In defence of the judgemental meat-eater

DaisyDeadhead asks, "Will somebody please explain to me how a bunch of meat-eaters can judge Michael Vick?"

I would not normally rise to the bait if she left it at that rhetorical question, but she continues to lambast the omnivorous/carnivorous among us with the accusation that being a meat-eater is exactly the same as being a fan of bloodsports such as dogfighting.

This I feel is not acceptable, and her arguments must be met head-on.

I want to be absolutely clear on what this is about: it is not a defence of meat-eating in general, and it is not a criticism of vegetarianism. It is directly a refutation of Daisy's assertion that meat-eating is exactly the same as dogfighting. Personally, I find little difficulty with eating meat from a moral perspective, but that is a different debate - and I have no problem with others feeling that they are not happy with their consciences if they eat meat. This is just a question about moral equivalence.

Daisy cites carnivores:

Ohhhh nooooo, the carnivores say, we LIKE TO EAT BIRDS. So, it isn't the same thing as dogfighting. We have said so!

Ohhhhhh nooooo, the carnivores say, WE MUST EAT.

Ohhhhh noooo, the carnivores say, there is sadism and unsavory pleasure taken in dogfighting.

Daisy points out that vegetarians survive perfectly well without eating meat, so "we must eat" is not a particularly potent argument. There is, however, a valid observation that the human digestive tract is designed to be omnivorous (and the counter-observation that it's designed for predominantly vegetable matter).

The first slightly questionable line of reasoning is "at least the dogs have a fighting chance, the birds are raised to die." Ignoring for one moment that it is the nature of living things to die eventually anyway (it's not a very potent or relevant argument to make, it's just cheap sophistry). The birds are raised to die, says Daisy. For the purpose, indeed, of being eaten. Skipping merrily past the chestnut of "nature red in tooth and claw", we come to the question of what, exactly, makes that wrong. Methods do exist both to give chickens (and indeed, other butcher-destined animals) a relatively pleasant life for as long as they have one, and to make the ending of it swift and pretty painless. (NB: IIRC, in the McLibel court case, the court found that McDonalds and their suppliers were guilty of cutting corners, meaning that the humane killing technique was ineffective in its design purpose)

It is not necessarily a cruel existence, although destined to be a short one: indeed, some producers and supermarkets in the UK make a selling point of the ethical way in which they treat their livestock and poultry while they are alive.

Which leads on to Daisy's assertion that in fact, the sadism, cruelty and "unsavoury pleasure" in dogfighting are matched in the consumption of meat as food.

Says Daisy:

There is also unacknowledged SADISM in putting an animal in your mouth and ripping it to pieces, chewing it up (GROSS!) and going MMMMMMM (instead of retching) when this is not necessary to live and is only for the pleasure of your palate. How is your deliberate ripping, slicing and cooking of birds, God's creatures (not yours!), any different from sport? It's all about entertainment of one kind or another. How is the entertainment of your palate supposedly superior to the entertainment provided to Michael Vick and his friends? The only difference is that one form of sadism is culturally acceptable and one is not.

Once the animal gets to the point of going in my mouth, it has usually been dead for several hours. It's been cooked in an oven or a grill or a frying pan - it is without a doubt beyond sensory experience of any kind. Whether I "rip it to pieces" or daintily cut it with a sharp knife into delicate bite-sized chunks makes not one iota of difference to the animal that my dinner used to be. Chewing, of course, is just a part of how we process food, so what Daisy thinks is gross about it (except, of course, that the law of polite eating is to make it as unobvious as possible that you are in fact eating) is beyond me. As already noted, it is irrelevant that it used to be an animal unless you happen to have a particular attachment to the type of animal it used to be (which point Daisy uses to explain why she believes people view Vick differently from meat-eaters). And of course, when something has a nice taste, we frequently do savour the taste rather than retching. Daisy, presumably, thinks we should respond by retching, as if we have just been confronted with a picture of what the food used to be and told "you just ate Snuffles the poodle" - or possibly even "you just ate a portion of Mrs McDougall, who passed away yesterday". And yet, the retching would not be produced by what we just ate, but by social norms. As Daisy points out, some cultures are perfectly okay with eating dogs. I could add that there are even some societies who are okay with eating deceased humans.

A quick point about definitions. Sadism is specifically taking joy in suffering. Strictly speaking, it's about taking sexual pleasure in others' suffering, but common usage often leaves that bit out. We can stick with the generalised "enjoying (causing) suffering" definition for this discussion.

So the question becomes, "Is it really true that by enjoying the flavour a a piece of meat that someone takes pleasure in another creature's suffering?" Indirectly, it may be argued, yes. That certainly seems to be Daisy's point of view. But the pleasure is not derived from the suffering, even though it is perhaps a consequence of that suffering (assuming suffering has taken place, see above). One might as well argue that anyone who wore/wears Nike, Adidas or Puma shoes that were made in Asian sweatshops is also taking sadistic pleasure. After all, the comfort of their feet that they enjoyed was a direct result of underpaid children being worked for obscenely long hours in intolerable conditions! But I am sure that very few of those who wore/wears those shoes ever felt any pleasure at the thought of that suffering taking place. They might have pushed the knowledge to the backs of their minds, hidden from it, tried to avoid feeling guilty about it, and carried on as before, but they didn't take any pleasure in it.

Likewise with meat-eaters. Very few meat-eaters take pleasure in thinking about how the meat ended up from being the chicken or fluffy little lamb to being a part of their meal. (I suppose a few ultra-macho tossers might posture about it, but they are, thankfully, a minority).

Meat-eating does not involve sadism.

Dogfighting, on the other hand, is all about putting dogs into a situation where you know they are going to get hurt; and if you're betting on the fight then you want one of them to get hurt a lot, and the more it gets hurt the better it is for you. It is, without a doubt, sadistic behaviour. The choice to gamble on that, instead of a game of cards or a properly accredited sporting event, tells us that, yes, the suffering of the animals invovled is an integral part of the enjoyment.

Dogfighting is about sadism. Meat-eating is not.

Whatever one's views about "entertainment of the palate" and whether that's ethically acceptable, when meat-eaters go about indulging that form of entertainment, they do so without wishing suffering. Yes, the industrialised process of providing meat for people's plates is an obscene and hideous one - factory farming is an abomination. Most meat-eaters try not to think about them at all. But also many actually seek out providers who do not use factory farming methods but employ free-range principles, proper care of livestock etc, use genuinely humane methods of slaughter, and so on. It is possible to minimise the cruelty and suffering involved in the process of providing meat products. Meat-eaters are not seekers of cruelty. Dogfighters are.

***

I stated this at the top of the discussion, but I'm going to re-state it here for clarity and emphasis: this is not a defence of meat-eating per se; it is rather a clear statement of the distinction in ethical terms between eating meat, and fighting dogs. It is intended to explain why it is possible for people to eat meat and at the same time despise Michael Vick for his part in a cruel bloodsport. I acknowledge that if you feel that eating meat is wrong, and feel that the "entertainment of the palate" is insufficient justification for doing so, then you will still conclude that it is not okay to eat meat. That's fine. I'm not arguing against that position with this post (and although I could argue against that position, I feel I know both sides of the debate so well that it would have no purpose - I remain unconvinced by the vegetarians' arguments, and they will remain unconvinced by mine).

As it happens, I think the world would be a lot better if the amount of meat being consumed by the human race were to be reduced greatly; I want to see factory farming and similarly cruel industrialised practices abolished (with the reduced consumption of meat, it should be possible to answer the world's requirements using humane methods). This would have positive effects in terms of the environment, in terms of the food capacity of the world, and in terms of health. But that, as mentioned earlier, is another debate entirely.