcher knife. In theory, animals covered by the Federal Humane Slaughter Act are to be rendered unconscious by electric current or by captive bolt pistol.[29] Chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese are not considered animals under the Act and, hence, receive no protection at all.[30] In practice, the Act is not enforced, and as a result, many slaughterhouses elect not to use the captive bolt pistol because the charges used to fire the pistol cost a few cents each.[31] As for electric shock, it’s unlikely that being shocked into unconsciousness is itself a painless process, based on reports of people who have experienced electroconvulsive therapy.[32] A consequence of the lax enforcement of the Humane Slaughter Act is that in many cases (and all kosher cases), the animals are fully conscious throughout the entire throat-slitting ordeal.[33]

These animal rearing and slaughtering techniques are by no means rare: 98% of all eggs and poultry are produced in factory farms,[34] 90% of pigs are raised in confinement systems,[35] half of the nation’s dairy cows are raised in confinement systems,[36] virtually all veal calves are crate-raised, and 71% of beef cattle are confined in factory farm feedlots.[37] To see just how many animals suffer the institutionalized cruelties of factory farming, consider the number slaughtered in the U.S. each day. According to The New York Times, 130,000 cattle, 7,000 calves, 360,000 pigs, and 24 million chickens are slaughtered every day.[38] Extrapolation reveals that 8.94 billion animals are raised and slaughtered annually, not counting turkeys,[39] ducks, sheep, emu, or fish.[40] Consequently, over 17,000 animals are slaughtered per minute. Suffice it to say that no other human activity results in more pain, suffering, frustration and death than factory farming and animal agribusiness.[41]

3. The Implications of Your Beliefs: Why You Are Committed to the Immorality of Eating Meat

I will now offer an argument for the immorality of eating meat predicated on your beliefs (p₁)-(p₁₅).[42]^,[43] While you do not have to believe all of (p₁)-(p₁₅) for my argument to succeed,[44] the more of these propositions you believe, the greater your commitment to the immorality of eating meat.

Your beliefs (p₁₀)-(p₁₃) show that you already believe that animals are capable of experiencing intense pain and suffering. I don’t have to prove to you that unanaesthetized branding, castration, debeaking, tail docking, tooth extraction, etc. cause animals pain. You already believe that these procedures cause agonizing pain. Consequently, given the husbandry techniques and slaughtering practices documented above, you must admit the fact that: (f₁)Virtually all commercial animal agriculture, especially factory farming, causes animals intense pain and suffering and, thus, greatly increases the amount of pain and suffering in the world. (f₁) and your belief (p₁) together entail that, other things being equal, the world would be better without animal agriculture and factory farms. It’s also a fact that: (f₂)In modern societies the consumption of meat is in no way necessary for human survival,[45] and so, the pain and suffering which results from meat production is entirely unnecessary, as are all the cruel practices inherent in animal agriculture. Since no one needs to eat flesh, all of the inhumane treatment to which farm animals are routinely subjected is done for no good reason, and so, your belief that it is morally wrong and despicable to treat animals inhumanely for no good reason [(p₁₂)] forces you to admit that factory farming and animal agribusiness are morally wrong and despicable. Furthermore, your belief in (p₂) commits you to the view that the world would be better if there were less animal agriculture and fewer factory farms,[46] and your belief in (p₃) commits you to the view that factory farming is wrong and prima facie ought not be supported or encouraged. When one buys factory farm-raised meat, one is supporting factory farms monetarily and, thereby, encouraging their unnecessary cruel practices. The only way to avoid actively supporting factory farms is to stop purchasing their products.

Since, per (p₃), you have a prima facie obligation to stop supporting factory farming and animal agriculture, you have a prima facie obligation to become a vegetarian.[47] Since prima facie obligations are overridable, perhaps they can be overridden simply by the fact that fulfilling them would be excessively burdensome or require enormous effort and sacrifice on one’s part. Perhaps, but this much is clear: When one can fulfill prima facie obligation O with very little effort on one’s part and without thereby failing to perform any other obligation, then obligation O becomes very stringent indeed.

As for your prima facie obligation to stop supporting factory farming, you can easily satisfy it without thereby failing to perform any of your other obligations simply by refraining from eating meat and eating something else instead.[48] For example, you can eat: Harvest burgers rather than hamburgers, pasta with marinara sauce rather than meat sauce, bean burritos rather than beef tacos, red beans and rice rather than Cajun fried chicken, barbecued tofu rather than barbecued ribs, moo shoo vegetables rather than moo shoo pork, minestrone rather than chicken soup, vegetarian chili rather than meat chili, chick pea salad rather than chicken salad, fruit and toast rather than bacon and eggs, etc.[49] These examples underscore the ease with which one can avoid consuming flesh, a fact which often seems to elude meat eaters.

From your beliefs (p₁),(p₂),&(p_4’), it follows that we ought to do what we reasonably can to avoid contributing to the amount of unnecessary suffering in the world. Since one thing we reasonably can do to avoid contributing to unnecessary suffering is stop contributing to factory farming with our purchases, it follows that we ought to stop purchasing and consuming meat.

Your other beliefs support the same conclusion. You believe: (p₅)A morally good person will take steps to make the world a better place and even stronger steps to avoid making the world a worse place; and (p₆)Even a “minimally decent individual” would take steps to reduce the amount of unnecessary pain and suffering in the world, if s/he could do so with very little effort on her/his part. You also believe that you are a morally good person [(p₇)] or at least a minimally decent one [(p₈)]. Moreover, you believe that you are the kind of person who would take steps to help reduce the amount of pain and suffering in the world, if you could do so with very little effort on your part [(p₉)]. As shown above, with minimal effort you could take steps to help reduce the amount of unnecessary suffering in the world just by eating something other than meat. Accordingly, given (p₆), you ought to refrain from eating flesh. Given (p₉), if you really are the kind of person you think you are, you will quit eating meat, opting for cruelty-free vegetarian fare instead.

Finally, animal agriculture is an extremely wasteful, inefficient, environmentally devastating means of food production. Consider four examples: (1)The length of time the world’s petroleum reserves would last if all humans ate a meat-centered diet is 13 years versus 260 years if all humans ate a vegetarian diet.[50] (2) It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, compared to 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat.[51] (3) 80% of the corn and 95% of the oats grown in the U.S. are eaten by livestock.[52] Such excessive cultivation of our croplands is responsible for the loss of 7 billion tons of topsoil each year.[53] And, (4)Animal agriculture creates enormous amounts of hazardous waste in the form of excrement. U.S. livestock produce 250,000 pounds of excrement per second,[54] resulting in 1 billion tons of unrecycled waste per year.[55] Thus, probably the most effective action one can take to help protect the environment for future generations, one requiring minimal effort, is to stop eating meat. And so, given (p₁₄)&(p₁₅), you are committed to the view that we ought to become vegetarians, since doing so is a simple way to help to preserve the environment.

The moral of this section is clear: Consistency forces you to admit that meat consumption is immoral and, thus, necessitates your becoming vegetarian immediately.

4. Objections and Replies: Ways Things Might Have Been, But Aren’t

From (f₁) and (p₁) we inferred that, other things being equal, the world would be better without animal agriculture and factory farms. Perhaps, other things are not equal. Perhaps, the agony experienced by animals in factory farms is necessary for some greater good. The present section examines several ways things might have been unequal, but aren’t.

a. Perhaps Meat Consumption Is Necessary for Optimal Nutrition

A crucial premise in my argument is: (CP1) The pain and suffering which inevitably results from meat production is entirely unnecessary. I defended (CP1) on the grounds that in modern societies meat consumption is in no way necessary for human survival [(f₂)]. But (CP1) does not follow from (f₂), since eating meat might be necessary for some reason other than human survival. Hence, one might object: “While eating meat is not necessary for survival, it might still be necessary for humans to thrive and flourish, in which case (CP1) would be false since the pain and suffering experienced by farm animals would be necessary for a significant human benefit.”

If meat consumption were necessary for humans to flourish, my argument would be seriously compromised, so let us examine the evidence. First, consider the counterexamples. The list of world class vegetarian athletes is quite long and includes: Dave Scott,[56] Sixto Linares,[57] Edwin Moses,[58] Paavo Nurmi,[59] Andreas Cahling,[60] and Ridgely Abele,[61] to name a few,[62] which strongly suggests that eating meat is not necessary for humans to flourish. Second, consider the diseases associated with the consumption of meat and animal products--heart disease, cancer, stroke, osteoporosis, diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, and obesity[63]--as documented in numerous studies, e.g.: (1)The Loma Linda study, involving 24,000 people, found that 50% of meat-eaters suffer heart attacks, whereas only 4% of pure vegetarians have heart attacks.[64] (2)The Framingham heart study has been tracking the daily living and eating habits of thousands of residents of Framingham, Massachusetts since 1948. Dr. William Castelli, director of the study for the last 15 years, maintains that based on his research the most heart healthy diet is a pure vegetarian diet.[65] And (3)The Chinese study, which examined the eating habits of 6,500 Chinese families, led director Dr. T. Colin Campbell to conclude that 80-90% of all cancers can be controlled or prevented by a lowfat (10-15% fat) vegetarian diet.[66] These and countless other studies have led the American Dietetic Association to assert: “A considerable body of scientific data suggests positive relationships between vegetarian diets and risk reduction for several chronic degenerative diseases and conditions including obesity, coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and some types of cancer.”[67] An article in The Journal of the American Medical Association concurs, claiming: “A vegetarian diet can prevent 97% of our coronary occlusions.”[68] As a result, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine recommends centering our diets around the following new four food groups: I. Whole Grains, II. Vegetables, III. Fruits, and IV. Legumes.[69] Gone are meat and dairy, the two principal sources of fat and cholesterol in the American diet. The evidence is unequivocal: A vegetarian diet is nutritionally superior to a meat-based diet. One cannot reject (PC1) on the grounds that eating meat is necessary for human flourishing, because it isn’t. On the contrary, it is detrimental to human health.[70]

b. A Deontological Gambit: Perhaps the Animals’ Suffering Is Deserved

Even if deserved suffering does make the world better by restoring the scales of justice to their proper moral balance, it is implausible to think that farm animals deserve to suffer, since they (like infants) are moral patients, not moral agents. But suppose they were moral agents. What could a chicken have done in the egg or a veal calf have done in its first day of life to deserve their respective fates? Nothing. It is unreasonable and disingenuous to claim that a chicken, pig or cow could have done something in its first few days of life to make it deserving of a life of confinement, unanaesthetized mutilation, inhumane transport, and death.[71]

c. A Utilitarian Gambit: Perhaps Human Gustatory Pleasure Outweighs Animal Suffering

A speciesistic carnivore might object that I have conveniently omitted one of her pertinent beliefs: (p₁₆)Human pleasure always outweighs animal suffering. Given (p₁₆), since humans derive gustatory pleasure from eating the flesh of nonhuman animals, other things are not equal. Accordingly, there is a justifying reason for the agony billions of farm animals are forced to endure: Taste.

First, you do not actually believe (p₁₆). Remember Harman’s cat. You do not believe that the pleasure the thugs get from burning a cat alive morally justifies their disregarding the cat’s interest in avoiding suffering. You do not believe that the pleasure a sadistic Satanist gets out of slowly torturing a fully conscious dog by skinning and eating it alive (even if he gets immense gustatory pleasure from this delicacy) outweighs the dog’s interest in avoiding such suffering.[72] You simply do not believe that trivial human pleasures outweigh the most significant interests of nonhuman animals.

Second, in assessing whether a carnivore’s pleasure in eating meat outweighs the pain of the animal that became that meat, it is a mistake to compare the pleasure had by eating meat with the frustration of eating nothing at all. Rather, to assess the pleasure gotten by eating meat, one must compare the pleasure one would get from eating meat with the pleasure one would get from eating something else.[73] Suppose your only food options are beef tacos or bean tostadas. If you would get ten hedons of pleasure from the tacos and nine from the tostadas, then only one hedon would be attributable to eating meat. Since, for any meat item you could consume, there is a vegetarian item which would give you nearly as much pleasure, it is very unlikely that the minimal pleasure one gets from eating meat outweighs the prolonged and excruciating pain of castration, branding, dehorning, tail docking, etc.[74]

Third, animals aren’t the only beings who suffer as a result of the meat industry. Billions of humans suffer as well, including: the 1.3 billion people worldwide suffering from chronic hunger;[75] the millions of carnivores themselves who are suffering from heart disease, cancer, stroke, osteoporosis, and obesity, and these carnivores’ children who are well on their way to a shortened lifetime of debilitating disease as a result of being fed meat-based diet by their parents. By not eating (or serving) meat we greatly reduce our chance of suffering a litany of debilitating diseases, we greatly reduce our children’s risk of suffering from these same diseases, and we, at least indirectly, help to reduce world hunger by reducing the demand for grain-fed meat, freeing up grain for humans. Thus, even if you were a speciesist who did believe (p₁₆) and only cared about human suffering, consistency with your other beliefs would still require you to stop eating meat.

d. Perhaps Plants Feel Pain

Perhaps, but you don’t believe they do. You walk on grass, mow your lawn, and trim your hedges without any concern that you might be causing plants pain. But you would never walk on your dog or trim your dog’s legs, because you are certain that doing so would cause your dog terrible pain. Mere conjecture (e.g. that plants might feel pain) won’t undermine my argument, for my argument is predicated on your beliefs. Since you do not believe that plants feel pain, the objection under consideration gives you no reason to continue eating meat.

e. The Supreme Dietitian

People often attempt to justify their carnivorous habits by claiming that God intends us to eat meat, citing their preferred religious text as evidence of God’s will. This “justification” is particularly puzzling since all major religions teach compassion for all living creatures. Islam teaches animal equality,[76] as does the Hindu religion.[77] The First Precept of Buddhist ethical conduct is not to harm sentient beings.[78] Both Judaism and Christianity accept the Old Testament, which states: “And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.’”[79] So, why think that God intends us to eat meat? Finding writings in these texts which contradict the teachings mentioned here won’t resolve the matter, since if these texts’ teachings are self-contradictory, then we are left with no clear guidance as to what God intends us to eat.

Fortunately, we can bypass this unpromising hermeneutical project altogether. There is a much more compelling refutation of the “God intends us to eat meat” defense. If God intends us to eat meat, then God is either ignorant, irrational, or malevolent. If God doesn’t know that eating meat causes heart attacks, cancer, strokes, etc., then he is ignorant about nutrition. If God knows that eating meat is harmful to our health but intends us to do it anyway, then either he is malevolent and wants bad things to happen to us, or he is irrational since, despite wanting us to be healthy, he intends us to eat a diet detrimental to our health. Since, by definition, God is neither ignorant nor irrational nor malevolent, it is incoherent to believe that God intends us to eat meat.

f. The “Free Range” Fantasy

A critic might object to my argument as follows:

O.K., I understand your strategy. You’re trying to show that, given my other beliefs, consistency forces me to admit that eating meat is wrong. Now, suppose I admit that factory farming causes prolonged, unnecessary, excruciating pain and that, as a result, believing (p₁)-(p₁₂) commits me to the immorality of eating factory farm raised meat. Even so, you’ve yet to show that my beliefs commit me to the immorality of eating humanely raised animals. What’s wrong with eating “free range” animals which are raised humanely and killed painlessly? How do my beliefs commit me to the immorality of eating them?

My response to such a critic is fourfold: First, in admitting that eating factory farm raised meat is morally wrong, you have just admitted that it is immoral to eat over 90% of the meat you eat. Second, the terms ‘free range’ and ‘free roaming’ are not indicative of humane animal husbandry practices. According to the labelling division of the USDA, “a free range bird is one that has access to the outdoors,”[80] no matter how small the outdoor pen. The term ‘free roaming’ just means birds which have not been raised in cages, even though they are permanently confined in a warehouse.[81] Thus, uncaged broiler chickens with the industry-recommended senth-tenths of a square foot of floor space can legally be sold as “free roaming” birds. Moreover, the painful mutilations described above (unanaesthetized branding, dehorning, debeaking, ear tagging, ear clipping, toe clipping and castration) are also routinely performed in both “free range” and nonintensive farms. All of these procedures contribute to unnecessary suffering. Plus, even if the “free range” animals had it good while they were on the farm, there are no humane, livestock transportation companies and no humane slaughterhouses. The only way to be sure that the animal you are eating was raised humanely and killed painlessly is to raise and kill it yourself. Third, even if you had the time, space, and will to raise and kill your own “dinner,” you would still be jeopardizing your own health and the health of your loved ones, as well as wasting resources which could be better spent helping to alleviate human hunger and malnutrition. Even “happy cows” require 13.3 pounds of grain to produce a pound of meat.[82] Fourth and most importantly, you already believe (p₁₄), that other things being equal, it is worse to kill a conscious sentient creature than it is to kill a plant. An example of Andrew Tardiff’s will illustrate the point. Suppose we could perform a human-benefitting experiment on either a dog or a plant with equally reliable and equally valuable results, but that the experiment will inevitable result in the death of the test subject.[83] Anyone who accepts (p₁₄) will surely admit that we ought to perform the experiment on the plant. For those who still have doubts, Tardiff modifies his example: Once again, we could perform a human-benefitting experiment on either a dog or a plant, and once again the test subject will be killed in the course of the experiment, only this time suppose that we could get much better human benefit by testing on the plant rather than testing on the dog.[84] Now, surely you will grant that we ought to perform the experiment on the plant. Now, compare this case with the case for food. You already believe that, when other things are equal, it is worse to kill a consious sentient animal than it is to kill a plant. But in the case of food, other things are not equal. Eating plants is more human health-promoting than eating animals.[85] Since a plant-based diet is more nutritious and human health-promoting than a meat-based diet, (p₁₄) commits you to the view that it worse to kill conscoius sentient animals for food than it is to kill plants for food, even if those animals have been raised humanely.

g. Consistency: The Two-Edged Sword

In section 4, I argued that consistency rationally requires you to admit that eating meat is immoral. I did so by showing that your beliefs, when combined with two indisputable facts, entail that eating meat is morally wrong, and ipso facto that vegetarianism is morally required. In effect, I presented you with a valid argument of the form:

[(p₁),(p₂),...,(p₁₅),(f₁),(f₂)]®Q,

where Q = Eating meat is immoral. Of course, as Harman and Pollock have pointed out vis-à-vis skepticism, being presented with a valid skeptical argument of the form:

[P₁,...,P_n]®~K,

does not force you to accept ~K, for it may be more reasonable to reject some premise P_i than to accept ~K.[86]

Similarly, one might object to my argument as follows: “Consistency does not demand that I accept Q. Consistency demands that I either accept Q or reject one of my present beliefs. What’s to stop me from doing the latter?” First, the cases are not analogous. In rejecting some P_i of the skeptic’s argument, you are rejecting one of the skeptic’s beliefs; whereas in rejecting some (p_i) of my argument, you are rejecting one of your own firmly held beliefs. Since (p₁)-(p₁₅) are your beliefs, it’s not at all clear that you could simply stop believing one of them, e.g. you could no more stop believing that animals are capable of feeling pain than you could stop believing that humans feel pain. Furthermore, my argument actually consists of a family of arguments predicated on different subsets of {(p₁),...,(p₁₅)}. Thus, while one can escape the clutches of skeptic’s argument by rejecting a single P_i, to escape my argument, you must reject a number of your beliefs. Second, even if you could reject these beliefs, it would be irrational for you to do so. After all, as a philosopher, you are interested in more than mere consistency; you are interested in truth. Consequently, you will not reject just any belief(s) for the sake of consistency. You will reject the belief(s) you think most likely to be false. Now, presumably, you already think your doxastic system is for the most part reasonable, or you would have already made significant changes in it. So, you will want to reject as few beliefs as possible. Since (p₁ )-(p₁₅) are rife with implications, rejecting several of these propositions would force you to reject countless other beliefs on pain of incoherence, whereas accepting Q would require minimal belief revision on your part. Simply put, Q coheres with your otherwise already reasonable beliefs, whereas ~Q does not, thus making it more reasonable to reject ~Q than to reject any of your other beliefs.

5. Conclusion

Let me conclude by noting two further implications of your beliefs. First, your beliefs not only commit you to the obligatoriness of vegetarianism, but also to the obligatoriness of a vegan diet, i.e. a diet devoid of all animal products. Here’s why: In section 4 we found a vegan diet to be the most nutritious and healthful diet a human can consume.[87] Plus, contrary to what many people think, it is extremely easy to adopt a vegan diet. How easy? Well, in section 3, I provided a long list of readily available, tasty vegetarian dishes which one could easily eat in place of standard meat fare. Each of the vegetarian dishes listed there is actually vegan. Since eggs and dairy products are both nutritionally unnecessary and easy to avoid, we can now see why your beliefs entail that eating these products is morally wrong.

As for eggs, recall that 98% of egg-laying chickens are raised in factory farms. Two distinct strains of chickens have been developed: “layers” for egg production and “broilers” for meat production. Since layer strains are thought to produce insufficient and inferior meat and since males do not produce eggs, male chicks of the layer strain are identified by chicken sexers, who throw them into plastic bags where they are allowed to suffocate.[88] Like their broiler counterparts, female layers are debeaked at one week of age. However, since layers are kept alive longer, most egg producers debeak their birds a second time around twelve weeks of age.[89] Worse still, layers are permanently confined in 16” x 18” battery cages, 5-6 birds to a cage.[90] Thus, the average layer has only 48-58 square inches of living space, not much larger than a 5x8 index card. The cages have slanted wire mesh flooring which is totally inappropriate for the birds’ feet, which sometimes grow fast to the cage floor making it impossible to reach food and water.[91] After a year and a half of this existence (assuming they don’t die in their cages, as do 12 to 18% of them per year[92]), they are crammed even more tightly into portable crates, transported to the slaughterhouse, and turned into soup and other processed foods.[93] These birds are forced to endure all of this inhumane treatment, just so we can eat an unhealthful product loaded with cholesterol (300 mg. per egg) and fat (50% of eggs’ calories come from fat), which has somehow come to be associated with breakfast.

As for dairy products, 50% of dairy cows are raised in factory farms, where their calves are taken away within 1-2 days and where they are constantly reimpregnated, pumped full of antibiotics and bovine growth hormone, milked two to three times a day, suffer from mastitis, fed unnatural diets and prevented from moving about freely. After a few years when their milk production wanes, they will be transformed into ground beef.[94] As for their calves, if the calf is female, it will either be kept or sold to another dairy farmer. However, if the calf is male, it will typically be sold to veal farmers who will chain it at the neck and feed it an iron deficient diet for 14-16 weeks before sending it off to slaughter.[95] Consequently, in purchasing dairy products, you are not only supporting the unnecessary and inhumane confinement of dairy cows, you are also indirectly supporting the even more inhumane veal industry. Given the ease with which we can avoid supporting these inhumane institutions, your beliefs commit you to the obligatoriness of doing so.

Your beliefs also commit you to the immorality of purchasing personal care and household products that have been tested on animal. These tests include the Draize eye irritancy test,[96] the lethal dose 50 % [LD50] test, dermal toxicity tests, and injection tests. Eighty percent of the animals in these tests receive no anaesthesia. Moreover, these tests are unnecessary and unreliable. For example, the crude LD50 test, in which a test group of animals are force-fed a substance until fifty percent of the animals die (which is often due to stomach rupture rather than the effects of the substance per se), provides no useful data which can be reliably extrapolated to humans.[97] In most cases, avoiding products which have been tested on animals is easy, since equally effective, equally priced, equally safe, alternative products which have not been tested on animals and which contain no animal ingredients are almost always readily available. Moreover, determining which products are cruelty-free will not require a great deal of time or effort on your part, for cruelty-free products typically advertise their cruelty-free status on the label. Since one can easily reduce one’s contribution to laboratory-generated animal suffering by buying cruelty-free personal care and household products instead of those tested animals (usually they are right next to each other on the supermarket shelves), your beliefs entail that we are morally obligated to do so.

The implications of your beliefs are clear. Given your beliefs, it follows that: (1) eating meat is morally wrong, (2) eating animal products is morally wrong, and (3) purchasing personal care and household products which have been tested on animals is morally wrong (provided comparable cruelty-free products are readily available). These conclusions were not derived from some highly contentious ethical theory which you can easily reject, but from your own firmly held beliefs. Furthermore, these conclusions follow, regardless of your views on speciesism, animal equality, and animals rights. Even those of you who are staunch speciesists are committed to the immorality of these practices, given your other beliefs. Consequently, consistency demands that you embrace the immorality of these practices and modify your behavior accordingly.[98]

Appendix

(p₁) Other things being equal, a world with less pain and suffering is better than a world with more pain and suffering.

(p₂) A world with less unnecessary suffering is better than a world with more unnecessary suffering.

(p_2’) A world devoid of unnecessary suffering is better than a world with unnecessary suffering.

(p₃) Unnecessary cruelty is wrong and prima facie should not be supported or encouraged.

(p₄) We ought to take steps to make the world a better place.

(p_4’) We ought to do what we reasonably can to avoid making the world a worse place.

(p₅) A morally good person will take steps to make the world a better place and even stronger steps to avoid making the world a worse place.

(p₆) Even a “minimally decent individual” would take steps to reduce the amount of unnecessary pain and suffering in the world, if s/he could do so with very little effort on her/his part.

(p₇) I am a morally good person.

(p₈) I am at least a minimally decent individual.

(p₉) I am the sort of person who would certainly help to reduce the amount of pain and suffering in the world, if I could do so with very little effort on my part.

(p₁₀) Many nonhuman animals (certainly all vertebrates) are capable of feeling pain.

(p₁₁) It is morally wrong to cause an animal unnecessary pain or suffering.

(p₁₂) It is morally wrong and despicable to treat animals inhumanely for no good reason.

(p₁₃) We ought to euthanatize untreatably injured, suffering animals to put them out of their misery whenever feasible.

(p₁₄) Other things being equal, it is worse to kill a conscious sentient animal than it is to kill a plant.

(p₁₅) We have a duty to preserve the environment for future generations (at least for future human generations).

(p₁₆) One ought to minimize one’s contribution toward environmental degradation, especially in those ways requiring minimal effort on one’s part.

---

[1] See Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, 2^nd edition (New York: Avon Books, 1990) or his heavily anthologized “All Animals are Equal” in Animal Rights and Human Obligations, 2^nd edition, eds. Regan and Singer (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989), pp. 73-86.

[2] See Tom Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), or his “The Case for Animals Rights” in In Defense of Animals, ed. Peter Singer (New York: Harper and Row Perennial Library, 1985), pp. 13-26.

[3] Obviously, if you do not hold these beliefs (or, more accurately, enough of them), my argument will have no force for you, nor is it intended to. It is only aimed at those of you who do hold these widespread commonsense beliefs.

[4] Speciesism, as I am using the term, is the widespread view that one’s own species is superior to all other species and that, therefore, members of one’s own species have the right to dominate the members of all other species. Singer characterizes speciesism as “a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species.” (Animal Liberation, op. cit., p. 6.)

[5] Bonnie Steinbock’s criticism of Singer’s view seems to be rooted in such a sincerely held feeling. See her “Speciesism and the Idea of Equality,” Philosophy, vol. 53, no. 204 (April, 1978), reprinted in Morality and Moral Controversies, 4^th edition, ed. John Arthur (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996), pp. 137-143. Therein Steinbock writes:

I doubt that anyone will be able to come up with a concrete and morally relevant difference that would justify, say, using a chimpanzee in an experiment rather than a human being with less capacity for reasoning, moral responsibility, etc. Should we then experiment on the severely retarded? Utilitarian considerations aside...,we feel a special obligation to care for the handicapped members of our own species, who cannot survive in this world without such care. ...although one can imagine oneself in the monkey’s place, one feels a closer identification with the severely retarded human being. Here we are getting away from such things as ‘morally relevant differences’ and are talking about something much more difficult to articulate, namely, the role of feeling and sentiment in moral thinking. (p. 142, my emphasis)

[6] You also believe the following corollary of (p₂): (p₂’) A world devoid of unnecessary suffering is better than a world with unnecessary suffering. By “unnecessary suffering” I mean suffering which serves no greater, outweighing justifying good. If some instance of suffering is required to bring about a greater good (e.g. an agonizing root canal may be the only way to save a person’s tooth), then that suffering is not unnecessary. Thus, in the case of (p₂) and (p₂’), no ceteris paribus clause is needed. After all, if other things are not equal and the suffering in question makes the world better than it would be without it, then that suffering is not unnecessary.

Anyone who has felt the force of the atheistic argument from evil based on gratuitous suffering, and what philosopher hasn’t, is committed to (p₁), (p₂), and (p₂’) . After all, the reason we think a wholly good God would prevent unnecessary suffering is because we think that such suffering is intrinsically bad and that the world would be better without it. Interestingly enough, one of the most powerful versions of the atheistic argument from unnecessary suffering is predicated on gratuitous animal suffering. See William Rowe’s “The Problem of Evil,” in Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction, 2^nd edition (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1993), pp. 79-82.

[7]By a “minimally decent individual” I mean a person who does the very minimum required by morality and no more. I borrow this terminology from Judith Jarvis Thomson who distinguishes a good Samaritan from a minimally decent Samaritan. A good Samaritan is a person who goes above and beyond the call of duty in helping others, while a minimally decent Samaritan only does the minimum required of her by morality. See Thomson’s heavily anthologized “A Defense of Abortion,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1, no. 1 (1971), pp. 62-66.

[8] Remember Harman’s cat. See Gilbert Harman’s The Nature of Morality: An Introduction to Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 4, where he presents the following much discussed example: “If you round the corner and see a group of young hoodlums pour gasoline on a cat and ignite it, you do not need to conclude that what they are doing is wrong; you do not need to figure anything out; you can see that it is wrong.” What is relevant about this example for our purposes is that no one considering the example seriously doubts whether a cat so treated would feel pain [Hence, no one seriously doubts (p₁₁).] nor does anyone seriously doubt that cruelly burning a cat for no good reason is wrong [Hence, no one seriously doubts (p₁₂) or (p₁₃) either.].

[9] At least for future human generations.

[10]According to Jim Mason and Peter Singer’s Animal Factories, 2^nd edition (New York: Harmony Books, 1990), chickens are separated from their mothers before birth, as they are hatched in incubators (p. 5), veal calves are removed from their mothers within a few days (pp. 11-12), and piglets are separated from their mothers two to three weeks after birth (p. 10).

[11] These overcrowded conditions make it impossible for the chickens to develop a pecking order. See Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, op. cit., p. 98.

[12] Turkeys are raised in similar facilities. Citing Agricultural Statistics 1988, Mason and Singer point out that
“Over 240 million turkeys are mass produced each year in the United States by methods and facilities similar to those of the broiler industry.” (Animal Factories, op. cit., p. 7.)

[13]Mason and Singer, Animal Factories, op. cit., p. 12.

[14] According to the Humane Farming Association’s “The Dangers of Factory Farming,” p. 3. For further details, see Robbins’ discussion of the “Bacon Bin” in Diet for a New America, op. cit., p. 83.

[15] John Robbins, Diet for a New America (Walpole, NH: Stillpoint, 1987), p.110.

[16] Mason and Singer, Animal Factories, op. cit., pp. 30-31. According to Robbins, “One Nebraska study showed that nearly 100% of all pigs raised on concrete or metal slats had damaged feet and legs.” (Diet for a New America, op. cit., p. 84.)

[17] According to Mason and Singer, “Nearly all poultry, 90 percent of veal calves and pigs, and a debatable number of cattle get antibacterial additives in their feed.” (Animal Factories, op. cit., p. 66.) Residues often remain in their flesh, despite the fact that many of these drugs are known carcinogens not approved for human use. Mason and Singer report the following finding of the Comptroller General of the United States [as reported in Problems in Preventing the Marketing of Raw Meat and Poultry Containing Potentially Harmful Residues (Washington, D.C.: General Accounting Office, April 17, 1979), p. i.]: “Of the 143 drugs and pesticides GAO has identified as likely to leave residues in raw meat and poultry, 42 are known to cause cancer or are suspected of causing cancer; 20 of causing birth defects; and 6 of causing mutations.” (Animal Factories, op. cit., p. 72.)

[18] “Ten billion pounds of processed animal remains were sold for animal feed in the U.S. in 1995.” See Eric Haapapuro, “Piling It High and Deep,” Good Medicine (published by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine), vol. V, no. 4, (Autumn, 1996), p. 15. Also see Mason and Singer, Animal Factories, op. cit., p. 52.

[19] It should be noted that feeding cattle the rendered remains of sheep infected with scrapie is the suspected cause of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or as it is commonly called “mad cow disease”). Consuming BSE-infected cattle is believed to be the cause of one variant of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, a fatal brain disease in humans. See “Mad Cow Disease: The Risk in the U.S.”, Good Medicine, vol. V, no. 3 (Summer 1996), p. 9.

[20] Mason and Singer, Animal Factories, op. cit., p. 51.

[21] Manure comprises up to 20% of their feed in some cases. See Eric Haapapuro, “Piling It High and Deep,” Good Medicine, vol. V, no. 4, (Autumn, 1996), p. 15. According to Haapapuro, “The American Association of Feed Control Officials lists dried poultry manure, dried broiler manure, dried cattle waste, and waste from pigs as approved feed ingredients.” Also see Mason and Singer, Animal Factories, op. cit., p. 53.

[22] Stereotypies are boredom-induced, neurotic repetitive behaviors.

[23] Mason and Singer, Animal Factories, op. cit., p. 21-24.

[24] Debeaking is the surgical removal of the birds’ beaks. When beaks are cut too short or heal improperly, as sometimes happens, the birds cannot eat and eventually starve to death in their cages or shed. See Mason and Singer, Animal Factories, op. cit., p. 39-40, and John Robbins, Diet for a New America, op. cit., p. 57.

[25] Overcrowded chickens frequently develop the “vice” of scratching each other to death, which the industry refers to as “back ripping.”

[26] Mason and Singer, Animal Factories, op. cit., p. 40.

[27] Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, op. cit., p. 145.

[28] “In 1986, USDA inspectors condemned over 7,400 cattle, 3,100 calves, and 5,500 pigs because they were dead or seriously injured before they reached the slaughterhouse, while 570,000 cattle, 57,000 calves, and 643,000 pigs were injured severely enough for parts of their bodies to be condemned.” (Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, op. cit., p. 149.)

[29] The captive bolt pistol renders the animal unconscious by firing an eight-inch pin into the animal’s skull, provided the worker aims properly.

[30] John Robbins, Diet for a New America, op. cit., p. 139.

[31] Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, op. cit., p. 153.

[32] Ibid., p. 152.

[33] According to Robbins, while only 5% of the flesh sold in the U.S. is sold as kosher, as much as 50% of the animals are slaughtered while fully conscious in conformity with antiquated kosher-ritual slaughter laws. (Diet for a New America, op. cit., p. 142.)

[34] John Robbins, Diet for a New America, op. cit., p. 53.

[35] Mason and Singer, Animal Factories, op. cit., p. 7.

[36] Ibid., p. 11.

[37] Ibid., p. 14.

[38] J. Peder Zane, “It Ain’t Just for Meat; It’s for Lotion,” The New York Times, Sect. IV, p. 5, Sunday, May 5, 1996.

[39] According to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, 293 million turkeys were slaughtered in 1996.

[40] And these numbers are for the United States alone! Worldwide there are 15 billion livestock animals. (According to United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, Production Yearbook 1989 (Rome, 1989), vol. 43, table 89.)

[41] With the possible exception of the seafood industry. Strictly speaking, the seafood industry should be viewed as an extension of animal agribusiness since it is in the business of harvesting animals for human food consumption.

[42] Actually I will offer a family of related arguments, all predicated on members of the set {(p₁) - (p₁₅)}.

[43] For convenience, (p₁)-(p₁₅) have been compiled in an appendix at the end of the paper.

[44] If you believe (p₁), (p₂), (p₆), and (p₁₀), my argument will succeed. In fact, an argument for the immorality of eating meat can be constructed from (p₁₄) and (p₁₅) alone.

[45] According to the American Dietetic Association, “vegetarian diets are healthful and nutritionally adequate when appropriately planned.” See “Position of the American Dietetic Association: Vegetarian Diets,” Journal of the American Dietetic Association, vol. 93, no. 11 (November, 1993), p. 1317.

[46] And even better if there were no animal agriculture and no factory farms.

[47] Here I am bracketing hunting. I do, of course, realize that not all meat comes from factory farming and animal agriculture. Some comes from hunting. Hunting itself results in all sorts of unnecessary pain and suffering for the animals killed, maimed and wounded by bullets, shot, and arrows. For example, every year in the U.S. alone, hunters kill 175 million animals, and for every animal killed two are seriously wounded and left to die a slow agonizing death (Anna Sequoia, 67 Ways to Save the Animals (New York: Harper Perennial, 1990), p. 38.); and for every deer killed by crossbow, 21 arrows are shot since crossbow hunters rarely hit a vital organ (Ingrid Newkirk, Save the Animals! 101 Easy Things You Can Do (New York: Warner Books, 1990), p. 95.). In many cases the animals are not killed for meat, but for wall “trophies.” But even in those cases where the animals are killed (maimed or wounded) for the sake of obtaining meat, all of the pain and suffering inflicted on them is unnecessary since no one needs to eat any kind of meat, wild or domesticated.

[48] NOTE: Doing so would reduce both animal and human suffering, as will become clear in section 4.

[49] It is worth noting that in every case just mentioned the vegetarian option is significantly more nutritious and healthful than its meat-based counterpart.

[50] John Robbins, Diet for a New America, op. cit., pp. 374-376.

[51] Ibid., p. 367.

[52] Ibid., p. 351.

[53] Ibid., p. 358.

[54] Ibid., p. 372. In contrast, humans produce 12,000 pounds of excrement per second, 1/20^th that of livestock.

[55] Ibid., p. 372.

[56] Four-time winner of Hawaii’s Ironman Triathlon.

[57] World record holder for the 24-hour triathlon.

[58] 400 meter hurdler undefeated in international competition for 8 straight years.

[59] 20 world records and nine Olympic medals.

[60] 1980 Mr. International title in body building.

[61] U.S. Karate Association World Champion.

[62] The impressive feats of these world class vegetarian athletes and numerous other vegetarian athletes are discussed in much greater detail in John Robbins, Diet for a New America, op. cit., pp. 158-163.

[63] Ibid., pp. 203-305.

[64] Published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and cited in John Robbins, Diet for a New America, op. cit., p. 215.

[65] “An Interview with William Castelli,” Good Medicine, vol. V, no. 3 (Summer, 1996), p. 15.

[66] T. Colin Campbell, professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University, as reported in Healthcare Foodservice (March/April 1992), p. 15.

[67] “Position of the American Dietetic Association: Vegetarian Diets,” Journal of the American Dietetic Association, vol. 93, no. 11 (November, 1993), p. 1317.

[68] “Diet and Stress in Vascular Disease,” Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 176, no. 9 (June 3, 1961), p. 806. As you can see, the coronary health benefits of a vegetarian diet have been known for over 35 years.

[69] Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, “The New Four Food Groups for Optimal Nutrition,” pp. 1-2.

[70] These findings are hardly surprising when one considers that both the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society recommend a diet that is high in complex carbohydrates and fiber, low in protein, dietary cholesterol, fat (especially saturated fat), sodium, alcohol, carcinogens and procarcinogens. Specifically, complex carbohydrates should comprise 55-70% of our calories, fat should provide less than 30% (preferably 10-15%) of our calories, protein should make up 10-12% of our calories, dietary cholesterol should not exceed 300 mg per day (0 mg is optimal, since there is no minimum amount of dietary cholesterol required), and fiber consumption should be 25-30 grams per day. In stark contrast, the typical American meat-based diet is 40-50% fat (most of which is saturated), 30% carbohydrate, 25% protein and 400+mg of dietary cholesterol. These statistics are to be expected since meat is high in fat, high in protein, and high in cholesterol (only animal products contain cholesterol), but contains no complex carbohydrates and no fiber. The fact is it is almost impossible to adhere to the AHA’s and ACS’s dietary guidelines while consuming a meat-based diet, whereas satisfying these guidelines is virtually inevitable when one eats only from the PCRM’s new four food groups.

[71] After all, we reserve capital punishment for only the most heinous and violent of offenders (and some insist that capital punishment is not justified even for them), and we do not allow torture, inhumane imprisonment, or mutilation even for them. So, surely, docile newborn chickens, pigs and cows could not be deserving of such treatment.

[72] As gruesome as the sadistic treatment just described is, it is not much different than the treatment millions of farm animals receive in slaughterhouses every day for our gustatory pleasure.

[73] Bart Gruzalski makes a similar point. See his “The Case against Raising and Killing Animals for Food” in Animal Rights and Human Obligations, op. cit., pp. 183-184.

[74] Here, for the sake of argument, I assume that the carnivore would get a bit more pleasure from the meat dish than the vegetarian dish. This assumption may well be false, as Gruzalski notes: “Since much of the world’s population finds that vegetarian meals can be delightfully tasty, there is good reason for thinking that the pleasures many people derive from eating meat can be completely replaced with pleasure from eating vegetables.” (“The Case against Raising and Killing Animals for Food,” op. cit., p. 183.) And even if eating meat would provide a person with slightly more gustatory pleasure than eating a vegetarian meal, this difference in gustatory pleasure may be more than offset by the satisfaction one gets from eating and knowing that one is not contributing to animal suffering along with the added pleasure one gets from trying new dishes. For an excellent and fuller discussion of these points, see Gruzalski’s “The Case against Raising and Killing Animals for Food,” op. cit., pp. 184-185.

[75] Jeremy Rifkin, Beyond Beef (New York: Dutton, 1992), p. 168-169, cited in John Robbins’ May All Be Fed (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1992), p. 40.

[76] Evelyn Elkin Giefer, “Religion and Animal Rights,” Mainstream, vol. 27, no. 1 (Spring, 1996), p. 13. There Giefer cites the Hadith Mishkat, Book 6, Ch. 7, 8:178: “A good deed done to an animal is as meritorious as a good deed done to a human being, while an act of cruelty to an animal is a bad as an act of cruelty to a human being.”

[77] Giefer notes, “The Bhagavad Gita (verse 5.18) proclaims that a self-realized soul is able to understand the equality of all beings.” (“Religion and Animal Rights,” op. cit., p. 13.)

[78] Giefer, “Religion and Animal Rights,” op. cit., p. 13.

[79] Genesis 1:29.

[80] Suzanne Hamlin, “Free Range? Natural? Sorting Out Labels,” The New York Times, sect. C (November 13, 1996), p. 1.

[81] Karen Davis, Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern, Poultry Industry (Summertown, TN: Book Publishing Company, 1996), pp. 127-131.

[82] David Pimentel, “Livestock Production: Energy Inputs and the Environment,” Proceedings of the 47^th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Animal Science (July 24-26, 1997). Thanks to the routine use of antibiotics and growth hormones, this 13.3:1 grain-to-meat conversion ratio is down from the 16-21:1 ratios often sighted, .

[83] Andrew Tardiff, “Simplifying the Case for Vegetarianism,” Social Theory and Practice, vol. 22, no. 3 (Fall 1996), pp. 302-303.

[84] Ibid., 303.

[85] Tardiff makes a similar point in his “Simplifying the Case for Vegetarianism,” op. cit., p. 303.

[86] As Gilbert Harman puts it: “there is no plausible rule of acceptance saying that if we believe both P and If P, then Q, we may always infer or accept Q. Perhaps we should stop believing P or If P, then Q rather than believe Q.” See Harman’s Thought (Princeton and London: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 157. John Pollock makes a similar point in his Contemporary Theories of Knowledge (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1986), pp. 5-6.

[87] The PCRM recommends a vegan diet centered around the new four food groups. Anyone who eats only from these four food groups will be consuming a vegan diet.

[88] John Robbins, Diet for a New America, op. cit., p. 54.

[89] Mason and Singer, Animal Factories, op. cit., p. 39.

[90] Karen Davis, “The Plight of Poultry,” The Animals’ Agenda (July/August, 1996), p. 38. Also see John Robbins, Diet for a New America, op. cit., p. 63.

[91] Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, op. cit., p. 110. Such inappropriate flooring allows urine and feces to drop through the cage and, given the slant, allows for automatic egg collection.

[92] Mason and Singer, Animal Factories, op. cit., p. 25.

[93] Mason and Singer, Animal Factories, op. cit., p. 6.

[94] Ibid., p. 11.

[95] Ibid., pp. 12-13.

[96] The Draize test involves dripping caustic substances such as bleach or shampoo into restrained rabbits’ eyes, frequently resulting in hemorrhage, ulceration, and blindness. Rabbits are used for convenience, because they have no tear ducts to flush out the offending substance. Of course, this makes them poor models for humans who do have tear ducts. Sidney Gendin, “The Use of Animals in Science” in Animal Rights and Human Obligations, op. cit., pp. 199-200.

[97] Robert Sharpe, “Animal Experiments--A Failed Technology,” in Animal Experimentation: The Consensus Changes, ed. Gill Langley (New York, NY: Chapman and Hall, 1989), pp. 101-104. Also see Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, op. cit., pp. 53-56.

[98] Versions of this paper have been presented at the MidSouth Philosophy Conference and at the Illinois Philosophical Association Meetings. I would like to thank my respective commetators, James Sauer and Alan Vincelette, and numerous discussants for their helpful suggestions. I would also like to thank John Carroll, Lisa Joniak, Ray Dybzinski, and Nathan Nobis for suggestions which have greatly improved the present paper.