Introduction: For my third and
final paper, I have chosen to focus on Ben Bramble’s essay the Six Pillars of
Meat Eating.
Author’s Argument: The objection
that Bramble is answering to in Section 3 goes as such “The benefits conferred
on us by the pleasures of meat-eating are not trivial. Without these pleasures,
our lives would be much worse for us.” Bramble begins building the foundation
of his argument against this particular defense of meat-eating, by granting the
fact that we greatly benefit from social situations which often consist of
meat-eating. But Bramble reject that
meat-eating is a necessary condition in the enjoyment of these social
situations; rather Bramble acknowledges the reality that most American
restaurants have a lousy vegetarian selection as a result of the prevalence of
meat consumption. Bramble further suggests that if vegetarianism was as
prevalent as meat consumption then restaurants would accommodate that demand
with a robust and flavorful vegetable based menu, without diminishing the
benefits of our social interactions.
Bramble
then moves on to the so-called “desire based theory” which states that getting
what one wants determines their level of welfare. Bramble replies to this claim
with a modification of this theory to be termed “idealized desires”; which
means the desires an agent would have if they were fully informed on the
implications of their desires. Bramble believes that if people made their
eating choices in full awareness of the methodology of procurement for their
meat, that most would chose not to eat that meat. With these premises
established it leads Bramble to set up the argument which will be the center of
my focused objection to his essay. Because Bramble feels he has sufficiently
established meat-eating at best as a trivial benefit to humans, Bramble further
suggest that eating meat actually does harm to humans. Bramble suggests that
meat consumption causes “unconscious pain” by turning us into people who cannot
experience more important pleasures like the love of animals. By neglecting our
love for animals we cause ourselves to feel sad, guilty, or live in a constant
state of cognitive dissonance; which begs us to re-evaluate our decisions.
Therefore the argument I object to is laid out as such:
(1)
If something causes unconscious pain, then we
are harmed by that act.
(2)
Meat consumption causes unconscious pain.
(3)
Therefore, meat consumption harms us.
(4)
Thus, we should not eat meat.
Focused Objection: My focused
objection to Bramble’s argument above against eating meat, can be properly
described as a generalization objection. I do not deny the logical progression
of the first three steps but his move from meat eating harms us to we should
not do it is objectionable. I object to the move because he seems to imply that
eating a vegetarian diet is not subject to the same logical progression. In my
dissection of the flaws of this particular move I will begin with practices
which are considered to be just as, if not even more inhumane than
meat-production practices associated with vegetarianism down to even how strict
veganism cannot escape the logical progressions of Bramble’s argument.
In Vegetarianism
dairy products and eggs are permissible. However, many animal
rights activists assert that not only is the way we generally produce
these eggs and milk products just as horrid as the meat production in many ways
they are even worse. Eric Dietz Goldberg even asserted that cows subjected to a
life of milking are repeatedly raped and have their calves either aborted or
removed from their care as they stand in small confines of their own feces and
waste. Furthermore, animals used for these purposes often live a drawn out life
of suffering to extract every drop of milk or every last egg; as opposed to
animals used for meat production which live a shorter brutish lifestyle.
Bramble may then
respond and say that only eating vegetables grown from the Earth could avoid
this objection. However, that reply would entirely overlook the conventional
farming technique by which we get most of our vegetables. With these
conventional systems of farming, farmers will use large heavy machinery which
indiscriminately kills an untold amount of insects and rodents in a gruesome
manner similar to that of the much-maligned conventional meat production
systems. Continue further down the line
and it is well known that the practice of using pesticides in or on crops is
widespread. In fact, 90% of the corn produced in the United States is
genetically modified; these GM ears of corn are specifically designed to
produce their own pesticide known as Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT). The studies on BT corn have shown that
when bugs try to eat it their stomachs literally explode! This is yet another
example of gruesome and painful death via vegetarianism.
It seems inevitable that this discussion
would lead to the suggestion that veganism and more specifically strict vegan
farming methods are the solution. In theory, strict vegan farming would be able
to avoid my criticism; for by definition strict veganic farming does absolutely
no harm to animals. The question I then raise is; in practice, is strict
veganic farming even attainable? If even one ant’s leg were broken or one fruit
fly got a stomach ache it would by definition not fit strict veganic farming
criteria. Furthermore, the definition of Bramble’s notion of “unconscious pain”
would be pain that you are not aware of causing or having; and deductively
speaking again we do not know what we do not know. So it is possible that
someone pursuing strict veganic farming could not ever truly know if they were
living up to that incredibly high-standard.
As a final consideration of this generalization
objection let us suppose that someone were able to attain a truly veganic
farming system; my question would be, what evidence do we have that plant life
cannot be harmed? Remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Furthermore, if we go by the assumption of that which can be benefitted can
also be harmed we see there is a wealth of evidence to support plant rights.
Everyone agrees that plants are living organisms; humans regularly engage in
the activity of watering plants because it is known that doing so is in their
best interest (benefit). However, we are also well aware that too much water
can literally drown and kill the plant (harm).
Within the last few years across the United States there has been the widespread phenomenon of once healthy trees dying; this has been due to the high concentration of aluminum in the soil. The tree senses the toxin in the soil and instead of taking it in and compromising its long-term genetic structure, these trees altogether stop gathering nutrients from the soil and in-essence starve themselves to death; just further evidence that plants can be harmed and seek out their benefit, but not evidence that we should not eat them.
Within the last few years across the United States there has been the widespread phenomenon of once healthy trees dying; this has been due to the high concentration of aluminum in the soil. The tree senses the toxin in the soil and instead of taking it in and compromising its long-term genetic structure, these trees altogether stop gathering nutrients from the soil and in-essence starve themselves to death; just further evidence that plants can be harmed and seek out their benefit, but not evidence that we should not eat them.
