Things have sort of ground to a halt over here since the doing-of and recovering-from finals. I’m sure that one day this blog will get back into action, but not for at least a couple of months.
That’s because i’m going to North America for two months as a Balliol College Coolidge Pathfinder. I land in New York on the 1st of July, i come back from San Francisco on the 28th of August. Lots to do and see. I’m hoping to record a lot of it at my new specially-created travel blog, Notes From a Large Continent.
Things should get going over there some time in the first week of July. Until then, leave book recommendations in the comments section; i’m going to be spending a lot of time alone on buses and trains and planes – that’s a lot of books to get through.
Real Life Moral Dilemma – can you help? Thursday, Feb 28 2008
Politics and Sagar's Social Commentaries and Stuff only I know why is here Paul Sagar 12:55 am
As those who know me personally will attest, I have not eaten meat for what is going on for 6 years, and quite possibly longer. For a good 3 of those I was vegan, as opposed to just vegetarian. The thing is, I’m starting to have some seriously challenging thoughts about this particular practical ethical stance of mine. Here’s the reasoning leading me to think I should just pack it in…
To begin, note that my not eating meat has made absolutely zero difference to any animal, ever. I never killed my own meat, so my going vegetarian didn’t stop any animals from dying at my own hands. My objection has always been to modern high-intensity agri-business farming methods. Indeed my objections to that still stand: I think that the way we use and abuse animals in modern industrialised society, the way we raise and kill them, is morally indefensible. I’m not going to tell anyone that what we do to animals is OK – I think it clearly isn’t.
Yet nothing I have done for the past 6 years has saved a single animal life. Those who say that vegetarians save animals lives are living in a sort of Sorites Cloud Cukoo Land. For while it might be true that given the total number of vegetarians in, say, the UK, the corresponding decline in market demand has led to X number of cows not being born and therefore not being reared for slaughter. This X can then be aggregated out amongst the number of vegetarians, concluding that each vegetarian saved (or rather, prevented the creation and then destruction of) X/n number of cows. This might be true (though I suspect it’s actually uncalculable due to limited information). The point is it has made no difference whether I was a vegetarian or not: my impact on market demand is far too small to make any difference – either in the past or if I start buying steak tomorrow. Thus my not eating meat has saved no cows’ lives, and if I start eating meat, the same number of cows (or whatever) will die.
Which leads to another point. If I really did care about saving animals lives, I should have done far more: for example I should have bought cows and a field to put them in, or barricaded the gateways to slaughterhouses, or at the very least given out leaflets in the street encouraging people to go veggie, thus potentially altering market demand. The fact is I have done nothing of these things – and i’d be lying if I said I care enough to start now.
So why be vegetarian? I think we get to the heart of the issue when we turn reflection towards me and why I want to do or not do certain things. Part of the sentiment here is, I think, laudable: the meat industry is morally abhorrent; I cannot justify it, and so want no part in it. That is a sort of ‘clean hands’ argument against meat-eating. The other part is less laudable: it comes down to quite liking the smug superiority of being a non-meat eater, and feeling great about the fact that I have the moral wisdom and strength of character to do what I see to be right. I don’t like that thought about myself, because it is massively egotistical and thoroughly self-interested: the animals aren’t the issue here, my ego is.
Given that those are the things which seem to really matter, ethically speaking, as to whether I should be vegetarian, I can pose a neat question. Firstly, I want to get rid of the ego stuff: I don’t want to keep endorsing moral principles which at root I know to be motivated by self-flattery not genuine ethical sentiments. So we can chuck all that stuff out. All that remains is the ‘clean hands’ considerations, and it seems we then have a clear confrontation. For what matters more to me? That I keep my hands clean? Or that I live a less inconvenienced life, where I can eat the same food as my friends, not worry about ingredients in prepared foods or when going to restaurants, make my Mum’s life less difficult, make my Gran happy and relieved (she thinks i’ll die young and soon if i keep not eating meat), not have to make a scene every time I go round to other people’s for dinner, and generally just be normal?
Right now, i’ve got to be honest and say the latter things are pressing more strongly than the clean hands considerations. Part of me just doesn’t care if my hands are clean – after all, the rest of me is pretty dirty already.
So what should I do? I’m giving 48 hours for anybody to come up with a solidly convincing reason why I should stay vegetarian. And don’t talk to me about consequences unless you’ve got some really nifty moves lined up. I want to know why I, an individual moral agent with projects, commitments, life-plans and designs upon the world, should for the sake of my soul (as you might like to think of it) not eat meat. After 48 hours, if no good arguments are forthcoming, I’m eating steak.
Secondly, is this a paradigmatic case of clear eyed akrasia? I can’t decide, but i’m tempted to think that it might very well be…
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